[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Active and Inactive currency

[Matt Chatterley]

From: Freeman, Jeff
> From: Matt Chatterley

>> Does this added complexity add anything to the model, or not?

>> Now the DG players can sell to two buyers, and if they were to
>> work harder and produce more dough, they could sell more,

> I don't think this additional level of complexity is useful.
> Bakers are still Cookie-makers.  Abstracting the model to this
> level, we're better off just considering them all CO's regardless
> what they really (virtually, hypothetically) make.  You might get
> *some* more cookie-makers by extending the choices, depth and
> interest of the level, but probably not that many more.

Agreed. Another possible outcome which I didn't consider is the risk
that one particular 'finished product' is better than the others in
some way (less coins per energy point restored, for instance), and
players will all migrate to that product and shun the others - this
would require balance adjustment, or perhaps making crafting more
complex.

If crafters can vary the 'recipe' which they follow to maximize
different attributes of their product, competitiveness is inspired
far more - if bread was more attractive than cookies because it cost
less per energy point, you could maximize the energy value of your
cookies (at the cost of another attribute such as shelf-life) and so
forth, as well as simply dropping the price.

>> increasing their profits (probably accumulating money
>> themselves); the CH players do not have this luxury, and have
>> only one outlet for their goods.

> Even if they could work harder and sell more dough, their profits
> (coming from COs) are the cookie makers costs.  Cookies are just
> going to increase in price to cover that, the COs still make all
> the money.

Also agreed :). No matter what the gatherers do, they'll always be
lower down the economic food chain than the crafters above them, and
in this particular model, they're buying back the finished product
as well - and if the model were such that cookies provide energy,
players use energy collecting resources therefore a player who
collects more resources has to buy more cookies, they're in a quite
vicious circle.

This doesn't of course mean that they'll have NO inactive money, or
no money to spend - but they will certainly have less than those
above them.

> But in reality, I don't think would happen.  I think they would
> work harder and sell more dough, for less money.  The price of
> cookies would drop, based on the resource being cheaper.

Quite possibly.

>> Assuming that the sinks/faucets are appropriately serviced, and
>> no potential gain is "excessive" compared to others, I don't see
>> anything wrong with this.

> I suspect that the higher up you go, the higher the rate of
> conversion from active to inactive cash you'll find.

Definitely. If the model were more complicated, with wood-choppers
selling logs to sawmills who sold planks to table-makers, the
table-makers would have more inactive cash than the sawmills, who
would have more than the wood-choppers - if you consider active cash
as a percentage of the gross, so to speak. A sawmill might process
wood from 10 wood-choppers and sell to a dozen table-makers, having
a huge turn over of cash, but far more of a table-makers cash
reserves would be inactive.

>> What it suggests to me is: There must be other outlets for
>> money. Better ovens. Bigger shops, a larger wheelbarrow to carry
>> choccie chips in - whatever it is, things such as upgrades will,
>> if made available, encourage the richer players to re-invest
>> their 'inactive cash', putting it back into circulation.

> True, but in the real world investment means risk.  Players will
> demand a garuanteed return on their investment, with no risk or
> potential for loss.  They'll put the money back into the system
> (such as when they buy dough or chips), but only with the complete
> assurance that they'll get it back later, plus a little more.

Yup. Someone else has commented on this, I'm sure - it's not the
real world, and you can't really apply 'reality' to a game, because
they players are there to get away from their real lives. They don't
want to put their playing time into endeavors which can fail.

Within the concept I'm currently working on - a trading based game,
things are a little different, because without the possibility of
making a loss, half of the fun is gone - part of the point is that
gamble. However, it's not a game which will foster the attachment to
characters which all players develop in games which are more
strongly based around 'role playing' - it won't be an ongoing world
for instance, it'll more likely consist of 2-3 month long "games"
within a set of rules, with everyone starting over fresh at the end
(and winners being announced, etc).

Some steps can be made to introduce abstract costs, though, such as
wear and tear on equipment - if your oven will wear out after 1000
cookies, but a better one will do 1500 cookies (and cost 1.4x as
much), then given enough money, you'll go for the better
oven. However, this sort of approach rewards richer players, and
those with inactive cash - as they are able to reduce their costs by
using their inactive money. As you say though - at the end of the
day, they get a guaranteed return - an improvement in their profits,
and will make their money back eventually.

>> Blurring the distinctive hierarchy above might change the
>> situation too, but I haven't really thought that through enough -
>> however, what about adding the 'wholesaler' in, someone who buys
>> cookies and dough in bulk from the gatherers, and then sells it
>> on to bakers/cookie makers - covering the costs of storing and
>> transporting the goods?

> It seems that adding more levels like this is a good thing, in
> that it spreads-out the amount of cash being converted to inactive
> a bit more.

> It's still being converted to inactive cash, but more people have
> a chunk of it than in the 2-tier model.

Yeah. That was the point I was heading towards - having the inactive
cash isn't necessarily a bad thing, but having it all pooled by a
small group of players certainly is.

> Also, I think we've been overlooking the role of taxes in wealth
> re-distribution (in the real world, that is).

> So offline we have banks and other investments, risk, taxes and so
> on to redistribute wealth, but online we have none of these
> things, and the players would probably hate it if we did.

> Kind of thinking about the idea of 'virtual investments' which
> don't return any money to the investor, but instead buy the
> crafter his advancement in the system.  So we tell the crafter
> that he's still got that money - hasn't spent it, and it's all his
> and 100% safe - but he can't spend it unless he's willing to
> sacrifice his advancement.

Hmm. Interesting. Abstract costs and investments are definitely one
way to go - for instance if there were a guild of cookie-makers, a
player might invest vast amounts of their inactive cash in efforts
to become the guild leader (or one of the guild council), so that
they can gain a different advantage - rather than just being able to
make more cookies, they could get a hand in the overall price of
cookies, who is allowed to sell cookies and where, etc.

All interesting stuff. :)

Cheers,

Matt
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