I propose the removal of these NPM players. It makes it much harder for sponsors to get associates. Or take another route and add to them A tag Such as the ones the RIA/NPC/MIA characters carry so People will know which to try to talk with and which to avoid. This would save several players,like myself, The embarrassment of having their owners/CLs Mail you saying only that the player is an NPM

I think this might also be a good thing though. Because CL's can see how button men are trying to recruit. It might actually bring up the quality of recruitment mail that is sent out. I can tell you from experience from reading my bloodlines journals that they hate recieving cut and paste letters from made men. It's lazy and it should emberass the person sending out the letters and the family. Im not saying you do that, but i know of alot of people who do.

Maybe if you weren't stoned, you would know the difference.

I agree with the first sentence of StonedSage's suggestion: to remove the NPM players.

I've still yet to learn what they offer the site. If the admins are doing this in order to generate more revenue to cover operating costs I can understand the need to bring in new features that help to cover the growing maintenance fees of running this game. I do not begrudge the people who put in time and effort to code and maintain this game as they devise new ways to make it profitable.

However, this addition, as I've made my opinion clear in the actual game change thread, does nothing to advance the game in any way. There are far too many nonplayer accounts in the game already with the implementation of the Durden family, and THESE player characters inflate our population and our economy without providing any true benefit to the advancement of MafiaReturns.

We should be focusing on INCREASING REAL PLAYER numbers on this site (and yes, I realize that happens with advertising which costs money. Again. I'm not opposed to pay features on this site to help increase revenues) and real player social interaction and forum usage. I myself have proposed a few minor changes to the system to help this happen in the other thread and would love to see the great minds of this game come up with alternative solutions to help this game grow in popularity, size, and quality while helping the administration financially without artificially inflating population and throwing our game economy more off kilter than it already is.

I know how hard the developers and coders work on this site, and often their efforts go unappreciated. For the true fans of this site who recognize the potential and feel so passionately about changes like this, please understand that we do appreciate your efforts greatly, and many of us are surprised and disappointed to see such a step backwards in the game development with the addition of this feature, not because we are stuck to the 'old ways' but that change for change's sake is rarely the right answer.

pay to play would pretty much kill this game.

No one said anything about pay to play, Fritz. There are already features on this site that you can use with the credit marketplace which are accessible through real dollars or sold in game using mafia money. Putting in more optional features (as this one is) that can be purchased using credits don't make the game pay to play.