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It's Not Just a Game |------[ http://www.retromud.org ]------| It's an ATTITUDE
6 Planets. 60 Races. 1,000 Skills & Spells. Infinite Possibilities.

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1. in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sun Jun 22, 2008 [7:54 PM]
coca
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I've recently become interested in finance and economics in the real world, and I've had some ideas for a rich in-game economy. Ripple Pay is an example of a type of social currency. It allows people to create their own currency.

http://groups.google.ca/group/rippleusers

It would be interesting to include something like that in a game. Suppose people could open their own stores and decide whether to grant other players store credit. Store credit could be bought and sold in exchange for valuable things in the mud (equipment, ships, pets, houses, etc.) and credit from other stores. This could all be done with an acceptable buy/sell list in the stores. For example, store A might be willing to buy a particular kind of armor, real estate, and credit from store B. It might be willing to sell another kind of armor, various other real estate, and credit that it had previously purchased from store C as well as its own credit. There would be absolutely no stores owned by mobiles and no "official" currency for the mud.

If you add the ability to give out loans and accept deposits in store credit, you've basically got a bank! Players would have to evaluate each other based on their credit-worthiness, just like real-life. There could be in-game mechanisms to make this more realistic. For example, if you could prove that someone owed you a lot of money, you could get the guards to beat them up, take their stuff, or send them out of town. or whatever.

thoughts? Has anyone allowed players to create their own currencies?


2. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sun Jun 22, 2008 [9:08 PM]
The_Fury
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I see this sort of idea lending itself to a game of its own rather being something you would add to a fantasy mud. I have for sometime been considering making a stock market type simulation mud in a similar vain to some of the casual web resource management games that are out there. The ideas you present above would lend themselves well to such an game and would add a new level of depth to the existing resource management genera.

IMO text muds are well suited for this type of casual game and is a gaming sector of huge potential growth, where there is a lot of opportunity to gain players who are not traditionally text mudders.
EldhaMUD Game Developments
The_Fury: Lead Developer, Head Coder
http://fury.eldhamud2.org


3. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sun Jun 22, 2008 [10:04 PM]
Idealiad
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What we're really talking about here is trustworthiness. How does the player know they're not getting ripped off? In the real world there are many details a person can evaluate to determine an institution's trustworthiness, but on a mud, especially for a new player, these details can be very limited. So I think you would need some external motivator to keep institution's trustworthy, with high negative feedback for dishonesty.

Now an interesting side-effect of this is you could allow players to game the trust system, such that you could have double-dealing merchants and crooked financiers, with no one the wiser (usually), yet still have crusading ministers of justice rooting out their underhand deals. Just like real life ;).

Anyway, I've never seen a mud without some gold/silver standard. I think letting players buy/sell stock is common enough. I've seen a few muds with player-owned stores but I don't have any examples at my fingertips.


4. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Mon Jun 23, 2008 [3:20 AM]
Epilogy
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I think Tir Na Nog has a stock makret option... or was it Four Dimentions... bah. I forget. One of the two does.


5. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Mon Jun 23, 2008 [4:25 AM]
The_Fury
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Core 2036 has an in game stockmarket that integrates well into their game, Its a mining game where part of your payment for mining is in stocks, you can then sell of the stocks when you need money, or when the price is high.

Its been a number of years since i have played Core, so i cannot tell you how things have developed since then, but i remember it was an LP using mudOS i think.
EldhaMUD Game Developments
The_Fury: Lead Developer, Head Coder
http://fury.eldhamud2.org


6. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Mon Jun 23, 2008 [9:37 AM]
jmurph
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I think it sounds like a very good idea for its own game but a very poor idea for the standard MUD. It is no fun dying of hunger or not having weapons because those areas aren't profitable enough or there aren't any players who have opened a bakery/weaponsmith/etc. yet :-)
-James
BYOND Game Design Software:http://www.byond.com/?invite=Jmurph


7. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Mon Jun 23, 2008 [10:17 AM]
shasarak
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Just because some shops are run by players doesn't mean they all have to be. I would expect a newly opened MUD run like this to have all-NPC shops, and to have new player-operated ones springing up over time and (hopefully) driving the NPCs into bankruptcy.

On top of that, if players are dying of hunger or lack of equipment in an area, then a shop set up in that area selling food and equipment should automatically be extremely profitable.
Because I say so, that's why.


8. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Mon Jun 23, 2008 [10:41 AM]
Ennius
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member since: Jun 12, 2008 		In Reply To
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Just because some shops are run by players doesn't mean they all have to be. I would expect a newly opened MUD run like this to have all-NPC shops, and to have new player-operated ones springing up over time and (hopefully) driving the NPCs into bankruptcy.

I agree with you, but I suppose he was responding to the original poster, who said "There would be absolutely no stores owned by mobiles and no 'official' currency for the mud."


9. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Fri Jul 18, 2008 [7:25 PM]
Dratgard
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I can't say I've used or seen this option.

However it brings up a very interesting idea, and you can simply look at even the U.S.-Canada, or kind of like Europe in places before the Euro.

If I go to the Canadian/American boarder, often times I can use both currencies at their relative pricings.


In application, certain regions of control in the Mud's world could have their own currency in addition to the standard global currency. The ruler of a kingdom may come in to possession of a permanent imbuing magic item which could be used for creating a token currency. With an exchange rate available, the kingdom's rulers could create tokens as a means of first paying back merchants in global currency (trade them in) and establish value.

Perhaps the kingdom's military would rather spend on their economy, buy weapons and armor from crafters in town. Want to make sure the army soldiers don't use that money for corruption? Give them five tokens per person, announce to the town that 2 tokens are worth a weapon, 2 are worth a breastplate, and 1 is worth a night's stay in town.

Eventually through RP and demand, and use, you could hopefully generate the need for more tokens, the value of tokens being used on other goods, and get a real localized economy going.

Explaining the items in person, crafters could make custom currency with a regulated embuing tool. Under examination, magical or by item, merchants can verify the legality of the token and what kingdom has implanted a unique ID on it.


Of course, refining must occur, but it's an excellent start to a localizing currency idea. As long as there are regulated ways of letting players build an economy, it could actually work if there's enough involvement.

Otherwise, as simple as "2 tokens for one good sword" is still a form of currency. Merchant goes and trades his 2 tokens for one young cow. Primitive, but applicable. The more use it gets, the more involved it becomes.


10. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Fri Jul 18, 2008 [8:12 PM]
Lobotomy
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I'd be interested in seeing a game that had a pure bartering system; no currency usage whatsoever.
It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool; let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.


11. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Fri Jul 18, 2008 [10:43 PM]
Dratgard
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I'd be interested in seeing a game that had a pure bartering system; no currency usage whatsoever.


Currency assists trading, so it'd be like trying to step backwards to 3000 BC, when people lived short lives and there weren't a whole lot of options :-P That'd have to be the Mud.


12. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sat Jul 19, 2008 [12:38 AM]
Lobotomy
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Currency assists trading, so it'd be like trying to step backwards to 3000 BC, when people lived short lives and there weren't a whole lot of options :-P That'd have to be the Mud.

It's more about creativity than efficiency.
It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool; let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.


13. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sat Jul 19, 2008 [10:56 AM]
KaVir
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> I'd be interested in seeing a game that had a pure
> bartering system; no currency usage whatsoever.

I've considered such a system in the past as well, however I suspect that players would just invent their own form of currency.
God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
MudLab: http://www.mudlab.org
MudQuest: http://mudquest.org


14. RE: in-world currency and economy
rate thread 		Sat Jul 19, 2008 [1:12 PM]
sarapis
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Yep. You can see this behavior going way back in MUD-dom.

For instance, in Lucasfilm's Habitat back in the '80s, they did have 'tokens' as an official currency but almost everyone in the game had more tokens than they could really use. The currency was essentially worthless. Instead, people began using 'heads' as the default currency. Heads were literally heads for your avatar. About the only customization you could do was get yourself a new head, so they were highly valued and emerged as the currency of choice.

Currencies are collectively decided on for a reason. Don't declare an official one and one or more unofficial ones will certainly spring up assuming that there's any scarcity at all built into an economic system (which is the case for virtually all economic systems).

--matt
Iron Realms Entertainment - http://www.ironrealms.com
Earth Eternal - http://www.eartheternal.com
My Blog - http://forge.ironrealms.com


It's Not Just a Game |------[ http://www.retromud.org ]------| It's an ATTITUDE
6 Planets. 60 Races. 1,000 Skills & Spells. Infinite Possibilities.

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