Jack Park RJ: Jack Park CO: Cicero Post Rating: 7 + / - Total Posts: 19 Karma: 26 Joined: Apr 15, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 Hey guys. The admin announced his decision regarding store balance. Looks like we are getting only 8 products after all. Ya know I just can't believe he decided to go down this route, stores with more than 8 products are pretty damn common in real life and there's a reason for that. He didn't even allow super markets to sell more goods than farmer's markets. The dev was given so many suggestions for alternative methods that could in the end accomplish the same thing in the announcment thread, and yet he didn't listen to any of them. You can look in that thread and the shelves thread, to see what many, including myself, believe will be the effects of this decision. Seeing as how B2B will likely be ruined for many, if not most, goods, this will likely become mroe of a sinlge player than multi player game. Seeing as how B2B is the primary multiplayer component to the game. I am going to sell all of my stock in my companies effective immediately, as I don't see a reason to continue playing this with countless demonstrations regarding the incompetence of the developer. Feel free to snag them if you want them, all I ask is that you don't embezzle the money out of the company and maintain what reputation it has, if any. I apoligize to anyone who lost any money as a result of my transactions. *this thread will also go in stock as it had an effect on a large number of comapanie's stocks. |
Brent Goode RJ: BB Goode CO: BB Goode Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 506 Karma: 180 Joined: Apr 5, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 I am sorry to see you go this route. As someone who came in during the first stock market fiascoes and almost quit before even starting, I appreciate and must support your decision to do what you think is best, both for yourself and as a means of protest. I only hope you will check in from time to time to see how things have progressed. Sometimes people have to be flat-out smacked in the head to realize that listening to others is a good thing, and that not every idea is worthwhile just because you have it. Perhaps this will be one of those moments and the shelving idea will itself get shelved, after it fails as miserably as it is destined to.Good luck to you sir. |
Jack Park RJ: Jack Park CO: Cicero Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 19 Karma: 26 Joined: Apr 15, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 Well after liquidation I have 2.5B in cash so if I do decide to come back I won't have to start all over again.
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Edwin Quintanilla RJ: EdqMaster CO: Edqmaster Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 74 Karma: 9 Joined: May 3, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 I will take Care of your company unless someone bids me out or the shelve system destroys the company.
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Andrew Naples RJ: Clemen Salad CO: Clemen Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 214 Karma: 89 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 Good luck man. I'll stick around for a few days after the change to see what happens, but I'll probably follow. I'll give my business to someone if I go so stock people dont worry.
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Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: -3 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 14, 2012 Sorry Moe, you're probably right regarding my incompetency on the store design, and I had to make the choice given the design limitations.If you have a better way please do suggest it, but until then this complaint is as good as saying we need to solve the budget problem, not raise taxes, AND not cut spending. |
Michael Tsui RJ: Reisen CO: Reisen Udongein Inaba Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 45 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Scott, a big problem is that it wasn't really a choice.It is you enforced a choice upon yourself and so as everyone. |
Bob Malone RJ: Bob Malone CO: Malone Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 341 Karma: 191 Joined: Apr 17, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 there has been many submitted proposals, maybe it would be nice to take some time to comment them ( "not feasible because" "not interesting because" "hard to implement because" "Oh I miss it, it's a good idea and quite easy to implement" :) ). At least it would avoid some misunderstanding between random people and beloved dictator :)We love this game enough to hope that the features of the game won't be drastically reduced,the multiplayer aspect destroyed, and the possible strategies limited to only one ( verticalize ). ( this beeing said, I find it more and more painfull to restock my store , so I am not fully satisfied by current system, but maybe a median way does exist, and I proposed some ideas which may be worth, maybe, to be considered ) |
Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: 5 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 First of all, please note I haven't been ACTIVELY trying to get more players ever since the multi-product selling stores are implemented.The reason? 2G data gets generated daily, script execution times on 5 sharded scripts take near a min each, and this is only with 500 active players. So the ultimate goal on the coding side is to make the game scalable, and I don't see it as possible without reduce data generated from the per tick store sales. So far the quality merge a few days ago already cut script execution time from 40 seconds to 15 seconds, and data generated to about 1G instead of 2G, and in my opinion reducing supermarket items from 200 to 8 will likely keep the execution time and data generated at the same level when we have 10k players (so I don't have to be afraid of getting new players). Personally I don't think the change can be THAT bad, as any market fluctuation can be corrected by the invisible hand. One way to speed up the process (as some suggested) would possibly involve combining all land together, and let the players choose whether they want to use them as Factories/Stores/R&D's, so some people can run all factories (if they find B2B/export useful) while others can run all stores (if they find B2B prices low enough). In my mind this would require lots of re-coding, but on a grand scale it is very useful. |
Walter Yorkshire RJ: Walter Yorkshire CO: Walter Yorkshire Post Rating: 5 + / - Total Posts: 132 Karma: 379 Joined: Feb 5, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Yes to combining land :P It means I won't feel like I HAVE to have a store/factory etc... as otherwise I would be wasting land.
