Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Company Advancement Alternative?

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
It's occurred to me this past month or two that there is the possibility of a company that has expanded beyond its tier while still maintaining the label of the tier it was in. For example, Tenloss is a Tier III company per its listing, but spans about 19 worlds and 2 sectors along with supplying... questionable holographic recreational materials to the entire mid rim per canon sources. Along with this, Tenloss has around 60+ listed items for sale, a small number of contracts, and has been highly active in a multitude of ways. For all intents and purposes, Tenloss operates on a Tier IV or V level and, occasionally (depends on which Tier VI company you compare it to) bumps into the Tier VI levels on the rare occasion. The thing is, it's still a Tier III company and has yet to complete a major project for advancement. Now, for clarification purposes:

I'm using Tenloss as an example. I legitimately have no desire to move up in Tier at all at this time and have stated as much repeatedly in multiple Skype chats. I simply realized that Tenloss' situation is an avenue of Tier expansion not covered under the Tier Advancement system currently.

Now, with that said, for companies in that sort of situation, what do we do? Before, it was stated that corporate expansion, no matter how much, was not grounds for a major project. However, if done through threads and over time, along with definitive effort, how does that work with the company advancement? At the point where a smaller company grows larger and more prominent than a higher tier company, do we allow tier advancement? Do we not?

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Ideas?
 

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
[member="Darth Janus"]
Verily, your contributions here rival those of Nobel Prize winners.

Seriously, though, at what point is expansion viable? How do we deal with this sort of situation?
 
[member="Popo"]

The amount of locations a company has is completely irrelevant and has never been taken into account for tier advancement. What matters is whether or not they're selling their product, be it to major factions, NPCs, or whatever. If people mindlessly expand their corporation, setting up factories on planet after planet instead of establishing customer bases, I'm more liable to slap them with a bankruptcy notice and tier demotion than an advancement.

And since the last thing people want is for me to hover around approved companies like a specter, stabbing people with tier demotions for over-extending themselves, it's better to just leave locations out of the tier advancement formula entirely.
 
[member="Darth Janus"]

Preach.gif
 

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
[member="Darth Janus"]
I see where you're coming from, though I do have a point to argue. Setting up factories and shipyards, yeah, but when that company is actively selling their products IC'ly through private sales, contracts, and the marketplace as well as actively RPing their company in threads both miscellaneous and with a purpose, not to mention folks using their products in RPs, that seems more justified to me. Toss in the possibility of establishing new locations with reasoning behind it, for example Tenloss' expansion into Crystalsong where natives are purchasing items and spending money on Tenloss products IC'ly, then one could argue expansion.

For example, I had intended to expand Tenloss along the Mara corridor and seize that avenue as a main shipping area as a major project and bump up a tier. I still intend to do so, though I'll probably not opt to advance a tier. Also, a company taking over a planet like Tenloss has been doing with crystalsong could, arguably, do the same thing. Where do we draw the lines on that sort of expansion? At what point does expansion warrant a major project? If we have companies of lower tier outperforming companies of a higher tier in most ways, or all ways, how does that affect the Tier levels?
 
[member="Popo"]



Popo said:
At what point does expansion warrant a major project?
The answer to this question has already been established by precedent.

This is a non-issue. If a company has enough popularity that it's making consistent marketplace sales, has a multitude of contracts, and is actively being roleplayed, it won't have a problem finding major faction sponsorship or completing a REAL major project- the only other requirements to advancing in tier. Locations are not a factor in determining tier advancement because tier is not necessarily reflective of a company's number of locations.
 

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
[member="Darth Janus"]
So, by your argument, I could expand Tenloss to every planet in the galaxy while still maintaining product sales, high revenues, and generally maintain the company in the green, back it up with what would amount to hundreds, if not over a thousand posts, and it would not be considered on par with a major project.

Like I said, I personally have no desire to go up a tier, but the fact that one company has expanded large enough to rival larger companies begs the question of when expansion is an issue because more may follow.

Your viewpoint, while valid in many ways, is also narrow to a point. It doesn't look at the broader aspect of things. A company doing well and outperforming larger companies while maintaining product sales and establishing contracts, all the while expanding to different systems and different areas, but has no major project, is more liable to be bumped down a tier rather than given the opportunity to grow a tier through massive amounts of expansion. If such is the case, perhaps in the even I should ever desire to grow my company, I should instead ask to be dropped to tier II?

EDIT: Just realized that my phrasing may have been a touch insulting. My bad, wasn't my intention. I'll work on better phrasing in the future, man.
 
[member="Popo"]



Popo said:
Your viewpoint, while valid in many ways, is also narrow to a point. It doesn't look at the broader aspect of things. A company doing well and outperforming larger companies while maintaining product sales and establishing contracts, all the while expanding to different systems and different areas, but has no major project, is more liable to be bumped down a tier rather than given the opportunity to grow a tier through massive amounts of expansion.

