How should clans adapt to the time change?

[SpyGuy]

Simple enough, how do you think clans should adapt to the time change?

I like the new code, makes it much easier to understand and more dependable.  But it also changes the time scale so we need to adapt somehow.

Probationary times are like the Byn's year of no pay.  Those are really a problem, the actual pay seems more of an inconveinance to me.

Talk amongst yourselves...

[jhunter]

I don't see any real reason to change it, the only thing that has change is the relation between Zalanthas time and Real time.

[Canadian Beaver]

I would say to double current paydays.

Before we were saying a month in game was roughly a real life week. So we'd get paid, say for example 100 sid a rl week. Now, the time change tells us an in game month is every two rl weeks. So if the pay remains at 100 a month, we're now getting 50 sid to live off of for a rl week instead of the usual 100. If it's doubled we'll make 200 an ic month, but will average to 100 a rl week like we had before the time change.

[Angela Christine]

The problem with leaving the IC pay the same is that it hurts clanned PCs more than it hurts independants.


Lets suppose there are 2 PCs: Clannie and Indie.

Old system:

Clannie makes 300 a month (1 OOC week) plus food, water, shelter and storage.

Indie clears 300 a month (1 OOC week) after paying for his own food water shelter and storage.

Both of them have 300 coins of "disposable" income each RL week.


New system:  

Clannie makes 300 a month (2 OOC weeks) plus food, water, shelter and storage.

Indie makes 600 a month (2 OOC weeks) after paying for his own food water shelter and storage.

Indie still has 300 coins of disposable income each RL week, but Clannie only has 150.


The independants get paid based on how many hours they spend working.  Most clanned PCs get the same amount every IC year, no matter how much time they actually spend logged in and working.  If they both spent 20 hours per RL week logged in, then they were logged in for about 60 hours per IC year under the old system, and 120 hours per year under the new system. If they will both spend as much time logged as they did before, the independant will make twice as much per IC year as he did before.  Well, almost. Some of an independants "yearly" expenses will go up under the new system.  You'll need twice as much food and water in a "year" as you did before.  Rents will probably have to go up, but even that will hurt clannies with apartments more than indies with apartments.

The exception being clans where you get paid by work rather than the calendar.  In the Byn you get paid when you go on missions, if a year is now twice as long you should have the opportunity to go on twice as many missions per year.


AC

[Bestatte]

Caveat: All this stuff confused the hell out of me and I'm talking out my ass.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way:

Previously, payday in most clans has been Saturday/Sunday of the real world.

Previously, rentals were due only if there was a Nenyuk around to collect them, and in recent months this meant rentals were collected, well, they weren't. So let's not worry about Nenyuk hm? By the time your rental agent comes around to collect, your character will be dead anyway.

Previously, the shops would have new colors/stuff on Saturday/Sunday of the real world.

Previously, special orders would often take 1-3 RL months to complete and deliver.

Under the new system, I don't see why any of this has to change at all (well except for Nenyuk, but we're not worrying about them, remember?)

What matters, is what we call the payday in-game. Why can't we just assume the clan accountants have this whacky new system that doesn't pay you by the week, but instead pays you every 16 days? And that your pay hasn't changed, but neither has the availability of food, the availability of your training dummy (or sparring partner), or anything else for that matter.

ICly, you're being paid less. But that money is lasting the same amount of real-time anyway, so what difference does it make? ICly, you now -need- less because you're not being neglected of anything with the change. The only thing that doesn't reset during reboot/crash is IC time.

Re-read my caveat please...mathematics confuses me, especially regarding conversions. But people have been paid in real time - 1 real week. The clan's cook doesn't only show up once a real week, she's always there. So you're not gonna go hungry. If you're independent, the shopkeeper isn't gonna stop opening on Nekrete, he'll still be there. The roots in the forest aren't gonna stop growing on Abid. The critters aren't going to insist on taking a day off from being killed.

