Net Angband: alpha testing

[buzzkill]

I was all excited to try this, but it seems to be down. "Expected to be back up by Feb 10th."

Yep, I been wondering about that too since my best V character ever is just hanging out there in the NetAngband world.

[Whelk]

I was all excited to try this, but it seems to be down. "Expected to be back up by Feb 10th."

[buzzkill]

Indeed. Man, we need a comic or 2 about Angband Economics.

What it really needs is it's own thread.

PLAY NetAngband!

[konijn_]

If all things cost 0 GP to produce supply will be infinite because profit can be made at any nonzero price. Stores would buy nothing and everything would sell for 1 GP, and prices would only be that high because GP are atomic.

Indeed. Man, we need a comic or 2 about Angband Economics.

T.

[Atarlost]

If all things cost 0 GP to produce supply will be infinite because profit can be made at any nonzero price. Stores would buy nothing and everything would sell for 1 GP, and prices would only be that high because GP are atomic.

[Magnate]

I think power based pricing is bad too.

Since power is supposed to equal utility, that's not entirely surprising.

[ekolis]

Haven't played yet, but the economy idea sounds intriguing... kinda reminds me of the old-school BBS "door games"!

I wonder if Angband or any other roguelike was ever ported to be a door game? Actually, I do remember "Legend of the Red Dragon 2" which was basically a roguelike, if I recall correctly... the first LoRD was just a bunch of menus, but LoRD 2 actually had maps and such you could walk around on!

Tradewars was kinda fun... for some reason the "modernized" versions with flashy graphics just weren't the same :P

[Astaroth]

This is cool , testing right now!

[buzzkill]

When things like !CCW, ?Phase, Arrows, and even ?Recall become priced competitively for characters who come back every trip with 20K gold, there's no way that a lowlevel character can afford to buy more than a handful, much less afford to sell any "extra" he may find in the dungeon.

I'll admit recall is a problem, but a singular one. There is not a suitable substitute for recall, which is absolutely necessary for entertaining gameplay. Without any changes, it would turn the game into much more of an ironmanish experience, which while it's not for everyone, might not be such a bad thing.

!CCW, Phase, Arrows WILL be sold rather than bought by players that need GP if the prices for these items are high enough. Players won't be able to afford not to. There are substitutes for these items, that while possibly not as effective, will be more reasonably priced.

If pricing for a particular item gets entirely out of control, making early survival impossible, then dungeon rarity would HAVE to be tweaked to simulate real-world productivity.

You can't figure production costs into anything in the Angband universe. I'm working on the assumption that all things cost the same GP to produce, 0 GP. That's just the magical nature of Angband.

[Nick]

This is fun, though I feel that we're somehow bordering on politics again .

Oh no, it's much worse than that. Instead of Angband - game of shopping we're getting Angband - game of microeconomic theory.

I mean, seriously, we have big bad warriors going into the dungeon and then coming back into the shop and trying to scrape together a few coins to pay Ga-nat the Greedy for scrolls. What's wrong with "Give me the scrolls, or I'll cut your head off"? I propose that the bigger your sword, the cheaper the merchandise and the more the shopkeeper grovels.

[Zababa]

Really?

Click on the link. Press [c]. Press [enter].

Now it works. I had troubles to connect yesterday. It could have something to do with the firewall settings at work, they may not have port 7777 opened.

[PowerDiver]

In the end, it's not all that much different than power based pricing.

I think power based pricing is bad too.

[Pete Mack]

I don't think you are likely to get agreement on this. The demand for (say) Holy Avenger with low dice (or big dice) in any one game is never more than 1. The supply is always more than one. So by your theory, Holy Avengers have less value than ?Phase Door. But that's not real life. In real life, there will be one or two producers of Holy Avengers (selling at a high price to cover costs), and any number of producers of ?phase door, selling at commodity costs. The stores already simulate fluctuation in supplies by random production on everything except arrows, which are consumed in numbers too large for the game to account for.



The low level character needs phase door and arrows even more desperately than the high level character. No matter the price, he won't be willing to sell these things. For low-level characters, the game becomes much more like ironman than anything else.

When things like !CCW, ?Phase, Arrows, and even ?Recall become priced competitively for characters who come back every trip with 20K gold, there's no way that a lowlevel character can afford to buy more than a handful, much less afford to sell any "extra" he may find in the dungeon.

Without some concept of supply-based (competitive) pricing, there's no way to avoid this problem.

Edited for clarity

[Hariolor]

No. I'd like them to be more commonly found in the dungeon so that they need not be constantly bought by new and experienced characters alike.

Without adjusting the rarity, both phase door and arrows would likely became very expensive, enabling a low level character to find a few (easy enough, even at DL1) and sell them for a handsome price, thus enabling him to purchase many other (less desirable, more reasonably priced) items to insure his survival. The system works.

You do realize that if this operated in anything even remotely resembling real-time, you'll have a constantly fluctuating market in which the value of any given item will change from moment to moment (or day to day, or whatever). I therefore propose that this change be accompanied by a new building "9" which is a real-time exchange market in which commodity futures can be traded against the dungeon markets.

So now that that's settled, the question becomes - where do we set the put/call spread so that "9" makes some money, while the lazy yet savvy adventurer can still loaf around trading ?phase futures against 1d6 (+0/+0) arrows until he's amassed a tidy fortune?

[buzzkill]

Do you want starting chars to be unable to buy average arrows and ?phase ?

No. I'd like them to be more commonly found in the dungeon so that they need not be constantly bought by new and experienced characters alike.

Without adjusting the rarity, both phase door and arrows would likely became very expensive, enabling a low level character to find a few (easy enough, even at DL1) and sell them for a handsome price, thus enabling him to purchase many other (less desirable, more reasonably priced) items to insure his survival. The system works.

BTW, I don't have any delusions that anything similar to this is going to be implemented (in V, NetV or any other variant). I'm just trying to make my point (that this type of pricing could work). But at the same time, I don't know why there is so much resistance to the idea itself. In the end, it's not all that much different than power based pricing. It's just desirability based pricing.