The "new" economy

[Nokturn]

I think the current economy system is bad. Instead of telling you what I don't like, I will propose a solution:

1. Shops save on reboots / periodical saves.
2. Shops have no "infinite" supply flags to certain wares (e.g. Temple Of the Dragon in Meleth's Circle)
3. Shops only sell what players or occasional NPCs bring them
4. The price for an item is determined by the availability of it (but a weaponsmith still won't buy food from you)

Imagine the following: Water gets sold out. PCs dehydrate, PCs immediately set out to search for water, selling it to shop until there is enough again. The first PC will get 200 sid for a gallon, the first customer will pay 400 sid for it. As more water is brought in, the price drops.

NOW play a merchant.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Uh... yeah. All of Allanak would dehydrate in less than a RL week.
And I don't think Tektolnes would stand for that.

[Nokturn]

Not neccessarily. You could say that to begin with, water shops have a lot of water and as the price will gradually increase, PCs will bring more water until the market is satiated.

That would be the beginning of a new subclass: Water Hunter/Gatherer

[Spud]

If PC's are becoming required to bring in water, the city isn't doing it's job. The cities keep their people watered, for those who have the coin.

[UnderSeven]

I've often thought an economic overhaul would be nice.  For one I hate that houses Kadius and Salarr basically get to be premere merchant houses no matter how negative the general oppinion of them are or how big of screw ups they are.  An economy which held things more accountable might change that, but the other side of that is the game becomes possibly far to much like a full time job and ceases to be fun.  I really don't login to arm so I can work.  And besides, merchant houses represent large sweeping organizations, which have multitudes of crafters, merchants, npcs, vnpcs.  The playerbase makes up a very small portion of both the buying and selling side of things.  So while cool to imagine new ways to do arm econ, dunno that that one is the answer.

[daedroug]

Also in Allanak there would rarely if ever be a shortage of water since there are some places you can buy water that would be/are supplyed by other means that wouldn't stop.

[Vessol]

I always pictured when no one is looking, a bunch if viv's run into the Temple of the Dragon and spray water into the fountain and then run out giggiling.

I personaly do not think water should be a limited supply in Allanak or any of the other cities. Some other economic changes would be welcomed though.

[Synthesis]

Idea 1: Shops Saving Periodically.

I assume you mean that shops would save their inventories -and- not be reset on reboots.  There is a huge, obvious problem with this, and it's readily apparent in both of the shops (that I know of) that -do- save their inventories:  over time, the shop will fill up with useless garbage that nobody wants, rendering the shop itself useless.

Let's take a simple thought experiment:  Joe's Miscellaneous Emporium starts out with item A, B, and C...items that everybody likes.  As soon as JME cuts the ribbon and opens for business, people buy A, B, and C, leaving JME with 300 'sid to spend on buying other peoples' miscellaneous gear.  Mitch the elf comes in and sells 300 'sid worth of low-quality 'rinth clothing, leaving JME with 0 'sid to spend on anything, but an inventory full of 'rinth gear that nobody wants.  Now, under your proposed system, JME would be completely useless until an Imm came down and reloaded the shop manually, because it can no longer buy anything, and it no longer sells anything that anybody wants.  You might counter by adding the caveat: "but the shops will periodically reload a little bit of coin, so they can keep buying things."  However, I ask you: how is this any better than the current system?  People will -still- sell mostly useless junk to JME, because the "trickle down" 'sid system encourages selling large quantities of slightly valuable objects (if you can't be sure how much 'sid the shop has, the best way to maximize your profit is to sell 10-20 'sid items until the shop is out of cash).  Over time, the shop will still fill with useless objects, and it still will not have any cash to buy anything that might be useful.  Again, experimentally, this is the case:  the shops that I know of that save their inventories are -packed- with stuff that nobody really wants, and they will rarely be able to buy from you.

Idea 2: No more infinite supply items
This could probably work, but you'd have to raise the cap on the number of particular items that a shop will stock.  Kept to 5, arrows, sacks of flour, bracers and bags (just to name a few) would become extremely scarce.  Paired with Idea 3, this would become an immense inconvenience, especially for off-peak players.

Idea 3: Shops sell only what PCs sell to them.
First, and most obvious: there is a -vast- number of items in the game that simply aren't craftable.  
Second, there are an equally vast number of items that are simply unfeasible for PCs to supply in regular quantities (mekillot hide, bahamet shell, etc.).
Third, if idea 1 was implemented, the shops would be full of gear that nobody wants, but are forced to buy, if they can't find a PC crafter.
Fourth, over time, the economy would become hunter-centric.  Numerous city roles would disappear as the demand for the hunters needed to supply PC demand for basic necessities skyrockets.
Fifth, certain materials just aren't available in the game world in certain locations.  Try finding leather to make leather waterskins around Allanak.  There would have to be frequent PC-run caravans from north to south, just to supply basic items that nobody thinks about right now.  You might think caravans are a cool idea, but they won't be so cool when your character is dehydrating to death because the waterskin caravan got ambushed by raider/crafters who wanted the leather to make swordbelts instead.
Sixth, the death of a particular PC crafter would wreak -havoc- on the entire economic system.  Imagine there are 3 merchant-class PCs in Allanak: Joe the Noob, Bob the Semi-Experienced, and Sue the Master Crafter.  Joe and Bob see opportunity, and put a hit out on Sue, and it's pulled off successfully.  Now, Joe and Bob are sitting pretty, but neither of them can craft waterskins, daggers, shields, or sandcloth gear.  Add ideas 2 and 4 to this situation, and you have disaster.

