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[Splint]

I'm also the guy insisting on introducing fixed, controllable wages by the way. That's basically the least "free market" concept you can come up with, by I think it would fit well with the way DF works.

Wage control is something that might be needed to help the less in-demand workers get by, so I totally support that.

And let's not reignite any fires people.

The only ones likely to die from a supply change is when it happens with food, and until the farming overhaul comes, that usually means "food stores destroyed/conquered, farms destroyed/conquered" and you lack the people with the needed skills to not die horribly from starvation.

[Klitri]

Hello. I have been reading the entire debate between Cookie, Ribs, and Splint..

I just have a few things to say, and since I'm not so sophisticated as Ribs and Splint I'll keep it short.

Goblincookie. Stop.

You sound like some conspiracy nutter, literally going on about how the developers don't know what they want, and how you do. You seem to think that you know every single bit of what is going to happen, how it'll happen, what DF is and isn't, and otherwise just posting utter BS in an attempt to get people to agree with you.

Seriously, I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish.. But it just sounds like whining, lots of whining and irrational thought processes.

The developers know what they want, as a developer myself I can guarantee the things they say are exactly how they say it, whether or not they change it or scrap it all together is a different story, but saying that they have changed their minds from an idea six years ago is just plain inaccurate.

[Alfrodo]

I'm also the guy insisting on introducing fixed, controllable wages by the way. That's basically the least "free market" concept you can come up with, by I think it would fit well with the way DF works.

Wage control is something that might be needed to help the less in-demand workers get by, so I totally support that.

And let's not reignite any fires people.

The only ones likely to die from a supply change is when it happens with food, and until the farming overhaul comes, that usually means "food stores destroyed/conquered, farms destroyed/conquered" and you lack the people with the needed skills to not die horribly from starvation.

Wage Control, is that like Minimum wage?

Cerol Ernuggad, King, has increased minimum wage.

Mibi Dafodafo, Thresher has organized a party at Brimstone Table

[Ribs]

Hello. I have been reading the entire debate between Cookie, Ribs, and Splint..

I just have a few things to say, and since I'm not so sophisticated as Ribs and Splint I'll keep it short.

Goblincookie. Stop.

You sound like some conspiracy nutter, literally going on about how the developers don't know what they want, and how you do. You seem to think that you know every single bit of what is going to happen, how it'll happen, what DF is and isn't, and otherwise just posting utter BS in an attempt to get people to agree with you.

Seriously, I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish.. But it just sounds like whining, lots of whining and irrational thought processes.

The developers know what they want, as a developer myself I can guarantee the things they say are exactly how they say it, whether or not they change it or scrap it all together is a different story, but saying that they have changed their minds from an idea six years ago is just plain inaccurate.

I doubt you'll convince him.

This is how it keeps going: We suggest something that compliments his ideology, and he's on board. Criticize something that offends his ideological viewpoint, and he goes back to his conspiracy theories... I insist on talking to him because I don't think he's crazy, just a dedicated ideologue. He's trying hard to prove me wrong, though

[Splint]

Again, let's not reignite shit guys. He's actually been pretty good for the most part the last post or two. Not great, but better than he was before.

Hell, he even conceded that private shops aren't really bad per se, just that there wouldn't be a need for more than one for the usual max population players set (I'm only aware of a handful who've had more than 150~ dorfs, and I personally favor populations where only one or two shops would really be needed.) However, the presence of multiple specialist and general shops in adventure mode means it'd be perfectly normal to have multiple shops in one area, even if it'd be a little pointless, especially in a very compact fort.

[GoblinCookie]

I'm also the guy insisting on introducing fixed, controllable wages by the way. That's basically the least "free market" concept you can come up with, by I think it would fit well with the way DF works.

I'm not for a libertartian fortress or whatever you think I'm trying to sell, I'm just against it becoming a weird socialism simulator with concepts like price control that were historical disasters becoming the standard.

Yes, except it creates a problem of what happens if you do not have enough Gold&Silver&Copper to pay your dwarves extra wages (or any wages at all).  Your wage control idea is wonderful alone if we are rolling in gold, but not so much if we are not.

