Players must intimidate shop keepers so that they are given "protection money".

Players must play music/entertain NPCs on the street to get music.

Players must beg for money.

Stock market, anyone?

Gambling.

Players must apply for grants to, say, explore a new continent or planet. (Hard to do in an MMO, but possible).

There's no money, and everyone just uses the barter system.

Come on! There's lots of ways to get money.

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Original post by Ezbez Players must intimidate shop keepers so that they are given "protection money". Players must play music/entertain NPCs on the street to get music. Players must beg for money.

Begging, talents, and intimidation are all very interesting ideas, but I'd shy away from begging - if the players get used to it, they might start begging other players and that would just irk the experienced players... though, this is minor, as newbies will beg the higher level players for items anyway.

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Original post by EzbezStock market, anyone?

So long as the investments and dividends are not based on players, then this would work as both a sink and fountain (just make most companies succeed, only at different rates and it will be a fountain) but if it's player owned companies, then again, this wont change the ammount of money in the game (if this is what the OP meant by "add money") it will only force a change of hands.

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Original post by EzbezGambling.

Good, but like the lotto (which is gambling) it should, on average, pay out more than it takes.

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Original post by EzbezPlayers must apply for grants to, say, explore a new continent or planet. (Hard to do in an MMO, but possible).

Easier than you might think, and it's a good idea. Really all one would have to do is add money any time a player first enters an area. Perhaps a quest would be necessary to enable this, but from a code perspective this is really easy to do. "Explorer" could then become a new "profession"

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Original post by EzbezThere's no money, and everyone just uses the barter system.

NO! Horrible!!! Currency is vital for an efficient economy. It might seem novel to have a barter system, but that means that all sales must be carried out between active players (no offline shops) which drastically slows down gameplay (okay if your entire game is Merchants RPG but if it's anything else, terrible), players must spend a inordinate amount of time trying to negotiate prices (or they will take some semi-rare drop and use it as a currency anyway), and dealing with NPC's would be a coding nightmare.

Be warned: too much new money makes money totally useless. Runaway inflation is not a desirable situation. Read Ultima Online's postmortem about the period where cash counterfeiting ran rampant for an example.

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Original post by Zouflain Quote: Original post by Ezbez Players must apply for grants to, say, explore a new continent or planet. (Hard to do in an MMO, but possible). Easier than you might think, and it's a good idea. Really all one would have to do is add money any time a player first enters an area. Perhaps a quest would be necessary to enable this, but from a code perspective this is really easy to do. "Explorer" could then become a new "profession"

I should be more specific. I meant "Hard to do well." IMO, getting research grants to explore areas that players have already been to is just stupid. Imagine exploring a "new continent" only to come across a large city packed with players yelling "WTS Cloak of the Elvenkind." *Yawn* I genuinely envisioned a new continent that players would have to visit the rich upper class and entice them to fund a visit to, complete with additional bonuses for the finding of valuable resources and the like. The problem then becomes having enough land for players to explore, if this is a primary way of getting money.

Yes, gambling and stock market would have to be a little rigged to get money flowing into the economy, and be backed by NPCs/money trees. As for begging, I would like to point out that I have read a number of memoirs of people who played Ultima Online, realized that it was boring and entertained themselves by begging for a living instead of questing. And that people actually (for the most part) enjoyed having other players begging for money.

Also, my point was just to get some ideas out there, so please don't take it too literal or anything.

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I genuinely envisioned a new continent that players would have to visit the rich upper class and entice them to fund a visit to, complete with additional bonuses for the finding of valuable resources and the like. The problem then becomes having enough land for players to explore, if this is a primary way of getting money.

How about having a procedurally generated continent similar to early South America (dense jungle). Then create some hand made content such as artefacts, tribes, villages, beauty spots or even cities, and scatter them through the wild continent. Give players the ability to create small camps, and exp for revealing parts of the map that haven't been explored. Also allow players to share maps. This way, grinding is replaced by walking through procedurally generated content (maybe with random encounters) and the rewards are artefacts and experience. Allow players to turn in maps of new areas, and artefacts for money. You could also have plants and animals with variables that alter their appearance (Colour, height, colour patterns), and reward players for finding variations that haven't been discovered. Make sure the interface hints towards areas and things that haven't been explored/discovered yet.

Woah...I think the exploration idea is pretty good!

MossStone's suggested implementation should be easy to do in a MUD and might actually be extremely fun! Imagine instead of grinding the same set of mobs and location endlessly, you can now team up with friends to explore new places, fend off mobs and overcome traps/obstacle!

Wow nice!

Just an idea that came to mind.

Implement factions and let the factions pay the players. The amount differs from how much the faction likes the actions of the player.

The players earn "faction-points". Doing quests or killing mobs will increase theses points. (time should decrease them)

So if you have 100 factions points you receive 50gold at the end of the day. This opens some other possibilities, like negotiating about the rates you want to be paid: "0.5 or 0.7 Gold per faction point". Or another faction offers more money for your service, but you have to deal with stronger creatures or do evil tasks.

In the end this is just a little variation from the good old "Goblin dropped 5 Gold". May work in some RPGs, but in others absolutly not.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage If an insulated breastplate takes five beaver pelts and one ingot to make (and a negligible amount of effort), it's worth 1.5 game-hours. Now, the armor is obviously worth far more, practically, to a player than some skins and rocks, but an NPC vendor won't acknowledge that value, and he'll pay you the same amount for the materials or the finished product, or maybe even less for the item, since it loses so much potential in the crafting process.

