Sharks & Kneecaps

Sharks & Kneecaps
Butter Versus Guns Debate
For The Modern Age

So the discussion on the corporate forums this week has been finances. After posting a fairly straight forward plea to my brother's in arms here in the blog, the response has been resounding. Everyone wants to pitch in with a little bit of what they have so that we are all a little better off than were before.

The catch? Figuring out how to do it and not send anyone to therapy in the process. So here goes, quotas. Yep, one magical word to save all the kneecaps, hehe. How does a quota work in an MMO? The same way it does in real life. The quota is met, services keep running, the quota falls short, services are postponed until the next period.

So, what will the quota be, and what services will hinge on it? Here's a list, and some explanation to go with it.

Quota: Aggregate income generated by the corporation from taxes, donations, and sales.
Frequency: Weekly
Gradations (in millions of ISK): Class 1 (25), Class 2 (50), Class 3 (100), Class 4 (200)


Group Services (by overall performance):

POOR
Frigate Program
(ESC)

AVERAGE
Cruiser Replacement, Public Research, Manufacturing,

EXCELLENT
Battlecruiser Replacement, Chemical Reactions


Personal Services (by overall and voluntary performance):

POOR
Member Rank

AVERAGE
Limited Intelligence Roles, Soldier Rank

EXCELLENT*
Medium Intelligence Roles, Senate Roles, Starbase Roles, Manager Roles


*Note: These roles assigned to eligible parties only.


Divisional Layout
by Class Performance Versus Weekly Quota

Dynamic quota for set performance assigned by projected income in tandem with present estimated net worth in solvent assets both liquid and structured. Dynamic quota calculated once every two weeks or on the first and third week of the month. The quota must be met weekly, but it will remain in effect for two weeks. Thus a Class 2 quota of 50,000,000.00 ISK/wk set on the first week of the month will not be evaluated or changed until the third week of the month even if the quota is not met on the first week but is met on the second week.

Estimation of group services rendered based on dynamic quota as well as the service goal. Quota met means service goal remains in place; quota is set to meet a projected goal results in designated services remaining in place.



EXAMPLE
Overall Performance

Corporate net worth is estimated at 200,000,000.00 ISK and the projected base operating cost for the coming two week period is 250,000,000,00.00 ISK.

Battlecruiser program is short on minerals by an estimated 50,000,000.00 ISK worth and cannot continue to operate without an influx of mineral stuffs or liquid income.

Class 2/3 quota is set at the corporate level with an EXCELLENT performance projection of services available as the stake.

Scenario A: Corporation fails to meet Class 1 quota on one or both divisions of the two week term meaning the corporation has received less than 25,000,000.00 ISK in taxes, donations, or indirect income of any means. Mendolus is driven to drink, GAT goes postal, and Varian's capillary on his forehead explodes. Corporate services basically shut down for the next two week term.

Scenario B: Corporation reaches Class 1 quota on one or both divisions of the two week term meaning the bare operating cost has not been met at all. POOR performance evaluation means that the battlecruiser, cruiser, reaction, public research, and manufacturing services are shut down for the following two week term.

Scenario C: Corporation reaches Class 2 quota on one or both divisions of the two week term meaning the bare operating cost has been met but only with an AVERAGE performance evaluation. The battlecruiser replacement program shuts down for two weeks as well as the chemical reactions program available at both the public and corporate level.

Scenario D: Corporation reaches Class 3 quota on one or both divisions of the two week term meaning the goal operating cost has been met and all services remain in effect.

Penalties: Failing to meet a quota will almost always result in a loss of service as some of these things like the ship program simply cannot operate without meeting a quota and I cannot fudge or forgive a failed quota as there is nothing to fudge and forgiving will not put minerals in the assembly array, hehe. But for example, if we are at war and no one rats for a week straight, I am gonna try to squeeze every last drop out of the minerals we have, rather than shut the program down, etc.

EXAMPLE
Voluntary Performance

Personal services are eligible on a voluntary basis. Obviously this corporation is a place where anyone from the casual player with a family and kids to the hardcore teenager in his mother's basement can experience, enjoy, and explore the game with a group of like-minded individuals.

That being said, if you want to be casual, log on once a week, shoot a few tools in 0.0 with us, and then disappear into the night again, we will miss your ass when you are gone for the next six days but it will be no skin off our back. If you want access to performance related services you must meet a voluntary quota per two week period to do so. These are soft requirements. Think of it like the IRS, as long as your math adds up we just ignore the discrepancies, but if the math does not add up we break out the enormous magnifying glass and determine just what you are really up to. For instance, Falgoria rats all the time, when he logs on, he logs on in the same 0.0 system a majority of the time. I will not even bother to scrutinize whether he donates ISK to the corporation, or count the junk loot he donates, or suppose that he is not meeting an EXCELLENT performance rating every two weeks. Others, who may play once a week have what may be a POOR performance rating, thus I will need to take a closer look at their participation.

