Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

boggers · 2018-09-11 10:24:46

I've seen it brought up a few times here, don't really have a concrete system in mind, but was wondering what people think about how a system of currency could work in OHOL...

Here's my ideas on it:

Smelt gold into coins, cut up pretty fine, say 20 coins per ingot.

Up to 20 coins can be held in hand but cant be stored in anything but a coin purse or a market stall.

Water pouch + snake skin = coin purse, wearable as a belt and adds an inventory slot that is only usable for coins and only holds up to 20 coins.

Chest plus full coin purse = market stall.

Market stalls have 4 inventory slots with trade orders, as well as containing an amount of gold, and they operate unattended. This means anyone can buy from or sell to the unattended stall at the designated prices, as long as seller has the item in stock and the buyer has enough gold to cover the transaction and the inventory space to hold it. As the stall creator, you get to set the prices permanently for that stall, but it costs all the gold you can carry and maybe even the purse itself to do so.

I think a system like that would give rise to a new job of trader, which is that player who goes around with a cart buying and selling at different stalls with different prices for fun and profit.

One possible way to exploit this idea comes to mind... setting up a stall beside another stall with different prices and using one stall to drain the other of coins &/or stock. I think with the stalls requiring a chest and full purse to set up in the first place this would not be too easy, especially if it consumes a full purse in order to set up the stall, so you wont have a purse or any gold immediately after it is set up, but the exploit you set up will be available to anyone who does have coins at the ready... plus you don't know how much gold is in the existing stall, and it only holds 4 items anyway... so there would not be much point in trying to exploit it. If your goal was to acquire a lot of gold, you'd be far better off working as a trader between existing stalls.

The other issue is poorly priced stalls may end up cluttered up full of overpriced unwanted items. eg, if I set up a stall in the rabbit fields to sell the backpacks I make, and I set a generous price for balls of thread there to encourage people to deliver those to me, it works better than expected, people fill it with thread, but that drains all the stall funds so that nobody can sell backpacks to it anymore, and nobody is willing to pay for the expensive thread. I guess you could set the numbers and inventory limits so that it is impossible to drain the gold completely, but I can still see a stall might get stuck or become redundant if supply and demand changes. eg. around the bargain backpacks / expensive thread stall, rabbits get farmed completely out and someone sets up a sheep pen next door.

Maybe stores that do not do any transactions for a few hours decay, leaving behind their wares and coin purse for some lucky wanderer.

Anyway, just some ideas. I really think currency will be the thing that turns our little villages into proper towns.

Last edited by boggers (2018-09-11 10:25:42)

Septy · 2018-09-11 12:04:16

Right...
But what about the gameplay? This "trader job" is gonna be like a real world cashier job. I dont wanna sit in game at a market stall for an hour. That's not how escaping reality and fun in games works.
It would get boring really fast.

subria · 2018-09-11 12:58:01

When you drop your hoe and water berry, I will steal it and sell. Sr, but that is what happen.

boggers · 2018-09-11 14:16:27

Septy, in case it wasnt clear in the first post, the idea is that stalls work unattended, like vending machines that buy and sell. It's just a box that gives gold when you put certain items in, and requires gold to take items out. The trader job is just an extension of the gatherer job, for people who take advantage of people setting different prices in different places.

subria, most tools are consumable, so it'd be easy to have a smith stall that only accept unused tools, and nobody buys partial buckets, but you are right, theft of certain items would certainly happen.

It might also make thieves a lot easier to catch, since you'd know exactly where that kid with the coin purse is headed with your empty water bucket.

But, say you are a carrot farmer and you (or someone else) sets up a stall next to your farm. The smith on the other side of town sells new hoes for 5g. So you set the price of new hoes in your stall at 6g and used hoes at 4g, now you keep your hoe in the stall when you aren't using it, that means you collect 4g from the stall every time you put it away, and you pay 4g to the stall to pick it up again. Now, say some kid steals a hoe from your neighbour's farm and tries to sell it at your stall, if your hoe is currently in the stall, the kid can't sell another one to the stall, since its used hoe inventory slot is full. What is the thief to do? Drop it? Return it? Hide it? Your neighbour knows where to look for his hoe whenever it goes missing, and you probably know who the thief is when he comes calling.

Everyone putting things away into stalls could go some way to prevent thieves, or certainly make thievery a trickier occupation.

Dodge · 2018-09-11 14:42:18

Yes but why would i trade when i can get ressources for free?

