a (respectful and polite) petition to raise the gold cap on games
 

I want to apologize in advance for bringing this up again, as I know there are already several arguments going on about the cap on game gold. A number of users have complained, because they earn gold mostly from games, and others have pointed out that Menewsha is a forum site and thus its main purpose is posting and chatting, and anyone who just comes here to earn gold from games is a—well, I saw it get rather unpleasant, and I wanted to start a new thread, to keep things polite and considerate and understanding of people who have different reasons for coming to Mene.

Anyway, here's the main reason I'd like to see the gold cap raised again: I finish earning gold through games in about 20-30 minutes, and usually only check my various threads while I'm playing games. That means that once I've hit my max, it's hard for me to feel like I should stick around for the posting. It's a psychological thing: earning gold from games is "work towards my quest" but posting for gold isn't. (Maybe I need therapy, but that's how it is. =3) If the gold cap were higher—maybe not back at 500, but at 300 or 400—it would take a little longer to hit it, and I'd stick around longer posting.

I don't think my method of using Menewsha is that unusual, but maybe it is, in which case feel free to ignore my reasoning.

In sum: I would really like to have an excuse to hang around on the forums more, by having my gaming take longer.

I'd appreciate it if responses to this post were considerate and polite.

I have another reason I would like to add for potentially at least temporarily restoring the previous game cap:

You see, many users actively "save up gold" for when an event is coming up. I have already heard many complaints and worries about Celes Pardi and Halloween being so close this year, that users will not be able to 'save up' enough gold. By having the cap, you're not hurting the quiet game-only players, but the very active userbase that anticipates, prepares for, and participates in events (including lots of posting, and grabbing as many discounted new items as possible).

Thank you for your consideration of this, at the very least.

I would like to see the gold cap in games be raised up a bit more, maybe not back up to five hundred gold. I think Either three or four hundred would be fine. The reasons posted above are good, but also by getting people to post more to try to earn more gold also may result in more glorified posts. I did think five hundred was a bit much when it was that high, I think some where between five hundred and two hundred and fifty gold would be a nice agreeable medium.

Raising to 300 is negligible. It's a difference of only 50 gold (100 with mule), which can easily be recuperated by making a topic or two, or reporting posts.

I think three hundred is perfect, because it is agreeable to most parties, and yes you are right Keyori.

I don't think Keyori was agreeing with you Kole. :lol: Correct me if I'm wrong Key, but I thought you were saying that 300g is negligible because you can make up that 50g in a matter of posts. Why raise it to 300 from 250? That seems like such a slight difference that it seems pointless to raise by 50g. I've seen you posting your 300g cap opinion everywhere since the cap has been changed, but I don't think that 50g is going to make a huge difference in the long run.

I personally don't mind the gold cap at 250. I have only played games once since the gold cap was lowered, and I don't see myself in there cranking out Tetris points to earn my 250g each day, even close to event time. I think that posting is a much more effective way to earn gold nowadays. :yes:

While yes, it is nice to be able to save for half-price event commons, you have to realize that you're already getting a hefty discount on commons. The goal of events is not to buy everything in the event store -- that's one reason why event store currency only happens every now and again now. We don't want to give away pixels -- we still want people to earn them. :yes:

I'm not the type of person who makes a lot of threads, because the forums I hang around in -- my roleplays, Menewsha Nation, Charities, Quests -- aren't the kind where you make a lot of new threads. And I was also under the general impression that new threads ought not to be made unless they're for a new topic, as in Life Issues. Sure, I could make a new Life Issues thread every day with whatever little problem I had, but that would feel like spamming to me. The 50 gold from making a new thread is gold I get maybe once a week, at most.

And I guess my original post doesn't make it clear that I'm not actually caring about the gold per se, it's the time the games take. I start a game of Fangirls and check the tab every few minutes to go from level to level, so I do my chatting in between levels, and having to play more games of Fangirls means more time to chat. Make sense?

