A few suggestions

[Jenvsb]

I was talking to Ben last night in chat about the game. I've missed this place, and the old players. I left partly because I was bored, and had a lot going on in my life. Came back to chat a few times in between and it seemed that a lot of other people left too. Now, I know there isn't anything new going into this version of the game, since a better one is being worked on. I had a few thoughts floating around in my head (crazy, I know). I haven't read through all of the suggestions posted here, so some of mine may be repeats. And I may be wrong about some stuff, it's been a while.

New missions for the maxed out players with excess MD's.
It would decrease the MDs that players are holding on to with nowhere to use them. Maybe something where after it's (they're) completed, the reward would be 1 week sub (or 1 month, depending on the difficulty/amount of missions needed to complete). Only useful for non-paying players, I know. Or maybe, useful also to paying players since it gives them a discount, so to speak. Seems like more fun than just cashing out and requesting credits if a player has a Cashout card. But useful if they don't.

Monthly promos for purchases.
You could offer a discount for the first so many a month who purchase moves, subs. Either cash discount, or credits. Or a drawing for purchasers; 1 (or more, depending on how many purchase) lucky winner will receive X amount more moves, a free week sub if they purchase 2 months, a free month for 6 month purchase, etc. Something along those lines. Won't be valid until X amount of months are paid, so people don't get their free sub time and decide to cancel.
The first so many in chat get a free game item of their choice; Upgrade card, Red, Yellow, Blue Star, 25K MD card. Again, X amount of prizes depending on how many show up.

Incentives or giveaways for coming in to chat.
I think the most people I've seen in chat since I've been back these last couple of weeks is 6. I miss chatting with people, it made coming here so much more fun. I know a lot of people had a blast in chat back in the day. Everyone piling in at reset; staying long after their moves were gone. Getting to know their fellow players, and the admins; helping out; doing lil contests. I know it made me want to come back every day. I felt more involved with the game and the overall well being of it.
One suggestion would be an admin, or forum mod, posting a secret word somewhere on the forum and the first so many players to find it and come in to chat to let a designated person know, wins a game item. I think getting more players in chat again will improve the game in that they'll feel more a part of it, and want to help bring money in, rather than see it as a way to kill time.

Trade bonus
The trade board looks pretty dead, which is a shame. Maybe offer a bonus of moves, cards, whatever for x amount of random people who post a trade. Bring some life back into that board.

Cashing out.
I know payments are still behind, and slowly being caught up on. And as far as I recall, cashing out for credits still comes with a bonus. I believe Jason said that suspending payouts will cause more players to leave. Understandable, since there's no incentive for players looking to make money. Now, if new payouts WERE suspended for the time being, that would allow the game to catch up with past requests, and get ahead for future payouts. Rather than players seeing, "You can cash out but it's going to be a while until you're paid.", suspend cashing out and offer a bonus or incentive for sub purchases, moves for the time being, and maybe the first so many who cash out when it's feasible again get to keep their stats and cards or other game bonuses.
I don't know the plans for future payouts or how it will be handled so the game doesn't get behind again. I was thinking, honoring only so many cashouts a month, depending on the game budget, rather than a cap on how much is sent out and having your name added to the end of the list. Or, 50% of payouts will be cash, 50% credits. Let players know what the budget is at the end of the month and how many cashout requests can be honored. Maybe if players see what's actually coming in, it will give them incentive to spend in the hopes of getting a return. Keep a running balance posted after each cashout request so players know where it stands. I recall seeing that some players have cashed out for over $1K. That's a lot of money! How about a cap preventing players from cashing out over X amount of $'s per cashout. I would never imagine, even playing a game for a few years, receiving over $1K. I'm sure players that have seen those posts got more excited to earn MDs; but on the other hand, seeing all of the posts asking where their money is got those same players discouraged.
What about offering other forms of payment? Gift cards, Amazon, other online stores? I  don't know if discounts are offered for purchasing so many, but if so, less would be spent to purchase them and players would still pay the full amount in MD's.

That's all I've got for now. Don't be too harsh

[Jenvsb]

23 People have read this and not one person has something to say? C'mon! Something had to have run through your heads when reading; whether positive or negative, say SOMETHING! This game was kickass back in the day. Voice your opinions, please! I can handle criticism, and this game relies on the players voices.

[Anthraxus]

New missions for the maxed out players with excess MD's.
It would decrease the MDs that players are holding on to with nowhere to use them. Maybe something where after it's (they're) completed, the reward would be 1 week sub (or 1 month, depending on the difficulty/amount of missions needed to complete). Only useful for non-paying players, I know. Or maybe, useful also to paying players since it gives them a discount, so to speak. Seems like more fun than just cashing out and requesting credits if a player has a Cashout card. But useful if they don't.

I do have a change to a mission/new mission that I will be pushing out today or tomorrow, but my issue with rolling out new high level missions is that for them to really be worth something I would have to introduce a new element to the game, which would involve new coding working on the old version.  I just don't see why the high level players would be interested in doing another mission or series of missions to acquire more of why they already have, unless I did one for a cashout card (harkening back to our cash flow problems) or giving out force cards (which many players are strongly against).

