Actually no, but I couldn't think of an adequate title that might grab your attention either from genuine interest, or from a wtf angle. Anyway, on to the suggestion.

We are losing players, the game is slowly bleeding to death, and whilst its eventual demise may be 5 years down the line, that would be a sad day for a lot of us. I have spoken to some folks, observed others' conversations, and made some observations of my own, and I believe the main problem is Squishy.

Woah, calm your jets, this isn't an admin bashing post, its a serious post. I've devoted almost 20 years of my life to this game, starting April 2001 on .org and continuing about a month after Mafia Returns started, so this isn't an unfounded accusation of interfering, cheating, manipulation or favouritism. Instead I honestly believe that Squishy's generosity is the issue.

Don't get me wrong, we all like free shit, but the amount of free shit is obscene. Credits rain from the sky, targets rain from the sky. Free BGs and hustle points rain from the sky. Money, literally rains from the sky. Even ranking up has become unfathomably easy, and therein lies the problem, the game just isn't challenging anymore. I'm not going to stand here and tell you the game was better 20 years ago, it was, but there are certainly better things now than back then, but do you know what? The game was fun, hard but fun. Often there weren't enough crews for everyone, and you'd maybe cycle through 3 or 4 characters before writing a 'please sir, can I join your crew' mail good enough to get you in. And that was ok, because the game was deadly, and living 2 weeks was often an achievement. It took skilled individuals to train a gun, people raced for targets, becoming a killer was a skill, now? Anyone willing to spend an hour a day split up over the day can easily build a cap killer in a few months, and you will probably live a few months at least.

Sooo, lets take a look at a few things that we need changed to bring the challenge back to the game. 

Godfathers... do away with GFC, just have 1 GF per city, and you have to be in the center district to be it. This makes GF harder to attain unlessbyou are willing to potentially take it by force. The city's GF would have all the powers and abilities of the current GFCs. 

 Cities... i thought long and hard about this, should we cut cities? Should we cut districts, and then I thought no, add more. There are 26 known mafia cities in the continental USA. Vary the travel times between them based on distance, increasing the travel time between the east and west coast over all, making people more inclined to take short hops between neighbouring cities. Empty cities fill with durden like enemies like now, making them dangerous places to be. These unsavories will shoot at your BGs, PP you, mug you, and return fire if fired upon. Due to the rogue element, drug prices would be higher in these cities, giving people a reason to go there. To re-claim a rogue city, you need to set up an HQ and kill the LHM, RHM and CL in that order. Once you set up, the CL will attack you, so you might need a pro or two until you kill all three. You should have a genuine risk of dying trying to lay claim to a wild city, but once you do, the rogue element drifts away returning the city to normal.

Made man... Made man has lost its allure, its just another rank. Gone is the sense of achievement gained with being made. I can be a wise guy with 60 or 75 units and really the only thing i miss out on is the ability to start OCs. Sooo, once you hit WG, you continue to accrue units as normal, just like you would if you had no CA and didn't bribe for drug prices... so essentially your 'Level' would look like this Level : 25 (32) until you make your bones. Also, we need something extra to signify this momentous achievement, perhaps you can only use the in game character pics until you are made, or you can't use animated gifs until made. Nothing major, just a tipping of the hat to acknowledge what you have achieved. This will also perhaps reduce the incidences of people who are homeless, or content to sit at wiseguy. 

Thats all for now... you'll be glad to hear (if you have stuck with me this long you deserve a gift)  i'm not sure if all these make sense or are possible, or warrented or wanted, but i have noticed a certain apathy around here these last couple of years, the apathy that only those who have everything they want handed to them on a plate, and we need some of the difficulty injected back into the game otherwise we will all just grow fat and lazy and bored....

-1 for clickbait title

Julius, c'mon man, would you have read or even clicked on a post that said, lets make the game harder? Or lets get Squishy to stop being so generous?

On the flip side, don't you think the new distance paired with tapering did make things a bit harder? Or has that not been fully realized yet. I think you will notice this more in time, but I did agree with you before this change regarding too many kills too fast etc etc... I do appreciate the scarcity of the old days though, in terms of racing etc. 

The game had advertising off for a while... It shot up about 80 players since that was turned back on about a week or two ago. I expect that to progress more in time. It is also of note that we are awaiting a new version of the game so that may change things a lot in terms of user signups and more advertising.

While the volume of freebies may be higher, the value of them is getting lower. Getting users to click more things (through freebies, through more rogues, more NPCs whatever) keeps people clicking. Click > Reward > Happy > Repeat

As for standards of Made Man, I believe that is an issue best handled by crewleaders. They should have higher standards, and engage their cities and members more to groom them to be part of the upper ranks. More cities and things aren't a bad idea either, but for the time being with the contracted userbase, I don't think it would go too well. 

First Macarena, thanks for taking the time to read and respond, much appreciated.

Ok, the distance aspect may very well add additional difficulty, but that remains to be seen. I know recently I did die on the oposite coast of my home city when I couldn't be hit back home, so there is that. However how much of that was genuinely down to the distance mods and how much was luck only izzy will know. It is a start though, I will grant you that, and it is a step in the right direction. Its one of the reasons i suggested enhancing it further.

Advertising is tricky. How much of the increase is down to advertising, how much random chance and how much existing users returning again only Izzy can say. I'd love to run the numbers to see how effective advertising is. I haven't ever seen an advert for MR, and thenlast time I saw anything was in FHM back in 2001 (.org). I hope we get abhuge influx of players once V2 goes live, I just hope that enough of the games regulars remain to entice new players to stay. 

