esixfiddy's blog: "Word of Esix"

Hey Thanatos and all concerned players,

I'm going to address your blog because I respect that you took the time to make a place for this and that you care about your point of view and that a lot of people are passionate on this subject.

First of all I have to say, there's a very common misconception regarding fuMafia and it's that people complain and that, in turn, causes unfavorable changes.  I actually monitor about a zillion statistics on the game (more than one person alone really should be although I think we'll be getting more in-house resources soon) and first and foremost I'll say that I have had a growing problem with the way in which scrubs were used and have weighed this decision carefully for a while before making the call.

They were making plenty of revenue even in spite of the free ones from platinum mastery because even those players bought extra slots.  Also scrubs gave the game another dimension of trading and bartering.

But hands down, they were not intended for this use.  Point blank there are not enough paying players for us to separate much of anything because the people that spend would be in a very small game (or ranking system) by themselves and the critical mass to make the game action occur on a daily basis within that group would not carry enough momentum.  Also, this being a company, the resources that I have to justify on a weekly basis that can be put towards fuMafia as opposed to other parts of the site (I've been extremely busy with the new profile and fSB page work) would end up with a REALLY awesome pay version of the game that, say, 200-300 players would enjoy -- not enough people for the efforts that go into this entire project that I do here.  And then we'd have a low rent budget version of the game that several thousands of people would play initially but it would get as much attention and the game as a whole would fall apart.

You'll notice the official blogs turned into a black hole on this subject.  This is because the comments are by and large extremely negative and you guys gotta realize even when you're mad, making fortune-teller type statements about "lots of people are going to stop playing" is mostly just annoying and mis-information.  From the daily numbers I can tell you that is not true at all.

I can also tell you that from the daily numbers the scrubbing change has definitely made the game less money but I do this for the long term future of the game. 

The whole point of experience and leveling is *in itself* how the blingers and non-blingers are supposed to be separated.  If you wan't to play at a slower pace with all that we give you for free then you are supposed to level slower and have the safety that comes with such. 

On the contrary, if you want to use favors then you can do things faster but were supposed to accept the leveling that came with this act.

I understand now the game has imbalance because of the scrubbing up until now but all that can be done here within reason is to plug the hole and realize that it's for the greater good.  To address that I'll simply say that _everyone_ will level eventually with the addition of new missions and such, assuming that they continue to play.

To hang back in levels and (for some of you) to beat on lesser developed players at that same level is a short circuit of the entire game as it stands.

Less than a topic of debate I post this to give a glimpse of what the logic is behind things and to leave people with less assumptions along the lines of what/why.

I hope that helps.  I'll try to read followups but this is probably all that I'm going to be able to add here (respond in Thanatos' blog to keep in one place for best results @ http://fubar.com/bling-ranking-on-fumafia/b339683-1144924