Personal Property Market - What do you think?

[HaveADream]

Just now, eMe said:

If people were actually able to get the houses they requested then I would agree but it seems that only the "elitist" of roleplayers are able to obtain these houses, which I have no problem with, with good roleplay comes reward sure whatever. My concern comes when SO MANY of the houses are blocked off with this mindset. If only a handful of people are able to get them, why are so many getting put under this scheme... Why not have 3 houses in each area for example restricted to these "elite" roleplayers... This will free up LOTS of houses and I think if anything reduce the costs of the mirror park/ vespucci privately owned properties. 

 

I think it was Fenrir who said it best when he said; 

On 4/23/2020 at 10:29 PM, Fenrir said:

You make a character and you spend all your devotion and time to obtain a natural flow in their development. Eventually, the character starts earning well by having a good job and he ends up affording their dream house... Right after they obtain their dream house, someone creates a character and spends 12 hours a day fishing and trucking to farm cash. After a week they move in next to your character because they have the required funds to do so by basically farming cash.

It took you months of going through various stages of your character's life to develop all the way to owning that house. It only took them a week to 'afford' it. How would you feel?

 

[Screw]

Currently half of Vespucci Canals, entire Chumash, Vinewood and everything is blocked off. There are multiple bad looking smaller houses in Chumash that could easily be a normal house, also inside Canals there are at least 10-15 houses that are just fine to be normal houses. Only reason for inflation is as it's totally obvious is availability. Which is why people are so desperate at this point that we are getting to Grove street houses reaching upwards of 300-400k price tags sometimes.

Not everyone has pristine admin records to apply for them, in fact most especially new players don't. So I don't feel like this is fixing the main issue here.  

[eMe]

Just now, HaveADream said:

 

I think it was Fenrir who said it best when he said; 

 

 

Yes mate and I answered it:

 

"It's not desirable but the fact of the matter is it's no fault of the player, it's fault of the script. Perhaps you should limit what the script rewards said player.

 

You cannot logically establish a 'good job' because the roleplay in game does not facilitate this. What is a good job that the average player can do in game to roleplay a upper-middle class player as you propose?

 

The jobs available to an ordinary player who wants to RP having a good job is limited. You cannot become, for example a dentist as in-character it is not profitable, no one wants to RP no less pay up to their eyeballs in dental care. You cannot be a barrier reef cleaner because there is no facility to get paid for this job, you cannot be a manager of a soda manufacturer, or be a semi-professional basketball player because of the game limitations... 

 

The only jobs available to the average player is for example, becoming a mechanic, or being a security guard, or a car salesman to name a few... These are jobs that IRL do not pay well, but in the universe of GTAW they do. I'm not saying it's realistic in comparison to real life, but in the life of the game, it's realistic, just as much as no one goes to hospital to get a health check up, or maintains good dental hygiene, or roleplays making the lights flash in a nightclub."

Edited April 26, 2020 by eMe

[Screw]

Just now, eMe said:

 

Yes mate and I answered it:

 

"It's not desirable but the fact of the matter is it's no fault of the player, it's fault of the script. Perhaps you should limit what the script rewards said player.

 

You cannot logically establish a 'good job' because the roleplay in game does not facilitate this. What is a good job that the average player can do in game to roleplay a upper-middle class player as you propose?

 

The jobs available to an ordinary player who wants to RP having a good job is limited. You cannot become, for example a dentist as in-character it is not profitable, no one wants to RP no less pay up to their eyeballs in dental care. You cannot be a barrier reef cleaner because there is no facility to get paid for this job, you cannot be a manager of a soda manufacturer, or be a semi-professional basketball player because of the game limitations... 

 

The only jobs available to the average player is for example, becoming a mechanic, or being a security guard, or a car salesman to name a few... These are jobs that IRL do not pay well, but in the universe of GTAW they do. I'm not saying it's realistic in comparison to real life, but in the life of the game, it's realistic, just as much as no one goes to hospital to get a health check up, or maintains good dental hygiene, or roleplays making the lights flash in a nightclub."

I agree, there isn't too much variety that actually makes the amount of script money needed to pay for the " dream house" for said character. Although the server did improve a lot, a year before everyone was afking at the refinery all day and mining, lol.

[HaveADream]

Just now, eMe said:

Yes mate and I answered it:

 

"It's not desirable but the fact of the matter is it's no fault of the player, it's fault of the script. Perhaps you should limit what the script rewards said player.

 

You cannot logically establish a 'good job' because the roleplay in game does not facilitate this. What is a good job that the average player can do in game to roleplay a upper-middle class player as you propose?

 

The jobs available to an ordinary player who wants to RP having a good job is limited. You cannot become, for example a dentist as in-character it is not profitable, no one wants to RP no less pay up to their eyeballs in dental care. You cannot be a barrier reef cleaner because there is no facility to get paid for this job, you cannot be a manager of a soda manufacturer, or be a semi-professional basketball player because of the game limitations... 

 

The only jobs available to the average player is for example, becoming a mechanic, or being a security guard, or a car salesman to name a few... These are jobs that IRL do not pay well, but in the universe of GTAW they do. I'm not saying it's realistic in comparison to real life, but in the life of the game, it's realistic, just as much as no one goes to hospital to get a health check up, or maintains good dental hygiene, or roleplays making the lights flash in a nightclub."

 

I've seen people roleplay Journalists, psychiatrists, lawyers, district attorneys, LSPD civilian staff, pilots, event organisers, architects, interior designers, marketers, models...

 

Do they pay well? No, but I trust most people who choose to roleplay those characters are not doing it for the number in the right corner of the screen - if they're trying to emulate a middle-class person (So not the houses available through the Housing Request system), they're more likely to be looking towards the houses that /are/ going up for millions, but being permanently priced out of owning those because of the artificial barriers to entry, as well as new players that go down those, or similar job paths for their characters.

