At 01:04 PM +0400 17/6/2000 , Tim Thaler wrote:
> As u think , rent system in the mud it\'s a good for RP or not? And
>why yes or why no?
> I think it easy way to make game balance, but ! Many people hav\'t
>many times for plaing and rent-system killing MUD-fan for them :(
> Maybe samone know other way to solve this problem?
I don't really know whether the rent system is considered to be RP or not,
but it's meant to be for economic balance by making sure that players don't
run around with too much gold. It's true that no matter how addicted a
player is, he can't log on everyday. When that happens, there's a
possibility that he won't have enough gold to cover his rent and all his
"hard earned"[1] eq will slowly disappear on him.
I agree that that is the what most players complain about because they
can't really see the reason from their point of view. However, there's a
feature in Circle that sort of solved this prob -- the cryogen. It'll
charge the players a one-time but rather high fee, and they can go off
without worrying about not having enough to cover rental. At least, that's
how I remember it... better double check the codes. Anyway, so far Circle
and very few others that I noticed offer this feature.
There are several ways to go around this prob, provided that the prob that
is being referred to is the "economic balance of the game." If you want to
take renting off, there are ways for you to make sure that players will
spend their money elsewhere especially when you want to the mud to be
realistic. The idea is to justify the reason for spending and make players
spend a little bit at a time but often.
1. If you don't want them to have too much gold, make it harder for them to
get it in the first place. Change the mob files so that mobs, like rabbits
and birds don't have a "money pouch" tied to their neck.
2. Make objs have condition/quality. When they are being used, their
condition worsen/quality drop especially weapons and armors in battles.
Then have a repair shop to let players send their eq for repairs for a fee.
The worse the condition of the armor/weapon, the higher the fee will be.
3. Specify obj material. You can tie this with the repair fee above. The
more expensive and/or rare the material from which the obj is made from,
the higher the fee will be.
4. Renting is also a way for people to come back with full hp. Make it so
that they don't and have a cleric around town who will sell his healing
services for a small fee.
5. Houses are already a feature of Circle. You can either let them buy it
at a very high price (hey, it's a luxury!) or rent it out at a reasonably
high monthly/weekly charges with advance payment option. They can use it to
store excess luggage and have some privacy. Some muds offer this feature in
the form of lockers.
6. Change coins into objs (as discussed recently) and let it have weight.
Since players can't carry a lot, they'll have to deposit it in the bank.
Let the bank charge a bit for each transaction done, say 1% of the amount
transacted?
These are just some ideas that I'm throwing around. There are also some
nastier ways which can also kill players' fun. As a developer, you'll have
to think things thru and decide what you want for your mud.
---
[1] Most people tend to have 1 character for playing and several characters
to store excess luggage. Then they don't have enough gold to spread between
the characters to cover the rent.
---
Afizal Mustapa
Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
(amustapa@hotmail.com)
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