What should the starting balance be?
Please vote for the option you think is best.
- Keep at F2500
- Increase to F5000
- Increase to F10 000
- Other; Please explain below
0 voters
It shouldnt be 10k, new players should have enough to live for the first few days but they should work as soon as possible, if the starter bal is 10k they wont do that as fast anymore
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(removed by author due to factual inaccuracies)
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Money is not created when a new player joins, it is taken from the government balance.
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I’d say F5000, as F2500 is too low to start an business, which is the best way to make money on HelloMiners, and F10000 is too op and high, making it too difficult to do anything.
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10k is definitely not too much.
In 2014, the average of the top 10 balances on baltop was F188k. In 2021, it averages out to F4.539mil. This is almost a 24x increase. In that same period of time, the starting balance has gone from F1k to F2.5k. A 2.5x increase. Now surely we’d help the adjustment of government prices to inflation better if we increase to 10k, as that’s a 10x increase. If the government had actually raised it throughout the years, no one would say 1k > 10k would be a large increase but the need to adjust prices has become more apparent, and so a change like that seems larger.
This definitely would have to be accompanied with a raise in apartment prices though, otherwise I’m for the F5k raise as well.
Benefits of raising include:
- The revival of an entire industry on HM (apartments, as they would be profitable)
- Better chance for new players to start playing as they’d actually start with a balance adjusted to inflation
- More money circulating within the economy
- Higher chances for new players to get helped as people generally act only if they are incentivised to do so
Now here’s another thing, we have less players. If you have 50 new players rent apartments at F500, it would be equivalent to 5 players renting apartments at F5,000. The rate in which we get players has slowed down (or at least their retention has definitely gone down, for a variety of reasons). Not only should we be adjusting for inflation but for the lack of players, that’s why we should go for at least F10k. The apartment industry is not profitable at all. Before, you used to get new players pretty quick and you’d message them to get an apartment, and you’d make money out of it faster. You’d also help them, potentially give them a job or tell them how to do things. Now, I’d be surprised if anyone but PHs do that anymore. Infact, I’d be surprised if PHs do that, they’re usually busy with projects as that’s one of the only few things people do when they play HM nowadays.
If we see more involvement of the government as an actual centralised figure that collects taxes on certain things (not income tax, not all tax is from income…), no actual inflation would come from the F10k as Luc said money is not created when a new player joins.
Apartment prices should be raised too, whether they do or not should be specified.
Also, saying they should work to make more money isn’t the point, because then we could just give them free housing and make them work. The point is the economic benefit behind it.
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Independently of starting bal, there could be some sort of programme (mainly) for new players where they could apply to get advice, overall help and, most importantly, funds for businesses they wanna start (or even expand).
I do think it should be raised to at least 5k though, namely due to the apartment industry. With the current situation, renting apartments to new players is just not worth your time (speaking from experience). That doesn’t make only apartment owners suffer but noobs as well, as it’s less likely that they’ll be offered an apartment and even further help, that apartment owners usually give them.
Quick side question, how’s the government funded? 
The problem is that no one is building or doing apts like they used too and prices are stuck. There is also an issue where the starting bal used to be enough to buy a government city plot when I joined while now it gets a lame apt and a Patel which shouldn’t be what we want players to do.
The top bal when the starting bal was 1k was 800k when I joined while now it is 10.2m and the starting bal is 2.5k. 10k with apts set at 7.5k would be good coinciding with a wild land price of 20f per block. This would basically just acknowledge we have had inflation and try to get people working on the city aspect of the server rather than the sell to infinite gtc aspect.
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To be fair, the government printed 50m to get out of bankruptcy so it there isn’t that much of a difference.
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I said this to a different post but just wanted to respond. If land prices are being raised and we acknowledge that the top bals have inflated 10x, why shouldn’t we increase the bal and apt cap. 2.5k is nothing in comparison with the top bal and no one wants to integrate them into the economy since it isn’t worth getting 1k for an apt when you can do some gtc thing and already have a lot of money. The people that are struggling are newer players who aren’t being integrated and we need to acknowledge the starting bal has decreased overtime due to inflation.
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As a city owner myself and someone who used to run apartments for a living on HM (shoutout to the OG Weather Apt. Company) F10,000 is more than reasonable. @Albinary brought up several great points. In the last year and a half not one apartment building has been built in any district of Archendale. That alone should be a major red flag. Raise the start balance to F10,000 to adjust to inflation. While doing so, raise the wild land price too.
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Thanks for clarifying! I recant my statement then - if the government is giving the money to new players I see no reason not to increase it to F10,000. That way people can start a business and do what they like.
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Now that’s why I’ve suggested the government functions as it should, it has to stop using /eco give
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Wild land should definitely be raised. I spoke about this on Discord but I think it should be a variable cost that it has. Prices should change and they could be small increases. If the amount of land increases, the price goes down (supply high, demand low). If more land is bought, the price would go up (supply low, demand high). This would mean land becomes an investment, it adjusts to inflation, it can control inflation (as would a base interest rate), they can no longer be glorified bank notes and with changing prices, we wouldn’t see much inflation halpening as 1. people could have sold at the wrong time 2. the price can go further up or it could go down 3. with everyone selling their land, the price plummets, and that means that others won’t be able to get the top price. If someone sells F1mil of land for example, the price may go from F5 to F4.5 a block, and people would no longer have that F5 a block price.
Anyway, a bit off topic, you should all vote F10k because that’s a wayy more sensible option, I’ve listed my reasons
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Keep it the same, there are plenty of ways to get money, and plenty of places for new players to live when they’re first getting started, you can get 1250F just from pushing a minecart at jobs, and when ever I’m on I spend atleast 30 minutes just playing around in the sand mine and get over 10k, it’s safe to say that things are fine as they are
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I would like to say almost 4 months ago I built a building in archendale for the purpose of apartments, but I have noticed that there are very few new players joining and I just never seen the need to set it up as such, plus I also have 3+ other apartment buildings in a handful of other cities, that despite my efforts never had more than 2 people rent at a time. In the near future I have plans to sell all my apartment buildings because of this.
Then what’s the point of a starting balance at all? Raising it would bring economic benefit (assuming apartment prices would also raise), would decrease wealth inequality, provide more economic growth, adjust prices to inflation and allow players to create businesses easier.
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Good luck selling those apartments, you likely won’t as the market isn’t profitable. Why? No one wants F300 for 15 minutes of introducing someone, HM is based on capitalism and individualism (which I’m not saying are good or bad, I’m stating the obvious), you’d need to incentivise people to do anything. In 2015, everyone would message new players asking if they want an apartment, that no longer happens
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i think new players should be welcomed by playing britney spears cause studies show it improves mood
thank you
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