Is this game dying?

[HareRumpler]

51 minutes ago, jjsquirrel said:

This thread is taking all sorts of interesting turns. If this money-glitch thing is on a level that it would potentially bring down the whole game (which has so far survived a non-working economy from around day 2 I hear), then it cannot be too much to ask the Tycoon FBI to also check "secret" stashes like company accounts and jets.

But the whole game practically being run by a couple of bigshot oligarch org owners having Mike too scared to act against them.. isn't that in a way the most tycoony thing that could possibly happen in a tycoon style game? Maybe we should just declare them the season 1 winners, reset everyones accounts and start over with the quicker learning speed? 🤑

A web-based game like this would never survive a start over.  The only reason it survives now is off people who have been playing it so long they're "invested" emotionally and nostalgically.  If a start over were to occur, 2/3's of the folks involved wouldn't bother and you'd still have the same issues attracting new players to the game, even with a faster learning speed.  It's just not the type of game folks go looking for.

[jjsquirrel]

6 minutes ago, HareRumpler said:

A web-based game like this would never survive a start over.  The only reason it survives now is off people who have been playing it so long they're "invested" emotionally and nostalgically.  If a start over were to occur, 2/3's of the folks involved wouldn't bother and you'd still have the same issues attracting new players to the game, even with a faster learning speed.  It's just not the type of game folks go looking for.

Yes I wasn't 100% serious on that. In fact just increasing learning speed on it's own could in some ways be like a restart for the old guard around here if you read what Mentor posted above. And I get where he is coming from with all the statistic-keeping etc. he has done over the years.

So from a game owner perspective..
Increase learning speed? - Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Crack down on the money mafia? - Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Just ignore everything? - No immediate bad effect except us whining about things here..

[HareRumpler]

30 minutes ago, jjsquirrel said:

Ignore everything? - No immediate bad effect except us whining about things here..

Well, no immediate bad effect beyond the continued trickling away of users.  Which I think is pretty much what Mike has accepted.  A slow death...well, slow until the snowball hits the cliff...which there will be...once enough users drop off that there aren't enough orgs anymore to actually support gameplay.  Then it's a quick death from there.  But again, I think Mike has accepted that.  I think he's content to milk it for what it's worth...so long as it's not losing him money on hosting fees.  Once the game reaches that break-even point between income and fees, I suspect he pulls the plug.

[actionjackson]

This game will always be dying because Mike doesn't make any money running it and therefore has no incentive to update it. He is around for things that earn him some cash, avatars, Paypal transfers etc. but updating the game does nothing to put money in his pocket. I can't blame him really. He probably needs to move to a subscription based model to earn money but he probably wouldn't attract any new managers and many here would leave because of it.

[Mentor]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:13 AM, Gator001 said:

yeah it would be nice to know the exact details of these glitches. Not to abuse them but to be aware who has been taking the piss

It is not difficult to figure out:

#1 Find the long term Grappling orgs,

#2 Check their PPV sales compared to their running costs and compare those figures to MMA PPV orgs,

#3 Look at how many events they are running per month and compare that to any other orgs in the game.

#4 Then look at those org owner bank accounts + their alliance mates accounts. 

Then it becomes pretty obvious.  

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, Mentor said:

It is not difficult to figure out:

#1 Find the long term Grappling orgs,

#2 Check their PPV sales compared to their running costs and compare those figures to MMA PPV orgs,

#3 Look at how many events they are running per month and compare that to any other orgs in the game.

#4 Then look at those org owner bank accounts + their alliance mates accounts. 

Then it becomes pretty obvious.  

Huh? That's not a glitch. Grappling orgs just make a good amount of money with established grapplers. The hype builds ridiculously fast because they can fight every day and they don't suffer any energy or cut/injury penalty when they do. They also don't count towards manager hype so people are more likely to set it and forget it. 

Grappling orgs are perfectly legit within the game. 

Does it makes sense? Not in the slightest but then it doesn't really make sense that I consistently only sell 5k tickets for 93k arenas and give away 88k for free with MMA PPV events. 

You're barking up the wrong tree with that one. They are not what people are talking about when speaking of glitches. 

