Independents: Poorer, Funner, Better.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You want to make playing an indie hunter hard? In one fell swoop, the solution is water.

Literally everyone (mundane) that goes outside of the walls needs water. Everyone. No matter how many cool fruits you find, eventually, the water will have to find its way down your throat. So, make sure clans have better access to free water, and that they can continue to buy water at current cost. Now, raise the price of purchasable water for an unclanned person ten-fold. Paying 700 coins to refill your skin as opposed to 70 coins will put a dent in your life real fast.

To offset this deadly price hike, add many more watering holes in the wilderness, most with small capacities. Surround them with obstacles and adversity. A pool in a dark cave, where a tiny, sickly githen tribe has taken residence. A large pole in a valley known to be patrolled by mantis. A wet wall in a nook often populated by a scrab. Enough water to fill three kegs, in a four or five room cavern where 10 spiders have made a small den. A three room stream, dry two out of three months, and patronized by carru herds and stalking tembo in the wet month. Intelligent NPCs should all carry occupation-specific amounts of water, to be taken by force or guile. Most animals should offer up either urine or water-bearing glands under the right skinner's hand.

This change to the number of watering spots does a couple of things. First, it's realistic. It is an inane concept that our world exists with as few water sources as it currently has. This enhances realism in that aspect. It also allows a skilled independent hunter to navigate the barriers and obtain water for free. In turn, it also allows other indies to team up and defeat the same obstacles.

Finally, raise the rate at which one gets thirsty. Someone should need to consume the equivalent of a half-skin of water an IC day in the city. This puts pressure on the independent city-bound merchant, now, you see. Raising that rate to meet that criteria for the city-bound character conversely raises the rate for the wilderness focused character, and now he needs to knock a couple of skins back on his jaunt between Allanak and Luirs.

So you see, simply adjusting for water usage and price can nearly completely do away with rich independent characters, and for those it does not do way with, they absolutely deserve to be rich. Such a change also brings to the forefront life and death in a world where we are told that people will kill for a drink of water.

I know - this is an excessively drastic change, and perhaps the numerical change to price and thirst-rates is a tad high, but I think the basic premise makes sense. If you are an independent, you really should struggle to live day to day.

[Lizzie]

Why does Nenyuk care one iota if you're initiate hunter/militia recruit/Byn runner Amos/Talia? This bank tax only on the unaffiliated thing seems entirely artificial and silly to me, and as I said in that other thread (but I'm never one to shy away from harping on about things!), hurts the independents who are playing legitimately far worse than it hurts the ones everyone feels are a problem.

That said, I think a bank tax in general would add a lot of intrigue to the game, by forcing people to find other, less failsafe ways of keeping their 'sid. I just see no reason why it should be limited to independents alone. Maybe make it so that the highborn and clan accounts are exempt, but beyond that, it is a bad idea in my opinion.

This entire topic has nothing to do with how to fix the economy. That's a different topic. This is about independents, speciifically. What you're suggesting, won't change anything, with regards to "independents should not be capable of acquiring the vast stores of wealth that several of them have acquired, and do aquire (therefore, they CAN acquire them - if they couldn't, they wouldn't) - but should still be fun to play."

[Kronibas]

3. Another implementation in the shop code: encourage people to buy/sell things in their own city, and not somewhere else, without actually preventing them from buying/selling somewhere else. Nakkis pay more in Tuluk, and get less. Tulukis pay more in Allanak, and get less. Both of them get less and pay more than natives in Red Storm. Everyone except for elven and human tribes that are based out of the tablelands pay more and get less in Blackwing. Call it a global tourist tax on goods purchased and sold.

I think, if anything, players should be encouraged to trade in other cities.  Read the merchant helpfile... their description and skillset are geared toward travel/caravaning.  I don't even understand why they don't get direction sense considering the mini-merchant extended subguild, Master Trader, gets only merchant skills + direction sense.