The -only- thing that changes is game-time. So I don't see why the players should feel any need to change the real-life convenience of using saturday boot-up as the start of new things, including measuring recruitment periods. If it was 3 real-life weeks before, make it 3 real-life weeks now. Regardless of what time it is in the game.

What's the flaw in this? Other than Nenyuk. Let them worry about Nenyuk. Most characters don't have apartments, and the ones who do can afford whatever inconveniences this will cost so the point is moot.

[My 2 sids]

The idea of working for a reputable house or, Tek willing, a noble should be a HUGE bonus to any normal commoner!  A house would offer protection, shelter, food, water, education (formal training by what would be the BEST) , stability, and (should be) a lot of respect and status.  http://www.armageddon.org/general/ranktable.html !!!  Not to mention the role-play possibilities with a bigger picture of what is really running the world:  status or money.  Don't kid yourselves folks... the laws of economics and power change on earth will be the same ones that will eventually filter into game.  All of this is available for role-play now, all the player-base has to do is start putting these theories into action.

Still not enough incentive huh?  Alright, let's put this idea of "status" into more concrete way of thinking.  The price of water grew... over everything else the commoners directly affected have been the independents.  Let's keep this stuff up.  Raise the price of food.  In fact, let's make status a little more important than money.  Maybe commoners should have to pay double or be told their money isn't any good when they want to pay for someone being beaten or killed or pay a templar.  (Please note I'm not saying nothing should work in the commoner's favor, but that's a different thread/argument)  Maybe when dealing with other houses (Nenyuk, Finishing schools, merchant houses, etc) those who serve in houses should be given (or make it far more noticeable) higher priority, maybe better pricing.  Have clothing and food reflect one's status.  Maybe –only- nobles and their servants can wear silk or a certain color.  Maybe they are the only ones that can eat one kind of food or order one kind of drink.  

My point is that there should be other things that influence characters (and actually their players) than the idea of "the one with the most money wins".  As a game we've already (for the most part) gotten down the idea that there may be IC reasons one's character doesn't go hunting every day he gets the chance, or spars just to build up skill levels, or doesn't feel the need to go wondering in search of treasure.  What I'm saying are those same IC reasons should keep the majority of people from simply wanting to make "more money".  Outside of apartments, a few drinks/spice, and maybe one or two hobbies there is no reason every character should be making thousands upon thousands of sids.  That's why I voted to perhaps change the probation time, but not the wages of clanned pcs.

[Krath]

I am treating any clan I am going to be in or am in like so.

RL Work. You will be paid every two weeks...Or twice every month, until told otherwise.

[Quirk]

As it happens, I've come gradually to hold a considerable degree of dislike to the imbalance forced on the game world by the Houses, the great uberclans, which seem to me often to be sapping both the vitality and the harshness from the game. I don't intend to derail the conversation to discuss this; it's merely a statement of my biases before I begin.

I think we need a higher proportion of independents, and particularly of player-run clans, and that the numbers in the Houses need cut along with their motivations (often inexplicable in IC terms) to chop player-run clans which are too small to prove a threat off at the knees. I think keeping the pay scale unchanged will increase the motivation for people to become independents or work together apart from a House. However, after thinking this over for a bit, I think that this is the wrong way of going about it.

Those precious few lucky enough to be taken on by a House should be rich compared with the vast majority of those round them. They should be well-fed, well-trained and well-respected. They should not be poorer than the small-time independent crafter who's finally managed to get a comfortable profit going.

Were the Houses clans of a lower scale - Honest Joel's Timber and Kindling, The Bloody Arrow Mercenary Company, the Dorogo family, etc - then a payscale that could be easily improved on by an enterprising loner would make sense. With Houses at the level they are, filled (ICly) with the elite soldiers, the most experienced hunters, the most talented crafters and the wiliest aides and agents, the wages should be high; halving them would not make sense in the context of the game world. Indeed, there's a strong case to argue that they should be higher.

