On Jul 11, 2016, at 1:31 PM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I've been thinking about currency/grind games, and was trying to
> enumerate what makes them "successful" in Agora in my experience.
> Here's my start on a feature list; thoughts?
I’m leery of “grind” economies, for a few reasons. If the system is flat
enough, it’s clear fairly early on who will reach various milestones first, at
which point the game itself devolves to going through the motions; making a
rich-enough grind economy is hard: it’s something people do as a career.
> The Ideal Grind
>
> 1. Allows each player to perform around 3-6 "grindy" ("I harvest 1 corn")
> and 1-2 strategic ("I change my field to wheat") solo moves per week.
And thus you invent real property, or something approximating it.
> 2. Need to think ahead 2-3 weeks to make best moves, "thinking ahead"
> includes looking at other players' positions.
As near as I can tell, Agora’s rules, as written, require that the only hidden
state for an Agoran is their state of mind - their unstated intents, beliefs,
and plans. It seems like speculation would require some level of hidden
information beyond that, but I think the only way to mediate hidden information
would be to authorize someone to know and manage that information. Am I missing
something?
> 5. Big question: cutthroat (everyone's position re-set on a win)
> versus friendly (you could win today and someone else could get there
> tomorrow).
>
> 6. Other big question: amount of randomness.
Randomness requires some way to reach consensus as to the results. How has
Agora solved this before?
It seems like an organization would be a great way to test ideas out without
the full formality of proposing new rules. I’d be happy to work with anyone
interested on a charter.
-o
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