I really would like a detailed explanation of how a crew can become better without using NPMs. I mean be real here for a second. NPMs in no way shape or form should hurt a crew, if your crew became better it's because you pulled your head out and did something, not because you banned NPMs. Put that one to rest.

I believe familys/crews will become better without the NPMs, for one it encourages interaction for the members to actually arrange such things as Organised Crimes. Right now, these OCs aren't organised, they are done at the drop of a hat because 99 times out of 100 there are NPMs readily sitting there to do it with you.

I remember doing the OCs with a group of people, I remember being invited to others OCs and actually talking to the person that invited me and getting to know them because of it. Now, people don't seem to give much consideration to those they invite. They take it for granted because its so easy to do, its not organised at all.

Thats just 1 small point that was behind my decision to agree to the removal of NPMs.

Did Admins ever think of approaching the Godfather Council and explaining that they had an issue with this move and explain the impact they believed it would have? Not that I know of. Why is it the User base at the top are being villified for doing In Game actions? I have no problem with other users pointing out problems with anything we do, but Admins collectively making out we are the bad guys here really disappoints me, it really does.

I have played MR since its inception, and .org before that. Ive been around these streets for close to 10 years and during that whole time how long have NPMs been necessary? I understand the need for growth, especially when the Game became a business for our Admins as opposed to a hobby, but I feel its pretty low to attack the User base for making in game decisions like this. The moves were made for the betterment of the community, many many many people agree with it, seems others don't, though I didnt hear these people speaking up prior to the admins changes. Is it that they didn't feel they could? Who knows. I know for a fact i've always had an open door policy and a willing ear to listen to everyone and anyone who may wish to share a concern with me.

As stated before hand in streets, The Godfather Council aren't Tyrants or Dictators, they make the choices they feel will help the overall community and the betterment of the users, sure, we maybe didn't consider financial implications involved, but we aren't privy to that information so we aren't to know what kind of financial impact such a move would make to the world. We stated previously (much like admins) that should it prove we've made a wrong move then we'd hold our hands up and review it, right now there has been no change, the NPMs are still alive at present, there is no way for us as Users to see the difference, yet the Admins annuoncemnt has swayed other Users into automaticly thinking we've ruined their game without any actual impact as yet. Great.

Uh... The NPMs are dead now and have been for a while Alabama.. They were retired and those who had them were paid out as per Kendra's informative mail...

Check out the obits.

Erm k... Myt post isn't showing up..

Anyway.. Alabama, if you had read your mail or looked at the obits you would have seen the NPMs are in fact retired and those who had them have been compensated.

Sorry for the duplicate posts.. Forums kinda didn't show me a page two now they do and I'm just going to sit in my corner and eat popcorn.

Mona, I'm sure you appreciate it took a couple of seconds to provide my response to the thread. I wasn't aware until soon after that the NPMs were in fact being culled as per Kendra's mail.....

Are we really in a situation where one decision on a game related issue has thrown everyone into a high state of disgruntlement?

The NPMs weren’t a good idea as they stood.  They were a financial crutch for an obscene amount of bodyguads, diluted the CL experience as Grin has already stated and papered over the cracks about gaming numbers.

When they came in, there was a limit I believe of 10 per CL.  Stamina has just had 15 retire en masse or a third of his family. At the height of the Premier/Roman hegemony the credit sales must have been good.  Rather than using the rejection of NPMs as the cue to focus on something else, why not use the feedback and find a way of either getting NPMs to work or come up with ways of credit use. 

Durden mapping is one for a start.  What’s with that?  You’re giving huge amounts of information away that (a) spoon feeds the masses and (b) is shared among many people who don’t have access anyway.  Durdens were shot fine beforehand.  Why not give the NPMs a role?  You say they're old hands helping a brother out but ready to retire?  Really?

My father suggested making them de facto bankers for the family however there are many many different ways they could be used.  Eyes and ears on the streets.  The families don’t have to have them but they get more reliable info by having them.  Need locals on Tweek?  “Hey TontoBurrito, have you seen heard anything about Tweek?  Yeah boss, that lowlife was last seen hanging in Las Vegas recently.  Thanks Tonto here’s something for your trouble.”  Cha-ching, there goes a credit on top of those used to hire.  If you don’t have the NPM you don’t have access to the info unless you have someone with vision answers.  “Got a Durden location?  Yeah BillyNomates is in Philly.”  Another credit.  Again, have people with vision and there is no need to have the NPM but once more the users have the choice.  They can then be crucial or not in a wartime situation…who knows.

