instead of taxes...

No, I'm not suggesting that we do away with taxes (although tax *breaks* for certain things sure would be nice!).

What I'm proposing is that we stop *calling* them "taxes".

Call it "insurance" instead. Has a nicer ring to it. Not anywhere near as ominous as t.a.x.e.s. Be the same amount taken out of account every week, just might not hurt quite a much (assuming all the current glitches are eliminated) once we forget that it was ever called tax.

We could get rid of taxes and make your build rateing a allowed object in world multiplier.

Example :

Mr. Newb comes in world and is able to 500 objects, and has a limit to a 20 X 20 chunk of land. Builds some cool stuff and people rate him and now he/she has a build rating of 25. He now can own up to a 25 x 25 chunk of land and have 550 objects in world.

Mr. Newb gets an Idea and builds something nobody has ever seen before - spining and whirling - doesn't lag the sim - and gets his build rating up to 100. He can now have 1000 objects in world and own a 40 X 40 chunk of land.

Time passes....

Mr. X-Newb is now old and gray from being IM'd over and for the past 6 months with HOW DID YOU BUILD THAT at least 500 times a day, however he now has a build rating of 250.
Mr. X-Newb power user can own a 120 X 120 chunk of land and maintain 2500 objects at any given time.

Note : the numbers are all rough but yall get the idea...

We could go back to one rating and have the modifiers go much higher and limit the number of ratings a user can issue in a month.

Xavier

Your behavior rating could be the multiplier for how many rates your allowed to issue in a month.

Hmmmm..... Xavier

I can live with calling them taxes. "Insurance" sounds like what you pay to keep big guys named Guido from breaking your kneecaps.

That assumes that one's build rating is an accurate reflection of one's actual building ability. Isn't it possible for the rating to over- or undervalue one's actual skill? One possible scenario is if you're a scripter working with a builder; the builder's name appears in the "created by" field for the object, but the scripter's name appears nowhere.

LOL Teeny =)

I was thinking in terms of homeowner's insurance, car insurance, renter's insurance...

Jake, good points.

Xav, still thinking about your suggestion - just one question: do you really want to encourage more rate mining? (ARGH! I actually said that phrase!)

#!

As IRL a architect is given credit for the design of the building - even though he didn't do the actual building - it was his vision that gets the credit.

If you can script you can make something equally as impressive and raise your rating.

I just added the spinning and whirring cause I can script however there are many places I would rate that have no scripts.

I love flying up to a place and going WOW!

The I script an object to IM them 500 times in all CAPS...
HOW DID YOU DO THAT....

Yeah, as a scripter, I've often felt undervalued too. My wooden cube with five scripts on it does more and took many times longer to make than someone else's fancy building, but it doesn't look cuddly, so it doesn't get the votes. Yay.

On changing the name of taxes: that's a pretty good idea. How about maintainance fee?

I hope TB wasn't around to hear that.

This is actually easy to fix - you can't rate someone immediatly after getting rated by them for like an hour. This would limit rate mining to "Rate me Please"

We can put up signs all over that say...

If someone someone asks for a rate,
don't hesitate,
select negative, because miners we hate.

Xavier

I don't know about "maintainance fee". It sounds like something paid to people to fix stuff. Too TSOish.

Is it just me, or are we all waiting for 12:00pm PDT?

Setting limits on how much a person can own is a super bad idea. I wouldn't pay 15 a month to be told how many things I could build and what not. Just a bad idea, EA is proof that idea is dumb.

Your already limited when you start - you have 5000 Linden. Thats 500 objects and your broke. It's no diffrent just another way to look at it.

Its more of a technical thing that a gameplay issue. Take a stroll through Natoma and see what happens when there are too many items in one place.

I didn't know there was a 500 item limit. Heck I'd be willing to save the items on my own harddrive and have them run off my machine if it's a matter of setting limits. Oh well, guess it's just too much for the severs to handle.

I'd have some issues with changing to a hard limit based on rating.

I am not a builder, my building rating is low. But I do make money through other means. This system would keep me from using my skills (clothes and accessories) to save up for that beach house I've always wanted. Even if I could bust out an amazing house, or even have someone ELSE build it for me. Assuming that building rating is accurate, of course. Ratings come more out of socialization than out of true recognition. Someone wearing something I made may get compliments, but they're also unlikely to say, "Oh, Datura made them, go rate her appearance up."

I prefer the abstraction of money in this case. How you make the money is up to you. How you spend the money is up to you. I like having that sort of freedom. There may need to be more balancing done but I just don't think this is the way to go.