[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Crafting Systems: Supply-Driven vs. Demand-Driven

[Shannon Sullivan]

I would like to get feedback on some recent thoughts I've had
aboutcrafting systems.

One of the common threads in the MMO crafting systems I've seen on
themarket is that they tend to be supply-driven rather
thandemand-driven.  What I mean by that is that the crafter will produce
asupply of goods and, not knowing whether anyone else in the world
willwant to buy these particular goods, puts them up for sale and
thenhopes someone comes along and buys them.

A result of this kind of system is that the goods available for
theconsumer tend to concentrate at the skill level of the crafter so as
agame matures and the population base gravitates toward the high end,the
market ends up with a dearth of low-end goods, broken only by
theoccasional new crafter, and a glut of high-end gear that people may
ormay not even want.  As a crafter, you don't know if anyone is going
tobuy your goods, so you're going to produce only those items that
youfeel have the greatest likelihood of generating profit; why
gambleyour time making a newbie-only widget when more (gross profit per
timespent crafting) can be generated by the high-end widgets?

Additionally, this places a tremendous burden on the new player into
agame as when she goes to buy goods appropriate to her character
level,she finds the market bare and is faced with the prospect of
grindingout the lower levels in (typically) low-quality dropped or
vendornewbie goods.  Or she is forced into crafting her own goods in
orderto survive when what she really wants is to be adventuring instead.

What I'm envisioning is a system driven by demand instead of supply.For
example, a player might be able to open a menu-style interfacewith all
the various crafting recipes and select one to be crafted bythe first
crafter who wants to make a profit.  They're putting in anorder,
basically, and the first crafter willing to fill that ordergets it. 
Perhaps the buyer might even be told right up front thematerial cost of
the product and be given an interface to adjust howmuch mark-up they're
willing to pay (possibly with a default amount toencourage
standardization).  The interface could even show the averageprice that
item has sold for recently so they know whether they'remaking a
competitive offer.  Crafters might even choose from theinterface to be
notified when items they can produce are in demand soorders can be
responded to with greater immediacy.

An advantage of this kind of system is twofold in that the crafter
cansee at a glance what products are most in demand in order to
morereadily profit from the time and money devoted to crafting and
thebuyer has a greater likelihood of having her needs met
expediently.This strengthens the economic model of the game and reduces
thetendency for high-end market glut.

One of the problems with a crafting system that forces interdependencyis
that it relies on other crafters to actually make the products youneed. 
Without being able to see what low-end products happen to be indemand,
interdependency can be cumbersome to the new crafter unlessthere happens
to be enough other new crafters who happen to be makingjust what you
need by chance (common in the rush at launch but rarepast that stage). 
A demand-driven system alleviates that problem bygiving players an
interface where they can fulfill crafting needs atall levels (because
there's profit to be made) thus rewardinginterdependency and encouraging
cooperation among diverse sets ofcrafters.

An additional benefit to the economy is that this kind of system
wouldhelp to reduce inflation by encouraging the crafting of items that
arepriced appropriately to the buyer.  Often it seems as if the
onlybuyers of low-end items are highly twinked alts who are just trying
togrind up as quickly as possible.  The consequence of this is that
theprice of newbie goods skyrockets as those twinked alts offer 5x,
10x,100x the cost of materials for these items.  In a
supply-driveneconomy, the seller sets the price so naturally she's going
to set ithigh in the expectation that she'll be able to maximize
profits, withthe unfortunate side-effect of pricing the goods
astronomically higherthan an actual newbie to the game would be able to
afford.  She has noreason to sell her goods in a range of prices because
even the twinksare going to snap up the lower priced items first and the
seller hasthereby lost money she could have made by pricing them all
high.  Onthe other hand, in a demand-driven economy, the buyer sets the
price.A highly twinked buyer can set the price high in order to give
hisoffer priority over lower-priced offers but doing so does
notinherently drive the price up for the other buyers.  Once his offer
ismet, crafters can continue to make a profit (albeit smaller) from
theremaining lower-priced offers.

So this is what I've been thinking.  But I'm just a dreamer whereasyou
all are experienced MMO creators so I am hoping to gets somefeedback on
the benefits and pitfalls of such a system.  Do you seeany ways it could
be twisted out of proportion?  Do you see anyinherent flaws in it?