Vending Machines and Turnstiles

[Pie]

You know what? I just love this idea. Boy, how much do i want to shout on the rooftops that i love this idea.... but i cant...

But seriously, good idea guys.

[N-Aldwitch]

How about you can only stock completed items, rather than raw resources? Does that sound any better/resolve any issues?

[Sho]

Not as far as I can tell. For one thing, tool storage hasn't been implemented yet, though it is planned. Also, tools of one type are not all identical, so your vending machine would be either selling a list of tools in varying condition, which eliminates the convenience of being able to set a single price for an item type, or your buyers would be paying the same amount for brand new and crumbling tools.
So this would add some problems and not resolve any, unless there's something you saw but didn't mention.

[N-Aldwitch]

Good point, Sho, the list would become awefully large...

But Sho you must remember, (I just thought of this), in real life, even WE have to take Cans of Coke out of the vending machine once they go off.

Hm, if you're a good salesman you'll regularly take your items out and repair them, as would any good Vending machine manager or what ever they're called, they'd take the off cans of coke out eventually! (I hope!)

[fishfin]

I like this Idea, a buisness man could make a vending machine and a coin press, To get coins you have to bargon with him but once you have the coins you could buy anything in the machine (even tools or wepons even though you would have no idea of the quality of them first).

[Songthrush]

In another thread, Sociologist has raised a lot of consciousness for the currently hopeless status of coinage and the idea of currency in general in Cantr.

This idea is a suggested solution for the problem of convertibility (currency=>goods and items) in the non-realtime context of Cantr.

We'd like to propose a new machine, a coin operated mechanical dispenser. This rugged contraption would consist of a big wooden casing, housing a set of generic locked drawers with coin slots arranged above them.

A person using the dispenser sees a menu similar to what is currently implemented for barrels and silos. They see the contents of the drawers, and are told that this drawer requires, say, 10 coins. When the set number of coins is dropped into the slot above the drawer, it mechanically unlocks and the person gets its contents (or they fall on the ground as with barrels/silos).

There is a master key for the machine, which its owner holds. This key allows him to add resources or items to a drawer, take items out, or take out the coins the dispenser holds. The master lock could be breakable using a crowbar using the same system as other locks.

Variations: Iron coin operated dispenser, Silver coin operated dispenser, Gold coin operated dispenser. In the Sociologist thread we are arguing that really only an Iron coin operated dispenser would be truly useful.

The machine, being full of gears and levers, should require a considerable amount of time,tools, and some iron to build. The suggested max capacity per drawer is 10,000g and ten or so drawers per machine.

The great advantage of building such machines is that using coins all of a sudden becomes universally convenient. Characters can instantly get an item or resource they want from an available dispenser, without waiting for other players to wake up. In larger towns the dispensers would surely become extremely popular. Because no fixed prices of any kind are set by the machine itself, its owners themselves determine the number of coins that opens a particular drawer. This creates interesting price variances from place to place, enabling a new kind of trader: the coin-carrying type who knows where to go to get things cheaper.

The downside is that some feel that such a machine would constitute "automation", which is unwanted in the game. Let's discuss if it would, to what extent would this be bad for gameplay, and if it would, may an exception be considered as an emergency solution to save coins from their present pathetic uselessness.

[tiddy ogg]

Seems a good idea, and deserves to have been bumped. I'm sure there's a down side somewhere, but I can't think of it. I assume you'd be able to break into 'em with a crowbar.

[Marian]

IMHO I'd rather have coins be pathetically useless than having them pushed on us so much by the programmers. I don't even like having a coin press around honestly, except for the fact that I could see it as being good for making medallions or medals for RP.

I can maybe picture an automated vending machine being added somewhere down the line if coins ever catch on on their own, but right now why would someone 'invent' a machine that let people trade little useless trinkets for good resources or tools? Why would little metal disks that you can't make anything with be considered valuable except for OOC reasons? And how come you can't put iron or cotton cloth into the machine instead?


I hate the whole idea of coins as currency...I hate the having them in the game at all actually and wish the coin press was called something different because of all the OOC influence attached to the word. It was te lack of them that was one of the biggest selling points for me when I first heard about Cantr.

