StarGateWars Forums

countries around the world spend billions of $$ maintaining their armies. in the fictional world of stargate, the US government spends a lot to maintain the stargate program.

in the game, there is no accounting for the expense of maintaining soldiers. people can build a 100 mil trained army without having to pay for maintenance of the troops.

this is a proposal that hopes to see some sort of balancing rule put into place to make the economical model of the game a bit more realistic. it will also affect gameplay in such a way that the basic soldier becomes a valuable asset that simply cannot be killed off and replaced out of hand. perhaps, this will bring back strategic thinking instead of all out war using numerical superiority.

i propose that a maintenance cost structure be placed in the game. the figures are not exact, but, it gives a starting point with which to being the argument. what say 3 naq per soldier per turn?

maintenance costs could also be placed for the MS and defense platforms.

depending on what will be maintained, the costs can be adjusted accordingly.

this is a raw idea that needs fine tuning. feel free to post your input.

no ---- thats my input.

Would make everyones building of anything a lot more costly.

For absouletly no reason,

It would just give more reason to go statless apart from a small strike to farm with and a large turn income.

Who needs more reasons to do that.

So no.

12agnar0k wrote:no ---- thats my input.

Would make everyones building of anything a lot more costly.

For absouletly no reason,

It would just give more reason to go statless apart from a small strike to farm with and a large turn income.

i'd agree with you. but, people who want to ascend can't afford to go statless. they need stats. there are a lot who need to ascend still.

besides you can counter the statless state by having a resource attrition rate. if you have no guards, a percentage of your resources mysteriously disappears.

Again with the more pointless losses, why doesnt admin just delete everyones accounts and get it over with, then we can pay him for USS's just for the privellege of being his friend.

Apart from being "realistic" their is no reason for these to be put in, and their realism isnt that realistic anyway.

If you didnt defend your home with a shotgun to kill anybody who tried to steal your TV would your TV disapear... maybe, but what if you were well known for chopping the hands off of anyone who did. Then no the TV wouldnt go missing even if you put it on the wall outside your house with a sign saying take me.

And the other point, In real life, Soldiers have a maintanence cost because they are real, they have families to feed, they need to eat, they like collecting stamps, to add Maintanence into the game for Soldiers, you'd also have to give them all hobbies and families and 2 weeks paid vacation so they can go to hawaii.

Lets just keep it a bit more "gameisitic" shall we.

@ 12agnar0k - you might have misunderstood what he meant by maintenance there - I believe he meant the cost of continual training and upkeep of personnel and weapons - not the cost of living.

This could have been good if it had been in earlier - or from the start, but i think it's unworkable now.

However, as it stands I believe this will hinder some people a lot more than it would others - and I believe those it would hinder qould be the newer people, making their way in the game. I'm all for suggestions that make the game more difficult or more challenging - but only if it can be balanced - and I don;t think this could be - at least not easily.

Wolf359 wrote:@ 12agnar0k - you might have misunderstood what he meant by maintenance there - I believe he meant the cost of continual training and upkeep of personnel and weapons - not the cost of living.

This could have been good if it had been in earlier - or from the start, but i think it's unworkable now.

However, as it stands I believe this will hinder some people a lot more than it would others - and I believe those it would hinder qould be the newer people, making their way in the game. I'm all for suggestions that make the game more difficult or more challenging - but only if it can be balanced - and I don;t think this could be - at least not easily.

not really. higher level accounts will be balanced by the size of their army. so will newbie accounts. the point is, this can possibly bring back some sort of strategic thinking and resource value to the game. as it is right now, resources are a dime a dozen. it isn't healthy for the game. i mean, if someone loses 10mil UU, they just shrug it off. the consequences of losing resources has to be bigger. with a safeguard in place, people will value their resources more and think twice about their activities. look at the server war. its as if nothing's happening because they know they can recover their losses easily.

It's not as simple as that though - bigger accounts have generally been in the game a lot longer and we have accounts that produce trillions and trillions of naq per turn - irrespective of army size. Also remember that because of the amounts of naq some of these guys generate, they think absolutely nothing of selling weapons, only to buy them again when they need to attack someone, only to sell them again a second later. The cost of the buying and selling is irrelevant to them.

