[MUD-Dev] Value in the Economy of the MOG

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Delphine T. Lynx wrote:

> I'm sure everyone's noticed it - in most cases, hard coded money
> has zero value in these games. No matter how hard to obtain, or
> how useful as far as NPCs go (healing, equipment, etc), money
> eventually undergoes such inflation as to have no value whatsoever
> for Player<->Player interaction.

> The question is, why?

> Personally I have two theories on the matter....neither
> accompanied by a solution.

> First, there's the 'supply and demand' theory. Even if each mob
> only has a 1% chance of dropping a coin, you're still left with:

This is simply a matter of balancing the faucets and
drains. (Granted, actually doing it isn't so simple, but that's
'all' you have to do.)



> In fact the scale is even more twisted than the above example. The
> result is that there will generally be a *huge* difference in the
> earning potential of the old vs the young. The result of this
> portion of the supply/demand issue is that in order to balance
> costs, things need to either cost more than a newbie can afford,
> or too little to be significant to a high level player.

That's assuming a small range of things. In the physical world,
there are things that can be bought with money that range up to the
point that no single individual can afford it. Why not simply do the
same thing in a MUD?


> The next issue with supply is tied to locality. In most MUDs, one
> can obtain the uber trade items from only one or two spawn
> points. If you camp for the Uber Sword of Dragon Killing, a buyer
> can be sure it's worth X. If I offer 5,000 gold for that sword, I
> *may* have killed a super rich mob'but I may also have killed
> 5,000 poor mobs....the result? Who wants gold; it's not stable
> enough, anyone can obtain it through time.....which ultimately
> also means that, eventually, everyone's swimming in it.

Just bad design really.


> Lets look at Diablo II. The 'standard currency' is/was the Stone
> of Jordan....a ring that, while not *perfect*, was standardized
> (unique item, non-random), small, and extremely useful to a lot of
> character builds.

I wouldn't call Diablo II a MUD.


> Therefore, even if *no one* would take your SOJ in a trade, you
> had it 'insured' by the fact that it was still useful to you, even
> if you couldn't unload it. This is a key factor.

Yes, utility is key, but the utility of a good currency is in: 1)
Portability 2) The ability to store value without significant decay
(food, for instance, is a very bad thing in which to store wealth).
3) A standard way to denominate value.

(I'm sure there are other advantages, but those are the three I
could think of off hand).

If a currency in a MUD has no value, it is sheerly a result of bad
design. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of currencies
in MUDs.


> In a MUD, if I have a 'sword of dragon slaying', it may be worth
> nothing *on the market* tomorrow, but it'll always (read: until an
> expansion) be the best sword in the game. This means it retains
> it's root value even if the market value drops. I can *always*
> slap it on a character and kick butt with it. What can you do with
> gold if no one wants it? Make pretty piles?

What if all the dragons disappear? The sword still does the same
thing but it pretty useless now.


> One way around this I'm looking into now is something akin to what
> Herbert did with the Dune books....water as a currency on
> Arrakis. You *need* X amount of it, otherwise you die.

But why not just make players eat, for instance. As long as players
need _anything_ then faucets and drains can be balanced.


> Has anyone experimented with an economic system that can keep the
> value of hard coded currency, assuming a game with an erratically
> increasing player base?

> I'm aware of the theories for a 'zero sum economy'....but none of
> them really provide the key point, the desire to *use* money.

Achaea has done this. We have a hard-coded currency, and I haven't
seen any real inflation in a long time. Again, it's simply a matter
of balancing faucets and drains.

--matt

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