[coranthium]

At my mud, Aethar.com, me and some of the other big immortals have discussed how to create an economy without completely wiping all the gold, etc. that everyone has right now and starting over. Right now gold is worth next to nothing because it is so plentiful. We have a "market" system where people can buy properties that will produce daily incomes in the millions.

Now we're trying to make our world into more than just a hack n' slash mud, and we feel that one way to do this would be to add more to the economy.

While we could destroy all the gold that everyone already has, I was wondering if any of you had some better ideas on how to do this.

Also, what sorts of things make a good economy? Maybe skills(blacksmithing, runemaking, etc.) that cost a lot to do? Something else? We have some talented coders on our mud, but we need some ideas of what to ask them to do. Post if you have some ideas please.

[Drealoth]

The important thing to keep in mind is that the only reason that money has any value is because people think that it has value. In the real world, a $20 bill is just a worthless piece of paper with a number written on it. The only reason people carry them around is that other people think that they have value - you can give that worthless piece of paper with a 20 written on it to someone at a store and get food or clothes or whatever - items with actual value. This means that an economy is essentially a religion, and for any religion to succeed, it requires the faith of its followers. Right now it sounds like your economy suffers from this lack of faith.

The first thing that I think you'll want to do is figure out not only how much money is out there, but how much money is moving around on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. If I have a million dollars but I just keep it in a suitcase under my bed, it doesn't effect the economy at all. Like I said, it's just worthless pieces of paper. After this, you can figure out how to appropriately reduce it. Some stuff that you might want to consider: Dynamic prices for objects in limited quantities at higher levels could work to eat away at the biggest piles of cash. You might also want to simply change the currency. 10,000 yen is worth roughly $82US - just lowering the numbers could have a big effect psychologically.

One thing to really keep in mind is the distribution of money through the levels (assuming your game has levels). If you want to get rid of money by making it so that low level characters can't afford potions, you'll drive people away from the game. And above all, remember that it's going to have to be a gradual thing if you don't want to upset the players.

[Lanthum]

I'm not sure I agree with the (hopefully over-simplified) statement of the actual bills being worthless - unless the people have faith in them. While faith plays a huge part in the balance and power a specific currency has, there are other factors involved.

And one I have seen all to often in most games, is that people do not need money - because they don't need the goods and services the money CAN buy. Let's face it, especially in hack 'n slash games, most characters can do most things. Most characters end up being able to use a weapon well, cast some spells, transport themselves all over, find food (or sometimes don't need any at all), heal themselves without medicine or can find a cure anywhere, etc. etc.

Realistically, if you or I could live our lives without money like our characters: make our own food without needing to buy ingredients, defend ourselves effectively, didn't need property to build a home and could just sleep where ever, be cured of most or all aliments by sleeping one "night", transport our selves with a word, etc. we wouldn't need money either.

I think to create a basic, effective economy in a game, you must have:
- an environment where every character requires some amount of goods and services that they cannot produce for themselves and must purchase
- a limited amount of currency. IE: money can't just be made all the time for no apparent reason. Players need to spend the currency they get to have currency lieing around to find
- NPC's must also be required to "spend" money

There are many ways to implement these factors, but I agree with Drealoth, you will need to do it gradually because your game is already up and running. And inform the players what will be happening ahead of time, so they know what will be required of them.

And I also agree that you will need to consider the newbies in any changes you make. After all, they will need to survive and be able to thrive just like the older players.

[shadowfyr]

In my experience, the newbies are the ones **least** likely to complain. They don't know any better. The older players act like you killed their favorite puppy and stapled the hide to their front door, sometimes. Its one reason why developing such a system "first" then opening with it already there is bound to be easier than implimenting it after the fact.

[Drealoth]

Whatever you do, DON'T just take everyone's gold away and start again. Sure, it'd be easier, but it'll drive away a ton of your regular players.

Just have a plan, and make it known to the player base what you're trying to do. Be sure to get their input too, as chances are the higher level players have a much stronger grasp on the economy of your game than anyone.

