Holding Companies - Part-timer Perspective
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by dreaeuh
(OOC) - I went from a rather active player (back on 2009) to a rather inactive player (not playing for three or four years).
I logged in when I was reminded by an email about my character and had returned to a strange new world.
My foreign (to me) currency had disappeared. I pulled up my old arbitrage spreadsheet, finding dead links. Exploring the website to correct them, I noticed I was only authorized to buy/sell USD.
What. The. Fudge.
So, I get over that, realizing I'd have to earn money the old way, working and training. I do that the last couple months, building my little fortune back, buying a few more companies, I even bought so gold so I could get my factory to a Q4. I was basically starting off anew. Heck, I even participated in some fighting. I enjoyed my new levels there too. I built me up a new spreadsheet to track what I was doing.
It was just getting fun again.
Then I started reading something about strategic products... the pall of complication weighed on my brow. I stopped fighting since I didn't know what I was fighting except for the daily goal.
About a week ago I log in to work... Assign to Holding Company...
I stared at the tiny screen on my iPhone for a good ten minutes before working for my employer and training. I did that for a few days before realizing that I had run out of food. My farms and q4 factory weren't producing. I couldn't work. I couldn't train. I couldn't fight.
... mind you, I play either when I first wake up, on a break at work, or right before bed.
I get frustrated and decide to setup a holding company. I get myself all setup and click Assign to Holding Company...
Remember when I said I had gotten back into fighting. Turns out, I had traveled away from my home to fight.
I was in Denver, Colorado.
I found that I couldn't assign to a holding company that wasn't in the same town. Oh snap. I felt stupid. It was free, so no big deal. I spend $20 to travel back to my home town. I start clicking to try to Work as Manager... No, I have to assign to holding company.
I shrugged again. No big deal, holding companies are free. I start setting one up in my home. Over 10K USD (or 25 Gold equivalent). Now I was angry.
How much cash did I have? Basically none, since I was buying food so I could work. No problem, just sell some gold... Wait, I can only sell 10 Gold a day?!?
I rage quit. I was addicted to being a worker. I checked back in before I went to bed and started putting some Gold up for sale. Ok, 2.5 days and I'll be good to go.
2.5 days is a while to stew in anger about a stack of rather pointless changes that marginalized a long term, albeit part time, player. I expressed my anger on some news article discussed the Holding Company.
A fine person offered to gift me what I need to buy a holding company so that I wouldn't rage quit, I mean, "in the interest of player retention".
Have I decided to leave? I don't know.
Do I think spending more money to make more money makes sense? Ehhh.
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Comments
Agree fully. I miss the days when there were different job roles and you had to allocate your time - harder to 2 click, yes, but easier to get actively involved.
I also haven't played since 2009 (except when I checked in briefly for v2 and promptly ran away as fast as I could ) . I'm not a huge fan of the current system either. I've just kinda been lurking around these past few months waiting for something interesting to happen to make me want to get involved again. The economic model is stupid, I avoid it at all costs
You can only BUY 10 gold a day. You can sell as much as you want!
what chazp said. and assigning all to denver colorado at this stage wont be to bad either.
Agreed the economic system has made these the same question:
Do you want to make a profit?
Do you want to spend gold?
The game gives you no strategy except at the top level which most players don't have access to unless they are involved with government.