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Courier work
A very simple, but noticeable improvement

Switch the refresh rate from 24-hours (or whatever it is now), to 20 hours. This doesn't have a significant effect on the economics, but allows people to do courier missions around the same time. E.g.:

Today:

Day 1 - Work at 21:00

Day 2 - Work at 21:30

..

Day 12 - Work at 04:30

At 20 hours:

Day 1 - Work at 21:00

Day 2 - Work at 21:30

Day 3 - Work at 20:30

..

Day 12 - Work at 21:00

It's a very simple change, one that isn't even apparent to the user, but makes the experience so much smoother.

Yes! Please do this :D
Yes! Even 22 or 23 would make a big difference.
Agreed! :)
Just to save on the constant stream of +1 posts - No.
Just to give new-ish players a peek into how that's rationalized:

http://bit.ly/TuEHEr

In particular, but in no particular order:

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/hustle-141/ In other words: Making money isn't *supposed* to be easy, especially for Mixers, and especially off NPC's.

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/bah--stop-harassing-me--come-tomorrow-or-something.-722/ In other words: It's been this way a long time and it's been discussed before.

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/new-game-features/bruce-n-charisma-33/ In other words: Some people get more crate runs than others no matter what.

You don't need to run them at exactly 24h intervals.

Go do some RP or something.

Only one of those actually describes the problem laid out here and it ends after four posts. It's not about making this easier, but this is an entirely OOC problem. It doesn't count days, it counts 24-hour-cycles. I'll go as far as to say that -is- a design mistake that appears frequently in 24-hour-refresh games.

If you don't like the solution, even setting the reset at 00:00 hours WCT is a better idea.

To add to that, it's a problem that most browser/Facebook games run into at release. It's usually fixed in subsequent patches.
This isn't a browser game or most games. So I don't see that as a winning argument. That said I think Jinx and Beandip missed the point. The point I think that is being made is that certain people have specific hours that they can play. When running crates the timer always pushes ahead so you have to do crate runs later than the previous set. Which means players have to miss whole days of work eventually because the designated time they are allowed to run crates due to an arbitrary border time limit isn't in their play time. This can even happen more often when a player isn't aggressive about nailing their crate runs the instant they are available.
It is the same problem. People who play browser games also usually don't do it at 4 in the morning.
Again, that's neither here nor there. This isn't a browser game nor is it a facebook game. It's actually held to higher standards. So implicating that they do something thus we should as well is insulting. Even if it is other text games who have the same trend. We are not them. We are not trying to be them.
Again, it's the same mistake. If you make a off-by-one error in Farmville code or in SD, it's still an error. This is also an error that the designer of the system simply didn't think about. There's nothing to be ashamed about here.

I doubt you'd be arguing for the change if someone suggested setting it to 24 hours from 20 hours. I also suspect that nobody here believe that someone though "Hey, you know what, I'll make the system so that it intentionally let's the player perform the task later in his schedule." It's a mistake, nothing more, nothing less.

If it has been discussed in the past and hasn't been changed then it was deemed as not being a mistake but rather functional to the conflict, strife, and complications of being a mixer. Courier work isn't even a real job. You're running crates for the company in hopes that the person whom you deliver it to will and can give you a tip for saving them a trouble of having to go and get their deliveries themselves.

It isn't about shame, it isn't about defending code. It's that there are reasons, whether you agree with them or not for the decision to keep the system as is. Browser and Facebook games conform to the desires of the playerbase above aesthetics due to their desire to milk every cent they can through micro transactions from their pacified playerbase. This game isn't about that, nor is it striving for it.

The assumption that this isn't intentional is a mistake, nothing more, nothing less.

Further arguments or insistence that you somehow know better won't change that. It's working as intended and will not be changed.

And now that a staff member and our supreme coder has made the situation clear, how about a thread lock?
I'm disappointed guys. Really. I expect you to be a little more responsive to constructive criticism. Whatever. =/
Hey! I'm staff too...

But I usually just break stuff...

Your expectations are the source of your disappointment. The staff do respond to criticisms and they even have conversations on the topics before they make decisions. This topic has already been brought up, as have the points you tried to make. And a decision had already been reached. You were rehashing old material. Thus there was no reason to do much other than to inform you of that and then move on from the topic.
What response would you have preferred?

The basis of your constructive criticism was a repeated insistence that this was a bug, I pointed out that it wasn't and therefore won't be "fixed".

