Regarding things such as business security details, if businesses are going to be able to created on the fly, are there going to be different classes of businesses which cost various amounts of money based on things such as security?  For instance, a Class D business might include barred windows and doors, security cameras, and an alarm system at 5K/month; however, a Class A business at 50K/month might have everything the lower levels provide plus some advanced security systems such as magical defense in terms of wards/elementals, pressure plated flooring, and sentry guns.

I guess I am just curious as to whether or not there has been any mention of this sort of thing, as I could see a lot of PvP RP erupting around businesses if they do indeed become implemented as described, and people will undoubtedly want to protect their investments.  I already have visions of grandeur dancing around in my head as to how a future character could become a Johnson himself simply by wanting to protect his own businesses and having the desire to send condolence letters to his rivals' families.

As I understand it, the area itself has a specific security rating. Specific upgrades that a PC makes to a rentable public space would have to be noted when that space appeared on the grid.

oh oh oh please please please!!! I wnat this! it sounds soooo cool and works directly in my hands for the idea of my char I see an nearly unlimited amount of fun comming towards us with the idea of really allowing shops or buisnesses for PC's just imagine PC's hiering PC's for doing IC work I mean not withint a plot but in daylie RP.
woooh!

Just a note (and a reminder for those players that have been playing for a while...) but the concept of owning and running a small business has been tried, test, tweaked, thrown to the wayside where it's been sitting for the last half of a decade I believe?     Not to be an old guard, but the concept unfortunately just didn't work out as it was either a little to complex and required to much time from individuals to account for the size of the business and it's ability to earn/lose cred or it was much to simplistic and simply not flexible enough.   As well, it had a huge potential for abuse, as it essentially was "free money".  Another thing influx of cash/rewards is always a worry to GM, and becomes even more so when you throw in numerous GM's as excess cash can potentially break not only your storylines but other peoples storylines.   Hence why concepts such as Small Business and the stock market never worked in SR and specifically Seattle even though people tried to adapt rules for them.   Below is an quick example of some of the problems that can potentially kill off small business beyond the logistics of it.

Example in point.


Business A - Legal
Business B - Non-Legal

Situation 1

Business A Generates 100 Y per month of clean monies.   This money is registered (aka non-certified account and traceable)  How would you proceed to channel this money in such a way as to procure your non-legal weapons? and how do you account for changes in legal standing? 
Situation 2

Business B Generates 100 Y per month of unregistered and most likely monies from illegal activities.   How do you pay for rent with this money without alerting the IRS equivalent or the police?

try to think of a solution to those 2 problems that don't require ALOT of manual calculations, or GM interventions...   and remember although some of us are lawyers, accountants, auditors, bankers and financial planners in real life we don?t play to work?
And that's just scratching the topic...     

Now on to other matters...

Economics...

There is none.   Face it folks, SR and most RPG's don't stimulate a real economy, they merely provide you the tools to fake it (hence the whole idea of a fixed price list.. and GM discretion to raise or lower the pricing)   If you want to see a real Micro-economy in action in game, go play Eve (www.eve-online.com  And yes this is a plug) where there is a micro-economy (albeit a basic one) but to do that I think you'd have to have at least half their player base (16000) and people seriously wanting to be nothing but miners.


Finally, on DocWagon, I know it used to have a presence on the MUX as a PV Gang, but that was eventually taken out and phased out as it was not very runner centric and very hard to incorporate into a on-going run. (would you have really wanted a GM to script hurting you in run or held off completion of a run, so the PC players could come? And please keep in mind DocWagon?s contract and limitations) Sad really, as it was an interesting concept and in TT would have made a fine campaign, but sadly just didn?t work out online as well as it does on TT.

Eliza

Doc For Hire, Owner and Head Surgeon of Aritificial Evolution, Expert Shadow Cyber-Tech manufacturer and Installer.   And Uba Business Monkey if they bring in Small Business Rules.

PS Ironically scanning the SR4 rules brought me back to Seattle.    So if you want to chat I'll most likely be on if the character is still around tonight        That said. I think I have 3 years of SOTA to pay (Stasis is fun!), cars and gear to reclaim, AND a crap load of commands to relearn...

I just want to clarify something with public spaces and small businesses.

The businesses won't be admin supported, as I understand it. No free money. No income that is automatic. Players will have to fund their business through runs, karma2cash, and/or (oddly enough) business with other PCs. The goal of the new grid is to give players more control over their PC's lives and development. That also means more responsibility for their own bills.

Personally speaking, I think this is the way to go to drive a more realistic economy.? Obviously, since PCs won't be logged in 24/7 and the the inevitable turnover in terms of lack of interest on the part of a player or PC death, driving a closed economy (i.e. one without admins supplying money via runs and karma2cash) would be impossible.? But by the same token, I think the more you can lessen admins providing money to PCs and instead relying on PCs to earn money from other PCs, the more RP opportunites that can be generated, and the less players have to rely on admins to provide.

Certainly there is going to be entry and withdraw of money from the world by the admins, but in terms of B/R skills, fixers, talismongers, etc., there is at first a removal of funds for the part/item/so forth, which would, if the economy really gets going, help to balance the additional input of funds coming from CharGen, karma2cash, and runs.? This removal vs. entry of funds would also be impacted if the apartment status quo is maintained.?

The downside to such a system is when RP slows down, because money being generated from runs, trading, etc., also slows down, so you are left with a net outflow of funds from the overall economy, as apartments continue to suck away money, regardless of RP.

I really think having a good economy can provide a great RP incentive.? It would be great if someone on staff was in charge of keeping tabs of the economy ... perhaps the RPD.? I would not think it would be too hard to keep tabs of how much nuyen has entered into the economy versus how much was being removed on a periodic basis, simply by logging nuyen transcations.? A softcoded command would be needed to replace "give" for admins, but I think that had already existed previously.? The only part that would be near impossible to track would be asset values.

At any rate, this is supposed to be about Public Spaces, and I have already gone off on a tangent, but to me Public Spaces = Potential for Great Economy = Potential for Great RP Opportunities.

I rather like the idea.  It's better than wandering around to find a shop just to realize, hey, I can't buy anything here 'cause the owner has long gone.  PLUS, I like the idea that we can firebomb peoples buildings if they charge too much.   Then they can go build a new place, or can go bugger about Aisle Five of the Quickie Mart trying to pimp their girls.   And then we can fire bomb the Quickie Mart with the left over grenades from our last run...again.

Plus, I think if PCs owned a shop, it would be easier to change the desc after a  firebombing than have the place stay static when you /know/ Aisle Five doesn't exist anymore.  But that's just my take of the thing.