If all you want is a way to get people using credits then something like this works.  The same feature is used for locating bodyguards so why not do the same for Durdens but I don’t think it’s worth giving up on the game just because you aren’t getting what you want which is what it looks like.

The only thing i have to say is that Ive been around in many incarnations for over 10 years. In that time the Admins have always had the best interests of the game at heart and since Izzy and the other Admins have to eat and this is their Full time job that requires people buying credits. Now you say that give it a month, They Can't. MR operates on a week to week payrole. So they literally have to react quickly to a move that will remove half their income.

The fact of the matter here is a group of people, not even 1% of the community here, has now decided what I can do with MY money. Whether you spend real life money, or buy credits with in game cash, credits are still $1 USD. Now if 10 people in the city/town/village what ever your municipality may be, decided that you can now no longer spend your money as you please, you would be up in arms about it.

If YOU don't like NPMs, then YOU don't have to buy them. Nothing has ever FORCED YOU to buy them. YOU can choose to not spend YOUR credits on "robots". However, others have decided to spend THEIR money on them. If a crew leader decides that they would rather stack their family with NPMs, let that be THEIR choice. If it becomes their demise so be it. If you are a good enough leader you won't need to buy them you'd be having more people knocking on your door for invites than you have space for. I've seen it first hand.

Yes, NPMs were first received with a bit of hesitance, but were not MIAs treated the same way when they were introduced? You've grown to embrace MIAs over time, why not let time tell the story on NPMs too?

I join with the masses here and say, If it will keep the wonderful admin staff that we have here, then bring on the NPMs!

I cant say i ever mix with the admins in 9 and a half years of org and this I generally just plodded along.  I have talked to some of the helpdesk staff who i have worked alongside so the general change wont make much difference to me.  I understand a structure and delegation is the only way for an organisation to succeed as i have had to over the last 10 years to make my own company succeed before i sold up.

I understand also a big pull of finance from the game can hurt it unless other things come into play to bring money in, however someone just looking round wanting to join dont want to see they have to pay a fortune to maintain their game play.   I know i make my credits through in game transactions only but after seeing at some stages 400 npms at 10 credits a time, i thought over a year that would be a nice sum.  Watching the NPM rate fluctuate with wars though around the 200 mark at stages i still thought a nice lil earner.  Whats been the more shocking is the amount of threads that appeared almost immediately from the admins regarding ria's, durdens and then moving away and some of the conspiracy theories of how leaders would mysteriously die in gun accidents or lucky shots.

The truth is most of the time the game runs smoothly, guides are layed out and families are there to teach members, if a bug occurs there is still someone to solve it.  As for game developments some have been delayed before even the npm's were withdrawn or new features people seemed to reject or deem useless like being able to move to a city as wg to set up.  The truth is though cant please all the people all the time, and never will be able too.

What a sad state we are in right now. I can't help but echo what has already been said in this thread. Let's be realistic for a second...there are very few MR Staffers who have appropriately represented MR in IRC and these IG forums. I've let it slip multiple times my negative opinions on certain people and how they treat the players of the game, the customers that keep this product alive.

The community is what has kept this game alive, not the coding and advances madei IG. I know I'm not alone when I say that some people who have been chosen to represent our MR community as staffers hurt the community more than they help the community. It seems there have been some serious changes these last few days. As an outsider, I must say it certainly looks like many of what has been decided was not very well thought out. Again, I'm an outsider and have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. 

Funding full time employees from a community that comes back because of the community may or may not have been the right thing to do. The fact is though, it is the reality. As stated earlier though, you're living on a prayer considering your financial income is not hard-coded into the game. You're now relying on In Game characters to make or break the financial status of MR...this is probably a bad thing.

I'm also not blind to or ungrateful for what those in the MR upper structure have done for the game. No doubt, countless hours...on and off the clock...have been poured into this game. The dedication of HelpDesk personnel working because they love the game. The various senior players assisting new members for the sake of the game. There are many people on both sides of the fence working very hard on a regular basis to make this game great. But now, over these last few days, the foundation is starting to crumble. The root of all evil? Money.

To simply throw your hands up and walk away is also a bad thing. Admins and players alike are taking things a little too far over these last few days. I think we all just need to take a step back for a minute, breath, and re-engage the situation at hand.

" I know I don't want to do any lasting damage to this and as a player I shouldn't have that option to. No player should. "

I think this is the key point right here.

As somewhat stated in that same speach, users control what can and can't be done, if they decided tomorrow that every -48 hour old player would be shot for the next week, then it would be so, it might not benefit them but it would be in their power to make this decision and enforce it, just as it has done with the NPM's.

