I could give you my reason why I think loans and the system that comes with it is bad because the amount of cases I've dealt with scams, blackmail, and stealing rupees involving loans/banks/shares/credit. All in All the negatives outweigh the positives but Staff Rules wiki page sums it up perfectly. http://empireminecraft.com/wiki/banks-are-not-allowed/ Sub-article: Loans It's possible for a player to build up lots of debt, draining them of all their Rupees. Because bank loans are all word of mouth, we can't track this, which makes it easy for people to scam others. Although we're not saying you would do this, the few bad eggs that do decide to scam means we disallow loans.
it was harder to make rupees back then (100r/day from voting and 45r per diamond wasn't enough) I now have 2,504,962r
-1 because I never needed a loan. There's a long process to go through to grow a large (as in more than a couple thousand rupees) amount of rupees into something even 20% more than the original amount. Also, much like real life, banks would become "to big to fail" so everyone would flock to it creating a monopoly where the supply and demand of rupees would be controlled by a group of people instead of the overall market.
What were the main problems, majority of complains? I know from my experience that kids are usually not able to manage loan / credit / debt, but this is not kids only server. This somehow doesn't make sense for me. How does debt drain someones rupees? When you receive a loan / credit (and thus have debt), you get rupees, not lose rupees. Just if someone spends them unwisely (e.g. gambling) then they will still have a debt but nothing to cover it. But it is gambling that drained the rupees, not the debt. It is clear that EMC staff can not handle nor be responsible for any private loans between players whatsoever. It is not clear to me why anyone would think that EMC / staff would be responsible for that? You can invest. Quality services (design, building, redstone, grinders) cost from 10k per hour upwards. I do invest, I can tell That's far too far fetched projection. I don't see this happening on EMC, not in years to come. And I wrote a line about capital adequacy ratio above, which prevents the bank to do investments that are too risky and lose it all. While investing on EMC is possible, the possibilities are very, very restricted compared to RL. Also, banks on EMC would not be tied to politics and international affairs as IRL. We do not have states and wars here. (Yet )
EMC staff is ultimately responsible for this server as a whole and I can only imagine the amount of complaints they would get from people not understanding the terms of their contract for their debt, as well as people not repaying their debts. Not to mention people that amass large debts then stop playing. They would be getting reports/complaints daily and from both sides of the agreement.
Exactly. And NOT for private agreements between users. How could they be? This is a problem that can not be solved. IMO, it is ridiculous to even try to solve it on EMC level. Banning contracts (or trying to, because you just can't do that e.g. by US constitution) because of that problem is even more ridiculous.
If anything, the moderately wealthy class is growing. We see new mega-malls popping up every month. People must have money to make these malls, let alone stock them. I previously before my leave went to some of them, and yes, they were stocked, but were selling for high prices. Of course, most people who are new will buy from the first /v +shop/+mall they see, giving shop owners more money, and with the wide range of both Infinite Villagers and Iron Farms, these shop owners can sell these materials for rupees at auction, or use them to restock their mall, as well as trying to become a household name by holding weekly auctions around the forums for these rare and rich materials. However, I have to agree on loans. Loans need to be made legalized, as part of a complicated system where something like this works: A player writes a signed book called LOAN - RUPEE AMOUNT. They then sell it using a slot 1 system to another player, with the rupee amount being how much they are being loaned. If the player gets scammed, staff can check their transactions, then the book to see if they match. Once the loan is done, they can sell it back manually. Banks, never again. There was a reason my currency was banned, it broke the bank rules. Now, imagine if I had mass-produced the currency, people had used it, and then I took a break. Disaster. Now, imagine this happening with a bank. In short, if you need rupees these days, the promo business, the iron farm business, and the villager business is the way to go. Definitely not loans until a system can be created where people can use loans effectively.
If you're fully aware and accepting of the risk of never getting your money back, just give them the money and no need to make it a formal loan. Don't come crying to staff if you don't get paid back though. It is also possible to construct a 'loan' from the sale of a promo. Player A sells the promo to Player B for a fair market value (the amount of capital they need). Player A and Player B also agree in writing via PM that Player A will buy the promo back for a set amount (the capital plus interest) at a specific time (the end of the 'loan' period). As almost every player has promos (even starting gear is a promo), this should be a viable solution for most players, and protects Player B in case of default because (s)he has collateral in their possession.
If you're talking about in-game banks, which it appears you are (and also aren't); why would I have to be over 21 to run a bank? And why must I finish High School? My country considers you an adult at 18 and we don't have High Schools over here
Yep it's only the messed up US that considers 21 to be a legal age and holds states hostage to that by taking away the funding for roads.
Google inalienable rights. Private loans are legal, as one would interfere with constitutional rights and with private sphere of the users if trying to declare them "illegal". IMO, this would not be good for EMC - to try to interfere with private sphere of the members and deny fundamental rights. There are other, much better ways to cope with (unreasonable) complains from users. My suggestion is to write in the rules that: Based on experience, it is strongly advised not to participate in loans and similar contracts, and that, if problems arise, EMC / staff can not be held responsible and usually won't be able to help. I think that should be enough. There could be a link to a Wiki page: "Loans. Some things that can go wrong." For saving accounts / loans / investments that are not just private between two players, but are offered as a service to the whole EMC community - this is another story. This needs rules as I'm suggesting above. Still, every user that wants to participate has to accept that there are risks and of course must be willing to accept both the obvious and not so obvious risks. If someone or a bank gives a loan, there is always a risk that it will be a 100% loss. It is not possible to remove that risk with any rules. (But it is possible to have insurance.) Do not mix "bank" and "currency issuing bank". (BTW, if you need a stable currency you can always use diamonds, obsidian, emeralds etc - or even better a mix of those ) Any user that wishes to participates in a bank contract must evaluate the trustworthiness of the bank and/or other participants and pertaining risks. I can imagine a requirement of written consent for every participating user. A bit similar to the required disclaimer when selling spawner locations. I think it is obvious, but using a bank would always be a free option for a user, always out of free will. No one would ever be forced to participate.
High school = 12 or 13 years of education, usually during age 7-19. And because 21 is half of 42 Really, because with 16 or 18, or even 21 and assuming standard education, you can hardly have the needed knowledge and experience. Then again, you're right. It's a game, and a game is an opportunity to learn while playing. It is very valuable experience if the younger here learn about banks, loans and financing - even if it means losing, even if it can be a bad experience - to learn here in the game, before they get confronted with similar problems IRL. This is what makes EMC something that goes beyond and that is much more valuable then just pastime. This is what I guess makes the people that are well over 21 to participate and enjoy the game here. I think it would be just wrong to bar any user from the possibility of gaining those experiences. Any such preemptive, prohibitive rule reduces the value of EMC and restrains the development of the community.
We have Secondary School, which you are in from when you're 11 to when you're 16. After that you have to do some form of mandatory education (college, apprenticeship) until you're 18 And then there's University, which you can spend up to 10+ years in. I think we end up being in school longer than Americans