Implementing economy in OHOL would be very complicatd but not impossible

But the only way i see it is if there are rare ressources very hard to find and village A as one ressource that he can trade with village B in exchange of another rare ressource or the equivalent in monetary value

Also some goods hard to make could also be valuable, but right now the only one i see would be the horses or horsecarts eventually real estates

But buying food for example seems like nonsense, also since everything is shared and the ressources belong to the city and not the individual (exception for objects in the backpack (which in the end still returns to the city)) trading doesnt make much sense

It could work in certain circumstences for example you have coins and want to buy a knife, but the person who has the knife wants to trade it for arrows and you dont have arrows, you could use the coins as an intermediate to buy the knife, and then the other person uses the coins to buy arrows

Septy · 2018-09-11 14:42:59

Yeah, I didnt catch the unattended part, I mostly speed read your post.
Kudos for trying to come up with new stuff for the game, Im just not a fan of this.
Feels like we would be putting the cart in front of the horse, figuratively speaking. There is other quality of life things we need before vending machines and coin pouches.

boggers · 2018-09-11 17:39:36

Septy: yeah this is more of a thought experiment than a suggestion for the game, mostly just wondering how money could be implemented within OHOL's framework which wasn't really designed for it.

As for why would anyone trade, the short answer is to save time and increase the ability to specialise in larger communities. Stalls with excess (ie. free) stock and items out of stock would show people what currently needs fixing and provide an incentive for them to do it. Setting up a stall is a way of saying "It is __% important to me that these items are always available in this location."

Buying weapons though, that's a risky business. People could get stabbed for their coins trying to buy a knife on the wrong side of town.

Booklat1 · 2018-09-11 23:42:25

i don't like these kind of mechanics is ohol. too automatized

the best way for trade to work in ohol is, i think, make it a more integral part of societies. If food wasn't communal berry farms people would need to trade for it, ask for donations, steal. There are still resources that can work like that such as furs and iron. You can trade a backpack for someone tilling your farm. just gotta make sure to keep the pack safe and talk to someone who wants to trade.

try getting some 3/4 ropes in the wild and asking smith if he/she wants to trade it for something. Honestly we're all too dependant on the safety of cities too (and for good reason, there isn't all that mch to explore yet) so it makes trade between civs hard.

Morti · 2021-05-05 21:12:42

Dodge wrote:

Yes but why would i trade when i can get ressources for free?
Implementing economy in OHOL would be very complicatd but not impossible
But the only way i see it is if there are rare ressources very hard to find and village A as one ressource that he can trade with village B in exchange of another rare ressource or the equivalent in monetary value
Also some goods hard to make could also be valuable, but right now the only one i see would be the horses or horsecarts eventually real estates
But buying food for example seems like nonsense, also since everything is shared and the ressources belong to the city and not the individual (exception for objects in the backpack (which in the end still returns to the city)) trading doesnt make much sense
It could work in certain circumstences for example you have coins and want to buy a knife, but the person who has the knife wants to trade it for arrows and you dont have arrows, you could use the coins as an intermediate to buy the knife, and then the other person uses the coins to buy arrows

I don't want to take this away from you.
I want to build on it.
We can learn from it.
Maybe we can ask, some of those who have stopped playing the game since, what made them happy, before we were split apart.
And if they'd like it to be that way, once again?
Perhaps, a combination of everything we've been through so far?
Races, living together, but the individuals of those races, with the abilities to provide unique resources to their town and the descendants of mixed families? Would you be okay with that? Would you be willing, to give it a try for awhile?

Would it make you want to play more? To be more involved, personally, with the, unfolding, of the future?

Dodge · 2021-05-05 21:31:56

I already contacted Jason about a solution i have to the issue of having the current "trade" system but without the forced restriction, not going to go into too many details but basically it would be possible to give the player a choice between going in an unfamiliar biome at a high risk or trading with the local people for the ressources from that special biome.

He didn't seem that much interested, he said that the current system was fine and that the game was "in a good place".

Morti · 2021-05-05 22:20:31

Optimization, is always possible.
The game, can always find a better place.
In history, and in hearts, minds, and memories, of those afforded the opportunity to play it.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-09-11 10:24:46

Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#2 2018-09-11 12:04:16

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#3 2018-09-11 12:58:01

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#4 2018-09-11 14:16:27

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#5 2018-09-11 14:42:18

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#6 2018-09-11 14:42:59

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#7 2018-09-11 17:39:36

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#8 2018-09-11 23:42:25

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#9 2021-05-05 21:12:42

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#10 2021-05-05 21:31:56

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

#11 2021-05-05 22:20:31

Re: Discussion: Money and trade in OHOL.

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