People felt there was a problem with the NPM's and so they were banned from use by the GF council. Some families would have to generate a lot of money in game or enough out of game to buy these NPM's and so those with hefty wallets would be at an extreme advantage if they were running a crew, now as a player I find this unfair, there was a limitation put on the mia's why couldn't there be one on the number of NPM's you can create? I think it's also unfair for most of the players to point the finger at the GF council and say it's their fault for the admins leaving and for the admins not generating a steady income anymore.

Coming back to this:

"I know I don't want to do any lasting damage to this and as a player I shouldn't have that option to. No player should."

We also shouldn't have an option to mess with the admins incomes, as players it is in our control to do so but I think it's too great a risk for the admins to do this and now an idea that probably seemed like a good one however long ago has now backfired unfortunately.

Bare in mind I am new to all this, so if im going wrong somewhere and making a plonker of myself then please inform me.

Anyways, as I was saying I think making a game like this into something that you expect to generate an income off was a very risky thing to do. For many of us, for years of playing, money didn't come into it and so even now a lot of people won't put money into the game, however no doubt you have some people who are willing to chuck in some spare money they have from previous wages or whatever.

Personally, I think if you do want a steady income from a game like this then you will need to turn it into something else, a game where you have to pay to register or pay to earn ranks or some other ludicrous ideas like that, but with that in mind do you really have the numbers to do this? I think it's doubtful. I can't imagine it's a majority % that invests into this game, but then again I don't have those statistics I can only assume. Therefore the only option is to keep it how it is and maybe introduce a new feature(s) that can not be over exploited by those with large sums of money lying around. I'm sure if we put our heads together we could work on this, alas it would seem the admins have cut off their noses to spite their faces and begun with whatever it is this new project is about.

Also, how is it the game is being taken out of beta mode when they're are still features in the game not fully working? Will stock markets be scrapped? They were initially a great idea for me as they made the business district of the game a little more exciting, unfortunately they were not returned to us, which for me is a little sad.

As I said I'm new so I'm just trying to piece together what I've learnt recently from various sources, if I've gone wrong somewhere, let me know.

For too long, the "good of the game" has been on the shoulders of CLs and GFs. I think in some ways, the Admin Team has taken us for granted. With solid leadership that always kept "what's good for the game" close to their hearts, things never took a nasty turn. In my opinion, holding the players responsible for the financial instability after an in-game decision to stop using a single feature is absurd. You cannot count on players always financially supporting the game, because each of them is only playing a game. No players are here to keep a small business afloat.

That's what it comes down to; we are here to play a game. You cannot "bank" on the good nature of the players. We aren't always going to be very honorable in our in-game decisions.

Also, does this mean we're essentially closing the Game Suggestions forum?

What I do not understand is people basically saying 'boohoo the admins.' Well let me tell you something, the admins/coders, as they will openly admit, are not volunteers, like the helpdesk operators, they take a salary out of the game. This game is essentially their job. And it is their business model. There reliance on short term features. There reliance on a few big spenders. There reliance on a single feature to generate their salaries. The game, with its current user base, is not big enough to be peoples main source of income.

The coders have taken the right decision to concentrate on other areas to build their income. As FlameOfUdun says, a text based RPG can only go so far. It is dated. It is hard to attract new players. Therefore, the coders who need to get paid need to move forward. Get a new project. Design something new. Although I do disagree when FlameOfUdin blames the council for this. The game was not growing.

Yes, the admins have worked hard making the game what it is today. BUT THEY HAVE BEEN PAID TO DO THIS.

Bankers work hard, and wrong decisions cost them their jobs. You have no sympathy. The coders worked hard, and wrong decisions mean that the game is no longer profitable for them, and you have sympathy. I do not understand it.

I have played this game for years, and whilst I do not want to come across as an arsehole, Izzy has made the right commercial decision to move his team onto a new product. Everything has a shelf life. This is potentially MRs shelf life. Like with most businesses, the next idea is usually better and more profitable then the current one, as the owners learn from mistakes. The same will happen here. I am sure the new project will be bigger and better then MR.

Despite this, I will still play on. Still enjoy a free game. Now the onous is on us, the players, to make it better. I have always been a big believer that when someone go's bold, not only do they take on a job of a leader, they have to progress the game as well. The GF Council removing the NPMs might be seen as a step back, but I am sure it will lead to 2 steps forward. Better leaders. A fairer playing field. More exciting game play. More users.

My only worry is the recent removal of NPMs as an option. People who had a problem with the ban on NPM's couldve 'ranked up and done something about it.' They can no longer do this. Removing NPMs as an option is a mistake.

