[MUD-Dev] Casual player socialization & Bertering

[ceo at grexengine.com]

on Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 10:02:05PM -0800, Ted L. Chen wrote:
 
> Of course, this is mostly moot if I'm suppose to talk to you and
> tell you what I want through text.  Heaven forbid ;) But it still
> does leave the question of how you coordinate the agreement on
> payment (part of that setup).  Conventional trade mechanisms
> assume the interactive give and take of bartering - something
> which might not work well when playing tag with 'automatic
> characters'.

Howabout a GUI widget akin to thoseused by graphics-tablet companies
to control pressure-sensitivity? Or by paint-programs to control
Gamma response etc?

a small 2D graph, with "Probablility of selling" along one axis, and
"Sell price" along another", and a single or double bezier curve
with endpoints anchored at the top right and bottom left corners of
the graph.

When selling "stacks" of identical items, the curve could represent
a quota that the auto-vendor is expcted to achieve.

When selling individual items, it would provide the vendor with a
lookup table of how willing it was to barter to each psosible price
point.

Of course, if you wanted full automation, buyers could have agents
controlled by the same interface. A mathematical simplification, if
you like, of the driving forces behind real-life haggling :) ? 
Maybe.

Adam M

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