[MUD-Dev] Dgn: Currency free game

[Kirinyaga]

Tony Hoyt [mailto:gmtonyhoyt at yahoo.com] wrote:

> Yet, if the game does not have a built in currency, I tend to
> think the initial player base will find itself in a period of
> confusion where players try to figure the cost value of goods and
> eventually generate a currency system that is typically considered
> sufficient with expectations that all players after that point
> that join the game will soon adopt.  So that initial development
> phase of the player base is interesting, but short lived and
> usually never repeats itself again.

An initial currency may be available, but only useable by
newbie. For example, by associating both an heavy weight and a low
value to the coins, they soon become useless when you increase your
level, and a replacement currency has to be found.

An interesting development that I see is player-created paper-money,
backed by guilds. This require very few conditions : *the
possibility for a guild to create a new tradeskill recipe, leading
to a weightless item with a unique name of their choice.  *the
crafters in this guild can use that recipe (it's up to the guild to
choose who to give the recipe to) to produce "banknotes" and sell
them.  *the guild can now assign a price to this item. Any NPC
vendors (or only those from a faction the guild has good
relationship with) will now accept to buy this item from
players. Vendors will immediately destroy the item and draw the
transaction amount from the guild leader account (or a special guild
account). The moment this account is empty, NPC vendors stop
accepting the banknote.  *This allow players to transform the
banknotes in useable money every time they need to buy something
from NPCs. Optionally, it's up to the guild members to buy back the
"banknotes".

Now, the currency value depends of the guild reputation. The
currency can drop to no value if the guild is dissolved or known to
emit banknotes without having the money to back it up. Any guild may
also use it as a mean to temporarily get money, the return price
depending of the guild reputation, and who they sell the items to. A
money change market can appear, specially if no guild can cover the
whole world and can only be tied to a few vendors factions. A rival
guild can try to gather a lot of banknotes and massively sell them
to an NPC to force the guild to immobilize money in order to keep
the banknotes liquid.  The guild can also choose what they use to
back the money. They could use rare components used in a recipe to
make an item with no value for players but that can be sold back to
vendors for a high price.

You can also imagine to give to these guilds some advantages linked
to the amount of money in the guild account, or to give a magic
bonus for fire-based spells to every guild members, according of the
number of "fire agates" they have in this guild account (wich they
will buy with the accumulated money, the more they used the more
they risk bankruptcy when vendors buy banknotes back), ...
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