Idea 4: Price is determined by Availability.
To implement a true supply vs. demand system, you'd have to take into account inventories across entire economic units (cities), and you'd have to also take into account substitute goods.  Why should the price of obsidian daggers be tripled (because there's only 1 left in the entire city) when every shop has 10 bone daggers available?  Further, some items would become infinitesmally valuable, since PC crafters typically have to craft vast quantities of useless things in order to be able to craft useful things.  Over time, you're looking at shops stocked full of 2 'sid daggers that were sold for 1, simply because the merchant PC couldn't find anywhere else to unload them, and they were taking up too much space.  Additionally, continuing from my criticism of Idea 3, the death of a PC crafter could wreak havoc on the economy.  Joe and Bob can't craft certain things, so suddenly these things are -ridiculously- expensive.  PCs start to murder people to get their hands on waterskins and shields, since nobody in the area can craft them.  PC classes which primarily use "piercing weapons" suddenly have no access to them, and die off in droves as they are forced to fight with weapons they have no coded skill with.

Your ideas might be sound with respect to a truly realistic system, but the game essentially would devolve into Zalantho-capitalism, and crafting  and resource-gathering would become the central focus of the game (as it is in real life...think about it).  We let the economics slide so we, as players, can focus more on the interesting aspects of the game: mortal combat, politics, intrigue, and MUDSEXXX.

The list of unintended consequences related to these ideas could go on for days.  The bottom line is this:  "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Since you didn't list your particular grievances against the current system, there's no way to rebut the bases of your ideas, but my fundamental stance (and I imagine the opinion of the Imms, as well) has to be: "there's nothing so wrong with the current system that it requires drastic overhaul."  It's been said time and time again, but it's worth repeating.

[Nokturn]

The consequences that you describe are in my eyes, awesome and would add a lot to the game in my opinion.

[Jherlen]

You can't base prices, item availabilities, and other economic variables solely on PC involvement. The world is simply too big and the PC population too small to have a working, self-sufficient player economy. Synthesis did a pretty good job of explaining why.

I wouldn't mind seeing some tweaks... removing the 5-item hard cap on how much of anything a shop will buy and instituting a graduated decline in payoffs instead (so the first 5 obsidian swords you sell the shoppie will make you 10 sid each, the next 5 go for 8 sid each, etc.). To balance this, items will slowly disappear from shops if no one buys them, and shops will likewise slowly regain money.

I definitely would NOT want to see a limit on the amount of water in either city - that's why the cities exist, they provide water sources accessible to people with the sid. Besides, saying PCs can go gather more water when the city runs out is both impractical and makes no sense in the greater virtual world.  Tektolnes wouldn't trust the hydration of his city to Amos the hunter.

[Cuusardo]

Just a thought: With the temple of Vivadu and gemmed Vivaduans of Allanak, it's unlikely that the water supply will run out.  Of course, there will always be the people who refuse to drink magicker water.

[Vessol]

Thats why I always picture when no one is in there besides the templar, Vivaduans run in and start gushing in water, they could be called like the water team or something, /shrug.

[Quirk]

We had this discussion before, and not very long ago:
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20974&highlight=

There are a few posts in there explaining exactly why it's a bad idea to link supply and demand to the vagaries of PC roleplay.

[bardbard#4]

What most of you are talking about is retail, not economics.  Economics is infinitely more broad in scope.  It is influenced by inflation, war, politics, weather, geography, and a host of other things.  As it stands, it's not really feasible to have a realistic economy because the game world is too stagnant.  A perfect example of this is the Grey Forest, which should have receded a whole lot due to Tuluki industry.  This would greatly affect the availability, price, and quality of woods coming into Tuluk, and in turn going out through the rest of the world.  But since the forest never shrinks, that part of the economy never changes.

Other things to consider in a realistic economy:
- people can't stay awake for days and days at a time
- it's possible to grow and harvest crops
- innovation and competition are not mitigated by game code and policy
- expansion is required to sustain a growing population (which doesn't really occur, for various reasons -- among which is a too-small playerbase)

So, basically my point is that unless some huge changes come about, we'll never have a realistic economy.  But most people aren't too concerned with the economy so much as they're concerned with retail.

[Gunnerblaster]

We let the economics slide so we, as players, can focus more on the interesting aspects of the game: mortal combat, politics, intrigue, and MUDSEXXX.

Lol...

[Dresan]

We let the economics slide so we, as players, can focus more on the interesting aspects of the game: mortal combat, politics, intrigue, and MUDSEXXX.

Actually that is pretty funny and quoteable.  




Editted 5 mins later: Meh, i changed my mind.  

[Gunnerblaster]

Actually that is pretty funny and quoteable.  

And thus, the quoter has struck again...

-Is horribly straying away from topic so makes clever comment to bring it back on course-

Uh... I don't like the new code?

-waits for the part where oober-amounts of players post just to prove to me how much I'm wrong-

Lol...