I thought of a way to increase gang competition.
Here it is:

short version: add optional objectives and incentives

long version:

Gangs form in the real world to make money through organized crime.
I think organized crime is a nice, elegant way to introduce additional gameplay elements, such as objectives, as well as incentives to raid (money, points, etc.).

I came up with some ideas for some of the more "age-appropriate" crimes.
(i.e. crimes besides drug trafficking, prostitution, etc.)

Counterfeiting
- There is a Money Printer in a back room of each gang base that will add $10 to a safe every minute that it's operational.
- For each Money Printer that is operational, the amount they can print a minute is decreased by $3.
- So, if all three gangs have their money printers operating, they only make $4 a minute (5.76k a day). If two gangs have their printers operating, they both make $7 a minute (10k a day). If only one gang has its printer operational, They make $10 a minute (14.4k a day).
- Gang members can destroy opposing gangs' Money Printers.
- Gangs can repair their own Money Printers, but it takes 5 gang members online and standing in the printer room.
- Each week the money in the safe is split up according to the percentage of points each member earns for that week's points. If the gang has 2k points that week, and one member has 200 points (10% of the week's total points) he would receive 10% of the money in the safe at the end of the week.

Gun Smuggling
- There is a gun factory on the outskirts of town.
- A truck full of guns will appear there every so often.
- Gangs can steal the truck and bring it to a specified location for unloading.
- Each gang has its own location.
- Once parked in the specified location, the truck (holds 1000 guns) will begin unloading its cargo, 1 gun every 5 seconds.
- For each gun unloaded, the gang that stole it gets 1 point, and each online member gets $1 in their inventory.
- Gangs can steal the truck from opposing gangs while it's unloading and bring it to their location to finish unloading.

Protection
-Basically bring back PPA as a side-mission for gangs, rather than as a business.
-Non-gang members can ask for protection by adding their name to a list that all gang members can see and accept contracts from (having the potential to cause gang wars).
-Protection would be free for the person being protected.
-Gang members would get paid $1 (spawned money) per second for however long they protect their mark.
-The people being protected wouldn't be able to hurt gang members from the same gang as the person protecting them (and vice versa), or others being protected by the same gang.
-The protector and the protected would have to remain in a pk zone for the protector to gain money and the money they gain would be put in their inventory.

-Would eliminate all of the downsides to PPA:
*agents would get paid more than $81 for 30 mins of work.
*protection is free, so those who actually need it can get it.
*it's not a business, so it doesn't matter if it makes money.
*there's no leader/owner who gets paid to do nothing
*anyone can do it at anytime, giving gang members something to do when there's no raid going on, while simultaneously leaving no shortage of eligible protectors.

These are all awesome ideas, especially the counterfeiting and the protection service.

Nice ideas yet again. Hey, does Tim or era's staff not use the forum anymore?

I see Zach recently, i would like to think these ideas are read and seriously considered! What has era got to lose.

Bringing PPA back would be pretty cool. I like your counterfeiting idea, but I'd prefer to implement cashflow through a territory control mechanism to promote gameplay beyond simple gang base raiding.

Gun smuggling is a very nice objective style diversion which I will add to my todo list and look into. I very much like the idea of that.

Malicious wrote:

Bringing PPA back would be pretty cool. I like your counterfeiting idea, but I'd prefer to implement cashflow through a territory control mechanism to promote gameplay beyond simple gang base raiding.

Gun smuggling is a very nice objective style diversion which I will add to my todo list and look into. I very much like the idea of that.

I'm all for bringing PPA Back.

I like the counterfeiting idea, it seems to be the most pragmatic. However, I do not like the other two because I cannot envision their success and their being "worth while".

The Protection Agency thing failed namely due to the fact that people who PK do so to flaunt their own talents or simply enjoy the twists and turns of player-killing. No one wants to hire someone to PK with them when they can just ask a friend to do so, especially gang members.

The Gun Smuggling idea just seems like "too much" for our little world and the dynamics seem all over the place. In short, it doesn't look like its worth the effort.

I didn't really see a need to write much more.