Players: If you agree with this letter, please post and say so, equally so if you disagree. If you don't put your name down where it counts, all the grumbling in private and on irc counts for nothing. I won't respond to this further than the original post as I'll have nothing else to add. However, if you've got something to say. PLEASE say it.

Mafiareturns Staff,

 I have played this game for a long time, since circa Spring 2006 when Mario and FullMetal made the site as an homage to the original mafia.org.. I have always loved this game, and taking into account various breaks and so on, I'd estimate I've had a character (of varying levels of active-ness) for around 3.5-4 years in that space of nearing 6 years as well as spending considerable time as a helpdesk/assistant. In that entire time, there have been 2 major admin decisions which I have strongly disagreed with on a 'game-wide basis'. For the record they were:

1. When BG wack was beginning to be implemented BG's for existing accounts were doubled and and unlimited bgs were possible; but things existed like this for a long period and there was no way to counteract the unlimited BG's as the actual Bg wack was only brought in some time later.

2. When the 'CP' regime was totalled by faulty code and it was addressed only by a 70% restoration of stats to accounts which were then easily killed due to the logistical dificulties involved for the new accounts to 'get' anywhere.

 I'm not bringing this up to open old wounds, I'm trying to make a simple point; that in two years whilst I've felt little things I've disagreed with on a personal level, there has only been 2 things in nearly 6 years that I genuinely felt had a profound effect on gameplay. In both instances, I thought it more prudent and respectful to raise my concerns in private, because I know the adverse effect public 'bitching' has on people who would otherwise have no opinion.

 As you'll appreciate, I know what it's like to be a member of staff. I know what it's like to address problem after problem, taking up precious time for precious little thanks at the end. I know what it's like to be on the end of the 'cheating' whine, though granted not as vociferous as other staff members. I feel I have at least a degree of empathy in the current situation despite of course not investing the same level of time and money as the top guys.

 However, we have arrived at the 3^rd time in which I believe the admins are acting in a way that so profoundly affects the site, and I think now's the time to put my chips down so to speak.

A Quick Thank You.

 This is not a thread made from malice or bitterness. I'm not doing this so I can shake the shitty stick at the admin team or incite some sort of witch hunt. Neither am I doing it because I'm some sort of servant of the current regimes. I'll be perfectly honest, this is certainly not something that is going to endear me from many in an IC point of view; but of the current crop of those wearing the bold suits, there are a few I like, a few I don't know, and many more that I personally dislike. (If anyone is willing to make cash gifts, I am prepared to name names :D)

 I'm doing this because I love the game, if I didn't I wouldn't still be around in a new decade. I've lost count of the amount of times I've stayed up till the walls start melting in front of me to finish a war lost count of the amount of times I've told the lass I was staying up for '1 more shot' to her disgruntled sighs and eye rolling. Or the many, many more times I've just sat on irc (probably pissed) just for a bit of banter

I'm doing it because it's what I think about the state of the game in general, and it'd be nice to know if other players share my opinion

But before I start, I do appreciate your position. I appreciate you work for little money or none at all and I appreciate that without you input and ongoing efforts, there wouldn't be a game to enjoy. This kinda brings me to my first point. (it doesn't at all but I couldn't think of a way to end this section and begin the next)

Admin influence on IG Issues

Pick a side of the fence guys. From the game's inception to a few weeks ago, it's been acceptable for admins of any level to hold positions of power in the game; under certain caveats (the suspension of admin accounts during duration of CL/RH/LH etc tenure). Recently, it has been decided that no longer will this be the case for the main reasons that users can no longer level cheating accusations (and more pertinently) that as the game becomes more professional, the admins can/will be taking a more of a backseat role (as outlined by BillyBathtub on Nov 06 in this thread: http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/199934)

“As we hopefully grow, Grin, the manner in which we respond as Admins will change until eventually it will be done through intermediaries so that we are completely removed from the game in any capacity other than change announcements and IRC banter. “

