[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency

[Peter Keeler]

Quoting Travis Casey <efindel at gmail.com>:

> In the real world, currency takes up space and has weight.  Some
> currencies have ways to mitigate this with larger denominations, but if
> you carry too large a denomination, you may run into problems actually
> spending it ("Can you break a five hundred?").  Further, carrying
> currency on your person has risks -- you can get mugged, it can get
> lost, etc.
>
> Every online game I've played on, though, has removed almost all of
> those problems.  How much money you have is just a number.  You can
> carry all your money on you, without it being heavy or ungainly.
> Making change is never a problem in any transaction.  In many games,
> there's also no risk of losing money to a mugging or the like.
>
> For us in the real world, banks provide a solution to many of these
> problems -- if your money is in a bank, you don't have to carry it
> around.  You can issue drafts against the bank (either through a check
> or a debit card) in any arbitrary amount, up to the limit of what you
> have access to.
>
> If currency in an RPG were tracked in terms of actual coins, taking
> space in inventories and having the inconveniences of not necessarily
> having it in a form that can be used for a particular transaction, this
> would encourage the use of banks.

Is it desirable to encourage the use of banks? Are banks fun?

Is it fun to have your money take up space and be heavy? Is it fun for  
the only alternative to be to deposit it in a bank where you can't use  
it (without withdrawing it again and dealing with the first problem  
all over again)?

I rarely carry cash. It's a hassle when I have to use it. I have a  
magic money card. My money is nothing but a number I can look up by  
going to my bank's web site. When I want to buy something I just show  
my card, sign the receipt, and I'm on my way. If my card is stolen or  
lost, I can call the number and have it deactivated.

Most games set things up to be at least this streamlined, because  
dealing with coins and paper notes isn't any more fun in the virtual  
world than it is in the real world. Do you really want to log into  
your game of choice and have to go to the bank?

The problem is that inactive currency doesn't work the same way in  
games as it does in real life. However, forcing people playing a game  
to have to use a bank is not the right way to go here.

In games when someone hoards a bunch of money, it just sits idle in  
their grubby little paws. Even most implementations of banks in games  
just leave the money sitting in the character's personal account,  
gathering dust. It counts as being "in" the game even though it's not  
doing anything. That means our calculation of "active" money in the  
world is inaccurate because there's a lot of it that isn't being  
exchanged for goods and services.

Many games already have this vastly simplified concept of a bank. It's  
essentially like putting cash in a safe deposit box. These also tend  
to be the games where if you die, your cash on hand can be looted.  
Instead, you can deposit it in the bank where it's safe.  
Unfortunately, you can't use it until you go back and withdraw it.

Let's take the bank thing one step farther then. What if the money you  
deposited was pooled into one big fund? That fund is used by the game  
to fuel all the various faucets in the game - thereby putting your  
hoarded inactive currency back into circulation and making it active  
again. If you go back to the bank and withdraw against your account,  
the money you withdraw is subtracted from the fund. If you pay money  
into one of the game's drains, it drains back into the fund.

Fortunately, since this is a virtual world, we can also magically  
print more money if the fund runs dry. We can also magically disappear  
money out of the fund if there's a surplus (to make up for the times  
we had to print some extra money and keep things zero sum as best as  
we can). This means you never have to have a run on the bank if  
everybody decides to withdraw everything all at once (but you could if  
you wanted some kind of in game story event thingie). To encourage  
people to deposit their money instead of carrying it with them, do  
like real banks do: offer a modest rate of interest on deposited funds.

So now we have "activated" a lot of the inactive currency in the game.  
We still have two problems though.

First, the guy who just carries massive quantities of money on his  
person at all times rather than depositing it. I don't see this as a  
real problem. A fool and his money are soon parted... ;)

Second is the problem that money in the bank is harder to spend.  
Remember the point was to encourage a healthy economy; we don't want  
to make money any harder to spend! Without some form of credit, you  
still have to run back to the bank and withdraw money before you spend  
it. Unless your game centers around personal finance in some  
significant way, the banking system should ease gameplay rather than  
hindering it by allowing some form of drafts against your bank account  
without having to run and find an ATM.

   Pete