Wolf359 wrote:Maybe the solution is that if an account is inactive for a specified amount of time (say 1 month) - it automatically goes into a special vacation mode and is removed from the rankings.
I really like your idea. It would cover the inactive accounts on the rankings problem, and protect the personal inventment(time, money, etc.) that the player has put in in the event that they were to stop playing for a period of time.
ManiacMan wrote:It still doesn't address the point that more accounts looks like more players, which attracts more players, which brings in more money.
If the account is removed from the rankings I don't think that would be a problem. I don't think, in my humble opinion, the total number of players attract that many more people to play.
Why? I can't remember how many times I've answered questions about G+R and the rankings. I don't think people really care about rankings unless they are looking for G+R, simply based upon my experience answering questions about 0.2%, 2% and everything in between(I'm sure you've answered many of them too ManiacMan). If a large portion of players can't(for whatever reason) calculate where they should be to get G+R, I postulate that rankings rarely, if ever, was a concern for them, as evidenced by an inability(for whatever reason) or lack of experience working with the numbers required to calculate G+R properly, and to realize what the wrong way is. My supposition is that what most people care about is getting up to #1, or as high as they can go, and don't concern themself too much, until they are experienced players, like yourselves, with total numbers of people playing/(in)active accounts/etc.
K