Hello. Just registered here.

I primarily play DiscworldMUD, but sometimes I play others, such as RetroMUD. Although DiscworldMUD is the MUD I have played the most. 

this roleplay log is from abandonedrealms.com

http://www.zalanthas.org/blogs/brideofson/archives/001417.html

None of this is set in stone yet, but I wanted to give you some idea of the concepts we're looking at.

Items:

The only truly fixed factor in determining an item's cost is its weight. For example, 2 stones' worth of any material is always worth more than 1 stone's worth.

The risk associated with gathering the resource should be reflected in its value.

In order to have ongoing demand, most finished goods and some raw materials should decay in some fashion. This would be based on material and type of item.

Some items will decay through wear and tear, like clothing and weapons. Many of these things will be repairable up to a point, however repair will have diminishing returns until eventually the item must be replaced.

Other items will decay over time, like food.

How well a crafter made an item is reflected in its value. ... a tailor of middling skill could make a high-quality simple shirt, or a low-quality fancy shirt.

Jobs:

Every settlement should have a 'job board' (this could be handled as a rumor-type system). Employers can list openings.

In general, wages will be set by the market, based on how much employers are willing to pay, and how little employees are willing to work for.

Different types of jobs will need to be handled differently. Some will be hourly pay, some contract, some based on production.

There should be a minimum/maximum wage to prevent this from getting "broken."

Risky jobs, or those requiring more skill, should pay more.

Most resource gathering will be handled through trade, by exchanging items gathered for coin. However, we'll probably need code to handle resource-gathering jobs within cities, like claypit digging.

Resource gathering within cities should pay less than doing it in the wilds, because of less risk.

(Note from Vanth on resource gathering jobs: I would actually prefer -not- to have automated, static jobs that revolve around gathering, but rather to have something like a "commodities market" in major locations where you can buy and sell these materials for a price which depends on the market conditions--supply and demand--i.e. sometimes salt brings a good price, but if everyone goes out salt gathering the price eventually falls as mass quantities of salt are stockpiled.)

There will probably also be quest-type jobs, like "go hunt down the traitor Amos." Some of these may only be available to clans (see clan economics, below)

Shops:

We prefer to see a PC-run economy, so while there will be NPC shops, they will not be able to be competitive against an intelligent PC shopkeeper. NPC shops will be able to be edged out of a specific market in these instances.

Have a "help wanted" bulletin board of some sort in a central area. Let players both post and remove their offers of employment.

-On the same BB, let players offer their services to employers, and likewise both post and remove posts.

-Let employers hire both PCs and NPCs.

-Let employers set wages, and let them choose how to pay those wages: hourly, daily, monthly, etc.

-Let employers set the "shift" hours for NPCs.

--Let NPCs get upset and quit if their shift is too long/pay too little.

---So, Amos hires NPC-Malik for 10 coins an hour for 6 hours a day. But if Amos wants his shop to be open all day long, either he has to cover the rest himself, or he needs to hire someone else to cover, because Malik won't work more than 6 hours a day unless he's getting paid 15 coins an hour.

Clan Economics:

An idea from Raesanos: Clans are merely groups of people who perform tasks. These tasks would be roughly classifiable as quests, hunts, forages, etc. The same thing independents do, but with unique opportunities and the enjoyment of working as a group. Here, quests would not only be automated (salt-buyer NPC) but also RPTs. Basically, the T'zai Byn of the current game operates under this model. Unique automated quests could exist, such as a clan who is paid to guard the automated caravans that travel the world. Net result: clans operate in the same economic world as everyone else.

No more bottomless clan cooks or magickally refilling water tuns.

Trade and Caravans:

allow for trade agreements between towns/regions

-have a master room/page where imms can easily adjust the goods and quantities traded through these agreements

--perhaps these agreements spawn caravans when it's time for goods to be delivered.

The basic tenets of Sanvean's proposed caravan system:

* Profitable travel between civilized points should require time and risk.

* An automated system that allows players to travel between cities at a reasonable cost of

time/money should be readily available.

* Prices in an area should reflect that area's scarcities and abundances or resources as well

as the overall world environment.

* This process should not create significant extra work for the builders.

The PC experience:

PCs can go to an inn and sign up for a scripted caravan that is going to the two closest

locations, paying an amount of coins that makes travel non-trivial (100-200 coins?). They

can buy space for additional cargo on the caravan. It is possible for caravans to be filled and

PCs have to wait. Two thirds of the caravan's occupants are virtual. Caravans leave every three

game hours (currently one RL hour, I believe).

The staff experience:

Staff can adjust caravans, postponing, editing, etc through a web interface. This allows them

to respond to player events as necessary as well as providing a mechanism for adjusting the

system as necessary.

Caravans will be raidable.

http://www.zalanthas.org/blogs/brideofson/archives/001416.html

Had a meeting with the game on a big screen, and everyone sitting around it with their laptops, and people who weren't at the beach house joining us from home. Did this as a planning session for a major event. We materialized the staff of pontification with the drumstick of pontification.

