DESIGN: Money Money Money

Past public reviews and discussions.
Locked
Message
Author
User avatar
utilae
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2175
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:37 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#121 Post by utilae »

I don't see any reason why an alien race would value minerals as much as they would value money or anything else.

In a real situation you could not be sure what an alien wants, so I supose if a bunch of alien races got together and were peaceful they would match all their currencies (whatever they use as currencies) against each other to make their own galactic stock market.

See maybe the player could name their currency:
500 Minerals
500 Gold
500 AU
500 Whatever
500 Fish

And you could see different alien currencies against each other.

ALIEN CURRENCIES
Alien 1....|....Alien 2.........|....Alien 3
1 Fish.....|...0.5 Minerals..|....5 AU

See, you can easily tell that Alien 3 has the most valuable currency, while Alien 2 has the least most valuable currency. I don't think we should be talking about money so much as 'currency'.

Tyreth
FreeOrion Lead Emeritus
Posts: 885
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:23 am
Location: Australia

#122 Post by Tyreth »

The question is, though, do we want players to deal with different currencies? On a functional level, and basic concept, minerals seems simpler than PP to use as a substitute for money. That's if we assume we don't want money.

We may decide that having different currencies adds immersion to the game, and then money becomes useful, but I'm not sure. The question is, what value does having money add to the game?

User avatar
Krikkitone
Creative Contributor
Posts: 1559
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2003 6:52 pm

#123 Post by Krikkitone »

I think there is definitely a difference of opinion in terms of PP,

I see PP not as the cycles of your computer or the labor potential, but of work that is actually done. (which can in some limited fashion be applied to the future) The potential to do work, I would see as your factories/population (how much PP you can produce).

Now if factories are unused because they don't have population/minerals to run them, then they make less PPs, the same with the population, without the minerals/factories available, they don't make the PPs

But back to the subject,
Money is useful because I can get stuff with it. It let's me know how much stuff I can get that I don't have. The problem is this relies on certain things.

The first is relatively stable prices for relatively consistently available goods.

The game is unlikely to have this as there are only four goods to buy or sell, two of which (Minerals and Food) you don't 'Want' you either 'Need' or 'Need Not'. It also has a small number of Players (as compared to even small, real economies) who feel little compunction against lying to each other, allowing one player's betrayal to undermine the monetary system

As for the 'promissory note' idea, that is somewhat confusing but not excessively so. Essentially it is any form of a promise of resources to be given on a turn other than now. (whether on a continuous turn basis or some time in the future.) This would allow the only real advantage of money which is deficit spending.

And this avoids the Minerals v. PP, since you could trade minerals for RP, the point is you would have to NOT look at minerals as a trade/money substitute but as something to be sold off or bought in their own right... you would buy things with minearls not because they were the money substitute but because you had excess and they had a need.

luckless666
Pupating Mass
Posts: 90
Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:16 am
Location: West Sussex, United Kingdom

#124 Post by luckless666 »

Tyreth wrote:The way I see it, minerals are stockpilable, while PP and RP are not.
I see PP as being production capacity. The labour availble on the planet - it's ability to produce new goods and perform services, given sufficient input. If someone sits on their couch all day watching tv, that lost labour is not stockpilable. That's why I can't envision PP as a stockpilable resource, or as an alternative to money.
Minerals on the other hand reminds me of gold in times gone past. It is something you can lock in a basement, something you can physically hand over, throw, swallow(!) or melt. If you don't use it today, it will be there tomorrow, assuming nobody steals it.
This is exactly what i think. This is why i was against PP as i just didnt feel it was stockpilable as a resource. Minerals makes more sense, though money is easy for people to get a grasp on as a concept, as we're used to it everyday.
utilae wrote:And you could see different alien currencies against each other.

