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Oct-25-2004 11:41

Everyday, the treasure hunts seems to be a "top 10 agencys" contest. Both in terms of participation and winning. It is always the same agencys competiting. A few smaller and newer ones may compete but they always had this partern: they are newly formed, are eager to try the hunt but after awhile when they realised they can't win, they all just give up. The hunt may be based a large part on luck but a 12 members agency with more favors surely had a better chance than a 4 members agency. For these agencys, paying for the information is as good as a donation. I was told that only winner get the fame points. So i had a suggestion: how about awarding fame points to those who had gain percentage towards the hunt too. Eg. in a 500 fame pts hunt. winner gets the full points while agency that is 20%, gain 20% of 500 divided by 4. This way, the winner still win much more pts then agency who got 80%, they win only 0.8*500/4= 100 pts. I felt this could encourage the smaller agency to play the hunt as there is a reward for it. They may not win the hunt but with the potential fame pts gain, they will want to gain pts to compete against other smaller agency. Thanks.

Nov-18-2004 10:00

Look at Star, they are a fairly new agency and won 2 treasure hunts, and are a big agency. They just did a LOT of work, and a LOT of recruiting, and a LOT of good playing.

Nov-18-2004 13:02

Well, treasure is certainly a topic that provokes strong response! I remember when The Underground had not won a single treasure yet, how hard we all worked. It was great to have a distant goal to strive for. So making it too easy for a new agency or a small agency might not actually be as much fun for them.

And jstkdn has a point. Although we are a large agency, only a few of us are actually playing at the moment, due to this strange malady some characters are suffering from called "real life."

I think we would be very disappointed if we were suddenly allowed to participate in fewer hunts. It would feel, I dunno, sort of like we were being punished for having gotten where we are?

And while I think a glut of treasure on the marketplace, or a glut of hunts, makes it less meaningful to win, we are certainly feeling the competition as things stand! We work HARD and LONG for the treasure we gain.

Still, I wonder if there might not be a new category of some kind, a new kind of task that isn't a treasure hunt, or a less valuable treasure, that could be closed to those agencies with too many fame points and/or treasures already won.

Just like we can't play the beginner cases anymore. It could even be a bit silly, like the names in the easier cases. "The Terrible Quandary of the Tailor's Lost Library Book," or, "I went to the Barbershop to ask if there was a favor I could do for Octavia. She told me that she had misplaced her car keys again, and she thought she might have left them on the counter at the Butcher's. Perhaps if I were to do a favor for him...." and so on.

I think those could be fun romps! They could even be long ones, just closed to some agencies who have already achieved too much.

Any takers?

Nov-18-2004 13:47

I just went through a rampage on this on our agency message board. It took us SIX MONTHS to build TAFKADD, with the money, the equipment, the hiring and firing to get to a good group....to have a shot at the easy treasure hunts ourselves. For them to potentially be taken away for a potential SIX DAY old agency. To easily reap money, fame points, treasure hunt scores.

I am having my 200 day birthday in here. When TAFKADD and for instance Black Swan started at number 20 in line, we had to compete with Meyers, Thomkins, Fat Kitten, Chicago as top 5 agencies. When ERF and the Underground were created, they had to deal with ALL of them. We still have those long term agencies calling it quits, making room for others. In the past two weeks we saw ERF and Lone Woolf go off the board. And even other agencies (including top 10 ones) are almost inactive. There are few top 10 agencies that have all active agents. Actually, we have won our treasure hunts with less then 5 people playing, and even won them with only 3 on.

If people want to win treasure hunts. The best advise is to join an older agency. Or apply for jobs, with active treasure hunt players, or larger active agencies.

If you want to build your own agency, to a point of winning treasure hunts. Then BUILD it. We all had to.

Sure I can understand how frustrating it is, you want to have them NOW! I know few people that had return of investment on their new IRL business in 4 days, also know few people that got a college education in 4 days, or built Rome in 1 day. All these things take effort and patience. As they have done so, by all people before you. They did not have a better deal then you, when they started. They even did it without anyone advising them, a newbie thread, no Lucy, no super duper equipment, or hand outs from others.

Realistically, we had no worse disadvantage then you when most top 10 agencies started. Also then there were 30 agencies or so.

Nov-18-2004 13:49

I am a taker on Moonssh idea. Good way to practice treasure hunts. Let it be for money, to build the agency, and pay for falses. But not for fame, treasure hunt numbers achieved.

Nov-18-2004 14:07

Maybe a small ribbon can go in the trophy case ;)

Nov-18-2004 14:10

I don't think the smaller agencies should be the only ones to take place in the smaller hunts either Its not fair to our agencies. I started my agency 3 months ago and we are in the top 5 now through tons and tons of hard work. we've had numorous agents we have let go because of the lack of people playing but we still managed to make it to the top 5 now that we have a regular crew. should we take a hit and not be able to play in hunts so the smaler agencies can get an advantage and gain on everyone else because they are smal and new. We started at the bottom just like everyone else. It seems to me if you are in a small agency and or a new agency you know what your in for when you got it.

Nov-18-2004 14:29

The fun of it all is building it!!! Just like everyone else. I would hate to think my agency was in the top 10 by getting a head start. I would be much more proud of the hard work I did to get there.

Nov-18-2004 14:39

While I am completely willing to help anyone out who asks for help or is in need of a gentle nudge- I certainly would not have enjoyed this game since May if I was told along every step of the way what to do, where to look, and how to manage my character. This is a MYSTERY game, and it just seems like there are too many people out there looking for either an easy way to be in the top of the heap, or just to stir things up for the hell of it.
And I'm sure that the newer agencies are willing to work at it like we all did, but think about how long we all went through the dry spells of trying to recruit ANYONE who walked through the door, and now every Tom, Dick, and Harry is starting their own agency with two or three players. Play smarter, not necessarily harder. ERF disbanding sure doesn't mean that we're going to be able to coast right up front, and I don't want to see all of our hard work thrown away because suddenly the rules have changed and it's not a level playing field anymore.

Nov-18-2004 14:40

Ther is no real advantage in being more expirienced. For example, my character is FAR behind everybody else in my agency as far as expirience points goes- I am on very hard while everybody else is doing ridiculously hard. Even so, I get just as many cases per day and just as many favors per case as everone else in my agency. My point being that everyone has the same ability to do the hunts' regardless of your expirience level.
The only advantage that can be gained is that the agancies with more members get more favors in total, but you don't have to be terribly expirienced to buy the larger buildings. I think the largest agency only takes like $65k to open and holds 12 detectives. If lower exp. people wanted to get 12 detectives together to open one of those agancies, they would need less than $6k apeice to do so. They then would have just as much ability to do the hunts as any other agency out there.
It would be terribly unfair at this point to tell the agencies that have been working their tails off to get where they are that they could not work on certain hunts, just because they have been TOO succesful.
Starsky and Hutch has made it to #5 with only 10 possible detectives. Would it be fair of us to say we want hunts that the 12 detective agencies are not allowed to work on? Of course not. We made the decision to stay in our present quarters, and if we made that decision, then that is our problem, and not the problem of the agencies that decided to have 12 detectives.

Nov-18-2004 14:52

I think some of what jstkdn is saying is right but did the older agencies have as many experienced players to compete against? I have only started my agency 15 days ago and have been trying treasure hunts but dont stand a chance to win.60% is as far as we can get before it is solved, but i will still try.
and Ben I have 6 agents but we are less then 1 month old where would we fit into your plan.