MUD Economy

[Shawn Halpenny]

I have been pondering the startup and sustenance of a MUD economy,
some thoughts follow about moving toward a complete trade economy
where no money is present, nor required.

All vendors could start out quite stupid (i.e. not having any idea
whatsoever about what an object is worth):  e.g. trading 1 kg of
steel for 1 kg of flour.  Then, as the local demand for steel rises,
the vendor would learn that he was initially trading steel for _way_
too little and then raise his "price").  Now that price is what needs
to be determined.  It's easy to say "You can have that sword if you
give me three good milk cows", but where does the frame of reference
for the comparison come from?  What makes the sword worth three cows?

Perhaps vendors should keep track of what people have come in and
asked for but the vendor didn't have.  He doesn't even need to have
any idea that it exists, just that someone asked for it.  This
requires that characters be able to walk into a store and ask for an
item the shopkeeper doesn't have.  Then the shopkeeper can wait until
someone trades him that desired item, or find another method of
obtaining some (trade caravans come to mind, amongst other avenues of
obtaining goods).  

Given that, the above sword _could_ be worth three cows because ten
minutes before, someone came in and wanted some cows that the vendor
didn't have.  The question of what determines that the vendor _would_
trade like that still remains.  

This entire economy would be trade-based.  User-created objects would
probably have to be untradeable to NPC vendors since the vendor would
have no way of gauging the object's utility (it would be too easy to
create a completely useless object that the vendor had never heard of
and thus get something for nothing).  Of course, if there was no
demand for that bogus object, the shopkeeper would have no reason to
trade for it.  However, a user could then determine what objects the
shopkeeper would trade for (i.e. someone had previously come in and
tried to trade for something the vendor didn't have) and then go
create an empty shell of that object and trade it in, again getting
something for nothing.  Another argument can be made, though, that
eventually the shopkeeper will realize that no one wants to buy this
(junk) widget that Bubba traded for that jewelled sword, so perhaps
he will lie to the next trading customer about what it does? 
Although possibilities abound within that, a huge set of junk objects
could be created whose sole purpose is to get something essentially
for free (not to mention turning every shopkeeper into a liar).  I'm
not sure that this would enhance game play.  

I suppose this view could be summed up like this:  shopkeepers do not
really sell items to characters.  They act solely as distribution
points and what they distribute depends on what they are asked for,
what they have, and what they can get.  After all, what would money
mean to a NPC shopkeeper?  Certainly, he could just accumulate it
like everyone else and retire wealthy but is that interesting from
any point of view other than simulation?  It seems that money
wouldn't be required at all.  

So, to start the economy from nothing:

1. Give shopkeepers no knowledge about any objects.
2. Give shopkeepers a method for determining what one object is
   worth compared to another object and apply this equally to all
   objects.  Also take into accout how much of an object is at hand,
   and how much of it has been asked for.
3. Have shopkeepers track how often an object is requested and adjust
   their trading practices accordingly

Given that, is there a requirement for a planned initial distribution
of objects to vendors to seed the economy somewhat?  Each vendor
would have to at least start with one item, or he'd have nothing to
trade (and there's no incentive for a player to trade anything to the
vendor if the vendor has nothing or just gives away his object for
free).  Is more than one item necessary for each vendor?  The paths
of future trade caravans can be started at this stage simply be
putting all the flour in one vendor's shop and all the milk and eggs
in another.  As long as the object given to the vendor is somewhat
desirable by at least one player, would things take off from there? 
Or could things just be dumped haphazardly on vendors and the result
(a semi-functioning economy) be the same?  Perhaps each would yield
something sustainable and interesting.

Thoughts welcome, of course.

--
Shawn