I'll start with the pitch:

"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there were legitimate businesses?"

Being a mafioso isn't all about shooting up your rivals and selling drugs. Ever gangster worth their weight owns themselves a nice restaurant or speakeasy (though a speakeasy may tread on drug front territory) to call home and conduct their other "legitimate" business. Now, the idea already exists in the form of a forum which is all well and good. Having a nice business thread is all well and good, but where is all that money going? Where is it coming from? I know not everyone is like myself, but I like a little structure to go with my roleplaying. 

I'd like to take a moment here to explain where I'm coming from. I'm a new player, this is my first character and I am very much enjoying the game. However, I joined and an unfortunate time. I made an account not too long before the big war that wiped out almost everyone. I got a taste of the big money in the form of Organized Crimes, something I've only been getting scraps of since. Almost everyone who can run them was killed and those who survived aren't always online and even so, they can only do one every 8 hours as I'm led to believe.

But where does that leave the small folk? The new players? The fresh accounts? How are we to make ourselves any cash? Well, we could do petty crimes, felonies, train body guards, sell drugs or gamble. However, those aren't a lot of options. Sure, there is variety within each of those categories, but it is still fairly limited. It would be nice to have other methods available to line our pockets with money, it would also be nice to have something to spend that money on other than body guards, credits and crew contributions. Again, I speak only as a new player. I may change my mind as I assimilate into the horde, but this is how I see things at the moment.

Now, what exactly am I talking about?

I'm talking about adding legitimate businesses as a gameplay mechanic. A way to earn a little money passively, but it is deeper than that.

Firstly, I would like to address the businesses themselves. They could be anything, a dirty dinner, a janky speakeasy, a bank (or perhaps just a loan service to start), a shady used car dealership, whatever. They would be relatively cheap, if you have a few thousand perhaps, you could get yourself a crappy little business that would give you a small chunk of cash each day. Just a little something to help newer or younger players build themselves up. However, they would also appeal to older, more experienced players because they would be upgradable to offer larger sums of money each day.

Of course, allowing anyone to start a business could easily get out of hand and kill the economy here on Mafia Returns, or at least upset it. Which brings me to my second point, also one that this game already employs. Limited commodity. Each city would only have a certain amount of business slots. I don't know where that value would sit exactly, but obviously not everyone can have a business. These would serve sort of like fiefdoms in medieval times. 

The Godfather owns the city. He tells the crew leaders how many businesses they each may have. Those crew leaders may then distribute those businesses to their crew. Maybe every crew members get one, maybe only higher ups. Businesses can be doled out as rewards or revoked as punishment. They may also be bought, sold or bartered as their owners see fit. 

To continue with the medieval fiefdom comparison, perhaps they could also be robbed, damaged or destroyed or extorted by other players. Maybe even outfitted with defenses like Crew HQs.

I think the idea is that they would be less profitable, more plentiful Drug Fronts for the younger, less experienced, smaller players. I think it would also be good to give them similar features to Drug Fronts and Crew HQs to give newer players, or even older players who never founded their own crew, a taste of the gameplay so if they ever do found their own crew they'll have some idea of what they're doing.

Again, I'm just a new player. Perhaps a gameplay feature like this has absolutely not place in Mafia Returns. I do, however, see it adding to the experience and not taking away. I can see disagreements coming up over uneven or favored distribution, conflicts coming to an end through negotiation using a handful of businesses as trading tokens, a great way to educate newer, younger players as to the finer points of running a crew before being thrown into things.

I actually only just woke up to take some garbage out and my thoughts are a little scrambled right now. I think I got everything down, but if I let anything out I'll try to get it down.

So, yeah, legitimate businesses. 

I proposed a similar idea once, as a replacement to Drug Fronts. I think the general consensus was that unfortunately despite it being a RPG, not everyone is comfortable with that aspect of the game nor is everyone even interested in that aspect and as such it was a nice idea but not worth the time and effort to code when it wasn't something wanted by the overall userbase.

Personally, I would love to see the legitimate business angle pursued further. I once suggested linking DFPs to drug fronts and I still think that is a good way to go as the DFP at the moment is just a moneymaker for those who achieve longevity and little else. 

I think your suggestion is a good starting point but needs fleshing out further. How would these businesses work? Is it going to be something you purchase via a coded feature? How are they then maintained, do you have to post in them? Collect protection money from them? etc. etc. 

Also, Sarah this guy has clearly put the time and effort into making a thread and it would seem to me that you haven't even considered the content before wading in with a pointless, snarky response that doesn't help anyone. Have a word with yourself; this is the suggestions forum. Be constructive or frankly, don't bother.

 Each city would only have a certain amount of business slots

No.

I stopped reading after that, tbh. But, I know that .org put in a system where you pay X amount to open a business, then you set how much each post costs to make in your business, and you have to pay I believe its 10X that? Or 10%? Im hazy on the actual figures, because well, I haven't played in ages. 

But, the same set up would have to be run here - you can't get something for nothing, so you'd have to have a fee to at least open it  - But then it'd take so long to even break even on it, that it wouldn't be worth it. And then theres the fact of the matter where if someone is new, and wants to post but its 5k to post in a BD thread, but they don't have that, they won't post. 

If the forums were more active, I'd say yeah fuck around with it and see what happens, but the last thing we need right now is something in place that makes people want to post less, ya know? 

TL;DR - not in favor. Not worth it and might make people post less. 

I was actually trying to think of a way to have a thread incorporated into the business. Obviously, we already have the business district and it would continue on as normal with people able to open any kind of business they want and run it there. The in-game businesses would be separate from that, but I was thinking they might benefit somehow from a forum too. Similar to how you can increase your vision by posting, perhaps you could increase your in-game businesses profits by yours and especially others posts or something to that affect.

This would in fact do the complete opposite of driving people away from posting. Those who run businesses would then be given incentive to make a thread in the business district, but not only to make a thread but to make an interesting one that others would be interested in partaking in. Perhaps even getting their crew involved to come post as well.

I was also thinking about % ownership. That way if a crew doesn't have enough businesses to give each member one, each member can still benefit from the businesses by owning a certain percent of it. This gives everyone more incentive to post on the business district to increase the profits of not only their own but their crews businesses.

RIP MRSE.

What's MRSE?