EMPOWERMENT

Prologue

Yesterday we had a town council meeting about current matters, as we do every week. It prompted me to write again about our game and community philosophy and principles. "Why?" one might ask. "Is the Building module and this and that enough late already?? Can't you concentrate to get something finished first???"

Well, yes, and no, and the matter is not easy to explain, and even more difficult to grasp if you are not living in it. It is not related, but similar to why the GUI is 1.5 years "late". It is the development paradigm and management/coordination challenge of open source.

I have done voluntary/atypical/businessman/CEO work almost all my life. Since 2003, I have only twice received an incoming transfer titled "salary" to my bank (and both of them from my 100% family company). So I have experience, and I also have patience. I have had two earlier attempts of setting up a business with fluid/voluntarist job market and freelance/deferred/shares/options/"rank" compensation, with user-defined cash-out schedule and amounts. If this sounds familiar to CK, it is because it is The earlier things did not outright fail, but their community was also not so strong as to carry the business to a major success for all involved, and them in the first place.

Monero development is open source and it does not have an inbuilt business/financing model, so the tragedy of commons is strong. BTC is the same. (Tragedy of commons means that everyone is benefitting of the service, but nobody has direct incentive to develop it or pay for it.) Dash and 2.0 coins have premines/ICO's that ensure incentive, but when applied to a coin which is intended to be a "fair and equitable" payment system, it is complicated.

Crypto Kingdom is open source as well. Unlike Monero, we have a rule-bound, centralised, tax-collecting agency called Town, which can take care of the hosting and development. Being open source and centralised, fits well together. Anyone can fork it at will, but if they do, they will need to get the taxpayers! The game does not host itself - we have 100s of work hours put into it each month! The (gold) owners select the councillors, so there is a mechanism for orderly change of management in place, which many centralised coins and projects either lack, or at least it does not work in practice.

But our model could also work much better in practice! This is why I am taking the time off from doing other people's work, and empowering them to do it themselves, because that is what they both have authority to do and possibility to do!

Authority

The right to do something. In a general way, all open source stuff can be used for anything.

In the context of this game, however, we have a few rules about authority to change the game status (changelog):

1. Consent. Trades can be done if one character places a bid/ask, and another fulfils it, or two or more characters otherwise agree on any change that concerns only them.

2. Arbitration. Sometimes there is a discrepancy of game records, or new modules are coming and existing ones need to be fit into them, or items are merged, or other things that do not intend to change the status but nevertheless do it. GM has the final say in this kind of changes and if he sets a court of grievances, good, but most often there is none. The decisions are meant to get a good average result, usually under time constraint, and nobody is specially targeted to gain or lose at the expense of others.

3. GM powers. GM has authority to new and create items or land. Since these decisions are so important, we already have rules and conventions in place to ensure how this is done so as to not rock the boat. Many of these powers are delegated to admins, corporations, etc so that the business can be conducted and the game flourishes.

Anything that does not fall under the three categories above, is free to be done by anyone. For instance, matters that sound lofty but do not require permission from anyone:

1. Issuing tokens in other platforms against a "hard asset" in CK, or even without it, as promises.

2. Issuing tokens in CK against "hard assets" in other ledgers, or anything (or nothing) at all.

3. Building a 3rd party site that uses CK logins and makes transfers between parties in consent (the user and operator typically, such as a casino).

4. Building a new UI for CK to conduct the things allowed by the character based on his permissions, including 3D land visualiser, first-person shooter walkable UI, better market.

5. Using/starting any other things to enrich the gameplay, such as a wiki, chat, BBS, Hall of Fame, blog, twitter or other marketing account.

Possibility

It matters little to have authority if there is no possibility. The game is mainly concerned to limit the possibility to edit changelog, because if that is edited without authority, problems come and sorting them out takes admin time. We have 4 permission levels:

1. Superadmin (GM) has access to health, life and death.

2. Senior Admin (~10 exist) have access to all commands that can change anyone's balances, new and create items etc., without limitations.

3. Junior Admin (not in use)

4. Player can use API, batch commands, and many powerful commands such as dividend. Only limitation is that he can only initiate transactions where the source is active_character (himself), not take other people's money and stuff.

Everything (which is a lot!) that does not involve making records in changelog or character stats such as age, health, and wisdom, is possible to be done by anyone.

So we can conclude that everyone has much more authority than most ever realised, and also the possibility to do things, is very little if at all limited by the game or me as GM. (If you need senior admin powers for something, just ask!)

Coordination

So it boils down to incentives to do something, and the initiative to get it done and hosted. Here I will have to raise my hands: The game is so big that I cannot be the "silent enabler" of all new things any more. If you can do it without me, you probably have the authority to do it as well. If you don't, I have the authority to authorise you If you cannot do it without me, do it with someone else! If I am the mandatory requisite of getting your idea off the ground - sorry: I have enough ideas of my own  

"I would do X if someone paid me." If you need to ask, King is not paying you. Town has some duties, and occasionally does pay for projects and administration. See below. In general, make a project that is paying you back, find a sponsor, or monetise it by selling some shares. Be creative.

