I had a very interesting discussion get started earlier with people in #divinelunacy, including an admin/coder. However, there were a few pressing issues with the gamethat called his attention away and, not wanting to interrupt him and also perhaps get more of a sounding board from others, I think that bringing the discussion here would be beneficial.

First, there will always be people who don't like robots on the basis that they remove importance from the players and player interaction, which is what draws many people to the game. We do, however, have NPCs involved in the game. Go to your "Tips" page and you'll see a tone of Non-Player Characters. The Durdens obviously come to mind, but they're a whole other sphere of debate and serve a completely different function. I think many people are particularly bothered by NPMs because unlike the tip-based NPCs, they don't perform a particular non-player function and unlike Durdens, they aren't just enemy stand ins- they are actually robots replacing them players themselves and fulfilling player functions. Which inevitably makes the money that players earn and players themselves less important. So why do they exist?

I was told that the main impetus, or at least one of the reason, for the creation of NPMs was that it allows new crews to acquire members when they first start up so that it allows them to more quickly play catch up to more established crews/CLs. I may not like robots, but this seems like an EXCELLENT motivation and one that I support. The implementation, however, incorporates flawed logic. An established CL with money/credits can continually replenish their maximum number of NPMs and continue earning automated money. In essence, the NPMs are self replenishing since they provide more money to purchase more NPMs ad infinitum. A new auth doesn't have that initial reserve of money/credits that an established CL does. So instead of SHORTENING the gap between old and new CLs, it's actually WIDENING it and making the problem it's trying to fix much, much worse.

My proposed solution is this. If bridging the gap between established CLs and New CLs was the goal of NPMs, then implement a limited time of hiring NPMs for new auths. For example. Let's say you get authed today. You have a 60 day window to purchase the services of NPMs. After that 60 days, you can't hire any new ones. This perfectly fixes the imbalance addressed in the preceding paragraph, while addressing the main reason for their creation, which is to help newer crews get a jumpstart.

I would also like to tackle one people might suggest in advance, which is that NPMs are a source of credits for the game and limiting them in this way might hurt revenue.

I do not want to take revenue away from the owners of the game. They put in a shitload of time here for our enjoyment and should be rewarded for it. But I propose that limiting NPMs to being purchased within 60 days of auth would not affect credit sales at all. Like I stated earlier, NPMs are self-perpuating. The money you make from buying one will allow you to purchase another when that one expires- every subsequent NPM can be paid for with money created by their predecessor. So the only real new-money purchasing is done with the first NPMs that are hired by a CL. In essence, any credits/money spent on NPMs would still be spent under this limit, while making the game more player-oriented.

Its a decent idea however... you do have to take into consideration.. having a user based family LARGELY depends on new people joining the game. If no one joins the game then it becomes difficult to get new members. And then its getting those new people to stay also.

Its a battle thats really hard to look from both points if you ask me. NPM's pour a little to much money into the game however now they have come in people rely on that money because they have about 1000 BG Armies (exaggerated of course). Also no one can say well in 60 days theres probably of been a war and some users have come back etc.

I say this simply because there are periods at a time where for months on end we don't have any wars. With Izzy making sure that NPM limit fixed.. we shouldn't be seeing ton's of NPM's.

Good points, but I don't think the game is as appealing when you have robot crews and established CLs getting an advantage over newer players when NPMs were supposed to tip the balance in the other direction, according to the admins. Wouldn't this game be more appealing to newcomers with fewer active, player families as opposed to more semi-automated ones?

And saying "well, NPMs allow people to maintain their hella BG armies" is kind of my point. If a CL builds a giant family of productive human beings, they deserve every BG they can afford. But NPMs, I think, are another story entirely.

It's true that for months and months we don't have any wars. Personally, I would prefer if we could somehow find a happy medium between the Wild West days of the past and the current system, where the vast majority of wars engage nearly all the site and happen very infrequently. But that's a whole other discussion.

I just think that you can make the argument for NPMs, as an admin has done, to balance the gap between old/new CLs. But again, the current system is achieving exactly the opposite. And that's not a fair trade for making real human players less important, in my opinion.

Credits are currently 500K each and increasingly difficult for new crews to afford.

This solution, again, would solve the problem of unlimited-timeframe NPMs, which are making the game much less fair.