The Alphaville Herald

Life after Mazing: Interview with TSO Power Player.

by Alphaville Herald on 02/01/04 at 1:03 am

In this interview we check in again with our old friend TSO Power Player to ask him about life after the maze money object has been eliminated. Liquidity is down, and he thinks ordinary sims are suffering the consequences. What will replace Maze? Well…

Urizenus: A lot has happened since our first conversation, but probably the most significant event was the elimination f the maze object by maxis. What consequences has that had for the simolean farmers and money traders?

TPP: Well Mr Uri, we are talking about two different things here. one is “iffy” and one is perfectly fine, no matter what do-gooders or no-clue whingers think. The removal of maze (the best money maker in game — God code is dreadfully slow and maxis wrecked it long before anyhow) has vastly affected both people’s legal normal activities and also “iffy” activities. Money transfers and selling are two distinctly different things, and you must not group the two together in the same boat. One simply moves money that already exists around. The other “iffy” practice provides money for a fee by running objects at extremely good efficiency rates to generate enormous amounts of simoleans (again, ignoring the do-gooders and whingers). And then there are people who used maze solely to fund their own in-game ambitions – such as in a good clean fun money house for example. Anybody else who made a sim living off it too. EA/Maxis have not only slowed down, (not stopped) sellers (sort of their goal) but have also created vast repercussions in game for a large number of non-selling players. Once again, the fools at EA have not thought of the consequences of their actions.

Urizenus: Who exactly has the elimination of mazing hurt besides the simolean sellers?

TPP: Well like i said, the shockwave goes through the entire community. EA not thinking (as usual) failed to see this. Besides sellers, large numbers of regular players have been put out on the sim street or forced to try other less enjoyable objects that do not suit them. Code was wrecked long before payout-wise by maxis so it’s hardly worth it. Pizza is ok, but very hard to find a competent team of 3 other people to play with, and bubble chat is messy, slow and inefficient. And band? well who really plays band? Has anybody really looked at it? It could be the hidden silver lining in these new grey clouds over TSO. Another thing is transfers, maze was the best, and a lot of people lived off it. Without that money some have to refuse trades now here and there as funds are low in places. So yes even so called honest and legit activities have faced the repercussions as well. Of course you still get the group of nuts who whinge even about moving money. But it’s already existing money, so where’s the beef? do you leave all your money behind when you move to another place to live in RL? lol. It’s the same in TSO.

Urizenus: well, there is always cyberprostitution…

TPP: Well that hardly matters. How many sad people run tso brothels? Lol

Urizenus: But what is the harm in making money the old fashioned way, slaving in a robot factory or some such thing. As Anonymous pointed out, how many Gorean castles do we need?

TPP: gorean castles?

Urizenus: her complaint was that people were coming into the game, buying simoleans, and a week later they had a castle on a size 8 lot, and were already at the object limit.

TPP: It’s called personal choice, and some people have no time to spend on things that take weeks and weeks. FUN can be quite expensive.

Urizenus: How is the rare pet business these days?

TPP: Still pretty much a small fraction of the overall thing, and pet finding has practically been destroyed by elimination of maze anyhow. it takes millions to find them.

Urizenus: oh of course. So why haven’t the prices of rares gone up with the elimination of mazing?

TPP: Because hardly anyone has them to sell. It’s not much of a market.

TPP: But if people did sell them, they’d find they’d get quite a good price.

Urizenus: So there is no liquidity now? If I had a tiger in alphaville, how much would you pay me for it?

TPP: No simoleans and hard to determine on $.

Urizenus: more than $50?

TPP: Maybe. Best to check ebay and see how much you could get. AV tigers still fetch a high rate.

Urizenus: If things don’t change, how expensive do you think simoleans will get?

TPP: there is no limit, but i assume most people will not pay above a certain point. And we will know what that is when we get there. Rather than being overly greedy, you have to figure what cost is worth the big amount of time it takes to produce whatever amount, like dividing total hours by the cost is one example. $50 per mill would be $10 per hour if it took you 5 hours and so forth, and of course the overall market plays into it too.

Urizenus: could we get back to $100 for a million?

TPP: not right now. but once all the maze money is sold, i think you will see another overall spike. EA have only done two things. Slowed it down a lot, (good for them supposedly) and also driven up the cost really high. (bad for the consumer) . They will never stop it, only slow it down.

Urizenus: Do you think the next money object to be automated will be code or something else?

TPP: the next thing is already here. That’s all i have to say. And others will follow. Let’s see if it takes them another year to figure it out and then act with a “swift” and……. something decision……. well i forget what that they said, but it was usual save face BS PR. LOL.

TPP: it’s in some recent versions notes thread on stratics.

Urizenus: Do you think realsimsonline is in trouble? What with the shortage of simoleans etc?

TPP: Could be. If site costs are indeed running well above the owners normal RL income, then I see trouble for sure.

TPP: It’s practically realsimoleansonline already. LOL. The might have to change from a free site.

Urizenus: Are they the biggest simolean sellers on TSO do you think?

TPP: Doubt it. One of the big players though, I’m sure.

Urizenus: Who are the other big players (besides yourself, of course!).

TPP: lmao. You can’t flatter me Uri, I do not think of myself in such a way. More of medium. Quite far from what the old-timers make.

TPP: You have a couple on ebay, and there’s also long time seller simbucks, mmorpgbucks, onlinegamebucks (order of owner changing site names) . Don’t really know of any else.

Urizenus: Ok, let’s stop there. We’ll check in with you again soon though!