You can't have it both ways. I appreciate the ultimate goal is to remove yourselves from the governing of the game, but in the meantime we've got a situation which I believe to be unfair on the gamers. If admin members are imposing their will and personal views on the game as players and other users disagree; they can shoot the admin's player characters. When the admins impose their will and personal views on the game using code as admins, there is absolutely no choice users have if they disagree than to write threads like this and hope they are listened to. As much as there has been a lot said about 'making code changes to reflect the current environment' there are equally things said which highlight the fact that personal views are the reasons for these coded changes:

“I will continue to do what I feel is in the best interest of the community and of the game, “

“As much as I would like to sell this idea as one that is good for the game, the truth behind the matter is that it is directly related to those at the top's decision “

“I will continue to do what I feel is in the best interest of the community and of the game, and this sometimes means coding around players whose utopia is not always with the game and its communitiy's best intentions in mind. “

If this situation was in relation to say, a protection order being put up that you didn't agree with followed by you implementing code that rendered the protection order impossible to enforce; it would clearly be a case of you being in the wrong and users in the right. I think everyone with a brain could see this situation is much, much more complex.

Everyone appreciates that this game needs money to survive. I can't speak for them, but I'd wager a very large amount that for the GF's who took this decision, crippling the game or hurting the admin staff was never, ever the end goal. They have worked, for the most part, extremely hard to reach the top, and used that IG power to bring in an IG initiative, which has been counteracted by a thoroughly OOC initiative. For the most part, the ban on NPM's and crew limiting will not significantly change gameplay; even if they did, the counter measures from admin team would not swing it back to how it was before. It's about the fact that the game is losing revenue. I get that, I'll go into it in more detail below. But first, I just want to say that, at some point in the future, you have to pick a side. You have to either say 'We're the admin team, we do play the game and as both administrators and players we will have input into the decision making process and the direction of the game in IG matters', or 'We are the admin team, we play the game only in roles where we cannot adversely effect gameplay and only deal with OOC issues, taking no part in any IG issues which are enacted'

I appreciate there is no line in the sand, I appreciate that this is easily the biggest grey area in the game but, ultimately if you keep flirting with the boundaries; it's going to be straight back to square one in terms of the fingers that are pointed at the admin team, however unjustly.

Player Roles vs. Admin Roles

Contentious point, this one, I've spent about an hour rewording it in an effort not to cause offence, but I'm still worried it's going to push some buttons. People play games as a form of escapism. Whether it's ps3, mafiareturns or pickupsticks, games are more than just a passer of time for people. Some people might hate their job, some people might get bullied at school, some people worry about their bills. My excuse is that I don't see my girlfriend as much as I like, my mates tend not to go out on weeknights and I fucking detest my flatmates so here I am!

The point I'm trying to make is people come here for hours a day to pretend to be mobsters. People want to forget themselves. Jeff at number 39 dons his wife's knickers, puts on lipstick and turns his webcam on. Me? I play mafiareturns.

It's unfair to expect people to immerse themselves in the game whilst thinking 'shit, if I do this, will the game lack account turnover or new members?' or 'If I do that, will it significantly impact the game's financial position?'

Again, as I said in a previous post, I know it's a blurred line. I know that it's a community as well as a userbase and the majority of users know the admin team well, but ultimately, in character, a user should never have to make a decision that runs prior to their actual opinion because it's 'for the good of the community/game'.

It was not the users who decided to develop the game to the point where it could be a profitable ventures, nor was it the users who decided to employee paid staff, and it wasn't the users who made the game dependant on a stream of economy that was never guaranteed.

I'm sorry, that is the worst thing I've had to write in this thread, I can't stress enough that it's not meant to be accusatory, derogatory or mocking; I realise how brutal and selfish it sounds but it's the truth. Personally? I will do all I can to assist the admin team any way possible both in the game and the larger community, as would the vast majority of users. As the game grows though, you can't expect every user to have that kind of viewpoint.

