Player Economy Survey!

Medvekoma

The Mysterious One
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There have been some posts and threads appearing with worries in regards to Massive's economy and how the recent changes could affect it. We sat down and had some talks with @Kellock93 in regards to passing some decent analysis of the case. In order to understand all the chances, causes and effects, an economist needs all possible information and data available. And while massivemoney has lovely figures and graphs, we'd like to know about you too.

Yes, you. You as individual players and your earning / spending habits. So whether you are a PvP-er, a roleplayer or simply come online to tame and slay chickens, there's a survey for you to fill out.


The point is to be as accurate as possible. So let's sit down as a community and - instead of trying to pitch solutions straight away - let's talk and discuss first and then move on to the problems themselves.

If you want to further help, tell your massive friends about the survey and get as many people to fill it out possible.

This isn't a 'response from the staff', no. And I can't promise 'actions taken' or a 'quick fix' because that's not the point. The true point is to take action as a real analyst would do. Gather information, analyse the information, draw conclusions, find the issues with the conclusions and propose changes that lead to different conclusions. And I'm sure we can do this as a community.

Tags of players who showed some interest in the matter:
@twinCatalysts
@znake1468
@FireFan96
@Alj23
@Mecharic
@Jackmo_Jones
@Endless_Duress
 
The "faction tax" question is a tad confusing. The choices only goes up to 10r for tax. My faction tax is like 86.
 
Pretty sure it means how much do you personally pay for your taxes. Like for example I am Leader of my faction and I have my taxes set to 10r a day which is the max.
he's+right+you+know.jpg
 
I have a extremely small faction I use for mostly vaults and farms, which I personally pay for 100%
I can't really complain about paying 5r/month, since my claims are a bit jumbled up. But I'm planning to try and downsize a bit to save some $$$
 
The problem is premium payments are suddenly gone without any reduction in upkeep costs.

Pick a side of that equation and adjust it.
 
The problem is premium payments are suddenly gone without any reduction in upkeep costs.

Pick a side of that equation and adjust it.
That's my beef with the new changes to premium and such. I know the server had to comply with the EULA, but a large number of my members were relying on the premium payments to do get money. Myself amongst them. I would be completely OK with the changes to premium and keep buying IF changes were made to the tax system. Hell, I have enough members to pay for the land that I have if they had money in their accounts, and the tax is only 3r. Even if I had 100 members, if none of them have money, which is so often the case when I recruit, my faction's bank would go down and eventually unclaim everything I own. I propose that it goes on a set integer like power, so if you have 30 members or so, you are guaranteed to pay for 300 chunks (would originally be a 30r tax, and if everyone had money, it could be paid with a 1r tax on everyone in the faction.
 
Yep, I understand changes had to be made and things will be a bit chaotic until they get sorted out.

The changes hit roleplayers especially hard. I am here to roleplay, not sweat in some darkroom to increase my mouse clicking abilities.

Premium payments were originally added so roleplayers could do their thing with a little cash in their pockets. With these payments gone, the roleplay community is going to be hurting for cash.
 
That's my beef with the new changes to premium and such. I know the server had to comply with the EULA, but a large number of my members were relying on the premium payments to do get money. Myself amongst them. I would be completely OK with the changes to premium and keep buying IF changes were made to the tax system. Hell, I have enough members to pay for the land that I have if they had money in their accounts, and the tax is only 3r. Even if I had 100 members, if none of them have money, which is so often the case when I recruit, my faction's bank would go down and eventually unclaim everything I own. I propose that it goes on a set integer like power, so if you have 30 members or so, you are guaranteed to pay for 300 chunks (would originally be a 30r tax, and if everyone had money, it could be paid with a 1r tax on everyone in the faction.

But is it really that hard to make money ? Vote on like 2 days and you have enough money to pay this 1 regal tax for a month.
 
But is it really that hard to make money ? Vote on like 2 days and you have enough money to pay this 1 regal tax for a month.
I know that, and you know that, but most factions rely on inactive members who log on once and never log on again. In all of Tyberia's 200 members, I'm willing to bet that only about 18 to 20 log on ever. My faction, coincidentally, has 30 members (used to have 60, but then Comcast struck. Point is, I couldn't afford my meager 50r tax then either.) and with the 3r tax that I have set, we lose about 20r in the faction bank per day. I'm not saying this to garner any sympathy, I just worry for those who don't have a massive account of money on massive like I do to keep their faction running.
 
But is it really that hard to make money ? Vote on like 2 days and you have enough money to pay this 1 regal tax for a month.

Now add /fix costs
Now add Regalian rental properties
Now add paying off ruthless pvpers
Etc.
Etc.

People have adjusted their lifestyles to fit those payments. The server has adjusted upkeep costs to fit those payments. Unless something is changed there is going to be a lot of "belt tightening".
 
