[DESIGN] Re: Economic & Currency Solutions (was RE: [Mud-Dev] Broken currencies)

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 05 Apr, Derek Licciardi wrote:

> Using that value when you spawn a monster, it is possible to
> determine just how much money the mob can 'request' from the game
> treasury.  If there is not enough in the treasury, the mob only gets
> what it can.  Keep in mind that spawning of monsters should in some
> way also increase the available gold in the game treasury.  The
> thought here is that mobs use currency in their own everyday lives
> before being beat upon by players.  The use of money tends to make
> more money available as a whole.

What will happen if you do this is either nothing changes. The amount
of money in the gameworld climbs extremely fast.  Or the monters very
soon cease to carry any gold at all because the players have looted
every last bit of the available money, and are sitting on it.  The
best thing to do in a mud is not to implement money at all, and let
the players work out their currency, as they will anyway. You can not
have money before you have trade.  Money basically allows you to trade
with somebody who either has what you want, or wants what you have,
without the reverse necessarily being true.  Mud gold is a poor way to
do this, mostly because once you get past the newbie stages of the
game there is not enough worthwile to purchase.  Those who have the
things that -you- want, will want to have things in return that are
useful to -them-, which you can not obtain.  I.e. you would like to
have the sword of slaying, but the player who has it only wants to
give it up for something better, like the sword of ultimate doom.  If
you could deliver that you obviously would not need the sword of
slaying in the first place.

So trade only happens at the highest level, and only if there is suf-
ficient distinction between pieces of equipment that exchanging them
is worthwile. If there is an ultimate collection then players are go-
ing to want that and nothing else.  If you have a lot of class or job
specific equipment, preferably of a type that only those not of that
class or job can easily obtain then, yes, you will see trade. Other-
wise the only type of trade you are going to see is "aid". One player
helps another player to fight a particularly difficult or dangerous
monsters, in exchange for some piece of equipment. That is trade also
but not of a type that requires gold or mud currency.


marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

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