People have made erroneous comparisons to WoW, but if you looked at games in a similar genre – Barafranca/Omerta, Downtown Mafia, even things like Cybernations or Hobowars. Go to any of these games, and aside from the older players who've played for aeons, or the players who personally know admins, you'll find a very small percentage of users who'd do something that benefits the community and the game but does not benefit – or even harms – their own characters. They are all games that follow the same mould as this. Online, text based role playing games.

Conversely, it is the administrators first responsibility to consider the game's health – financial and otherwise – before the 'state of play' in the game itself. Again, I appreciate that this is not black and white as the state of play in the game could potentially affect the game's financial status.

Time is a healer

Was it necessary to respond to the GF's council so quickly with a coded measure? I don't if you have figures for how many credits are spent per week on NPC's versus jails/toolbars/mias/achievement hints/etc but even if that shows maybe a 50% drop in credit usage, could we not monitor the situation for say a week? Again, I've made this point in another thread and I'll make it here. If there is less demand for credits because people aren't spending 10 at a time on NPCS, the price will fall, If the price falls, many like me will buy and use more credits. Why? Because at 300k a pop, I refuse to throw a jail, reveal weakest cities and rarely buy MIA's. If the average price dropped even to 200k, I would do these things, as would many others I've spoken to. The end result may well be lower marketplace price but similar overall credit usage. Equally, it may not be until you try. People are asking for it, if you're not going to give it a trial period, could you at least let us know why?

Conversely, in this period, why not put some questions to the users. In the time that I've been gone (around 10 months) the userbase size has not dramatically increased. Can the users suggest alternative voting sites, or even an alternative method of advertising? How about different usage of credits? How about a site wide survey on how users would feel about paying, $1.50 or $2 for a credit rather than $1? Sure, it may be unanimously hated, but you don't know if you don't ask.

On the topic of the coded reaction to the changes:

Motivation for Change

This is a hard bit to write too.

Are the motivations for this change honestly 'balancing' the gameplay? In my opinion, it's balancing the gameplay in the same way you'd put a 1lb weight one one side of the scales, then a 1000lb weight on the same side to balance things out.

Somehow, from a GF council banning the use of NPM's, you have inferred this to mean 'none of the users want any automated features' and responded in kind with measures that adversely, or will adversely, affect RIA's and Durdens. Furthermore, in what I think is a punitive, arbitrary and frankly petty gesture, drug tips have been removed as they facilitate the use of an automated character.

I'm sorry, but that is not a proportionate response. IG, the GF council represents each city. OOC, everyone is aware that not everyone will agree with their decisions, but on an IG basis the council have earnt their power and are exercising it.

The tips change is especially saddening to me because it is completely separate from the NPM issue, the fact that they are both automated features is tenuous. As I pointed out, highlighted locals, pop up timers, search functions and numbered locals are all automated features that enable us to perform manual tasks with quicker ease. I can't see these perks being phased out.

Secondly, you are punishing the entire userbase by removing little things like this based on the fact that a decision made by a GF Council of half a dozen people and announced by the streets has not been publicly disagreed with. On an IG basis, does anyone expect this to happen? As a WG, I'm not going to stand in the face of the decision made by 6 of the most powerful characters on the game and say 'Yeah, this is shit'. The streets, or any in character arena, is never an accurate place to measure the user's true feelings, we all know that.

As you've pointed out on irc, you want the GF's et cetera to listen to their members. With the series of moves you've made tonight, I think that if the GF's listen to their members, they're going to get two different kinds of response (as will be echoed in this thread no doubt)

1. People who get mad at CL's and say 'Stop turning the game into your private playground, revert the changes and the admins will make things how they were.

2. People who get mad at the admins and say 'Forcing the CL's hands like this, making them out to be the bad guy and “putting the ball in the CL's court” is at best propaganda and worst underhanded.

