A week ago The Forsalist launched the Hellominers Wealth Survey to measure the current state of the economy and the results were very insightful. More than 80 players filled in the survey and added suggestions on how to better the economy of Hellominers. A shocking feat of this survey, however, is that the majority of the players who did the survey have been playing here for years only about 5 players have been playing this server for 6 months or less which reveals the problem we have with retaining new players.
In this post, I’ll share the raw data at first and later on, I’ll go deeper in on the data.
The majority of survey takers have been playing this server for years.
The majority of players who did this survey have been playing HM for years which is concerning because in order to sustain the economy we need more new players. Apparently I forgot to make this question required to answer hence the fact that two people didn’t fill in how long they’ve been playing.
The economy is doing rather bad at the moment.
Regarding the current state of the economy, almost 50% of the current player base thinks that the economy has been better, 38.6% thinks the economy is broken, a lot of people who agreed with the latter statement were also established rich players with over 250k in either balance or assets or both.
Only 10.8% was optimistic about the economy and 1 player argued the economy is doing amazing. It can be said that the majority of the player base agrees that the economy needs to improve.
Overall, it can be seen as shocking that over 30 players think this economy is broken. This isn’t merely a loose statement thrown around on the forums in some topics anymore, it’s a widely shared belief.
The rich are getting richer but new players are picking up too.
Due to the fact that most of the players who did this survey have already been playing for years, it’s quite normal to see most people owning a lot of forsals be it in balance or assets. From the very few new players, only 1 managed to make about 200k in the 1 month that he/she has been playing. However, this player opted to remain anonymous so it can’t be verified.
An entrepreneur based economy, many players have their own stores or work for the government.
For some reason Google forms messed up the results tab but the first blank result is actually Grinding items / exp (20 people reported this as their income source) and the second blank result is selling items in their own store (32 people reported this as their income source). I seem to have forgotten to add voting as an income option which I’ll take with me in the next survey.
Most active players reside in Government cities primarily.
Various players reported missing the option for “owning plots in the wild, as in bases, while also owning property in government cities and or private cities.
Cities in which players reported to have plots:
Again, it isn’t very surprising to see many people own plots in government cities considering the fact that the majority of the current active players base is established and rich. Even some of the richer players report owning property in Monbay, Archendale, and Solaris primarily. Newcomer to this row, since the last survey by the OSE, is Archendale which has increased in popularity and prestige, with its front-row airport plot going for 85k in the last auction which is comparable to third-row RC plots.
Lastly, we have suggestions to improve the economy
Again, possibly because of the huge amount of results Google messed up the form results so there are some blank spots.
The most supported suggestions are:
1. Make /warp Jobs active again, supported by 43 players.
2. Add limitations to how many government cities plots a player can own, supported by 40 players.
3. Increase starters balance, supported by 30 players.
4. Give large private cities warps, supported by 27 players.
5. Remove the 600f price cap on apartments, supported by 24 players.
6. Remove warps, supported by 18 players.
7. Remove the GTC, supported by 6 players.
Overall this was a very insightful survey and I want to thank everyone who filled in the survey for participating, your input is really valuable to this server. 83 players were the max amount I could get in a week so it could be said that about 83 players return to this server on a weekly basis which isn’t a lot compared to the golden days of 2016/2017. Let’s hope that staff looks at these results and decides to do something with it.