[MUD-Dev] DGN: MMOG Game Economies

Vincent Archer archer at frmug.org
Sat Nov 12 21:56:46 CET 2005


According to William Leader:

> Some examples of how things are different:

...

>  - Mints - Mints produce currency of all forms, but I would be
>  willing to bet that there is no MMO that has the equivalent of a
>  Mint. Instead currency is created all over the place by monster
>  drops, quest rewards, merchants.

See A Tale in the Desert.

Players had mints there. Anyone could mint coinage. Getting it
accepted was a bit harder, of course, specially given that no player
could force others - they had to convince them. The two most
succesful coinage during ATITD1 were, I think, the TN (backed by a
representative basket of goods) and the whatever that was backed by
crystals (a limited ressource).

The TN was even copied locally in an area (the 7 lakes).

>  - Government - The governments often interfere with the economy
>  when appropriate. MMO's rarely have governments aside from the
>  Developer Dictator who probably has better things to do with
>  their Time. This one wipes out a huge chunk of real world
>  economics.

See the same.

>  - Smart Merchants - Most NPC merchants do not adjust their prices
>  to reflect supply and demand. It doesn't matter how many rat
>  tails you sell to a merchant the price all ways stays the
>  same. Even if the merchant has 10,000 rat tails in his inventory
>  the price never goes down.

Ultima Online, I think, had that one. If you sold too much of a
thing to a given NPC, his prices would drop.

Among the differences, you forgot one.

The amount of people that commit suicide (cancel accounts) is
staggering, and there's no inheritance for the departed.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)
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