| Danneh Turner (Fearless Blue) | Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 09:23 pm 
Game news posted today suggests that over the course of 6 months, the threshhold for paying financial services will drop down from 20T to 5T.
The knee-jerk reation to this is likely outrage, but with W3C making moves to reduce large numbers of all things in the game, it may be the case that in the future, 5T is not such a low limit (even if it's less than my current annual turnover in my main). Either way, I want to think ahead to "how can I handle this change" rather than to simply fight against the change.
For my personal situation, I can quite happily never pay a financial fee even if the 5T limit was implemented tomorrow as my set up is for raiding not for profiteering. However, I still find something amiss with the current changes and accomanying advice. Basically, W3C are telling us that they are making moves to make game cash more valuable but at the same time are urging us to change cash into GC. I know there's a speed issue, but why would a player want to convert cash to GC today, when the changes will/might make game cash more valuable? (i.e. if game cash gets more valuable, it follows that I can get more GC for it in 6 months than I can get for it today.)
Unless you actually need GC to pay your registration or you need to offload cash ASAP because you're literally drowning in it, I can currently see little reason to buy GC with it; surely it's much better to buy assets with it, whether its ammo, disaster relief supplies or even infrastracture (where you have the manpower to staff it).
Treasurer's thread is a good place to rant about the limits, hopefully any replies in this thread will be focussed on ways of dealing with the change. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 11:28 pm
Ammo will be devalued along with the game cash, so the only point of buying it is to hide cash, not necessarily to profit off of the deflation. However, Tom has been dropping the base price on ammo faster than for other goods, so it is possible that ammo has already seen much of its decline relative to everything else.
I am investing my empire's game cash into the 250 defense index required for Level 6 and the 300 GC reward, as that is a guaranteed return  I am currently rapidly expanding my CEOs and I will probably accumulate NFP in them. You can never have enough of those anyway. |
| Illo 0210 (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 12:51 am
"Ammo will be devalued along with the game cash, so the only point of buying it is to hide cash,"
Another point of ammo is shooting your neighbor and relieving him of his cash.
You are arguably doing him a favor by helping him avoid these financial fees.
This can be the basis of any diplomatic dialogue with your enemy..."My dear friend I'm merely trying to help.".
________________________________
An aside...
I'd love to know who among us uses the cash-out in this game.
Would those of you who do please care to share how you find this feature? |
| The Wise One (White Giant) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 01:58 am
And the exodus begins..... |
| Wendy (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 04:07 am
This can be the basis of any diplomatic dialogue with your enemy..."My dear friend I'm merely trying to help.".
LMAO!!! I would use that that line anyday. |
| Noproblem (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 07:46 am
It will increase gradually and end up at the same level as in countries and will apply to cash levels above 20T.
Does this include cash in all corporations too, or just cash in the enterprise itself?
If just the CEO cash, then I see no need to do anything except reduce the profit sharing in your private corps. If it includes corporation
cash too, then there is a serious difficulty now. |
| Danneh Turner (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 11:12 am
As far as I can see, Noproblem, it only includes the pile of cash in the CEO - the number listed for "Cash Available" in your finance page. For most CEO's, you're right, you'll be able to stack more cash in the corps themselves, but I think for the biggest CEO's in the game, they've already reached the point where they can't stuff any more cash into their corps because of the 75B transfer max. |
| Parsifal | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 01:06 pm
there are several problems inherent with the current gc/cash proposal. first, let me say that i have no problem with limiting cash to 20t for each country and ceo. however, lowering cash in countries to 5t will further complicate an already bad sitution. currently the maximum contract offer is 20gcs. in the past the conversion rate was no more than 600b/gc. currently, a 20gc contract is around 13t-14t. we see the result of this already in that w3 is having to come into the market with more gcs. this means that cash is actually becoming less valuable rather than more valuable. if the amount of cash in countries is lowered to 5t this will further destabilize economies. it will mean that based on even 500b/ gc the maximum size of contracts will be no more than 10gcs. most large countries and empires need more cash than 5t. also, with less cash in the worlds, there will be fewer loans given, even though it seems that there are more and more loans being made. because loans have a way of quickly cycling back into cash, it's not unusual to start today with 2t cash in a country with 30t in loans and tomorrow having over 20t in cash and 12t in loans. the point of this is that you need enough cash to fund all the loans given. by lowering the maximum amount of cash in a corp to 5t, this will result in w3 having to come back in the game and make loans.