I'm not saying players shouldn't be able to eek by in their own city states, but large profits should be obtained primarily through caravaning. Caravaning, ideally, should be more than a single dude riding alone through the desert, to be sure. Quite honestly, trading between the states for indie has been made extremely difficult already by current IC circumstances.  Indies trading between the city states who are not tribals  are taking huge risks, especially if they're personally entering the other city state, so the reward should be proportionately high.

I would go so far as to say obsidian should now be worth MORE in Tuluk, and wooden item should double in value in Allanak.  Why?  There should be (and there actual is for many characters) an IC scarcity of resources due to heightened tensions and the decrease in trade between the city state.

[Lizzie]

7DV: That's going to severely penalize anyone who's playing during times when there aren't any active clan leaders logged in. Off-off-peak players might be WANTING to join a clan, but just plain are not able, because the hiring people don't play during that time. And, how much fun can off-peak players have, if their options are:

Be inducted by a staff member into a clan that has no active leader during their own play times, just so they can have water - but have absolutely no one to play WITH, no one to report TO, no one to give them instructions or tasks

or

Die of thirst before being able to afford all the gear and training required to venture out to all those dangerous watering holes.

How much player retention do you think we'd have, if those were the two primary sources of water, and neither were readily available to the player's character?

[Lizzie]

3. Another implementation in the shop code: encourage people to buy/sell things in their own city, and not somewhere else, without actually preventing them from buying/selling somewhere else. Nakkis pay more in Tuluk, and get less. Tulukis pay more in Allanak, and get less. Both of them get less and pay more than natives in Red Storm. Everyone except for elven and human tribes that are based out of the tablelands pay more and get less in Blackwing. Call it a global tourist tax on goods purchased and sold.

I think, if anything, players should be encouraged to trade in other cities.  Read the merchant helpfile... their description and skillset are geared toward travel/caravaning.  I don't even understand why they don't get direction sense considering the mini-merchant extended subguild, Master Trader, gets only merchant skills + direction sense.

I'm not saying players shouldn't be able to eek by in their own city states, but large profits should be obtained primarily through caravaning. Caravaning, ideally, should be more than a single dude riding alone through the desert, to be sure. Quite honestly, trading between the states for indie has been made extremely difficult already by current IC circumstances.  Indies trading between the city states who are not tribals  are taking huge risks, especially if they're personally entering the other city state, so the reward should be proportionately high.

I would go so far as to say obsidian should now be worth MORE in Tuluk, and wooden item should double in value in Allanak.  Why?  There should be (and there actual is for many characters) an IC scarcity of resources due to heightened tensions and the decrease in trade between the city state.

So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?

[Qzzrbl]

Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.

[Bushranger]

Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.

Agreed. This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for independent characters.

[Lizzie]

Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.

Agreed. This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for independent characters.

Correct that to:

This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for those very rare few independent characters who manage to show up at those particular shops at exactly the right time: when the NPC has both room for the items in question, and the sids to pay for them.

This is a RARE occurrence, even in those shops that auto-delete an item or two from its inventory every so often.

[Qzzrbl]

It still encourages and rewards the "OH MY GAWD THE SERVER RESTARTED/CRASHED HIT THE MERCHANTS NOW!" behaviour, and just doesn't make sense to begin with.

The less of that, the better, in my humble opinion.

[Cutthroat]

The best overall coded change for the game to accomplish the goal of the thread would be to do something with the bank. I think whether you introduce caps or taxes to banks, indies will still have wealth, it will just be less liquid (they will purchase items to store in an apartment/warehouse and sell later, as opposed to having a bunch of coins lying around). This is slightly better since at least some of these items will be bought from PCs...

The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."

The third best thing is more travel difficulty, and not necessarily between cities either. The Tuluki public quarter change was good because it made it harder for non-citizens to go there and get the most out of their trip. But the biggest chunk of this difficulty will be made by players and RP.

