Question: When was the last time anyone was killed as a result of a hit being placed on them?

Answer: So long ago that I've forgotten.

Therefore: This change will not extenuate the tenure of anyone.

That appears to be getting missed amidst the cries of favouritism.

~C~

Mr. Chuckle. I don't think it's all to do with the actual death of someone who has been placed upon the hitlist. It's more to do with draining a targets money and maybe setting them up for a BG wave or other things. If they just paid out 200 mill to buy out a hit, they're less likely to be able to repair/buy new BG's after.

Im not trying to sound ignorant about this but this is how I see it.

From as long as I can remember there was an underlying philosophy around these streets which stated "If you dont like how things are run, rank up and do something about it". And people did rank up and try to do something about it when they believed that things were going in a crazy direction.

Well, things have been about as crazy as I care to remember. And things have been as unrestful as I care to remember. Olive branches are being offered that are nothing short of an unrealistic appeasement. I truly have nothing against the people at the top. Seriously, I actually like Roman, and I think hes doing a fine job of running Chicago. I do believe though that he is somewhat misguided in his approach but Im not there any more and I dont have to live under it.

It does however sadden me to see code changes being put in place which further separate the masses from the few already at the top. I contribute into this site regularly, by and large I mind my own business, I rank up, I play the game. But I have found myself totally in a cul de sac of boredom time and time again because there is no circle of life here any more. The same people are sitting at the top all the time and theres less room being made for new faces and new approaches and ideas.

Before you jump down my throat about the new faces that are here. Yes, there are new faces but theyre not the kind of people who are determined enough to speak out and make changes and sit there like quiet little lambs afraid to open their mouth in case they are swallowed up whole by the bigger fish who are pulling their strings. Its boring and its stagnant and its getting more boring and stagnant every day. And these new "changes" that I see happening seem to cement the stagnation even more rather that change things for the better.

Im not saying the people on top dont deserve to be there. I dont believe that for a second. But this place looks more and more like a business school every day. What once would lead to war is all settled now with an under the table cash amount. Please. please. PLEASE, can we have our OLD GAME BACK. Im begging you.

I wont ever say another word about this because im sick to the teeth of always having something bad to say. It really is nothing personal Squishy. I love what you have done over the years to this place. But I really believe you have been way off the mark recently and putting too much emphasis on what the few want, rather than the masses. And you can choose to not listen mate and you can choose to keep handing out these olive brances of nothingness, but eventually the majority of players will get fed up and will walk away and you will be left with a handful of IWP players who end up playing with themselves all day (no pun intended) because nobody else wants to know.

"I want to see hits in the game, which is why I felt this was a better solution than the 1.25x buy off.

"Are you suggesting that people who don't want the hits up, want a higher buy out rate, so they suggested this to be added?"

Well the hitlist has been the same for years when it comes to the buying out a hit. So why change it?

All I'm saying is the financial strain that it takes to buy off a hit, is the targets problem not yours. If it cost them a few bucks to get rid of the hit then so be it.

A little addition...

I believe changing the hitlist has been a knee-jerk reaction to the recent large hits that have been placed as you (Squishy) stated that you didn't want people to have to swipe a credit card to get ahead/stay ahead, but the thing with that statement is... they didnt HAVE to swipe their credit card to buy off the hit.

Let's use the the hit on Chade as an example as it was the biggest one we've seen... now I'm not sure if Chade swiped a credit card to be able to buy off the hit but for arguments sake let's assume he did. Now... the buy off for the hit was just over 200 million. Chade is a powerful boss out of Las Vegas (now a Godfather) who ran a family with 40+ members, he could have chose to wait to gather the money from his family, his city and himself. I have seen his wealth status as "Obscenely Rich" more than once so it's obviously not so difficult to get to 100 million, so why would 200 million be so much harder that he had to swipe his card? The fact is... it wasn't hard, he CHOSE to take off the hit in that way. He could have waited for his city to gain the money via game play means, he could have got to 150 million and asked one of the money men (Premeir, Roman, Alabama and Grif to name a few) for a loan of 50 million, which with the correct interest rates in place I'm sure one of them (or maybe 2 of them together) could have got him the money and the hit could have been bought off that way. Instead, he CHOSE to swipe his card. There WERE other viable options, he just chose what he deemed to be the easiest one.

I believe that in changing the hitlist you have throttled off what could have been an entirely new aspect of gameplay... loan sharking. To say this is supposed to be the mafia, we are missing one of the biggest operations of organised crime in giving out dirty loans.