Town affairs

Anything that the Town does (again, probably more than you thought - many things that I have been seen doing are actually Town domain, just assigned to me for (in)convenience) is authorised by the council, lead by Mayor SirJacket of North Face. Mayor is a double Chairman-CEO role so I don't even have the authority to overstep him or the council.


Thank you for this opportunity to empower you! Looking forward to seeing you in chat relaxed

The post above is so important, I will push the principle quite strictly now. It has the two instant advantages:

1. Players realise that my permission is only needed if it concerns GM things (so almost never as you are not a GM) or King matters (officially next to never; in practice King's role is related to keeping up the protocol such as promoting the nobles), or my own businesses (yes, still involved in more I can handle with ease, but that's the case IRL as well, and is my problem, not yours   )

- When Town permission is needed, SirJacket gives it, and I don't (unless the matter is already decided and I know it, even then, don't ask me )

2. With more time in my hands, I can better concentrate on my own role, including the following:

- Recruiting and tutoring a new GM who will remove the problematic and needless aspects of King/GM double role such as health.

- Getting my businesses to support the economy, an example being:


Manors 1631

The current holders of the lease are offered an extension for 1631-1635 in the following terms:

- Annual and automatic payment of 20 mil (same for all(!) - note that in addition to 120-280*S-VE2 and 60*S-ME, the manors now also have 50*S-FOI2 and 30*S-CAN2, making them almost equal in production value)

- Army is optional: if a GM event occurs due to lax protection, it may affect the production or destroy production shares. Especially the latter is very detrimental to the owner and if it happens, the manager will

Once the S-VE1 have established their value and some other conventions regarding countryside buildings and ownership are ready, freehold can be considered. Freehold can be further split by the owner to several Farms (for now, Manor is a good operational size). At that stage, the number of production shares will be completely determined by factors such as distance, road connection, production buildings, security etc, instead of a fixed number.

It was very positive to see that many characters fixed their negative balances in due time! It is a good idea to log into your accounts at least once a week to check how their finances are doing, and take care of negative balance as soon as you see it.

Those that did not fix their negative balance were fined 5mil (corporations and Noble characters), and 2mil (commoner characters), and are urged to take care of the covering of the negative balance themselves.

On the IRC there was talk of a 'daily penalty interest', that might soon be taking over instead of these random checks, so it does pay to take care of your finances and avoid prolonged negative balance on your account.

In the GoogleDB era there was a yearly (real time weekly) interest for negative balances. I would be in favor of that returning. Daily penalties are too much in my opinion, it's easy to get dumped on and not know that your balance has gone negative. 1 week gives someone enough time to get their balance in order. If it does become daily, that's fine but maybe add some sort of notification via email that your balance has gone negative.

Hear, hear.

Auction is over. The order book is:



Therefore, smoothQC gets two brewery licenses at 100 mil each.

Borough 22, the People´s Borough, had its streets named suitably for the theme.

The wide streets are: King's Esplanade (major connector road running south-north from 5th borough to the 1st), Freedom Street, Liberty Avenue and Independence Street.

The smaller lanes and alleys in the people' s borough are named after the rising middle class (=new wave of players who don´t yet have much land or titles but are proving to be cunning businessmen, and rising in the social hierarchy) : Martti's Lane, Rakshasa Way, Chrispop Alley, Goldbug Lane.

The valuation of an item can be based on 3 main things:

- Utility ingame (consumables, army, carriages)
- Yield (CKG, CON, (production) shares)
- Rarity/status value (collectibles).

The main driver of the game aggregate valuation is trust, handily measured by yield expectation. In the ancient era, the trust was much lower, so the yield needed to be higher. CON demonstrates how the same right (to receive 0.1 XMR per week perpetually) was originally valued at 8.8 mil, but now is 19.0 mil. The trust has more than doubled during its tenure so far. This is a momentous achievement.

When CON yield is pressed down by the buyers pushing the price up, the other yields need to go down as well to retain balance. In the early 1600s, Buildings were expected to return 3%, but with the new module, it is likely that a superboom develops to cause more and more construction until the yields go to the same ratio they historically had vs. CKG or CON. Versailles Borough alone will add +40% to the building stock and the rental pool will overflow as a result.

If the valuation is based on utility, the prospects of value appreciation are two-sided. The top items will retain their value (unless they started at ridiculous overvaluations such as CLXII's 4200 mil or COH's 2000 mil - compare to the entire stock of all suits or Ming China). Unicorns have kept their value. But the lower range things have been very much pressured and many basically just held their fiat value. Very little value is tied to these items, eg. all the food was only 500 mil total.

Total rarity/status value of collectibles, even as a percentage of total valuation, varies with economic fortunes. Right now we are in the middle of a depression economically (don't worry, it's neither the first nor the last), and the markups of ancient/premium items have been pulverized. The ratio of collectibles (non-yielding items) to total valuation is at an all-time low.

