Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader. You have to make the tough decisions about cutting or raising taxes, how to allocate the federal budget, what kind of infrastructure you want, etc..
  Enter the Game

Loans

Topics: General: Loans

asurfaholic

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 07:05 pm Click here to edit this post
" All interest rates show as a percentage for a real year (not a game year). "

I like to put my money to work for me, works IRL and should be an option in game.

But I don't understand the above statement. What does that mean, why is it going as a real year, and not a game year?

I want to understand WHY it is that way.


Also, I want to suggest to GMs to please open up a free market of loans. If feasible, I'd like to see the loans collect interest in a game year, allowing loans to be much more profitable, and two, I'd like to enter competing rates. Can we please consider allowing people to set their own interest rates, and allow those people manually looking for loans to pick the rate and terms that better reflect their needs?

I think with competing loans, and more profit, it would reduce or eliminate the need for world market loans, and would open new possibilities for the econ game.

SuperSoldierRCP

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 07:45 pm Click here to edit this post
I and other suggested this awhile back but they said no.


Allowing use to set rate from 1-30%

Allowing players to request loans and we offer them to them, up to 1T max limit to prevent misuse.

Based loans a 180-360 game month period set by the player.

Base the income on in game times not real life times.

Allow a barter sysem(kind of going along the line s of loans. If i want to trade 100B in weapons for 100B of ammo me and other nation should be allowed to.

asurfaholic

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 09:07 pm Click here to edit this post
But why are the terms based on a real year and not a game year?

What is the logic?

XON Xyooj

Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 09:27 pm Click here to edit this post
perhaps if it's base on earth year because it's too difficult for w3c to compute the interests on game year or that w3c don't want us to earn anything on the SC$ we generated from our corps so we would keep buying GC to get SC$?

i would like to be able to charge interest from 0% to 360% per game year, whether that be a loan or credit line which no penalty fee for paying off early.

this game needs to improve the econ side
someone please put this to public voting?

asurfaholic

Sunday, November 17, 2013 - 04:31 pm Click here to edit this post
still want to see a real answer on this

Aaron Doolavay

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 05:20 pm Click here to edit this post
I believe it used to be computed per game year but the interest we made was many times more than it is now, I never heard a reason for the change and I never asked but I assumed it was because we could change game money into gold coins and gold coins into real money. Why pay people interest in game months when they're changing it into real money I'm sure was the reasoning. Right before the change I had one country making over 1T per real day (at 3 game months per real day) just in interest on given loans, my finance index at that point was 330. Counties profits used to be much more and that combined with interest made buying gold coins with real money unnecessary, my country profited more than I could spend. However I don't think profits from raiding are where they are now and country costs and costs of supporting a large military also used to much higher along with the sheer size militaries used to be, corporations had to take out 20-60B in loans before they could support themselves, so many things were different and I think some things were done to lessen our profits and some things were done to shorten processing time.

Aaron Doolavay

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 05:22 pm Click here to edit this post
I believe it used to be computed per game year but the interest we made was many times more than it is now, I never heard a reason for the change and I never asked but I assumed it was because we could change game money into gold coins and gold coins into real money. Why pay people interest in game months when they're changing it into real money I'm sure was the reasoning. Right before the change I had one country making over 300B per real day (at 3 game months per real day) just in interest on given loans, my finance index at that point was 330. Counties profits used to be much more and that combined with interest made buying gold coins with real money unnecessary, my country profited more than I could spend. However I don't think profits from raiding are where they are now and country costs and costs of supporting a large military also used to much higher along with the sheer size militaries used to be, corporations had to take out 20-60B in loans before they could support themselves, so many things were different and I think some things were done to lessen our profits and some things were done to shorten processing time.

Aaron Doolavay

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 05:26 pm Click here to edit this post
well that edit shouldn't have reposted. I meant to say my country had over 1T profits per real day and 300B of which was interest on given loans

RAM

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 06:20 pm Click here to edit this post
i agree with asurfahlic on a free loan market, why not let people give out more than 600B and why cant we freely set interest rates whithin sensible range (max 30 or 20% etc) and why is it based on real year,

the current loan market is VERY restricted and doesnot help econ based countries at all and i frankly didnot see any worthwile benefits in giving out loans and in many times ended in worse shape than before

iam curious about other players feedback over current loan market and how are they finding it

RAM

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 06:24 pm Click here to edit this post
i think the sensible reason behind loan restriction is to encourage more GC to cash by those nations that are in bad to severe debt

and if it is really the reason then i doubt we would have any free loan market

NiAi

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 06:45 pm Click here to edit this post
In teh olden days when interest was high and future promising, W3C also had a punitive tax on large cash reserves that was in the countries/Ceos. That meant one could make a killing on giving out loans, but if one dident login atleast everyday and loans where paid back and thus put in the open, W3C would tax that amount to oblivion.

