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Right, right, sorry. I had forgotten that you were talking about RPI MUDs by the time I responded. My fault.
Actually, it was meant as a remark towards MUDs in general, and also to make you ask yourself, "What am I really going for here? What defines 'viable?' What defines 'realistic?'"
I mean, any economy is viable. Some people are always going to be dissatisfied with it, but any economy 'works' on some level or another.
My take on it is that nobody has ever managed it so far, and the harder they've tried, the more spectacularly bad the results (see UO's original economy). Nobody actually understands how real economies fundamentally work, so trying to emulate one at any level of detail is going to be a futile exercise. As Raph Koster (designer of UO, and SW:G) likes to say (paraphrased), "The appearance of a semblance of reality is good enough." (upon explaining the lessons he learned from trying to simulate a "realistic" economy, with the backing of economist consultants, lots of money, etc).
--matt
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