Does anybody have reservations about helping out the elf friends because holy shit what a dumbass plan? They need you to buy them to set them free, so their grand plan is to find someone who doesn't have anywhere near that kind of money, kidnap him, and then ask nicely? In what world does the kidnapping make sense here? If they were going to hold me for ransom to get the money to pay off the debts maybe the plan would have a slight glimmer of a complete thought, but as is it makes no sense at all. Why not just write an anonymous letter? Or call the hotel? I have reservations about their plan because it's not clear to me that they won't go off and do something completely stupid to screw it up.
Also, that one that costs as much as a good used car is going to be a problem. I'm going to have to take out a loan or something. Maybe have her work in the bar as a form of indentured servitude? If she's got a time limit then she's got a problem.
They explained their reasoning in the event.
TLDR: They
needed you to say yes.
Oh yeah, the ROI on the Bar is abysmal.
I did have a question about it. I've tried running the stupendously expensive ad campaigns and from the dialog they seem to be a terrible investment (your $1000 ad campaign earned the bar an extra $20!), but then the total comes up to like $1020 and it seems like the money is made back anyway? I was confused. I thought maybe many weeks of running an ad campaign would increase a hidden "popularity" metric and improve your weekly income over time, but if it is I am having difficulty seeing the difference week to week.
...Um, yeah, so that's how investments work. You put down $1000, hoping not to make $750. Because if you made $750, you'd be losing $250. You'd hope to make a nest, and allow it to passively grow. If you make a profit of $100 on a $1000 investment, that means you made $1,100. This is how the advertisements work.
Here's the table for each advertisement investment.
$250 investment = $-5/$10/$15
$600 investment = $-20/$30/$60
$1000 investment = $-50/$50/$100
Even if you go into the negatives ("You lost $50") that doesn't mean you lost $1,050. Your advertisements still brought in a shit ton of people, but just not enough. You still gained $950, but you weren't able to break even. So your initial investment of $1,000 gained $950 which equals a loss of $50 on your end.
Aside from the advertisements, every upgrade gives you $5 - $25 extra a week depending on the item bought.