Cease the Private ownership of stores

[Chico]

Needless to say I'm willing to support any action that kills off private ownership, even if the previous attempts had failed

 

[albertossic]

The most interesting part of RP in a store is that you and your coworkers are like a little organization, and you can plan and conspire for things.
Maybe this makes StoreRP more interactive in a game mechanics sense, but it sounds very boring compared to running an active store, and many people already think *that* sounds boring.

Not sure it'll be a good general overhaul, but it could be cool if there was one big store like this added, along with other opportunities for self-administered "workshifts" like maybe mining or trash refinery or whatever

 

[FungletheBungle]

In CWU management we've definitely been having debates about providing sales through CWU stalls, but nothing quite this drastic.

I think we'd suffer much of the same problems as right now, only there's less incentive for people to remain active in a specific store due to inherently controlling nothing within it and having no stake in maintaining its operations. You'd definitely get people popping up at random for work, but is that a good thing?

What is being suggested here is very dangerous with letting anyone off the street walk up and access any permit. The MOC would have a monstrous time trying to know who is participating in sales workshifts. The scope of their financial audits would have to extend to the entire server and there's no guarantee they can track any activities without a centralised roster of persons of interest.

I can't say I'm really for this myself. But, debate...

1. There are still Store Managers, these fill the traditional role of owner. I see no rights being taken away from them, just adding the fact that they have employees showing up

2. This is not the case. As stated in ADDENDUM 1, stores, depending on location and reputation have an SC requirement. This gives the loyalist stores a more loyalist feel. In addition stock is now much more of a factor for the Store Manager to handle e.g. How much he is willing to leave in a more accessible locker

Well I don't really want this, what I want is to make stores more active because your actively rewarded for doing store RP.

Impossible because normal people can only play for a few hours a week, this isn't a part time job + burnout is real when it comes to running stores. It's impossible to have a long surviving + active store

The most interesting part of RP in a store is that you and your coworkers are like a little organization, and you can plan and conspire for things.
Maybe this makes StoreRP more interactive in a game mechanics sense, but it sounds very boring compared to running an active store, and many people already think *that* sounds boring.

Not sure it'll be a good general overhaul, but it could be cool if there was one big store like this added, along with other opportunities for self-administered "workshifts" like maybe mining or trash refinery or whatever

If you want to run a store without combine involvement this doesn't stop less legal stores operating. Just don't expect the protection or as good locations as those who submit to the Union

 

[swagile]

Gyran hits the nail on the head.

Store RP is boring because it has no end goal or even a continuous goal.

You, at most, can smuggle some beer and/or adhesive materials to a rebel group as a shop owner and thats it.

You can't get higher skill levels by using components permit to build stuff for people (if you want to RP a pure citizen and not a rebel), you can't smuggle said components to make illegal shit as a rebel because its not open for citizens, and if you so much as buy 1 extra beer or flour / vinegar than normal you will instantly be on CP's radar.

You can't use credits to buy anything really cool outside of store stuff and MAYBE an arcade store, so both rebel players AND pure citizen characters / loyalist shop owners have /ZERO/ incentive to continue a store except for the roleplay they generate.

Even if we keep booting inactive shop owners we will keep getting the same issue repeating itself and honestly, as CWU management, I don't want to keep going through the huge ass spreadsheet removing and re-adding people just for them to go inactive a week later because the same issues persist.

Making shops free for all will not fix the issue; making them more interactive and hence fun with more avenues to other roleplay (such as undercover rebel, or more skilled citizen if you keep working a shop), then you get more activity as there is a reason to hop onto your shop character.

 

[FungletheBungle]

F2 stores with a business menu superior

I have went throughout liking a simple f4 menu to having a realistic business interface only to wanting to go back to the simple f4.

Business RP is not sustainable by having people being assigned to it as real work - this is a common way on hl2rp communities to make the players feel forced to be active or lose their virtual store.

Roleplay if done too much reflects oneself, we have to remember that this is a game hence treat it as such.

