[Dawnrunner]

Well it depends I think as you said on the games. But you can expand that to genre if you really want. I really like your mindset and what you said on so many levels (Rare to find that since I'm a bitter human being who hates all existance)

Max money pools are tough, upper end stuff is tough, there are just so many difficulties to overcome. Not undoable by any means it would just require intentional thought and planning to make an economy work on a game. But that's the problem -- Game designers don't want an economy that works. They want an economy that occupies players and satiates them. If you have an economy that works, there's going to be dips. I designed an econ once and let it run at an accelerated pace for about 2 days (simulating 2 years in normal game time) and it was interesting to see how it actually without player input had normal ups and downs. I was so proud.

Players don't want downs. Players want always ups. Coming from a more RP background it is even more frustrating because challenges develop characters. In a MUD hack n' slash challenges are just time sinks.

The true question becomes how do you make an Economy system in a MU fun. In the end it's about fun. Not fun because it's easy but fun because you have a sense of accomplishment. While one shotting the Big Bad boss may be funny or entertaining, are you going to go back to continue one shotting him? Is there a reward at the end? If not, then the boat has been missed -- And in the end that's the biggest flaw of MU's attempting any sort of economics. They don't keep the fun in mind.

Fun is different for people which ties to your last thought. How do you find the commonalities? Well they are out there. Most economic game design comes down to varying 'tiers'. What most games I've found deals with simple M1 tiers, or Money (cash currency) tiers. Finding a balance there is tough enough. Going beyond that requires true innovation. Allowing players to choose their level of involvement in the Economy is part of the challenge to. Some players only want to collect gold from killing and spend it on item A. Some may, just may, want to sell item A, use gold to develop item B and expand their market. Some may want to take gold they collect from sources to buy the merchant of Item A and B and form a guild etc, etc. What spot do you stop the expansion is the challenge.

Something to always consider though, Medival Economies are not simple. Those who think they are really needed to wake up. Agrarian Economics is as complicated as Globalization, just a different level of difficulty.