If anyone cares, (which you probably don't, but I'm going to help spell it out anyway), here's a helpful breakdown of cost. I understand that people won't necessarily want to come out of pocket for the $5 it will require to purchase the toolbar, so let's take an in-game marketplace approach:

Currently the toolbar price is 5 credits for a 30 day trial period. Rather than break it out by the credit per day price, I'll factor it more for the cash in order to put it in context.

The highest price per credit right now is $150,000 (and of course is always subject to change depending on market conditions) which means the total required to purchase the toolbar is $750,000. Over the entire 30 days span that this provides access for, the daily cost breaks down to $25,000.

Now for simplicity, let's assume that the average user has 20 drug units (which per my limited understanding of the tip system is the max amount of units you have before you need to start tipping the FBN agent for increases). If a user makes a drug run of something simple like $5500 Heroin to a city for a modest sales price of $8000, this yields a $2500 profit on each unit, for a total profit of $50,000. Assuming a leader takes a straight half of the profit, the user will tribute up $25,000 for a net profit of $25,000, which is coincidentally the daily price of the toolbar.

What am I trying to say? The point is that for basically the profits from ONE solid drug run each day, you're able to support the cost of the toolbar for that day. Setting aside the additional profits from maximizing the downtime between crimes, felonies, and even PP attempts, this is an easy-to-support cost in order to purchase something that greatly helps both the users and the administrative staff.

In order to help the other part of the equation, the "startup capital" or "fixed costs" associated with first purchasing the toolbar, there are two options available:

1. Shell out $5 or whatever that translates to in crazy Canadian money. Obviously the simplest choice.

2. Spend the money for credits out of your own pocket on the front end, while earning the original sum back daily. I think this is the choice for most users and makes the most sense without coming out of pocket. There is no downtime for a purchase from the marketplace and it's a relatively quick purchase of the toolbar as well.

Don't have any in-game cash?

Always a possible problem for some users for many reasons, such as a new account, lost all money gambling, need money to train/purchase bodyguards, etc. Again, there are many solutions to remedy this.

1. Ask a friend for a loan. I believe Noah-Levenstein has a loan shop setup in New York to assist users with securing financing.

2. Ask your leader for a loan. A well-written request will most likely go a long way in the eyes of your sponsor.

3. Ask a complete stranger for a loan. It never hurts to try!

4. Go gamble up a storm! Not always the best choice, but always an available option for money.

5. Offer in game services for money (no, not that pervs.) Try to sell profile pictures or things of that nature.

6. Offer challenges to people such as a recent Halo challenge in OOC. You could potentially win big.

There are literally plenty of available options for you to help come up with the cash to get a toolbar! Buy yours today!

If you don't want to part with any money at all, in game or from your own pocket you can use the inferior free toolbar available under "Help". Other similar toolbars are also available if you ask around.

Obviously the really retro approach is to use no toolbar at all and with the game interface far more user friendly than in the past, this is a viable option.

~T~

I use a pen and paper, and mark off every second for petty and felony crimes. I've have stacks of old countdowns littering my room. True story.

Heh. "I've have". Awesome.

I noticed that you lowered the price down to 5 credits. Earlier today it was 10 for one month and I paid it. Is there any chance I can get those extra 5 back or 30 more days?:)

Or you can go "Ha-ha, you were too quick to think".

Do donors not now have an unfair advantage with regards to the highlighting of active locals? What they can see at a glance could take a second class player like myself around thirty seconds to a minute to deduce.

Consider the following scenario. Player A, a donor, is shot at. The attempt on his or her life is of a stealthy nature. Player A can almost instantly identify possible assailants. Player B is not a donor and he is also the victim of a stealthy attacker. In the time it takes for this person to compile a list the shooter could be long gone from the city.

or player 2 can use 500k in game money to buy a toolbar... let's do that math shall we! Dutch math btw.

A CD nowadays sells for 100k roughly, so to have this feature a month you need to have 5 CD's. ok so 500,000. The toolbar lasts for a month meaning you techincally can use this feature for 16,666 dollar per day. Now other than perhaps a 2 month old gangster would struggle earning that money? Nobody.

Currently they are 100k, I can only see the prices rising from here on in!

Wow this game really has gone down hill, shame. I would happily take the game of 3-4 years ago with no improvements and not pay anything at all.

I'm a cheap bastard.every cent stays with me ! there is software progams that have timers you can download for fee.This improvement  wasn't the greatest guys..

Guys, this is a free game.  I played for a long time without a timer.  It's not like delaying your petties by 30 seconds without a pop-up is gonna kill you.  Let me repeat, this is a free game.  No one's charging you to play.  And yeah, find a free timer if you want.  Use a freakin stopwatch if you want.  No one's forcing you to pay--and if you want, you can pay with pretend money! Jeez.

Good for you Cosmo.  I used a free timer til I borrowed 5 cds from a friend - so there is another way.  And as far as it not being a great improvement people - do you all realize that in addition to what Cosmo said re a free game for us, the staff here get paid nothing and do the majority of the coding etc for nothing?  Often even with donations, it all goes to advertising and money comes out of their own pockets to fund new servers etc.  You don't have to like it, but don't put it down either.

Yea I bought the timers with in game cash and I have 37 drug units so it's so easy for me to make the money I paid back in a month. Hell I could make enough in one month to pay for 2 months of toolbar. So guys it's not that hard. And if you have a problem then do the voting I get like 30k a day for voting so that pays the 25K a day for the toolbar right there. There really is nothing to complain about either pay it or suck it up and find another way simple as that.

Excellent idea! Dropped another 80 into CD's and made a tidy profit earlier this week.

The market will eventually settle down, the only question is where it will settle down. Guys, lets be frank, there arn't any banners on the site, there arn't any other forms of advertisement, etc, it takes money to run games. I'm glad that Izzy took this approach, rather than some other's I've seen around.

All of you... individuals, that don't like the change, do me a favor and go away? :) 

Everyone seems to be talking about the money and how to make it work and pay for this tool  bar. I really do not have a problem with the owners of this game making money. After all, it boils down to business and making a living. Whatever, helps boost that standard of living.

I have a problem with, giving people a new feature and then taking the same thing away from them after being tested and making money off of it.  It kind of seems like a complete disregard to the same people who helped debug this feature.  I understand it was a luxury and this and that.   However, looking at this game, it is very apparent that the coders are very talented people who are continuously working towards updating and improving this game, and they have done some great changes. Therefore, they could have easily left this feature and sell an updated version of it. Or, leave the feature to the people who helped testing it and charging new players the updated version. That's what really disappointed me.

I personalty found the timers useful however, I used macro to create my own timers based on what suited my needs.  I'm sure if I didn't have what I wanted as far as timers go, I would have used some of my drug money to purchase it. As it has been mentioned above several times over and over again, It is economical once a player starts walking on their own feet.

Quick question, will any of the free toolbars made by users still work?