Monthly promos for purchases.
You could offer a discount for the first so many a month who purchase moves, subs. Either cash discount, or credits. Or a drawing for purchasers; 1 (or more, depending on how many purchase) lucky winner will receive X amount more moves, a free week sub if they purchase 2 months, a free month for 6 month purchase, etc. Something along those lines. Won't be valid until X amount of months are paid, so people don't get their free sub time and decide to cancel.
The first so many in chat get a free game item of their choice; Upgrade card, Red, Yellow, Blue Star, 25K MD card. Again, X amount of prizes depending on how many show up.

The base idea of a bonus to purchases isn't a bad one.  I'll have to look into implementing something like that.  I'm not sure how the chat games would work.  I remember the trivia contests and such that we used to run in there.  I wouldn't mind doing something like that again, maybe as a once a week thing with times announced on the home page and in the twitter feeds.  I'll have to think about that one a bit more.

Incentives or giveaways for coming in to chat.
I think the most people I've seen in chat since I've been back these last couple of weeks is 6. I miss chatting with people, it made coming here so much more fun. I know a lot of people had a blast in chat back in the day. Everyone piling in at reset; staying long after their moves were gone. Getting to know their fellow players, and the admins; helping out; doing lil contests. I know it made me want to come back every day. I felt more involved with the game and the overall well being of it.
One suggestion would be an admin, or forum mod, posting a secret word somewhere on the forum and the first so many players to find it and come in to chat to let a designated person know, wins a game item. I think getting more players in chat again will improve the game in that they'll feel more a part of it, and want to help bring money in, rather than see it as a way to kill time.

In the next version, I am planning on having more Marvin interactive missions, which requires people to be present in the main chat.  I'm all for encouraging people to get more involved in chat, I'm just not totally sure the best way to do it.

Trade bonus
The trade board looks pretty dead, which is a shame. Maybe offer a bonus of moves, cards, whatever for x amount of random people who post a trade. Bring some life back into that board.

Unfortunately Krista has had some relatively recent and significant complications that have kept her away from the boards. Rick and I have been trying to fill in the gaps and get trades done relatively quickly, although I know that we have had some significant lapses.   I am planning on working some kind automation into the trading aspect of the game in the next version.

Cashing out.
I know payments are still behind, and slowly being caught up on. And as far as I recall, cashing out for credits still comes with a bonus. I believe Jason said that suspending payouts will cause more players to leave. Understandable, since there's no incentive for players looking to make money. Now, if new payouts WERE suspended for the time being, that would allow the game to catch up with past requests, and get ahead for future payouts. Rather than players seeing, "You can cash out but it's going to be a while until you're paid.", suspend cashing out and offer a bonus or incentive for sub purchases, moves for the time being, and maybe the first so many who cash out when it's feasible again get to keep their stats and cards or other game bonuses.
I don't know the plans for future payouts or how it will be handled so the game doesn't get behind again. I was thinking, honoring only so many cashouts a month, depending on the game budget, rather than a cap on how much is sent out and having your name added to the end of the list. Or, 50% of payouts will be cash, 50% credits. Let players know what the budget is at the end of the month and how many cashout requests can be honored. Maybe if players see what's actually coming in, it will give them incentive to spend in the hopes of getting a return. Keep a running balance posted after each cashout request so players know where it stands. I recall seeing that some players have cashed out for over $1K. That's a lot of money! How about a cap preventing players from cashing out over X amount of $'s per cashout. I would never imagine, even playing a game for a few years, receiving over $1K. I'm sure players that have seen those posts got more excited to earn MDs; but on the other hand, seeing all of the posts asking where their money is got those same players discouraged.
What about offering other forms of payment? Gift cards, Amazon, other online stores? I  don't know if discounts are offered for purchasing so many, but if so, less would be spent to purchase them and players would still pay the full amount in MD's.

That's all I've got for now. Don't be too harsh

New cash payouts have been suspended.

[QueenSheba]

23 People have read this and not one person has something to say? C'mon! Something had to have run through your heads when reading; whether positive or negative, say SOMETHING! This game was kickass back in the day. Voice your opinions, please! I can handle criticism, and this game relies on the players voices.

I read your post, probably a couple of times, and I'm sure each and everyone of your suggestions has been brought up before, but the bottom line is, there is no money coming into this game. No money in means no money out. A majority of the players are here to make that all mighty buck so that they can cashout for free. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't bode well for the health of the game, there is no way that Admin. can sustain a game with no income.

I too was one of the few that cashed out with a huge amount, well over $1500, but I realized there was no way I'd see the cash, I did get one payment for $100 and the rest I had transferred to credits after realizing that I never would see that amount. Most of it has been spent on extra moves, a few competitions an when we had the Force Card sale.

I don't have any MD's or MD cards at all, I spend them all to Dig for Treasure, but I have found that the digging seems to be a waste of time, not much to show for millions and millions of MD's spent digging. The prizes just don't seem to be there any more. 

The bottom line of the game is:
People have to have some kind of an incentive to want to drop a few bucks on the game with the hopes of eventually cashing out, but when it comes to that fact and you have hundreds of players just looking for free money, the game just doesn't go any where.

Jason has the new Version 2 in the works, and I'm sure it's a hell of a job to re-code everything to the way he wants it, but it seems that we are waiting for ever for NEW things to be introduced into the game, eg. phobos??

So my approach is"Wait and see", if it happens it happens, if not, it's not really a big loss.

QueenSheba.