Dropped items with an infinite lifespan: What happens when thousands of people play the game for years? I propose the answer to this question is that loot tables take on a different meaning. Instead of specifying how common an item is in the current world, loot tables give an indication of how long it will be between introducing an indestructible item into the tables and that item becoming worthless to players.

"Hey dude, you want one of these? I'll trade it for some potions"
"Naw man, I already have one."

If you wanted to take on a real challenge, you could simulate a reallistic, free market economy. In the real world, "currency" is any convenient item for trade with a relatively stable and agreed-upon value. We use currency because direct barter is inefficient. Any good currency is:

1.) Relatively rare. As Iron Chef Carnage wrote, it's about the effort it takes to obtain it. If it takes almost no effort to obtain a certain amount of the currency, then it's a pretty useless currency. Dirt would be bad. Water might work if our society were severally water restricted. Silver and Gold ended up being used in the real world because it takes considerable effort to mine it out of the ground.
2.) Yet, relatively available. If a currency is too rare, it's too valuable to trade easily. The value of the most basic unit of currency must be small enough to buy the cheapest item. You can't buy a loaf of bread with diamonds, because the smallest diamond is still much more valuable than even a large loaf of bread. Silver ended up being used more often than Gold because it was more readily available than Gold -- an important consideration for a growing population.
3.) Stable in value and ultimately usefull for some purpose in its own right. Again, it's about the effort it takes to obtain a certain amount of it. If obtaining the currency becomes easier over time without any required increase in the skill of the user, then your economy won't be able to produce enough goods to meet demand unless the price of the goods increases. Paper "fiat" money only works because people expect it to retain its current value, despite the readily available evidence that it has never, does not, and will never remain stable in value. See WWII era Germany or the recent situation in Zimbabwe for what happens when currency inflates out of control. During WWII, inflation had gotten so out of control in Germany that people were burning paper currency notes for heat because it burnt longer than the wood or oil they could buy with it.
4.) Relatively durable. This shouldn't be a problem for a game. But in general, something that rots or degrades does not make a good currency. High-quality cheese would make a bad currency, both because it rots and because it can be readily consumed with very little utilitarian benefit gained.
5.) Generally desirable as a medium of trade. Basically, everyone has to agree that the currency is "good". In general, if the market has no confidence in the currency, then the people will not use it; they will find a more suitable replacement regardless of what you do. If your users are expected to trade gold for rare items they find, but you violated one of the previous 4 rules and have made your currency unsuitable for trade, then the users will not want to trade gold for their items.

These "rules" have an interesting implication. Given no pre-defined currency, people trading in a free market will define their own, and it will naturally adhere to the points I defined. One must only implement a system for trade and a system for advertising item prices in whatever desired conversion rate to any other item. One item will almost surely be in nearly universal demand, yet in relative scarcity in relation to other items in universal demand. And where someone does not actually want the item itself, they would still collect it because so many other people want it and will readily trade for it.

Have no money drops, have Trader NPCs generate a certain amount of money per day, and then let the players sell until that NPC's money is gone. Also, if possible, set up a "Reputation" and barter system. If you're a regular seller, and sell for decent prices, the NPC is more likely to buy from you than the random noob selling for the first time for really low prices.

Make it so NPCs in more populated areas have more money. Like an NPC in the rich district has 200 hold, but a traveling NPC only has 25 gold.

Also, make it so certain NPCs by only certain things. Like a butcher will by meat, but Leather Worker will by hide.


If I were you though, I would just have no money economy and go with a trade economy (I give you 4 chickens for 2 roosters sorta thing. I've always wanted to play a game like that.


idk anything about game economy, or reallife economy, so I probably said some noobish stuff, but meh :) lol

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Original post by Apoca Have no money drops, have Trader NPCs generate a certain amount of money per day, and then let the players sell until that NPC's money is gone.

This results in a very large reduction in the money supply, unfortunately, as the scarcity of the dollar is increased. The idea is good (and similar to one I use) but not for the OP's request - in fact this is the exact opposite =).

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Make it so NPCs in more populated areas have more money. Like an NPC in the rich district has 200 hold, but a traveling NPC only has 25 gold.

In a closed economy, this is always great, but in an open economy this isn't. People should be able to buy (and more importantly sell) quite readily to increase the influx of gold from out-world to ingame.

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If I were you though, I would just have no money economy and go with a trade economy (I give you 4 chickens for 2 roosters sorta thing. I've always wanted to play a game like that.

It's novel for about five minutes, and then you get 4 chickens for 10 flowers. Armor for 60 flowers. Sword of Masterful Pwnage for 10,000 flowers. A singular currency will almost certainly evolve because people demand a medium for exchange. The problem with a barter system is if you want a couch and the couch maker only needs bread, you have to go to the breadmaker who wants cheese, and to appease him you have to trade with the cheesemaker and pray that you have what he wants else add infinitum. After a week of this, players would undoutedly just say screw that and start trading in some semirare (stable currency) or common (unstable, prices in the millions/billions currency) item.

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idk anything about game economy, or reallife economy, so I probably said some noobish stuff, but meh :) lol

Noobish ideas can lead to great innovations; it's only self obsessed idiots look down on people who honestly try to make suggestions =)