[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] *Starting* Real Currency Based Worlds

[Nick Koranda]

Real world currency based MMOG's have always been interesting to me.  I 
can understand the concept of adding real currency to the game...i.e. a 
person pays $10 and gets 1000 gold in the game.  The user could also 
exchange the gold he/she has made in game for real money.

The idea that I have not fully grasped is the specific concept of 
*starting* a world like this.  Take a very simple example world, one 
with 100 trees.  A user enters the game with an axe in hand.  The user 
takes some time and chops down 10 trees and sells them for 1 gold each 
at a market.  He now has 10 gold.  Given my previous exchange rate 
above, that would give him $0.10 real currency.  Now at this point, with 
one user in the game and no user contributed money, there is no real 
currency in the game to give the user if he choses to exchange it.

This is where I am puzzled.  Does the creator of the world have to 
"populate" the world with enough real-world currency to pay out any 
resources or gold that can be gathered or produced?  So the example 
would require that the user add $1 of real world money for the trees to 
be backed by real world currency?  If true, then starting a world would 
require that the creator add a lot of money for a large world.  The 
other alternative is to have users pay to play some amount...and given 
that amount, release an equivalent amount resources into the world.  I 
dont think that would work based on what I have read on a closed loop 
resource system.  The resources would quickly run dry with hording.

So what are the ideas for starting a real world currency world so that 
the economy would sustain itself and even make the creators money as 
well as give the opportunity for users to make money too?