Motion: Reducing cash prizes @ TWEL

[Wazzaaa.nl]

So I just wanna see if this whole council is something wich have a little say,
or mm god and the rest of upperstaff just created this as a puppet show and dont give a fuk.


I know this isn't an official meeting but I just wanted to bring out my voice and hopefully from other councilmembers

So arguments for removing or reducing the prizes from player input

265+$ spend for no lasting effect or anything beneficial to the zone
noone ever goes to ?go duel so this event is just based on a really small population like 10 ppl
this event does not create any interest for new players, since there is zero marketing also it will gain no new players
this event will only increasy activity for a little period and got no longer effect (seen the amount of money spend, it's too expensive for such a small period)

[bkgmjo]

Just to make this clear: reduce rl-$ or fake-$, too?

[Wazzaaa.nl]

It's mostly about the real USD coming from donation money
Since Mythrill prizes the pubbux from his own pocket (90%) he can do w/e he wants with it right
Mythriluig> total would be around 1,150,000 in about a month-2 month period
qan> it's a lot to put into one event ... then again, we don't really use the money much :P
qan> re: the cash at least
Mythriluig> well, about 150 would be from the tw donations and the rest out of my pocket

[Mythril]

I'll post the full conversation with qan since you clearly took it out of context. Not only that, but you quoted me and somehow didn't understand what I said at all.

qan> hey, what's up? am doing some code, but I can talk for a sec
Mythriluig> appreciate it man, you run the TWD bots in pub correct?
Mythriluig> or is that krynetix
qan> oh, tw-pubsystem? I work on it a bit, yeah. nobody really runs it
Mythriluig> ah
Mythriluig> well, not sure if you've heard about the dueling league TWEL and it implementing pub bux rewards with victories etc
Mythriluig> i really just want your opinion on it since you work closely with pub and the bots
Mythriluig> let me get you a link
Mythriluig> http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthr...10-Cash-Prizes
Mythriluig> this has been reviewed and approved by MM btw, just receiving some initial concern from the public atm
Mythriluig> so id like to hear your view
Mythriluig> mainly on how the pub bux could potentially negatively impact inflation
Mythriluig> that seems to be the main concern pub related
Mythriluig> total would be around 1,150,000 in about a month-2 month period
qan> it's a lot to put into one event ... then again, we don't really use the money much :P
qan> re: the cash at least
Mythriluig> well, about 150 would be from the tw donations and the rest out of my pocket
qan> as for pubbux, people get really confused. inflation doesn't happen with a fake game currency. pubbux aren't worth anything. they aren't weighed to any economy
Mythriluig> that's what i was thinking too
qan> so inflation isn't real. what they call inflation is just... people playing the game, heh :P
Mythriluig> it's not like the pub bux are being traded for items
qan> ohh, you're financing it partly yourself? yeah, that sounds totally legit then
qan> and yeah, pubbux are really just a novelty thing
Mythriluig> cool
qan> it doesn't actually matter if people have several million. and I've made various methods to get people to lose them as well, heh :P tried to make more high-ticket items
qan> yeah, you can go ahead and quote me on that then. I've been actively trying to come up with ways to counter so-called "inflation." but really, bux are just there to motivate people
Mythriluig> awesome
qan> so you aren't inflating anything by giving them as rewards for people who do things we want to encourage
qan> such as winning a duel
qan> it makes no sense at all

Now, I will clarify AGAIN. $150 would come from the donations which is NOT FROM THE BRANCH 'ADVERTISING' and the rest is from MY OWN POCKET. The pub bux will come from where they always come from - the bot. This is not the first cash prize ever given out. I have no faith in this council if 1. you cannot comprehend logs and 2. you have no idea what's actually happening in this game. People are all of a sudden outraged despite the fact TWLM held cash prizes last TWL season and cash prizes are rewarded for random tournaments all the time, from player donations AND from the TW donations. This is exactly the same thing that is happening in TWEL.

[Shaddowknight]

So the question arises:
Does council have the power to say "no" to uses of the TW donation money?
Do they have any power over it's use beyond server costs?
If we spend money on a league few people care about, why are we not spending money on the leagues people DO care about? (TWL, TWD)
If we are only pushing to make it active again, then throwing money at 2 or 3 good players will make only those 2 or 3 players care, for the most part. (it's a waste of time for everyone else, if they don't actually have a chance).
Would a better way to spend money be to prize top TWD players every reset (small, but still free prizes, based on whatever criteria is decided upon)?

TWD is a lot better at judging if money prizes increase the relvancy of a league. Doing a once-a-year is hard to judge, because the baseline for activity in it is not very reliable (not enough data points over time)

[but...why...per...]

If TWEL is going to be run with current donation money, I personally would rather the amount be reduced to at least $75. $25 for each division seems like a far more reasonable amount, any more would probably be disproportionate given the numbers likely to be participating. Also spending $100+ on a single league sets a dangerous precedent for future leagues. If Mythril is happy to subsidise this further out of his own pocket then I have no objections to that so long as it is made clear.

I'm not generally in favour of 'cash events' as a whole as they only tend to cater to a niche playerbase and think there are better alternatives to retaining players and increasing competition.

[kthx]

Dunno.. weird shit.

[bkgmjo]

Some more arguments:

The population which carried this game since beginning are the players in pub, not any league, host or whatever. Yet it is okay to only give away stuff on leagues which happen for a few hours in total, but treat pub like the games stepchild. If you really want to go for stuff like this, award the person with most pubbux something on a yearly reset (item like a TW-sprayed netbook, trophy or something, not cash) and give away bux in leagues/events to help reach such a goal. This would at least keep up incentive over the whole year and on the whole game.

Financial incentives violate the basic rules. "3. COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION PROHIBITED." (rightclick and open the .exe in notepad to see). This would include paying players to play from donations, own pockets or where ever else. A small win like 5-10$ could be seen as symbolic, but the amounts called up here go beyond this.

Nobody really wants to deal with income or gambling tax stuff of any country. Not that we have someone responsible anyways. If at any time some financial authority gets the idea to check a winners or the games account there can be serious trouble.

Some people spend countless hours to maintain, staff, develop, host, moderate for free. Others assist newbies and on tech questions for hours for free. Any many many more play this game for free. But since we already cannot pay the helpers and they should have priority, there is nothing left for league participants who only play for cash. Unless you really want to say the latter are more valuable to the game that is.

[qan]

Does council have the power to say "no" to uses of the TW donation money?
Do they have any power over it's use beyond server costs?

Yes; the scope of Council was not defined, meaning it can theoretically respond to literally any issue at present. This is why sysops also have veto power, though the Council itself can also reverse its own decisions, as need be.

If we want to restrict Council's options for some reason (despite this being a group of people made up of many trusted members of staff + players voted in from the community) that can be done via Council itself. And each issue needs to be discussed and pushed through according to well-defined procedure, so at the moment I don't see a situation where it could cause a great deal of harm (or, at least any more harm than any individual person in power).

Waz, added this to the agenda. Sorry I didn't add the issues you sent in ?msg awhile back ... in order for the Council to work, a motion needs to be specific, and they were just too general. Would have played hell with the actual meetings. This, however, works well. The specifics of the motion will have to be decided by a motion to amend, but we can make it to that by discussing it beforehand.