Is either of these scenarios good for the game? I don't think so, furthermore, despite admins are now taking a 'reactionary' rather than a 'proactive' role in making code changes, is an aggressive mood like this the way to go? It is equally plausible that the CL's will respond in a similar manner and we have two stubborn camps who keep taking arbitrary measures, doing things they don't want to do, just to spite the other side. Is this good for the game? I don't think so. People are going to get disillusioned with the whole thing. I've spoken with a few people tonight, people are blaming different things, but no one likes the way this is going. The last person I've spoken to about this before writing the thread has been playing at least 3-4 years. He's got the beginnings of a good account and despite having spent 162 hours online (roughly ¼ of the age of the account) he's ready to suicide and jack the whole thing in because, frankly, X-box is less hassle. I find it truly sad that people are even having thoughts like that.

I raised this issue on IRC earlier and asked if there was any good reason why compromise and communication could not resolve this problem. The response I received was that you (the admin team) were blindsided and found out in the Streets. Fair enough. I get that, it would've made things somewhat easier to consult the admin team on such a far reaching issue. So, with such a far reaching response, would it not have been equally prudent to consult the GF Council who enacted the decision? Yes, but the response was one that could lead us into a total downward spiral. If I'm honest, I like many of the GF Council's initiatives, but I 100% agree it would've been easier for all involved if there was communication and discourse between players and admin first. However, just because the players didn't consult you first is no reason why you have to say the equivalent of 'they started it!' and take exactly the same path as the players did which caused all the issues. It was always going to exacerbate the issues.

Player Commission

Given everything I've just said about, would this not have been the ideal time to bring the Player Commission to liaise and mediate between player and staff?!

Closing Comments

I'm sorry if this sounds overcritical, but you really need to decide what you want the game to be. As soon as you start charging for service, there will inevitably be a standard of service people expect. Chief among that is the freedom to do what they want with the game, as well as dollars, people could easily invest thousands of hours into reaching the top, and getting there only to be herded into what you are and not allowed to do is unfair.

I'm struggling to think of an adept analogy as this game's situation is so unique, but say I went to a Cinema, bought only my ticket and refused to by any of their food and drink, they might be pissed off but they shouldn't be allowed to force me into it by denying/altering other aspects of the service. Well granted, they could, but they'd lose customers!

Granted, it's not quite the same prospect as you are losing NPM's over the entire site, and people realise that's hitting you in the pocket; but surely you don't honestly believe that this is something deliberately designed to draw money out of the game? Everything about this, to me, looks like it's being taken personally. From the deliberately misunderstanding to the point of sarcasm what the Leaders by 'No robots/npms; to the total lack of getting user feedback other than by judging responses in an IC street thread, to the total lack of communication between yourselves and those who made the policies.

No one is going to come out of this smelling of roses, that's the only guarantee, but please take a step back. No one, absolutely no one, wants to see the game's currently most powerful characters get embroiled in a bitter feud with the administration staff. It's ugly and it does the game absolutely no favours.

If I've judged this completely incorrectly I am in an overwhelming minority who has this viewpoint, you can expect a full an uncompromising apology.

However, remember that long after this crop of CL's have gone, you guys will still own and administrate the site. If people start responding to this thread, regardless of where they consider blame to lie (if anywhere) please listen to them and start making steps in the right direction, because I really think we're on the brink here.

Thanks for reading,

Sprozza

P.S. Have you seen the length of this fucking thread? Of course I haven't proofread the mammoth bastard so if there's any spelling or grammatical errors, you have my apologies.

I've read this monster of a fucking thread; and my notes on each section of your plea are in consensus. I support the movement directed in this thread, in the most respectful way I can. My thoughts are aligned with Sprozz on this, and I appreciate him giving us a place to express our support, or disapproval, for such.

It may be long, but this read really does bring to light what I've been contemplating over the past few weeks, which gets a load off my chest of trying to figure out how to word it properly.

"I'm struggling to think of an adept analogy as this game's situation is so unique, but say I went to a Cinema, bought only my ticket and refused to by any of their food and drink, they might be pissed off but they shouldn't be allowed to force me into it by denying/altering other aspects of the service. Well granted, they could, but they'd lose customers!" - I had the exact same kind of scenario in my head.