Sizz: I certainly wouldn't say that posting is a more effective way to make gold. It takes me about 2 minutes to reach the 50 gold per/game cap in Tetris, whereas my threads move so slowly and most of my responses require so few characters that it takes me probably an hour to make 50 gold in a thread.

Honestly, I don't want the threads to move quicker (I'm usually doing something else while I'm on Mene and don't want to be constantly lost in threads) and I don't want to go out of my way to post more characters. I really just don't want to think about gold at all while posting.

The change in the gold cap really doesn't affect me, same as it doesn't really affect you. The people who are being affected are the newer people. The ones who have barely any clothes, who are working on seemingly impossible quests, or who are even just trying to get enough for the newest CIs. I don't really need gold now. But I clearly remember being in the throes of questing and playing both accounts all the way to the gold cap every day. I'd hate to think how much longer it would have taken me to complete my quests without that extra gold. It certainly didn't prevent me from posting regularly.

Thanks for your input, Cami -- you're said a lot eloquently. I'm not a newbie, but I am questing a lot of CIs that I missed during my hiatus earlier this year, and I'd like to get a few older, expensive items. I think I'm pretty active posting, but as you say, I don't want to think about gold when posting. I play games for gold. I post for fun.

Sizz is correct in what I meant, that there is no point in raising the gold cap from 250 to 300.

While yes, duplicate threads aren't really typical in the forums you frequent, perhaps branching out to different areas of the site would give you more options. :yes: GD can always use interesting topics of conversation -- things that will glean more than one-word posts. Same would be true for Media, Books and their subforums. We can use more activity all around the site, so branching out would be a good way to start some new threads. ;) Community Discussion can always use new threads too, come to think of it. :yes:

Anyway, those are just some examples of places you could get that 50g bonus.

I think I caught that after my second read-through, but I didn't edit my post to mention it. Sorry! :sweat: I can understand how you play games like you do, because I typically do the same thing when I choose to game. :yes: But, question: Why do you leave Mene once you're done playing games? Why not just keep on chatting? That would definitely give you a gold boost. :yes: Unless your threads are too slow to continue chatting, but I know that even if I'm shopping in one tab and playing poupee in another tab, I've got a third tab opened to Mene, and I always check back every now and again on my subscriptions. :yes: Even if I'm feeling too lazy to respond, I'm typically always checking back.

I guess I don't notice a difference in the amount of gold earned by posting and gaming because of my gold amount, so maybe I should ship it on over to my mule to get a better perspective. :yes:

I do remember that when I was new, there were no games to play, and all we had was posting to earn our gold. And items were ridiculously overpriced, so it took a couple of weeks to get a good outfit together. Now, people can get an outfit in a day if they put a bit of work into it. :yes: I dunno. I think that even though new people don't get starter items, they still have a lot of opportunity to earn gold right off the bat and get a starter outfit.

:sweat: I guess I'm just not terribly sympathetic, because I had to work really hard for what I've earned. That's bad to say, I know, but I can't help but feel that way. I was lucky to come to Menewsha in its early days, true, but I do know that 500g per day on both accounts was really nice, and it made it pretty darn easy to obtain quest items in a reasonable/quick amount of time. While yes, it may take twice the time now, you can still get a set of the current month's CIs for around 2k, which only takes 4 days to earn if you game every day on both accounts. :yes: We're also lucky to have a pretty low inflation rate -- it's virtually stagnant on a lot of items -- so I think the market is definitely in the players' favor right now. :yes:

I guess I also consider posting my 'fun' time, and gaming as 'work' time. Though I feel like I work pretty constantly, doing modly stuff and all too. So gaming is really just something for me to zone out to for a while.


Anyway, I see your point scholar, and I do know that questing can be a very frustrating experience.