To Izzy and his coding team, good luck on the new project. To us, the players, our destiny is in our own hands. We have a good game, which doesnt need muchmoney to run now. Lets do our best!

Also, I advise EVERYONE to read Stamina's post. It is exactly right.

I believe familys/crews will become better without the NPMs, for one it encourages interaction for the members to actually arrange such things as Organised Crimes. Right now, these OCs aren't organised, they are done at the drop of a hat because 99 times out of 100 there are NPMs readily sitting there to do it with you.

I remember doing the OCs with a group of people, I remember being invited to others OCs and actually talking to the person that invited me and getting to know them because of it. Now, people don't seem to give much consideration to those they invite. They take it for granted because its so easy to do, its not organised at all.

Thats just 1 small point that was behind my decision to agree to the removal of NPMs.

I've yet to talk to anyone who I've invited or who has invited me to a crime today. Nobody can do anything to fix this but me either, sooooooooo.....? (I havent had a problem finding people in the city either)

Did Admins ever think of approaching the Godfather Council and explaining that they had an issue with this move and explain the impact they believed it would have? Not that I know of. Why is it the User base at the top are being villified for doing In Game actions? I have no problem with other users pointing out problems with anything we do, but Admins collectively making out we are the bad guys here really disappoints me, it really does.

Did the council approach them before banning the use of one of their creations that happened to earn the site money? Seems like a few people did something that would effect the actual site and forced everyone else to comply. They should have went to yall as much as yall should have went to them. The admin team had no sway on my opinon, that's just me though.

I have played MR since its inception, and .org before that. Ive been around these streets for close to 10 years and during that whole time how long have NPMs been necessary? I understand the need for growth, especially when the Game became a business for our Admins as opposed to a hobby, but I feel its pretty low to attack the User base for making in game decisions like this. The moves were made for the betterment of the community, many many many people agree with it, seems others don't, though I didnt hear these people speaking up prior to the admins changes. Is it that they didn't feel they could? Who knows. I know for a fact i've always had an open door policy and a willing ear to listen to everyone and anyone who may wish to share a concern with me.

How many new features have been implemented recently compared to .org? (honest question, only been playing since 09) I'd guess to say more. Have the servers and everything expanded?

How could it not become a business? People are working for free to get things resolved and others are still possibly taking a financial hit at times to keep the site itself going. Do you see that as fair? No, it's not. Especially when it's the user base they're doing it for trying to take money away from the game. If there's a slight inconvenience that helps the game maintain some extra income to keep things smooth, why would you wanna fuck with that? I fail to understand it.

As stated before hand in streets, The Godfather Council aren't Tyrants or Dictators, they make the choices they feel will help the overall community and the betterment of the users, sure, we maybe didn't consider financial implications involved, but we aren't privy to that information so we aren't to know what kind of financial impact such a move would make to the world. We stated previously (much like admins) that should it prove we've made a wrong move then we'd hold our hands up and review it, right now there has been no change, the NPMs are still alive at present, there is no way for us as Users to see the difference, yet the Admins annuoncemnt has swayed other Users into automaticly thinking we've ruined their game without any actual impact as yet. Great.

Why would you see yourself as tyrants? It's the opinion of others that matter on that subject. You know what would be good for the community? Worrying about the actual people who make it up, not game features.

"...the admins/coders, as they will openly admit, are not volunteers, like the helpdesk operators, they take a salary out of the game. This game is essentially their job."

Wrong.

Belle and FrankieFigs do not get a salary as far as I know.. And I know for a fact that in the oh 6 years or so that I was an administrator I never, EVER took a dime as a form of payment. I wasn't paid for my time as Izzy's bitch on .org either. It wasn't a job, it was my hobby. My escape from reality, the same as it is for you. I volunteered my time. It's only in the past year or so people have been paid for their services as employees.

"Yes, the admins have worked hard making the game what it is today. BUT THEY HAVE BEEN PAID TO DO THIS."

Wrong. No one was paid up until .. Oh wait I already said it.

They do it because they LOVE it. This game didn't start out paying anyone.. Hell it was a cost not a profit. It's only in the past couple of years it's turned any money in that could be reinvested into the game in the form of hiring three people...

How would I know? I was one of the first admins other than Mario and FullMetal. I have quite literally been here since the beginning. I've watched it grow from 10 people to 400+ people. I've watched it go through boom and bust times. This is not me tooting my own horn, this is me explaining HOW I know what I say is true. In fact, we had a USER named Bunny volunteer to pay for our hosting at one point because we were desperate and broke and needed somewhere that provided more bandwidth for a reasonable cost as the game was growing and our host cut us off basically. She helped us out by doing this so the game could continue being operational.

