Why can't we achieve greatness?

[Call_me_Dad]

A solution could be to revamp the economy system. The suggestion is somewhat unorthodox, but I find it interesting:

Some assumptions are:
- Player to Player transactions can not be abused.
- Players are money hungry.
- Players are power hungry.

Remove all scripts that give money directly to players. Instead, money in bulk is given periodically to a certain set of players who are responsible to distribute it among others. In place of scripts that used to grant cash to a player, put stats of that job which can be viewed on a web portal.

Example, lets consider the Police Department. All kills, jails, playtime and whatever stats can be recorded by scripts are to be recorded for each player. The scripts grant a huge amount of money to the highest ranked player in the ARPD(Chief?). Now, it is the Chief's problem how he would distribute the money. He would split it among Captains/Lieutenants, who would split it among Senior Officers or whatever. All officers would receive their amount that they deserved from their stats by their corresponding leader. All discrepancies are handled by their command staff, who would finally have their hands full with stuff to do.

Example #2, Trucking Companies/Vendors
A huge amount is given to the leaders of the trucking companies weekly. They are able to view the stats of all the truckers that are hired by them. It is their responsibility that the money reaches the truckers according to their stats.

So basically, all this headache is handled by the rank whores who get the leadership jobs. Meanwhile developers focus on greatness. A lot of ranked positions would need to be created, which might bring in a lot of players who aspire to fill them. If everything works in the ideal conditions, the community should boom.

This will give rise to new problems - Corruption. Old problems are getting boring anyway.

[TiMoN]

<snip>

This is BSF all over again.

The current problem is that jobs are underpaid as hell and the lack of non-government jobs. Fishing, farming, and hopefully trucking(?) will be added in RS5.2, along with a dozen more jobs too which I hope will solve the problem.

[Mikal]

Remove all scripts that give money directly to players. Instead, money in bulk is given periodically to a certain set of players who are responsible to distribute it among others. In place of scripts that used to grant cash to a player, put stats of that job which can be viewed on a web portal.

Yeah, no thanks.

BSF was terrible.

[Devin]

Yeah, no thanks.

BSF was terrible.

I'll have to agree with you there; it spawned loads of groups that claimed to "roleplay" which were purely an excuse for people to join and get a pay slip every week/month for doing little to nothing at all.

[Mikal]

purely an excuse for people to join and get a pay slip every week/month for doing little to nothing at all.

Exactly, people seemed to take a picture of 1 simple roleplay which literally sometimes was just "/me loads a box onto the truck" and then got paid for it, it encouraged no business cooperation and people just did as very little as they could just to secure their cash, sticking to scripted jobs is the best thing to do, hopefully we'll see different 'physical' /invent things in RS5.2 which people can actually RP, trade and create businesses around.

[TiMoN]

Scripted trucking was the best thing that happened to the economy, but the script itself was poorly created and executed.

Now that we have farms, farmers should be able to transport harvest to "State Silos", these silos will buy crops for static prices. Truckers will then take these crops and transport them to appropriate factories and transform them to usable goods. Business owners will be able to set a purchase price for these goods and truckers will transport these goods to businesses who need them.

[Vaeldious]

@Teddy

Let's look at it from a real world insight. You and I are both USA, and know the rules of our "server". How enticing would you be to report a MAJOR flaw in Time Warner, Exxon, even Walmart or your local neighborhood wifi vs the temptation to utilize without any real threat of being caught?

Agreed, we shouldn't have to patch things with hotfixes or depend on a player to report; just the same as it should not be expected for a developer to write perfect code (although it is certainly a pipe dream). The point is, that no matter if Argonath withers and dies, or blossoms to full bloom; there will always be parasites and worms that are hellbent on consuming the creation. Even a multi-million-body corporation like Microsoft has to update Windows every Patch Tuesday.

To that extent, Teddy; I defy your logic. I do not condone the point you are getting at, perhaps I do not understand, but by understanding...and how dare you insult and insinuate that Argonath is not the exact definition of greatness? We came from a blank world, stock equipped. And the community, including you, has done more than any other community i've ever known to not just keep things working, but to try to actively renew interest in something that fell from mainstream a decade ago. To ask Why we can't achieve greatness, only seems to say that we haven't.

AFAIK, you are a damn good human being...and personally, I think you ask these kinds of questions based on pure curiosity and to invoke the community to think and ponder.

There will always be the hackers, the unwilling, the DMers and the banevaders. There will always be the necessity for locks, as they keep honest people honest. /ban is an example of such a lock. Imagine if everyone had access.

My point is that we can CONTINUE to achieve greatness, because we've already done it. And because of dedicated people like you, Dylan, Rusty, Leon, and too many more to name; Argonath is still here.

Criticism incites nothing but negativity from the very trolls and nay-sayers, that you seem so upheld to prevent.

Offering a free-thought, I'll still respect you regardless of your opinion.

[Mang]

Perhaps there could be IG rewards offered for reporting exploits? Google, Facebook, a lot of the major companies offer money and other rewards for reported exploits and that seems to keep people from trying to break their stuff (example) . That could probably work in Argonath, if you incentivized people to report the bugs instead of exploiting them maybe even those that only care about self benefit will report them.

[Astaroth]

What most people said. Stricter punishments.
Drain the shit out of their account and everyone involved, also remove them for two months or so.

Don't let this bring you down though. Instead of focusing on the people abusing(that can be removed), focus on the people who will enjoy it!

Love,

Asta

[Kostas]

Scripted trucking was the best thing that happened to the economy, but the script itself was poorly created and executed.

You mean Argonath Truck Simulator? I want to earn by simply roleplaying, can you do that? I don't like driving a truck between scripted locations, I don't like, fighting scripted fires. Or chasing after criminals, who are wanted for killing someone, no matter if they just killed him infront of LSPD, or perfectly covered their tracks. I dont want to drive in a taxi all day, to find a single guy who wants to "use" me, but he is not up for RP, so he rushes the whole thing.

Create positions critical to people, and have them run by individuals who invest their time there. There have been bars, dinners, clubs, stripclubs, and what ever you can think of that is accessible to the public. Yet the only visitors they get are durring their "start", coz because want to see the new thing. Then they just fade off, no matter how often people actually "Roleplay" opening their bussiness to the public.

Imagine if you could only enter bussinesses when they are RPly open...

You are low on health? You've got to either get a medic, or find a food "store" that is open.

That was just a dumb idea, but seriously, create vital positions and fill them in.

[Huntsman]

Don't think it's an issue? Look at Trucking for example, minor bug as soon as one person found it dozens and dozens of people were using it for gain and only one single person months later decided to properly report it to the development team. So this idea isn't baseless in terms of evidence from our community history.

Should've banned everyone involved. Like completely everyone. People would get the message then. The punishments atm are joke to those who ruin the gameplay for others.

[Devin]

Should've banned everyone involved. Like completely everyone. People would get the message then. The punishments atm are joke to those who ruin the gameplay for others.

Everyone that abused the trucking script was banned and the money was removed from their accounts even the money they tried to hide.

[Leonardo]

Caring about some numbers in a screen in 2016. Come on, folks. As for some people, specially the bug abusers, who work their ass out to find and exploit these bugs, just set their account to $0, as it will be way worse than a ban - the guy knows he'll cry a little bit, stay for a week without playing, then be unbanned and just enjoy his numbers on the screen.

[Salmonella]

Should we really try to achieve greatness?

[Teddy]

Should we really try to achieve greatness?

That's something only you, the community, can answer. We're able to produce any level of scripts; greatness or simplistic.