We all know now that this kind of in game policy has effected the admins, yes. You have to think though the players definitly did not even consider this when making there decision as it's not actually the players first thought to think that "we're losing money here" as there only ever thinking of spending if they do buy credits and put money into the game. Which I can understand in the admin point of view it's like saying "Here guys we are stealing this mmkay thanks".
Although in fairness they wouldn't have been it would have been barrowing if anything.

The council would have eventually changed and the NPMs would have been reinstated. I was on IRC talking to numerous people who did disagree with the NPM decision and if there were so many, things wouldn't be long in changing I'm sure.

I would have even considered a better move for the admin team would of been, to say, wait a few days if things carried on then come up with a different Idea like (NPMs = 30 credits which then last until the rank of Consigliere and set a crew limit on them.) that way maybe the players would have though "oh yeah maybe that would work" - something along the lines.

The last thing anyone here wants is for the admins to lose any money for the years and I have played alongside a lot of these people for 7 or 8 years. You here to create and experiance and you have put years of effort into building this experiance. You could have just as easily put your hardwork and effort elsewhere and probably made a more substantial amount of money but you didn't. You would rather do something that you enjoy and make people happy to get the out of life experiance.

I'm trying to put my thoughts across as best I can here, I know it maybe doesn't make much sense it's 5am here and there no point in me heading of to bed as I have kids to leave to school in a few hours. So I'm sorry if I've said anything to offend.

If I did agree with what is on the streets it's because I did want to see more player based crews rather than a crew of 50 with about 4 players online at a time. All I was thinking about was having more people to communicate with and enjoy the game with.

Thanks Zetsu

Wow, I can't even begin to respond to that beastly thread. It's an excellent read in general, so I won't cherry pick statements to agree/disagree within it. I'll just shoot off on a related tangent.

I'm trying to imagine how the administrative team would respond if the players suddenly banned use of DFPs because they make too much money for everyone. I can't imagine that the response would be any more than a raised eyebrow, a "what? That makes no sense." and letting players do what they do. No skin off anyone's back. Eventually those leaders will die and be replaced by others that don't share the same policy. So the cycle will go. Clearly, this reaction by the administrators is 100% guided by the threat to site revenues.

And let me be clear -- that's 100% fair. This isn't a charity, this is a for-profit game with a staff that has to (1) pay to keep the site online and (2) feed themselves. If something we players do is going to have that effect there is certainly cause for careful review of the situation and some sort of measured response. In the past, for instance, I've been 100% supportive of game changes to protect new players (such as the stat penalty for shooting -48 mobsters). That's because players are here to roleplay as mobsters and not to consider "Hey, how is my roleplaying going to affect this site as a whole?" Players have a set of rules of the game to work within -- admins are there to make sure the rules of the game promote a healthy site. So I wouldn't question in the least reasonable baseline rules (even if lacking perfect in-character justification) which protect the site from financial collapse.

Moreover, I'm certain that players would be willing to work together with admins to come up with some solutions here too. I can't imagine that there's a single player on this site that wants to actively screw over our admins. We love this site. We don't stick around here for hours and hours because we want to tear it down. Everyone has the same goal of a prospering community, we just have somewhat different views of what that prospering community will look like.

That said, I'm going to have to dispense with the lovey-dovey at the end of this speech. I don't see how the administrative action taken here in any way whatsoever could produce desirable results. It's clearly a purely punitive measure, and a product of knee-jerk rage rather than a concerted effort to gently nudge users in the desired direction. In fact, it's not just generally punitive, but punitive against third parties in a way that actually helps and encourages the behavior the administrators should be trying to avoid. What's the message here? If I get to the top, and I use my position to trash the site, the administrators are going to help me stay on top and take out any anger on the other users? That's hardly the message we want to send. There were a lot of better ways to respond to this situation.

tl;dr version? We all need to calm down, think about this situation, and work together to find a solution that addresses the staff's legitimate cash-flow concerns while ensuring players are free to play this game any way they please within the bounds of clearly identifiable rules.

