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Detah · 08-25-2007, 10:56 PM

Supply and demand will determine prices in your mud. I dont think you can ignore that or deny that. But you have a great deal of control over those things. You have a great deal of control, even in a world where players do lots of crafting.

Underlying the supply curve is the scarcity/abundance and cost of the inputs (of the crafted good) plus the difficulty of the crafting itself. You control all three of those things. Underlying demand is the players' preferences for particular items. You control the amount of value that each of these items have, in that, you determine what a standard leather torso armor provides for ac. Of course players in some systems, players can add temporary or even permanent enchantments on normal items, eg. placing an infravision spell on an ordinary iron longsword. You control the number of enchants, the power of the enchants and the cost of the enchants, so you control this aspect of demand also.

If you want a more 'real' economy, then you should make each shop's pricing independent of the others. If player's want to spend their time traveling across the ocean or across the continent to engage in arbitrage, let them. That will actually end up equalizing the prices across shops. ...which can have inherant benefits.

As for the newbie items, you will find that if you write the correct supply/pricing equation for your shop, then the items which are of low value, will have a low price. Think about it for a minute. The most basic dagger with the lowest hitroll/damroll in the game. It may take 2 ores of iron to craft it and a low craft skill. Lets say you sets its initial SetValue to 50 gp. So the very first one sold to the shop will sell for 25-50 gp (however you decide to do the sell rate). Then the second will sell for about 75% the value of that, the next will sell for 50% of the original value, and so on, until eventually, they are selling for 5 gp each at the local shop. Now as a player, are you going to continue to go mine the ore and invest the crafting time to earn 5 gp? I doubt it. So the price will remain there. I see no problem with gp inflation for low level eq or any other equipment.

The trick in all of this of course is to correctly balance the availability of the inputs, the difficulty and time-consumption of your crafting skill, and the amount of power you give each item. If you allow players to get the ubersword of doom from Morganna the Witch with great ease, and they can sell that ubersword for 20,000 gp, then you clearly will have balance issues with shops, inflation, crafting and other things. You can tweak these as you see player behavior gravitate towards one set of items. If invis cloaks become popular, make sure that the invisible stalker hide is a rare find on corpses, or that invisible stalkers are a super rare encounter etc. I see it as just one balancing issue among many. Supply and demand are your friends, not some arbitrary thing that HLPs can influence at a whim.

-Detah@Arcania

08-25-2007, 10:56 PM	#13
Detah New Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 14	Re: Supply and Demand Supply and demand will determine prices in your mud. I dont think you can ignore that or deny that. But you have a great deal of control over those things. You have a great deal of control, even in a world where players do lots of crafting. Underlying the supply curve is the scarcity/abundance and cost of the inputs (of the crafted good) plus the difficulty of the crafting itself. You control all three of those things. Underlying demand is the players' preferences for particular items. You control the amount of value that each of these items have, in that, you determine what a standard leather torso armor provides for ac. Of course players in some systems, players can add temporary or even permanent enchantments on normal items, eg. placing an infravision spell on an ordinary iron longsword. You control the number of enchants, the power of the enchants and the cost of the enchants, so you control this aspect of demand also. If you want a more 'real' economy, then you should make each shop's pricing independent of the others. If player's want to spend their time traveling across the ocean or across the continent to engage in arbitrage, let them. That will actually end up equalizing the prices across shops. ...which can have inherant benefits. As for the newbie items, you will find that if you write the correct supply/pricing equation for your shop, then the items which are of low value, will have a low price. Think about it for a minute. The most basic dagger with the lowest hitroll/damroll in the game. It may take 2 ores of iron to craft it and a low craft skill. Lets say you sets its initial SetValue to 50 gp. So the very first one sold to the shop will sell for 25-50 gp (however you decide to do the sell rate). Then the second will sell for about 75% the value of that, the next will sell for 50% of the original value, and so on, until eventually, they are selling for 5 gp each at the local shop. Now as a player, are you going to continue to go mine the ore and invest the crafting time to earn 5 gp? I doubt it. So the price will remain there. I see no problem with gp inflation for low level eq or any other equipment. The trick in all of this of course is to correctly balance the availability of the inputs, the difficulty and time-consumption of your crafting skill, and the amount of power you give each item. If you allow players to get the ubersword of doom from Morganna the Witch with great ease, and they can sell that ubersword for 20,000 gp, then you clearly will have balance issues with shops, inflation, crafting and other things. You can tweak these as you see player behavior gravitate towards one set of items. If invis cloaks become popular, make sure that the invisible stalker hide is a rare find on corpses, or that invisible stalkers are a super rare encounter etc. I see it as just one balancing issue among many. Supply and demand are your friends, not some arbitrary thing that HLPs can influence at a whim. -Detah@Arcania