[MUD-Dev] MUD Economy

[Shawn Halpenny]

On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, Ling wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Shawn Halpenny wrote:
> 
> Oo, my speciality gibberish!
> 
> > 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.
> 
> A side effect of the game will probably end up in money being created.
> It's a 'logical development'.  Players will get miffed at having to carry
> 3 pigs, 8 goats and 12 three piece suites everywhere.  Money is
> convenient.

Quite true.  And I'm not entirely convinced that I _don't_ want money to
evolve.  I am just hesitant about starting with it in already in place.

> > 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?
> 
> On the flip side, what makes gold worth so much in the real world?  I've
> never managed to work it out...
> 
> A large part of it will depend on if your players do use up or wear out
> stuff they own.  For most muds, a sword will last indefinitely, with a bit
> of servicing from the local blacksmiths.  A cow has no use, but I assume
> players can set up their own little empires in the mud.  Cows also have a
> maintenance requirement each day (to generate milk which needs to find a
> vendor).  Don't forget the shopkeeper has to maintain the thing that goes
> 'moo' too.

Yes, things wear out and are used up.  And yes, little empires are
possible.  It is possible to have the rain water the grass for the cows to
produce the milk for the farmer to sell to the grocer.  I don't think I
want to spend the amount of time it would take to create all the cycles
that would be required for all of those systems.  Perhaps that criterion
alone makes what I envision for an economy difficult to attain.
I am thinking, though, that I can design it and (at least in some places)
not pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

> > 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).
> 
> You'll need something to stop players going into a shop, buying all
> available items of some sort then asking for even more (thereby inflating
> the price) and selling it back at a silly price.

I disagree.  It could change the entire face of the economy, but then
many subsequent issues arise, for example:  

The player who drives the price of an important commodity up will
(according to the above) be the one holding a large amount of said
commodity.  Now that player essentially becomes the vendor.  This is
fine and even encouraged.  That player can, of course, destroy all of
the commodity, sell it all, give it away, charge exorbitant prices
for it, etc.  This in turn can lead the players who desire the
commodity to take whatever actions they care to choose to obtain it. 
I don't think any of that would be a bad thing, even if it happened
to every single vendor with every single item.  

Things will have to be built such that items are continually being
produced (since they are always being gradually destroyed).  So Bubba
can only destroy _all_ the milk for a period of time.  He could, I
suppose, kill _all_ the cows.  Then I would fancy that _all_ the
players would kill Bubba (and keep doing it, I would think).  Would
this drastically upset things?  Probably.  I even hope so.  Would
things recover?  In some form, probably.  And if not, as an admin, I
could just dump in more milk whenever/however/wherever I wanted to
and give things a new spin.  

Free user programming has its place in that as well.  If I come up
with a convincingly acceptable scheme for trading user-programmed
items, then I fully expect people to be able make and trade their own
cows in the absence of the ones I supplied that Bubba killed off. 
This is to say that Bubba may be able to destroy all the milk and all
the cows, but he cannot destroy the base type for each.  Then as
well, some enterprising player could turn all his horses into cows
and revitalize the dairy industry.  

Hmm.  Somewhere in there it seems there should be a set of skills
that would be used/improved for one to pull off something like that,
or there would be no motivation (aside from "I've got all the cows,
you have none, neener-neener!") to try and do it.  Some metrics for
success at being a vendor would have to be found.  

> Alternative tactic, a player's arch rival needs one more cow, the player
> goes around asking for cows a lot kick the price up to an artificial high.

This should not be discouraged, IMO.

> [snipped a bit]
> 
> > 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.  
> 
> Something I would not want to tackle, it has the potential to ruin an
> economy.

Of course, if I come up with a scheme to (at least approximately)
gauge the worth of an user-programmed object, this can become an
interesting feature instead of a recursive annoyance.  If any of the
shopkeepers can have some understanding of what they're getting from
a player, whether it was made by a player or has been there all along
will be of little consequence.  

