[MUD-Dev2] stock market mechanisms in muds

[Raph Koster]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:30:33 -0500, "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
said:
> >
> > Dark Age of Camelot permitted NPC merchants to be posted outside of
> > player-owned houses.  Those merchants were stocked by the player, and
> > other players could purchase from the merchants.  The difficulty with
> > that approach is ease of access and comparison.  There was no "market"
> > per se, requiring players to wander around the large housing area,
> > looking for NPC merchants.

This originated with UO and the vendor system. Given the free placement
of housing that game offered, players quickly created commercial
districts, malls, and shopping centers, in a sort of self-imposed
zoning. Lacking this in other systems, you end up with more scattered
commerce.

> > Then they created a market that permitted players to visit a central
> > location in the housing area that accepted queries.  So if I was
> > interested in a certain ring, I could put in a specific or general
> > query about rings and be told which player-sponsored NPC merchants had
> > rings of the sort I was after, including their price.  If I wanted to
> > buy, I'd run over to the merchant and transact the item there.

I believe EQ, EQ2, and others have had similar vendor query systems.

SWG went further with the antecedent to WoW's auction house (and of
course, both had their roots in old-school Auction channels on muds). In
SWG's case, the commodities market was intentionally limited to low
price goods to drive players to the vendors and boutique shops for
high-end goods. However, merchants could pay to get their goods
advertised on the central marketplace.

In WoW, this is simpler -- there are no vendors, and it's more like a
big ol' eBay.