[003-23] Open for Business

[Brett]

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We're open for business! In our push to launch, we will begin to review business applications for people who are interested in having a business ready and waiting on Day One of server launch. We are committed to having a creative, dynamic, and fulfilling business environment to accompany our realistic economy to ensure players will have options to roleplay in a manner that fits their development, while also making profits for people who have the business savy to make major gains in the market. Information on the economics of the server may be found below for those who may have forgotten the plan.

 

Spoiler

Realistic Server Economy System

One of the goals we've been attempting to do in this community is get to a 1:1 or 1:1.5 economic system to make prices and money management in general as close to realistic US economic markets as possible. This means that you will make a realistic salary close to the minimum wage for working in say a Bar, and a Cheeseburger isn't supposed to cost you $500 rather something more reasonable such as $10 and so on.  In order to be as transparent as possible, we will be posting the entire document put together by FST on how the economic system will operate from a price standpoint. We will be going over some of the highlights in a bullet point summary and provide some explanations below so do not feel the need (although still highly recommended) to go over the entire google doc. 

 

Spoiler

 

• $10,000 Starting Money - In a realistic economy, amounts don't need to be extravagant at start. It breaks a good even between what is in your pocket and bank on start, and allows you full access to the server economy without an initial grind.
• Sunday Weekly Pay/Expenses - An easy way to combat a bit of the fast accumulation of wealth, is to spread it out over a specific timeframe. Having every player not receive an hourly paycheck, but a weekly paycheck will encourage a mentality of smarter financial choices due to having to do a tiny bit of financial planning, but also not have to worry about "missing out," if you are not IG daily. Our salary system also operates on a MINIMUM timeframe of playtime, not a maximum. Meaning, if you roleplay on the server for 2 Hours in a 1 week timeframe. The script will give you the paycheck on Sunday to your account regardless of if you're online or not. And, if you do not meet the 2 hour requirement the script doesn't pay you the money from your salaried job or welfare, but it also does not charge you expenses on your house or vehicle so you lose absolutely nothing if you for example just had a bad week IRL. We also believe this will encourage alternative ventures of capitol, as although the welfare/salary payments are only on Sundays, other avenues such as gambling, drug/weapon dealing, bets, odd jobs, whatever can of course be done to increase your income throughout the week. So there is always a way to make more money on the side, then what your salary/welfare check is able to provide.
• Welfare vs Salary - Script jobs exist, but the days of grinding for money just to survive is over. Welfare is simply there to allow people who aren't either in a Faction or Business who receive a salary for their work, to be able to still fully partake in the server economy. If you have a scriptwise job such as Taxi Driver, this is counted as "supplemental income," and you will receive the money from that job along with your Welfare Check as it is not a salaried position. We do not believe in allowing people to just go bankrupt for no reason, however if you would like to RP as a homeless individual or a very poor person you have the full freedom to do that as it is your RP story. The money is just for script purposes at the end of the day, you drive your roleplay. 
• Taxes - We have the mentality that all taxes should be something that actually comes from something in use. Income Taxes come from actual players salaries to the government, and sales tax comes from actual players consumption choices. There is also the vehicle insurance which players use with their car that can be classified as a tax, that actually allows tangible benefits to the player character to use. We will not institute taxes on this server just for "realism," but we will institute taxes and tax rates on actual benefits players receive and these taxes will be able to be changed and altered by the City Government of Liberty City. 

 

There's a lot of complexities that not even the official document nor brief summary will be able to fully explain, but this should provide a rather strong baseline for what is attempting to be achieved. Some other things not in the document however will be more geared towards businesses which I will bullet point here;

 

• FST (RP'd as State Gov IG) will be financing initial business costs and general operation for new players. This means that if you are wanting to open up a business, you will send in a request form to FST for the business, FST will provide all the startup money and even pay the salaries of up to 3 employees of the business (Which will be set depending on the minimum wage law of the server), and the business owner is allowed to keep all the profit earned from the roleplay they provide. Example, all drink sales/admission prices/VIP/services that is provided by a business owner all of that profit is not taxed in anyway and is free to be distributed as the owner sees fit. This is meant to stimulate passive roleplay, and eliminate a barrier to entry for players who want to legitimately roleplay business owners but do not want to spend months grinding script jobs or such just to get the money to do so. We believe in making money on profits from your roleplay, not grinding for money to be able to access roleplay. Restrictions in regards to how this will effect faction businesses, will be detailed more at a later point.
• FST/Property Team will be conducting checks on businesses to ensure they are roleplaying with the business they have been provided with. There will be an activity requirement of the business to ensure they are opening up and doing the roleplay they stated they will be providing, and if that requirement is not met the business will be sold back to the server and the owner will have to reapply from the beginning if they wish for it to return that is subject to FST approval. It should be noted that FST will only support ONE business of a player, with any expansion or hiring of more employees then the original limit being fully on the business owner to provide for on their own under the normal property process. 

 

There has been some updates since then, but 99% of the framework as presented in the spoiler is still as accurate today as it was with only minor changes (EX: Commands are not accurate.) This is again still to be used in conjunction with the Simulated Market (Which will have more announcements post-launch), with the information also being found below. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

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Business Regulations

 

As we believe in LCRP that the grind of a server should not prevent you from roleplaying your characters appropriately, we are committed to ensuring that businesses are given to players for free, however there are some rules that must be followed that will be expanded upon in a separate topic but here are the highlights for now;

 

1. You must roleplay with the business actively. Exact activity requirement will be set down the line, but if you are found to not be roleplaying with the business it will be taken away from you and you will have to wait a certain amount of time before you can repeat the process of gaining a new business.
2. You must follow all server rules and regulations regarding how businesses must operate and function. (EX: Money placed in a business menu for salaries & basic utility bills, cannot just be stolen by a player as those are server protected assets. Only profits can be robbed as that is from the players rather then the server.)
3. You must maintain a forum presence as well as an in-game presence with your business. 

 

As long as you are able to follow those basic three, you should be fine in the operation in your business. Additional regulation, procedures, and protocols will be released down the line and moderated by the Faction Support Team. 

 

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Application

If you would like a business, this is the place to request it. Keep in mind that any custom mapping will be the players responsibility, but with our in-game furniture script, this should be an easy task even for the most inexperienced person to easily custom map their business property once it is given. You will also before launch be given the opportunity to create your character, and go in-game to map your property if approved before server launch. Additional details on this process will come later, but questions are always welcome.  

 

The only requirement for you to apply, is that you have an accepted UCP application at the time of submission. Otherwise, this will result in an auto-denial.