[MUD-Dev] Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] thoughts on game economies

[Travis Casey]

On Friday, June 11, 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> 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.

[snip further details, basically boiling down to "on most muds, all
these brooms are going to work the same"]

Right.  That's why I didn't make the suggestion of trying to implement
this in a concrete fashion.  The abstract "upkeep costs increase with
social rank" idea that some RPGs use, or something similar, could
substitute.

There are some things that this could apply concretely do, though...
more about that below your next comments.

> 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.

This can also come into the idea of those with more money wanting
better equipment.  A better (and more expensive) device might have
more damage points.  And, of course, there are better weapons, better
armor, etc.

>>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?

I should have stated that differently.  What I meant was the common
practice on Dikus and LPs of having players lose all their equipment
on logging out.  I realize that this doesn't apply to all muds, and
that some have "storage lockers" or other ways around it, but most
muds do have it, and even on those with storage lockers, etc., prices
for equipment are relatively low.

If equipment is permanent, it can be more expensive, since characters
will get to keep it.  This does have side effects, of course:

 - Starting characters need either some free equipment, or a bit of
   starting money, since it should take a while to save up for
   equipment if all works well.  Just giving them starting money and
   turning them loose could cause a problem, though -- that of people
   creating characters just to get more money for existing characters.
   Possible ways around this are to do one of:

    (a) Just give free equipment (probably based on class or guild, if
        you have those things).  To get money for existing characters
        out of that will then require selling that equipment, which
        will take time and not give as much money (since logically,
        shopkeepers won't buy equipment for as much as they'll sell it
        for).

    (b) Give "money", but in the form of "newbie tokens" or something
        similar, accepted only at the "newbie store".  This basically
        means that they can only get equipment with that money.  (You
        might want to give them a lot of "newbie tokens" and a little
        regular money).  This makes making a character just to get
        money have the same disadvantage as (a), *and* it takes
        longer, since you'll have to make that new character buy the
        equipment.

 - It has to be harder to get equipment without buying it.  This can
   be partially taken care of by equipment breakage rules -- as I
   said before, it's not likely that the armor that orc you just
   hacked up was wearing is much good any more.  Encumbrance rules
   can also play a role here.

This also causes the first effect (wanting better equipment when you
have more money) to help as well -- a newbie may only be able to
afford a "cheap" sword, and may later buy a "regular" sword, then a
"good" sword, etc.  Similarly with armor.

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





_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev