[crossfire] specialised shops

[Robert Brockway]

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005, tchize wrote:

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      I know currently running server have players with tons of stuff and 
     
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      money, difficult to reverse tendency. 
     
     
This is something that has bothered me too.  In the real world a flush of 
currency causes inflation.  This could be true in Crossfire too.  The 
effect could be self limiting (as it is in a free market economy).  If 
prices go to high no one buys anything.  We'd still need limits (govt 
regulation?) to prevent prices remaining at a sufficientl high level that 
new characters can't buy anything.

I also think that supply and demand should be taken into account so if 
(for example) scrolls are purchased in large numbers then more will appear 
in that shop.

I don't pretend that these are trivial fixes and I haven't looked at that 
section of the code recently to see what if anything the shops are doing 
in this regard.

>
     
      However, one way to stabilize a bit economy (for new players at least) 
     
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      would be to have shop offer very poor price when player is the seller 
     
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      (Hey, shops are basically selling, not buying :) ) and have shops 
     
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      limited in the quality of items created (artefacts and powerfull common 
     
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      stuff should never be found in shops, this would increase their value at 
     
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      eyes of players) currently if a player wants to make money, all he has 
     
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      to do is loot stuff from city hall and such (like table, clocks) and 
     
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      sell them. This is should be corrected too.
     
     
Yeah :)  It rapidly becomes a non-issue once a character gets a few levels 
but I agree it is funny the way we can wander into home loot stuff right 
in front of the owner and leave :)  There is at least one map where 
looting a chest has bad side effects but it was designed that way.

>
     
      Imagine you enter a computer shop and tell the vendor: 'i have a CPU to 
     
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      sell', do you really think you would get anything from the vendor? You'd 
     
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      better try your luck outside store proposing your cpu to clients (even 
     
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      if the vendor might get out with a shotgun :p)
     
     
But I make so much money selling in shops.  My characters have standards 
to maintain :)

Serously, I think it may be ok for this to continue as these aren't modern 
shops. Prior to the 20th century goods were typically resold many times 
over their life.  Less of a distinction was made between new and 2nd hand 
partly because manufacture was a lot more costly for the economy than it 
is today.

To give a real world example I have some books that are several hundred 
years old.  Before coming into my family 150 years ago each of them had at 
least 5 owners who were unrelated (each of whom wrote their name with a 
variety of implments including quills :)

My argument about the shops not being modern may shoot down my supply & 
demand suggestion :)

Rob

-- 
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