[Anzal]
The economy of the disc today is divided in two. We have a super inflation
in the money economy and a sort of deflation in the xp economy (the higher
level you get, the lower the xp for killing things).
It looks like that one of the main motivation factors is the title, and it
can only be changed through earning xp. Therefore (almost) everybody are
ultra rich and kill on sight quite randomly, cause there is nothing to
use the money for and you have to kill everything that moves to get xp.
Another, quite touchy subject, is reimbursing lost quest stuff. Most players
have many quest weapons, if reimbursing is removed from the game, the players
are forced to sell weapons to eachother, maybe to astronomical prices.
I know it is unfair to the people losing stuff when logging in, and there is
no way that i know about that can separate ie. the robbed corpse cases from
those who have had an unpleasant meeting with the nasty item eater bug.
Same is true for things lost in a room because of reset and the player on his
way to get raised, in a real world things dont disapear in such ways. So
this might be a thing that shouldnt be changed anyway.
To change this situation i have the following ideas:
Houses
Sell houses to players for a lot of platinums and subtract a high rent
from their bank account ie. every 4 playing hours. Houses should be
locked to other players, like the player rooms in the UU and contain
a chest like that one in the heroes guild so the players can collect
items for their homes. Maybe we then would see that they started
collecting things, filling their treasure chests with souvernirs from
their life at Discworld. Ideally the rooms should save what's in the
inventory of it at reset, but i have been told that this isnt easy to
do with rooms, so till someone sorts this out the chest is better than
nothing. Players should also be able to buy furniture, wich some
creator codes into the room with add_item or as a object that is loaded.
For poorer players a hotel should be built, you dont buy the
house/flat but rent a room for some time. Should have a chest.
And some inn that rents out rooms in the shades for though players
that think its more in sync with their image to live down there.
Should be cheapest of all and not have a chest, cause the other
inhabitants of the shades steals everything anyway.
Title
Add the economical situation of the player to the who printing, then
it wont be fun that everybody knows you are poor, titles might be
Rich/Poor/Wealthy/Super Rich/Ultra Rich/... probably better titles than
this.
Zones for items
If every item had a zone, it would be possible to make an item sold
in ankh be sold expensive in ie. the rams or klatch, cheaper the
nearer the home of the item it is. This might also be possible to do
with coordinates, setting the coordinates of the first room the item
is found/sold/whatever in as a property of the item.
The effect of this is that it makes imports/exports to/from
different areas profitable.
Mules
Animals that help players by carrying things when walking with a
caravan in hope to earn some bucks on imports/exports. The cabbages
can be used in this way today, but you have to make new ones all the
time, the only way to get your stuff back is to eat the poor thing.
So the mules must react to 'get X from mule' and 'put X in mule'.
A caravan could be one leader that owns the mules, some other players
to protect from attacks from bandits (guess the thieves will hide and
wait for valuable caravans, probably fighters and the rest too :) ).
The other players would then get paid by the leader when the caravan
arrives and the owner sells the items/animals. Normal mercenaries
could also follow a caravan.
Domestic Animals
Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens... Should be sold and bought on markets
after haggling over the price, good hagglers should be able to earn
money from this. You shouldnt be able to sell the animal back to
the same market for a higher price, though. Should also be sold to
npcs in the villages, ie. having chickens in the backyard is quite normal
in the countryside towards the ramtops, i think.
Auction Room
Sells items and animalsas in a normal auction. This makes it possible
to have auctions for cattle or rare quest items or whatever someone
offers for sale there. Should be announced in some way, and the
seller should be able to set a minimum price. The auction 'shop'
takes of course percentages of the sale for its services.
Horses
Animals a player can ride to get quickly and automatically from one
place to another. Horses should be expensive to buy, suspectible for
theft when left outside a house (yes, horses can in fact not be ridden
inside houses :) ), and demand regular feeding and currycombing to
stay healthy. Should be sould in markets and stables. Stables should
also take care of horses for a fee, then they cant be stolen.
As horses are quite expensive, there might be a career to be a horse
thief, or just buying and selling them like normal domestic animals.
(for a closer look at what i think i horse should do, take a look at
/w/anzal/ideas/horse.txt)
Money loaner
Some place where they lend you money and charge you interest when
repaying. If you dont pay withing ie. 8 hours playing time, a pack
of mercenary trolls should show up and start following and killing you.
Might be profitable to lend a lot of money and buy mules and goods and
start a caravan to another area. But you must be sure to get back and
pay in time, else...
Player owned shops
The player rents the shop from the mud. The shop sells and buys stuff
as normal, though the owner should be able to set buy/sell prices for
items in the shop. Every 4 hours of playing time or so the owner
gets a result sheet from the shop. If the result is negative, it
withdraws money from the owners bank account, else it deposits the
surplus. If the owner dont have enough money on her account, she loses
the shop wich is then free for sale to other players. The owner also
has to rent a npc shopkeeper to run the shop. The store should save
its inventory on reset, else its no use buying expensive stuff, if you
cant sell it withing at most 15 minutes you have lost that deal and a
lot of money too.
Making things
Adding value to things might be done in many ways. You could
assemble a thing or mix a potion that was more worth in one piece
than as many parts. You could be able to fix things in the smithys
yourself and paying just a small rent for the use of the smithy if your
other.smithing level was high enough (ie. level 100) and sell the
items for more money than when unfixed. You could go woodchopping
and load the mules with wood that you sell to some market.
Or maybe by writing books, you write a book in the editor and mails it
to some printing house. If the book is good enough, it is made and
put into the game for sale in a shop. The author gets percentages.
This way we might get a lot of interesting books added to the game
without too much work :)
The present situation is as already said a neverending genocide. These
ideas might change that to a capitalistic system, which perhaps isnt
much better. But the players would have the choice between killing or
earning money and buy other status symbols than the guild title.
Some might say that this is what a new guild of merchants should contain,
but to that i must say that all players should be able to buy and sell.
Maybe a sort of club of merchants could be ok, a place where they teach
haggling and auctioneer skills and has a board where houses for sale
or whatever is listed, but all guilds should be able to join this club
to make the economy large.
Guess this will demand some changes and additions to the disc, but i think
it is of the highest importance to start developing another economy than
the xp rat race.
Anzal.
