[MUD-Dev] Nation of shopkeepers

[Matt Chatterley]

On Mon, 30 Jun 1997, Huibai wrote:

> The Martinster! Keegan-aroonie! wrote: 
> : actually implementing player-run shops would appear to me to be
> : extremely difficult - because giving players incentives to sit around
> : behind a counter all day rather than go out and adventure would
> : appear to be impossible. This same problem, of no-one being
> : interested in the more menial jobs in a mud economy, would seem to
> : stymie any decent attempt at a player-run economy, which is a pity.
> 
> I've seen capitalistic ventures by individual players succeed.
> For example, a player who becomes well-known as the guy who
> runs to all corners of the world for magical items, or the guy who
> carries a wagon-full of weapons around with him.  One-stop shops
> for whatever is in demand.  I've never seen a player content to sit
> in a shop, though.  

Yeah. Of course, the concept of "a shop" is not necessarily static - it
can as you allude, refer to something much more mobile, or a trader
himself.
 
> I'd say have the coders cater to any player wanting code support
> for his venture (a sign or a booth or so) - for a decent cost, surely.
> If he makes no money off it and gives up, fine.  Let capitalism run
> its merry way, for better success or temporary failure.  It can't
> be all easy :)

Catering on an individual basis is however impractical, if you wish to
prompt this on any scale, and can create several issues. Best to have very
flexible written in support for it. This is one reason why I changed money
to exist as physical coin objects (no different from others) rather than
to exist theoretically as an attribute stored on living objects - to make
all of this far easier.
 
> ps. I can visualize a game booth, where players might gamble
>   against each other on a game of chance, or challenge each
>   other for monetary stakes on some intellectual game (like a
>   word version of Mastermind, for example).

<g>

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"He can't stop us, we're on a mission from Glod!" - Soul Music (Pratchett)