Quirk

[spawnloser]

Okay...two issues here.  First, I don't think that noble and merchant clanned people should be paid more because they don't need to be.  They get everything they need, and some things they don't, free.  What is the money they are paid for?  Toys.  Fun stuff.  A neat outfit for when they are not required to wear their uniform.  Maybe some jewelry and other clothing to fill the wear slots that the uniform doesn't fill.  Yeah, necessary stuff, right?  :roll:

Now, the second issue, that AC brought up, is that not paying the clanned people more gives independants even more of an edge.  It is ridiculous how much an independant can make.  I have personally been witness to a character accruing over 100k in tattoos, clothing, jewelry, other crap and straight up coin.  It is not as difficult as it may seem, and I also know that the character didn't craft when anything else was going on...crafted in free time and made that much cash.  Now...that is completely broken.  Personally, I would love to see something like Armaddict suggested go in.  Find an amount that an unaligned commoner would pay...then reduce that for people of this status...then more for the next rung up...more for the next rung up...etc.  This could be done by increasing the cost of everything, but I think that setting the 'max status discount' to the current price and having a lower rank add a multiplier to the cost could work.  Having status should be a benefit...and as the game stands now, whoever has the most money to pay the larger bribe, buy a bunch of licenses and assassins etc, tends to come out ahead...which is nuts.

[Quirk]

I have personally been witness to a character accruing over 100k in tattoos, clothing, jewelry, other crap and straight up coin.  It is not as difficult as it may seem, and I also know that the character didn't craft when anything else was going on...crafted in free time and made that much cash.  Now...that is completely broken.

This is only attainable for a twink, someone who ignores what's a reasonable level of productivity and income in a month for their crafter. It's much like someone capable of soloing meks with a ten-day human warrior - no matter how they justify it, there was some measure of unrealistic role-play that went into attaining that level of skill in that length of time. I think if you ran a poll you'd find that most people have significantly more difficulty becoming rich on that sort of scale; many independents are scraping hard just to remain alive because they don't spend hours crafting tens of items in a row. I seem to remember this being discussed before.

On the subject of status: firstly, status should be reflected by the handling of crime victims. The law should show far more concern for those of higher status, as it has in almost every culture since the dawn of time. Secondly, your status should control who you can reasonably speak to and deal with. It makes no sense for a rich noble to be dealing directly with a 'Rinther. Access to those with power should be restricted to those who have a measure of power themselves. And yes, when it comes to bribes, the 'Rinther should have to raise more sid to get the templar's ear than the well-to-do merchant or House guard - it takes a lot of sid to merely buy a templar's attention.

It should not affect prices in shops however. Shopkeepers might arrange the odd discount for the wealthy or repeat customer to encourage them to keep spending their sid there, but really there's no particular reason for them to consistently slash their prices for well-to-do House members who can afford their goods far better than most of the population.

Quirk

[Quirk]

Just in case I jumped the gun a little, a couple of caveats.

Firstly it would depend on whether the character with 100K was making money off the efforts of subordinates and by other means on the side, and secondly what kind of timescale it took to get to 100K (after all, someone who took two or three RL years to get there needn't necessarily have been overdoing it - someone in a House who put their money by instead of spending it could attain that much). Income matters more than lump sums.

Quirk

[Carnage]

I have personally been witness to a character accruing over 100k in tattoos, clothing, jewelry, other crap and straight up coin. It is not as difficult as it may seem, and I also know that the character didn't craft when anything else was going on...crafted in free time and made that much cash. Now...that is completely broken.

Uh-huh.  :roll:

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Destroy the Established Noble Houses - implement the smaller, more independant and less regulatory Commoner Houses.

Pay problems are solved.

[Tamarin]

Destroy the Established Noble Houses - implement the smaller, more independant and less regulatory Commoner Houses.

Pay problems are solved.

Peasant revolt....woot.

[SpyGuy]

Back on topic...