Besides, steel and iron is money as far as my chars are concerned, it's the one thing that every town and every trader accepts... I wouldn't appreciate having to turn all my perfectly good, perfeclty useful metal into little flat disks that can never be made into tools, (honestly the things make iron bracelets look practical...) just because a bunch of people have suddenly overnight decided to do all their trading through a machine that requires these little coins they've never before used, made, and barely even thought of.

[Talapus]

Coins can be returned to their base materials. You just need a stone table.

[tiddy ogg]

Oh if they can be so returned even better. But Marion, the whole point of coins is that (hopefully, eventually) they would be universally accepted, and you wouldn't have to find someone who wants to trade snakeskin for diamonds. Admittedly, that acceptance is far off. Iron, as you say, seems to be becoming that current currency, and if that's so, why bother turning it into coins. (the trust thing comes in if you're using something less valuable, like nickel) that isn't intrinsically worth what's stamped on it.

[Mykey]

You have hit the mark. Thought excellent, I support.

[Marian]

Who's to say iron and steel doesn't already come in tiny little disks, 1 gram apiece? All a coin press does is glob a few of them together and write some tiny little words on them, but unfortunately it makes them worthless at the same time. (but it's at least good if you can turn them back, even if the question there would be why someone turned them into coins in the first place.)

I still say coins are best for RP purposes for clans or religions or some kind of 'secret society'. I just really wish they were called 'medallions' or something instead.

[Songthrush]

The reason is stated in my long diatribe which nobody bothered to study (understandably). If there are mechanical dispensers, then coins become a way to INSTANTLY get an item or resource you need in exchange for some iron coins, without waiting for anybody to wake up and haggling.

So coins drive dispenser machines - and hence become valueable!

[tiddy ogg]

We did read that. The discussion then veered off as to whether it was necessary to invent machines to promote the circulation of coins.
If coins were generally available, fair enough on the machines, a very good idea, but it still prompts the question of who would accept coins in trade in the first place, and why. You'd need some big commodity exchange, like a supermarket with two way trade, so you could trade many things. As things stand, if you want hematite, you find out what you think is needed in that location and go along with that, not to a central store. I certainly agree that it's easier to carry a few coins around, than 10days worth of limestone, but I can't see how it can ever get started.
The only use I can see at present is for when the trade load is to great for the recippient to carry and they are given acoins as an IOU.

[Songthrush]

Because iron coins can be quite easily converted back into iron (10g each), and can be used in dispenser machines, they will become by themselves a desirable medium of exchange. If you have coins, you can get stuff from any coin-op dispenser machine you find. This is interesting - you could find anything in these machines while you are around, and who knows at what prices. Maybe very low in places where iron is rare.

In order to get started, a town leader would need to build a coin press of their own and a dispenser. If they keep it stocked with items and resources that people want, and pay labourers with their self-made coins, currency will start to naturally flow back and forth. The town leader could offer (maybe for a fee) to exchange raw iron into coins for anyone wanting to. It is interesting that a coin becomes actually more valuable than the iron it's made with (since it does take time and facilities to produce them). You could see how some people wouldl be interested in converting their "free iron" capital into coins even if it's at a loss.

So the coins get a kind of indirect start in being a very tradeable commodity through this. You can think of the coins as simply iron, processed into a form to make it useful in coin-op dispensers. That is why they acquire real gameplay significance, without anybody giving them artificial value.

Between trader and trader:
"How many coins for 10,000g of limestone?"
This question is really "How much iron is 10,000g of limestone worth at the current place we're at?"
"I'll give you 15." (translation: 150g of iron)

As traders we will WANT and prefer coins because they give us easy access to all the stuff found in dispensers around the world. Without waiting for somebody to wake up and trade us that limestone, if it can be gotten for some number of coins straight from a mechanical dispenser.

Imagine what sorts of things this would make possible! At last, smithing, weapons or clothesmaking professions will be able to set clear prices for their products and to truly operate. If the dispensers were allowed to have names (like ships or houses), then with a lot of work entire chains of dispensers across different towns become possible. Someone could arrange with the local leaders to have their dispenser protected against break-ins and travel from town to town, restocking their dispensers, collecting coins, and trading.

Some of this will frighten folks into thinking human contact will be lost, with everybody running around getting things mechanically from dispensers instead. Think ahead a little, and you will see that this is not so, because what could be gotten from a machine for 3 coins, could concievably be bought for only 1 coin from a willing person locally. So it does not upset the existing dynamic of trading, it only supplements it.