Cantr II Economics:

[Joshuamonkey]

I love new stuff like domesticated animals. I support new mechanics for new things that people enjoy. I don't support the view that economic austerity will restore Cantr's golden age. That's dead and gone and will never return.

In my opinion, what Cantr really needs in order to come alive is more players, preferably players that are willing to stay and continue to play the game, and while it's true that most new players don't stick around (and only about 13% of new accounts continue and don't idle out their account right off the bat), it's also true that there are less than 10 new accounts created daily, which is less than what it used to be years ago. But this is another topic..

Anyway I feel that something that would help the economy is requiring characters to depend on other character, like requiring more than one person to work on a machine or project, or requiring a certain skill level in order to make something (like a car or radio or exquisite foods) or requiring us to consistently trade with another town for a resource or food because it only lasts so long (although to be honest I don't like the idea of things disapearing..but that's life and it makes sense).

[kicking jay]

I agree, consumption is the most important driver of an economy. Interestingly, clothing is and has always been in great demand. I did a long writeup of why this is and how this can be applied to other things, but it was clunky and confusing, so here's this.

What if for all describable objects, a default description was given, and many, many more hard-coded variants were implemented? For example, instead of just a ceramic plate, there was a large ceramic plate, a ceramic platter, a ceramic saucer, a ceramic bowl, a ceramic ashtray, a medium ceramic plate, a square ceramic plate, etc, each with a default description? Suddenly, the demand for ceramic wares would increase, no? What if you had gold, silver, and jade inlayed versions of all of these? What if you had lockable display shelves which showed the descriptions but couldn't be stolen from? (already suggested, I know) What if it took almost as long to redescribe an object as it would to make it fresh?

These things bring me to what, I believe, creates demand and the willingness to value something for much more or less than it is worth in materials in time, when it comes to those who play Cantr:
Describablity (already done, somewhat. I want everything to have a description, maybe even semi-finished products. Bonus points if the special description you gave to that enarmes shows up in the finish kite shield?)
Hard-coded diversity (only in clothing)
Easy-to-show-offedness (only in clothing)
Irrecoverability (not really. I think reusing something, whether it's a bone needle or an already existing piece of clothing you want to modify, should be only done by those who very highly value the resources used in making it. Otherwise, it should be made fresh, IMO. Therefore, there should be slow degradation on everything)

One other attribute which drives recurring demand, which doesn't really fit with the example of the ceramic plates, is uselessness, but that's another post.