[MUD-Dev] thoughts on game economies

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 11:31 AM 6/11/99 -0500, I personally witnessed Travis S. Casey jumping
up to say:
>
>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.

Exactly. However, you hit a certain problem.

Let's say, for example, that you go to the store to buy a broom in the Real
World. You walk into the local grocery store, and you go to the aisle that
has brooms. There, you find about a dozen different types of brooms. The
standard straw bristle broom will cost you about $7. But you also have all
kinds of brooms with nylon bristles, rubber squeegees, and whatever else --
ranging up to $30. 

All of these brooms, of course, will do the job. But you will probably buy
a "better" broom than the standard straw bristled broom, because it's not
that much more money. The broom will also not shed as many bristles, and
probably last longer. It's likely that the more expensive broom will also
do the job faster and better than a cheap one.

On a game, this is not generally the case. A broom is basically just a
little variable set somewhere that says 'have-broom = TRUE'. It is a waste
of money to spend anything less than the minimum on it. 

It would be interesting to hear how people would deal with this issue. My
own concept is obsolescence. In the 3.0 release of UU, devices may -- if I
don't come up with a better idea -- have damage levels, in which every item
you own has a number of 'damage points'. If the device is hit during
battle, it will lose some. Every time you use the device, it may lose some.
As the device's damage goes up, it will become more and more likely to
fail. Eventually, it will break. If it is damaged enough, it may be
destroyed. This gives you certain things for free -- if using a given item
does more damage than it has damage points, then the object will be
automatically destroyed. 

I am undecided as to whether destroyed devices should be removed from the
ship; it seems sensible to leave them there, so the player knows what was
destroyed in order to replace it. It also seems pragmatic to remove them,
so the device can be replaced with a minimum of fuss. 

>IMHO, the lack of equipment persistence is one of the major reasons why
>economies on standard muds tend to be rather screwed up.  

Huh? What MUDs have you been playing? Or rather, what definition of
equipment persistence are you using?

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
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