[MUD-Dev] Broken Economies (was RE: Learning about MUDs)

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> geoffrey at yorku.ca
> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 11:55 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Broken Economies (was RE: Learning about MUDs)
 
> Derek Licciardi wrote:
 
>> When I first heard about the closed end system in UO, my initial
>> reaction was that it would break and degenerate into less than what
>> they desired.  While on paper, the closed end economy is a
>> wonderful idea, it simply couldn't work in practice.
 
> <snip>

>> We missed the opportunity as a group to really see if a closed end
>> system could work, hence the opportunity to improve upon it and
>> possibly change the 'It won't work.' way of thinking.
 
> Actually, if my memories of Econ 101 serve, closed economies don't
> even work on paper.  Hoarding screws it up.  An economy must
> continually expand (more trade and/or more production from
> discovered/stolen/divinely conceived resources) in order to maintain
> even the status quo level of resource distribution.

FWIW, UO's economy did in fact expand, just not at fast enough a
rate. IMHO, the fundamental flaw in it in retrospect wasn't its closed
nature per se, but which elements were closed and which were not. For
example, organic matter, including mobiles, was in a closed loop and
should not have been.

-Raph
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