This is how voluntary performance will work. If I come to you and say, "Hey, look, everyone likes you here, you are never going to have to worry about your place in this corporation, but I am just not seeing the kind of participation out of you that leads me to think we can continue to offer you the services we currently do. Please step up a bit more if you would like to continue receiving these services at a personal level."

What does that mean in practice? Factors. Divide Class performance by a factor of five and you have what I expect from everyone in the corporation for them to be eligible for services and roles. If you wanna be a member role, get free frigates, and have me haul your shizzle with my Ark, I wanna see 1,000,000.00 ISK out of you every week if the current quota is Class 4 meaning we are really strapped for income as a corporation. How do I figure? Well, you want to meet a POOR performance rating, to be eligible for corporate hauling, but you could care less about any other services, so you are really telling me that you want to meet a Class 1 performance quota when we are at Class 4, so I say fine... 25 a week by five by another five is a million a week. If I am hauling your ratting loot out of 0.0, you could have popped all of 10,000,000.00 ISK worth of rats in 0.0 that week to have met that quota via taxation. You are good to go. But if you want a battlecruiser at cost of insurance, I expect Class 4 performance on top of the fact that we are already at a Class 4 quota, meaning I expect 200 by five by a quarter which is 10,000,000.00 ISK into the corporation per week. This ship program is not a one time deal, if you buy a battlecruiser at cost of insurance and lose it the next day it gets built again, and you get it again at cost of insurance. So a higher quota is not really that bad since the quota is lower than the cost to build the ship anyways.

I do not care how it gets there, taxes, donations, your sister's phone number, etc. I just wanna know you are earning it. If you do not want free frigates, or secure hauling because you do not think you want it, so be it, just let me know, I want to know, and there will be nothing further for me to worry about. You play casual, I have less to worry on, easy. You have become eligible for the role of a manager (like Meatay) and that means you have volunteered for a role of responsiblity. That means I expect to see 40,000,000.00 ISK out of you in some fashion every week. That is in anyway shape or form. If you lead a single mining operation that yields 400,000,000.00 ISK worth of minerals, and taking into consideration that the corporation buys those minerals at 90% market value, making a 40,000,000.00 ISK profit, guess what, there could have been ten people mining and it may have taken you all of two hours to mine that ore, but you just met your voluntary quota, and you are still a top notch manager.

Math. Personal quotas are an agreement between you, me, the officers, and the wind when it comes to deciding if you have met it each week or not. It is an honor system more than something you need to worry about day in and day out. If I have to do the math, there is a problem, you know what I mean? So do not worry above the above statements wherein the math is just kind of sprinkled over each paragraph rather than laid out in stone. I am not anticipating I will ever once have to break out the calculater to determine if someone is asking for services that they have not earned the right to utilize. I will know right away if they have or not, in what I am anticipating will be 95% of circumstances.

Penalties. Well, I am going to assume I will not have any problem whatsoever with people meeting the quota both overall and on a voluntary basis since I have laid it out but in the rare event I do, I will play it by ear. Pretty much, you can assume that if you miss the quota, I am going to either just ignore it the first time, or let you know, and if I ignore it the first time I may let you know the second time, or ask you if you do not want the responsibility anymore, or I may even wait for the third time. If I know you are motivated by other things have come in the way, you are gonna get the benefit of the doubt.

Real Life. Hey, this entire post is just a way for me to reciprocate what YOU guys all deliberated on in the thread on the forums. You guys said you are willing to chip in more, and I developed the only way I think we can do it without breathing down people's necks or tightening up control over your free time both ingame and out of game. Not only that, but this is a game, and you have a life outside of it that is more important, at least I hope you do, so if you find out your sister has the clap and you need to go give her some emotional support for a few days and miss that quota somehow, you are off the hook, promise. Just please remind me to throw her number away now, after you bartered it to meet the last quota. *wink*

So, the basic idea is, yes, some of our core members are extremely active and may very well account for half our corporate income over time, but they will also receive the most benefits. And if you do not want to help carry the torch yourself for whatever reason, no one is going to fault you, as you may have real life commitments or priorities that take precedence, or you may simply not care whether you get battlecruisers at cost of insurance or not, and that is your choice. If you want that service in the future, it is available to you pending various factors both of overall corporate performance but voluntary performance as well.

Please also keep in mind the reason quota remains in effect for a two week period while it is measured on a weekly basis is so I can decide whether or not the quota from one week offsets the quota from another. If we only pull in 50mil the first week during a quota period of 100mil a week but 150mil the next week, then I may consider it a break even rally factor.

Capice?