My feelings towards Credits(value) VS Amy's

[Zeppelin is a ten]

Lol people are going to start to hate me for all these "negative" threads. I hate to be that guy, but I feel like it's necessary.
I've kept my mouth shut about this for a while, because I haven't really found any possible way to bring this point across without sounding..greedy, I guess?
(BTW this is a bit of a length thread, so if you don't have the time or patience to read this then just skip down to where the main point begins, which starts with "To the actual point")
I want to talk about credits.
Now hear me out, I'm not complaining by any means, so let's just clear that out of the way! This is actually more of a detailed question I have for staff.
So since the beginning it's kind of been difficult to earn credits. It was tedious work to earn credits. During the first few days or so players abused the cloning method. I honestly don't condone people for doing that back then, considering it was literally the only method to obtain credits at that time. ESPECIALLY considering the flip hat retired only a week or so later. However, staff made it quite clear that they did NOT want people to be running clones to obtain additional credits. So they banned almost all of them. This happened after JC and FW were released, so players didn't have an excuse to run clones anymore. I thought it was a good idea to limit clones, because players were just honestly abusing it at that point.

I would like to add that we had CLAMS for a period of time in, I believe, every public room. Clams were later removed and placed within Captains' Quarters. I also believe, if I'm not mistaken, that the credit count was decreased. I kind of thought that it was a little weird that they did that, but shrugged it off because JC and FW had been released. Though, this is when it slowly began to become more and more apparent that staff didn't like the idea of players having a lot of credits.

Then there were gift-cards, which were sold during my break from the game. They were removed for whatever reason I honestly don't know.

Now to the actual point. Reading all of the above wasn't actually necessary, but I felt it kind of adds to the legitimacy of my question.
At one point or another, I noticed Amy making comments on threads that she didn't WANT minigames to give out more credits because she felt it would decrease the credits value. I had mixed feelings about that. Would that really decrease the credits value? I'm leaning more towards 'NO', and here's why:
There seems to be a stable large demand for credit sprees. People want to buy clothes, furniture, pins, and magic. Most people, like myself, are inspired to build rooms after seeing how good of a job staff have done on their host rooms. This makes it difficult when it takes so much time to earn just 5k from minigames for the AVERAGE player. Carpets are expensive man!
Because of this players are constantly trading and looking for credit sprees. It will almost always be in demand, so it's a secure way to make a good profit through trades.

My primary question for this thread is 'Why are staff concerning themselves with in-game values?' I mean, is it really necessary? Should that not be left to the players what is worth what within the trading market?
Especially with something like CREDITS?
I honestly find this to be where the problems start.

 

[CoralHibiscus]

Credits are our main income. I don't get how their value could decrease.

 

[Desertfreak]

Lol people are going to start to hate me for all these "negative" threads. I hate to be that guy, but I feel like it's necessary.
I've kept my mouth shut about this for a while, because I haven't really found any possible way to bring this point across without sounding..greedy, I guess?
(BTW this is a bit of a length thread, so if you don't have the time or patience to read this then just skip down to where the main point begins, which starts with "To the actual point")
I want to talk about credits.
Now hear me out, I'm not complaining by any means, so let's just clear that out of the way! This is actually more of a detailed question I have for staff.
So since the beginning it's kind of been difficult to earn credits. It was tedious work to earn credits. During the first few days or so players abused the cloning method. I honestly don't condone people for doing that back then, considering it was literally the only method to obtain credits at that time. ESPECIALLY considering the flip hat retired only a week or so later. However, staff made it quite clear that they did NOT want people to be running clones to obtain additional credits. So they banned almost all of them. This happened after JC and FW were released, so players didn't have an excuse to run clones anymore. I thought it was a good idea to limit clones, because players were just honestly abusing it at that point.

I would like to add that we had CLAMS for a period of time in, I believe, every public room. Clams were later removed and placed within Captains' Quarters. I also believe, if I'm not mistaken, that the credit count was decreased. I kind of thought that it was a little weird that they did that, but shrugged it off because JC and FW had been released. Though, this is when it slowly began to become more and more apparent that staff didn't like the idea of players having a lot of credits.

Then there were gift-cards, which were sold during my break from the game. They were removed for whatever reason I honestly don't know.