However, I think that the best solutions to the issue are through uncoded and RPed means. It's past time for a strict definition of what an independent commoner is and how one fits into the ranks of society as one. I personally think that:

- Independents should be told by GMH merchants that if they want to buy something from their esteemed houses, they can go to the store and buy a bone longsword, just without all those sapphires they wanted embedded in the hilt. Because it's quite likely that by the time the order has come in, that indie will be mixed around in bits of dried gortok poop and the House's time has been wasted. Oh, but you, Private Amos who works for Chosen Lady Talia? Sure, I'll check the warehouse for some pink knickerbockers (In other words, no special orders for indies.)

- Nobles and templars shouldn't be selling influence for coin. Houses and the templarate have a lot of coin, and influence is priceless. After all, the more people with backing from House Whatever or Lord Templar Stickinbuttor Tor, the less valuable that backing actually is. Indies should serve nobles and templars in some way through employment, patronage, or just some association on the side that would be Allanak's closest equivalent to patronage.

- It should easier than it already is to get a clanned job, and there should be more jobs for clans to offer. This will mostly involve leader PCs and staff working together to define potentially new positions and expand the hiring cap for their clans if necessary, but usually it won't be.

- Independent citizens of the city they're in should have it rough, and independent non-citizens should have it even rougher. I think the playerbase is generally pretty good with the xenophobia RP but it doesn't hurt to mention it.

[valeria]

I think that jacking up the price on certain apartments would be a good way to decrease some of the indies' available wealth.  It never made sense to me that, in Allanak, you can get a 3 room apartment for the price you can get it for.  You have these three rooms for how much, are you kidding me?  3 rooms is probably big enough for three whole hardworking commoner families.  I won't even get into the apartments with MORE rooms.

Putting access to "private" rooms in clanned commoner compounds outside of the manor houses (rooms that can be cheaply rented from House Smith) would be another one.

Everybody loves apartments.

[Kronibas]

So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?

I would say that, while it IS easy for independent characters to accrue a large amount of coins, it is also a lot easier for them to die. Usually in more than one way, independent characters are taking risks - from beast npcs, criminals, templars, jealous merchants... lots of risks clanned characters don't have to mess with - at a higher rate.  The greater the risks an independent takes, the more wealth they can gain, but their chance of dying also increases.  Since death is permanent, that is a huge risk.  Clanned merchant characters /typically, on a day-to-day basis/ don't incur a fraction of the risk independent merchants incur.

And that sort of risk from other players is tangible in some places in the game world.  I know of a character who was shaken down by The Man within the last six months after just using a second tier crafting skill in public, heh. That may or may not be a singular event, but it was indicative of, uhh, fairly close scrutiny.

What can an independent do with all of those coins?  Unless they're actively including other players, not much.  What, rent?  Expensive gear that makes them an even larger target for predators? Predators being basically almost everyone else.  Ultimately, independents who aren't driving plotlines won't be able to really use all those coins for much.  If they're using coins accrued through taking varying degrees of risk to generate plotlines, well, that doesn't sound too bad to me.

Maybe I am just not seeing it where I am playing, but it doesn't seem like independents are thriving or even anything more than transient PCs in certain parts of the world.  

Playing a trader, the merchant class specifically here, can be a tedious, boring, and excluding thing to do.  Most HRPTs are combat oriented in large part.  A large portion of fun stuff in general is combat oriented.  So, it can really suck to play a merchant sometimes, and to me, it is really hard to do effectively.  The moral of the story is that independent traders, at least pure merchant ones, are already hamstrung in a lot of ways, so mostly, their ability to generate great wealth is offset by a huge array of risks, like getting insta-ganked by a five day pickpocket, heh.  It's a different story for subclass merchants, but their ability to make coins is limited due to a lack of haggle or a shitty haggle skill as well as mostly subpar crafting abilities.  Also... haggle is a really frustrating thing to fuck with.  It is incredibly tedious.  Realistically, a trader would not have to sit there and individually negotiate the price for every single copper buttplug if they're buying 20 copper buttplugs at once.  I don't point that out to be critical of the way merchants are coded but to point out the tedium that is often required to acquire wealth.