I believe that having a simple system such as waiting until you can purchase a permit just to sell stuff is enough of progression as is, since you have invested time to become a businessman in this videogame - by having stores available to be rented by only buying the door. You have a business set up and ready to go to combat the lack of stores.

There is one irony that I see out of the suggestion that this thread is about.

Notice that everything narrows down to people wanting POWER. It suggests that the MoC, CWU should still be in charge of aspects (so they don't lose their salaries) and that business owners become store managers (a retirement job) after losing their stable rent.

Business RP, while having much opportunity to those who know advanced levels of it in RP, puts the cost of time for the standard roleplayer of getting their items.

Being one man alone with a permit is enough to encourage a business like RP, and break the comment of "stores inactive".

If you wish to combat this right now. Open a stall in indigent with a lacking permit.

This is not a matter of POWER, I for one have no link to either group and any char I have IC despises both. But beyond that what power do they have now that they technically didn't before?

Of course MoC and CWU should still be in charge, this is a dystopia, they are going to desire to have more and more control and to suggest otherwise is to suggest we stop Roleplaying a dystopia.

Although I'm confused to your point about Store Managers being a retirement job. After all, they still have stock, assistant managers and rent to struggle with. This isn't a "Give everything to CWU and BoC and have a nice shiny retirement position". It's more of a "we see you're failing in aspects so we're forcing a solution on you"

 

[Cloudbucket]

Just to add on- we have many players who want to work for my player business however the SC CREDIT requirements put a stop to this.

- but cloud they can just go work and stuff to get loyalist points!

Yeah dude, the hours upon hours it takes.

( average 1 workshift per hour is 2 SC, it will take 10 hours for a player to even work on triumph- not counting victory)

The lack of business activity is due to the implementation of business policies and the OOC requirements to even be employed let alone start a store.

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

This is not a matter of POWER, I for one have no link to either group and any char I have IC despises both. But beyond that what power do they have now that they technically didn't before?

It is a theme of power, doing a sudden change that'd remove the themes of CWU and MOC or current permanent store managers would upset many as they are employed within those departments.

Of course MoC and CWU should still be in charge, this is a dystopia, they are going to desire to have more and more control and to suggest otherwise is to suggest we stop Roleplaying a dystopia.

Dystopia can be conveyed in many ways, MOC and CWU are not the center of the dystopia in our roleplay.

Although I'm confused to your point about Store Managers being a retirement job. After all, they still have stock, assistant managers and rent to struggle with. This isn't a "Give everything to CWU and BoC and have a nice shiny retirement position". It's more of a "we see you're failing in aspects so we're forcing a solution on you"

I do see this as a retirement position because instead of cleaning the slate, you'd rather keep them on a silver platter despite failing.

 

[FungletheBungle]

Gyran hits the nail on the head.

Store RP is boring because it has no end goal or even a continuous goal.

You, at most, can smuggle some beer and/or adhesive materials to a rebel group as a shop owner and thats it.

You can't get higher skill levels by using components permit to build stuff for people (if you want to RP a pure citizen and not a rebel), you can't smuggle said components to make illegal shit as a rebel because its not open for citizens, and if you so much as buy 1 extra beer or flour / vinegar than normal you will instantly be on CP's radar.

You can't use credits to buy anything really cool outside of store stuff and MAYBE an arcade store, so both rebel players AND pure citizen characters / loyalist shop owners have /ZERO/ incentive to continue a store except for the roleplay they generate.

Even if we keep booting inactive shop owners we will keep getting the same issue repeating itself and honestly, as CWU management, I don't want to keep going through the huge ass spreadsheet removing and re-adding people just for them to go inactive a week later because the same issues persist.

Making shops free for all will not fix the issue; making them more interactive and hence fun with more avenues to other roleplay (such as undercover rebel, or more skilled citizen if you keep working a shop), then you get more activity as there is a reason to hop onto your shop character.