Now to the actual point. Reading all of the above wasn't actually necessary, but I felt it kind of adds to the legitimacy of my question.
At one point or another, I noticed Amy making comments on threads that she didn't WANT minigames to give out more credits because she felt it would decrease the credits value. I had mixed feelings about that. Would that really decrease the credits value? I'm leaning more towards 'NO', and here's why:
There seems to be a stable large demand for credit sprees. People want to buy clothes, furniture, pins, and magic. Most people, like myself, are inspired to build rooms after seeing how good of a job staff have done on their host rooms. This makes it difficult when it takes so much time to earn just 5k from minigames for the AVERAGE player. Carpets are expensive man!
Because of this players are constantly trading and looking for credit sprees. It will almost always be in demand, so it's a secure way to make a good profit through trades.

My primary question for this thread is 'Why are staff concerning themselves with in-game values?' I mean, is it really necessary? Should that not be left to the players what is worth what within the trading market?
Especially with something like CREDITS?
I honestly find this to be where the problems start.

I Simply agree on parts of this. Mansion needs an upgrade on credits, I used to get 1k a game. now I get around 100 a game :I
Also GCs were removed because people were selling them for Real Money.

 

[katrina]

I think amy / staff in general are worried about the richer getting richer, and is trying to prevent that. honestly, i could care less whose rich and whatnot.

 

[Zeppelin is a ten]

I Simply agree on parts of this. Mansion needs an upgrade on credits, I used to get 1k a game. now I get around 100 a game :I
Also GCs were removed because people were selling them for Real Money.

Yea exactly! They also removed the amount of ghosts released per game, so there goes getting 500 credits per game. I understand HM is in alpha, but the game is for our pleasure. If the community isn't happy with something, then it shouldn't be considered complaining. It's become basically frowned upon for anyone to disgaree with a staff member's decision, which is a shame.

And thank you for clearing that up! I can understand why they'd be removed.

 

[Atlantis]

I Simply agree on parts of this. Mansion needs an upgrade on credits, I used to get 1k a game. now I get around 100 a game :I
Also GCs were removed because people were selling them for Real Money.

And I would like to add that in old VMK when we'd get 1k a game we also never had to buy hats/magic that were 10k a piece.

 

[Zeppelin is a ten]

I think amy / staff in general are worried about the richer getting richer, and is trying to prevent that. honestly, i could care less whose rich and whatnot.

I think it would actually allow newer players to actually have a chance at earning rare items. So it would probably allow a smaller gap between the 'rich' and 'not so much'.
Since there are no longer crates (mixed reviews about the crates) players have less of a chance at getting rare items.
That was the issue with VFK(sorry to bring this up), the value for certain items was so HIGH because it was nearly impossible for newer players to be able to eventually afford them.

 

[katrina]

I think it would actually allow newer players to actually have a chance at earning rare items. So it would probably allow a smaller gap between the 'rich' and 'not so much'.
Since there are no longer crates (mixed reviews about the crates) players have less of a chance at getting rare items.
That was the issue with VFK(sorry to bring this up), the value for certain items was so HIGH because it was nearly impossible for newer players to be able to eventually afford them.

I feel like the rich are just going to stay rich. If they get more rich, whats the big deal honestly. Raising up the credits (and ghosts) in games would help everyone. Im bad at economy stuff, but Im 100% sure if credits are super easily attainable then all the prices will sky rocket. Amy said if they implemented a cash register feature, she could monitor that better, which Im totally all for.

 

[Lost]

If giftcards were re-released it would help everyone and not just the rich. I had a poll not long ago where 85% wanted giftcards back, like 12% wanted stats back and 3 percent wanted neither. It's quite apparent people want giftcards.

Judging by Amy's responses to my thread, staff believe that leaving giftcards in store will cause inflation and cause credits to be worth nothing, personally I completely disagree with this. I stated many reasons (and there are more) to reduce any possibly of inflation but for now it seems like my opinions have been ignored. I think it's ridiculous that firewalls are seemingly the main currency of the game when I can guess that probably 50-90% were bought by use of clones. There was a lot of items, firewalls were only out for 1 day and npcs gave enough credits that it was quicker to just create more accounts instead of playing the minigames, because the game wasn't really ready to release items that were released for 1 day that would become the main currency, that's why firewalls are 30 times more expensive then when they were bought, and green flip hats? 400 times more expensive.