The largest problem I see right now is that there's the people who have been here for years and have loads of resources and regals to wait out all these changes.

But then there's new people (like me) who have to think about every purchase made. My first month of playing, I barely made ends meet paying for a 300r/ month house. If I missed a day of voting, or was away from internet, I was screwed. So naturally I knew I was going to lose my house, so I basically left the server.

Fast forward a month or so, and I came back to make it my main. I basically Lived in the poor district for a month, got about 600r, then bought a house in the city again. I started to like the server more and more, then I donated. I'm not lying to say that extra cash flow helped me gain a solid foothold to start creating a RP character who could do actual things.

I may not be able to rely on the premium money now, but I think I can make ends meets for a few more months. But after that, I'm gonna be stuck packing up shop and placing everything in my vault faction before I become a hermit again.

And this is coming from a premium now. I can imagine the daily struggle of non premiums making Regals like I used to do. It's possible, but you do spend more time grinding than playing. Definitely the rental costs are the biggie.
 
Speaking as a non pvp/pve and non premium I tend to rely on my /vote to get by. When the harbor district was going up for rentals I had to plan out what property I was going to purchase and what I would have to do to get by. Initially I wanted to purchase a 500r shop near the oyster but that was out of my budget so I found a 300r warehouse down the harbor which I converted into a shop. Voting gives me enough regals and then a little bit extra to save in case I need to do purchasing. The saving did help with buying materials for the place I purchased. I guess what I'm saying is that you have to be smart with your investments. From a roleplay perspective I could say your character probably wont have all the money and may have to make tough decisions with their finances. Ultimately though a lot of people will be losing property unless changes are made. Regardless though, I will manage fine in my 300r warehouse on the sea.
 
Now add /fix costs
Now add Regalian rental properties
Now add paying off ruthless pvpers
Etc.
Etc.

People have adjusted their lifestyles to fit those payments. The server has adjusted upkeep costs to fit those payments. Unless something is changed there is going to be a lot of "belt tightening".

Oh I am not talking about people that invest a lot of time and effort into the server like you and a lot of other players that take their time to share their opinion with us and try to find a solution that works for everyone.

What I was talking about are really new/inactive players. Because if they cant pay a 1r tax every day I honestly doubt they have money for anything else either.

It is painfully obvious that you can't continue with a income from voting that's about 800-1000 Regals per month max. (including Lottery) and possibly other incomesources which usually also involve costs. Especially not if you own a lot of properties or a big fac and don't have the time to be as active as you would like to be.

What I wanted to point out that if you yourself have to pay your faction taxes there is usually something wrong. Be it a high overclaim on your side, or members that just dont pay their taxes.
 
Oh I am not talking about people that invest a lot of time and effort into the server like you and a lot of other players that take their time to share their opinion with us and try to find a solution that works for everyone.

What I was talking about are really new/inactive players. Because if they cant pay a 1r tax every day I honestly doubt they have money for anything else either.

It is painfully obvious that you can't continue with a income from voting that's about 800-1000 Regals per month max. (including Lottery) and possibly other incomesources which usually also involve costs. Especially not if you own a lot of properties or a big fac and don't have the time to be as active as you would like to be.

What I wanted to point out that if you yourself have to pay your faction taxes there is usually something wrong. Be it a high overclaim on your side, or members that just dont pay their taxes.
and on top of that.. if you put 400 of that 800-1000 into that 1r fac.. you are set for over a year and the new premium feature with the database priority where premiums never time out.. ur set for.. for forever.
 
1. Remove faction upkeep cost - added as a money sink since premium payments

2. Greatly lower rental costs in Regalia - greatly inflated since premium payments

Doing these two things would be a big step towards solving the loss of premium payments.

Money sinks need to adjust with the loss of the money they were added to sink.
 
1. Remove faction upkeep cost - added as a money sink since premium payments
This ALONE isnt good. The reason we have upkeep is to counter the fact that overclaiming is disabled. So while this piece alone isnt good.. it would be good with something to replace it. There needs to be some land claim accountability.

2. Greatly lower rental costs in Regalia - greatly inflated since premium payments
I fully agree with this
 
faction taxes are a very new addition to the server. removing them may cause other fixable problems, but we operated for years without faction taxes in place.
 
I'm going to just throw my personal concern here.

My main issue is I make all my money from selling PvP loot. Either selling excess weapons, armor, potions, and enchanted books. However with additions like the "weapons4all" perks, the value of god weapons has greatly decreased. That combined with addition of /fix, means I'm constantly losing money now. After a day of darkrooming (not to mention darkrooming has become more difficult and risky) and PvPing, I've gone through about 3-5 sets of armor. If I'm fixing those sets I've spent about 1200-2000r that day. I'm only making about 400r at most off of PvP supplies. PvP is becoming (not at the moment, but could potentially be) an aristocratic activity.

