Net Angband: alpha testing

[PowerDiver]

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

Now I wish I hadn't said anything.

Item generation is fixed according to mystical rules until Tak changes it. Requesting chages to item generation is a different discussion.

We are talking about whether stores should price items according to utility, given an item generation scheme. That's the only thing that can be determined by tracking purchases and sales in net angband.

Let's stick to gameplay. My deep chars are going to buy all of the ?phase and average arrows in town, so long as the price is not astronomical. That means that starting chars sharing the same stores with my deep chars will not be able to afford to buy arrows or ?phase, either because the price is astronomical or because I already bought them out at merely "ridiculous" prices.

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

[Pete Mack]

@buzzkill
Eddie just meant that supply is determined by ease of production. If you try to charge 100GP for an arrow, someone else is guaranteed to make a cheaper one. Sure, arrows should probably be more common in the dungeon, but using 'demand pricing' in net angband will just drive up the price of arrows unreasonably.

This is so obvious, that there's already code in stores.c to ensure an unlimited supply of arrows at 1GP.

[buzzkill]

In most economies, prices are determined by production cost rather than utility, although things get more complicated due to monopolies and transfer costs. If you follow the utility pricing route, you should expect a single average arrow to cost more than an average lance or plate armor. Is that really what you want?

No. Prices are determined by supply and demand, little else. Production cost figures into this supply/demand equation as a matter of necessity (and is further influenced the supply/demand of raw materials, supply/demand of labor, supply/demand of technology, or of any resource). Items won't be produced if demand will not sustain a sale price that covers the production costs.

In a functional economy, this disparity would be compensated for by increased production (of arrows). I suggested tweaking dungeon rarity precisely because no such productivity exists in Angband. If enough arrows are found in the dungeon, there will little need to buy them in town. Why every bow wielding enemy doesn't drop (2d4) arrows is beyond me.

The problem with Plate Armour (in the Angband universe), is that it's fairly useless. There's little demand for it. The price is artificially high because the shopkeepers are idiots with unlimited amounts of gold and have no motivation to turn a profit. If plate armour actually had to be produced (rather than simply conjured forth by the RNG), it wouldn't be. It just wouldn't be cost-effective.

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

[PowerDiver]

That was my intent. I figured prices for common consumables would rise (quite dramatically) to the point where it would become more worthwhile to sell them than use them, at which point the price would regulate. Likewise, seldom purchased items values would fall to the point where they just might be bought. At the very least it would help establish standard pricing and help tweak dungeon rarity.

In most economies, prices are determined by production cost rather than utility, although things get more complicated due to monopolies and transfer costs. If you follow the utility pricing route, you should expect a single average arrow to cost more than an average lance or plate armor. Is that really what you want?

[buzzkill]

I still cannot launch it under the link d_m posted. Where do I have to create an account to play it?

Really?

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

[Zababa]

It occurred to me today that NetAngband would be a perfect place to implement and test supply and demand pricing in the shops. Supply and demand would be based strictly based on bought/sold ratio of each particular item and the cumulative totals at the end of each game would be added to the server's previous totals and this 'pricing structure' would be carried into each new game regardless of the user. *Necessary* items that become prohibitively expensive could have their rarity tweaked to be found more often in the dungeon (I don't know if this would become necessary).

I know I've brought this up before (without success), but with the advent of NetAngband and multiple users and styles of play, it may just be workable. Of course, it would (probably have to) be optional.

I like this idea very much. I am very interested in all kinds of statistics and there is a lot of thing going on in Angband of which I would very much like to see some long term statistics from various players.

But as far as i understand what NetAngband is, it is not going to be a solution for this. Anyway, thanks d_m to NetAngband. I still cannot launch it under the link d_m posted. Where do I have to create an account to play it?

[d_m]

Is there a way to resize anyterm. It's currently full screen width but only about half of this is used, the rest remains blank, and only about half the height of the screen. It would be nice if there wasn't so much wasted space.

I'm trying to figure that out. I haven't found an obvious way, although it may be a case of finding the right #defines and changing them.

[buzzkill]

I thought this was an attempt to price things based upon what adventurers spend their money upon.

That was my intent. I figured prices for common consumables would rise (quite dramatically) to the point where it would become more worthwhile to sell them than use them, at which point the price would regulate. Likewise, seldom purchased items values would fall to the point where they just might be bought. At the very least it would help establish standard pricing and help tweak dungeon rarity.

[PowerDiver]

This assumes that the player is the only consumer in the market. I'd always assumed that the player was acting as a sort of antiques dealer for the stores, retrieving interesting items that they could then export to other towns who don't have as easy access to the Pits.

If the prices are determned by outside forces, they should just be set in the edit files. Judging from the real world, the priciest items ought to be those with CHR bonuses.

I thought this was an attempt to price things based upon what adventurers spend their money upon.

[buzzkill]

Is there a way to resize anyterm. It's currently full screen width but only about half of this is used, the rest remains blank, and only about half the height of the screen. It would be nice if there wasn't so much wasted space.

[Derakon]

If you want to go to a market-driven economy, make sure that the stores do not pay more than they receive. Start them with 0 gold, and only increase it when players buy stuff.

This assumes that the player is the only consumer in the market. I'd always assumed that the player was acting as a sort of antiques dealer for the stores, retrieving interesting items that they could then export to other towns who don't have as easy access to the Pits.

[d_m]

I'm working on a version of NetAngband that is embedded in a page (and doesn't have the scrollbars). Pav has created a method to load dumps from NetAngband--I plan to put links to the ladder as well as a dump download and maybe even a link to the high scores.

[Big Al]

Very cool! That works well.

(Though in Safari, it seems to put an extra scroll bar on the bottom of the window, which in turn moves the top line off the screen. Works fine in firefox though.)

[Magnate]

chances are, being Angband and all, it'd even be compatible with lynx. curses!

Lovely. That was worthy of Nick himself.

[andrewdoull]

In real life economy, more demand would the prices go up, not down.

I think Pete was pointing out that you don't need more than one dungeon book, and only the best pval (2) rings of speed. That would drive prices down, due to oversupply.

Andrew