For many big accounts, bringing in these maintenance charges would be little more than a drop in the ocean - whilst it could still be pretty significant for newer players, who would also not be able to as freely sell and buy weapons (under teh current setup as well as the proposed one).

i agree and disagree both. maybe some idea needs to be put into gameplay. but as it is, it just encourages lots of miners. only people it would effect is people ascending and stat builders like midgetman who wouldnt be able to afford his stats.

just means that people wont be building stats to go get smashed in...so they wont even be losing that 10mill they dont blink about.

again the problem is bigger versus smaller players.... i've seen accounts that have been in the game for more than 2 years and their army sizes can be considered small.

the big accounts deserve to be where they are because they worked hard to get what they have or used $$. if you just started the game, only natural that you have to build up your account. if you've kept your account with its mediocre size all these years, then the fault belongs to no one but you. the argument of bigger versus smaller accounts is irrelevant. if you want to be big, then work for it, or buy it.

i started out this april 2008 with 0 stats and 0 army. i now have a 90mil army size account. i worked for it and traded for a bigger account. my army size is even bigger than some who've been playing for 3 years. again, let me reiterate, if you want a big account, then you do something to deserve it.

using the bigger versus smaller accounts argument for a suggested update just doesn't wash.

Naw.....It kinda makes me think of Stargate Sims.

I'd say this would be really good if unlimited AT were gotten rid of. Until then it does favor the large to much. Of course it might actually make wars winnable again, but who wants that LOL

Still no valid reasons to implement an idea which simply increases mantainance costs

@wolf, I understood just fine, My example of a soldier feeding his family is just an example of maintanence, their are many others, clothing them, giving them, guns , ammo for guns, accomedation, pension, trainging, flying them to war, e.t.c e.t.c.
Including a maintanence cost would mean they would have to do all of the above, so yes basically stargatewars sims.

This update wouldnt make anything better, would make small new accounts job at catching up a lot harder, peaceful large stat accounts would also suffer, this would only benefit already establish large players who war a lot, with 0 stats.... like me.

Will do nothing to improove the game, or game play, wont fix anything, infact will make things worse for 99% of players.

So either come up with a better idea or a reason to put it in.

weilandsmith wrote:the big accounts deserve to be where they are because they worked hard to get what they have or used $$. if you just started the game, only natural that you have to build up your account. if you've kept your account with its mediocre size all these years, then the fault belongs to no one but you. the argument of bigger versus smaller accounts is irrelevant. if you want to be big, then work for it, or buy it.

i started out this april 2008 with 0 stats and 0 army. i now have a 90mil army size account. i worked for it and traded for a bigger account. my army size is even bigger than some who've been playing for 3 years. again, let me reiterate, if you want a big account, then you do something to deserve it.

using the bigger versus smaller accounts argument for a suggested update just doesn't wash.

What? Let's analyse that shall we...?

1 - "the big accounts deserve to be where they are because they worked hard to get what they have or used $$"

I'm sorry - but lots of raiding and farming when there is unlimited AT available is not working hard. It has made the game boring and stale, and means that the 'top' players are those who can easily resign themselves to mindless monotony - whereas the top players previously were the ones who actually put some tactical thought into what they were doing.

And people deserve to be where they are because they used $$???? What a crock! They used $$ to get ahead on a free MMORPG because they were too useless or too impatient to play the game as it was meant to be played! So to say they deserve it is a load of old tosh!

And it is exactly the raiding and farming with unlimited AT and people creating big accounts with $$ that has driven this game to where it is now - which is nowhere near as entertaining or challenging as it used to be.

2 - "if you just started the game, only natural that you have to build up your account. if you've kept your account with its mediocre size all these years, then the fault belongs to no one but you"

If that's aimed at me, then you should know I'm on my second account - I believe the original one (which I gave away) is well over 100 million. I left because the game had become stale. I came back because a lot of friends asked me too - and it is for their banter that I am back primarily. Since I came back, I've played the game - not been mindless in raiding or lazy in buying.