[Gromble]

You need to get a handle on your gold taps (where's it coming from and in what volume), and then work out your gold sinks (where it goes and in what volume).

In a typical hack-n-slash, the gold comes primarily from mobiles. There may be incidental gold from quest rewards as well.

There's an array of things to spend the gold on, but I think something that's constant like armor/weapon repair and spell reagents are the right way to - as long as it's not extreme (i.e., don't destroy an item due to lack of repair, but make it less effective, or don't make spells impossible without the reagents but rather make them more powerful with reagent boosters).

The one time prestige expenditures like a room or customized equipment are ok, but eventually everyone gets these and they're no longer prestigous.

[shadowfyr]

Hmm. Been playing EQ2 and I find it ironic that one major similarity is the need to do this sort of thing. The interesting bit their though is that "housing" isn't just "getting a room". What you can store in the room, how much you can sell other players, etc. are dependent on how much you spend to get the initial room *and* how much upkeep you spend. Most muds find food "annoying". The reason being obviously that in muds you have to stop to go "eat crackers" or some stupid thing ever X hours. The 3D games solve this by having auto-eat, which may be less efficient than doing it yourself (which is also an option), but you can carry quite a bit with you, enough for probably 20 hours of RL play time, more if you have it in your inventory, but not assigned for use yet. Equipment won't be destroyed, but it *does* break and get less effective over time (though in EQ2 this only happen *if* you die to something). Then there is some cost to crafting items. That used to be higher, but changes made at some point along the line removed a step. Used to be, if you wanted to make a shield, you might need to make a frame, a strap, some bolts, etc, *then* combine them to make a shield. This meant costs to make the initial items, then more cost to make the final one, not including the time it took to successfully produce those items.

In any case, some things work, some don't. The mud I play at tried for a while to institute a "tax" on money you made, which just left everyone poor if they didn't go out and fight stuff constantly. Given that a fair amount of the player based doesn't do much but sit around idle and chat with each other occationally (even PCs get slow and doddering in their old age I guess... lol), that seriously annoyed some of them.

[DonathinFrye]

Here is an age-old problem for MUD design. First, ask yourself this; How bad is your inflation? If inflation has gotten to the point where money no longer means anything - where quest items(if you have these) no longer mean anything - where useful tools have no value... then a wipe may not be a bad idea if you want to completely redesign your economy.

Not a player-file wipe. Not only a gold wipe. I'd suggest wiping every single quest item, anything that must be bought. Then, simultaneously (which means design the new system completely, before the wipe), introduce the new system...

And set everyone equally, with enough money that they can re-buy needed items. Let the players know that this was done because hoarding and inflation had caused the game's economy to stagnate and become meaningless. To do this, you absolutely have to remove any sort of "bought item", and do it without warning to the players (otherwise, they will find things to hoard in an effort to "get rich quick" after the wipe). If the old, rich players are so petty that they cannot abide a change that is better for the MUD as a whole, then let them quit.

More than likely, they'll be back once they cool down and realize that there's more to a game than hoarding worthless gold and equipment.

As far as how to design your new system itself? Tough question. Design it carefully. Do not allow your staff to pass out rewards of things that are buyable. Do not allow your staff to pass out money rewards. Rewards, in my opinion, should be unique. This makes the reward more special, and helps to keep inflation down. Then, consider a world where monsters/etc do not drop gold. And that items that they drop easily are not able to be sold to mob shops. Encourage an open-market and auction system. Create an auction system on your forums (not just within the game itself). Put a cap on howmuch money one character can hold. Punish multi-playing severely. If the open-market system shows signs of inflation, consider creating some sort of staff-run rp-gang, that occaisonally breaks into local banks. Create a thief guild. Tweak things as you go, but try to stay on top of inflation. It is very much about not showing favor to individual players, and to not fearing taking strong measures to counter the inflation problems that almost all online games experience. It IS do-able. It just requires work.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Haven't had caffeine yet today, and my thoughts are usually far more coherent when I have. Hope this helps.