Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy (REALLY)

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 05:41:45 +0000

In article <1992Jun19.175855.4664@riacs.edu> nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH) writes:

>It's funny that this huge discussion about free market economy should
>pop up now, since that is exactly what I was working on with Rich before
>I left.

Well, I've proposed a full-blown supply/demand model a while back ;-)
However, it didn't contain much in the way of fancy stuff for players
to interact with players.

> The simplest would be to
>buy/sell a single type of item and would work something like this:
>
>	<buy/sell> <item> <quantity> <min> <max> <days>

This is fine, but I should point out that applying trade skill to
player/player interactions probably isn't going to work that well. If
I am Joe Hayseed and I know there are guys out there with great trade
skill, I'm just going to set min = max, which will probably prevent
any trade skill from screwing me. It's like having an Intelligence stat
in a role-playing game: you can use it to determine how many spells
you learn, but how many GM's roll against it when a player is trying
to solve a puzzle? *rolls dice* OK, Wumpus, who has an IQ of 160,
suddenly realizes that the clue given to you by the swineheard 16 days
ago applies to this situation, and that the jewel is self-evidently
hidden inside the latrine. Too bad the real-world Wumpus has been
drinking and so is too stupid to figure it out, but here, I'll give it
to you...

>This is for when you want to sell mupltiple items, and buy others...
>
>market <days>
>  <buy/sell> <item> <quantity> <min> <max>
>  <buy/sell> <item> <quantity> <min> <max>
>     :
>     :
>  <buy/sell> <item> <quantity> <min> <max>
>done

This is great; almost all games I've played in allow this, and you
really can't be a merchant without it. It's kind of a shortcut that
allows one player to trade with many other without having to
explicitly set up each deal with email, etc.

I have suggested a supply/demand model to Rich for NPC production and
consumption. It is very simple and I hope he likes it and adopts it.
Which reminds me, I promised to hand him a final draft a month ago. :-)
Anyway, the basic points are:

1) NPC's produce more when the price is high, less when low
  2) NPC's consume more when the price is low, less when high
  3) The price is set by the market inventory
  4) If prices peg on the high or low end, NPC traders appear to fill
     the demand or get rid of the surplus.

For each item, Rich selects the local consumption or production,
depending on how he wants trade to flow. I.e. local weaponsmiths would
like to produce 20 longswords per month. This might double or halve
depending on the current inventory. Prices are expressed like this
(kind of following a Merchants of Venus-style scheme)

this month, you can buy 10 longswords @ 20 gold, and then 20 more
      for 25 gold

At the last day of each month, the market looks at its inventory and
sets the prices for the next month. The early bird (market day is day
1, you know) gets the best deal (i.e. it's the first 10 swords
purchased by anyone during the month that are at the better price; the
remaining swords are priced higher for everyone.) So if you sell or
buy too much, the price will get worse on you. If no players are
around to buy or sell, the prices will end up pegged on the high or
low end of the price scale, depending on whether or not the local
region produces or consumes that item. Or if it does both, the price
will end up somewhere in the middle in equilibrium.

The nice thing about this system is that it has a supply & demand
feel, and all items are limited. A rich trader will have to deal with
more and more markets to get bigger and bigger, and it will pay to
have a monopoly on routes between given markets -- a reason to
eliminate the competition. (See, Dr. Pain, here's how you fit in!) And
a niche exists for players to provide large numbers of items in
special orders, i.e. if you want 200 longswords to equip your army
unit and the local weaponsmiths only produce 20 per month, either
you're going to have to pay through the nose to get them to increase
production or you can find a player weaponsmith and make a special deal.

Finally, recruitment and work can be also handled under this scheme.

The only big change that is required, I think, is that since the 1st
day of the month is a magic day to get the best deal, buying or
selling in the market has to take 1 day per transaction in order for
Rich's randomizer to make the order of execution random instead of in
player number order. I think this is more realistic anyway.

-- greg, not Oleg, who doesn't know shit about economics

References

Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
rsocia@renaissance.cray.com (Rick Socia)
Wed, 17 Jun 1992 23:43:16 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
James.Cone@comp.vuw.ac.nz (James Cone)
Thu, 18 Jun 1992 03:14:56 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH)
Fri, 19 Jun 1992 17:58:55 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
rsocia@renaissance.cray.com (Rick Socia)
Wed, 17 Jun 1992 23:43:16 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
James.Cone@comp.vuw.ac.nz (James Cone)
Thu, 18 Jun 1992 03:14:56 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
nicholso@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Melvin H. Nicholson YBH)
Fri, 19 Jun 1992 17:58:55 +0000