[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Active and Inactive currency

[Kirinyaga]

I think Jeff has the solution. Killing mobs grants explorers XP and
XP grants them levels. Well, selling cookies grants cookie makers
money and let money grants them levels.  Money is then going back to
the system and can be reinjected back into the mobs. You can even
have a fixed total of money circulating the world, as a function of
the number of characters and their levels.

Of course, there is still a problem : cookie makers who have reached
the top level. So let's introduce bribery. While explorers can kill
things and do duties to increase their faction, allowing them to
purchase some specific flavor of cookies that can only be made in a
specific city, cookie makers can bribe the city authorities to
increase their faction and install a new shop there.  Now, once they
reached the top level, they still have a commercial empire to build
over the whole world. Given enough factions, it might take forever,
and the money is still recirculated. The cookie makers are still
getting richer, but only if they give their money back into the
system.

Then, if it's not enough, you can introduce a form of cookie making
PvP : bribery is only working for the cookie makers who gave the
most money to city authorities this week. Let's say the others are
temporarily making no money out of their cookies (they have to pay
taxes for their shop, equal to the benefit margins of the highest
bribers). They don't loose money, but they don't make any.  The good
part of it is the more money a cookie maker is holding, the more
incitated he is to spend it to take control of a market. Yes there
is risk, since he's not guaranted to still make money after the
first week, but the risk is limited and players may accept it
(specially if money is no longer useful for their levelling up).

It doesn't mean there is no inflation. Obviously, the cookie makers
wants to become richer and richer, so you either have to introduce
more money in the world (fueling the inflation, but you can control
how much by tuning the return rate to mobs), or to increase the
money exchange rate (not easy and limited anyway). You can also find
something else than money cookie makers can work for. Top level
explorers don't kill mobs for XP, top level cookie makers can make
cookies for something else than money too.

Doesn't horizons use such a system with dragons having to hoard
money to increase their armor (and it decays over time, by a
dev-controlled rate I guess) ?
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