Join the new world

This article was directly inspired by Rigour6's series on the economy and Fremenul's interview article.

The pieces linked above have pushed me to a number of observations: 1) a majority of players have a good understanding of the limitations of the current game and its built in flaws, 2) beyond the necessary assumption that business must be run as a business, there is still interest in listening to feedback and potentially improving the system, 3) the system, by its One World nature, is massive and therefore even the smallest change can have unintended consequences and any change must be done carefully, 4) even if errors are made, it appears like the driving force behind this social game is still being respected, that is the concept of community.

Next came for me the realization that as a New World Community, we are a rather passive one. Obviously we attempt to communicate with the powers that be (to the alleged tune of 1,000 messages a day) but that is mostly done as individuals. We routinely write what could charitably be called 'protest articles' but those often reflect concerns of a limited number of players (or special/national interests).

Remember that regardless of the hundred of votes your article may gather, the silent majority of the New World numbers in the tens of thousands of citizens.

So the first point of this article is to highlight the very great potential to be found in national management of community intervention. In plain English... I believe that one of the tasks New World Governments should take up is to moderate debate/ideas on what the game is doing right/wrong and provide active, ongoing feedback including any proposed innovation. Then those National Governments need to continue providing leadership in publishing the results of those debates and mobilize their respective citizens to promote them and communicate them with our 'Makers'.

There are some immediately identifiable benefits to such an exercise. First of all, any time you invite players to participate in discussions on the state of the game and where it should go, you transfer a small amount of ownership to them. Because of this, they get more emotionally involved and more active. Consequently they may end up participating in greater number in all manner of New World behavior (i.e. even purchasing gold).

Second, by encouraging National groups to moderate and foster the debates, you remove the need to police the exchange at a game level. You potentially break down the groups in small enough chapters to encourage creativity and imagination while at the same time maintaining a fairly high standard of critical feedback. Then once ideas are formally proposed, you have a grassroots movement behind them which will resonate that much louder.

Please do not misunderstand the point as me saying that we should write less articles. As stated in my opening sentence, if others do not write what they have, then this article does not exist. Along with articles we should encourage discussion at the grassroots level.

With that being said, please allow me now to expound on an idea for the game going forward (and yes, I appreciate the irony of now writing this following what I've just said).

Create Capital Projects.

I would like to see implemented something that I'm tentatively calling 'Capital Projects', that is constructions/actions that would be initiated by elected citizens but that require the participation of the masses to complete. Specifically I would like to see this channeled in a revamp on the way hospital/defense systems are created/used/renewed.

In the old days, hospital and defense systems could be built with companies. They rapidly became the domain of Governments as they were prohibitively expensive to create and sustain and the market for those products created privately was virtually nonexistent.

What I would like to see is the ability for an elected official (i.e. Congressman) to call a vote on the creation of a special building in a specified region. The cost of the building project would be a combination of raw materials/finished products and money. The proportional distribution of which depends on how simple/complicated you wish to make the system. The benefits of the construction building would be for a set amount of time and be universal during that period.

Option A. Straightforward.
-Congressman X calls a vote to build a hospital in Region X.
-If approved, capital building project now appears on the regional page of the country.
-Capital hospital project costs 100,000 FRM which must be donated by players.
-Capital hospital project costs 100,000 CCs which must be paid for by the treasury.
-Once donations are complete, Region X has a new hospital which will grant the equivalent of 1 energy bar in 1 campaign if the region is attacked (i.e. for the duration of one campaign, a player may use the hospital once to gain 100 health).

Benefits:
Direct benefit: nations can now work together to improve their infrastructure and provide additional bonuses to those that are operating on their side.
Direct benefit: community building exercise.
Direct benefit: production sinks for excess material.
Indirect benefit: if the cost is established right, you may see a situation where a segment of the population decides to dedicate themselves to building and not just war. By adding this small choice in roles, you add immeasurably to the gaming experience and sense of fulfillment.

Option B. Complex.
-All of option A but with added features/restrictions.
-Only an elected Congressman from Region X can call a vote for a Capital Project in their region.
-CP Cost is both RM but also finished products, for instance 100,000 FRM AND 100,000 food units.
-CP Cost has an initial CC amount plus a labour amount requiring players to 'work' on the project at a cost of 10 health to them. To keep the example with round numbers, 100,000 CCs and 100,000 man hours (which would mean 12,500 'clicks' if you assume one work action equals eight hours).
-Cost is multiplied by quality. Quality measures the amount of rounds the building is active for as opposed to the whole campaign in the previous example.
or
-Cost is multiplied by quality. Quality measures the amount of times the building is active for a player during a campaign.

Benefits:
Same as option A with the added depth of the product sink equal to the quality of the building. Larger buildings require larger community involvement and dedication.

Potential pitfall:
A specialization of this sort would re-introduce the concept of strategic regions. It would also increase the responsibility of the people elected. If this kind of intensity is not desired, than any feature based around individual actions/regions would be felt negatively.

Option C. Game Changer.
-All of the above A&B but with added features/restrictions.
-Add regional treasuries. Congressmen can set surtax rates to build up regional treasuries. Capital costs would come from there instead of National reserves.
-Would require the additional power to donate from one type of treasury to another with a vote.
-Also would require regional voting which could be problematic as we have citizenship but not residence.
-Second challenge is how to calculate the surtax on market goods or if it only applied to salaries of residents (potentially creating a scenario were players would move to tax shelter regions only to work).
-After a campaign (or battle as the case may be) a replacement cost would be calculated based on the amount of players that used the facility. That means initial capital expenditures would not be completely lost but the bonuses would not be permanent. If the cost is paid within the stated time delay, the building is renewed at full specs.
-Costs could be a combination of all finished products, RM, CCs and gold.

Option C speaks really to the potential complexity the game could decide to explore (which right now is contrary to its mission to streamline and simplify). You could set military priority with strategic capital building project in selected regions. You could set economic/domestic priorities with strategic management of taxes and treasuries, as well as encourage players to specialize in something other than the military/strength cycle. You would enrich the political process by empowering elected officials to have real impacts on their regions.

All of the above would be geared towards Community and cooperation. The big lack, from a business perspective, is that none of these options visibly lead to new revenue streams. That is, unless you accept that a richer experience leads to players being more participatory. Also an economy that provides sinks for CCs and resources may find a more organic equilibrium.

Note: the 100,000 amounts were selected arbitrarily and not by careful analysis of all parameters. You can replace FRM with WRM for defense system.

Note 2: one criticism will be that this would disproportionally advantage large/bonus friendly nations. There is no counter-argument here other than to say that the New World, as presently conceived, will always grant advantages to those nations. The leveling of the playing field comes from the fact that these benefits would all be defensive in nature, not applicable to those attempting to conquer.