I disagree that the value of the freebies has decreased. Credits still sell for around 500k at a time and you still need about 1200 kills to be a cap killer.  Especially when we see players getting an addition 10 or 15 kills a day from RATs and Rogues as well as collecting, $2-300 of free credits per account. This drive to get people on IRC I believe is also partly responsible for the reduction in street and BD activity, its nigh on inpossible to maximise your RaT kills and credit grabs and post huge stories or posts in the forums. I spoke to anplayer recently who admitted that they lost out hugely by spending the day on the streets compared to what they would have got from sitting in Main. Whilst you are correct that newer players certainly will get that serotonin spike from clicking and getting a reward, I don't think anyone here over a few years gets that same buzz. Much like a drug addict they simply need more freebies than ever to get any.more of a buzz. It doesn't mater how many new players sign up, if the last of the established players go, this game will never recover.

As for made men, I'm jot complaining about peoe just handing the rank out, I'm complaining about the loss of desire for people to bother achieving the rank. I can earn just as much as a 50 unit WG, as I can as a MM, Capo, boss or consig. Sure if you want to be anCL you must go for the rank, butbif CL isnt your goal, then its an unnecessary hassle. The benefits for sitting at WG right now, far outstrip the rewards, and thats beyond the CLs to fix. If its not impossible for them to fix, then its impossjble for every single CL at present to fix. Realistically, can you make any suggestion to me, as a disengaged WG, as to why I should push to get Made or Capo or Boss?

Julius, c'mon man, would you have read or even clicked on a post that said, lets make the game harder? Or lets get Squishy to stop being so generous?

Of course! I read all of the latest threads. Anyways, I don't have 20 years in but I have half of that and if I recall correctly people in the past often complained about the game being too pay to win. As it is now, the generosity helps those who can't afford to buy their way to the top. Personally, I think this makes the game more competitive not any easier. You still have to network and position yourself with the right people to get anywhere. If you're a hardcore player with a lot of free time on your hand then chances are you've been killed in the past for your lounge activity. And with anonymity starting to roll back who's to say those dark days won't return some day?

I have always personally found it a bit weird that it's good CL etiquette to ask a Wise Guy if they are playing with the dead before promoting them.   And furthermore, the percentage of people that prefer not to get made (at least at that time) because they want to finish graverobbing achievements or sometimes flatly state they prefer to stay at wise guy so there's a better chance of them not being taken down in a takedown.

So I do agree with the part of the suggestion to add some in-game benefits to getting made and/or the unit adjustment you mentioned.

I like the idea of CLs setting higher standards for made but I feel it's a different discussion when a large portion of players simply prefer not to get made.  And to be honest, I understand why they don't.   Between the graverobbing  achievements and likelihood of not being killed by a rogue or in a war, the risk/reward for being made isn't there for some people.     Increasing the reward portion of the equation I think would help.    

 This drive to get people on IRC I believe is also partly responsible for the reduction in street and BD activity, its nigh on inpossible to maximise your RaT kills and credit grabs and post huge stories or posts in the forums. I spoke to anplayer recently who admitted that they lost out hugely by spending the day on the streets compared to what they would have got from sitting in Main.

When I am at my most active when it comes to posting, I get more from VIP than I have ever managed to get in Main on an average day. Main credits have cool downs, and depending when you are active your odds are not great at getting more than 1-2.

Frances was averaging 15 VIP a day and about 5 credit grabs. And that account had probably about 8 posts a day if that?

Basically as someone who never shuts up in IRC so I get the stupid amount of kills and free credits, when I feel like Posting I find the time because I enjoy it. So I wouldn't blame the slowdown on activity on that.  

On the flip side, don't you think the new distance paired with tapering did make things a bit harder? Or has that not been fully realized yet. I think you will notice this more in time, but I did agree with you before this change regarding too many kills too fast etc etc... I do appreciate the scarcity of the old days though, in terms of racing etc

 Distance is not as severe as people make it seem. Tapering is why people miss those close shots. They believe the shot to be close when in actuality they are not even in range of  hitting said target.   It's hard to self govern in this case when it relies on information you cannot gurantee to be accurate.     People simply dont test because they dont shoot.

I see everyone saying how easy it is too build. Yet 90% of the game is still playing as if it's my little pony. I feel as if the easy to build saying is not be relatable to people who are actively shooting when they had big guns. So much easier to build yet people are living much longer . The community chooses that direction.  

GUNHOKING - have you heard of any shots being missed in embarrassing circumstances recently? 

Yes my shot in your mothers mouth :O. She's not a swallower much training to do. 

An attempt at deflection, GUNHOKING, and typically basic and classless.

I was, of course, referring to your late, lamentable father, Monster, and his EPIC FALURE when he missed a shot on WendyRhoades and was executed for it.

To: GUNHOKING
From: Rocky
Sent: Sep 23, '21 06:49
Subject:

You know Clank, I think we may have more in common than we might think.

We both speak our minds and tend to upset snowflakes. I can't imagine us being buddies, but perhaps we could bury the hatchet?

I'm guessing we could be useful to each other, maybe not right now, but at some stage in the future.

I apologize for ignoring your mail. 

GUNHOKING - apology accepted. 

It is a text based game in 2021. Times change. 

solskjaer  I would to see the game be more competitive by information and skill sadly. The rest of the userbase does not want that.  I did want to ask do you think with how fast pace things have been,  that people could ever revert back to what you suggested. I believe it would kill the population tremendously.