I hope the Clan IMMs can get together sometime soon and actually decide how to respond to this uniformly.  Just so that Clan A and Clan B aren't doing two different pay schedules because if I had a choice I'd join the clan that paid me more/more often, just simple common sense.

Also I'd like to point out that any decrease in pay hurts newer players more than older ones, even if they make the same amount.  (Note: this applies more to those clans that don't give a full set of eq to new hires).  Person A who just started still only has a few pieces of armor and maybe a decent weapon he bought with newbie money.  Person B has been with the clan for 3 IC years and has a full set of nice eq and some stored in the bank.  Now person A will need to wait twice as long for a full set of armor etc., even though he'll be playing the same amount of RL time.  Unless they steal from their clan... thats always an option  :twisted:

[John]

let's make status a little more important than money.  Maybe commoners should have to pay double or be told their money isn't any good when they want to pay for someone being beaten or killed or pay a templar.

This is the one of the best suggestions I've heard to fix this problem. It solves the problem. Double prices at CERTAIN stores (thinking Traders, Salarr stores, Kadius stores, water seller) for non-noble and non-merchant Houses. Why would Kadius reduce the price for Salarri? Because Salar is reducing the price for Kadians.

The main people I can see being affected by this are people in secretive clans (such as the Guild. But I don't even know if they have a monthly pay).

Eventually such a situation is going to bleed into roleplay. People are going to either resent the House people or want to join their House. This will then make recruiters jobs easier. At the moment, it is VERY difficult to recruit certain people into certain positions. However with the game benefitting House employees more, it increases the desire to join such clans, letting recruiters knock people back.

It will also cause independants to go to independant sellers. And when they don't have what they want, it will lead to going to PCs. This will lead to a higher class situation. It'll matter more where you shop, what sort of clothes/armour you wear.

It is ridiculous how much an independant can make.

I agree.

This is only attainable for a twink

I disagree. I was able to make back 1,000 sid with nothing but the foraging command in about 1 OOC week. True, I did have a monopoly in the playerbase at the time, but it was still ridiculous, because I was only selling to 1 NPC.

[flurry]

If it's ridiculous, why would you do it, though?   I mean part of it's an issue with pricing and such, but part of it is surely an issue of restraint on the part of the players.    If you think you've earned more than you ought to be able to, stop.

[spawnloser]

Quirk, maybe you missed the fact that the person was crafting when not doing anything else...and had plenty other stuff going on.  Having all the time in the world to mud 8+ hours a day allows for stuff like that.  Crafting four items in 8 hours is not twinky...or every crafter I have seen is twinky.

[jhunter]

I think the fact that our pcs also exist IG virtually even when you are logged out, isn't being taken into account. This would be a factor in the number of items a pc can craft in the time that they are logged in.

Also, in real life, you can make more of an item by setting yourself up to do many at a time, in some cases it will actually take much less time than crafting each individually.

For example:

A woodcrafter making some wooden boxes or chests, it takes so much time to measure out the pieces and fit them together...now, if you are planning ahead to make multiples of them, you measure and shape the pieces required for one box, and use those pieces to trace out multiple copies of each.

Then you've saved time that you would have spent measuring out each individual piece and all you need to do is fit all of the pieces together and you have many boxes of the same type. By doing it this way it takes much less time than it would have to produce the name number doing each from start to finish separately.

This is just one example that I know of in the real world, I'm sure there are many ways for crafts I know nothing about, to cut out steps and save time when making multiple items.

[Angela Christine]

I think the fact that our pcs also exist IG virtually even when you are logged out, isn't being taken into account.

You don't take that into account unless you also junk the food and water that you used durring that time.  Stuff you do while logged out doesn't affect your logged in status.



AC

[creeper386]

Hmm... I'm thinking, if now time is set as a standard. And one IC month is now two weeks instead of one OOC week. It's going to REALLY hurt clanned players, period. Yes, they have food whenever they want. But not EVERY clan is automated with everything. I tend to have troubles getting by in one OOC week with that three hundred sid when I play alot. Because I'm not ALWAYS in the barracks to eat when I'm hungry. My character DOESN'T ALWAYS have everything he needs supplied for him. Now, I have to make the same 'sid go by for TWICE the amount of time.