Giftcards were great. Every 20 giftcards bought meant 10k was removed from the game. That is pretty high imo but would easily help with inflation. Another point Amy made was that the amount of giftcards was only going up and that was a trend she felt like would continue. The problem with this process is that there are a lot of variables such as; What if staff released a new hat that sold for 50k and only for a day or 2, that would reduce the amount of giftcards by a large amount; What if staff had a competition such as a ride competition, that would would reduce the amount of giftcards by a lot; What about people who quit the game with giftcards; those are effectively taken out of circulation because they have quit so those giftcards are basically dead and don't affect anything; What about giving higher prizes for monthly room competitions such as an inferno and allow it to have 2 winners (Something VMK started to do a lot for each type), that would give people a lot more incentive and a lot more reason to spend those credits. I could go on and on with different ideas such as releasing a 5k box which had the ability to give the player ANY item in the game, unreleased/ super rare/ common shop items/ magics/ etc (with the exception maybe of bugged items? Or just leave them in for fun with a notice saying some items are bugged and won't work properly, who knows). Do you know what would happen if you sold those type of boxes? People would spend millions on crates and every million they would only get 200 crates, which could give them anything from 5* inferno to a frying pan. It would not only reduce the amount of credits by A LOT but would also give people NEW trading options, it would just be firewalls and not even just giftcards, there would be new items and more items and anyone could get rich and people who are rich could lose a lot of their wealth trying to get something rare. I just came up with that idea off the top of my head (sure it had kinks) but you get the general idea, if staff are so worried about inflation and credits being worth nothing then there are A LOT of ways staff can intervene with ways to reduce the amount.

I've already spent too much time ranting about credits being tradeable or giftcards being on sale both on my threads and in and out of game because it truly annoys me a lot. :/

 

[Emelon]

I feel like the rich are just going to stay rich. If they get more rich, whats the big deal honestly. Raising up the credits (and ghosts) in games would help everyone. Im bad at economy stuff, but Im 100% sure if credits are super easily attainable then all the prices will sky rocket. Amy said if they implemented a cash register feature, she could monitor that better, which Im totally all for.

Agreed. Too many mistakes were made when the game was very first opened that made it nearly impossible to even come close to closing the gap between the rich and everyone else. Here's why:

-The early retirement of the green flip hat.
The game was opened quite suddenly and although that is not a bad thing at all, retiring the flip hat within the second day set off a chain reaction that has led us to the way our economy is presently. At that point in the game, there weren't any minigames, clams, rides, etc to earn credits; the only way of collecting credits was through NPCs and as we all know, you can only collect from NPCs every 12 hours. To have been able to collect enough credits to buy the flip hat, you had to have known and collected your first set of credits (which then allowed you to collect your second set 12 hours later) within a very short amount of time after the game had opened. Retiring something so suddenly and so soon after opening forced players into a frenzied, cutthroat mindset that remains active in trading in our economy today.

-Firewalls.
When firewalls were released, nobody had really recovered from the green flip hat retirement. Most people remembered the value of firewalls in the original game, so it was easy to assume that staff were planning on using firewalls to be included in the list of rare items in this game. Like Zeppelin already mentioned, during this point in the game, the amount of clones running around equaled (if not outnumbered) the amount of actual players. Many people used this to their advantage and I remember one person in particular (not naming names) who used their clones to stock up on an insane amount of firewalls. That has allowed this person to become rich and stay rich. Firewalls remain ridiculously high in demand and top the food chain for most desired items. To put it simply, they are extremely liquid and the only item to even come close to rivaling it's desirability were GCs, which are presently retired. Firewalls remain top dog in the trading market and I don't think that will ever change.