Lowering interest made giving out loans not as profitable, but made it possible to have cash reserves in the open which made life much easier.

I fear a increased profits in loans would lead W3C to do something rash again...

XON Xyooj

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 08:48 pm Click here to edit this post
now we players cannot even change from SC$ to GC, or from SC$ directly to US$.

the exchange only goes in one direction from US$ to GC, and GC to SC$

there is no reason to calculate interests on loan in earth year, other than to limit the revenues that we can earn on the loans. it is now worthless to give loan out to other players, because the interests earned are meaningless these days.

i'm only given few trillions out in loans because i cannot do anything with them, and rather than let them collect dusts at least i can help out other players who are struggling with their finances, and that andy will definitely repay my loans regardless as long as sc lives :)

when i started out in sc, i got no financial helps from any player and i was deeply in debts until i got into chat and some players there were generous to share their knowledge on how to get cashflow positive.

we players need to have the options to charge our own interest rates on the loans we give out, create credit lines of loans with any players, and earn revenues on our money. this would at least a leg up with the warlords who have earned trillions in raiding c3.

Andy

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 09:11 pm Click here to edit this post
I seems that having loans pay several percentage points in two days (a game year) is quite high.
and who is going to pay it?

4% in 2 days seems very nice but obviously, it is not realistic.

XON Xyooj

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 09:39 pm Click here to edit this post
aren't we talking about the rotations of the sc planets?

these rotations are not realistic from the point of view of us earth players anyways, but if these rotations are made equal to the rotation of our earth, it will kill the game because i certainly will not wait one earth year to get my strategic bombs being produced.

let's stick to us being on the sc planets, and base all the variables on their rotations?

playing this game economically is very very difficult to get 1T revenues per game year, unlike being a warlord you can earn that in less than 20 earth minutes.

basing the loan interest rate on the rotation of the sc planet you're on is very relevant and realistic from that point of view. for example, put out a 100B loan on an interest rate of 12% earns you 12B in one FB year (or 2 earth days if FB rotates at 6 game months per earth day). what is not so real about that? this 12B interests earned is nothing compare to the money that a warlord could earn raiding just few c3?

what is not realistic is to mix the point of views between the sc planets and earth?

XON Xyooj

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 09:47 pm Click here to edit this post
again, if FB rotates at 1 game year per 2 earth days, a 12% interest rate base on earth year is meaningless. because isn't that equal to more than 180 game years?

for simplicity, let's say one earth year is 366 days?

then isn't that's 12% over 183 game years?
that's not realistic for me !!

Andy

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 09:56 pm Click here to edit this post
the interest rate per rotation is about 0.02%.

Andy

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 10:11 pm Click here to edit this post
Interest rate in the US, for 10 years, is now 2.69%
inflation is probably the same or higher.
Effective interest rate is around 0%.
We have no inflation in Simcountry. We have deflation.

I suggest that interest rates will become 0% and maybe even negative. (like in Japan and other countries) when the price of products declines and the country goes into deflation.

XON Xyooj

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 10:27 pm Click here to edit this post
andy,

is my math above wrong?
how do you get 0.02% per one FB rotation (one game year) if the interest rate is 12% per earth year?

my example above just rounded to that 1 earth year (366 earth days) is equal to 183 FB game years. is charging interest rate of 12% per 183 FB game years realistic?....

in the USA, are you talking about commercial interest rates that a bank lend to corps/individuals, or are you referring to inflation rate or federal reserve interest rate charge to banks?

if interest rate on sc becomes 0, then who will want to lend out their SC$?

and if it's negative, does that means it will cost me to lend out my SC$?

and it will be very interesting to see if w3c can impliment inflation and deflation concepts into sc

Andy

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 10:31 pm Click here to edit this post
It is now far too high at 0.06.

The right value should be in the range of 0.02 or 0.00 or -0.02%
if we want to be a bit more realistic.

XON Xyooj

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 10:45 pm Click here to edit this post
the interest rate that players is automatically given of 0.06% per FB year is too high?

so if i loan out 100B, then my earned interests would be = (0.06/100) x 100B = 0.06B per FB year or 60M per FB year?

it's not realistic to be mixing sc and earth point of views. when we're on a sc planet, we should be looking from that sc planet's point of view.

similarly, it's very cheap for me to spend Thailand baht if i'm looking from my USA point of view, but if i'm looking from a Thai person's point of view then it is very expensive?

Andy

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 12:13 am Click here to edit this post
It makes no sense at all to pay interest when the country is in a deflation.
no economic sense at all.

Interest should be negative until the market turns into an inflation and interest rates should be at the inflation rate + a bit.

In any case, there are no arguments for interest rate at 0.02 or 0.06 except for earning more money without making any effort to develop the country economy.
we could of course agree on 25% each 2 days and everyone will be fine for ever.

The game that does that has a different name.