Perhaps by adhering to types of items, shopkeepers could accept
user-programmed objects.  For instance:  

Bubba the Entrepreneur only trades in armor, so if Boffo has
programmed up a sword and wants to trade it, Bubba should likely not
be interested.  This can be done simply by seeing what attributes
(methods too, for that matter) are present on the proffered object. 
This would allow "hollow" objects (i.e. those made by some player
that look like the real thing but do nothing or something completely
different) to be traded, obviously at an advantage to the player. 
However, the next player that comes along will likely not know about
the hollow object (it does, after all, appear normal) and happily buy
it.  Should he come back and complain to the shopkeeper about the
quality of the merchandise, he could show the shopkeeper how the item
doesn't work as it should and things could continue from there (the
shopkeeper could blacklist the trader or the hollow item, or have him
kneecapped, or anything--possibilities abound).

Certainly, some players might specialize in creating hollow objects
and then broadcasting their existance to the playerbase.  In this
case, the vendors would find themselves saddled with more and more
shoddy product with no one buying any of it.  At that point, such
vendors should probably change their tactics:  perhaps no longer
accept user-programmed objects (provided they are given the means to
distinguish them from other objects), begin carrying a new product
type, only accept demonstrably desirable, etc.  The last choice is
an issue unto itself, though.  

> > 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.  
> 
> Shopkeepers are NPCs who have their own motivations for setting up shop.
> It is a way of making a living and it is certainly better than toiling on
> someone else's plot of land.  It is a way of life, probably with less
> security than farming.  A successful shopkeeper can open up a chain of
> them or invest in hobbies like making a mud. :)
> 
> [substitute shopkeeper NPC for yourself and see if the above makes sense, 
> in spirit, if not literally]

This may be a part of the above 'man-behind-the-curtain' detail that I
would find easier to want to gloss over than implement down to the
brass tacks because it is time-consuming.  As it stands, a shopkeeper would
be a shopkeeper simply because at build-time, someone created him as one.
There is no motivation there, no need to make a living.  Level of detail
stuff, I suppose.  I'm not sure I want to take the time to give every
shopkeeper motivation for running his shop, or require him to trade enough
steel to feed his familly (which exists at the sufferance of builders).

However, this could probably all be done with a simple set of generic
rules the shopkeeper would follow for his entire existance in the
industry.  A simple example:  
1. decide what object types to trade in
2. set up a shop somewhere
3. as long as business stays at level x (determined by amount of
   inventory, user demand, supply of his raw materials, etc.),
   continue in this location 
4. if business increases beyond x by dx, open another store
5. should x drop by dx, close up shop, or hara-kari, or change
   locations and try again, or whatever.  

Embellishments and refinements could be added over time.

> > 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
> 
> The 3rd one looks iffy.  How about changing the price when the object is
> traded?  Kinda like the game Trailblazer (Metagaming) which assumed that
> items not traded in will keep to the status quo (although in reality the
> price would drop to zero).  I think shopkeepers will need to about the
> items themselves.  The problem with bartering is that the size of the
> coins is too coarse (1.25 milk cows anyone?) and the fact that anything
> can be traded with anything else.  There won't be any specialist shops so
> you can't imbue shopkeepers with knowledge about general types of items. 

This is something I had already planned for them to be able to do.  There
is no reason why any shopkeeper could not be a producer of goods from some
set of raw materials.  These things become traded items like anything else,
while supplying another method for determing what the shopkeeper deems
necessary to continue his business:  sources for those raw materials.

> Didn't bartering work on an as needed basis?  Two guys with an excess
> stock unique to each other which the other need.  So they trade, everyone
> wins.
> 
> So perhaps a system where players barter with each other?  But then,
> players have this stupid tendency to give things away for free in muds.

There's no reason this wouldn't occur.  Nor would it be discouraged.

> Does this mean you'll have a close economy?  Isn't this dangerous from
> the balance point of view (as has been discussed almost a year ago).

To a point, yes.  However I am shooting to have things set up such that
players can exercise a degree of control over how things work (by their
actions or lack thereof) that could unbalance things utterly.  I am almost
counting on there being grave disturbances in how the thing would work if
players tried to drastically change things (cf. Bubba and the milk/cows),
while also having a happy medium where if everyone plays nice, things
trundle along on their own in a semi-stable state.  There is no requirement
that the system remain in one mode over the other.

--
Shawn Halpenny