[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Active and Inactive currency

[Eric Random]

--- "baar at imperian.com" <baar at imperian.com> wrote:
> From: "Rayzam" <rayzam at travellingbard.com>

>> Heh, a fee to hold your money. Works for systems where it has
>> weight and you can't carry around a hoard of cash. A steady drain
>> on 'inactive cash'.  And that'd drain away reserves of those
>> inactive accounts...

> This will just drive the money into the banks, assuming your game
> has such institutions. This doesn't do anything to put it back
> into the economy unless someone has figured out a way to do
> so. Perhaps the city the bank resides in would have some use for
> it?

MUD economies can have transactional fees as drains. For example, an
NPC will buy a handaxe for 2s, but will sell one for 5s. When a mob
drops a handaxe, that is potentially 2s added to the economy if the
player GETs it and SELLs it. If a player buys a handaxe, it costs
5s, but to sell it back is, again, 2s. The transaction cost, or the
cost of changing a handaxe into money and back again, is 3s. This
transaction cost is part of the drain in the faucet-drain model.

Limiting personal and external inventories by slots, volume, or
weight can be considered an act of slowing a faucet. Extending these
limits at a cost could be considered a drain.

If money has weight, and characters have finite encumbrance, this
effects the character's savings. First, money will not enter the
economy as fast as without. The player will either have to head back
to town more often to unload excess inventory, or be more selective
of loot, only picking up those things which are most valuable and
least encumbering, and leaving the rest. Second, the character may,
more often, be forced into a transaction to unload excessive
encumbrance into an object of less encumbrance which holds value,
such as gems and jewelry.

If banks exist, the player will be forced to unload their inventory
into banks more often to escape the effects of encumbrance. If the
bank takes 2% of all money deposited, that is a drain. If the bank
only takes 2% of money, players may exchange their money into items
more often to get around the 2% money deposit fee. This is social
engineering to get players to change money into items. As players
change money into items, they get hit with the transaction fee
explained previously. This keeps them interacting with the drain.

It is important to note that one issue with player mercantilism
in-game is with its affect on the transaction fee drain. Player
mercantilism creates a "clog" in this part of the drain because an
active player market better leverages the gross value of the
economy. If an NPC sells a handaxe for 5s, and buys it for 2s, this
is a market opportunity for player merchants. A player could buy
handaxes for 3s and sell them for 4s, make a 1s profit for each
handaxe, and taking the market away from NPC's. This reduces the
transaction fee to 1s, keeping 5s from leaving the economy, and
keeping 2s from entering. The player merchant, of course, is
dependent upon supply and demand in the economy unlike the NPC
merchant. If the player merchant was working a sufficiently large
volume of diverse items, this could be a profitable
undertaking. This undertaking, though, requires a consistent
dependable presence in the marketplace, which is a time commitment.

The whole aspect of putting drained money back into the economy is
the act of the faucet. Money comes in via the faucet, and leaves via
the drain. If you do want the bank to inject the drained money back
into the economy and continue to socially engineer item purchases,
it could be through a redistribution of wealth. For example, if your
bank account is over 50g, any further deposits are charged the 2%
deposit fee. If your bank account is under 5g, you get a stipend of
10s every online-day taken from a fund of accumulated deposit
fees. Fund runs out, stipends run out. Those players with under 5g
will most likely spend that extra stipend money on needed
items. Those players with over 5g will likely spend money to reduce
their bank account to earn a low account stipend. Those players with
over 50g will likely spend money on items to avoid the 2% deposit
fee. If not, they create a source of stipend for poor characters. If
the economy inflates due to too much money, the new characters will
at least have the advantage of the stipend, which could be adjusted
given the extent of inflation. Note, this money need not be "free",
but could be paid for a service as well, such as guarding,
transporting, acquiring, clearing, guiding, assisting, healing,
buffing, serving, making, hunting, etc., all without minting new
money for the economy (ie. faucet). This is considered an injection.

I'd like to say a few words on the inflation of the gross value of
durable goods in a MUD economy, and the NPC merchant as economic
regulator, as that is where this conversation is leading, but I'll
stop here. Just wanted to note how the encumbrance, money weight,
and banking "fee" can act as a drain and spending stimulus.

Just some thoughts...

	- Eric Random
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