So my eyes are bleeding after reading what I think is the longest thread I've ever read, so pardon me if I don't read the responses right away, and also if I repeat anything others have said.

With that out of the way, I'll have to say that I completely agree with you Sprozza. The admins are taking the GF council's decision way further than they need to. I saw on IRC, one of the administrators said "the users said they don't want anything automated" (I paraphrased, do I apologize if that isn't exactly what was said). I reread the announcement thread, trying to find where this was said. Frankly, I can't find it. However, I did find that the decision was made to outlaw NPMs from families. The admins saw this as a threat to their revenue, and are trying to force a change through coding. They are fighting back, when they could simply use words instead of action. I love this game...as much as I hate to admit it since it has sucked away years of my life, but I do. I love restarting from the bottom and seeing how close I can get to the top. It pains me to see what seems to be a war between the userbase and the admin team. Things have gone too far, all because of a simple decision by the city heads. I personally enjoy the changes, but even if I didn't, I wouldn't take extreme measures to try and change it, as the admins have.

I apologize if I make no sense, but Sprozza has a way of turning my mind and knickers into jelly. These are my opinions, love them or hate them. I agree completely with Sprozza, and I think this has become a personal vendetta because the users, without intent, shallowed the cash flow for the admins.

I have much more to say, but it will have to wait as I already see my boss threatening my job with his eyes. That, and my eyes are continuing to bleed by trying to read what I type on my phone.

Sprozza...call me ;)

I would first like to say that numerous times I've thanked Squishy and other Admins for this game, IRC PM. I completely agree with nearly every word that has been said by Sprozz. In private messages this same sentiment has been expressed by numerous people, I only hope that they as well as others who may feel the same way or oppose this thread will come and express their opinions. Thank you Sprozz, thank you very much.

I expressed my own thoughts as best as I could on irc last night and, as they say, everyone has the logs.

This thread does not perfectly encapsulate my ideas, but I believe that there is some truth here.

Here is what I think - this is related to the theme of the thread but not related to the specific points raised.

I make a donation every month.  For that donation, I get a lot of credits.  BUT, the only reason I know how useful credits are is because I was once a crewleader and made a ton of cash, which I used to buy credits.  This meant that I bought up a big surplus for my next account.  I had a few hundred credits and used them slowly over the course of a year.  Now I buy them with real cash.

The point is this - I amassed a lot of credits without ever paying any real cash - it can be done.  But credits make things easier.  It's a luxury - not a necessity.

Now, my main gripe with the game was admins having CL accounts.  That's been dealt with.  Izzy works seriously hard on this site (and is a gentleman to boot).  Izzy, like all us (adults anyway) need money to live.  I don't have enough time to be a GF let alone run the entire site.  The man works hard - this is a job.  That it is a job he loves doesn't matter.

He needs to earn.  He's open about it. 

This thread was respectful and well written and I applaud Sprozz - but let's not lose sight of the fundamentals.

MSP

but say I went to a Cinema, bought only my ticket and refused to by any of their food and drink, they might be pissed off but they shouldn't be allowed to force me into it by denying/altering other aspects of the service. Well granted, they could, but they'd lose customers!

The point is that it is your choice whether or not to purchase their concessions. No they cannot make you. The point of the npm's is that they were the users choice to use them or not. NO ONE made them. But in your example of the cinema... Were you to stand in front of the concession and tell every single customer they were not allowed to purchase from the concessions either, because you assume that everyone doesn't want to pay the prices for them either and you're just trying to save them money, surely the cinema would haul you out on your ass. So essentially, the Godfather Council bought a movie pass and stood in front of the concessions and said, "I've heard you all complain about the high prices of the concessions and whilst it's nice to enjoy some pop and popcorn during your movie, we care about your well being and we'd rather see you save the money and just watch the movie without any refreshments." And the admins did not kick them out on their ass, they just said, "Fine, you don't want to enjoy your movie with refreshments, surely you don't want to enjoy it in comfy seats either, so we'll install fold up chairs instead." The idea may seem a bit extreme to some, but so is denying paying customers the option to refreshments.

