[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Active and Inactive currency

[Freeman]

From: Rayzam

> I wonder if there's support to split crafter and businessman?=20
> SWG has different paths on the trees for it. Anyone know of a=20
> pure businessman?

>From what I've see, the business aspect is a high-end meta-game that
crafters engage in - making the activity very attractive to social-types
(there are "social profession" such as entertainer, dancer and musician,
but the really social players are crafters).  That meta-game consists of
developing relationships with suppliers (and until the player gets to
this high-end meta-game, they get their own resources), finding key
locations for storefronts (which usually involves developing a
relationship with another crafter who was lucky enough to get a shop in
a primo location), and developing relationships with 'steady customers'
(large guilds or other crafters for whom you are the supplier).

Given the pattern I've seen, the ideal crafting profession for me
would go something like:

  a) You harvest all your own stuff, make what you make, and sell
  it.

  b) You advance, and gain the ability to specialize in making a
  specific component which other crafters need (becoming a supplier)

  c) You advance, and gain the ability to set-up a shop and allow
  other crafters to place merchants in it.  And you can still do the
  b-category of activities, above.

The high-end crafter spends a lot of time building and maintaining
relationships with other crafters (suppliers and store owners, both
of which are also crafters).

The advancement path in SWG is mostly opposite of that,
mechanically, but the above is the progression many players follow
in spite of the system.  For example, low-level crafters are given
the components in many crafting trees, but they don't have the
relationships with other crafters, because they're new.  So they
grind through the low levels to get to a point where they are
self-sufficient.  *Then* they forge the relationships that allow
them to just craft components, if that's what they want to do.

I don't think there's any such thing as a 'low level' pure
businessman, but it's something that high-level crafters *can*
achieve, once they've established a social network capable of
supporting it.  And mostly they still craft a bit on the side,
because that's what they like to do.
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