[Mud-Dev] Broken currencies

[John Buehler]

Phillip Lenhardt writes:
> On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 12:13:38AM +0000, Matt Mihaly wrote:
>> On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Phillip Lenhardt wrote:

>>> Regardless, players value things. And many muds want players to
>>> quantify their valuations in terms of the mud's currency
>>> (presumably this is desireable because "that's the way the real
>>> world works").

>> Yes, but why? I've never yet seen anything that is desirable solely
>> because it's the way the physical world works.

> No argument here. And yet so many game designers consider it the
> holy grail...

If you're going to present money in your game world, make it work.
You don't put swords and armor into your game world and then also
equip the bad guys with sniper rifles.  That's because you know that
you don't want to set expectations that are dashed to pieces in
practice.  It annoys players.  They write bad reviews of your product.
If your game relies on barter, put in the systems and make it clear
that you will work through barter.  Make the NPCs rely on barter, etc.
Set expectations and then follow through on them.

JB

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