If it's not aimed at me - then the point still stands that because people are kind of forced into this route of raiding and farming constantly to grow their account, this suggestion would disadvantage them over the bigger accounts, because they have significantly less naq and will slow their progress - while the bigger guys will hardly notice it, and can easily reduce it.

3 - "the argument of bigger versus smaller accounts is irrelevant. if you want to be big, then work for it, or buy it."

I refer you to response number 1. And the fact that this suggestion WOULD disadvantage the smaller accounts - as I previously mentioned DOES make it relevant. Try arguing your case instead of just saying 'doesn't wash'.

4 - "i started out this april 2008 with 0 stats and 0 army. i now have a 90mil army size account. i worked for it and traded for a bigger account."

Good for you - but lets face it, it is not difficult to build an army of millions and millions in that time is it? Not at all - certainly a damned sight easier than it used to be - and getting easier all the time. Oh wait - if this suggestion was introduced, meaning that players would have to maintain their armies, then the bigger players with trillions of naq per turn would hardly notice anything (especially given what was said previously about training/untraining) - and the smaller players, with nowhere near as much naq, AND who can already not as easily afford to train and untrain, would significantly notice a difference - therefore it would make it significantly harder for them as compared to the bigger players, and thus would once again, widen the gap.

And the fact you traded for a bigger account suggests you couldn't be bothered to actually put the work in to get your account there yourself - which kind of conflicts with your argument.

5 - "my army size is even bigger than some who've been playing for 3 years."

lol - so what? I know people who have played for 3 years with one account - but they constantly fight people and then rebuild, and they refuse to resign themselves to the boring void of raiding and farming just to get big. And this suggestion would do nothing but exacerbate the crud that has been caused by the poor implementation of some updates.

6 - "again, let me reiterate, if you want a big account, then you do something to deserve it.

using the bigger versus smaller accounts argument for a suggested update just doesn't wash."

And let me reiterate 2 points....

Firstly, as I think I've mentioned above - being able to raid/buy your way to a big account hardly makes you deserving.

Secondly, this has nothing to do with being deserving of a big account - it is to do with the argument I put forward that implementation of this suggestion would widen the gap between the big and the small accounts by exacerbating the problems created by other updates.

So you see - it does wash - and the simple fact your last post did nothing to actually argue against any of my previous points, kinda emphasises that,.

Good Night - off to sleep.

Edit: As I said before - if this had been brought in earlier - it could have worked - but we're just too far down the line now!

Wolf359 wrote:Good Night - off to sleep.

you can't go to sleep after you just posted that... who am i gonna argue with? about me aiming some post at you. did not. if you felt that way, sorry. but its the way i see it.

to counter your argument. even mindless raiding takes some effort. spending $$ takes effort because you have to earn those $$ first.

weilandsmith wrote:

Wolf359 wrote:Good Night - off to sleep.

you can't go to sleep after you just posted that... who am i gonna argue with? about me aiming some post at you. did not. if you felt that way, sorry. but its the way i see it.

to counter your argument. even mindless raiding takes some effort. spending $$ takes effort because you have to earn those $$ first.

Yeah - about the aiming bit - I already edited that part by adding something else afterward (as I couldn't tell if it was being aimed at me or not) - point still stands either way though.

Yes - raiding takes effort - mainly the effort to stay awake whilst doing it - but it isn't really hard work is it?

"having to earn the $$ first" - hmm, kinda clutching at straws there a bit. Personally, I am more of the opinion that if you're (and that's not aimed at you, but in general) able to spend significant amounts of cash on a free text based MMORPG, then you've either got too much of it, or don't appreciate its value (or have no friends ).

Maybe I was a bit harsh with some of the above - but the way I ultimately look at it is in terms of enjoyment. People come here, at the end of the day, to enjoy themselves and a lot of suggestions (including this one, I believe) threaten that enjoyment for some people. Perhaps not directly, but in roundabout ways and when considered in tandem with other things.

Over the years I have seen this game degrade; and it did so through suggestions being put in without proper thought because people wanted them without actually thinking them through - and they didn't think it through because all they were interested in was how the suggestion would benefit them in the short term, as opposed to the long term effect on the game.

This one could have worked earlier on - but not now - not unless someone can come up with something clever.

(and now I really am going to sleep - got to be up in 4 hours! )