Well, now we have two separate issues both contribute to long term store activity (although both fail to address the simple fact that no man can spend 12 hours a day running a store on Gmod)

The first is an end goal for Rebels, and the Second is an end Goal for loyalists.

To solve the Rebel issue first without touching the loyalist solution is a recipe for disaster as this will immediately have the effect of turning every single store into a rebel hideout within the first week of being implemented.

Although as stated the solution for this is simple. Just either

A. Remove Digital currency (bad and wrong) or
B. Make money laundering easier ( Buy items slowly to sell off to external sources for chips)

But loyalist incentives are much harder.

Thankfully the cessation of private ownership can actually improve this.

With store managers now being directly employed by the CWU (as all humans of lower rank on earth should be) this gives them an actual path of progression within the CWU.

Now the stores success directly correlates to how big their influence is within the CWU (Bigger stores matter more ergo they have a higher tier of loyalist / can be hired into influential positions)

This is not making stores a free for all, this is proving a stream of constant employment. Something desperately needed for both citizens and stores

 

[FungletheBungle]

It is a theme of power, doing a sudden change that'd remove the themes of CWU and MOC or current permanent store managers would upset many as they are employed within those departments.

What themes are currently being removed? Those of capitialism?

Dystopia can be conveyed in many ways, MOC and CWU are not the center of the dystopia in our roleplay.

They are for stores, since that is who stores are directly under

I do see this as a retirement position because instead of cleaning the slate, you'd rather keep them on a silver platter despite failing.

They can still fail you know, they still have a store to manage. Just giving them employees doesn't make it a self operating store

 

[FungletheBungle]

Just to add on- we have many players who want to work for my player business however the SC CREDIT requirements put a stop to this.

- but cloud they can just go work and stuff to get loyalist points!

Yeah dude, the hours upon hours it takes.

( average 1 workshift per hour is 2 SC, it will take 10 hours for a player to even work on triumph- not counting victory)

The lack of business activity is due to the implementation of business policies and the OOC requirements to even be employed let alone start a store.

With this system the citizen would simply apply for a shift in an INDINGENT.

5 shifts later (for example) they now have enough SC to work in Triumph.

Because stores are now "Always open" they will always have a constant chance to gain SC not just at the whims and abilities of CWU / GM's

Not even mentioning the RP generated from those 5 shifts at INDINGENT. Hell, they might not even want to leave

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

What themes are currently being removed? Those of capitialism?

They are for stores, since that is who stores are directly under

Your question is answered, the theme is power.

They can still fail you know, they still have a store to manage. Just giving them employees doesn't make it a self operating store

In other words a CWU position.

 

[FungletheBungle]

Your question is answered, the theme is power.

Of which the citizens "Feel" like they are loosing. Good. This is a dystopia. In actual terms the only power the player actually loses is who's allowed to work in their store. We can still have certain rooms / offices blocked off for these new workers for those paranoid about it.

In other words a CWU position.

And that's a bad thing why? It's the exact same job but within the structure of the CWU. This makes more sense to the HL universe then the capitalistic nonsense we have now

 

[Merlinsclaw]

I still believe that the lack of credits in the economy is preventing stores from being super active. You are only getting a few customers over the day and half of them won't buy anything due to scarcity.

Another part is just fun. No one wants to sit at an empty storefront for hours. It's up to the players to come up with interesting ideas. Everyone wants to go to the club that's ran by Russian Mobsters, has cocaine readily available, and the hotspot for corruption amongst the high tier loyalists even though the CP's raid the place weekly. No one wants to go to the empty ass book store.

 

[albertossic]

If you want to run a store without combine involvement this doesn't stop less legal stores operating. Just don't expect the protection or as good locations as those who submit to the Union

It has nothing to do about Combine Involvement, my point was that the way you describe it it sounds like *nobody* will be left to be particularly involved or invested in a store. The main thing that makes store RP engaging is your coworkers, and having to make end's meet.

 

[FungletheBungle]

It has nothing to do about Combine Involvement, my point was that the way you describe it it sounds like *nobody* will be left to be particularly involved or invested in a store. The main thing that makes store RP engaging is your coworkers, and having to make end's meet.

