[MUD-Dev2] stock market mechanisms in muds

[Matt Chatterley]

On 13/02/07, Johnicholas Hines <johnicholas.hines at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I don't know much about what "stock market" mechanisms already exist
> in muds, so in mud-dev tradition, I will speculate and propose an
> idea. If you have experience with market simulations in muds, would
> you please reply? (to me or to the list)


To be truthful, I've never played (or done anything else) on a Mud which had
any more than the most rudimentary of economies (e.g. hit monster over head,
get shiny thing, sell to shopkeeper).

However, I've always been interested in the stock market, and my first ever
game, many years ago, was a simple stock market sim, so, lets see..

I say "stock market", but I mean more of a commodities market. Please
> forgive my inaccuracy.
> There are reasons to allow and to forbid stock-market-like things.


To me, stock or commodities markets might as well be the same thing for this
purpose - think of stock as a virtual commodity. This does raise the
interesting idea of players co-owning properties and concepts (e.g.
businesses), though.

One reason to allow it is so players can play traders inside the game.
> Some people might enjoy that.


Theres probably quite a large player base available for this (relatively
speaking), although I don't know how large the intersect of that player base
and the mudding base is - certainly, a lot of people undertake this sort of
activity on some of the MMORPGs? This is probably the sort of game play
which I would enjoy more than adventuring, in a lot of cases - although the
most critical thing is to get the balance between complexity and depth just
right - these often get confused - a deep, enjoyable playing experience
should not be mangled by a complex user interface and the necessity to
remember 78 numbers at a time!

Another reason to allow is to increase liquidity - the ability to find
> someone willing to trade. If you have an elaborate economy that
> requires miners to sell to gemsmiths who sell to mages, it can be very
> frustrating to try to be a miner, gemsmith, or mage when you can't
> find buyers or sellers at any price.


Indeed. Simulated economies that I have heard described, or seen in action
in the past (or once, tried to build) tend to fail because they try to mimic
a real economy - which doesn't really work for Virtual Worlds. The game
needs to be able to make it look to the player as if it is working like the
"real world" while at the same time making whatever changes it requires to
maintain playability, balance and consistency.

A third reason to allow a stock-market-like mechanism is it makes
> adding NPC economic actors (NPC miners, gemsmiths, mages) easier.
> Instead of writing bot code to move them around, meet and negotiate
> for prices, you can just add market code to simulate their effect on
> the market.


This really caught my interest, actually. Thinking about modelling the
market which is the hub of the economy, rather than the economy itself in
its "full glory" is quite clever - it also gives you the potential to put in
safeguards, so that if boundary conditions are exceeded, the game will take
protective action to prevent massive abuse (e.g. price of gold has been
forced down to "1 ting" by people dumping all their horded gold in a
synchronised "attack", boundary condition is that the price must always be
between 10 and 100, so the game would not allow the drop to 1).

Why disallow stock-market-like things?
>
> For some games, it might be damaging to the atmosphere of the game
> (heroes are above petty commerce). If the economy is already out of
> the devs' control, adding a stock-market-like mechanism might have
> unpredictable effects. Perhaps as a matter of principle, the devs
> might want to forbid people earning any benefit without being
> connected (and unidle) in the game.


Heroes are probably not into organized commerce, but they do need shops and
stores - which might simply be an extent of the broker idea you discuss
below - the shopkeeper (PC or NPC) might use a broker to acquire either his
raw materials or his finished goods if he re-sells. This also allows you to
obfuscate the supply/demand chain a bit - the blacksmith in town won't stop
making swords because noone has brought him any iron for a while - as long
as its available on the market, he'll keep going, although his prices might
go up.

An important point here is sinks (you mention these as well below) - all
objects should ideally wear out, and require replacement, and represent a
sensible cost to replace. If the average PC has 100000 tings in the bank,
and a full platemail suit is 1000 tings, it doesn't matter if he needs a
suit every week - he can easily afford it. I've thought of tackling this in
the past by greatly reducing "lootability" - you might have killed the black
knight, and pinched his lovely platemail, but you had to /hack through some
of it/ to kill him - so you can either use it (with bits hanging off), or
pay to repair it. Or sell it for scrap. Theres a lot of scope for more
intelligent play here - picking targets off without damaging their
possessions, for a start. If you want the intricate wooden idol that
tribesman is holding, don't blast him apart with a fireball!

Here is my idea for adding a stock-market-like exchange to an existing mud:
>
> 1. Players can buy "brokers", NPC proxies who can conduct trades with
> PCs or other brokers even when their owner is offline.
> 2. A player can combine an item (say an axe) with a broker to yield a
> broker with one additional "axe" slot. At this time, the player can
> set the "internal value" of that slot to that broker. The internal
> value is just a number.
> 3. If a broker has 3 axe slots and 5 sword slots, the broker can hold
> up to 3 axes and up to 5 swords. That broker's owner has access to
> this inventory (can put and get from it).
> 4. If a broker is offered an exchange (say 1 sword for 2 axes), and
> the deal is advantageous (comparing the internal value of 1 sword with
> the sum of the internal values of the 2 axes), then the broker will do
> the exchange.


[Snip rest of Broker idea]

I do like this approach. Quite a lot, actually. I'd suggest that Brokers are
hired for a base fee, and then paid commission - otherwise, they don't act
as an effective sink - if my broker cost me 500 tings,. and I've made a
100000 ting trade, he was damn cheap. If he charges 50 tings a day (or 10 a
trade), plus 3%, then he's not quite as cheap. It might be good if PCs were
able to act as brokers as well?

I really like the way this enables you to automate things, and keep it
running, so I can collect my goods to sell (e.g. gemstones or ore), but I
don't have to be online and actively selling them - although I can if I
want. Please let me know how this idea develops!


Cheers,

-- 

Matt Chatterley