Airline Mogul Forum

Changes to Private World Administration - Airline Cash

pck

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Reply #45 on: July 19, 2009, 07:02:36 am
Sure. It is your world. You made it with your tokens. Now, that does not mean you have the liberty to bypass the rules and give a so-called "stimulus" package (which might only stimulate your airline), nor are you granted the freedom to deduct hard-earned cash from a player, due to jealousy/envy. They are private in the way that you are given rights to how you start your airline world.

500k? more than enough. More money = buys more aircraft = more time consuming in making routes. use something that is between your temples, enclosed by your skull.

Private: secluded - Credits to: Oxford - The Australian School Dictionary
Privacy in Airline Mogul is when you have the rights to choose the basics of the world.

Semi-Private? nothing shows up in all my dictionaries

The Staff have taken this action to prevent deduction of cash. "Big Brother" has not watched over Airline Mogul, the "citizens" of AM themselves have complained. So, for the full fairness for all, the staff had done this.

Now, stop whining about this change. If you even bothered to buy tokens instead of waiting for them, maybe you can start off with 5 Boeing 747s with a starting cash of 80billion and play your dream world. No one cares. So, why don't you just shut it and live with it, or go running away to another game whilst crying.




seriously.

I have purchased plenty of tokens thank you. I am not sitting around waiting for them to magically appear. So instead of allowing to take away money why not just allow to give a stimulus? And furthermore I have a right to my opinion same as you so no I won't shut it and how about you shut it and run away to another dimension?

So I misplaced a dash?

semiprivate definition

semiĀ·priĀ·vate (-pr??v?t)

adjective
partly but not completely private;

"Plenty of Paid Tokens" gives you the right to not control your world, but to start it by your preference. Your preferences includes your starting cash, starting aircraft, world length, etc., but it doesn't give you the right to edit cash after creation, as giving a "stimulus" is already bypassing the rules, because your starting cash should be the only free money given.

As dktc said and you implied, yes, it is not fully "private". It is private in the sense that you start the world by your preference.

About the semi-private word, i know what it means, but i wasn't sure if it was a proper word :p

And apologies for my attitude yesterday, I wasn't in my best mood.


MarkP1969

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Reply #46 on: July 19, 2009, 12:59:03 pm
dktc- Thank you for the explanation.

I can only wish that maybe a poll can be taken and possibly, depending on the years in the private world, (maybe at the half way point of said world) you guys can consider atleast one stimulus type package per private world for no cost with limits perhaps. Based on a percentage of what you paid to start your world. 

Anyway, I look forward to the edit world functions.

pck- I apologize as well and thank you for your explanations as well.


dktc

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Reply #47 on: July 19, 2009, 01:46:51 pm
MarkP1969, is it really fair to take a poll on whether something should be given away for free? I mean seriously, who would oppose that (except for the people giving out that something)??

Everything comes with a cost. We have not back-charged you all for the token circumvention, so please consider that as a gift.
I would like to remind everyone that...
- any gifts or rewards are provided at the discretion of the staff, and should not be seen as granted, and
- any and all abuse of bugs or loopholes is considered cheating in this game, and the penalty would be decided by the admins in a case by case basis.

I understand that the players who have been complaining about this change has viewed the ability to add cash as a feature, which is granted. What I am trying to point out is that that is not the case. As I have explained above, although we don't care too much of the token circumvention, it was never an intention for players to bypass the token payments. Therefore, please consider yourself lucky if you have added cash to your airline(s) in private worlds. That was not supposed to happen, and is in a sense cheating (as bad as that sounds). I am not trying to accuse anyone here, because there might have been some confusion and misunderstanding over this. I hope that this is clear enough for you all to understand.

Of course, we could provide the stimulus package at no cost... we would just increase the base cost of a private world creation. ;)
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n301dp

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Reply #48 on: July 31, 2009, 05:51:22 am
I'm way late to the discussion, but I wanted to add in my $.02 as an active user for some time (not 5+ years  :lol:) and as someone who has given a lot of my photography to this site.

I've now played in public worlds and been an administrator for two private worlds.

I'm not sure I agree with the choice that was made to turn off the edit cash feature, but can see the point the administrators were trying to make.  Complaints from users are never a good thing, and world admins who cheat by removing money make us all look bad.

I don't think going ahead and removing the feature was the right way to go about things, however. I started a PW today for which several players won't be able to join for a few days/weeks. By that time, several of the players already in the game will have a head start on those that start later. We've all agreed that we'd like to start out on as level of a playing field as possible, and the monetary subsidy would (under the current setup) be the only way to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to be #1, especially in a Private World where things move much more slowly. Yes...every airline started out with the same thing, but if everyone is busy buying 737s while the new entrant is flying ATRs, where is the fun or competition? I've had several people in private worlds lose interest because of this scenario. It is something that most definitely costs the site users.


