[CF List] Taxes for appartments (was: The 'dis'economy of crossfire)

[Raphaël Quinet]

On Mon, 26 Aug 2002 21:25:32 -0700, Mark Wedel <
     
     mwedel at sonic.net
     
     > wrote:
>
     
     
      cflist at gmx.li
      
       wrote:
     
     >
     
      > I said the rent should have to be paid every time a player logs in,
     
     >
     
      > thinking of people playing infrequently, so this player would have to pay
     
     >
     
      > less, I agree with you that it should be possible to play only
     
     >
     
      > infrequently. The payment of rents is something which would be solved best
     
     >
     
      > by the bank idea, as it could just go automatically. I agree to you that
     
     >
     
      > this should not lock out a player from his items within the apartment.
     
     >
     
      > Maybe a player who loses his apartment just gets access to a single-square
     
     >
     
      > room without a bed to reality into which all stuff is thrown. I think most
     
     >
     
      > players would attempt to get their apartments back as soon as possible.
     
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     >
     
        Most players probably would buy back their apartment.  But I'm still not sure 
     
     >
     
      of a good way to do this.  If simply based on logins, players are more likely to 
     
     >
     
      not log out if they are only going to be away for a short time.  It would also 
     
     >
     
      penalize those whose connections are more prone to dropage.
     
     
The taxes should be based on the time spent in the game.  Those
playing frequently would have to pay more and those who only play a
few hours per month would have to pay less (even if they have a bad
connection that forces them to reconnect 10 times a day).  As CF is a
multiplayer game, the most realistic solution would be to have a rent
for the appartments based on the real-world time, but this is not a
good solution for those who only play from time to time.  So the best
solution is to have a tax based on the time spent in the game.  This
is fair because the amount of money that you can collect depends on
the time you spend in the game.  So the longer you play, the more you
have to pay.  This is a bit like the tolls on some motorways: the more
you drive, the more you have to pay.

Also, I don't like the idea of locking the players in or out of their
appartements without warning.  It would be better if the players could
get a reminder from the banks/town halls/city guards/... whenever they
forget to pay the taxes.

Let's assume that each character has an internal counter for the time
spent in the game and the tax is 100 platinium coins per hour for a
small appartment.  The players would get a reminder when they enter or
leave the city or some buildings and they have forgotten to pay the
tax for more than five hours (of course, they could pay in advance in
order to be left alone for some time).  If they do not go to the bank
or town hall to pay their tax, then they would first get a bad
reputation in this town: their charisma would be reduced to zero when
they trade in a shop and the guards would not let them leave the city
until they pay.  If they continue despite the warnings, then after a
while the guards would turn aggressive and some doors/gates would be
locked for them (city guards are not a problem for high level
characters, but they cannot do much against a dungeon that is locked).

The players who have a bad reputation in one town could still go to
any other town, but then they would have to get a new appartment there
because they would not be able to get back to the old one until they
pay the taxes (the teleporters going out of the appartment should
probably be disabled in order to prevent the usage of word of recall +
teleporters).  Even if the players are in another town, it would be
nice to get a reminder from time to time about the taxes that are due.
This could also be done whenever the player logs in:
  You still have to pay 1234 platinium for your appartment in Navar.
  You have a credit of 5432 platinium for your appartment in Scorn.

Implementing the full scenario (reputation in each city) would require
several changes in the game, but the basic stuff (taxes based on the
time spent in the game and some limited penalties for bad payers)
should not be too hard.

-Raphael