11-02-2011, 11:26 PM
You described what a business is in offline GTA, now try to translate that to a business in an online environment.
There are some critical differences:
The example I talked about yesterday, collecting garbage, has an answer to most of these questions:
There are more things to keep in mind. What happens when the owner of a company decides to leave it as a "money generator"? For that, we need to solve the problem of idleness - penalties or being kicked from your own company if you aren't spending attention to it. Do companies need co-owners? How does one control what employees are being paid? What stops someone from hiring someone and firing them immediately after? Do employees have a stake in the company?
I think that the idea is realistic, in fact, I will start working on a Garbage Collection company (actually, three). The ideas as to what kind of companies we can have needs to be much refined, however. Having a "drug running" company is fine, but how can it make money? No one is going to type /buydrugs or /selldrugs. The focus must lie on Multiplayer.
There are some critical differences:
- The game normally stops when a player leaves the game. In an online game, it continues 24/7.
- Most of these games are based around a single player with the computer arranging the orders. For this to succeed, we need a system that has cooperation in its core. What good is a paramedic in an online game where people just respawn?
- Offline has no concept of employees. What can they do? How can a boss give them jobs?
The example I talked about yesterday, collecting garbage, has an answer to most of these questions:
- Money can be earned by placing garbage cans around the map, for which the government pays you some money.
- Collecting garbage from the cans increases the amount of money the government pays you, giving you room to pay employees.
- There can be competition: one garbage collection company per city who can expand all they like. Buying garbage cans of competitors is possible, but at a much higher price.
- The garbage won't be picked up? No problem -- no bonus money, but the system continues.
There are more things to keep in mind. What happens when the owner of a company decides to leave it as a "money generator"? For that, we need to solve the problem of idleness - penalties or being kicked from your own company if you aren't spending attention to it. Do companies need co-owners? How does one control what employees are being paid? What stops someone from hiring someone and firing them immediately after? Do employees have a stake in the company?
I think that the idea is realistic, in fact, I will start working on a Garbage Collection company (actually, three). The ideas as to what kind of companies we can have needs to be much refined, however. Having a "drug running" company is fine, but how can it make money? No one is going to type /buydrugs or /selldrugs. The focus must lie on Multiplayer.