[MUD-Dev] Managing MUD economy

[Vladimir Prelovac]

On 16-Dec-01 at 16:31 Travis Casey wrote:

> Don't forget as well that the idea of fixed prices is a relatively
> recent development -- for most of history, haggling was an
> important part of buying things.  And it still is in many places.

> In an economy where haggling is the norm, sellers are going to
> start off with a higher "asking price" when dealing with someone
> they know is rich.

Yes and that would be nice to see on MUD but how can it be achieved? 
If I see that a trader is asking more money just because I am richer
(higher level) I would simply log on second character/ask a friend
to buy the item for me (or a dozen). Even if you want to get away
with only a few coins difference in price, I can feel players would
still do it as it gives them the sense of tricking the "system".

It means that prices for items giving constant things are
constant. But yesterday I was struck with an amazing (at least for
me) idea. Many muds, including mine, have shops selling items that
are unlimited in number (so called "shop producing" items). Now the
way it was is that the level, quality and price of those items were
constant too. What if you make it dependant on buyers level? So if a
level 30 character enters a weaponsmith he would see unlimited
supply of swords, flails and daggers all being level 30. If a newbie
enters a shop he would see the same items only they are scaled down
to level 5 stats. So every shop becomes useful and insures some
economy flow. Note that this can only apply on weapos or armors for
example. That scroll of recall or scroll of identify still has a
constant price as it's abilities remain unchanged through levels
(you could theoretically make them changable but it is a very
difficult thing to automate).


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev