Effect of RPTs on Economy

[sarahjc]

Xerin,

I think what you don't see is the fact that the spoils of war are few and far between. HRPT's don't happen all the time and these RPT's that we have been having once a week it seems are uncommon. Not that I don't love them, but normally an HRPT comes around 1-2 times a year.  

Now when I play a poor PC, I burn though sid. Somehow.. I never seem to have enough cash. Which is how  it should be in a harsh desert climate. Most people are lucky to have the clothing on their backs. Then comes an HRPT and what happens.. Free stuff everywhere, but what does that mean?

Honestly if you really want to see the effects of an HRPT, I would follow the NPC wealth as well as PC wealth. I guarantee, it is the NPC's not the PC's that are making out on the deal, and leveling if not crushing the PC economy.

I would bet my bottom dollar that the Salarr NPC merchant made out like a bandit before the fighting.. I know, I went in the store. I don't think I've ever seen him so empty. Only the crappy equipment was left.
Then after all the fighting.. He was loaded to the gills. Now the thing to remember is that he did not purchase that stuff back at the same price he sold it. In fact be probably did very well on that deal. And once he feels his shelves are stocked, he turns you away. So yes people are getting sid after the fighting, but most probably paid out that much if not more.

Now also what are they going to spend the new sid on? Do you think the everyday commoner is going to hord that 500 sid in the bank.. Honestly, If you are the type to loot bodies.. Chances are there is something you want to buy with those funds.

That may be a new kank, a breast plate you have had your eye on, a new helmet, maybe you have a spice addiction.. Whores.. There are lots of things to spend on, and most of that sid goes right back to the NPC's and you are soon starving again.

Then there is the influx of new PC's, and they all have a thousand sid. Well what do you think they are going to spend that on.. NPC's. Again, armor or silks, kanks, water, weapons. Some may even junk the remains of the start up sid if it's not IC for their PC to have that much sid. Again..But who is profiting from the Battle? The NPC merchants.

I think the system is fine the way it is.. I mean will there be a few smart and slightly more weathly PC's after an HRPT, sure.. will the capital last.. doubtful.

Anyway that is just my take on it..

[marko]

My real concern is with the player economy. When players suddenly have access to a huge influx of free resources, a few things happen:

And your concerns have been addressed multiple times.  No one other than you seems to think that your points are valid.

Since you have these concerns I suggest something very simple and I think it will work.  If you are in a position where you can loot a sigifnicant amount - don't.  Keep up your struggle and keep it harsh for you.  

At the same time don't begrudge those that are opportunistic and leap at the chance of a little enriching action.  Now, for fun, here come questions for each of your points (my apologies to any who are tired of this thread).

1. The need to struggle for survival is lowered, and Zalanthas thus becomes less of a "harsh desert world".

I have to ask you that when a PC starts and they have their starting 'sid - does this affect the struggle for survive?  Would you prefer to see PCs start with 0 - 100 'sid so they can begin the struggle from hour 0?

2. The roleplaying value of the HRPT experience is relatively lessened and can become dominated by the rush for "free loot".

Honestly this is exactly what one should expect in where there is a need to struggle for survival.  If you don't think the 'rush' is appropriate you do not feel that the there should be a struggle that warrants the rush.  Please explain how you can desire that there be a constant struggle for survival and when the opportunity for loot presents itself you feel that people shouldn't loot.

3. Players are more likely to twink out rather than behave in a manner consistent with their characters and the environment.

Once again, this is your own opinion.  It is my opinion that people would be coming out of the woodwork after a fight and pouncing on the dead.  Yes, perhaps some PCs did it stupidly (like stealing from a body that people were watching) but get all corpse seems reasonable to me to someone desperate enough to try it.  I would prefer to see an emote about stripping the body - but that's a personal view.

4. The inflationary effect has negative repercussions for PC merchants, since there is now less demand for any goods that have flooded the market.

That doesn't make sense either.  People will immediately go to PC merchants to buy new things because they have coin.  Therefore, this is the exact opposite of the point you are making.  

You do have a good point about the infrequency of HRPTs. Instead of keeping the occurrence of HRPTs low, I would rather see more HRPTs with less loot

I'd rather see HRPTs remain as rare as they are since they are world changing events.  It would get rather boring and 'so what' if HRPTs happened every month.  Keep HRPTs to once every couple of years or, at most, once a year.

Increase the number of RPTs and just random plots.  Smaller and more numerous is better than huge world changing events.

[Realedazed]

All I have to say is, if people want or need something bad enough all they need is time and opportunity.

