[MUD-Dev] Economic model..

[Mike Lescault]

From: Brian Thyer

> At any rate, any thoughts/feedback/ideas would be helpful.  As you
> can tell, it's very much a player run, player driven economy.
> Players mine the resources (or hire NPCs to mine for them),
> players craft the items (and the coinage.through the player and
> NPC run towns), and players set the prices and exchange rates for
> goods and resources.  One thing that some of you may be thinking
> of (which I forgot to mention) is arbitrage.  Arbitrage is where
> you buy an item in one market for a price, and turn around and
> sell the item in a different market for a higher price.  This is,
> obviously, possible.  However, it is currently in the plans to
> restrict travel.  Not to restrict where players can go, but rather
> by the speed and safety by which they can get there.  Making it
> unsafe to carry large quantities of merchandise/resources across
> distances without many armed guards, or simply by making it a
> hassle to the average player to transport items from place to
> place on a regular basis, I hope to keep each separate
> town/village/city/kingdom economy just that, separate.

Hey Brian,

In-game economies are one of those things that I think a lot of us
could spend endless time discussing (and having a lot of fun doing
so).  However, designing an in-game economy that is stable over-time
is no easy task. Even the most well thought out economic design,
crafted by the most veteran of system designers out there, will
often stumble do to unexpected complications. Such is the nature of
this unpredictable beast.

One small suggestion I can offer that may be of help would be in the
area of monetary/time units. A good first step in designing an
economy is to decide how much currency equivalent a character of a
particular level/effectiveness should be able to earn in a given
unit of time.

If that character is a level 100 warrior who can slay Pebblebeasts
at a rate of 100 per minute, how much in monetary value should that
warrior earn in an hour of slaying? If that character is an
apprentice lumberjack who can collect 10 boards per minute, how much
should that character be able to earn in an hour of chopping?

Establishing how much you want your players to earn (at various
milestones along their road of advancement) will help create a
foundation that will let you measure each and every aspect of the
economy against a known quantity.

I'd blather on more, but I'll let some of the more enlightened folks
on this list chime in. =)

-Mike
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev