[MUD-Dev] thoughts on game economies

[Travis S. Casey]

There are way too many points I'd like to address, so I thought I'd send
one message instead of a bunch...

Several people have pointed out the problems that player hoarding creates.
My thought on this is, "What prevents hoarding in the real world?"  The
answer is that most of the money we get goes towards necessities -- food,
clothing, shelter, and other living expenses.  As people get more money,
they buy nicer versions of these things.

Some paper RPGs have tackled this by having an abstract "cost of living"
be subtracted from the money the character has on a regular basis --
usually monthly or weekly.  In games which have rules for social status,
this is often tied to status; the higher your social status, the more you
have to spend to live in the "right" place, have the "right" clothes, etc.
If a character doesn't have the money, his/her social status will slip
down.

Something similar might be usable in a mud.  For Psyber Age, I had planned
on having a basic "cost of living" be subtracted from character's bank
accounts on a regular basis, representing money needed for food.  Shelter
would have been a separate problem, with cheap hotels, apartments, condos,
etc. available.

Those who opted not to seek shelter would run into problems... mainly the
one of where to keep their stuff.  We'd implemented equipment persistence
between logins... but if you didn't have a place to live, you were "living
on the street", and there was a good chance stuff would get stolen from
you while you were logged out.

(Note that Psyber Age was going to be a cyberpunk game -- the problems of
finding a secure place to live and not having enough money are part of the
genre.  I wouldn't have done quite the same things in a mud with a
different setting, but similar ideas could be used.)

This would create a continuing drain on character's finances, without
giving them any true advantage (just a lack of a disadvantage) in return.

IMHO, the lack of equipment persistence is one of the major reasons why
economies on standard muds tend to be rather screwed up.  Equipment has to
be cheap, since it will have to be bought often.  Since you're buying new
equipment every time you log in, there's generally no such thing as
equipment wearing out.  All prices become somewhat "rescaled", so that
even permanent things become relatively cheap.

The lack of permanent equipment also means that getting equipment has to
be something that can be done quickly.  There were no "armor shops" in
medieval times where one could get off-the-rack plate armor -- plate armor
had to be custom-fitted for the wearer, which meant measuring him/her and
then building the armor from scratch to the measurements.  Such a process
was very expensive, and could take months to a year or more.

Some armor didn't have to be fitted quite so well -- chain, leather, or
non-articulated plate armors, for example.  These would come closer to the
mud model... but also aren't as good armor.

Taking armor off a corpse wasn't done very often.  For one thing, chances
were low the armor off any particular body would fit you decently.  Even
if it did, there's likely to be some damage to the armor that's on someone
who just died in battle -- which means you'll either have to wear damaged
armor, fix the armor, or pull pieces from several corpses to assemble one
complete set (if you can get them to fit together).

Further, there's no such things as loans on most muds, unless players work
them out between themselves.  Thus, a character can't be in debt, and
can't have regular payments that have to be made on things.  In turn, this
means that even permanent items become relatively inexpensive...
characters have to be able to save up the money for them.  In the real
world, a home is something that most people have to buy over the course of
twenty or thirty years of payments; on those muds that have condos,
players can generally save up enough for one in a few months of playing.


Other sorts of expenses could be added as well... like travel expenses.
It's hard for a person to carry armor, weapons, food, portable shelter,
and all the other necessities of an adventuring life by him/herself.  With
somewhat realistic weight limits and penalties, characters would need to
buy or rent a horse or a pack animal to travel with.  This comes in even
more when transporting loot back... no one can carry two or three suits of
metal armor in addition to whatever armor they're wearing and still be
able to fight decently.

Loot brings up the topic of money.  Most muds seem to have just one
currency that's used for everything.  In a medieval or ancient setting,
though, it might make more sense to have multiple currencies... which then
creates a need for money changers to convert currencies (who will, of
course, charge a fee to do so) and the danger that your money won't be
accepted (Dwarf:  "I'm sorry, but I can't take that elf money -- don't
have any call for it.  Best I can do is buy it from you for the value of
the gold in it.").  In turn, this can create a need for barter... which
could be interesting in itself.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 




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