Price control is minimal wage raises for those who do not have much money. 

I doubt you'll convince him.

This is how it keeps going: We suggest something that compliments his ideology, and he's on board. Criticize something that offends his ideological viewpoint, and he goes back to his conspiracy theories... I insist on talking to him because I don't think he's crazy, just a dedicated ideologue. He's trying hard to prove me wrong, though

You think that you are in a different boat?  You think that this whole thread is not a dedicated attempt to ensure that Stagnant Soul's ideological views as to how society should be are properly reflected in the game, whether he is aware he is doing that or not.  That is shown by how the OT is a pure addition to the game mechanics, it does not identify any real problem except for the trivial to fix problem of used clothes cluttering the fortress.  Mechanically speaking the Status Quo only needs a bit of optional automation and a better system to assign labours than VPL before it is nigh-on-perfect.

Since mechanically speaking there is no need for 'internal commerce' we are indeed in ideological waters.  What we are talking about is people that do not like the established social order of the dwarves because it conflicts with their vision of how society 'ought to be' with lots of internal commerce.  Internal commerce is an ideological neccesity for them, without it society 'feels wrong' and the game therefore is incomplete until such a time as their own ideology colonises the game and there is internal commerce. 

It is ideologically wrong that dwarves work for free and get everything for free even though it works better than the previous internal commerce system did.  Ironically it is not like Bay12 games works on internal commerce either, Toady One and Threetoes work (or not) for free and we also freely donate (or not).  If they choose not to work and we choose not to donate then the whole setup will collapse, just like a fortress would if all of our decided to take an eternal break which they are free to do.  This brings us back to what I said about the relationship between ideology and institutions, which is analogous to the way that a plant has seeds. 

An institution plant produces ideology seeds that is in accord to it's nature that try to make more institution plants; this is a quite unconscious process that the members of the institutions do not always percieve.  These seeds can exist independantly of the plant that created them and try to find new ground to colonise, growing into new plants that produce even more seeds etc.  There is no essential difference in the way this works between a cultural institution (a book, computer game, artwork) and an actual institution that exists (a government say) except the latter is more powerful.  The reason the devs created the basic game mechanics to work the way that they do is because it reflects the actual institution of Bay12 games; remember that the replication process is unconscious. 

The dwarves are organised on a small scale because the devs are small scale, the game struggles to handle large scale things for the same reason.  The dwarves work for free because the devs work for free.  The dwarves work at their own pace because the devs work at their own pace.  Where it gets it interesting is that the rest of the world surrounding them does not work that way but a different way and the inspiration for the development of the game world depends upon this outer world for inspiration.  According to the inspiration the game that is initially created is thus wrong, because the ideological seeds of the outside world necceserily colonise the devs minds and this causes them to attempt to literally overwrite their own mechanics with new mechanics that replicate these other seeds. 

The Economy is not therefore the basic way the game always worked but is a 'Thing' that exists in the game.  Due to this thing for no sensible reason the original system was suddenly replaced with a new one once the fortress has developed enough.  Here we have an attempt of the foreign ideological seed to produce it's own institution on top of another institution based upon opposing principles and the ultimate result is that institution is destroyed.  But the other seeds are still there trying to make new institutions until they can graft themselves fully onto the roots of the old institution and the fundermental nature of the game is changed into something like SimCity.

It is not because the game is incomplete, they could have started right from the bat making something like SimCity.  Remember that the replication process is an unconscious one, Bay 12 unconsciously replicates it's own arrangements initially in it's creations but then the need to develop that creation forces it to try to absorb ideas from other sources.  If those other sources however depicted societies working along the same lines as DF societies do presently then what we would get is development of the present social order rather than plans for Economy 2.0. 

Hello. I have been reading the entire debate between Cookie, Ribs, and Splint..

I just have a few things to say, and since I'm not so sophisticated as Ribs and Splint I'll keep it short.

Goblincookie. Stop.

You sound like some conspiracy nutter, literally going on about how the developers don't know what they want, and how you do. You seem to think that you know every single bit of what is going to happen, how it'll happen, what DF is and isn't, and otherwise just posting utter BS in an attempt to get people to agree with you.