If things stay the same OOC numbers, it'll basically make being an indie with alot of time to play alot easier, while making a clanned character with alot of time to play harder, with the reverse for players that don't have alot of time to spend MUDing. It's always going to be imperfect, but things worked fairly well with how they were before.

Now that time is standardized, other things WIL have to be adjusted. And for people that changed ages. You just went to the age you SHOULD have been. You didn't really loose or gain any time except the time jumps and warps from crashes and high player times. So your age is right now, it was wrong before. I don't see why you should change it. Even though the age said you have been around for 5 IC years you were really only around for two, so why do you think you lost some years or something?

Something well have to change I think. As, before measurement was done in OOC time because IC time was screwed up. Now IC time is fixed. Measurement can be done in there. Have a year as a recruit? You can keep track of that with your age in score and the time command now instead of keeping around an OOC date. I don't know. I don't know what should be changed but something well need to be adjusted I'm sure.


Creeper

[John]

I'm not ALWAYS in the barracks to eat when I'm hungry.

Then that's something you should think about when you leave the barracks. Are you full? No? Can you get some free food? No? How long till you can get some free food? How long are you planning on staying away from the barracks? Are you going to be with a superior?

These are all things that need to be considered. I know I consider them in real life. How am I going to get lunch tomorrow? How much is it going to cost me? When will I get home? Will that be in time for dinner? What should I do about dinner? Am I eating enough in the morning? Should I take something to eat? (a bit of bread perhaps for nibblies).

My character DOESN'T ALWAYS have everything he needs supplied for him.

Needs or wants? If it's something you need for your job, talk to your superior about it.

[jhunter]

jhunter wrote:
I think the fact that our pcs also exist IG virtually even when you are logged out, isn't being taken into account.


You don't take that into account unless you also junk the food and water that you used durring that time. Stuff you do while logged out doesn't affect your logged in status.



AC

First of all...what does that have -anything- to do with crafting?

Secondly, those that are in clans with food and water provided for them...this wouldn't even apply to in -any- shape or form.

[Angela Christine]

jhunter wrote:
I think the fact that our pcs also exist IG virtually even when you are logged out, isn't being taken into account.


You don't take that into account unless you also junk the food and water that you used durring that time. Stuff you do while logged out doesn't affect your logged in status.

First of all...what does that have -anything- to do with crafting?

Secondly, those that are in clans with food and water provided for them...this wouldn't even apply to in -any- shape or form.

It relates because in both cases we are talking about time.  Lets say you decide that it is reasonable to make, say, 100 obsidian broadswords in a single IC year.  But if you are only logged in for 1/10th of that year, it doesn't necessarily make sense that you would craft all 100 broadswords while you are logged in.  Some of them would be virtual broadswords that you crafted virtually while logged off,  then virtual sold for virtual 'sids which you spent on virtual whores, virtual booze, virtual food, virtual water, virtual fines, virtual taxes, or lost virtually gambling.  

If you figure your character can create 100 broadswords in a year, and you craft all 100 while logged in, what is your character doing while you are logged off?  He isn't working, because he has already done all his work.  He isn't carousing in a tavern, because he isn't spending any money and he has no virtual money since he does no virtual work.  He can't eat or drink, unless he is in a clan that provides unlimited food and water, because he isn't spending any money  on those things.  He likely spends some of the time sleeping, but not all of it.  Does he just lay around in his room all day, waiting for you to come back?


AC

[jhunter]

That's a really extreme example.

I'm talking about crafting just a bit more while your logged in than you could really do in that time...not some outrageous number.

That little bit of excess could be explained by your virtual time.

Also...no matter what...your virtual time counts against your aging...as well as any rent you may have to pay...your rent doesn't just come from "logged in time".  Why should your entire income be locked into it either?