When I said that before, I was referring to people who expand and do nothing else. The kind of people who set up a factory after factory, skipping across the stars, despite having no sales. You don't do that, I've seen your threads, particularly that business on Crystalsong.



Popo said:
So, by your argument, I could expand Tenloss to every planet in the galaxy while still maintaining product sales, high revenues, and generally maintain the company in the green, back it up with what would amount to hundreds, if not over a thousand posts, and it would not be considered on par with a major project.
But why would do that instead of just coming up with major project? The point of a major project is to see the company work towards a specific goal and do something suitably impressive over the course of several threads. When people submit to me with "general growth" as a major project, I'm not seeing a concentrated effort. I'm not seeing anything that shows me that the company should be bumped up in tier. What it shows me is that they didn't want to do a major project, so they took a bunch of separate little things and tried to wrap it together under the title "general growth-" as if it weren't completely contradictory to what a major project should entail.

For all intents and purposes, a Tier III like yourself can expand as far as it wants and build as many factories as it wants. But until it makes a major effort (multiple threads) towards one specific goal, it is still bound by the rules and restrictions that apply to Tier III companies.

If your major project, like I believe you mentioned before, was to establish major shipping control of the Mara Corridor, and in doing so you added a bunch of locations, that would be perfect. But adding Mon Calamari, Cardia, 244Core, and Greater Zimbabwe to your locations list just for the sake of it is not.
 

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
[member="Darth Janus"]
I'm not talking about adding a half dozen worlds and the like to a listing. What I'm talking about is honest-to-Tefka expansion. Doubling the size of the company at the very least. Now, I get what you're saying about just listing more worlds on a page. That wouldn't fly. What I'm talking about is deliberate, precalculated expansion.

Again, using Tenloss as an example, expansion has been done based on opportunities as they arise and based on deliberate map paths. If a company deliberately expands over a series of threads along the map, placing installations and the like here and there as they go to solidify their presence while still maintaining revenue and sales as well as making and meeting contracts and obligations, at what level do we allow expansion to warrant a tier advancement?

I get what you're saying, don't get me wrong. General expansion should never be listed as a major project. General expansion can be done with little to no planning and, in some cases, are done on whims or literally just to get specific items or resources rather than dedicated expansion. What I'm discussing is deliberate, preplanned, premeditated corporate expansion. Putting the time and effort into doubling the company's size and revenue while maintaining products and sales along with establishing and actively keeping contracts with major factions and/or companies. So far, the only company I know of to do so is Tenloss, but the fact that one company has done so means that more can opt for that path. This sort of thing is the exception, not the rule. Thus it requires a more... open approach to it. If someone takes the time to take a company with a dozen products and half a dozen worlds and then spends threads and threads of time and makes more and more submissions, both with and without dev threads, coupled with establishing contracts and relations with other organizations and the end result is a company with dozens of products and over a dozen worlds to their name... at what point would that be considered enough for Tier Advancement? Sure, major projects are the key, here, but I'd like to point out that when I first came to the board, I had no idea what a major project meant.

If you recall, I harassed you for a few days or a week with different ideas when I came here in January :p Most of the responses I got were "No, that really wouldn't work" to my ideas. Then, if you look at some of the other companies around, many don't really have the same options for projects as most companies do. Putting huge amounts of effort into dedicated expansion, easily twice the amount of overall work compared to what most do for a major project, could be considered equivalent to Tier Advancement. Sure, it'd be much harder to do, but one could argue that those companies that opt to take such a path, with the added effort required, make out with far more profit and opportunities than those who simply crank out a major project. It also breeds far more satisfaction to those who complete the task. Someone could feel the pride of making something with substantial effort to make it a major project and enjoy the perks of both submission and Tier Advancement... or someone could enjoy the shear joy and pleasure of spending months writing out threads to expand their company, write up submissions to establish a product base, and establish both contracts and non-contract relations with other organizations to get that Tier advancement.

The concept is, arguably, far more effort for the same reward, but what it does is open more companies to advancement should they so desire. It takes far more work and, sure, it's a little wonky, but the end result is the same: more opportunities and more chances for advancement.
 
The Admiralty
Codex Judge
Just as a note, how does one actually survey the succes of a company in a virtual, roleplay environment? Is it the amount of real people buying into your products and using them IC? Because those are only a fraction of a huge Galaxy. Is it the amount of NPC people you say that use it? Is it something else? How do you keep count and as some point say: "Look, my tier III is outperforming this Tier IV, this Tier V and even this Tier VI."

Is it the amount of locations it's active on? Because we know there were several -huge- companies that only had holdings on one planet, but were still considered the top-notched of notchness.

Just sayin'
 

Popo

I'm Sexy and I Know It
[member="Jared Ovmar"]
Fair point lol In short I was going off of products in use, number of products, sales, and those in ratio to expansion :p You do have a point, however, and one that applies to both sides of the argument.
 

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