[CF List] The 'dis'economy of crossfire

[cflist at gmx.li]

Hi,

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      3) Make generators only put out 2 or 3 monsters each before stopping. 
     
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      Or, allow a limit to be placed on them in map generation.  This way,
     
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      maps that are simply a bunch of generators can't be used for item
     
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      trolling.  I can't see this affecting game play too much.  If I've
     
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      defeated all the monsters put out by a room who's generators have
     
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      spawned 3 times, then spawning more monsters isn't challenging me.  Or,
     
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      perhaps a time to recharge.  Spawn up to 3, then wait for 15 minutes,
     
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      then it can spawn again. 4) As an alternative or suplement to 3, we can
     
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      flag items of monsters produced by generators so they don't survive the
     
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      destruction of the monsters, or so that they are valueless in shops.  If
     
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      they are shop valueless, we could end up with a sub-economy of players
     
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      trading in magical weapons obtained from dungeons that can't be sold in
     
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      shops.  This would be a good thing... promoting interaction and
     
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      role-play.
     
     
I prefer 4 to 3, yet I doubt there is much hope of a subeconomy arising as
you only get trashy magical weapons from generators (I wouldn't trade much
for a sword+x or whatever you get).

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      Another item of 'diseconomy' are artifacts.  Artifacts are way to easy
     
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      to get. The main culprit for this is the 9 gates of hell quest.  With
     
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      'create earth wall', I started doing this quest at level 15.  It
     
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      generates two random artifacts and 5 stat potions. Another culprit is
     
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      the elemental tower quest(demonslayer, flame tongue, fist of the earth,
     
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      trident of sea mastery, and thunderfist, plus several random artifacts).
     
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        This could easily be locked so
     
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      that someone coming again is told 'you've already graduated' when he
     
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      tries to enrole.  All quests like this IMO should have 'force' locks. 
     
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      Stick a force on the player completing it that locks him out from doing
     
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      it again.  The Scorn nobility quests are ideal for this sort of thing. 
     
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      Can't repeat any of them.
     
     
Well you cannot completely put a ban on this, for one thing there are
simply not enough quests to keep a player busy until level 110 and also in
my experience most money actually comes from killing titans - run into
Administration in Brest, four Bonecrushers, 9 gates of hell: two more,
Warrior's Proving tower: eleven (!). Every one of them sells for about 900
plat (and I could list several more easy to get titans). And there are
enough shops to sell them all, even if they have some reasonable money
limit (and I wouldn't go beyond 5k except in small stores).

But let us have a look at the real reason for the problem: Very soon
stores have little they can offer to a player, so money simply looses
value (very soon you got all skill scrolls and all you need is some
potions), while on the other hand due to massive collections of artifacts
a player gets lots of money on his way through the game. It is clear that
money loses importance. To prevent this the only real solution would be to
have stores to offer things which are needed by higher level players. On
the other hand this would lead to low level players being able to get
these things, which should be prevented (a low level player should not be
able to buy very powerful artifacts). Now I have some suggestions, which
might also enrich the game in other ways:

1) Introduce some sort of real bank system, so that a player can carry
money to the bank and get a credit card. This might be used in some other
ideas below and would be practical for the player as well, as he wouldn't
have to carry larger amounts of money with him.
2) Make apartments for rent and not for ownership. A player might have to
pay some amount of money every time he enters the game for them or
whatever. This might also make different apartment sizes an interesting
aspect in the game.
3) One might put a level requirement to some artifacts, so that they can
be sold in shops to higher level players. Nevertheless I am in doubt if
this would be a good idea.
4) Create stores which are only open after the achievement of some kind of
quest. Examples of this are already out there like the black market in
Pupland or the adventurous shop in Stoneville. One might for example
consider a store open only to princes of Scorn. This might be a way to
avoid 3.
5) Just thought of costs for transportation. Why not have to pay for the
ship to Lake country or wherever you wish to go, nobody would expect them
to be free.
6) One great wish of mine: Princes of Scorn should be given the chance to
buy some really expensive castle, perhaps like the guildhouses, but for
single players, which are also extensible. Maybe in this way there could
be achieved some final thing a player can save his money for.

Just some ideas,
  Christoph Bergemann

-- 
  "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards,
    for they are subtle and quick to anger."