Let me use a real life example:  There was a show that came on a few years ago.  They placed a nice car on a street. The doors were unlocked and the key was left in the ignition.  They also filled the car with lots of good loot, like a playstation, a TV, etc. A camera was hidden across the street and everything was taped. Piece by piece, items were stolen. Needless to say, by the end of the day everything was gone, including the car. Now, thats in real life.

[Bogre]

I'm not trying to turn this into a huge issue by any means, just raising it in the awareness of the imms for future RPTs

Its not the Imms fault. Its the players fault. ICly, an army is going to be equipped. That means gear. And if the army is destroyed, that means a lot of trash gear. But take a mantis, for example. It has a neat, exotic breastplate, a trash club and a trash dagger. Now, the breastplate might be neat for a souvenir if you wanna tell your grandchilds how you helped defend the city, but the dagger and club? Naw. And even still, the thing has come from a MANTIS!!!! An abomination, I wouldn't really wanna touch anything that came from it, it might be diseased etc etc

The immense amount of loot is fine, it is the player's handling of it that sucks. A lot of the equipment should be burned or something, because it could have Icly been destroyed, etc.

[Black Isis]

I will point out that at least in this case, there's no way in hell that a breastplate made to fit a 7 foot tall insect is going to fit on ANY kind of humanoid creature.  So if people are running around in them, that seems like it should be changed.  Halfgiants are far too bulky for something like that, and even elves, which might be the right size, height, have a totally different body shape and move in totally different ways.  You wouldn't expect to use the same barding for a horse and a war lizard would you?

[Angela Christine]

I wouldn't really wanna touch anything that came from it, it might be diseased etc etc

There is an idea.  Any time you interact with a corpse, except through emotes, you have a 2% chance of getting a disease.

>get corpse
>get <item> corpse
>get all corpse (this might have 10%)
>junk corpse
>drop corpse
>eat corpse
>skin corpse (just 1%, since the corpse should be fresh)
>beep corpse

It wouldn't have to be a fatal disease, just bad enough to make life unpleasant for a few days.  At it's worst the disease might cut your stamina in half, lower your strength to poor or double your thirst rate, all the while sending out embaressing echos about how you are sweating, vomiting, convulsing, coughing, and generally making a spectacle of yourself.  People who are actually desperate would still loot corpses, and most people would risk it to get that silver ring or steel codpiece, but fewer comfortably off characters would risk looting with impunity.  A noble's guard doesn't want an embarassing rash or deep wracking cough making him look bad.

Diseases are cool.


AC

[Agent_137]

Diseases are cool.

I LOVE that idea! I'm sure it's a bitch to code though.

What code does dikumud use? If possible, use layman's terms. I've never coded anything but a spot of html here and there.

[Gilvar]

Diku-mud is a base written in C. Its IS code, from which the major derivitives (merc, circle, Rom) are built off of.

[Gesht]

Xerin,

- - I feel, based on what you're saying, that you have overlooked something.  I don't believe you're ignoring people, so much as there is a failure to communicate.  I'm going to try to structure what I have been trying to get across a little more rigidly.  First, let me repeat your points...

1. The need to struggle for survival is lowered, and Zalanthas thus becomes less of a "harsh desert world".

2. The roleplaying value of the HRPT experience is relatively lessened and can become dominated by the rush for "free loot".

3. Players are more likely to twink out rather than behave in a manner consistent with their characters and the environment.

4. The inflationary effect has negative repercussions for PC merchants, since there is now less demand for any goods that have flooded the market.

- - Zalanthas is a harsh, desert world, in which supplies are in short supply.  As I said, when wars of this nature happen, the people with a wealth of resources channel it all into one place.  People die, making these resources available.  Now, many people who have been suffering a shortage of resources see a sprawl of resource-wielding corpses.

- - To be honest, I think there should be almost immediate looting, up until the fear of being cut down sets in.  Impoverished, starving people see wealth.  Why shouldn't necessity and/or greed drive them to loot?  As for people fighting, if you're fighting someone, you can't very well turn around and attack me for looting without leaving your back open to attack.

- - Yes, there was some twinking, but those same people would be twinking at ANY opportunity.  We don't punish the many for the crimes of the few, we just smote the few very, very hard.

- - Lastly, the economy.  You're poor.  You now have money.  Where does it go?  Right back where it came from.  Some of the money goes back into the city, which now needs to spend that money training a replacement for your loot's former owner.  The same goes for the clans.  Indirectly, money winds up back where it came from, where it is now needed once more.

- - Yes, now you're better off.  However, you're not any better off than if you murdered someone and sold their gear.  Therefor, I don't see HRPT loot as a problem.

Gesht, I hear what you're saying. The main point I am making, which you have not addressed, is that the influx is coming from OUTSIDE the player economy. If it were the case of other pcs dying and being looted, I would be all for it. Then it would be a simple matter of wealth changing hands.