as far as buying ammo, there is an automatic finance/use charge on ammo because of the training units provision. is that any different than a finance charge?
these proposed changes effect all players, but in particular if effects large players. large players are the ones that fuel the loan market, even at the low returns we currently get. we also fuel the cash market by making a market both in the buying and selling of gcs. and yes, i want to buy low and sell high.
i can live with the proposed changes because of the provision for changing gcs into cash. its a primary incentive that keeps me in the game. with several thousand gcs, i do not have time to go into other worlds and spend them. i can't manage any more countries and all my countries have more weapons than i can ever use (i hope). if it were not for that provision, gcs for me, would be dead money.
so, what do i propose? maintain the goal for cash in ceo's at 20t and only lower cash in countries to 10t. that's not much of a change from the current proposal but seems to make more sense than dropping cash any more than i suggest. |
| GaiusJuliusCaesar (Kebir Blue) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 05:07 pm
I like Parsifal's suggestion. It's not quite as extreme as the proposal, but it still lowers the limit. It's a nice compromise. |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 06:48 pm
In my empire on WG I am doing great if I can keep my cash on hand to under 40T per country, which includes 100t in loans per country, I see no way that I will ever be able to hold it under 5T. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 10:17 pm
I thought that automatic ammo use was dependent upon how much of a military you had to shoot off that ammo in training.
Which is why I buy the ammo, not necessarily the military equipment to fire it (except as necessary to get to level 6) |
| Parsifal (Kebir Blue) | Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 11:54 pm
if you have weapons and they're in units, then the a little of the ammo is used. look at the trade section and it shows how much product is used including ammon, each month. it may not be much, but count up how much it cost you each month. i consider it a tax. and if you're going for level 6, you're definitely using ammo each month. |
| Parsifal (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 12:01 am
ex, in one of my countries i have about 6k drones, and 1489 are currently usable. 71 drone missiles are used each month. at 10m per missile that's 710m per game month. and that's just one weapon type. so don't think you're getting away with anything by buying weapons/ammo |
| Noproblem (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 12:03 am
It is, but if you buy it with your ceo, you neither use it nor pay financial fees on the money you spent buying it.
But as the price for ammo ( and weapons ) continues to drop, you lose money, so it has the same affect as the fee.
Seldom has the GM been willing to compromise a GREAT PLAN because the players didn't like it. THe rest if my thoughts you can guess, but I might get BANNED if they are stated. |
| Karff (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 12:37 am
How much would these fees be? It seems if you have actual difficulty spending more money than you make you should have the profit margin to take a small hit to the pocket |
| Parsifal (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 02:55 pm
Karff, i'm not sure i understand your point. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 08:28 pm
If you make more in profit than what the fee is each month, you still come out ahead. |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Friday, December 26, 2008 - 03:27 am
Do inactive weapons use ammo each month? |
| Chris Young (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, December 26, 2008 - 10:41 am
Having just seen financial services fees on a corp with 320T cash amount to 320 billion per game month when he makes half this a game month I'm not so convinced it'll be a bad thing.
Granted it's not exactly a *good* thing, imo, but it's gonna hurt the new guy trying to go over the 5T or 20T hurdle more than it is the more established guy. An established corp could just invest in public corps or do other things, I guess. I dunno.
What it'll mean, however, is that countries that need the cash reserve as a backup will just need to develop their economies more. Maybe W3C will end up making cash in the sense that people will buy cash for coins to augment their economy after wars hit to get over the financial services hump than they will by actually stimulating the cash market.
I really think the plan is ill-conceived as a whole. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, December 26, 2008 - 06:56 pm
the financial services fees on CEO's (or corp as you call them) is VERY low right now.
It will rise over time.
You really don't know what you're talking about there, chris young. It hurts established players MUCH MORE, because they already are WAY OVER the 20T amount. |
| Chris Young (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 12:57 am
How much over that can they use? There is a spending cap of what, 3 trillion?
WHat I mean is established players have well over this limit and can start making adjustments with the cash thye have already to overcome the hurdle, and that new players will be hurt worse because they will not have this cash when they reach this hurdle. If it rises my point will still be the same. Established players still have the ability to adapt, whereas the newer ones will have to deal with it. EVentually it'll even out some, but that's in the future, not now.
I am not saying I am in support of this, however. Regardless, because the whole thing of cash being a problem is kind of silly, given how the game was set up.