From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem, which I guess should come as no surprise due to the abundance of resources in those areas.  In the recent history of that area, the only really developed independent trader I saw kinda, uhhh, disappeared, which to me underscores the risk of choosing to remain an independent trader, and it turn at least somewhat justifies the "reward."  IC controls seemed effective, but my perceptive is admittedly limited.

[i love toilets]

From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem

I play a good number of southern based independents and I don't even remember the last independent I played in Tuluk. So this makes a little more sense to me, although I've only broken the 3000 sids limit once and I almost broke 5000 in order to assist a friend for a special thing. I have to say--- it was hard work, and it was fucking boring. I really don't envy especially wealthy independents, especially if they're raking in twice as much.

There's definitely a few objects you can spamsell in the south in a manner that is downright ridiculous with decent haggling. Often, though, if you're based out of Allanak, trying to avoid those clans that are always hanging off your ass for you to join, don't have scavenge_food, aren't exploiting a trading niche, and want to eat something besides the same seven sid object that comes from the slaughterhouse, there's little you can do but salt or do crime. And shovel shit but I think you need scan for that on most days.

The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."

A salting limit exists which gets hit when enough salters are salting that day and turn enough salt in, just not an individual limit. I don't get the limit personally--- you'd have to be using your whole independent group of six people, all of which are using sorcery and dark magicks, in order to hit that limit for the day together, and to make that limit reasonable in an OOC sense, although I suppose its reasonable in an IC sense: sort of like saying, "House Jal has enough salt and doesn't care about your welfare, get lost dirtbag."

[williamson]

So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?

I would say that, while it IS easy for independent characters to accrue a large amount of coins, it is also a lot easier for them to die. Usually in more than one way, independent characters are taking risks - from beast npcs, criminals, templars, jealous merchants... lots of risks clanned characters don't have to mess with - at a higher rate.  The greater the risks an independent takes, the more wealth they can gain, but their chance of dying also increases.  Since death is permanent, that is a huge risk.  Clanned merchant characters /typically, on a day-to-day basis/ don't incur a fraction of the risk independent merchants incur.

And that sort of risk from other players is tangible in some places in the game world.  I know of a character who was shaken down by The Man within the last six months after just using a second tier crafting skill in public, heh. That may or may not be a singular event, but it was indicative of, uhh, fairly close scrutiny.

What can an independent do with all of those coins?  Unless they're actively including other players, not much.  What, rent?  Expensive gear that makes them an even larger target for predators? Predators being basically almost everyone else.  Ultimately, independents who aren't driving plotlines won't be able to really use all those coins for much.  If they're using coins accrued through taking varying degrees of risk to generate plotlines, well, that doesn't sound too bad to me.

Maybe I am just not seeing it where I am playing, but it doesn't seem like independents are thriving or even anything more than transient PCs in certain parts of the world.  

Playing a trader, the merchant class specifically here, can be a tedious, boring, and excluding thing to do.  Most HRPTs are combat oriented in large part.  A large portion of fun stuff in general is combat oriented.  So, it can really suck to play a merchant sometimes, and to me, it is really hard to do effectively.  The moral of the story is that independent traders, at least pure merchant ones, are already hamstrung in a lot of ways, so mostly, their ability to generate great wealth is offset by a huge array of risks, like getting insta-ganked by a five day pickpocket, heh.  It's a different story for subclass merchants, but their ability to make coins is limited due to a lack of haggle or a shitty haggle skill as well as mostly subpar crafting abilities.  Also... haggle is a really frustrating thing to fuck with.  It is incredibly tedious.  Realistically, a trader would not have to sit there and individually negotiate the price for every single copper buttplug if they're buying 20 copper buttplugs at once.

From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem, which I guess should come as no surprise due to the abundance of resources in those areas.  In the recent history of that area, the only really developed independent trader I saw kinda, uhhh, disappeared, which to me underscores the risk of choosing to remain an independent trader, and it turn at least somewhat justifies the "reward."  IC controls seemed effective, but my perceptive is admittedly limited.

