July 1999
- ScryMUD release v1.9.10. Ben Greear
- In-game tailors, re-stringers, etc. Eli Stevens {KiZurich/GreySylk}
- In-game tailors, re-stringers, etc. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An apology J C Lawrence
- GM Touring Company Ling
- GM Touring Company Matthew Mihaly
- GM Touring Company Ling
- GM Touring Company Matthew Mihaly
- GM Touring Company Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- GM Touring Company Marian Griffith
- GM Touring Company Alex Oren
- GM Touring Company Christopher Allen
- list of MUD platforms? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Ross Nicoll
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Christopher Allen
- list of MUD platforms? Ben Greear
- list of MUD platforms? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- list of MUD platforms? Jon A. Lambert
- list of MUD platforms? Ross Nicoll
- list of MUD platforms? Mik Clarke
- ScryMUD 1.9.11 is now on my page and in CVS. Ben Greear
- Technical programming question (circular buffers & logging) Ben Greear
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Ben Greear
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- an idea..wondering if this has been done David Bennett
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Par Winzell
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Joey Hess
- an idea..wondering if this has been done bruce@puremagic.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Joey Hess
- Victim Characters (was: Critiquing Muds) Eli Stevens {KiZurich/GreySylk}
- pfiles yacketta@kodak.com
- pfiles Richard Woolcock
- bytecode results Chris Gray
- fwd: forum on game design/culture Brandon J. Rickman
- fwd: forum on game design/culture Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Andru Luvisi
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Dan Root
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Ling
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Ling
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Jon A. Lambert
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Jon A. Lambert
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Katrina McClelan wrote:
> If the only real cost of manufacture is the time spent typing it, then the
> economic model is weak. The real problem here is that players are coming
> on to play swordsmen and wizards and such. Some people are content
> running shops, but most are wanting adventure.
Still, the problem with the ability to automate production is that, well,
you've automated production. If a bot is running someone's factory while
that player is asleep, then that player is playing a different game. They
have miniscule opportunity cost being engaged in this important economic
activity. If this becomes the case, we might as well implement trade-war
style dynamics where instead of writing a bot part of the game is a
spreadsheet on allocating labor and capital to various production tasks.
We want to avoid this trade-war style game in general just because of the
focus of our research. Economic situations which can be modelled well in a
trade-war game we can already research in our laboratory; what we can't
research is individual choices in a rich long-lived environment with
freeform goals.
So we want the game players to be acting with their characters as
individuals. If these individuals gather together to form a business,
that's great. If, on the other hand, an individual acquires a completely
obedient full-time employee at zero cost (a bot), that throws us off.
> They go to (work|class) every day and lead normal lives, so they come
> to a MUD for adventure. If you make specializing in sword making get
> in the way of learning how to use the weapons, you won't find many
> people using up their aptitude to make lots of coins off sword
> production.
There are many reasons one might want to get into production rather than
merely adventuring, perhaps role-playing a craftsperson, perhaps non-RP
interaction with others, perhaps exploring the game physics of smithing,
perhaps exploring the game economy, perhaps simply to be self-sufficient
and make one's own tools.
> a free market economy will stabalize itself if you implement it correctly.
Often it will stabilize, but it might stabilize to an undesireable
equilibrium (for us as researchers, this isn't a problem, for game
designers it can be) or stabilize via undesirable dynamics (that's our
concern).
If automating production is possible, it will be very hard for manual
players to be involved in production. Manual and automated players will
face all the same constraints *except* that automators have no opportunity
cost. Even if the automator and manual player were both interested solely
in production, the automator will have all that extra time to sell their
wares.
One obvious equilibrium in this case is that the first few folks to
implement sucessful bots to produce good X produce most of good X. They
make little off the sale of each unit, but the quantity they produce makes
it worthwhile. Someone trying to get into this market manually will make
the same small amount on each unit, so that it's not worth their time to
work on it. Another botter could move in on the market, but doing so would
punish themselves as much as the poeple already in the market, so why
bother?
> Such fluctuations are normal for a free market economy, and should
> defeat a bot that can't react to the changing market fast enough.
I'm assuming that the folks running bots do touch base from time to time
(a couple times a week, say) to verify market conditions and tweak
parameters in their bots. A market which fluctuates too fast for this
would be a very unstable one indeed.
Also keep in mind that some of the dynamism of the real world economy
comes from the ability for us to change conditions of the economic
environment. In real life, if oil gets too scarce or expensive to extract,
not only can we shift to natural gas (switching resources could be
realistic in a MUD), we can also develop technology to extract oil
more cheaply. This sort of internal technological change is something I've
rarely seen in a MUD, for a lot of good reasons.
But without changes such as this, the economic environment stays very
stable except when the admins throw something new in. Under such
conditions, one would expect market conditions to be reasonably
predictable.
This lack of change-from-the-inside is actually one of our big stumbling
blocks in desiring to do research on MUDs. They still look very valuable
for microeconomic research, but the economic growth issues are still
highly artificial, so macroeconomic research will have to wait for the
state of the art to advance.
------------------------------
Timothy O'Neill Dang/Cretog8
timothy@nmia.com
H: 505-843-6966
W: 505-244-8803
One monkey don't stop no show - Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Asmodeus
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Travis S. Casey
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? AR Schleicher
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Adam Wiggins
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Martin C Sweitzer
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Laurel Fan
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Laurel Fan
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Wayne Pearson
- Containing automation? AR Schleicher
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #121 - 2 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #121 - 2 msgs Koster, Raph
- UO currency Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game design Adam Wiggins
- dispatching events Greg Miller
- dispatching events Mark Gritter
- dispatching events Greg Miller
- injury-based combat Greg Miller
- injury-based combat Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- injury-based combat Brian Carter
- injury-based combat Matthew Mihaly
- injury-based combat Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- mud vs. mush membership Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Jay Carlson
- mud vs. mush membership Marian Griffith
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- mud vs. mush membership Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- mud vs. mush membership Jay Carlson
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- combat/injury Greg Miller
- The Virtual Ecology Tony Wilkinson
- The Virtual Ecology Adam Wiggins
- The Virtual Ecology Jp Calderone
- The Virtual Ecology Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- The Virtual Ecology Albert
- The Virtual Ecology Schubert, Damion
- The Virtual Ecology Greg Miller
- The Virtual Ecology Brandon J. Rickman
- The Virtual Ecology Tony Wilkinson
- The Virtual Ecology Marian Griffith
- The Virtual Ecology Chris Gray
- The Virtual Ecology Brian Carter
- The Virtual Ecology Par Winzell
- The Virtual Ecology Felix A. Croes
- The Virtual Ecology Chris Turner
- The Virtual Ecology Ling Lo
- The Virtual Ecology Brandon J. Rickman
- [ScryMUD] Splitting development, code re-organization. Ben Greear
- OT: Raph & Kristen absent for a bit Koster, Raph
- Essays on parsing text. Ling
- Essays on parsing text. Christopher Allen
- Essays on parsing text. Travis S. Casey