Land Area Taxes... My Opinions

I see land owners are becoming greedy and upping their taxes. Is there no sense of competition? I have quit mining on land areas with rates pushed into the 5% bracket. I am sure many of you have to. I have no problem at all with a tax rate in the 2's and 3's. But 1.1% isn't a huge difference you say... No, it's not... But it is enough to determine whether you run a profit or a loss at times.

If land areas who have 5% taxes cut to even 3.5%, I would bet almost anything that your revenues will double.

It's kind of like the paytable on video poker. 6-5 Jacks or Better pays close to 94% on the long run if played properly. Gamblers don't take it seriously. I sure don't. I rather play slot machines than such a bad paytable on video poker. Full pay is 99.56% on the long run, which is a 9-6 Jacks or Better paytable. What does this have to do with land area taxes? A lot...

See...

A casino will actually make more off full pay machines than they will by trying to cut the payback of the machine by altering the pay table. The people who take the game seriously and will spend countless hours on them, will be going somewhere else doing something else, and the game is only making money if someone is running money through it.

Likewise, I do not take 5% land areas seriously. But... If hunting taxes are LOWER than mining taxes... I REFUSE to support that land owner with my mining. The whole game is slanted towards hunting, leaving mining in the dust. And they wonder why there aren't many miners any more. Also... If I come accross your land area and you do not have a list of what ores and enmatters have been found there, I am not likely to stick around. If I know whats there, I know what finder to bring, and whether or not it is worth bothering with.

I guess in principle, The difference between 3% and 5% is greed, and greed will never get you anywhere. And I will not support anyone that is greedy. I know land area owners want to make money... But I see almost 0 in the way of effort for marketing and advertising, events, etc. You will only get out of something what you put into it, and just because it's there doesn't mean you will have customers. You have to do something to bring them in, not alienate them and drive them off. I used to mine a lot in miner's heaven. The mobs came in, and sorry, Kanerium or not, I will mine elsewhere.

The success of land areas relies on understanding your customers, why they are going there, and making things so that they don't stop going there. If you make major changes to how you are running things, expect to lose customers... But you should be sure that you will pick up more new ones than old ones you will lose.