[MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"

[Sellers]

Raph wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> > Charles Hughes
> > Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 2:19 PM
> > To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> > Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"
> >
> > The economic side would not be ripe for exploitation if competition,
supply,
> > and demand existed.  I.e. a mule could crank out many  breastplates in a
year,
> > but the more breastplates available, the lower the price that could be
> > charged.
> 
> Players hate this and report it as a bug. The tolerance for what they see
as
> wasted effort whilst playing a game is very low. The expectation we found
> was that every effort must result in reward.

I wonder though if that's because their initial expectations were violated.
If the game were more of an economic one than a "kill monster get loot" one,
their expectations could be set differently (see for example the old game
MULE).  

At the same time I think it's a good point that players *do* have this crazy
expectation that they should be able to do something that's fun.  Watching
your business go down the tubes because you invested in breastplate-making
like everyone else doesn't sound like much fun.  If nothing else, every
failure state (like making too many of some commodity) needs to have a
potential out, so the player doesn't feel like they've wasted their time.

Mike Sellers



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