I'm in complete agreement with Kronibas. Consider the independenti Tuluk hunter. To make 1000 coins, she goes out over a RL week and hunts, kills, and skins 8 duskhorn and gathers herbs and rocks. While out hunting she's attacked by a bahamet, she luckily escapes. Back in Tuluk, she sells some of the skins to an NPC merchant and the rest to a Kadian. She sells the horns to an independent merchant and the herbs to a Dasari aide. At the end of the week, she uses her 1000 coins to buy a fancy sword from the local Salarri merchant. The Salarri merchant walks into his compound, picks up a sword crafted by a clanmate, and sells it to the hunter. Now the Salarri merchant has 1000 coins. The Salarri has to give some of the profits back to House Salarr and only gets to keep say 300? Now the Salarri gets on the GDB and complains that she only make 300 coins and the indy makes 1000. However, the Salarri doesn't have to face 8 duskhorn, survive a bahamet, and chase down the Kadian and Dasari aide. The Salarri just walks into her protected compound, picks up a sword, and sells it. No risk, easy money. What can the Salarri do? Maybe next week, she charges 1500 for the same sword? Maybe she decides to take every fifth sword and keep all the profits for herself, skimming some of the profits. Now she's taking more risk, will her clan find out? Will she be caught? Will she need to share some of the illegal profits with her boss? Unless you're a sponsored role, there's nothing wrong with bending the rules. Just be sure to include what you're doing in your character report and expect the world to react appropriately if you get caught. With more risk comes more reward.

[Qzzrbl]

I wouldn't be against cutting back the price-per-bit on salt, as opposed to setting a hard limit.

Especially those bits of salt you don't sell to House Jal.

It has much less to do with "boohoo these indies are making more!" and more to do with, "...The fuck? That dude's making more than nobles."

You can say they're taking a huge risk, but there are a plethora of ways to mitigate said risk to almost nil-- especially after you've played for a while and know what you're doing.

1000 sids a week? xD my sides

[Patuk]

I still think jobs like salting and picking cotton should just pay out in food/water, or tokens to buy such things with, rather than the obscene amount of money they give you now.

[Cutthroat]

From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem

I play a good number of southern based independents and I don't even remember the last independent I played in Tuluk. So this makes a little more sense to me, although I've only broken the 3000 sids limit once and I almost broke 5000 in order to assist a friend for a special thing. I have to say--- it was hard work, and it was fucking boring. I really don't envy especially wealthy independents, especially if they're raking in twice as much.

There's definitely a few objects you can spamsell in the south in a manner that is downright ridiculous with decent haggling. Often, though, if you're based out of Allanak, trying to avoid those clans that are always hanging off your ass for you to join, don't have scavenge_food, aren't exploiting a trading niche, and want to eat something besides the same seven sid object that comes from the slaughterhouse, there's little you can do but salt or do crime. And shovel shit but I think you need scan for that on most days.

The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."

A salting limit exists which gets hit when enough salters are salting that day and turn enough salt in, just not an individual limit. I don't get the limit personally--- you'd have to be using your whole independent group of six people, all of which are using sorcery and dark magicks, in order to hit that limit for the day together, and to make that limit reasonable in an OOC sense, although I suppose its reasonable in an IC sense: sort of like saying, "House Jal has enough salt and doesn't care about your welfare, get lost dirtbag."

Er, yeah, that's what I meant. The salt that they get from players would be limited, not a per-player limit. Basically because of what you said with regards to it being exploitable otherwise. Though I see how what I said could be interpreted the other way... oops.

[valeria]

The problem I see with that is that the people who have crap tons of obsidian tend to already be the people who play all the time, and would tend to be the people maxing out House Jal salt limits.  So I think it would only end up making already poor independents poorer.  Which is fine and all, but it wouldn't really affect the independents with ten thousand coins problem (or what is viewed as the problem, as I understand it).

[Dalmeth]

So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?

Remove intrinsic value from most of the game.  Instead of shops valuing their wares based on some notion of absolute value, have them buy and sell based largely on their rent.  So that means a maximum buy price and a maximum sale price.