It's purely just a missighted marketing decision on W3, and one that isn't exactly working given that they now see the need to reduce cash from 20T to 5T in countries. Tells me people aren;t exchanging their cash for gcs.
I think it's interesting, though, that this change was announced way back. Look in the archives. |
| quaxocal (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 11:16 pm
You realize that by the time newer players start making enough cash for it to matter, that they will already have adapted to the new rules?
Spending in theory, can be up to let's see.
1.05T + 600B = 1.65T for military
1.05T + 1.2T = 2.25T for domestic
So about 3.9T per month.
This does not count what the country orders for itself (at least I don't believe so).
What if someone can't log on every month? What if they are away a few days? Oops, means their cash starts getting eaten by financial services.
Newer players won't make enough cash for it to matter.
You have it backwards, new players can adapt, because they aren't to this point yet. Older players, have to suck it up and try to deal with it as best as they can, while losing hard work in the process.
Do you understand how much it costs to finance say a large war? Or how much it costs to finance a large expansion? Costs ALOT MORE than you realize.
Again, you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about.
Q |
| Brian K (White Giant) | Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 12:19 am
Its amazing to me how these clowns want to punish people for running a good economy. |
| Noproblem (Fearless Blue) | Monday, January 5, 2009 - 10:42 am
If you run a good economy, you don't have to buy so many gc's from them to continue playing, so they don't make any money from you. Plus it takes a lot of time to run a decent economy, taking more processor time than most people would. Time = $.
Therefore they are simply going to take the money from you if you don't buy gold coins, either on the market or from them directly.
It seems that by the time the rises on this brave new world, 5T will be much harder to come by than it is ( was) formerly, so that fewer folks will be bothered by the fees. |
| Keith Allaire (Kebir Blue) | Monday, January 5, 2009 - 12:46 pm
Of course, they could make the cash market less of a pain in the ass to use by converting from an auction-based system to an instantaneous transaction, player store-based system.
I offer X billions per gold coin...take it or leave it.
The current system for buying GC through the market is such a pain in the ass (not to mention the exchange rates are so out of whack) that I'd rather reach level 6 than use the cash market. After that, who knows. Maybe I'll start on that strategic stockpile I know I should be doing, so that I have a means of weathering boycotts. |
| John R | Monday, January 5, 2009 - 01:10 pm
A new Cash Market system has been on the works for some time now. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Monday, January 5, 2009 - 02:26 pm
I know. I am attempting to hold out until it is implemented before making the heavy use of the Cash Market that my economy would demand, were it not for me stuffing profits into my defense index right now. |
| Jo Salkilld (White Giant) | Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 12:18 am
The problem is quite simply this:
Players will not have more than 4T spending space in any one country. As each offer for GCs has to come from one country, players will not be able to buy more than 6 GCs at any one time. This will mean more frequent logging-on to do regular exchanges, especially for vets.
If the GMs stop providing coins, the price will go up as players desperately try to offload their cash for coins and avoid the penalty. We will be reduced to bidding 4T for one coin, which will necessitate even more logging-on and devalue the entire economy. Worst-case, only those prepared to risk the financial penalty will be able to bid for a single coin.
The main effect will be that players can no longer 'cash out' because they won't have very many coins. However, newer players will have to rely on going up levels to receive enough coins to continue playing without using their plastic. Those who have no aptitude and no plastic won't last long and the player-base will decline.
In addition, players will not be able to loan out more than a couple of Trillion at a time, for fear the loans will all be repaid at once and take them over the limit. Therefore the player-loan market will collapse and the World Bank will be the main loan provider.
Is this a 'problem'? For the players, yes. For W3C? Time will tell. Perhaps it is what they want ...
I would never say that the rule changes are meant to hurt vets ... but they sure as hell do!
The best compromise, IMHO, is to allow 20T in a Leader country, and only 5T in slaves. At least we would have one option to realistically play the cash and loan markets, while W3C maintains a limit on cash.
Hugs and respect
Jo |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 09:34 am
Why is it that you cannot seem to get Tom to listen to you on the matter? 
I can personally see 20T in leader and 10T in slaves Any more than that, and avoiding FS will entail constant logging on to shovel bids and whatnot.
My CEO-based economy runs itself, profitably. I pretty much log into each nation once daily to take care of any HLW issues. It will be difficult for me to log on four times a day on LU to shovel cash around to avoid FS, with the ceiling that drastically low.
