Frequently Asked Questions

LOAMA (Life of a Metal Artist) is a music-career game. You develop an artist through practice, jobs, performances, trading, bands, community activity, and rankings.

Start one role-practice session, choose a safe beginner job, and use your available Wheel of Fortune spin. The Road to Fame guide walks you through those first actions.

No. Practicing and earning resources form the basic career loop, but you decide whether to focus on jobs, live performance, trading, bands, rankings, or community play.

Yes. Use Account Settings to change your active role. Your role determines the main instrument or vocal practice path shown in the dashboard.

Your role gives you one main skill path alongside Songwriting and Stage Presence. Choose an available coach, pay the listed fee, and complete the cooldown to receive skill XP.

Every 100 XP raises that individual skill by one level, up to level 10. Skill XP also contributes to the total XP shown for your artist.

Check the active cooldown, coach-level requirement, available money, and any permanent gear required for the next level. The practice page shows which requirement is blocking you.

Donors receive 20% shorter game cooldowns. It shortens waiting time; it does not remove skill, money, equipment, or eligibility requirements.

Begin with the Job Board, Street Performance, and Wheel of Fortune. Player trades and royalties from existing released music can provide additional resources.

Jobs can be solo or crew-based. Before joining, check the open seats, skill and equipment requirements, timer, reward, and failure stake. Higher tiers can risk existing money or fans.

Street Performance is the active first tier. It can award tips, Stage Presence XP, and fans, while equipment may need repairs. Bar, Club, and Concert Hall tiers are planned for later.

The standard cooldown is 60 minutes. Possible prizes include money, skill XP, fans, extra spins, free equipment repairs, and an x2 job token. The x2 token doubles both a job reward and its possible loss.

Each 19:00 to 19:00 Amsterdam-time period, the Tax Office records eligible gross gameplay income and files a report charging 20%. Income counts when the payout settles. Spending that money later does not reduce the taxable amount. Follow the live estimate under Accounting & Tax.

Job Board rewards, Street Performance income, Wheel of Fortune money, Band Salary, net band grants, Audience Award prizes, personal Merchandise sales and Thornify royalties are taxable. Starting funds, artist transfers, Marketplace trades, refunds, returned assets, Item Store sales, donation benefits, ThornCoin purchases, Band Bank withdrawals and administrator grants are excluded.

At 00:00 Amsterdam time, your full money balance is assessed separately. Balances below €25.000,00 are taxed at 1%, balances from €25.000,00 through €49.999,99 at 2%, and balances of €50.000,00 or more at 5%. The selected rate applies to the complete balance. A zero balance creates no wealth-tax bill.

Each income-tax or wealth-tax report has an 8-hour payment window. Payments are full-only: pay one report or use Pay all now when your wallet covers every open report. Every 8 hours late adds another 50% of the original tax as a linear fee, and the Tax Office sends a warning one hour before the next deadline.

Merchandise is your personal DIY merch operation. Choose T-shirts, Tank Tops or zipper hoodies, prepare artwork, garment and finish quality, pay the shown production cost, reserve personal storage, then set a retail price and sell through a webstore. Fan Demand, price, quality and design freshness affect automatic sales. Open Merchandise.

Start a Merchandise production batch with new original uploaded artwork during the active 13:00 to 12:00 round. The newly saved immutable design is eligible only for that round. Reprints and older saved designs do not enter again. Standard LOAMA artwork does not enter, and uploading artwork requires you to confirm that you have the right to use it.

Voting runs from 13:00 until 12:00 Amsterdam time the next day. Only original uploaded designs first saved inside that exact round appear. Every artist may cast one final vote for one eligible design and cannot vote for their own work. A submitted vote cannot be removed or moved during that round. From 12:00 to 13:00 everyone sees the frozen winners and final vote counts. View the daily designs.

The daily merchandise podium pays 1st: 10.000 fans and €5.000,00; 2nd: 5.000 fans and €2.500,00; 3rd: 2.500 fans and €1.250,00. These are fixed, non-boosted prizes. A design needs at least one real vote to place.

The four separate daily 23-hour boards rank eligible fans gained, XP gained, money gained and active website use. Browsing pages, clicking, typing, scrolling, touch interactions and accepted Live Chat or Band Live Chat messages count toward Active Play. Practice, Street Performance, Merchandise sales, Wheel of Fortune and Job Board rewards count. Item Store rewards, donations, transfers, band payments and property or storage sales do not count. Spending recorded earnings later does not erase them, and idle or merely logged-in time is excluded. Each board shows a top 10 and awards its own top three. Open Most Gains.

Each of the four category podiums pays 1st: 10.000 fans and €10.000,00; 2nd: 5.000 fans and €5.000,00; 3rd: 2.500 fans and €2.500,00. One artist may place in more than one category and receives each earned prize separately.

Both competitions freeze at the daily 12:00 Amsterdam deadline. Everyone can view the winners for 60 minutes, then fresh rounds start at 13:00. If you place, the dashboard shows a winner screen with the exact fans and money. Nothing is transferred until you press Claim Prize. Your prize never expires and remains available through later rounds until you claim it.

Some skill levels require permanent gear from the Item Store. Equipment can also support activities or require repairs. Check the relevant activity before spending money.

A residency can be rented or owned. Rent is charged hourly and missed payments can lead to eviction. Storage is purchased separately and determines how many items you can hold.

Marketplace offers can contain money, fans, or ThornCoins™. Offered resources are reserved until another artist accepts the trade or the creator cancels it. XP and items are not currently traded there.

Create or join a band for your active role, build combined XP and fans, manage members and the treasury, compare rankings, fill openings, and talk in the private Band Live Chat.

Player identity follows one hierarchy everywhere: admin names are red with an administrator star, moderator names are green with a moderator star, donator names are purple with the donator icon, and regular player names are white. Staff colours override the purple name colour. If an admin or moderator is also a donator, the purple donator icon still appears first, followed by the staff star.

In Live Chat, include @admin or @moderator in your message to call the relevant staff group. For private help, open Online Artists or the Hall of Fame, find a red admin or green moderator name with its staff star, open that artist's profile, and choose Send Message.

Writing, recording, and both song libraries are marked Coming Back Soon for regular players while the Music Workshop is rebuilt. Thornify and the Mega Top 50 remain available for existing releases.

The new workflow supports solo and live-band composition, claimed writing contributions, musician sign-ups, playable recording takes, and shared song credits.