The thing is Cassi, from an IC point of view, there are exactly 19 people who could actually use the NPM feature. This is hardly a figure representative of the entire userbase so the claims that 'the entire game' are being denied usage is way wide of the mark. Sure, you can utilise them in OC's or pickpocket them, but it's only ever the CL's who can actually buy them. Of these 19 people, 6 actively backed the ban on NPMS. Of the remaining 13 players this affected directly in game, rather than indirectly in game, they could surely have raised their concerns or disagreement with their respective city leadesr/godfathers considering these people are among the top 5 most important and well regarded in their cities.

But you're not taking in consideration the up and coming CL's in the future. Also when I was CL I had several members inquire about giving me the credits to purchase NPM's for the crew themselves. So, again, the choice is being removed from the entire userbase. It is not limited to those only in power right now.

I'm not taking into consideration the up and coming CL's in the future anymore than the the GF council would. If they did, we literally never have advancement or progress. Every decision would end up vetoed. 'Hey, what if we made it a side wide rule that you need X minimum posts before you get made?' 'Nah, can't do it, some guys who are CL might not like it in the future'.

That is the worst possible RP of a mobster I can conceive of. It's an immense struggle to reach the top, as you know as well as anyone, and to suggest that in that time frame you're at the top, you shouldn't be allowed to do your thing not only from fear of reprisal from the current userbase, but future players too? That runs against everything the mob, and being a mobster is about.

I hate getting into the whole 'as players we should be able to do what we want with the game' point of vie, as it really does sound quite selfish, uncaring and self centered; but ultimately Grin's statement elsewhere was right, if NPM's were crucial to the running of the game, why were they made an optional feature? Ultimately, the whole situation has been resolved now, with the difference in the way admins will approach the game. (For all the bad publicity, I don't think this is a bad thing, concentrating on new projects will, I think, benefit CS and the community as a whole).

Incidentally, I do accept that that if any of the 13 crewleaders did want NPM's but were overruled by the GF anyway there is not a lot this CL could do. However, it's again worth noting that in the original thread detailing the inception of NPM's, it attracted more criticism than praise. If you used this as a baramoter of the users' feelings on NPMS (I cannot see any other way) then the actions of the GF Council did actually reflect the wider userbases' thoughts.

Ah, but they were taking into account up and coming CL's when they limited growth potential of the cities. So why in one instance yes and why in another instance no?

I'm not suggesting that at all. I do know how hard it is to get there and I wouldn't have agreed to a ban that limited others from doing what they want. Period. Not to mention the fact that because this is a community and because I have taken the time to get to know the admin on a personal basis I would not have agreed to it because I would know that it would take away from them. Game or not, escapism or not, I as a human being with feelings, would have taken all the factors into consideration.

If refreshments are crucial to the running of a movie theater (because I do like this analogy very much, thank you for bringing it into play) then why aren't we guided to the snack bar immediately upon purchasing a ticket? Because it's optional. The admins introduced an optional feature which had the potential to make a profit for both admin and user. If it was so disliked then why was it so widely used??? If you don't like them don't purchase them, it's not that hard of a concept.

And why was it so wrong to use these robots to further ourselves, but it's ok to use MIA's, RIA's and Durdens to further ourselves. They are essentially the same difference. A lazy way of training a gun instead of racing for the small amount of ia's in our world. But everyone seems to be fine with those robots. Ah right, because 2/3 of them are free. I get it.

Ultimately, discussing my personal thoughts on the game policies etc is not really what I wanted to do with this thread but very briefly:

"Ah, but they were taking into account up and coming CL's when they limited growth potential of the cities."