There are problems with the courier system, the most significant of which is that it pays far too much and is "played" as it stands. What you're asking us to do would just further dumb down an already dumb game mechanic intended to get newbies exploring. Anyone who's still doing courier runs past their first few weeks or months frankly fails at SD but we've made that bed for ourselves by allowing people to make too much money doing it long term.

It's not meant to be a daily "push button, receive bacon" rotation but unfortunately that's what it's become. Personally, it's been on the list of things I'd like to fully recode for a long time (don't hold your breath) but rest assured if I did get round to it I'd expect to make it scale in difficulty according to player age, pay less and be far LESS consistent in job availability.

You can be a disappointed as you want... FWIW, I had a lengthy discussion with a wide range of the player base regarding the entire employment/jobs system from SHI to courier runs and beyond several months ago. I make a point of discussing concepts and inviting player input on things all the time. This was a fairly simply suggestion to which the simple answer is no...

What about randomly *increasing* the refresh time? So it is somewhere between 24 and 32 hours after your last run?

I don't like having to OOC manage my character... and (when I remember what time it was) going back just over 24 hours after my last run just doesn't make IC sense if we're supposed to be picking up the scraps and there are more than enough couriers, so ACME/WW parcel out the jobs to whoever is sexiest (which I have no problem with).

Much better imo to show up all excited to make some money and get shot down.

The problem is not that the answer is "no", but that there's no reasoning behind it is a little wonky. If it pays too much (I absolutely agree that it does) and you think that it would make it even easier for newbies, there's a fairly straight forward option of reducing it to 20 hours AND decreasing the average pay off by ~20%.

This way someone who comes back from (RL) work can still run a courier mission with his PC and get back to RPing/doing whatever he does the rest of the time without waiting for some arbitrary timer to tick off. Furthermore, it evens out the play field for people who are doing courier missions on their own leisure and those who, as you put it, exploit the system, as the system now benefits the former group by catering to their needs. The situation with the latter group of course remains the same.

Overall, it is a much more elegant and very simple solution. I'm not suggesting that you do not interact with the community, but am merely nudging you to consider it, instead of going "been there, done that". I don't know what your code looks like, but this shouldn't be more than an "adjust two variables" problem.

What Ephelant suggests isn't a bad idea either.
Why not just make a check that if said player is over a certain age they just get denied crates period. Like say a month or two.
I suggest putting around more courier companies and have them pay for you to interfere with other people doing runs, either stealing or destroying their packages.
yeah, I think the whole thing could use a re-work... we already have a check for charisma and the like-- why not apply it to the reset timer as well? you can even include player reputation in determining how well it works out, like with the gangs.

if I were a boss, I'd probably tend to favor the hot chicks and manly men to be working for me more often than some punks I'm not even sure of... for all I know, the punk mixers are stealing from the crates and that's why my customers are complaining about coming up short all the time.

and Joe Butterfingers keeps dropping my crates, that's should be coming out of his pay!

it's been a while since I've used, or felt that I needed the crate system, so I don't know what all features it currently has.

maybe the crates should weigh more and tire you out faster. so maybe it won't be about how many runs the owner is willing to give you, but how much you can actually do... and being tired/weak leaves you more open to muggings and such, being less able to defend yourself.

and then pay can be calculated by how many times and also how often you've made that delivery vs. how long it took you to make it. the pizza guy knows exactly how to get to my house-- if he's late, I'm not tipping so well. after a while, I might become casual acquaintances with him.. I don't know what acceptable common practice is, but tipping your friends just seems kinda weird/awkward to me.

and all of this might have been brought up before-- I haven't seen or remember the previous discussions.

since I'm not currently using the crate system, it doesn't really affect me other than people not having time to stop for RP.. though-- it does let me know where I can wait in the shadows and expect them to happen by, having just gotten paid -- which I may or may not do sometimes or never.

if I were a boss [...] for all I know, the punk mixers are stealing from the crates and that's why my customers are complaining about coming up short all the time.

That's pretty good thinking! Seriously, very creative rationalization. Except it's not the warehouse's customer coming up short, it's the courier's customer coming up short. I bet anything that if the warehouse weren't paid, they wouldn't address a crate to the business. But couriers? They have to take the run even if they've been stiffed repeatedly - so they can get another run.

Too bad I can neither preview nor edit my posts. Shruuuug!