How do you know what it needs financially? You know the legal costs? Bandwidth... Servers... Maintenance.. You know every dime of overhead it carries with it? Do you really think that it's free/cheap to run this place? Do you think a second server to handle the database is free? Do you think the rackspace to host it is free? Do you think the bandwidth it will use is free? Do you think registering the trademark and protecting the game was free? Do you think replacement parts for servers are free? You talk as if these people are making thousands off of this game. It barely supports itself and those who are lucky enough to see a paycheck for the work they do. Ask mario how much he's seen for his work, he created the damn thing.

None of the admins started this because they wanted money.. It was a hobby that they loved that grew into more.

For the longest time Izzy paid out of his own pocket to keep shit going.. The advertising, the hosting, the hardware... If you've been playing for "years" you'd know all of this.

If it was about money there'd be a helluva lot more pay to use features that would give those who did invest in them the upper hand.

Oh and for the record.. I was FlameOfUdun and I said that without further development the game would go no further and die off like the dinosaurs... Not that the game style was antiquated.

Powerful people telling weaker people what they can do is what the game boils down to. The action is yours, the reaction is not, right? Can't handle that? Find another game that isn't about the Mafia because this one is and that is our god damn advertising slogan.

If the action taken by the Godfather Council wasn't allowed...why was it allowed? That is so obvious. If you can do something, you can do it and if you can't do something, you can't do it. Don't make this optional and the crisis is averted and the meltdown prevented. If it is optional, which it was, shut the fuck up and get better at the game to change the things you don't like.

All these cyclical arguments about how it is wrong to force people into what they can and can't do are ridiculous and redundant. How long until you decide it is wrong to need authorisation to setup? How long until you decide it is wrong to need a family rather than going unsponsored? How long until you decide it is wrong that everyone isn't a crewleader? Give me a fucking break and engage your brains.

The game is governed by power and power dictates what can and can't be done, provided it is within the rules of the game. Anything not within the rules of the game is the concern of the Admins to address. Anything within the rules of the game is the concern of the players. This is what the players determined to do and it was totally within the rules of the game and shouldn't concern anyone except other players. If affects Admin income, then step in and hard code it, then players can't change it.

Nobody has to explain shit to you about why a decision was made, because those people with enough power in game knew about it and those without it didn't. The fact that the Godfather Council feel responsible and care enough about their cities and families to take the time to discuss and provide insight into things should be considered a huge bonus. If you don't like the decisions themselves, put a fucking bullet into every member of the Godfather Council and have yourself a crew of NPMs. Auth the fuckers for all I care, because I'll be dead and you can do whatever you like because you now have the power to do that. That's the nature of the game.

At no point in time should a player have to give concern to how their playing decisions affect anyone except any other players. You might do if it was your chance at the top and if that is the case, congratulations go on and get up there. However as a player, if I go on Grepolis, I don't wonder if I stop the guy next to me from building Hoplites that it might potentially damage the game, because that is an option at my disposal. I don't worry that my stopping an Orc on World of Warcraft might bankrupt Blizzard because I'm just a player, playing. That is my role, just as the Admins role is to administrate. I'm not going to give thought to external forces here anymore than I would anywhere else, because this is a game and I'm a player in it.

The Admins have decided to withdraw themselves and that is their choice as the Admins of the game they administer. I'm a player and I'm going to keep on playing within the rules of the game, just like always. And now I can do that without shitty NPMs.

I love you Godfather Council.

~G~rin.

MonaLott, if the admins do not get paid, why are they then withdrawing their time? Look at the link gave us, the admins I am talking about (who I know get paid) are; Izzy, Anubis, Ekindle, Kendra, Accountant. If none of them get paid, why would less money being available cause them to direct time elsewhere? The actions here shows that they all get paid. So I am sorry, but you are wrong with everything you said. Yes Izzy used to pay things himself (when it was a hobby) and previously people volunteered (as a hobby, and many still do) but the fact is, this game as now become the job for a few people. And like Izzy says, the game can no longer support its staff, so the staffs resources are now being utlised elsewhere. Which is the correct decision.

I'm sure someone who actively runs the council would love it grin. It's well known you have to be seen and heard to make you feel important. I'm willing to bet you had a heavy hand in this and it makes me sad. The admins were what made this game great and losing them will destroy this game. You can't be noticed without a platform, hope you can see this grin.