So I just came back after losing interest in this site long ago. I was wondering if things got better while I was away, but it seems the big problems that made me lose interest in the first place are still there. I know I’m really late to the party but I’ll still give you my opinion on what to do to make economy better because I do like the pets on this site and I think it could become be a really great site with a few changes. I’ve been to many virtual pet/collecting sites but the one that is most similar to this one and most successful is Flight Rising. So I’ll use it as example.
I don’t think bank is the biggest problem when it comes to economy here, yes it does cause problems, but it is not the worst nor the main one. The real problem is: people aren’t spending nuggets. There are three major reasons for it:
- too expensive currency
- There’s little to do here
- Event design and time
So the first one:
On Flight Rising there are a lot of ways to get all types of currency (gems and treasure). The treasure cap from games is huge, there is Coliseum, auctions and normal trading. Because of this players can get treasure an gems easier and since money is easy to make they don’t feel bad about spending it all the time.
On Mycena Cave however, money is really hard to come by. There are a few games to play and the cap for nuggets is only 3 000 (not even enough for one gem), you can also get some from posting on forums but amounts are rather small, same goes for selling items. Selling items is not something people count on because items are also hard to come by. You can get them from fishing but that’s only few per day, and any other items people get from events are not likely to be sold as they are sooo hard to get people are reluctant to let go of them.
Compare this to FR where items are easy to get in large numbers and people are trading them all the time. People on MC don’t trade because items and pets are so expensive that they always feel like they are loosing something by trading them. This encourages them to save nuggets instead of spending them as it feels like a waste, they are less likely to buy stuff they don’t REALLY want and are less likely to sell stuff they have as they might need them in the future.
There is also the problem of how much is needed to buy pets or items - 10 gems per pet or around 36 000 nuggets, this is a big number. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the numbers have big impact on whether people spend money or not, this is something my teacher talked about during economy class. When people get big numbers they feel more encouraged to spend, when they get small numbers hey don’t spend as much. The opposite is true when spending. Treasure on FR is worth less but it is given in large numbers which encourages people to spend, and since amount given is big they don’t shy away from big prices when spending. On MC however people are looking at 60 or less nuggets per game (most of the games) and 36 000 nuggets per pet, or 3 000 nuggets per day and 36 000 nuggets per pet. This discourages people form spending. The bigger difference between the two, the less likely are people to spend.
There is also the fact that by playing just for one day on FR you can afford multiple pets and items while on MC if you play every day for a month you get around 93 000 nuggets from games, if you want to buy monthly pet and items you need to spend 57 600 nuggets, which leaves only 35 400 nuggets for other things (usually it is saved for next month or events). That’s a lot of work for one pet and two items, so its no wonder people would rather put a lot of money in bank and watch it grow. The remaining 35 400 nuggets are often saved instead of spent because people often miss events (I’ll talk about that later) or monthly pets and items (because of school/work or other activities) so keeping extra nuggets helps them get those items later.
If there was more nuggets available people would save less and spend more. Need proof? Look at the real world, people in rich countries where money is easy to come by spend A LOT, while people in countries where economy isn’t as good (like mine) spend very little and save a lot because money is scarce and you have to spend it on only important stuff.
The second problem:
There’s a little to do here. Yes there are forums but other sites have them to, if you are counting on forums to keep people here you won’t have much luck as MC forums are not the most active forums out there and other sites usually have other things to offer. There are a few games that give you small amount of nuggets so they don’t feel worth playing unless it’s your favorite type of game. not to mention playing same games for few months gets boring quickly and then they become more of a chore than a fun way to spend time. Other than that there are few events but I’ll talk about them later.
Lets Compare that to FR again. FR offers a large number of games, all of which give large amounts of treasure so people feel good when they see they got such a big number and are more likely to spend it. All these games are types anyone can play without much problems, unlike games on MC.
Cave in is the easiest and probably the only game most people can play with no problems, Echolocation is confusing to a large number of people, Spellstones are the worst game for people who didn’t grow up in English speaking countries, Potions master is also not the most common game and sometimes it feels unfair as the colors do match but you still loose, Mushroom meals doesn’t give any prize. Compare that to stuff FR has: puzzles, memory, match three, higher or lower, etc… All fun mini games that are easy to understand and play. Not to mention there’s also Coliseum and a very active auction house. So people who like simple games have those, players who like competition and battle games have Coliseum, people (like me) who enjoy hoarding and trading have auction house.
There’s a lot to do and more stuff gets added all the time, compared to that: I haven’t been here for months and there hasn’t been one new game added, and mushroom meals still gives no rewards (if I’m not mistaken it’s been like that for about a year). Why not reuse games from the events? Or work on trading system to make it more auction house like to encourage trading? Where people can browse items and look at icons not just names of those items? or maybe think of interesting new activities like quests on Dappervolk?
Add more activities with nugget or item rewards and people will be more active and send more since there will be more to spend. Right now MC currency is way too expensive which just hurts the economy.
Third:
Events for the most part are fun but there are some issues that get repeated every single time and these do take a lot of enjoyment from people (at least those I’ve spoken to).
So the first problem is timing, the thing I noticed is that events that are “play at your own pace” are often placed during winter or summer vacation when people have more time on their hands, while events that are “collect every xx minutes” are placed during school periods. This means that a lot of people can’t invest much time in these events because there are much more important things to do. And the way these events are designed is “play every day all day or you won’t be able to get all prizes from the event”. Which from personal experience just made me sad and frustrated since it was not my fault I had to go to school so it seemed very unfair. I have no idea why you thought that such placement would be good, why not switch them? “Play at your own pace” when people don’t usually have much free time, “play all the time” when they do.
Also the events that require you to constantly be on the site are quite a chore. Usually (on other sites) such events offer more time so you can not only get all prizes but have day or two extra if something happens so you don’t loose much. This means events will be more fun and since more people will be able to get prizes there will be more people willing to trade.
In short right now very few people get all prizes, so there’s not much trade. If more people are able to get all prizes, more people will be doing extra work to get duplicates for trade. This will encourage people to trade and help economy.
These changes will make MC currency worth less so I can understand if that’s a bit scary but it is not a bad thing. You see currency that is worthless is as bad as currency that is worth too much, both cause problems in economy and discourage trading. MC has currency that is one of most expensive I’ve ever seen, and not only does it hurt trading with other sites but also the trading on this site as well. It is so expensive that it feels like it is just not worth it. The item and price should be equal value, if the item is seen as not worth the money there is something wrong, which is often the case on MC.
In short, if people have more nuggets they will spend more, if they send more they will have more items and pets, if they have more items and pets they will be more likely to trade and stay active on the site.
