[MUD-Dev] RE: Economic Growth (Was: [STORY] Story and population size)

[Paul Schwanz]

From: Peter Harkins <ph at malaprop.org>
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 01:06:38PM -0500, Paul Schwanz wrote:

>> I wouldn't dream of contradicting our lead server developer :),
>> but I'd like to point out the fact that our design will allow the
>> potential for something very much like multiple currencies, even
>> though the game doesn't support them directly.

>> We plan to allow individuals or communities/guilds the ability to
>> *sign* a document, rendering its contents immutable.  We've only
>> had initial discussions on this mechanic and haven't hashed out
>> implementation (although the possibility of having the
>> signature/insignia linked to a "reputation" was discussed), but I
>> think the implications can be far-reaching.  Given the right
>> economic environment (and yes, we realize that this part of the
>> equation is non-trivial), there is nothing to prevent the
>> following use of this ability.

>>   The "Wood Trading Corporation of Cosm" (a player-owned "guild")
>>   builds a large storage facility in Trebizond and another in
>>   Timbuktu.  It stocks each facility with a good amount of wood.
>>   It then announces that it will issue wood certificates.  These
>>   are simply pieces of velum or parchment on which the
>>   corporation has inscribed, for example, "1,000 wood units
>>   payable to the bearer of this certificate," and then signed
>>   with the guild name/insignia.  The WTCC commits itself to pay
>>   out 1,000 wood units to anyone who presents this sort of
>>   certificate at one of their "branches."

> If you want people to create currencies backed by resources, those
> resources are going to have to be scarce. If the orc tribe each
> get a sword when they repop, swords will soon be valueless. You
> won't be able to trade any amount of swords for sawbucks (couldn't
> resist pun.) If you want the orcs to have swords and not break the
> player economy, they're going to have to have miners and
> blacksmiths or others to trade with who'll fill these
> roles. Players will get to have realistic loot the first time or
> two, but they'll soon be slaughtering a bunch of naked and unarmed
> orcs and complaining that there's no loot.

Speaking for myself (and not necessarily the Cosm team entire), I'm
not much for repopping orcs anyway.  On the other hand, I do indeed
like the idea of orcs having miners, blacksmiths, and trade routes.
I think I probably have a little different perspective on the role
that orcs might play in an MMORPG, though.  I don't particularly
care much for the orc-as-loot-farm paradigm.  I see the loot coming
from my own miners, blacksmiths, and trade routes, which the orcs
seem to constantly threaten.  In this paradigm, naked and unarmed
orcs are a good thing, since they typically mean more loot and not
less.

> It's also going to be hard for you to sustain any kind of currency
> - if a currency backed by lumber becomes popular, players will
> happily buy an axe and deforest your entire game world. You'll
> have to slow them down by throwing monsters in the woods and
> having axes fall apart quickly. Not that this will stop them,
> it'll just make the currency less useful - everyone will break the
> bank by trading in certificates for hard-to-obtain wood, except
> for a few coalitions of players who team up and deforest huge
> swaths of the world at a time, making it harder for local players
> to obtain wood, etc.

I would like to see a system of land ownership that frustrates the
sort of deforesting activity you describe.  In it, players/NPCs
could build a logging camp that gives them ownership of the trees in
a certain area around the camp.  (Initial cost and maintenance for
such camps need to be such that they prohibit a small group of
players from simply plopping down logging camps willy-nilly.  Other
game mechanics might be required as well.)  Other players would then
buy logs from the camp or be required to get permission in order to
cut down a tree owned by the camp.  The alternative would be to
directly attack and destroy the logging camp, thus removing the area
of ownership.  Walls, gates, and hired guards might make this
prospect very difficult, though not impossible.  (Of course, players
who plop camps down willy-nilly might have a tough time of defending
all of them.)

In addition, how will it be possible to break the bank if the bank
issues no more certificates than it has wood to back it up?  How a
certain company handles the ratio of certificates to actual wood
should certainly affect the perceived value of its certificates for
this very reason.

> While I think the immutable contracts are a great idea, I don't
> think they're going to lead to player-issued currencies as you've
> envisioned. It'll require a large game world with realistic
> resource usage, and that's pretty expensive in terms of resource
> usage (cycles and memory.)  The alternative is to fudge, and I can
> certainly see a few places you can do it. If you do, though, I'd
> expect you'll end up with not-infrequent breaks in the economy and
> lots of 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' antics
> trying to fix it.

Well, we haven't fleshed everything out yet.  It is clear, though,
that if we design it poorly then it will be...er...poor.  I think
right now we are exploring a number of different options, one being
the idea of an economy behind the economy.  Vaguely, the player
economy would be a piece of a larger economy that (hopefully) is not
so large that it is totally resistent to player input, but large
enough to buffer against some of the more harmful activities that
might otherwise lead to drastic or "unrealistic" changes.

In truth, the road away from loot-n-level is fraught with peril.
Personally, though, I think it is a road well worth the taking.

--Phinehas

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