In lieu of this "subsidy" feature, my suggestions for editing new entrants to Private Worlds would be as follows:
  • Ability to change starting aircraft (for free or with tokens
  • Ability for established airlines to "gift" aircraft to new entrants (one time) *Some of you might be saying "but what about leases?" They have minimums that are often out of reach for new entrants.
  • Ability for established airlines to "gift" or loan money to new entrants
  • Reinstate the cash edit function with an opt in/opt function that does/does not cost extra tokens. Clearly state on World Selection screen that this is a function of the world. This way, if someone has problems with it, they can decide not to join.
  • Rectify the complaints on an individual basis using the site's logs. Time consuming, yes, (especially if the amount of complaints is really as high as claimed) but you'll be able to check and see if someone is really cheating
  • If someone does complain about cheating, offer to refund their 30 coins and delete them from the world!

I do think this is a step in a backward direction, but am eager to see what DKTC and StephenM as well as the rest of the team come up with for a "edit private world" screen.



dktc

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Reply #49 on: July 31, 2009, 06:44:23 am
In lieu of this "subsidy" feature, my suggestions for editing new entrants to Private Worlds would be as follows:
  • Ability to change starting aircraft (for free or with tokens)

Planned (with tokens).


Quote
  • Ability for established airlines to "gift" aircraft to new entrants (one time) *Some of you might be saying "but what about leases?" They have minimums that are often out of reach for new entrants.
  • Ability for established airlines to "gift" or loan money to new entrants

Can't happen as that would make it really easy for players to cheat by creating more than one account and use ghost accounts to feed the main account.
Alternatively, we could consider the PW owner giving out aircrafts, for a fee (tokens). We will discuss it in our next staff meeting.

Quote
  • Reinstate the cash edit function with an opt in/opt function that does/does not cost extra tokens. Clearly state on World Selection screen that this is a function of the world. This way, if someone has problems with it, they can decide not to join.

Pros: players get to choose
Cons: the majority of our players don't read (unfortunately).... and therefore don't know what they have chosen. We would still get complaints.

Quote
  • Rectify the complaints on an individual basis using the site's logs. Time consuming, yes, (especially if the amount of complaints is really as high as claimed) but you'll be able to check and see if someone is really cheating

This is an issue as in if we allow private world owners to edit the cash in their worlds, that means that we have given that decision to the PW owners. It would not be our decision whether to undo the change anymore, since it would be out of our hands.
This is a deadly cycle. If we refund the cash, the owner would complain that the player is cheating. The owner could also take away the cash again. There is nothing to put a stop to that. It is a wild goose chase; simply impractical. -shrugs-
 
Quote
  • If someone does complain about cheating, offer to refund their 30 coins and delete them from the world!

That is a moral / conceptual issue. What you are saying is that the game, and us admins, should pay because someone else is cheating. If someone else is cheating, why should we be punished?
What is worse though is that it would reward the cheater. The reason a private world owner deduct cash from a player is often because they think that player is earning too much. The owner don't want to compete with that player, and therefore put the player in negative cash. If we refund the tokens and delete the player, that would be exactly what the owner would want. That is positive reinforcement, encouraging the cheater to cheat again.


As I have said before in the suggestion sub-forum, it is quite easy to come up with suggestions and alternatives. The issue though is whether those suggestions and alternatives are viable. Nothing is as simple as it seem on the surface. That is the same with this game. There are tons of considerations behind each and every suggestions. Nonetheless, I do appreciate your effort in being constructive. :)
« Last Edit: July 31, 2009, 06:47:05 am by dktc »
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n301dp

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Reply #50 on: August 01, 2009, 09:46:06 am
Planned (with tokens).

Cool! I suppose that, as long as the price is right, it might be a popular choice!

Can't happen as that would make it really easy for players to cheat by creating more than one account and use ghost accounts to feed the main account.
Alternatively, we could consider the PW owner giving out aircrafts, for a fee (tokens). We will discuss it in our next staff meeting.

Good point on the former. I've been racking my brain over the past 24 hours on the latter, especially when it comes to late entrants to the game. Without having any idea what back-end programming you guys do on your end, would there be a way for the new entrant and the game admin to share the cost of these "given" aircraft? Would it be possible to consider another option such as an extra "subsidy" that would cost 5-10 extra tokens (with Private World participant permission of course) and would give a $1m "stimulus" to new entrants?

Pros: players get to choose
Cons: the majority of our players don't read (unfortunately).... and therefore don't know what they have chosen. We would still get complaints.

If I misread a contract or rules, whose fault is it? My complaints to a company would likely fall on deaf ears, as I was too lazy to read the fine print. I suppose it's the same with those of us who want to run airlines! >:( Shouldn't the user be held responsible for not reading the rules of the world in which they are a part? After all, they are running full-fledged airlines with living, breathing virtual passengers  ;).

As I have said before in the suggestion sub-forum, it is quite easy to come up with suggestions and alternatives. The issue though is whether those suggestions and alternatives are viable. Nothing is as simple as it seem on the surface. That is the same with this game. There are tons of considerations behind each and every suggestions. Nonetheless, I do appreciate your effort in being constructive. :)

Hey...I'm all for constructive criticism from both ends of the spectrum, and I thank you for engaging me in this dialogue. I don't envy the staff's job at all...like the real world, some of the CEOs in this game are downright CRAZY! You guys run a great game that has kept a majority of my friends and I occupied during downtimes at work...so much so that our boss had to send an e-mail out about "THAT AIRLINE GAME." Keep up the great work!


 

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