Lets see. I am around the same age as you, and may be able to give a few answers. I'm American, so I can speak english well (sad to see so few playing this pretty good game):
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I have joined the game around 15 days ago and I would like to share with you my opinions. I play on LIEN.
1. There is, just before log in info that +600 000 players is playing it (literally you can become one of these 600 000). I suppose that this number is rather how many players created their account since start of the game. Really playing ppl is much less. I assume that there is no more than 500 playing every day in my realm.
For example there is 39 ppl who had started the same day as me and didnt restarted already. 2 of them (including me) still playing. After only 15 days.
I agree with you. I don't even think there have been 600k registrations since it launched. As per Quantcast, Virtonomics is ranked horrendously low for traffic. It would seem that there are maybe ~50k players that actually started an account at some point.
2. The other guy playing with me (since start in the same day) strangely has extraordinary amount of assets. In around 7-9 day I have seen that he had ca 70m. How is this possible? He completely dominated Contest for Managers. Buying points and converting them into cash (1 point = 5m cash). Then he should be out of contest.
If your smart, you can do some crazy things quickly after a restart. On Lien, if you made & sold eggs to yourself as a vertically integrated company, you could make MAD cash very quickly. $70m is a lot to have in 14 days, but I assume its feasible if you were really, really smart. I just restarted on Lien, and hope to reach about $10m in 2 weeks or so.
3. The forum is nearly dead ( few post a day). 1-2 new topic daily. This is connected with point number 1.
Yup. Hit me up with a PM sometime if you want to work together.
4. Contest fo Managers - nice thing but only if you can compete for 1st place. Please see my point 2.
I was reading about this as well. Its kind of dumb. However, that is how MMOs work.
5. VIRTS and points. It seems that game creators make you hard life in the game until you buy points. You can get real $$$ if you have enough VIRTS (100). You can get VIRTS if you have bought points before or win Contest for Manager (to get VIRTS you need to have lvl 10 in management until 30th day of contest - yea, GL). You want $$? Put 100 VIRTS on the table. And so on...
Read expanation for point #4. At any rate, I am ranked as the 4000th best player in terms of assets on Mary after about 10 days (after a restart) and in the top 200 for retail....Even if you don't use VIRTs, you can do pretty well. I don't see why I can't become one of the best players without VIRTs.
6. Efficiency. The key to the game. What I understand to develop your business you should hold your efficiency as close to 100 %. Your are capped by your Management Qualification lvl (buying points - no problem here). Doesnt care that you have extraordinary quality employees, superb location, cheap and advanced quality product. No. Your office has to be efficient. Not by number and quality of your employees , but your Management Qualification lvl - if you bought points there is no problem. This artificial thing doesnt allow you to expand and enjoy the game. Now i know why there is so litttle people playing it.
I agree with this. I've made multiple posts about how bad this is. I think the problem is that (and I apologize if this is mean) the game is made by developers from a country that really hasn't had a capitalistic society for very long. Therefore, the idea of how economics works is much more from a planned economy-type view. That is, that centralized offices are far more key to your company than in real life, where workers and their managers matter the most. I think efficency should matter immensely, but theres more to it than what is merely presented.
7. Price mechanics. LIEN, Tokio, city average retail price:
Milk - 455
Cheese - 99
Butter - 73
Ice cream - 74
Cheese needs 1 milk as raw material, Butter 3 and Ice cream 0.5
What is the sens producing cheese, butter of ice cream if raw material (input) has much higher retail value. All milk logically should be sold in retail.
Think of it this way: Milk is far more of a staple product than the others are. Therefore, more is required for usage, which may drive up demand if supply isn't met. Likewise, there is only so much milk that can go around. On my Mary-server game, I've just about maxed out of milk usage among all my retail stores while Cheese and Dairy Products (yogurt) are vastly under supplied. So my idea is to expand my milk-producers and build a cheese and yogurt factory. That way, I can efficently meet demand by having a huge cow shed, and smaller factories for producing milk by-products. Also, since Milk is so lucrative, there will be coming price wars. It will bottom out in terms of pricing, and then your other milk-based products will be more advantageous. It's all about supply & demand!
I agree more needs to be fixed. Its a great game, but woefully inadequate. If I ever get money, I would love to buy a development studio to build a game like this, but integrate more features to create a better economic & business simulator. |
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