Version 3.0: Pocket Economy released(For real.)
Our game has progressed to the point where the advances of the googleDB gameplay (or delays in browser-interactive version, or both) have necessitated the implementation of the
economic calculation engine planned to be released in
Version X: Economy in 2015-1-17 originally. The engine is now functional and strengthens the administration and conceptual play in the current googleDB format.
We are able to take as many new players now as who care to join us and learn the gameplay - in other words, our capability of administrating newbies is not the limiting factor, their capability of learning the game, is 
The latest advance is the transposing of the T_MON tab to allow such things as the year change, or distributing dividends from a random company to all its shareholders in proportion (eg. gold dividends), to happen in 2 minutes, instead of 30 minutes (and considerable mental load) before. The admin load of Quarry is also reduced to about 10 minutes per day from the original 2-3 hours. Resta updates automatically in real-time and does not need more care than checking of the level payout ratios once per week. From the players, in turn, it requires constant micromanagement, which on the other hand is easy to do in the powerful control sheets.
This is the way it should be, the players who like to play, get interesting and rewarding stuff to do, while the admins may concentrate on larger issues.
The modular subgame structure allows now literally unlimited options for development of the game. Some of the ones that are promised for this version still lack the conversion formula, but the data structure is done already (/SERV tab in the DB). In the future, new subgames will be released according to people's wants and needs and good and playable ideas from other developers such as Paulson.
The Online version development schedule is altered to prioritize these "hardcore-functionality" developments first, and add the "visitor-functionality" Sandbox in the buildings only after. This was a nondecision in the sense that without doing it, it would have equalled to keeping the game in google DB because the control tools for doing about anything would have stayed there. To get the adoption going, and prevent us, the early adopters from becoming fabulously rich, is important and the Sandbox will come asap. We have just learned that the game development can for sure be kept in schedule only by doing it yourself. It has been quite demanding, and instead of granting MG-2 to myself (for the second time, because I already have it, and MG-1 requires 100,000 players which is not fulfilled yet),
I will grant this medal to my wife for taking care of me and stuff.
Keeping the balance between old and new players so that as a rule, neither would enrich the other, is important. The latest servant grading round meant that some old-timers who had for 60 days paid a servant without receiving direct benefit, now got a servant that is worth 20x his yearly wage in staffing service. Of course it's great status and all, but the master is still monetarily behind, not even counting interest. Everyone who got nice MGR, SPE, even ASS (meaning ASSistant, somehow a neverending joke in the ##crypto-kingdom), CHEF, BUT, etc. is definitely worth receiving them all and if your businesses cannot be graded as high as a result, it's up to you to figure out. There are endless ways to remedy the situation, and it's always good to participate in the small new things eagerly. If they come from the administration, that is. It's heartwarming to see players wanting to go ahead of the development and implement food, drinks, animals, transport, countryside, healthcare, etc. which all are scheduled for later versions. Now we finally have a conceptualization for all these, the class 80XX in /SERV. Any kind of institution can be started and there it will produce specialists, culture and science, and consume money.
In general, everything has gone up in value in the game, even the Town Hall, built mostly for show and despite a good location, during its history producing abysmal revenue, is now being bid at 3.2 (IPO was 1 million). Most land has been a really good investment but market in the Old Town is oversaturated currently, nice spots for big developments cost a lot, small ones are uninteresting, and the building activity therefore is happening in other boroughs mostly. Gold is now paying about 1.5% dividend (on market price)
per week, which is a lot, because
of the town surplus, only 33% is paid as dividends while the rest is kept for paying for the development. Clothes are soon coming back, after Jacket, the Marquess of North Face is researching how to manufacture them in a way competitive with the showy foreign tailors. The said tailors are wavering in whether to come last year as the final time or not.
A word of warning on the game assets. Some of them depreciate, expire, or are burdened, in addition to their value as speculation and income generation. It is important to know the rules: The premier game asset is
gold, which is only created according to rules, with a guaranteed slow inflation whose rate is dependent of the activity of the gameplay (currently: 0, because there is no online version).
Land may have extra tax (in 1-SE currently), land tax (everywhere except haws, starts in 1600), and there can be unlimited amount of land. On the other hand, the Old Town is only one, etc. Both gold and land have their place, and are the easiest and most liquid (biggest marketcap) ways to invest.
Buildings produce income, but start to require upkeep as well from 1600.
NPC servants are very useful, but they start to die from 1600, as well as the PC's. (Some players cried that there should be a way to resurrect a dead
NPC for continuity, while happily forgetting that a dead
PC loses his skills and experiences as well, only the wealth is transferred to the heirs!
)
Items are not implemented yet because of prioritization and practical reasons, but everything you do, build, operate, say in thread, etc. will earn you items that can in the later versions be collected in museums and someone may pay for them as well.
It is possible that some colorful stones in the quarry were the same kind that is in my old, sturdy, crown, inherited from my father, the Duke. So much research is needed...A note to admins:
Unlike before, the Char DB is now heavily interlinked with VLOOKUP-functions. They are otherwise nice, but destroy everything totally once you add or remove columns. This must never be done in any sheet.Otherwise, by following the logic and formulas, getting to know things, asking from me and others in-the-know in the IRC, gets a long way. The totally temporary construction in the google DB was never meant to be seriously updated but here it is
With foreknowledge, it could have been done 2 months ago to save massive admin energy from chores to development. But it would not have brought the online (now named V.4) to us any quicker still.
The BUTlers that I got many in the transition of "domestic servants" to "NPCs" are representative of the feelings. Determined, hard work, pays off even in the conditions when you can't see or quantify the short term result, only the cost.
Crypto Kingdom is stronger than ever.