But that is not what is happening. The problem is that hundreds of NPCs and monsters are dying, thus introducing wealth to the game that otherwise would not have been available.

[jhunter]

And as someone has already pointed out to you Xerin, if you take the time to read it....that influx goes back out into the npc and vnpc community eventually.

If you go back and read, I already acknowledged Angela's point in that regard. However, if you think that is accomplished by the character buying goods from NPCs, you're completely missing the point. That is nothing but an exchange of goods, and the flooding stays in the PC economy. The only thing that actually addresses the problem is permanent death and the loss of possessions. But until that happens, the economy stays flooded and the damage is done.

[Gesht]

- - Ah, I didn't explicitly address that, but I alluded to it earlier.  Much of this sudden influx of stuff comes into the economy from the virtual economy.  Most of it goes back into the virtual economy.  The virtual economy is where the water you drink comes from, the uncraftable goods in the stores, etc.  While these things are coming into existence, they're also going right back out of existence.  All you have is a momentary increase in money/goods which goes back to the virtual world from whence it came.

- - There's not a lot of difference between this and if your rich noble character dies in the desert, causing goods from the real economy wink out of existence.  Remember, players are merely fleshed out versions of the entire virtual world.  A little more of the wealth comes to the forefront.  Then it returns to the virtual side of the game.

[jhunter]

Your looking for weapons of mass-destruction where there aren't any, :lol:  get over it. It's not as big of a deal as you believe to be.
I would think that if there was as much of a problem as you seem to think, that you would have alot more support in this.

Gesht, see my post immediately preceding yours. Simply exchanging resources with the virtual economy doesn't fix the problem. The inflation stays in the pc economy, whether the assets are liquid or tangible.

When you die in the desert, your wealth disappears. That is a real fix, but unfortunately until that happens the inflation stays on the pc side.

[Delirium]

Those PCs will eventually die, or spend the 'sid, or heck, spend it on other PCs.. or maybe even hoard it. Ultimately though, I don't see how it truly matters all that much. It's a brief influx of cash that is hardly a dependable or steady amount, and will flush back out of the economy as it changes hands and/or the characters who did the looting bite the dust one by one.

HRPTs like this are a once-in-a-lifetime thing for the vast majority of PCs, as it is.. so I don't see it as a big problem. I'm more worried, as I stated before, about PCs treating their looting realistically than I am about the looting itself.

Simply walking into a room and doing 'get all corpse' bugs the kajeebus out of me. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing the 'get all' command disabled for corpses, since there's no way you could strip one that fast.

[Gesht]

- - Why does it matter where these goods came from?  This wealth always existed in the economy.  It's just that players suddenly have a chance to steal some of it.  You are expected to treat NPCs and VNPCs in the same manner you would treat PCs.  Why should it matter what you are looting?  NPCs kill and loot all the time, and none of their loot is saved.  Stuff vanishes out of the player economy all the time.  Just because these things did not exist in a form available to you doesn't mean you should see it as a massive flux.

The wealth didn't always exist in the economy. That's the whole point. It was manually created for the HRPT. It's not like Armageddon uses a closed economic model, where only so many zombie swords can exist in the game at one time. The fact is that without the HRPT, none of that equipment would have been accessible in the game. It is a mass introduction of resources into the system.

[amoeba]

Angela Christine wrote:

Diseases are cool.

Agent_137 wrote:

I LOVE that idea! I'm sure it's a bitch to code though

I've seen it done on another MUD.  The other one was LP based though.

They actually had quite a system of diseases.  Syphilis if you frequented prostitutes,  a chance of catching a cold if you were sneezed on, occasional epidemics of black plague. Oh and yes my favorite, lice.  Basicially there was a coder who was working on his phd in microbiology or some such and he played/coded while he was in the lab waiting on an experiment to run its course.  Most of this was done through simple emotes, but seeing "you feel a small bite on the
nape of your neck, and have a strong desire to scratch" got really irritating  after a point. specially since it would only lessen if you scratched and would only go away if you found a cure.  Some of the other diseases. were a bit more of a problem because you could  conciveably die from them.   My *personal* experience was that when it was novel it was cool, but after that you really avoided the sick people, because it was a friggin pain.

[Anonymous]

Gesht, see my post immediately preceding yours. Simply exchanging resources with the virtual economy doesn't fix the problem. The inflation stays in the pc economy, whether the assets are liquid or tangible.

First off, this isn't the behaviour I saw with the last HRPT or the one before that.  PCs die and leave their bank accounts behind.

Secondly, the amount of money from loot doesn't add up to anything that causes a major shift in the PC economy.