-Where is there proof of limited growth, or anything even remotely indictive of limited growth. You mention limited growth but fail to take in account this GF council have opened an entire city for people to prove themselves and potentially grow, a move not seen for aeons. As for the '4 HQ per city' policy, as yet, it has not limited growth. Only time will tell if it will limit growth and considering the policiy in question is 4 days old, this 'limiting growth' idea is purely supposition. I could just as easily hypothesise that it will benefit growth; as there is only a finite number of places available, that we will see a huge boom in street presence and general activity as people strive to prove their mettle. Either one of us could be right, or we could both be wrong; but to write off a policy 3 days affter inception when I'd guesstimate the average active account length is probably over 3 months is extremely blinkered.

Secondly, to suggest the 'everyone seems to be fine with these robots...because 2/3 of them are free' is implying the only reason the GF council had a problem with NPMs is that they were a paid feature, as though the sole, or at least contributing factor, in banning their use. I'd say the people who've reached these decisions have spent at least a collective 2500 hours on their accounts, and that's an extremely conservative estimate, would they do so only to enact a feature with the end goal of putting the site in jeopardy? No. I won't highlight on the reasons that I believe NPMS were banned from an IC perspective as you can find it plastered all over the streets.

'd say the people who've reached these decisions have spent at least a collective 2500 hours on their accounts

Hours on this character: 1452.91

I applaud you Sprozza for this mammoth thread as clearly a lot of work has gone into it.

Cassi, I would like to address a couple of points you raised;

And why was it so wrong to use these robots to further ourselves, but it's ok to use MIA's, RIA's and Durdens to further ourselves. They are essentially the same difference. A lazy way of training a gun instead of racing for the small amount of ia's in our world. But everyone seems to be fine with those robots. Ah right, because 2/3 of them are free. I get it.

The cost of NPMs was never an issue. I don't know how you came to the assumption that other features are Ok because they are free? Very wide of the mark. My reasons for not wishing to have NPMs used in the game have been stated time and again. Further to that, you may not care, but I don't actually shoot at MIA's or RIAs, sure I may have done so in the past, but other than a spate of boredom last week I hadn't shot an MIA for a long time. I also very seldomly shoot at Durdens, mainly just their Boss tbh. But none of that really matters to you, right?

In fact, all of that is completely so far off the main point its unreal. I'll state again, reasoning on my part for wanting rid of NPMs. The fact remains that having robots in the family didn't, in my opinon, enhance the family at all other than the added financial aspect. It meant that Organised Crimes were no longer Organised, I remember the days when I would meet people I'd never came across before and be actually pleased to be invited to their Crime and thankful for the invite. These days, OC's are done spur of the moment, knowing full well they could find a robot to use in their crime, not only that, the robot helped the chances of their success so people were possibly even more inclined to use said robot INSTEAD of an actual person. That, Cassi, is one major flaw I did not like. Myself and the other City Heads want to help the community get bigger, we want people to interact (imagine that in a RPG?) more.

As for your point about why did people use them if they are so bad? Have you forgot the fact that certain Godfathers encouraged All their leaders to purchase them in their inception? In fact, because I was a new CL back then and couldn't afford them, mine even bought me a bunch because he was so keen for them to be used. They were virtually forced onto the CLs and before long everyone was running around with Robots in double figures and using them to sustain the stupid amount of BGs they had. Fact was, if you didn't have them, you were going to be worse off and no-one in their right mind would let themselves fall behind like that. So obviously everyone used them, not only that it became common place to auth a CL mainly for the use of them to help sustain their BGs.

The decision was taken to have them banned because we agreed that doing so would help us as a community. You may not see that, you may not agree with that, but that was our view. We clearly stated also at the time should any of our choices have the wrong type of impact then we would of course review things. We aren't heartless (except Jesse "The Hulk" James, obviously), we had no intention to harm MR's Business side of things and certainly no intention to personally harm the Admins in any way. Like yourself, i've always had a high regard for our Admins here who do a fantastic job with this place, if I didn't, do you think i'd spend so much time here?

Anyway. I guess thats enough from me at this point. Sorry to detract somewhat from your thread Sprozza, honestly some excellent points you've raised within.