[jjsquirrel]

12 hours ago, actionjackson said:

This game will always be dying because Mike doesn't make any money running it and therefore has no incentive to update it. He is around for things that earn him some cash, avatars, Paypal transfers etc. but updating the game does nothing to put money in his pocket. I can't blame him really. He probably needs to move to a subscription based model to earn money but he probably wouldn't attract any new managers and many here would leave because of it.

The only way he will ever earn money out of this game is a larger player base. That in turn would require some effort and investment before getting to that point.

Not necessarily paying money for a developer (though that would also help of course), but investing some of his own time to engage with the existing community, starting the occasional Island season and such.. and doing some marketing. There is some low-hanging fruit like updating the texts around flights and locations that are constantly confusing new players, I don't think a paid developer is needed for that. Just being around showing some activity around 400K, sending out a message to inactive players to let them know we have a big id turn and this is the time to come back.

Getting more players in and keeping them has the bonus effect of automatically making the game better for everyone without a single dev hour.

If that is not something Mike believes in or has the time for I think he should look to sell the game. One guy with some coding knowledge and a little motivation could certainly bring it back to life again.

[HareRumpler]

8 hours ago, Mentor said:

It is not difficult to figure out:

#1 Find the long term Grappling orgs,

#2 Check their PPV sales compared to their running costs and compare those figures to MMA PPV orgs,

#3 Look at how many events they are running per month and compare that to any other orgs in the game.

#4 Then look at those org owner bank accounts + their alliance mates accounts. 

Then it becomes pretty obvious.  

Nah, I think some of the glitches at least revolved around some methods of offering up contracts to fighters, or sponsorships or whatever, and then some way of cancelling them and getting the money back, rinse, repeat, etc.  I don't have all the deets on how it was all working, but I know others took big, big advantage of it and other glitches.

[Mentor]

19 hours ago, Alfred said:

Huh? That's not a glitch. Grappling orgs just make a good amount of money with established grapplers. The hype builds ridiculously fast because they can fight every day and they don't suffer any energy or cut/injury penalty when they do. They also don't count towards manager hype so people are more likely to set it and forget it. 

I consider this a very obvious glitch. If a fighter can compete non stop and have no penalties for cuts/injuries, then clearly the orgs running shows with such fighters have an advantage. Not to mention that for some reason these fighters are bundled into the same category with MMA fighters in the all time wins etc. How do that make sense? Why are MMA fighters who have all the restrictions and limitations of injuries/cuts/kos (ie chins being worn down), put into the same catagory as grapplers who can spam 3-4 fights per week?

Besides that, there is something clearly wrong with the actual figures. Pay close attention to the hype vs PPV profits of these orgs + take into consideration that these orgs have so many events. At that level of events, the depreciating returns formula should be hitting them hard. I think either the depreciating returns is turned off, or something else, because when i run just 1 extra event per month, i go from make a few 100k per show to losing money, clearly that is not the case here.

[Mentor]

16 hours ago, HareRumpler said:

Nah, I think some of the glitches at least revolved around some methods of offering up contracts to fighters, or sponsorships or whatever, and then some way of cancelling them and getting the money back, rinse, repeat, etc.  I don't have all the deets on how it was all working, but I know others took big, big advantage of it and other glitches.

I bet there is plenty of other glitches as well. 

[CelticStryder]

6 hours ago, Mentor said:

I bet there is plenty of other glitches as well. 

On 12/12/2023 at 5:10 AM, Alfred said:

Huh? That's not a glitch. Grappling orgs just make a good amount of money with established grapplers. The hype builds ridiculously fast because they can fight every day and they don't suffer any energy or cut/injury penalty when they do. They also don't count towards manager hype so people are more likely to set it and forget it. 

Grappling orgs are perfectly legit within the game. 

Does it makes sense? Not in the slightest but then it doesn't really make sense that I consistently only sell 5k tickets for 93k arenas and give away 88k for free with MMA PPV events. 

You're barking up the wrong tree with that one. They are not what people are talking about when speaking of glitches. 

Agree with Alfred here.... The fact that Grappling orgs can hold events daily is not a glitch and was clearly by design when the game engine was built. Bitching about how its unfair now just seems like sour grapes that others thought of the idea of using that to make piles of cash and the rest of us missed the boat. Really anyone could do the same if you wanted to put in the work to start a grappling org and recruit fighters.

