Isu - Commerce Rant

[isu]

Isu - Commerce Rant

Sections

(I) - Introduction

(II) - A quick look at commerce

(III) - Rant

(IV) - Conclusion

(V) - Sources

Introduction

Hello, for those of you who do not know who I am or my background, I will give you a brief summary. I am Isu, and I have been a part of the Firestone community since late 2016. I am a current Redwood alderman, a business owner, as well as a correctional officer within the Department of Corrections. Throughout this post, I will talk through each of my points which represent why Firestone commerce is heavily flawed.

A quick look at commerce

The Department of Commerce is in charge of business relations with various companies all over ROBLOX.¹

Rant

Many businesses registered within the Department of Commerce solely rely on roleplay to operate. While yes, Firestone is debatably a roleplay group, businesses relying solely on roleplay that have no purpose outside of this fail to give players a reason to attend to these businesses; which slowly causes them to die.³ These businesses that fail to have a purpose outside of roleplay fail to give players a reason to consistently interact with them, hence causing civilians to lose interest. This is even stronger when that said business is outside of Redwood, the spawning city, but that will (hopefully) be fixed in v3. By looking at the Department of Commerce’s permit list, you’ll see over 41 businesses with standard business permits.² I did a personal investigation on this and found that ~50% of businesses shutdown after their first month of operation.

Businesses that I can think of that I believe do have a purpose are:

• Transportation Businesses (Uber, Driveglide, etc)

• Tour Businesses (Quest Expeditions)

• News Businesses (Firestone News Network)

• Churches (Grace Church, Church of Greendale)

• Police Exploring/Fire Exploring

• in some cases Banks (Prominence Bank, Bank of Redwood)

The problem with businesses outside of these fields or businesses relying on development support is that not only is it difficult to receive development support (especially if you’re a newer business) but it is difficult to give players a reason to give your business attention, this being most true if your business solely relies on roleplay. It is easy for a bank or a transportation business to gain traction due to the fact they offer services that can be beneficial towards civilians, (loans, rides, etc); but if your business is for example a laundry company, you won’t gain much traction.

To get noticed by citizens, you need developer support. To get developer support, you need to be noticed. This is a heavily flawed system which leads to the “rich becoming richer and poor becoming poorer”, in the sense that the businesses with development support gain more traction whilst the newer businesses die out.

Conclusion

Commerce is flawed.

Sources

1 https://www.roblox.com/groups/2808791/Firestone-Department-of-Commerce/ (Description)

2 https://trello.com/b/r4a8Tw1I/commerce-permit-database (Standard Business Permits List)

3 https://trello.com/b/r4a8Tw1I/commerce-permit-database (Expired/Invalid Business Permits)

[probosvictor]

I 100% agree i’ve started a Airline business but due 0 relations between commerce and FDOA it can’t happen, and also FDOA is unable to certify me either cause the devs are unreliable and unpredictable and we don’t have an airport anymore as env wanted redesign. Same thing happen in v1 as we thought a lot or stuff for airlines and business was coming but devs never followed through

conclusion we need more dev support for role play business and we need dev support for smaller departments like Commerce Aviation Boating are always under shadowed

[Frixtro]

This post is very underrated. As a huge private business guy, I’m working on a reply to break it down and offer solutions.

[Philip_Forth]

Theres nothing much citizens and government officals do >.> this is a problem/rant that needs to be shown to devs or whoever manages v2 and v3 >.>

[isu]

Unfortunately, there is not much developers can do about this either. Businesses that show little to no promise do not seem worthy in developers’ eyes for development support. Why would you spend a few hours helping a business that may fail anyway? But then there’s the other side, you cannot see whether or not that business will succeed unless they do get developer support due to the fact its almost needed in order to gain traction. Its a heavily flawed system, unfortunately.

[nuttyboy987]

Solution = bye bye fed

[sharkfish82]

@isu

Police Exploring/Fire Exploring

private owned by fed

[SwagGermanFighter]

FPE/FFE were literally the most useless thing I have ever seen in a form of a group in this state, these two literally served 0 purpose when attention was needed on other departments.

[isu]

You’re mixing departments in with businesses, two drastically different things. While I agree that these have little to no use for this state, they still have a purpose outside of just roleplay, unlike other businesses. (if you consider FFE and FPE businesses)

[isu]

Great observation, here’s a star.

[SwagGermanFighter]

The purpose was to have interested citizens apply to do explorer stuff which makes sense IRL, but in this state serves no purpose as you can simply apply to FFA.

[nuttyboy987]

The issue with FFE and FPE is 1. Whats the point of applying when we already have post and shit, 2. People cant be bothered cus it doesnt gain them anything. I have tried to make FFE more centered on people who failed FFA enrolment and coach them, and to people who are new to help them just at least get a ride along. A good program i may introduce but will need to sort with commerce due to regulations is accepting criminals who want to become clean, so we can help them become clean and gain a certification. Other than that yes we have no more purposes.

[SwagGermanFighter]

I’ve seen that thing go through 4 heads in the past year and you usually have some random who takes over when the head leaves because he thinks it’s cool.