That's still what is happening with the Manager / Assistant Managers

 

[Conundrum]

You can't get higher skill levels by using components permit to build stuff for people (if you want to RP a pure citizen and not a rebel), you can't smuggle said components to make illegal shit as a rebel because its not open for citizens, and if you so much as buy 1 extra beer or flour / vinegar than normal you will instantly be on CP's radar.

The components permit would solve absolutely nothing and put anyone who shops there immediately on the CP's radar, defeating the point. Components are best gained from differing stores themselves as raw ingredients to force people into actively visiting them, as opposed to freely providing components which will just feed into the lack of customer issues that I hear about on a near daily basis.

That being said I do think it is being bundled with other permits at some point with dumb enough prices to not be worth it over the alternatives. So we'll see. The permit as it exists now is more of a back end thing for the CWU, if anything.

It's just a dumb permit that defeats the point of buying food from one store, electronics from another and grinding those ingredients down to create something illegal when you can go down to Jim's corner store and buy a stack of Adhesive and Electronics.

That's two stores that automatically lose a customer. Probably more.

 

[Atle]

I will not accept a complete reform to the shop system at this point in time, I believe we can build off from what we have and make it better over time. At the moment development is focused more so in the direction of CWU gameplay / supply. Once that is finally done with we could see about looking to improve shops further.

Until that time though, one thing that's on the way is bundling up permits to allow for more goods variation. This has the downside that shops will be less specialized from each other but at least then it's not as limiting.

Also just for a lil'lore snippet, shops aren't de-facto privately owned, all shops belong to and are controlled by the Ministry of Commerce but are obv delgated to people as otherwise it's be a disorganized nightmare to handle

So in short, no, I will not be accepting this but do know shops systems are something we'll want to look more closely into eventually!

Also somewhat off-topic but if you're a struggling shop we do offer a grant system to help folks - https://willard.network/forums/wn/business-grant-applications.267/

DENIED

 

[FungletheBungle]

I will not accept a complete reform to the shop system at this point in time, I believe we can build off from what we have and make it better over time. At the moment development is focused more so in the direction of CWU gameplay / supply. Once that is finally done with we could see about looking to improve shops further.

While I appreciate the fact that we do things slow and steady here, I believe this is one of the more time sensitive issues/

Until that time though, one thing that's on the way is bundling up permits to allow for more goods variation. This has the downside that shops will be less specialized from each other but at least then it's not as limiting.

I don't quite get the solution here, as it still relies on getting a group of stores that all operate at different times without burning themselves out.
It could potentially lessen immersion, as a store that once just sold cafe related items just starts selling flashlights because they are in demand, for no IC reason.

So in short, no, I will not be accepting this but do know shops systems are something we'll want to look more closely into eventually!

Also somewhat off-topic but if you're a struggling shop we do offer a grant system to help folks - https://willard.network/forums/wn/business-grant-applications.267/

As with most things in life, as we have learned from IRL governments, throwing money at issues doesn't solve the underlying problems.

The fact of the matter still is the expectation we currently have in terms of activity of stores is beyond unreasonable, I personally have no idea how it got so bad and honestly, it's a REALLY BIG ONE.

The amount of times I joined a server only to see every single one of it's stores closed just shows how ingrained it is. And when I joined these servers, well I rarely ever returned. These are the some of the most important RP locations.

And honestly, I see little actually done in terms of solving it (No idea about behind the scenes. I just see stores closed during hours of activity. But that's also what the common player sees.)

It's a shame that you think the current, and personally very outdated system can be improved when it's foundationally flawed. Especially when so much of what is good about willard came from challenging previously unchanging systems

At then end of the day most people just don't have the time that is needed to support this system, even those that may will get burned out trying to reach the expectation of what players want.

I'll probably raise the issue again in a couple weeks if nothing improves because this is a serious issue.

 

[Atom]

don't

 

[ramen]

Can we revisit this highkey?