Now, I am also going back to college full-time IRL, and will be working full-time on top of that come spring. There is no way I will be able to get rid of game cash faster than I can generate it under those circumstances--the reduced spending space will SEVERELY crimp the ability of players who have built good economies to comply with Tom's wishes and reduce their cash.
Keep financial services at least at 10T, Tom. In order for your grandiose plan for all of the game worlds to be penniless to work, we need to be able to do cash market transactions in at least 10-GC chunks.
Especially if we have a life.
And we still need a more instantaneous, less-micromanagement-required, easier to use, cash market. The clunkiness of the auction process is a HUGE deterrent to me wanting to exchange my cash to GC. |
| jakester34 (White Giant) | Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 05:17 pm
Just a humble observation from a noob's perspective. I've only been playing for 2 months, granted I am currently laid off therefore able to log in some serious hours.
Obviously I have a small empire, but I can see how a 5T cash limitation would seriously hamper any efforts to maintain immediate flexibility. My case in point, I like to buy and sell dynamic products in addition to building my loans program. As a small empire I am already easily depleting and replacing my 5T in short term investments. I can't imagine how tight it feels for the big boys. |
| jakester34 (White Giant) | Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 05:27 pm
let me rephrase, that last sentence- I am 'constantly' depleting and replacing my country's cash on hand to fund short term investments. (gotta alotta time on my hands right now)! |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 05:33 pm
I'm seriously struggling. I have around 200T still over my empire on LU, and I can't convert it into coins quick enough. I find that I am bidding silly amounts of money to get rid of the cash, otherwise I get outbid. Currently, i'm offering around 15T per 20GC. 2-3 months ago, I paid 13T and they were accepted, so you can see the increase in the conversion rate. In RL, that would spell melt down for most economies.
Tom, this FS thing sucks man. Come on dude, take a look at your plan again..... |
| Jack Frost (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - 07:22 pm
Stuart I have been paying 15T for a while now... I was paying 700B per GC but that wasnt emptying my empire funds quick enough and needing to drain them at least once a day got me to be paying 15T for 20 |
| Maxwell (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - 07:49 pm
At what percentage rate does FS run? does anyone have a break down on it? |
| zapadka (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, January 8, 2009 - 12:49 am
Does anyone know whats motivating this? |
| FarmerBob (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, January 8, 2009 - 03:07 pm
Simple solution. Direct Cash conversion link like we used to have. If W3C wants game cash seriously reduced, it has to weigh priorities like everyone else. The Cash Market will just have to be suspended until some equilibrium that satisfies Jozi is achieved. Then, we can go back to the Cash Market.
Players who whine about not being able to speculate on the Cash Market will have to be bitch slapped into silence.
Just my opinion.
Jo's scenario is, of course, spot on as usual. |
| Keith Allaire (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, January 8, 2009 - 05:48 pm
Indeed. If the direct conversion link was reinstated, I would GLADLY reduce my cash by about 85T. Which is about the sum total of cash that I have in my empire and CEOs. It would be substantially more had I not been buying stuff to avoid FS.
It is substantially less a general pain in the ass than the cash market. |
| zapadka (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, January 8, 2009 - 08:17 pm
People are going to go bonkers.
Im just a little fish empirewise (not in real
life) and 5T isnt enought for me to be a
responsible president.
"The financial services are intended to convince everyone that converting cash to gold coins is better than allowing the cash to sit in the country or enterprise".
Not convinced.I think its fun to have alot of
money.Even if its pretend money.
like the elf who wanted to be a denist:I dont
want to be an accountant.I want to be a
president. |
| Stuart Taylor (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, January 8, 2009 - 10:57 pm
On the plus side, I now have over 2000GC which can easily be converted in times of need. I'm not saying I agree with the threshold - I don't, but it sure is nice to see all those GC when you first log in!!! |
| Maxwell | Friday, January 9, 2009 - 01:11 pm
If no one has any extra cash laying around you'll get what the GM gives you when you need to convert and the GC's will be taken out of circulation. |
| Treasurer (White Giant) | Monday, January 12, 2009 - 07:23 am
Jeez, now it's 5T. Lovely.
I will keep my thoughts to myself as I don't want to return to Siberia. |
| Noproblem (Fearless Blue) | Monday, January 12, 2009 - 08:45 am
Welcome back Mr. T |
| Yankee (Fearless Blue) | Monday, January 12, 2009 - 12:29 pm
(comments deleted)
I give up |