ALIEN CURRENCIES
Alien 1....|....Alien 2.........|....Alien 3
1 Fish.....|...0.5 Minerals..|....5 AU

See, you can easily tell that Alien 3 has the most valuable currency, while Alien 2 has the least most valuable currency. I don't think we should be talking about money so much as 'currency'.
This sounds a little complicated. I was in favour of exchange rates earlier but i think everyone pretty much agreed we shouldnt use them.
Krikkitone wrote:Now if factories are unused because they don't have population/minerals to run them, then they make less PPs, the same with the population, without the minerals/factories available, they don't make the PPs
This could also be seen as there is a lack of production capacity ie there isnt the labour avaliable and thats why you produce less PP. Just cos you have the factories doesnt mean you have the people to fill them.
Chris Walker
| c.walker (at) mgt.hull.ac.uk |

WorldForge.org

Aquitaine
Lead Designer Emeritus
Posts: 761
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2003 1:54 pm
Location: Austin, TX

#125 Post by Aquitaine »

Another argument against a 'PP Stockpile' (before I get out of the country..:)

If your excess PP is essentially your money, and you have expenses that require you to use your excess PP to pay for it, your income stream will be extremely unsteady. If you decide to build a lot of things one turn, your income plummets, because it is based on what you aren't doing with your production.

If, however, you tax your total PP, used or not, and get money that way, then your income will remain steady and grow at a reasonable rate.
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Daveybaby
Small Juggernaut
Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:07 am
Location: Hastings, UK

#126 Post by Daveybaby »

The knockout blow!

Now get on that plane.
And dont forget your passport.
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

User avatar
utilae
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2175
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:37 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#127 Post by utilae »

luckless666 wrote:
utilae wrote:And you could see different alien currencies against each other.

ALIEN CURRENCIES
Alien 1....|....Alien 2.........|....Alien 3
1 Fish.......|...0.5 Minerals....|....5 AU

See, you can easily tell that Alien 3 has the most valuable currency, while Alien 2 has the least most valuable currency. I don't think we should be talking about money so much as 'currency'.
This sounds a little complicated. I was in favour of exchange rates earlier but i think everyone pretty much agreed we shouldnt use them.
See I was thinking that everyone would see their money like in any other Moo game.
eg
Alien 1: they would see 5000
Alien 2: they would see 2500
Alien 3: they wouls see 25000

A player could look on the economic screen (whatever its called) and see a comparison between all alien currencies.
eg
ALIEN CURRENCIES
Alien 1....|....Alien 2.........|....Alien 3
1 ............|...0.5 ...............|....5......

Thats as far as I was thinking of taking it. Although if the name your own currency thing gets to be too complicated then we could just say 'Currency Units' (CU) or just go Money: 50,000. The player does not really care what they use for a currency anyway.

User avatar
skdiw
Creative Contributor
Posts: 643
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:17 am

#128 Post by skdiw »

Aquitaine wrote:Another argument against a 'PP Stockpile' (before I get out of the country..:)

If your excess PP is essentially your money, and you have expenses that require you to use your excess PP to pay for it, your income stream will be extremely unsteady. If you decide to build a lot of things one turn, your income plummets, because it is based on what you aren't doing with your production.

If, however, you tax your total PP, used or not, and get money that way, then your income will remain steady and grow at a reasonable rate.
Then tax your pp so you are guarantee to have that much in your pp stockpile. o.O

I don't even know why you got to have money in the first place other than so ppl feel comfortable associating the real world to the game. Okay, some amount is required, but you can make so that industry building A requires 1 mineral to maintain. This leader takes 2 food as his salary. Fleets requires x pp...

Let us not forgot KISS for the purpose of the game and what money would do for us. Let me pull the dictionary for the definition of money: A medium that can be exchanged for goods and services and is used as a measure of their values on the market, including among its forms a commodity such as gold, an officially issued coin or note, or a deposit in a checking account or other readily liquifiable account. We don't have to use pp as a reference. If you want, we can use minerals as standard reference for value of all things. Gold is a rock, kinda like minerals. We happy? :D I think I have mention all this in the tech review and early posts about industry/economy. If it's that confusing, we can introduce energy as money like is Alpha Centari.