As for betting there are plenty of other glitches..... I don't doubt that you are right but unless someone can prove that they exist and are being exploited then what's the point of losing sleep over it? We can barely get the simplest issues looked at so the odds of Mike are anyone else going hunting to find an exploit that may or may not exist and then figuring out how to patch it are about as likely as winning the Powerball.

[ArtieBanks]

On 12/10/2023 at 11:38 PM, HareRumpler said:

Yeah, but the issue was, and appears to still be...that while $ may have been taken from their accounts, there is a high suspicion (confirmed to me by at least one person) that much more is still stashed away on planes, businesses, alts, etc. that is still able to be tapped into and keeps the game unbalanced and unfair for anybody who isn't taking advantage of that.  And, not sure, but I suspect there's still at least one glitch around that's being used for funding on top of the "reserves" that have been tucked away.

 

Oh that is 100% true - it waas said to me that they were monitoring the money to see which accounts were involved with it as they tried to divide it into multiple accounts. I don't know if they ever actually removed the money - I know they didn't remove the people. 

[ArtieBanks]

On 12/12/2023 at 4:54 AM, Mentor said:

It is not difficult to figure out:

#1 Find the long term Grappling orgs,

#2 Check their PPV sales compared to their running costs and compare those figures to MMA PPV orgs,

#3 Look at how many events they are running per month and compare that to any other orgs in the game.

#4 Then look at those org owner bank accounts + their alliance mates accounts. 

Then it becomes pretty obvious.  

 

The grappling orgs are not what anyone is talking about you donut but here is the answers to your questions. 

1. WPGC and Gigantes - we are the only two doing it. 

2. The same amount that Evo used to make on PPV sales on average. 

3. 8 every 28 days - which is about the average that most MMA orgs run. 

4. 15mil to Butch for the Monsters tournament, 55mil to Alfred a vast majority of which was pumped into stupid tournaments, 5mil to Monkey for a tournament he was running and 39mil into a nut shop (I accidently created weight gain twice instead of weight loss). 1mil to Rei for graphics work. 

That about accounts for it except the 2mil sitting in my gym - the rest of it is public knowledge. I cannot speak for Gigantes - you would need to ask Chris. 

 

DR still works the same way - the only difference is that grapplers do not get injuries nor energy loss so you can legit book the same 20 fighters every time. None of it includes manipulating source code etc whcih was required for certain glitches. It is actually just run like the EPL used to do except twice per week and no one gets injured.

[ArtieBanks]

6 hours ago, CelticStryder said:

We can barely get the simplest issues looked at so the odds of Mike are anyone else going hunting to find an exploit that may or may not exist and then figuring out how to patch it are about as likely as winning the Powerball.

Actually the two devs went around plugging in these holes it is why we never got any really good updates for 6-9 months because they were plugging them and having to plug in more as they were discovered and used by people.

[ArtieBanks]

On 12/11/2023 at 4:13 AM, Gator001 said:

yeah it would be nice to know the exact details of these glitches. Not to abuse them but to be aware who has been taking the piss

There was the glitch that allowed you to set your prediction sliders to over 100% which meant that your opponent couldn't land shit on you. However, if you set it too far one way then the fight would bug out. 

As for the rest of the ones... 

[Rei]

24 minutes ago, ArtieBanks said:

There was the glitch that allowed you to set your prediction sliders to over 100% which meant that your opponent couldn't land shit on you. However, if you set it too far one way then the fight would bug out. 

 

Man lol

[Daudy]

5 hours ago, ArtieBanks said:

 

 55mil to Alfred a vast majority of which was pumped into stupid tournaments

I'll have you know the christmas day massacre is a terrifically upstanding addition to the tournament scene!

[kenlow73]

there was a glitch that allowed some fighters to be better than others...oh wait...that wasn't a glitch, that was a couple of former players cheating...

[popart]

It's a pretty antiquated game at this point, but there's no reason to say it wouldn't have a larger player base if it was given some advertising. There's no other game quite like it on the market. A developer would help, sure, but advertising would help far more in the long term.

[Zello]

I'm pretty much bored of this shit tbh. I just log in and log out.