I quested on Gaia for several years to get DJ headphones, and it became impossible, so I gave up. :( I had collected around 15 million in items and pure, and the price just kept jumping and jumping. And there are so few sellers, it's ridiculous, so they can charge whatever they want. It was horribly frustrating, and so I just let that dream go, sad as it is. I worked really hard, and didn't succeed. Bummer. So I know how you're feeling, totally. I did manage to fulfill a couple of big quests on Gaia though -- I managed to get my nitemare and angelic scarves -- so that made me happy at least. That was several years ago though, so who knows if I'd be able to afford them if I were questing them today.

Well it all depends on how much gold people are questing for you know. Sorry, my head was somewhere else when I read Keyori's post. Fifty more gold raise would mean three hundred and fifty gold a week or if you get on your main account and your mule that is a total of seven hundred gold extra a week you can make, plus-- three hundred is in increments of a hundred (which really isn't a valid reason-- I'm just making up one lol) I end up making the cap pretty quickly because I like to play that Sardine smash game. I wouldn't mind being able to make a little bit more of extra gold. People are still earning their gold only it's just through playing games a bit more. I still post the same amount.

Sizz: Things are also significantly more expensive now. I didn't buy a single quest item for more than 20K.

I do know. :yes:

I don't really have a counterargument or anything for this; I still think it's a negligible amount.

Well, sometimes you have to be realistic... Just like I had to be when I gave up on DJs. For some new people, it's not realistic to quest for a Vday 07 hairpin or a St. Patty's 07 Pin right off the bat. You've gotta work up to that sort of thing. XP

I dunno. I was all about obtainable goals on Gaia. I got the scarves first, in an attempt to use them in a DJs offer, because I knew that was a reasonable goal. DJs were sorta out of my grasp at first, but it seemed feasible, and I was hopeful! But as time went on, my enthusiasm petered out as I watched the prices skyrocket. And plenty of items were released that might not have been AS cool, but they still looked good, and fulfilled my DJ headphone needs.

Anyways, I ramble. Not everyone wants to settle for less, and I hear that. :yes:

Well, I do agree we don't want the gold to be too high due to people may just play games and not interact or may put too much gold into the system inflating prices of donation items even more. At the same time, you want to be able to earn a reasonable amount of gold too and somewhere in between two hundred fifty to five hundred gold is like you said a negligable amount. Speaking of Gaia quests I really wanted an angelic sash, but never could get enough gold to get one. Instead I got other donation items like the baby seal slippers, the kitsune mask, and the angelic pendant-- all items that required quite a bit of questing and perseverance, but they were not impossible to obtain, but now I think I may be able to get my angelic sash if I sell everything else, but I'm just not willing to do that, so I guess I may never get one.

I don't really play the games ever unless I'm reeeeeeally bored, and at that, there are usually a million other things I'd do first.

>>;; Though, I gotta say, watching Afrodonkey go splat is amusing. :D

ANYWAY...My feedback...

50/100gold would make a difference if you were doing it every day. That'd be a quick extra 700 a week if you worked hard.

That said, if it was, "choose between lowering the posting gold earning thing and increasing the game cap or keeping it as it is..." Fuck y'all, I like earning my gold by posting.

>__>; Not to be too brutal.

Thanks for your input, everyone. I guess, as regards my "I can't chat unless I'm actually playing games" problem, I should probably just talk to my therapist about it. :P

I quit Gaia about six months ago, giving away everything that I'd quested for -- including several hundred real dollars worth of cash shop items. I was just sick of the attitude there, not to mention the inflation. I do want to keep Mene from having that same inflation problem, so I can understand if you want to reduce the ease of gold availability.

Ultimately, of course, the decision about the game gold cap is up to the mods and admins, but I hope my input -- and the remarks this thread inspired -- has been taken into consideration. :)

I think if they raised the gold cap up to three hundred gold of course they shouldn't lower the amount of gold you get from posting because I think that also has had a hand in increasing the amount of post that the forum has been getting as of late. As monstahh said, yes it would be an extra three hundred or seven hundred gold if they use their mule to earn the gold and yes she said it was work to play these games that consistently. I think that is a fair deal if someone is willing to work for it that way too.