Thirdly, the Imms have made several changes over the last year or two to put the clamps down on the economy to prevent people from going wild.  Things like changing object prices, reducing NPC merchant on-hand sid amounts, increasing the amount of water a PC needs, water taxes, etc, etc.

Armageddon just doesn't have a real working economic model because the vast majority of transactions are between PC and NPC.  When a PC dies or gets rich the effect on the economy is nearly non-existant.

Lastly, with Armageddon's economy, such as it is, there is no way to turn obsidian into more obsidian except through crafting.  There are no shares to buy, no Allanaki bonds, no bank accounts with 6% interest.  Loaning out money is a lost cause due to the high volume of PC death.  And a crafter who can make sid off of their craft is going to end up with a decent obsidian flow regardless of HRPTs.

A thousand sid, which is about what I'd expect your average prolific looter to come by, does not equal financial freedom.

[Gesht]

The wealth didn't always exist in the economy.

- - It always existed.  It was just virtual.  Now it's real.  It will go back to being virtual.

- - This is no different from foraging for stones.  Your foraging causes a stone object to come into existence.  That stone will eventually vanish.  If you had never foraged, it would never have gone from being virtual to being real.

- - The same is true for the HRPT.  Soldiers and monsters which previously existed virtually became available for players to fight with, fight against, and/or loot.  They were always there, it's just now you could interact with them.  Please try to keep in mind that most of the game only exists virtually, but you are expected to RP it being there.

- - The Gaj, on average, has a couple hundred people in it. There are only six NPCs.  You are still expected to act as if there are more than six people there.  Streets are flooded with people.  There are no NPCs in the room.  You are still expected to have your character act as if the room has lots of people moving through it.

- - The same goes for the loot.  It was always there.  Now you can steal it.

From an economic (not roleplaying) perspective, it only exists if it is accessible. Foraging for stones is drawing on a readily accessible resource. The flood of equipment through the HRPT was NOT accessible otherwise. To say that it existed theoretically on zombies that could have been found and killed is meaningless, because no character would have been able to do that without the HRPT. Therefore, from an economic perspective, the wealth introduced through the HRPT did not exist. It's simple economics.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get into an academic debate. I've made my point, and whether you imms consider it worthy or not is your call

[Gesht]

- - From the economic perspective you described, those stones never existed until you told the code to make them exist.  Similarly, the HRPT NPCs did not exist until we told them to exist.  There is no difference.  However, Armageddon is a role playing game, not an economics simulator.  As such, what you are role playing matters, not whether or not virtual-to-interactive economics are comparable to economic theories applied to a real world.

Again...the point is that the player had the ability to "tell the code to make the stones exist". The stones were ACCESSIBLE.

The player did not have the ability to "tell the code to make the sword-bearing zombies exist". The swords on the zombies were NOT ACCESSIBLE.

By introducing the swords to the economy through the HRPT, you therefore caused an inflationary effect that would not have existed otherwise.

Of course Armageddon is a roleplaying game. If you're not concerned about the economy, why not just give every player a million sid at creation and be done with it? In reality, a viable player economy actually makes the roleplaying experience richer.

[Gilvar]

* HRPTs is one of the fluke things that allows for a windfall on the player. Same as stumbling across the body of the wealthy-merchant (etc.) This actually has many IC foundations as well. Like one of Tor's major past/virtual income sources is LOOT from campaigns. That is basically the same here. If Tor led an invasion of the Mantis Stronghold they'd probably expect some nice loot to pad their coffers.

* The one valid thing that has been brought up is inflation. Yes if suddenly there are 1000 mantis limbs in the city the value will plummet. But there are also a few wildcard things here. Will mantis-limbs always be rare? Yes probably, thus keeping the value up. Since supply is limited and will probably be demanded in the future, this may actual make the cost of loot go up. However things like simple bone breastplates probably wouldn't. And I think this is represented by the limit of 5 on a shopkeeper, they realize they won't sell anymore for now.

* Thirdly the world is magickal. There are a good many things you will not understand and will hopefully make your brain hurt. There could very well be a magicker who is quite capable of making matter from nothing and arming them on zombies. Or who has a coffer of stolen swords and weaponry from past large engagements like the conquering of Luir's or any of a number of virtual towns and things that may or may not exist.

* When you die in the desert your wealth does not disappear. It could possibly be covered, scavenged by virtual rangers, warriors, etc. It will recirculate, or not, its not a big issue.

* Lasly, please do not use your closed vision as a reason to justify your distorted logic. Just because YOU say the zombies and their swords did not exist somewhere and were not pulled from there to the HRPT does not make it so. The known world is not the entire universe, there could likely be a bone-sword factory in the Upper Eastside of Watertown which is 800 miles northwest of the Tablelands.