A special note on land: in the ancient era, new land was actually valued much higher than it is now. The difference is that then land was the immediately yielding asset and CKG was not (CKG did not even have M dividend until 1522). Because in those times the general trust in the game was low, and interest rate therefore high, the value of land was based on the near-term building dividends. Now, the land speculation is a very long-term project, so its nature has changed completely. Even if it is built on, the interest rate has been lowered such that the calculus needs to be done for much longer time period than before. The perimeter wall makes a natural barrier to the growth of CryptoTown so the purchase of land now has both the component of immediate returns, and the mature returns (higher payouts when the area has been settled), but also the scarcity value (total quantity is limited).

The offer will be made in batch with all the B.22 lots as well, so this requires that they are in the system.

TL;DR: me, but not yet

New Permanent IC Conversion Table

General note: Quite many categories of IC-convertible items have now been opened. This is the last chance to backdate items (3% per year compounded, to the oldest of 1600. When Building opens, the IC backdating limit will be set to 1625 or newer.

Please mention about your items needs to the other admins (Roopatra, Moneromooo, Syksy). They also accept small gifts. I am unavailable for the conversion (the opportunity was opened to give me time to finish the Building uninterrupted )


WINES

The French Wines are international renown (and the Germanians are the runner-up). When wines comes to initial market, they are cheap, but Town will add 10,000 m tax at some point afterwards to the then-existing stock. This can only be done once, so every further conversion after the taxation will be tax-free. Conversion prices in the aftermarket go up. Currently available are the following post-war wines (pre-war cannot be had any more).

W1628  12/IC  (note: W1628) <- untaxed


SILVER

The basic premise of silver conversion is "you get fixed grams per IC". This has been as large as 32 grams in the very ancient times and now is 2 grams. When we are talking about imported items (wholly paid with IC), the price of silver has risen to be so large as to overshadow the manufacturing cost. So it is possible to simplify the things and use the following formulae for determining the IC price of silver items, whatever kind (assuming silver is the main raw material):

TS16x Silver Coins = no premium   (note: TS163)  <- note that since the coin is 12 CKS, the IC must be divisible by 6!!
Elaborate items = 1 IC/instance + 5%
Most Elaborate items = 2 IC/instance + 10%
Very Elaborate items = 4 IC/instance + 20%
Town taxes the TS163 at 120,000 m/coin in the end of conversion period.


SWORDS

See previous post.

ART

ART-items are in levels K7-K10 only and thus cost a minimum 100 IC + possible backdating.


COPPER

KMT  2*IC  (note: KMT)

KMT is needed for roofs, especially in the new Versailles borough it is mandatory (and boosts the building visibility and structure durability everywhere). 0.4*KMT is needed per each sqm of copper roof (projected to horizontal plane).

COO   Other Copper Item

Copper amount and elaborateness considered, K4-K8 (item level includes the copper).


GOJ   Gold Jewellery Item
GOT   Gold Tableware Item
GOO   Other Pure Gold Item

Gold must be supplied separately (no conversion loss in remodeling). Item level is only based on the total IC spend, calculated as follows:

Elaborate items = 1 IC/instance + 0.025 IC/CKG
Most Elaborate items = 2 IC/instance + 0.05 IC/CKG
Very Elaborate items = 4 IC/instance + 0.1 IC/CKG


CAF   Furniture
CAO   Other Wood Item

1 = handheld, 2 = tabletop, 3 = smallish piece of furniture (eg. drawer, armchair), 4 = large piece or small set (table and chairs), 5 = large set (more), 6 = huge set (still more)

0=none, 1=elaborate, 2=most elaborate, 3=very elaborate (note: when talking about wood items, "0" means rustic); most elaborate has token gilding at no cost, very elaborate may be gilded fully at a material cost of 10 CKG/sqm, very elaborate may have silver parts at CKS material cost only

Counting together the points above decides item level and cost.


WRP   Manuscript
WRD   Document

The possibility to have Manuscripts in parchment is closing as we are moving to paper era (despite not having the printing press in operation really..) So decide which literary masterpieces you want to have in parchment while it is still available. Item levels get +1 while cost stays the same in this closing sale:

WRD K5 (10 IC)
WRP K6 (20 IC, large K7 50 IC)

WRB   Book

Unique Book can be any past or future work. K4 (10 IC).


GIP   Personal Item
GIO   Other Item

Admins know how to make these


NEW: FUNGIBLE ITEMS

For those not willing to go to the depths of the item design, or those who seek to retain resalability, this post will be expanded with fungible offerings where several similar items are available and the total exists is determined by the number ordered.


Closing Word

The items mostly do not have immediate advantage. The Items module is coming after Skills, which may seem like a long time. Then it is however not any more possible to get the ancient items, or the Reconstruction-era items. Hopefully you don't want to be competing with the peasants of the factory-made items??