So, I was thinking how it would be if Torn would have its own kickstarter.
I was thinking somewhere around these lines: it would look somewhat like the Item Market. People would come up with ideas for products, add a listing of that product, along with a photo, description, type of product ( weapon or armour)... and wait. And other people would look over those items, think a little and invest in them or not. The ideas that reach a certain amount of money spent in the kickstarter (thinking somewhere around 100 bil) would be looked over by mods, the mods would check their contents and decide if the item enters Torn's economy.
If the mods decline it, the money simply disappears (this would be good for the "money sink" aspect of Torn) as well as the listing. As if the company simply failed.
If the mods accept it, each of the investors that invested above a certain percentage of the sum would receive some products ( the amount depending on the type of product and maybe the amount of investors that should receive products). The sum in the kickstarter will simply get out of Torn's economy.
How will the company work?
The company would be of the type the product is. Like, if the product is a weapon requiring ammo, it would work pretty much as a Gun shop, with a single difference: Each day, depending on its rating, the director would receive his own product. Much like 1 product for 1*, 2 products for 2*, etc Also, it will be possible for others to make unique companies for a lowered price than the kickstarter one, when/if the product gets accepted.
How much would the start-up cost?
The start-up cost would be a bit lower than the amount of money drained from the kickstarter. Thinking about 50 bil or something.
How could one start such a company?
Well, when going to the newsletter and when choosing a type of company, the "wannabe-director" would choose between normal and special, and then would choose from a list which contains the "special" types of that company.
Like, say somebody made the X product, which is a type of gun, got accepted, received a special type of gun shop, which gave him 1 X every day. Somebody would want to make such a company, so he would go to the gun shops listing page, decide to make such a company, decide that he wants a special gun shop and then he would look through the list and see X gun shop, would think it is interesting and go for it.
How will the product planning system be?
One will have to choose between armour or the other kinds of weapons first. He will then make a description of the item and add a photo to the item. Later, he will be asked about how the attributes of that item (if it is a weapon) should be arranged. I haven't yet thought exactly about this, but it will either be preset stuff like: Lots of fire shots, low accuracy, low power. High damage, low accuracy. All round. Stuff like that. The attributes will be similar to the best stuff out there which could be described like that. There is another possibility: the inventor would receive "attribute points" he would distribute however he wants into the characteristics of the object, but it makes deciding a price for that much harder.
How will it be such that the economy of Torn doesn't crash?
I am thinking about the items not being received by the director DIRECTLY, but put in a "store" which would be seen by a random player whenever that player looks at that company. The price would NOT be established by the director/inventor, but by an inner game system which would calculate the price something like this: The cheapest item on the item market that has similar properties multiplied by 3 or so ( after all, it is "unique", within error range 1 point maximum). Which could possibly mean that somebody would stock up on all the items of that kind existing at a certain point in time and raise the price. But no, this could be easily solved if each player could only buy ONE item coming from an unique company per day.
So, what do you think? Personally I think that this is pretty well-thought out.
a few things to mention.
1. companies 2.0 went live when the 10 star rating was relased.
2. I full heartedly like the idea of Unique companies.
the effect of this would be pretty big, a good thing about unique companies is it would destroy over saturation of companies.
the bad though is this.....
imagine if you were a developer for torn (we have like 15 people that are developers?) imagine if every day 1 person posted an idea and people like nash kickstart it hoping to get rich off a monopoly on a consumable. not only would developers get flooded with work but torn core feature updates will completely stop if giving this the attention you're asking. no more security updates....no item updates.... no new content besides this. the threat of introducing monopolies has a sever impact on torn economy which thankfully is currently in far better shape than when i joined. but in its current state i see no way for this to work.
i could see them opening a thing like this.....
introduce a "unique" company for 31 days.
anyone can start one for the price designated for 31 days.
after that no new versions of that company can be introduced.
and this event would continue for say 6months-1year.
also the big problem with your suggestion is this would essentially force all directors to switch over to this company system. no one wants to work at an average joe's oil rig. they want that special job so they can be a special cookie. now im broke because nash funded and bought an oil rig that bleeds virgin oils. see how this can be very unfair?
I have thought about this quite lengthily... and I realised that after you create a consumable.. say +1000 happy for 2 hours cooldown.... people will no longer have WHY to make another consumable that gives happy... because if they made other stuff more powerful, it could potentially debalance the economy, therefore it wouldn't get through, and if they made the same thing, just under a different name and description... just why? Therefore I guess that there is nearly no reason that the whole kickstarter thingy would work for consumables. There is a huge potential in the armor and weapons in this idea, however. I am sure that quite some would like to have like... Star Wars themed weapons for example... and would kickstart it.
The idea is not yet finished, but , considering what you have just said, I am thinking about 1. Removing the choice of the inventor, whether others could make similar companies. It will always be possible for others to make similar companies, with the kickstarting price as start-up. 2. Perhaps, I am not sure here, but I am thinking about the items not being received by the director DIRECTLY, but put in a "store" which would be seen by a random player whenever that player looks at that company. The price would NOT be established by the director/inventor, but by an inner game system which would calculate the price something like this: The cheapest item on the item market that has similar properties multiplied by 3 or so ( after all, it is "unique", within error range 1 point maximum). Which could possibly mean that somebody would stock up on all the items of that kind existing at a certain point in time and raise the price. But no, this could be easily solved if each player could only buy ONE item coming from an unique company per day. This should lower the possibility of a monopoly, at least for weapons and armors coming from unique companies.
With these things put into function, I am thinking that this will, indeed, restrain the impact of the kickstarter system on the economy. Perhaps also make the inventor not be able to trade his own company, since it was received from the money of others, so if he wants to get in another company, he will have to click "delete company". Also make only level 15+ players be able to access the kickstarter. Or, even better, level 20+ or maybe even 25+, to make level 15 not look like it unlocks everything.
To reduce dev's stress, I have decided that the whole kickstarter system would end up like this:
How much will the kickstarter need to have in order for the company to be launched?
100 billion before it is taken into consideration. Start-up of an already made company will be 50 billion, or somewhere along these numbers.
How will the product planning system be?
One will have to choose between armour or the other kinds of weapons first. He will then make a description of the item and add a photo to the item. Later, he will be asked about how the attributes of that item (if it is a weapon) should be arranged. I haven't yet thought exactly about this, but it will either be preset stuff like: Lots of fire shots, low accuracy, low power. High damage, low accuracy. All round. Stuff like that. The attributes will be similar to the best stuff out there which could be described like that. There is another possibility: the inventor would receive "attribute points" he would distribute however he wants into the characteristics of the object, but it makes deciding a price for that much harder.
About the special cookie stuff... I am still going to be thinking about this...
admittedly i have not read your post much but to look at the numbers your posting
in the entire game...... less than 80 people have over 100b
....less than 250 people have over 50b
Thanks for the data. Well, I am going to take that into consideration and shrink the numbers.