[eMe]

Yes I thought you may come back with these exceptions. Some people do take the time to roleplay these unique characters which are heavily roleplay focused, but you will often find that these character are not their "day 1" character they used when they joined the server. They accumulated wealth on a previous name and are using this wealth on a new name to aid in this roleplay, likely by grinding the script or doing some menial job which pays well. How do you think the pilots got their planes when they're upwards of 1M$ in some cases??? Interior designers make an absolute mint and I guarantee they don't roleplay painting walls or setting up furniture.

 

For every argument in favor of each of our views there are exceptions to the rules of course, I do not dispute this. But these roleplayers you mention are few and far between and make up 1% of the server, most people just want to play the game and assets and wealth is apart of it. Money does not come from nothing after all...  

[HaveADream]

18 minutes ago, eMe said:

Yes I thought you may come back with these exceptions. Some people do take the time to roleplay these unique characters which are heavily roleplay focused, but you will often find that these character are not their "day 1" character they used when they joined the server. They accumulated wealth on a previous name and are using this wealth on a new name to aid in this roleplay, likely by grinding the script or doing some menial job which pays well. How do you think the pilots got their planes when they're upwards of 1M$ in some cases??? Interior designers make an absolute mint and I guarantee they don't roleplay painting walls or setting up furniture.

 

For every argument in favor of each of our views there are exceptions to the rules of course, I do not dispute this. But these roleplayers you mention are few and far between and make up 1% of the server, most people just want to play the game and assets and wealth is apart of it. Money does not come from nothing after all...  

You've raised some points that have certainly given me something to think about, thank you, good talking to you about this.

 

Thanks for sharing your point of view on this.

Edited April 26, 2020 by HaveADream

[Late]

I think everyone thought the market would stabilize  with the house request system being added. If anything I think it's just going to create a higher demand for player owned houses instead, especially when people who have been roleplaying for 10 years and committed to a single character for the last 4 get told their roleplay isn't up to standard and get denied on the most obscure reasons. I don't think I am going to write another 1,800 words to request a house. Instead I shall focus my efforts on daily openings of my businesses and continue to provide people with roleplay whilst saving up the cash and just buy a player owned house instead. [/salt]

 

So I wouldn't actually be against all the houses being added to the free market but maybe just a little bit of policing involved so if someone is seen to be fishing all day grinding then buying a mansion PM reserves the right to question them on how their character got their wealth and can force them to sell it rather than going through an overly complicated and scrutinized application that PM will have to sort through one by one. This way most players will be allowed to own the house they want but the small minority of people who are buying houses that definitely wouldn't be fit for the characters will be policed out. It's a bit fairer that way to the general player base who spend so many hours roleplaying and contributing to the server.

 

With that said the amount of houses available will outstrip demand once again (for a while at least) leading to prices deflating back to normal because as it stands unless you add almost every building as an apartment building with many apartments to each floor you're for ever going to have house prices inflate as the server population grows. We will hit a dramatic housing crisis very quickly with the rate the server is growing. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Late

[Exploits]

Totally destroyed the format on this post hot damn please delete or ignore.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Exploits

[Exploits]

 

22 hours ago, Chief said:

So you take the housing market prices entirely OOC then? When is the line drawn for what can be taken IC and OOC then? Do you regard car prices as OOC as well? I don't agree with you at all, but to each their own. Agree to disagree.

 

This is always a murky issue. Do you refuse to role-play in bars that charge you $100 for a shot of whisky because it's unrealistic? Refuse to purchase backpacks at the 24/7 for, I believe it's $2,000, for the same reason? The economy we have is simply the economy that exists. I try not to trouble myself too much with looking outside our game world in an attempt to create perfect 1:1 representation since it mostly just causes grief and disconnect for me. The best I can do as an individual player is ground my character representation and take the rest for face value and adjust accordingly. 

I had pointed out your trailer park example before because, while you were keen to call $300,000 unrealistic, its base market price -- the one which is fixed by the server staff and unchangeable by players -- is also 'unrealistic' at $95,000. But again, it's only unrealistic if we look to the real-world. There are many examples of assets that fall into this category if we take the effort to prove it so. Yet there's no reason to trouble ourselves over all of these details, especially to our detriment. The economy is what the economy is. The dollar values are only so important insofar as to how they impact the player base. If backpacks cost $1,000,000, then that would definitely be something for reconsideration.

So with that said, the issue is less how 'unrealistic' these prices are (which is still an issue -- don't get me wrong) but how the current prices leave people without accessible choice. The former line of argument leads us to rabbit holes such as this, while the latter seeks to ensure a practical result.

 

I think the driving divide in this discussion is that it's difficult, at least from the outside, to determine what monetary assets are used for. I and others fall into the category of being willing to pay what are unrealistic prices to secure role-play: others may fall into the camp of using those assets to secure more money, in turn for more assets, and onward. Then there are those who don't wish to participate in it at all. Yet regardless of the motivation, the result is the same: a hyperinflation of housing. I'm guilty of participating in this.

 

There's probably no clean solution to this, but there are still options and tools available. @Syrike has mentioned players being reported over property prices, which is something I was not aware of. Taxes and upkeep scripts keep being brought up as one of these tools, and is one I am all for. Another I've been thinking on is ensuring that players who are buying and flipping properties are directly part of established real-estate businesses -- there's undoubtedly far too many players who do this as a side business for profit and profit only, regardless of their character's real motivations, skills, etc. It's simply too easy to buy a property, to then ask somebody else to map it for you, pay them off, and reap massive rewards. If there was an established set of requirements which limited access to this sort of real-estate profiteering, then it would also limit the amount of property flipping occurring and the inflation which is consequent to it.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Exploits