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Bob Malone RJ: Bob Malone CO: Malone Post Rating: 6 + / - Total Posts: 341 Karma: 191 Joined: Apr 17, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Ratan,My primary concern ( and it is shared by some other users ) is about the multiplayer aspect, and it has nothing to do with computation need. You have to find a system where B2B market is still a key place to do business because this is where players interact.. It does mean that you should avoid that a player is able to play alone, meaning verticalize all things, and fill all shelves with his products. That would kill the game interest. I already proposed one solution, have different categories in each store, and all the categories must be present : for a supermarket, it would mean that you must have 2 shelves of beverages, 2 shelves of meat, 2 shelves of fruits, 2 shelves of others. It's quite realistic. Since you can hardly produce all these kind of things, you would have to use either import, either other players (sur)production, as of today. You have less computing need, less micromanagement, possibility of specialization and still multiplayer cooperation. Quite perfect if you except the less complexity, but this is minor drawback for scalability. PS : Combine land is the perfect bad idea : you would be able to produce more easily all the items you would need to sell. This game would not be multiplayer anymore. Or maybe I misunderstood the idea. |
Michael Tsui RJ: Reisen CO: Reisen Udongein Inaba Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 45 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Seconded Bob.The important question is how much game we are going to sacrifice for easiness of computation. Scott's proposal is excellent in a programmer's view, but for gamers that consequently made the game irreverent, as it is, as it stands, highly favours vertical integration to a point that trading should be eliminated in order to reduce costs. This alienates the player community, and no matter how the game scales to 10k or even 100k, it is just moot if you don't have the players. Scott must seriously consider delaying the change for a week or so, and try to deliberate with the community about how to retain the most of the game under current constraints. p.s. Making a petition, if that is needed to wake Scott up. |
Victoria Raverna RJ: Victoria Raverna CO: Victoria Raverna Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 107 Karma: 43 Joined: Apr 11, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Bob,I think the point of combining land is so that people can specialized without feeling that they're wasting potential by leaving cheap plots of lands unused. For example I run a hot food production company which focused on b2b, that mean I leave the store section of lands all unused which is a self-imposed disadvantage. I am better off building a bunch of stores and fill them up with import items which are profitable enough to cover the cost of upkeep/salaries and also can make back the investment of the building itself in a few days. So leaving those unused doesn't make sense economically. If I can combine all lands together then I don't need to leave those store lands unused since I can use them to add factory capacity and that'll allow me to focus on producing items to sell to b2b. Ratan, Combine land seem to be a good idea but that is useless if no one has good reasons to buy from b2b. Who are going to run a factory only company when no one is going to buy the product? Focus only on lower margin selling to export market? I think you need to figure out a way to give people incentive of buying b2b instead of producing product themselves. One way the current store system allow that is to make it impossible for people to build enough product type to fill up all store slots. With 1-8 slots where you can make the same profit if you fill only 1 slot or all 8 slots, you don't give people incentive to buy b2b. If you force people to have all 8 different products then that'll help but still it is possible with good factory capacity to produce 8 products to fill all 8 slots without buying b2b or import. By combining lands, it'll make it much easier to do 8 items. Maybe instead of 8 slots, you want 16 slots where you give bonus for people to fill up all 16 slots. That'll still reduce the load and allow you to scale up and lower complexity. Or implement what Bob suggested with category. |
Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Thanks Bob, I saw that post and understood your point, but I didn't agree with it.If I was a player, I'd actually want to have a choice to be self-sufficient in a multi-player game. Using the B2B because of the better deals is a different experience to using it because you're forced to. A perfect system in my mind would be to encourage player interaction, but not force them to interact to survive. I'd like to argue the only time you can be completely self-sufficient would be to run all stores of the same type, and stocking the same 8 products on the shelves of each store. Once the random events system and bankruptcy are implemented and the boom/bust cycle kicks in, being dependent on a single product category may force a company into bankruptcy when times are tough. The combining of land idea goes like the following: 1. Reduce total number of plots simply because people don't need that many R&D's 2. and I don't want to see too many stores 3. "Smaller, higher res" graphics, and all queues visible on a single page Now: Starting: 10 factories + 6 stores + 6 R&D (22 total) Max: 20 factories + 12 stores + 12 R&D (44 total) Combined map: Starting: 16 plots however you use them Max: 32 plots however you use them Sample ideas: With the starting 16 plots: 12 factories and 4 R&Ds (there is no way you can vertically integrate AND have the stores) or simply 16 stores With 24 plots, you can have: 20 factories and 4 R&Ds or 14 factories, 4 R&Ds, and 6 stores or simply 24 stores With a maxed combined map (more costly than current land prices) it'd be possible to have: 24 factories and 8 R&Ds or 18 factories, 6 R&D, and 8 stores or simply 32 stores |
Michael Tsui RJ: Reisen CO: Reisen Udongein Inaba Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 45 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 I don't see a point for players to be able to be self-sufficient, or rather say, playing well in a self-sufficient manner, to be honest. By going self-sufficient you dropped a large risk factor (things not selling well, etc), and that means more guaranteed income.Nor I see top-down enforced risk would work well, or be well received by players. Let people succeed on good business decisions, like retooling themselves to meet the demand, but not atop a lucky roll from the RNG. Even for now, people are pretty much forced to be self-sufficient, because there is no impetus for players to sell intermediate goods. I don't see any impeding change that would encourage otherwise, so it must be very, very far from the perfect system. p.s. My argument for quasi-specialized shelves still stand: you can fill all your shelves with one good, but it is better to have some other complimentary category beside it , even it is just Q0 (provided it sells for a comparable volume of course). So you aren't forced to sell all of your own goods, or you may try to be self-sufficient, but way, way worse than a group of players helping each other. |
Victoria Raverna RJ: Victoria Raverna CO: Victoria Raverna Post Rating: 21 + / - Total Posts: 107 Karma: 43 Joined: Apr 11, 2012 |
Posted on May 15, 2012 Maybe the solution is to combine B2B with store sales. So there is no separate B2B. You have to own store to sell your stuff and other can buy from your stores (to use to produce other items or to resell in their store). That'll probably add more strategy and interaction since you can go buy a product from all main competitor stores and then resell it at higher pricing if they're seriously undercutting you. |