Buy out

[NIK]

I would ask you not to prejudge this suggestion...

Currently you can only buy 75% of shares of another company in multiplayer. Therefore buying and selling shares is right now used only to make money in game. What i suggest is add an option that will allow players to buy other companies (100% of shares). Doing so you will gain controll of all projects that the company you bought controlled. This will make the gameplay a lot more competative.
Right now, the only way you can ""win" the game in multiplayer is by just making your company cost the most i guess. However with the option of totally buying out another company you can actually win the game and have a sence of domination and completion.
I do see the problem in this idea. I see that the first player/company that starts to build will just buy out the other companies that will come into play later on. My suggestion to this problem is make a time interval between buying shares of a certain company. As well as have the cost of the dominating company a variable in the price of buying another company. This way the dominating company will have to not only wait to buy out the company while it grows, but also pay a lot more if the dominating company has much more built than the smaller company.

thank you for your time, any comments are welcome.

[richk67]

you can actually win the game and have a sence of domination and completion.

I think this goes against the spirit of the game. Since you can *never* buy back your own shares, you have no means of preventing another player just buying you out.

I will be developing a new share system that will allow you to offer as many shares as you wish (up to 50%). A player should always retain ownership; being bought out by someone who doesnt understand what you were playing for (eg. an all-truck game, or no-aircraft, or no-coal, etc.) just because they took a different economic approach, smacks of megalomania gone mad.

The only players that should be bought out are computer AIs... and I only tend to do that to get rid of them as a terraforming pest.

[NIK]

Since you can *never* buy back your own shares, you have no means of preventing another player just buying you out.

Players can simply build trains, airports etc, and make their company cost more, therefore making it a lot harder to buy it out.

I understand what u mean, however making "buy out" an optiono will only improve the gameplay forr those who want more competitorship and wont ruin the gameplay for those that do not.
I understand that in real life the drive to sell of your company is money, however in game you do not get anything in return. This problem is solved by itself beecause you will want to buy the other companies to gain control of their industries or to bargain for the control of your own comapny's shares. This is another way to prevent another player just buying out your company.
I understand that the "spirit" of this game is just have fun building your own stuff and have a little competitorship with the other players, but I and my friends think that it twill be much more fun with the ability to buy out other companies and having to protect your own.

[richk67]

It would be the death of online multiplayer OTTD imo. I for one would not touch any game where all my hard work (over several nights) could be destroyed by one egomaniac. No way.

[Aracirion]

I like the idea, though I think no-one should be able to buy shares without the company owner agreeing. In the latest mini I saw the option to found sub-companies, which I find quite appealing. Then it would make more sense I think, because you could for example sell your truck-company to raise money for rebuilding your airline or vice verse. I think that would be fun, and as I said, if the owner can decide himself if he wants to sell the shares, then no-one can ruin his work.

[Villem]

It would be the death of online multiplayer OTTD imo. I for one would not touch any game where all my hard work (over several nights) could be destroyed by one egomaniac. No way.

Not that it isn't already possible, as i have experienced. The buy transportation rights can do just that, very easily.

It should be the company owners decision wether or not people can buy him out. That way somebody who doesn't intend to return can tag his company as buyable, so his assets still get used.

[richk67]

Now that I agree with. I would like to be able to choose to sell up my company, and hand it on to another player. AFAIK all you can do in console is kill the entire network.

[Aracirion]

yeah right, and selling stock in general would be an option to raise money

[richk67]

I hate the way that if a player currently buys your shares; you do not benefit in any way.

My new idea for stock tradinghas this; if an opposing player buys your shares, you get the money (ie. shares are bought as investments in your company). The payback, is you get a dividend on the profits.

[NIK]

richk67, i love your idea of trading shares. Btw, can the owner agree or not agree to sell his shares?
And Aracirion has the same idea with buying and selling parts of your company - trucks/trains/airports etc. Just like your idea wiuth selling/buying shares you should be able to agree or not, and to choose which parts of airports, train stations and truck/buss stops you want to sell. A player can offer to buy an airport that the other player maybe doesnt want to sell, however the amount of money he will get for selling it might be reaesonable. Or a player wants to sell something to raise money.
All in all this way you can expend your company by buying stations from other players or you can gain money by selling things you might not really want. This will prevent from players been bought out, because they can agree to sell something or not.
Also, as Alakamania stated, you should be able to set your wole company for sale if u dont intend to come back, so all your work doesnt go to waste but rather gives the other players an option to buy your parts of company.

[NIK]

Also, i suggest the "buy out" idea (maybe with some tweeks so its harder to buy out) because i and many people i have shown the game to find it getting boring after playing it for a while. Dont get me wrong, what u guys did with the g ame is amazing, i love the multiplayer and that you can finaly have it full screen . However, like i said, after you get over the amazement that u can play with ur friends... it gets very tedius. I feel like i cant do anything that will be fun or even interesting... and the competition that the "buy out" option provides brings a new twist and a much more interesting gameplay to the game.

[Jammin Jelly]

I agree that trading shares in this game is stupid as of right now. Other companies are allowed to buy into your company without your permission and without any benifit to you. Thats not right. Their should be a reward for players that have worked hard to raise their company value. And players should be able to choose the percentage of which thier company is allowed to sell (up to 75%). If players dont want to trade shares in thier company, they should be allowed to disable it.

Buy out option is a bad idea. The game is good the way it is. Over the course of a game, players join, start tycoons then become tired and go to bed or work and give their companies over to others to continue, new players come and go. With a buy option implimented, any new players that join after the first 10 years of the game are doomed. They wouldn't be able to make thier companies big enough before the probationary no share trading time period is up!

The other thing that would work to is getting rid of share trading in multiplayer altogether, so many people use it to cheat its retarded.