[MUD-Dev] Containing automation?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Timothy O'Neill Dang wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Katrina McClelan wrote:
> 
> 
> > a free market economy will stabalize itself if you implement it correctly.
> 
> Often it will stabilize, but it might stabilize to an undesireable
> equilibrium (for us as researchers, this isn't a problem, for game
> designers it can be) or stabilize via undesirable dynamics (that's our
> concern).

Right. It's a fallacy, perpetuated by outdated economic theory, that free
markets will always reach an equilibrium point. Even if they do, there is
every reason to believe that there are a huge number of possible
equilibrium points. The Macro economics 101 standard supply vs. demand
chart simply does not reflect reality.


> 
> I'm assuming that the folks running bots do touch base from time to time 
> (a couple times a week, say) to verify market conditions and tweak
> parameters in their bots. A market which fluctuates too fast for this
> would be a very unstable one indeed.

I don't nkow what sort of oversight you intend to have in your world, but
in ours, if someone had a bot running and only actually touched base once
or twice a week, that player would find himself repeatedly dying. If a God
asks a player a question, the God, rightfully, expects a prompt answer to
that question. If He or She doesn't get one, then the player dies. This
may not be applicable to your world, but I have found no substitute for
human oversight.

> 
> But without changes such as this, the economic environment stays very
> stable except when the admins throw something new in. Under such
> conditions, one would expect market conditions to be reasonably
> predictable.

Right. My earlier comment on the crapness of neo-classical economic theory
was referring to the readl world, not a simple mud economy (which isn't
going to help you guys, I'd imagine).
 
--matt




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