-Crate #1.
The idea of crates seemed great in theory, but I stand by my opinion when I say they were a complete disaster. I say this in regards to not only crate #1s, but also holiday crates and any other crates that have been introduced. If handling of the crates had been thought out and applied more effectively, crates could have been an interesting and exciting addition to the game. Unfortunately, crates only continued to encourage the desperation and craze to collect all items and attain all rares and become the envy of the entire game. After opening over 250 (probably closer to 300) crates, the only rare item that I uncrated was pink flips. At that point, I realized how stupid it was to continue to waste my keys on trying to open crates and instead I switched gears and began trading my gold keys for the items I wanted. Gold keys were a desirable yet low valued item that could be easily traded in bulk for much higher priced items. Retiring crates and, consequently, their corresponding keys removed that slight possibility of the average player's ability to expand their riches. Crates are just way too random in their rare output, allowing one person to uncrate all rares multiple times and the next person not a single one. Allowing the rich to be decided by luck instead of hard work and determination was a major flaw in crates that I will never agree with.

 

[Lost]

I feel like the rich are just going to stay rich. If they get more rich, whats the big deal honestly. Raising up the credits (and ghosts) in games would help everyone. Im bad at economy stuff, but Im 100% sure if credits are super easily attainable then all the prices will sky rocket. Amy said if they implemented a cash register feature, she could monitor that better, which Im totally all for.

You can increase the ease of getting credits without making it so easy that inflation happens, there are many ways to combat inflation such as I have stated in my post.[DOUBLEPOST=1414026092][/DOUBLEPOST]

Agreed. Too many mistakes were made when the game was very first opened that made it nearly impossible to even come close to closing the gap between the rich and everyone else. Here's why:

-The early retirement of the green flip hat.
The game was opened quite suddenly and although that is not a bad thing at all, retiring the flip hat within the second day set off a chain reaction that has led us to the way our economy is presently. At that point in the game, there weren't any minigames, clams, rides, etc to earn credits; the only way of collecting credits was through NPCs and as we all know, you can only collect from NPCs every 12 hours. To have been able to collect enough credits to buy the flip hat, you had to have known and collected your first set of credits (which then allowed you to collect your second set 12 hours later) within a very short amount of time after the game had opened. Retiring something so suddenly and so soon after opening forced players into a frenzied, cutthroat mindset that remains active in trading in our economy today.

-Firewalls.
When firewalls were released, nobody had really recovered from the green flip hat retirement. Most people remembered the value of firewalls in the original game, so it was easy to assume that staff were planning on using firewalls to be included in the list of rare items in this game. Like Zeppelin already mentioned, during this point in the game, the amount of clones running around equaled (if not outnumbered) the amount of actual players. Many people used this to their advantage and I remember one person in particular (not naming names) who used their clones to stock up on an insane amount of firewalls. That has allowed this person to become rich and stay rich. Firewalls remain ridiculously high in demand and top the food chain for most desired items. To put it simply, they are extremely liquid and the only item to even come close to rivaling it's desirability were GCs, which are presently retired. Firewalls remain top dog in the trading market and I don't think that will ever change.

-Crate #1.
The idea of crates seemed great in theory, but I stand by my opinion when I say they were a complete disaster. I say this in regards to not only crate #1s, but also holiday crates and any other crates that have been introduced. If handling of the crates had been thought out and applied more effectively, crates could have been an interesting and exciting addition to the game. Unfortunately, crates only continued to encourage the desperation and craze to collect all items and attain all rares and become the envy of the entire game. After opening over 250 (probably closer to 300) crates, the only rare item that I uncrated was pink flips. At that point, I realized how stupid it was to continue to waste my keys on trying to open crates and instead I switched gears and began trading my gold keys for the items I wanted. Gold keys were a desirable yet low valued item that could be easily traded in bulk for much higher priced items. Retiring crates and, consequently, their corresponding keys removed that slight possibility of the average player's ability to expand their riches.

@ Green flip hat - I agree with this.
@ Firewalls - A lot of people used clones and I know a fair number who used clones to buy a lot.
@ Crate #1 - I agree it was a great way to give trading options whilst also keeping super rares attainable.

Basically I agree with your whole post. These things have made trading pretty borked.

Also if you look at green crates, that hurt the economy bad, they were so expensive that there are a ton of keys left over with no crates to open them. Them being sold at 500 credits which would only earn around 1-1.5k in a minigame before receiving them meant that your ability to by things you wanted for rooms or from weekly sale was reduced by 33-50% for anyone who tried to keep up. I much preferred how gold keys were and to me, that would the best time in-game to be trading due to the amount of options and ease to get some of those options. Nowadays it is firewalls and sprees for everything and trading sprees is so tedious..........

