[MUD-Dev] MUD Economy

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  7 Jan 98 at 14:32, Shawn Halpenny wrote:

I have mostly contrary thoughts here, but they might prove helpful. :(

> 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.
>

There are very few examples of such an economy in RL.  You have to
go quite a ways back to find a pure trade economy.  While coinage
was not always a medium of exchange, invariably mediums of exchange
developed in coinless societies.  This could be fur, grain (seed),
salt, spices and other commodities.  These mediums naturally developed 
since direct barter was limited to the local village or town.  Most 
trading ended up involving more than 2 parties.  Thus the wholesaler or 
trader naturally developed.  Mediums of exchange did not necessarily have 
to be very valuable, they needed to be semi or non-perishable, easily 
transportable, have a fairly constant value (regionally), available and 
easily liquidized.   

> 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?
>

You just hit on another reason for having a medium of exchange as a common 
reference point.  Vendors or retailors stuck to a very narrow class of 
items, their sphere of knowledge, which was quite narrow.  I can easily
envision the town cooper accepting payments in coinage, livestock and
grain, yet may not accept payment in gems, weapons, VISA etc. since the 
frame of reference would be beyond his knowledge.  But the armorer next
door might take weapons as payment since he has the knowledge/skill to
evaluate their value.  

Then again I envision (for my world) vendors with a rather narrow scope
of products, skills and knowedge since my world is historical and has
a guildy, tradesman flavor to vendors or shopkeepers.  There are no 
WalMart, department-store style of shops.  Of course in a more 
modern/post-modern world, these types of vendors would make more sense and
methods of payment would be more restricted. 

> 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).  
>

Hmm, I'd rather have my characters trying to find the vendor able to supply 
and only give hints (more helpful info if the characters actually purchase 
something from the shop owner).  The trader class OTOH is another animal 
altogether. :)  Generally I consider them to be knowledgeable in the values
of commodities.  This knowledge covers a wider range of products which may 
or may not be related.  It's a knowledge made up of past trading experience 
rather than knowledge of the finished goods actual value.  Traders usually
don't have items immediately available for sale and require a deposit of a 
valued exchange medium in order to supply the requested item.  This might 
take some time if it is unusual.  They are also very protective of 
information.  A trader NPC can keep lists of transactions with prices paid 
and prices sold of each commodity that they trade in or have traded in.  
Over time their experience and array of products naturally increase.  I 
give them a percent chance of expanding into new areas depending on how 
closely the class of item relates too the current items being traded, their
personal business aggressiveness and their current state of profit and loss 
on the current class of items traded.  So yes, the trader will respond 
to new requests, yet my retailer will not.

> 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. 

Hmm, I'd initialize this to the commodities related directly to what the
vendor consumes, produces and sells and the items which the vendor would 
naturally consume as a 'town-folk' (like chickens and ale). 

> 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.  
>

Ahh, user created objects.  This is still an open area for me.  Generally
speaking, I do not allow users to create objects.  I allow them to assemble
new objects out of existing objects if they posess the skills to do so.
The new objects are limited to predefined assemblies or pre-existing 
technologies.  Thus new technology is not created by the user.  There is 
strong temptation here to create _the wheel_ from OOC knowledge when none
exists thematically.  I will have something akin to an inventor/alchemist
class which may research new items and these will become available on GM
approval.  Of course illusionary objects of value may be spoofed by 
enterprising wizards.  Such spoofing is always temporary though.  Every
new object will already have a natural value; based minimally on the
values of it's component objects.  I have not done any work on calculating 
labor or process costs yet.  These will be quite large for magical items 
and make trading cost prohibitive and rare.
 
> 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.  

It may work.  Like I mentioned, I don't view the vendor/retailer as a Sam
Walton more medievil, like Rodger the Shrubber purveyer of fine shrubbery
and only shrubbery.  ;)


> 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.
> 

But is it a natural starting point?  From nothing I mean?  While I'm no
genius in economics, what I attempted to do was to visualize the 
professions that would exist in a rudimentary agricultural village and
begin to design shopkeepers who transformed raw commodities into items 
needed for village life.  I then extended this to the creation of a 
city-state which formed the nexus of many villages.  Depending on some
random variations in natural resources (and some historical data largely
from ancient Egypt, they kept excellent records) I extended my model to fit 
the demands of a large city and determine which raw materials would be
overabundant (exports) and which would be deficient (imports).  Into this
mix I created unusual luxuries demanded by the wealthy class.  It still
needs quite a bit of work though.


--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato