Revive the online business map

[Rafiki]

Yeah I remember this map and it was at least when I paid attention to it never used because you've gotta spend real money (WP) to get your business on there and no one even used the map so it wasn't even worth spending any WPs on at all.
Now I do get some of these advertising options (facebrowser, advertisement "calendar events" in game) need to be World Point / Real money options because the server needs to be paid for and these are the main reasons people buy world points for, to advertise like /bad. Also lets not pretend the server doesn't generate its owner money and I think that's actually completely fine and within reason too because many people enjoy the server so why shouldn't it generate its owner a little cash. 

However in the past and this map has suffered from this already before and any option to make advertising your business like this, /bad, on facebrowser or even in game via calendar events is always locked behind a pay wall. And in many cases this actually makes no one use the system at all so even if you were to pay for the world points you'd need, no ones really using that feature so your advertisement isn't even gonna get seen.
I've seen more people use Facebrowser ads recently I think since they made it possible for you to pay with World Points rather than having to pay Facebrowser separately. But before this it was an amazing feature for business Roleplay that was never used because of the restrictive real world paywall.

At the moment I do see the Calendar in game is used now and then but it really isn't used alot and again this is an absolutely amazing feature that is turned into a relatively poor feature that is never used because of its paywall. Now I'd argue no ones winning here you aren't getting a ton of money from this feature because not many people use it or even look at it because of that. So we've got this awesome feature that it seemed when it release people worked very hard on to bring us... Like devs but its barely used.

I do think the balance here is a little off its known that to advertise your business thats the main reason most people donate to the server. So they make all features apart from their base /ad feature locked behind repeatable paywalls. Repeatable meaning for example with the cool Calendar advertisement feature we have that I will never use if I did want to use it I'd have to pay per event. Which is actually why I enjoy paying for gold for the /bad because I pay for my month then I'm good to go, I feel thats worth it and I feel the value there. 

I've mentioned all this above because if this map feature was refocused there is no way on earth it'll ever work and be monetised because thats been tried and it didn't even slightly work, also there are better options like /bad, facebrowser and even the calendar advertisement thing to spend your money on. 
I do however think it'd be really nice and hugely benefit business RP if some of these cool options that make getting your business out there to be free (Perhaps not in game but at least not locked behind a real pay wall) This map could be one of these free options, if it were free (At least real money wise) I think it'd be used and at least have a chance to thrive and it'd be really nice to give a tool to to business RPers where as currently many of the tools targeted towards them are again behind pay walls. Perhaps they can't all be free but at least the ones that're quite obviously failing hardcore because of these paywall restrictions to use them..... Maybe take away those restrictions and see how they might benefit businesses that're maybe newer, smaller, run by players who might not want / can not spend real money on opening their businesses all the time.

Of course you don't need any of these tools to thrive, I've often see some people argue that you do and I don't quite go that far. But these are all tools that make a business RPers life a million times better and /bad I believe is dealt with beautifully and it is the MAIN money maker /bad for the server. The others I don't feel have real value. Like this map currently if you spent money on it right now what's the point? Who even checks it. 
And what does it say to business RPers that all these features targeted towards them are trying to get their money. Maybe the best one /bad obviously is what'd you wanna pay money for but to have none of the options open to someone who doesn't wanna spend real money is kinda annoying (Other than base /ad) 
This map doesn't even work with the pay wall so I think it'd be a good tool to be like here you go, no pay wall. Might be useful for you business RPers! Have fun! 
 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Rafiki