With items having no absolute reference for value, all uses of coin between players becomes a matter of bidding.  This may suppress a lot of coin sales as prices inflate, but it also firmly sets coin as a worthless thing.,

[Synthesis]

It might've been said already, but taxation will only make people grind harder.  E.g. if you know there's a 5% tax on everything you deposit...you just gotta forage for 5% more rocks.

I've broken the 30,000 'sid mark a few times, and they're all really old PCs, so I guess I can explain how things went for these guys:

1.  First time was a city-elf pickpocket way back in the day, who was a special-app coded with some of the more useful Whiran spells (don't bother getting your hopes up people...this was over 10 years ago and there's no way the current admins are going to let this kind of stuff fly).  He also had absolutely incredible agility and exceptional wisdom.  He also started out clanned in one of the 'rinth elf gangs.  He was fucking beast at stealing shit, and I basically made that 30k by stealing mount tickets and selling the mounts at the butcher (about 150 tickets, +/- stealing miscellaneous valuable knick-knacks).  I could basically never show my face Southside, and after I stole 5 bricks of spice out of a Kuraci's pack and stole Samos' keyring and magick sword, I wasn't even safe in the 'rinth.  Nothing major ever evolved from this except a major plot to kill me, heh.

2.  Second time was a city-elf merchant/armorcrafter in Allanak.  I spent a lot of time hardcore wheeling and dealing, managed to get the PC leader of the Guild ganked for screwing with me, spent a lot of time doing favors for the templars, managed to get accepted into the Jaxa Pah, but most importantly, I had another indie PC ranger who was bringing me -massive- amounts of raw materials from around Tuluk.  Basically none of the above would've been possible if I hadn't had that one guy (and his crew) bringing me truckloads of loot from up north.  This was all built on a lot of hard crafting work and constant negotiating with other PCs.  At any given time I was bankrolling 3-5 'rinth elves in the clan and several noob grebbers around Allanak.  No major plots evolved from it, but the Jaxa Pah was riding really high off my crafting loot for a long while afterward.  This guy technically wasn't indie at the end, although he started out as such.

3.  Third time was a dwarf ranger/armorcrafter in Tuluk.  I teamed up with a merchant/armorcrafter after a while, and we were bringing in sick amounts of loot.  Eventually he got disappeared and I got strongly encouraged to join the Sun King's Legions.  Strongly encouraged.

So basically, every time I've managed to accumulate a ton of wealth, I've either had everyone out to kill me, had to pay everyone not to kill me, or give up the loot life in order not to be killed.  Seems like things are working the way they should, from where I've been sitting.

[Qzzrbl]

Try playing a dedicated salter after you get forage up some.

It gets kinda silly.

[morrigan]

I've got it! Have the cities make a law saying only people working for one of the clans is allowed to do sex. Then, anytime people are doing the sex, bust into the room and execute them both. That will make people more interested in clanning up.

[Malken]

I've got it! Have the cities make a law saying only people working for one of the clans is allowed to do sex. Then, anytime people are doing the sex, bust into the room and execute them both. That will make people more interested in clanning up.

We all know that people are simply uninterested in playing a role unless sex with other players is allowed *coughTulukiChosenscoughgrinsandducks*

[Eyeball]

(removed)

[Barzalene]

I think that jacking up the price on certain apartments would be a good way to decrease some of the indies' available wealth.  It never made sense to me that, in Allanak, you can get a 3 room apartment for the price you can get it for.  You have these three rooms for how much, are you kidding me?  3 rooms is probably big enough for three whole hardworking commoner families.  I won't even get into the apartments with MORE rooms.

Putting access to "private" rooms in clanned commoner compounds outside of the manor houses (rooms that can be cheaply rented from House Smith) would be another one.

Everybody loves apartments.

I really like the idea of this. Maybe small building's right outside gmh estates and noble compounds (not estates, but where the dorms are now) with a few small but private rooms where -valued- employees can have a single or in some cases double room. So, that at least you could tie a handkerchief to the doorknob when you want to be alone with a guest. There should probably be a reasonable rental fee. But I think it should also be a privilege that minions can earn.