Cami
It wasn't really even a strike at the new posters. It was more of a strike at the people who log on. Play games and leave. The activity in the forums has gone down a substantial amount over the last year. A lot of people however were still logging on almost daily to play games then log off. Look at this from my perspective of marketing, this created a large influx of gold into the system without really any way of getting rid of it. Nor were they really contributing to the community except by creating more gold to circulate through. Then it was getting dumped during events for 50% commons. I know for me personally, the game thing doesn't effect me. I mostly play games when I am bored, then I get aggrivated cause I suck at them and move on.

I bought quest items for more then 20k :gonk: Several of them actually. As siz said though. You really have to work up to it. My initial quest was Panda slippers which I obtained. Then eventually worked my way upward after getting the grasp and feel for the market here. Overall though, everything on here is obtainable. It really is. The games will do little for you in the aspect of getting them however. It will give you a nice chunk of change to work with, but with the prices of things on Menewsha. 4 days of playing games now will let you start on your way to be able to one day get that Vday Pin. Foxxi just got his Vday pin after trying for so long and he still has other things. Just takes time, patience, chatting and work towards it. There is always more then one way to [legitamately] obtain quest items. 1k/d was not the only answer to it. In my entire time on Mene I think I have made maybe 2k from games. If even that much.

I guess I just don't understand the perspective that there are wrong ways to use the site. I don't feel like it's a competition between playing games and posting. Playing games has never prevented me from posting. If I feel like playing games, I'm going to play games (usually mindlessly while watching a television show or movie, times when I wouldn't be posting anyway) and if I feel like posting, I'm going to post. I certainly want the site to become more active. I want the site to succeed. However, I simply do not believe that people will post more because they're playing games less.

It just seems so counterintuitive to me. If we don't want people to play the games, why do we keep creating new awesome games for people to play? Clearly they must be created to attract people to the site or to provide fun times for people on the site. So how can we then say, "Stop playing the games. This is a forum site, it's always been a forum site, you should be talking, not playing games."

In the long run, I really couldn't care less what the gold cap is. (Well, I do want them to take away the 50 gold per game cap so that I can keep earning gold past 26K points in Tetris, but that's a different issue entirely). I just disagree with the reasons for the change. If we're lowering the gold cap to prevent inflation, okay, I'll buy it. If the games are using up too much bandwidth and the site is trying to save money, fine. If we're trying to encourage people to contribute because they make less from games, great. But I don't think people are going to talk in the forums just because they're not playing games, and I really don't think we should be telling an entire demographic of the site that they're using the site wrong.

Yes I do agree with you on that, why lower the game cap if you are going to create new games all the time. Within the past year they have created at least three new games. I definitely think that is at least warranted enough to raise the game gold cap at least back up to three hundred gold. I hate reaching the gold cap so quickly.

@Cami, Kole -- Yes, I agree with that, too. If the games are there only to attract users, why allow us to earn gold from them at all?

@Tijdon -- I don't actually understand what you mean by "from the perspective of marketing" and putting gold into the system without getting rid of it. How do people get rid of gold without buying items? And doesn't having more users just mean more gold generated period? However the gold is earned, it still comes out of thin air by us posting; it's not like we post and then Inso or someone gives us gold from his own store, and there's a limited amount. And as far as people not chatting in the last year, I remember when Inso brought Mene's financial position to our attention a few months ago, he pointed out that most forum sites are also experiencing a slump in activity. I guess maybe I need you to rephrase what you said, because I didn't quite understand your points. :)

I really hope they do decide to up the gold amount you make fromt the video games on here even if it is only fifty more gold perday you can make. They have made all of these cool games and they should have higher gold amount caps. You know I thought of one idea for those who have been on the site longer should be priveleged to have a higher game gold cap, but somehow that just doesn't seem right.

It would be nice to have more rewards for being here longer, but, well, I guess the accumulation of gold and items is its own rewards.

Yea, I think you're right. That would just lead to people abusing the system and making shit loads of mules just so they can generate more gold. Accumulating gold and items is its reward enough for sure.