To incentivize the development of ideas for the game, I am giving away 100 USD and full ownership of two of my companies (Food Corp and Taco Hell) to whomever responds to this thread with the most feasible and detailed (within reason) proposal for game improvements.
Highest consideration will be given to ideas which stimulate the contracting economy, stimulate interesting/complex gameplay dynamics, or, ideally, both! Back-of-the-napkin modeling of new economic equilibria introduced by proposals is a definite bonus. Please, vote on and discuss ideas on this thread. I will be in and out of the thread, bumping and offering feedback all week, with a winner to be announced on the 20th of December, 2017.
I'll add another 100 USD and add a piece of land (winner can choose the city, Sao Paulo or LA) into the mix, James will decide on the winner and maybe 1-2 runner ups who will receive the same for good ideas.
Hopefully Gluten will also respond with his vision towards the ideas posted to show his continuous interest/involvement. Also would be great if you could add a voting -1 and +1 option on posts? :)
well companies need to have "stuff" they can unlock that makes a company better than a newly created company.
at the moment it is just the highest wage wins, sure the older company might have more money but they are pretty much equal.
So company perks like "Lobbying the government", lvl ranges from 1-10 (or whatever), ability to get certain tax-cuts from the government, e.g. 5% back from every worker hired, among other things you can think of.
Another one could be "Cut-corners", increases production but has a certain chance to injure the worker. If a worker got injured this would obviously come with some penalties: a fine, increased inspection of working conditions, possible loss of company reputation.
Big companies can be hit by "scandals" in the game; did you hear about that orange drink in the U.K that turned a kid orange (he drank too much of it) and the company suffered, true story. The company increased the amount of real juice (from around 5% to 30%) to try get sales back up and shortly lowered it again few months later (to cut costs obviously)..
Maybe after a certain lvl "Lobbying the government" comes with more risk of it being leaked to the general public, so the company suffers from a "debuff" of -5% ability to sell their products.
Selling a company might then actually be worth something, if a company has become too big for someone they can get rid of it (try sell it before it sinks).
Also when you work you should be able to choose an "effort level", if you slack off the company can see that and fire you, if you work too hard you might be burnt out or promoted.
Anyway, off the top of my head this is one thing that would interest me.
I have a some ideas that I think will help the game. Currently it feels like the economy is very volatile.
1. Government buys products
The government should also be need of goods. This could help regulate prices and help there not be a surplus. Allowing companies to sell their goods to the government, which should be lower than selling on the exchange, but would allow for a baseline for item prices.
2. New players
We need a lot of new players in order to keep this economy and game going. It's not really an idea, but more of a need. We need to somehow get the word out about this game and get more people to sign up. This will be the only way the game becomes sustainable and for supply and demand to level out.
3. More company management features
Ability to give raises to employees. It would be nice to allow companies to adjust salaries for employees and a better way for companies to communicate with their employees. This will allow us to have more influence over employees who are working for us and allows us to incentivize employees to be more consistent.
4. Company Perks
This is something I have also been thinking about. This has already been touched on by 'moneygay' above.
Giving company perks will vastly improve the benefits of having a company that has longevity and consistent work for employees. It will also have much more value when selling.
Ideals for perks:
Reach x amount of employees will unlock a perk - produce x% more product. If the your employee count drops below, lose perk.
Retain x amount of employees for a week/month - receive x% of $ based off of company funds/networth.
5. Employee Perks
In the same way that we would reward companies for being a good employer, we should also reward employees for being consistently good workers.
- After working consistently for 3 days, begin receiving 1% more for wages per consecutive days up to 15% (paid out not through the company but through the game). So after working 10 days straight for the company, the player receives a 8% bonus. After you hit the cap of 15%, it just continues at 15% until you miss a day.
@moneygay, Nice, but sadly these ideas seem very vague and more aimed towards a much later development state, I still like the ideas and think they can/should be added in later on, but getting hit by a scandal randomly without being able to adjust the recipe, quality and risk levels would be pretty annoying, so the game needs to expand a lot first.
Both of the suggestions about company perks seem nice, but I don't see a way to make them work with the current 'work' system. Newer players, which k3nosis says are necessary, would not be able to compete at all against a company with perks (as prices and wages will just adjust towards 'full perks' levels). These perks would work better in a system that didn't require player workers.
I also agree with k3nosis about more npc spending, though the prices would need to be dynamic rather than static (no minimum but creating continuous demand while allowing for inflation and deflation).
Personally I would like to see a complete overhaul of the work system (as I can't really see the current system working long-term).
To rely much less on players, an example would be:
- All workers are NPC
- As I enjoy the 'company level' bits suggested companies should be upgrade-able with each level having limits on the amount of workers.
- Wages are set by the company (any wage) but productivity is based on an algorithm where:
---- higher educated workers are more expensive but produce more,
---- taking into account education levels per country/city (workers in US are higher educated than brazil, thus getting high educated workers would be cheaper in the US, and low educated workers cheaper in brazil, e.d. (balance it out)).
- Players can still be hired but as managers instead of workers, a manager will boost output of workers
- Players can get experience and 'level up' i.e. become better managers and increase the boost
- To hire a manager the contract process should be adjustable and negotiable between player and the company owners (much like pvt trades).
- Manager doesn't need to login to get his wages and boost the company output etc.
- Max of X managers based on company level
Now with relying less on player workers, the game should also rely less on player demand
- more products, including resources and complete production chains
- more npc buyers (for consumer products)
- rethink the land situation (to give more people a chance)
- CEO skills for boosts in certain production areas (to make it more profitable to focus on one area, for example packaging, rather than own the whole production chain - increases exchange trading).
These are just some quick thoughts, hope someone can add-on to these or share other ideas to improve game-play.
Monopoly laws, restricting vertical integration to an extent. Allows new players to actually be able to sell goods.
Contracts between businesses that allow private trade between two companies at a fixed price so businesses have a guaranteed flow of goods at a set price, kinda like a futures market of some sort.
Game chat. Live chat for all people online to take part in.
what are you guys talking about when you say "government"? are you talking about Gluten? is he the government? surely the government should be automated and businesses should be able to interact with the government of the country they are set up in.
edit: sorry if i haven't seen this option, but don't no how to see the government of a country
