[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: SavantKnowsAll at cs.com <SavantKnowsAll at cs.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Sunday, June 17, 2001 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

> In a message dated 6/14/01 6:18:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> daver at mythicentertainment.com writes:

>> This is why there will be no UO-style Vendors in Camelot.  They
>> greatly increase the efficiency of player to player commerce, but
>> remove most, if not all, of the social interaction associated
>> with it.  Since my primary purpose in setting up the economy was
>> to use it as a socialization tool, Vendors became *too*
>> convenient.

> This topic (comunity) is really important to me, as I wrote a bit
> on it once before (http://www.lumthemad.net/news/1654.php)
 
> Unfortunately, when I reflected on the last great community I had
> in my GS3 days, player commerce was not one of them.  Even in a
> rich, roleplay enforced world as that, the trade channel was
> nothing but spam - and when someone was selling something you
> found, you ran to the bank, picked up money, ran to them, paid
> them, smiled, and took off.  EQ's the same way -- East Commons is
> dreadful with shouts/auctions turned on.
 
> I really don't see player commerce as a socializing tool.

Well, as I pointed out in my other response in this thread, spamming
is largely (IMO) a product of a chat-centered system for connecting
buyers and sellers.  The connection process and the sales process
are two different things.

Before the noise ratio went to hell, buying and selling in EQ was
very much a social activity, especially if you were looking for
something in particular.  You'd ask around, try to find someone who
had heard in guildchat that another guy had gotten a Silvery
Scimitar the other day.  Then you'd try to talk that person into
selling/trading for it.

In UO, Vendors didn't keep the bank and blacksmithy (the centers of
availability for either product or cash) from becoming spammed and
lagged, it just removed the social interaction from most "Player to
Player" trades.  Vendors *were* NPC's, you didn't haggle with them
or get to know them, you checked their inventory, bought or didn't,
and moved on.

In EQ, everything got commoditized, only the rarest, highest-level
loot is the subject of negotation and horsetrading (that being a
constantly inflating window).  But as Brian Hook pointed out, that
wasn't always true.

--Dave Rickey

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