 

[Oreo]

Um...the arguement that GCs should be removed because they were being traded for $$$ is silly because ALL items are being traded for real life money. Stitch Hats, Flips, Firewalls, etc. GCs helped so much when it came to purchasing items. It allowed people who maybe didn't have the time to play JC/FW all day to still have the opportunity to trade items for that 10k which they could spend or save for a rainy day (which I know LOTS of people did). It gave a sense of credit security which I think is great. It also was great for room builders who spend 100,000+ on each one of their rooms. I'd love to see the numbers on the people who misused it. I have a feeling the percentage of those who misused GCs is very very very low.

Agreed. Too many mistakes were made when the game was very first opened that made it nearly impossible to even come close to closing the gap between the rich and everyone else. Here's why:

-The early retirement of the green flip hat.
The game was opened quite suddenly and although that is not a bad thing at all, retiring the flip hat within the second day set off a chain reaction that has led us to the way our economy is presently. At that point in the game, there weren't any minigames, clams, rides, etc to earn credits; the only way of collecting credits was through NPCs and as we all know, you can only collect from NPCs every 12 hours. To have been able to collect enough credits to buy the flip hat, you had to have known and collected your first set of credits (which then allowed you to collect your second set 12 hours later) within a very short amount of time after the game had opened. Retiring something so suddenly and so soon after opening forced players into a frenzied, cutthroat mindset that remains active in trading in our economy today.

-Firewalls.
When firewalls were released, nobody had really recovered from the green flip hat retirement. Most people remembered the value of firewalls in the original game, so it was easy to assume that staff were planning on using firewalls to be included in the list of rare items in this game. Like Zeppelin already mentioned, during this point in the game, the amount of clones running around equaled (if not outnumbered) the amount of actual players. Many people used this to their advantage and I remember one person in particular (not naming names) who used their clones to stock up on an insane amount of firewalls. That has allowed this person to become rich and stay rich. Firewalls remain ridiculously high in demand and top the food chain for most desired items. To put it simply, they are extremely liquid and the only item to even come close to rivaling it's desirability were GCs, which are presently retired. Firewalls remain top dog in the trading market and I don't think that will ever change.

-Crate #1.
The idea of crates seemed great in theory, but I stand by my opinion when I say they were a complete disaster. I say this in regards to not only crate #1s, but also holiday crates and any other crates that have been introduced. If handling of the crates had been thought out and applied more effectively, crates could have been an interesting and exciting addition to the game. Unfortunately, crates only continued to encourage the desperation and craze to collect all items and attain all rares and become the envy of the entire game. After opening over 250 (probably closer to 300) crates, the only rare item that I uncrated was pink flips. At that point, I realized how stupid it was to continue to waste my keys on trying to open crates and instead I switched gears and began trading my gold keys for the items I wanted. Gold keys were a desirable yet low valued item that could be easily traded in bulk for much higher priced items. Retiring crates and, consequently, their corresponding keys removed that slight possibility of the average player's ability to expand their riches. Crates are just way too random in their rare output, allowing one person to uncrate all rares multiple times and the next person not a single one. Allowing the rich to be decided by luck instead of hard work and determination was a major flaw in crates that I will never agree with.

I agree 100% with everything said here, especially w/ the crate #1s. The system worked out so perfectly and was a great way to keep a decent flow of rares in the game. It benefited both traders and players wanting to work for an item of desire. I personally found it to be a fun leisure activity that gave EVERYONE of various riches the chance at a super rare. The problem with Crate #3 was that they switched out the rares so frequently that it became a race to uncrate a super rare before they were swapped. That caused a lot of (granted, unwarranted) stress on people. It turned from a fun activity to something people stressed over.

 

[Emelon]

I much preferred how gold keys were and to me, that would the best time in-game to be trading due to the amount of options and ease to get some of those options. Nowadays it is firewalls and sprees for everything and trading sprees is so tedious..........

Agree with this so much. Gold keys were amazing because they were so easy to get and trade. I miss them so much