I forgot where the design v0.3 docs are >< Someone help me. If we are gonna do excess rp -> money, we might want to map rp as money so ppl can't cheat by making money with rp using our research system.
:mrgreen:

Underling
Space Squid
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2003 3:09 pm
Location: New Jersey

#129 Post by Underling »

skdiw wrote:Let us not forgot KISS for the purpose of the game and what money would do for us.
One brief question.

We do mean KISS for the end user, right? Because if so, how can multiple seperate mediums of exchange or payment for buildings/leaders/trading/spending be simpler than a single universal medium?

And if we use a single medium, why not one whose meaning and usage are universally recognized and would not require explanation/documentation for the end user to understand?

OK, that's more than one question :lol: , but I just wanted to toss them out there.

The 'Ling

User avatar
utilae
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2175
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:37 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#130 Post by utilae »

Thats the easiest thing to do (everyone has the same currency, eg galactic cash). But, it would not fit with some of the races, such as those that may not have a developed currency.

But what ever form of economy each race has, thier economy can be rated against other aliens (like what I was saying before, eg 5|3|1). I think it would be good to allow such comparisons.

Though, we are talking about money. I think we should have it. Though it is tempting to just use money like everyone else, if we are being realistic, we have to think that not all races would use 'money' as their currency.

I think we should use the term 'money' because I assume the users are humans. But we could have a system where each races 'money' is valued against other races 'money', eg like exchange rates. The users could see their money rated against other races (hey my money is 5 times as valuable). When they give money to other races they should see the effect of the exchange rate. So give 500 money to another race. Since money is worth half of their money, you have to offer twice as much (1000). Maybe the race would just ask you for 1000 straight out.

Anyway, I think exchange rates are all the complexity we need. It can be made transparent to the user quite easy (ie KISS). You would just say 'money traded inefficiently', which means you are not exactly making a profit (you money is worth nothing to them).

Daveybaby
Small Juggernaut
Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:07 am
Location: Hastings, UK

#131 Post by Daveybaby »

IMHO, money *is* KISS as far as end users go. Its straightforward, its obvious, and it makes sense. Anything else is trying to bash a square peg into a round hole and making things far more confusing just for the sake of having one less thing in the game.

Every 4x game i can think of has used money. Thats not a reason in itself to use it in FO, but it totally demolishes the argument that its somehow too difficult a concept for people to deal with.
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

krum
Creative Contributor
Posts: 244
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2003 12:58 pm
Location: Bulgaria

#132 Post by krum »

It's just a label that gets put on various stuff in different games. Like every other word. It doesn't matter what you call stuff in a game, to me. Preferably it has to be a good metaphor of its in-game function, of course. But don't be so sure that calling it money can't actually be more misleading instead of user-friendly, depending on how it works in our game. And If we make it to appear more familiar to what poeple are used to with moeny instead of what would be more fun to play, well, that seems to me like doing it backwards. Hm, I didn't have much to say... Krum out.

User avatar
skdiw
Creative Contributor
Posts: 643
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:17 am

#133 Post by skdiw »

I think the concept of money is very difficult for ppl to understand here. I thought it's very obvious, and if not, from the definition. If you want an even more elementry association, then think paper = stuff you right on and also = money. Same thing for our prupose, we can say rp = stuff you spend on research and = money in which we base any inter-galactic transacttion on. Or think we tax to generate money (rp) so that we can pay for research and whatever other goods and services. I think if we realize what money is, I find very little reason to introduce a fifth resource, which we passed there are going to be four anyway. ><
:mrgreen:

Starrh
Space Squid
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:37 pm
Location: California

#134 Post by Starrh »

Ok Exhibit one
from the Design Archive/The Economy System
http://www.artclusta.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=122

Quote drekmonger July 17, 2003 3:16 am
"There are four passed resources: Nutrients (aka Food), Minerals, Industry and Research. In addition we will probably also have money."
I am reaching for anything to buttress my support for cash! :twisted:
If it was easy then we all would be doing it!

User avatar
skdiw
Creative Contributor
Posts: 643
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:17 am

#135 Post by skdiw »

You got to say why and not just because if feels right.
:mrgreen:

Locked