Sat on the roof at night and chatted over the ocean sounds.

Too much Rock Band.

Had an upper staff meeting to talk about game administration stuff.

Drank a loooot of beer. A local place had an oatmeal stout that was so addictive that I almost robbed the place with a bottle opener and installed my face directly to the tap.

Did some Arm2 building on my laptop while it wasn't my turn for Mario Kart.

Got to meet a bunch of the great people who came for the first time last year or this year, which I always really enjoy, and getting to know people personally really makes working with them a lot more fun.

Hung out at the beach and pool. It was great.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mudreading/~3/292876274/answerless-g

Sometimes there seems to be an interesting expectation among some of our players. These players expect every question about the game world to have a single, definitive answer. This may be a good sign: it means our game world is well-defined enough that it feels like there is an answer to every such question. The problem, of course, is that there isn’t.

There may be more too it, though. Let’s take an example question: “Would my character refuse to wear this cloak that is the color of their enemy clan?”

My answer would be “Well, that is up to you. We certainly don’t have a rule that says you must or must not, so it depends on if your character hates their enemies so much they wouldn’t even wear the same colors as them.”

Some people don’t like getting answers like that. Mostly because it doesn’t answer their question, but I think it goes a little deeper. Some people feel that unless they do what we would have done, they are doing it wrong. It is not surprising that people have this expectation: surely they have been told before that they are doing something wrong, when they thought it was a matter of opinion. That is part of the process of learning a new game and is very common even for fantastic players.

If a player is unsatisfied by this answer, a good response would be that if there was a rule about what to do in every situation, role playing would cease to exist, and you would only ever be a drone doing what the rules tell you. A lot of rules have to be guidelines rather than directions to allow for people to act as individuals in a society. Sometimes people are still unsatisfied by this answer, maybe because they still disagree, maybe because I didn’t explain it well enough, but I generally leave it at that.

There is another thing that might happen when this question is asked. Some staff member might pause, think about it, then give an answer. It might end there, but often responses like this turn into undocumented policy. If they say “Oh no, they would never do that” then the player might tell other players, and eventually the game has an unspoken rule that you never wear the colors of your enemies. The staff member may have felt this was true, but often the staff member is just giving an opinion or advice and didn’t mean to imply this should always be the case.

The trick is, in my opinion, to never tell a player to do something when it isn’t clearly documented that they must do it. Staff word is as good as documentation, as it should be. If you are giving an opinion or advice, clearly frame it as such. Saying “You don’t have to do this, but a good idea might be…” should be enough. Some people will inevitably misinterpret that, but at least you can easily explain why the misinterpretation was wrong if you said it like this to begin with.

When telling a player something that isn’t documented as true, but you think it should be, tell them that you are documenting it right then and there, then do it.

Another goal is, of course, to set the expectation that players won’t get an answer to every question. The only way to do this is to consistently not answer questions that don’t have answers, and make it clear why this happens. Sometimes that can be tough, especially as you want to use your imagination, put yourself in their shoes, and come up with some ideas, but ultimately that is the best thing for the game.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mudreading/~3/277420692/rae-on-armag

I recorded a videocast where I talk about ArmageddonMUD. Sanvean of Armageddon has been doing these for awhile and I decided to give it a shot. In this episode (assuming I’m going to do more) I talk about setting up new staff members for the game and an interesting character I played years ago.

Is there anyone else in the MUD community doing these? I’d love to see videos like this about other games!

It is split up into 3 YouTube videos and is about 22 minutes long:

Part 1/3

Part 2/3

Part 3/3

And there is a discussion of the videocast going on here:

Armageddon community discussion on the videocast

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mudreading/~3/263582409/easy-supply-

A realistic economy is a goal of many MUDs. Many of the benefits of a realistic economy can be created with very little work.

Here is a simple supply and demand system. Every time a player buys an item, increase its cost. Every time a player sells an item, decrease its cost.

Voila. Supply and demand. The system works well to make high-demand items expensive and extremely common items cheap. There are just a few tweaks that would keep things working.

Tweak the settings for how much the cost is effected by each purchase or sale. You can’t assign the “right” values deterministically. It depends on your playerbase’s size and behavior, and will change over time.

Consider having the prices normalize gradually over time. That way a surge of unusual activity will be offset sooner, and items that are bought but not sold (such as consumables) will not simply increase in price forever.

Consider a minimum and maximum price. EG, do not allow an item’s cost to change to 50% less or more than its original cost. This is a good approximation of other factors not considered in the system and helps catch flukes before they cause a problem.

To expand on the system a little, keep a multiplier for object types and materials, if you have them. Start at 1. Each time a player buys or sells an item, increase or decrease the multiplier (by a small fraction). Have the multiplier effect all objects of that type or material. Now, if silver longswords are in demand, the price of silver broadswords will increase as well.

To expand on the system even more, keep these set of values separate for each city, region, or whatever granularity is appropriate for your game. Then travelling to a region where an item is more rare will yield a better payoff.