XON Xyooj

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 01:13 am Click here to edit this post
is it w3c's logic that because inflation rate at any sc planet = 0.00%

so interest rate for loan on any sc planet = 0.00% + 0.06% = 0.06% ???

2 earth days = one FB year?
that's a long time if you're on FB, but very short time if you're on earth. the SC$ are generated on FB and not on earth. 25% interest rate or any interest rate should be relative to FB, not to earth?

yes, it is a lot of interest earned if you're looking from earth's view. but to make sense is to look from FB's view.

btw, i have devoted lots of times and efforts, and decent amount of USD now to develop my entities on sc so far and will continue to do so as long as w3c continues to improve sc in the direction of growth

craigwilliamson79

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 03:18 pm Click here to edit this post
Well, it makes sense to not have a high interest when cash is not in short supply. There are far better ways to spend money. I only ever give out loans as a way of banking cash.

Andy

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 07:02 pm Click here to edit this post
so what?
25% each FB year?

SuperSoldierRCP

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 07:44 pm Click here to edit this post
I don't often agree with Andy but i do understand his point of view, maybe i can help by playing both sides.

---Andy's side---
1-Trillion in Loans at current rates based on real game time would be 7-Billion-ish a month in loans. That would collapse econ's and someone in even a few T in debt wouldn't be able to recover. A new player who mistakes buying to much ammo and falls 5-trillion into debt would be paying cost to 35-BILLION a month in interest.

---Player Side---
Though on the flip side the GM needs to see that players want to see real game based rates.
Andy a simple solution is to allow us to base our own time/rates for these loan.
Time of the loan could be from 120 months - 360 months.
The percentage rate could be set by us from 1-5% With the world bank being 5%(offered when no other loans are available.

---Speaking for both sides---
For this to happen the Cash value and income in corps would have to change to allow them to pay it off or something would need to happen.

Changes to fail safes or something similar would need to be revised so that nations in debt would see fail safes kick in. After 1-Trillion of debt military spending is banned and weapons deactivate 10% per month, 2-Trillion Player assets buying is banned, starts the game sells 1% of each of your non military products in stock per month for 12 months after the taking of a loan.

Just some creative ideas here, But something to consider.

Both Sides need to work together, We the players(ME INCLUDED) tend to forget that the GM(mostly what we see) is Andy, Lets throw ideas that we can back with more ideas/facts to help him out.

Andy, we just want to know we are listened to, Most fear posting an idea that will get deleted or us in trouble we only want to know we are heard.

XON Xyooj

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 09:08 pm Click here to edit this post
i am earning my SC$ from my corps base on FB year, not base on earth year.

why is that my SC$ earn from loans are not base on FB year, but base on earth year?

why the change?


another dimension to this loan program is that if it is competitive and players choose their own terms then i'm sure that few loanee players would choose high interest loans from loaner players? at the moment, we players have no choice of our own terms?

on earth, to be able to get a loan you have to have the ability to pay it back and often you must have collaterals for the loan. why not impliment something similar on the sc planets?

as i have posted already, what is wrong with basing the ability to repay your debts base on the total assets value of your entity (country or enterprise)? if you cannot repay the loan base on your cashflow, then game parameters automatically sell your entity's assets to repay the loan?

another issue i'm frustrated is that, my corps are automatically given loans from others even though my entity has trillions available. why can the game parameters automatically transfer my available money to my corps, and if my entity has no cash then use the open market money (i.e. loans from others)? i don't see any other reason for this error, other than to put me into more debts without my permission.

if the loan interest rate is base on the sc planet that you are on, perhaps it will encourage players from slow orbiting sc planets to go to fast orbiting sc planets?

thewhy

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 09:47 pm Click here to edit this post
in order for there to be interest paid out in real time the volume of money would need to decrease to a realistic level aswell so the average person isnt taking out 1 trillion in loans anyways as the GM is doing by decreasing costs of weapons etc (deflation) i assume?

Andy

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 11:13 pm Click here to edit this post
It seems that we are discussing a non existing problem.
25% was a joke.
we will not change the interest rates for now.
when we do, we will probably lower it as 12% is far too high.
4% is more likely.

asurfaholic

Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 04:36 am Click here to edit this post
lol gah what have I done.

Thanks for the responses though. I really just wanted to understand the reasoning behind basing game interest rates on a real year and not a game year.

now my head is spinning like never before, but that might be from too much adult beverage

MarkO

Friday, November 22, 2013 - 10:23 pm Click here to edit this post
Seems to me interest rates don't matter since Roving Eye is squandering most of the loans offered. I don't understand why credit is continuously being given when debt is extremely high. Makes the market tight for deserving corps and countries who must resort to borrowing from the World Bank at higher interest rates.

Andy

Saturday, November 23, 2013 - 11:13 am Click here to edit this post
There is a limit to the amount of credit a country can get.
that amount is being reduced from time to time with the decline in exchange rates etc.

1T is now a huge amount of money. This was very different some time ago.


Add a Message