economic worlds - post your common problems/pitfalls

[Magicfinger]

ok... now for my second pet hate within the game... any of you that have played an econ game with me know that i hate families... as far as im concerned families are actually destructive to the whole concept of a team based game. From my observations (and im prepared to be corrected if anybody disagrees with me) the scenario that usually happens is that 2-3 families grow to a porportion allowed by the game settings, these families create there own indusrtial,production and commercial base and trade within there own groups.

If there is a max family size of 10 for example and we have 3 main families then 30 players are playing team based games. of a world with a population of 70-80 players having 1/3 of the infastructure of the economy being controlled and limited within 3 groups actually excludes the other 2/3 of the players from making any decent sort of impact on an economy.

my solution to this scrap the families ...kill all the team play... get rid of econ families... fight like a man/woman and make your way through worlds of your own back....

oops sorry bout that really my feelings is that with the advent of team based play becoming more and more stable the family element should become team play if we are going to create groups of players then have everybody playing as a group... if we dont want the team based play set a family limit to 0 and make people play on there own... set penalties to compensate for the benefits of family play to allow the independant trader the chance to compete with the families when it all gets a bit family orientated.

btw i would really like someone to explain what the benefits for a eco. world as a whole are by having families playing (that is not just the benfit for the people playing in the family but for every player including those that dont want to join in families - but thats a discussion for another thread )

[zaroba]

similer can be said for royalty, having a royalty task causes the economy to go lightning fast until roylaty is achived, then it goes slow.

trashing families is something i've always considered for zoric for that exact reason. the only real benifit to haveing a family in an econ game is to have a family employement wage allowence, which hasen't even been on zoric for the past few islands. besides that, you could look at families as large companies, the familyless players could be small companies trying to make int in the big world.
on a side note, removing families will really only stop people from being listed in it, thiers no reason 10 players can't still stick UHI in thier building names and only trade with each other and chat on a chat channel useing ?setchat UHI or something.

[hedgehog]

i like the idea of families if they have no distinct benefit -- if they're just a group of players that decides to form a "clan" and does well via a sort of social pact with one another. having trade agreements is half the fun i'd think

one of the things that annoys me is that players are only competitive on one level -- "i got here first, i have more money". period. fighting, or putting their money where their mouth is on anything else (crows, racing, etc) seems very taboo on any isle what's primary function is econ. i still don't quite get why everyone nickle-and-dimes* everything to death and don't ever seem to go after the fixed reward stuff to be honest...

i still remember how much fun it was bein' in MUD and fighting tooth and nail against Bezerkerz back on tunbridge. we'd employ any newbie, get our feet wet in any production chain, sell or buy any building by any means necessary to completely run out that family, and it took us at least a month or two to do so.
on more than one occasion other mud members and i would stand watch and/or sort out our real life schedules just to make sure someone was there to muscle them around and keep them from doing much without getting blown up. that sorta competition is nearly all the fun as far as i remember econ.

alternatively -- i wholeheartedly agree with the above sentiments, and absolutely loathe families when there's any settings type of benefit to being in a family. paying already successful players to lump together and get even more successful is just askin for trouble :/




*sorry for the colloquialism to all the international folk

[zaroba]

oo, back to the topic here, heres something thats always been as big a headache as making the bdat for an island: Knights, Ops, and Gods.

going to use zoric as an example threwout this post.
each zoric has had 100-150 players. of those players, many of them have been around for well over 6 months. you know from seeing when your on which ones are active, you also know which are good, bad, etc from hearing complaints, seeing them help, etc. but, how do you know which to give power to? if you op, god one of them, then others will say stuff like "if he's an op i should atleast be one too because i've been around longer", bit might be true, it might not be. but the main problem is that usually thiers many, many people wanting to be a knight, op, or god,m and many many people that would be worthy at the job. but an island doesen't really need more then a few ops. as long as thiers 1 or 2 on at any time it'll be good, and usually then thier not even needed that much.

for gods its even worse. 90% of the players made god on zoric have gone inactive and rarly logged in. i think gods on nearly all islands do that after about a week. even the most active ones players become inactive gods after a week. if a god wont be on, then thiers not even a need for them to be a god, right?

another thing to worry about with ops, gods, etc is command usage. will they abuse thier commands? will they listen to the rules you make? will you have the patience and desire to look threw the command logs every day and ask them about every command they do to make sure it was good to do it?

when you find a solution to having ops and never making anybody angrey, jealous, or upset, please tell me

*me is now thinking of making people be a knight on one zoric before being allowed to be an op on the next one. maybe making them op 2 or 3 before having a chance at being a god

[puggy]

First, non food based worlds:

These worlds could be based more on tasks, for example if you had crows, weapons and racing you could give out money for the best crower, killer and fasted time over a certain length of time, simalar to whats on zion at the minute. You could have a complex manufacturing and production process which max's out all the types of buildings, with the most expensive buildings making the best crows, cars and weapons. For example while a car that go's 200k/hr might not be realistic in a normal eco game, one where you gain 200s for the best racing time could encourage people to ditch there 150k/hr cars for it. The prises could be gievn out every 3 hours and as the game progress's the prises could be increased.

Secondly on the knights, ops, gods:

I think the first rule would be if someone asks to be one they should be banned from ever being on one. People who ask are the most likly to abuse there power's. Instead just ask a few players you know if they want to be one and if they agree then set them up. If you only select players that you think won't abuse there powers then there's more chance they won't.

[zaroba]

thats already what i do. i don't op people who ask for it. but that doesen't solve the provblem at all if thiers many people who would make good ops and many that really know how to play well, some will get pansy because they might make better ops then others.

[hedgehog]

i agree it's just a really awkward and annoying conversation to have 20 times a day when you get a lotta kids whining they want to type in red text.

hopefully a lotta this will be sorted once floggin stick is done and they can actually compete for baronship and knighthood, but i doubt it. i think with a lotta young kids in our playerbase, the desire to feel important and unique is prolly pretty high. playing into that and godding them definitely isn't doin 'em any favors.

not that any of us do really, which i guess just brings us back to "it's annoying and awkward when 20 people ask 30 times a day".

prolly the only way around it is to not op anyone, or only op people who you know personally, or fellow world owners who aren't liable to feck things up too bad, or something of that nature where they're inarguably more valid than the doofus that's been there a few days and thinks you owe him a handout.

puggy: the other server i've got in the works is a map recycling type thing, so ya might be in luck there. that stuff never seems as popular though -- hopefully we do okay this time around :/

[Rueges]

i agree, of course i want to be an op but i try not to ask to much. once in a great while ill throw the hint in that i want to be one. and ya know i think i would be a very good one but at that note i dont even really care that much that im not one, it just really irritates me that there are OPs that are inactive or are dying all the time.. like mathew on zoric said he keeps dying over and over.. i dunno it just annoys me cz its like man, if ur an op, id think u shld be earning ur ophood, and at least stay alive for christ sakes its not like its hard. or for the inactive ones join the server and play once in awhile. i mean if ur an op uve got responisibility so i think they shoudl live up to it and come on once in awhile to play and monitor the server. but there is nun i can do about that just thought id share that thought. but as for me i will just keep my mouth shut and wait for my turn

Rueges

[hedgehog]

case in point NOUN, phrase: Inflected forms: pl. cases in point
A relevant illustrative example.

[Rueges]

What the hell did u just say :p lol

[zaroba]

he said:

case in point NOUN, phrase: Inflected forms: pl. cases in point
A relevant illustrative example.

[Rueges]

well no crap what does it mean. its not very clear..... and peeple yell at me for how i write on here :p