Sooo, this idea came to me in a conversation with Izzy on IRC. There's been a lot of debate lately on putting money into the game, and vice versa(the everlong problem,) taking it out of the game. We came up with an idea, and I believe Izzy ran it across a few players in #divinelunacy.

Hard coded loans. Sounds simple? It is simple! Say you've got 5 mill laying around(heh, I wish...) with this suggested feature, you could open up a loaning system. Now I know you can just as easily RP a loan from someone, but as mentioned in DL, for someone with a "name,"(Ie; JTG, Satanta, Ant, etc) it's much easier than a no-named Goomba looking for some drug money.

The way it would work is as such: The person starting the loan would have multiple options as to whom they'd allow loans to go out to - own city, certain rank, global, etc. This would allow a lot of freedom on denying or allowing an "enemy" per-say to obtain money from you.

Of course there would be an interest to pay back the loan, which again would be up to the banker. They could have a set interest of say(just throwing a number out) 5% on the loan, or X% on X amount, or have it set by rank. (Lower ranks obviously would have a much harder time paying back a higher %.)


Pros: It would allow users to obtain money, thus stopping(hopefully) annoying thugs and gangsters pestering those above them for money.

It would have a risk/reward. Not only would it spread idle money around, but if the user died while owing money, the money would obviously disappear.

It wouldn't have to be too personal, as it could be set up via personals(Oh, the irony,). Ex- Banker gets a personal stating "Your accountant makes note that SoandSo is requesting to loan $X." Approve|Deny. - It could also be set up that on a daily, weekly, whatever basis, that the loanee would get a personal saying something along the lines of "Your accountant makes note that you're due to pay SoandSo $X or risk..." Not sure on the risk, or if any to be honest. Lack of payment could lead to death, repossession of money, drugs, gun loss, I don't know, suggestions are certainly welcome.


Cons- Other than the coding, which I'm sure there would plenty of, it could cause tension between cities if user X from NY and user Y from LV had a "bad loan" where user Y died and user X is looking for his money back, I can't think of any.

Quite open to any suggestions and input!

Horrible idea. Just horrible. Fucking terrible.

Now, after saying all that, I shall go read the idea.

Ok, not entirely a horrible idea. As long as the money is coming from the users, there's no worry about putting more money in the game, and it gives you something to do with your money that might lead to a profit. I like it.

Great idea, except for the last con, but I guess the Pros out weigh the cons, Great Idea!

Just some ideas on the logistics of this:

A user can setup shop, using money that resides in his city bank.

He has ability to toggle the options for crew only, home city only, or global.

A person who wants a loan, fills out a form

Amount_______   Interest Offered_______  Payment Schedule ______ / Days    Total Length Of Loan _____ Days

So he makes an offer of a 100,000 loan, with payments every 2 days, paid off by 20 days, at 30% interest.

The loan shark gets notified an offer was made, he can accept, deny, or retort.

If he retorts, he can then adjust it to 100,000 loan with payments every 2 days, paid off by 15 days, at 32% interest.

The person who wants to borrow now gets notified of the new offer, and can accept, or deny.

If he accepts, he gets the 100,000 sent to him upon acceptance.  A few hours before the 2 day mark (or whatever the schedule is), he is sent a personals with a quick pay option. "Your loan with WhatsHisFace has a payment due in the amount of $23,000 (PAY)", he clicks, it pays, viola.  Money sent, everyone is notified, and this continues until either the person pays it back, dies, or decides to not pay.

The person can pay early, if they chose to save on some interest.

Interest/Math is automatically calculated and handled.  Payment notifications are automatically handled.

It seems like a decent enough idea. It adds a good role-play element. I also like the add-ons by Hashimodo. It could cause tensions, so I would like to suggest something.

A godfather or crew leader has the ability to cap the max loan available for the city members that have set up shop. It could stop tensions from rising too high, which I believe would be good.

I hope to see this feature implemented soon.

Stracci

and if they don't pay? as lender in city X i can't exactly kill a member of a crew in city Y casue they defualted on their loan. also if a person dies perhaps part of the loan can be payed back from the money the dead man has in the bank. definitly not all and that could be set as an option that has a chance of falure.

I agree with Squishy. A loanshark isn't a bank, it's a... uhm... loanshark.

The way I see this is that whilst this might be nice functionality to play around with for loans between a couple of Made Men (or whatever strict stipulations people end up setting for their own loans...), the majority of loans - which tend to be needed at Thug anyway? - will possibly still take place outside the system and, in most cases, from within the same family. I just don't see that this is a necessity, or overly helpful, when it can all be done at the moment through a little effort. Especially when it will likely end up as only part of a solution.

This seems like change for change's sake, sorry. I suspect that, eventually, it will scarcely be used. Not a bad idea, I just don't think it'd be that useful.

Besides, we have C.O.D.F.I.S.H

Hmmm I just foresee a lot of people dying with someone else's money, both intentionally and by accident. Even stellar reputations can fall victim to a wackback, and war is always right around any given corner.

If I found myself with that kind of disposable income lying around to loan out, I just don't see myself risking it, personally.

True, Joy, but you have to weigh off the benifts against the risk and decide for yourself wether you should give out loans or not. If you've got money just lying around, it doesn't give you any benifits. And if you should die, you lose it anyways.

"If you've got money just lying around, it doesn't give you any benifits."

The major thing that I see wrong with this is that if you have money 'just lying around' you should be donating it to your boss... Not that this forum is the place for me to be saying that.


Not sure I like this myself. It is way too open to abuse. If people actually need loans in this game they should be talking to their family; this is one step further towards a game where you don't have to actually talk to anybody to do anything.

For example; When buying credits you used to have to actually talk to someone and barter with them etc etc, with the creation of the marketplace nobody gets to barter and an automated system leads to people not talking. Now if there is a loan system then the new guys won't have to talk to anybody to get a loan, making less communication opportunities. It's okay for people who are perfectly comfortable just sending out random messages to people to get a conversation going but for people who find it difficult there are less and less reasons to talk.

Who's to say that a successful pay off of a loan wouldn't spark an interest in RP'ing with someone, though? Though the "problem" of not role playing is one that's always studied, recently things have been a bit different. There HAVE been some interesting debates, there HAVE been some fucking morons to ridicule, and there are plenty... ok, well one good newspaper out there to read. I wouldn't see the limited mail use as a hindrance to putting this measure in by a long shot.

Hoopi- I'm not sure I quite understand where you're coming from. How is this change for changes sake? As Gwarble so pleasantly made it apparent, there is a problem with too much money in the game. Not only would this cause money to leave the game, but it would move around "stale" money so to speak. Sure, there is the thing Afro brought up about donating to your leader, but that's the thing... Chances are that it would BE the leaders who owned the loaning banks. Not many other people generate enough money to maintain a successful operation.

Don't know about the rest of ya but I love this idea, but I just wish there was some way to enforce the repayment of the money.

What if, after a certain amount of time, a percentage of the profit you make is sent to the shark until you have payed back with the proper interest. Also, what if you were to buy the loansharking office and decide the interest rates? It could work. Just my 2 cents.

I suggested a system for loans that literally took no effort, got money out and in but it never went into effect.

Could it be possible to repossese a DFP that is owned by the debtor? or something like that? Just a thought

I think that would be too much of a problem, as then you'd get into other cities owning DFP's in other cities, and some people banking millions a day off of "repossessed" DFP's.

Any other comments or suggestions?