I'm not angry that you have decided to change this feature, more... disappointed that you didn't give it some time to see how it would play out. Let's not forget, Roman had a hefty hit out on him at one point and he didn't have to swipe his card to pay it off. He rallied his city around and within a VERY short space of time had the money to take the hit off.

"Question: When was the last time anyone was killed as a result of a hit being placed on them?

Answer: So long ago that I've forgotten.

Therefore: This change will not extenuate the tenure of anyone. "

Reply by: Chuckle at Sep 21, '11 10:42

That's just it, when has the hit list EVER led to someone's death? We had one Crew Leader in NY a few months back (started with an A, think it was an admin's character) who had a few multi-million dollar hits placed on him that sat there for months. Months! Crew leaders, Godfathers, and even ordinary mobsters aren't going to drop dead simply because a hit was taken out on them. Making the listing go away so it doesn't have to be bought off makes no sense when it can safely be ignored.

Chade had a hit of over 100 million placed on his head. Point. Did anyone take the shot? How many here seriously contemplated taking the shot? The hit likely would have sat there for months on end like all the hits before it.

I completely agree with Kev's last post, he hit the nail smack bang on the head.

I like Axe's idea though of the hit reducing over time, so long as it is not too much.

I have a suggestion for everyone on the site...Why don't you let a feature run for a while before making premature decisions about the quality of said feature? You don't know how people will use the feature, you don't know how it will work to change the playing dynamic, and I highly doubt there is a single person playing this game that can see the future.

All I'm saying is that changes are, for better or worse, only going to make things better if we figure out what works and what doesn't, and we won't do that if we don't give them a try.

You can highlight any negatives you see, but don't get huffy and offended if we don't jump to change them, because frankly any negatives you have "found" in these changes, we have already considered. We don't make these changes lightly.

As for people thinking that we make changes to make it easier for those at the top to stay at the top, frankly I'm offended by the suggestion. When I write code for this game, I put my integrity on the line with every single character I type, and I will never compromise my integrity over someone's miniscule progress in an online game.

So to summarize, allow the features to run before completely condemning them, trust that we have already considered any negatives, and trust that we will never place imaginary rankings before the good of the game.

Well no offence but I don't need a crystal ball to see that I will not like to put a 100 million hitlist in the future to be gone in 24 hours if i decide not to invest more into it, I beleive that's what people are trying to point out. If the people who usually invest in hitlists, are not willing to continue on doing, this feature can turn hitlist into a non used game feature. It's a valid point thats being brought up by the users.

Hitlists definately make things more interesting, no one can deny that. Things are so so quiet usually, that any little shit hitlist makes the excitement of the week, which in my opinion, is one more reason to make it last more!! However I don't think 1% is much, and for most hits I can totally see people paying the fee to keep it up, so we shall see.

One thing I must say though, since this is not being coded based on reality, I would love to see back the - If the hitlister dies, the hit is gone - That added more fun to it, specially in cases of multiple hits, when suspect lists are made, it can add conflict to the game and more excitement. I remember times when certain leaders were trully determined to kill everyone in suspect list if the hitlister didn't show up. Good times!!

Anubis, I don't think anyone is questioning the integrity of anyone working for the game. People are simply saying that they beleive the changes made are the wrong ones in their opinion, another way would be better. You have discussed at length (in private) how you think these changes will affect the game, no harm in letting everyone else do the same in an area where educated feedback is given.

Personally, I think a little bit more conflict in the game would be a good thing, I like Katarina's point of reverting to how the hitlist used to work as it did add that little bit of fun to things.

Kev, the people at the top are generally there because they work harder than most everyone else, but just like Scottish football, if the same people are constantly at the top, people do lose interest. It's a fine line between rewarding peoples effort and making everyone more involved. In saying that, I agree that things are (and have been) stagnant for a while now and it is something that needs addressing.

This is where I become completely useless however as I don't have a potential solution for this. I think the BG cap is a great start, but as I mentioned already, I don't beleive this hitlist change is the way forward.

Maybe it's clearly stated and I missed it, but is there a way to know exactly when the hitlist will expire?

I didn't think to pay attention to that when Squishy's test hit was up.

Hi Axe, yes I think I recall seeing an expire date on the test hits, to tell you know when you have to 'top up' by. Was typed in a small font, so easy to over look

Not 100% certain though, so I may be wrong