I'm really just worried that a big aspect (PvP) of this server is going to be hurt economically.
 
I'm going to just throw my personal concern here.

My main issue is I make all my money from selling PvP loot. Either selling excess weapons, armor, potions, and enchanted books. However with additions like the "weapons4all" perks, the value of god weapons has greatly decreased. That combined with addition of /fix, means I'm constantly losing money now. After a day of darkrooming (not to mention darkrooming has become more difficult and risky) and PvPing, I've gone through about 3-5 sets of armor. If I'm fixing those sets I've spent about 1200-2000r that day. I'm only making about 400r at most off of PvP supplies. PvP is becoming (not at the moment, but could potentially be) an aristocratic activity.

I'm really just worried that a big aspect (PvP) of this server is going to be hurt economically.
Remember that none of these features are permanent. They can be adjusted or reworked.
 
that wont work now especially now that premiums never time out

Most inactive people don't renew premium and they also lowered the timeout for non prems to just 20 days so the second their prem runs out they have 20 days to log in or renew prem otherwise they lose everything. Before even if your prem ran out you still had 100 days to log back in before timing out.

I think under the circumstances this idea should at the very least be considered.
 
Most inactive people don't renew premium and they also lowered the timeout for non prems to just 20 days so the second their prem runs out they have 20 days to log in or renew prem otherwise they lose everything. Before even if your prem ran out you still had 100 days to log back in before timing out.

I think under the circumstances this idea should at the very least be considered.
okay... but if i buy a month of premium right now.. and then i dont log back in.. it will never time out. thats what im saying.
 
that wont work now especially now that premiums never time out

Until they aren't premium. Sounds like a good way to keep people donating.
okay... but if i buy a month of premium right now.. and then i dont log back in.. it will never time out. thats what im saying.

Then maybe that needs to be changed too.

Is that really how it works now? That sounds like a big advantage to premium players, which of course isn't allowed by the Eula. Maybe we are misunderstanding how it works.
 
Yes. Because I dont really care if their faction remains to exist but their land is the bigger issue. What if people want to claimnear? Expand? they cant if this inactive faction with no disbanding time and no unclaiming time is just sitting there
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point, as I have had multiple cases of "this guy has one chunk outside my fac therefore I can't claim" before. They would log on like once a month and the timer would start again. I think we should return to the previous system we had, where everyone times out eventually. However, I also think we should return to the no-tax policy that the server used to have as well.
 
For those calling for a fix here, please do realise that no 'instant fix' can be found unless sources and ends are identified. Another reason to fill in the survey. I'll remain neutral and will probably make a statement or whatever later today or tomorrow when we have a hundred responses.
 
Sorry to digress, but noob question:
What is "time out?" From my knowledge, I though it mean that you get kicked due to a crap connection.

Unless you mean the faction auto kick. But I'd be thankful if I can get the actual definition with respect to this server.
 
Incorrect. You wouldn't time out for that month that you were premium. When your premium runs out after the month you would then have 20 days.
When premiums had the bonus of 70 power points. if somebody was premium when they last logged off... even if their premium ran out. they still had the 70 power and they raised timeout time.
 
When premiums had the bonus of 70 power points. if somebody was premium when they last logged off... even if their premium ran out. they still had the 70 power and they raised timeout time.


Correct but that's not the case anymore since instead of premiums having a set amount of time (100 days) they now have a time period based on when they are premium or not.

I may have understood it wrong but I'm 99% certain I did not. From my understanding of what was explained only premiums get an indefinite amount of time so that means the second you are no longer premium you only have 20 days to renew or log in.
 
Sorry, I just need a bit of clarification. Is this an official MassiveCraft survey being analyzed by the Info team or is this a player run survey? I'm a little bit confused by the wording. Thanks
 
I'm going to just throw my personal concern here.

That combined with addition of /fix, means I'm constantly losing money now. I've gone through about 3-5 sets of armor. If I'm fixing those sets I've spent about 1200-2000r that day.

Also keep in mind it may be cheaper for you to repair armor using an iron block, if you have your McMMO repair up to the level where it lowers risk of enchant loss. Alternatively you could also repair the vanilla method using an anvil. This is what everyone did before /fix was introduced and it's certainly still a valid option now. It takes 1-3 diamonds to fully repair a piece of armor. That's about what. 1-2r per diamond, so max 6 regals per piece of armor. If you repair 5 sets of armor this way, that's (at most) having spent 80 regals. Compare that to using /fix at about 2k per day, it's quite the difference.

If you don't have that level up yet in McMMO, it may be a good time to grind. Since armor breaks more quickly now, grinding your repair will be much faster.
 
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So max repair is 100% enchant keep? Which level would that be, like 1250?