Seriously, I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish.. But it just sounds like whining, lots of whining and irrational thought processes.

The developers know what they want, as a developer myself I can guarantee the things they say are exactly how they say it, whether or not they change it or scrap it all together is a different story, but saying that they have changed their minds from an idea six years ago is just plain inaccurate.

The whole point of a suggestions forum is to criticise the ideas of devs and develop new one's.  If we start by digging up the devs ideas especially if they are from years ago and then using them to argue against eachother then we are just living in an echo chamber.  If they have not changed their minds since 6 years ago they still can, or we can raise issues with those ideas that they did not notice.  That is our purpose, not to worship Threetoes and Toady One and hold onto their every word as holy writ. 

I am not sure whether I like the way things are going or not.  I like the way that the devs have decided to focus on starting scenarios first, implementing economic ideas in the context of the essentially political starting scenarios; this rather fits with my own ideas about the relationship between politics and economics.  But there is a danger that they might succumb to the temptations of making Economy 2.0 and ruin the game all over again or transform it into SimCity; I see my job as being to criticise threads like this in order to hopefully keep that from happening.

[Alfrodo]

I'm also the guy insisting on introducing fixed, controllable wages by the way. That's basically the least "free market" concept you can come up with, by I think it would fit well with the way DF works.

I'm not for a libertartian fortress or whatever you think I'm trying to sell, I'm just against it becoming a weird socialism simulator with concepts like price control that were historical disasters becoming the standard.

Yes, except it creates a problem of what happens if you do not have enough Gold&Silver&Copper to pay your dwarves extra wages (or any wages at all).  Your wage control idea is wonderful alone if we are rolling in gold, but not so much if we are not.

Price control is minimal wage raises for those who do not have much money. 

Here's where we also go to the problem about coins strewn everywhere, and state that this could be handled by not minting coins and using a credit system.  Like in the original economy.

[Splint]

Alternatively, you could have not responded to the whole thing in a way that's going to continue to make you look like a tit, no offense intended. When you start explicitly talking ideology, you're going to cause problems, because more-so than the subject of ideologies already is, it will be very heavily colored by personal beliefs. You're response can easily be interpreted as trying to provoke an argument, which is not a good thing and makes others even more unwilling to hear your points out; only make them angry with you specifically and either get nasty (as people seemed to be getting in other threads,) start mocking you in addition to that (as Ribs has,) or start poking holes in your own argument to the point where it infuriates you in turn.

The whole point of a suggestions forum is to criticise the ideas of devs and develop new one's.  If we start by digging up the devs ideas especially if they are from years ago and then using them to argue against eachother then we are just living in an echo chamber.  If they have not changed their minds since 6 years ago they still can, or we can raise issues with those ideas that they did not notice.  That is our purpose, not to worship Threetoes and Toady One and hold onto their every word as holy writ.

Apparently you still think we don't know a definition of a word. We have been putting forward various suggestions/ideas. Also, please stop with the "holy writ" garbage. They're valid statements unless they (not you,) say otherwise, and it's highly insulting that you imply we we can't think for ourselves as a result.  Three times now.

I am not sure whether I like the way things are going or not. I like the way that the devs have decided to focus on starting scenarios first, implementing economic ideas in the context of the essentially political starting scenarios; this rather fits with my own ideas about the relationship between politics and economics.  But there is a danger that they might succumb to the temptations of making Economy 2.0 and ruin the game all over again or transform it into SimCity

Or you could trust them to know what they're doing with thier own game. If you don't like the way things are going, this is the internet. Either deal with it and try to put forward suggestions and debate people on the strong points without seeming stubborn to the point of madness, or go somewhere else.

It won't end up like SimCity. Sure, we may get some localized shit to fiddle around with, but it's not going to turn into a full-blown empire manager, and if an updated economy is added, well if it turns out to be broken, it can be switched off with a small patch and kept that way until it can undergo more changes. People seem to forget that as a game, and with this particular feature in particular, things can be turned off either by us or with a patch.

I see my job as being to criticise threads like this in order to hopefully keep that from happening

But it's not your job. So far most of what you've done is either suggest things that sound needlessly over-complicated and make at least three people angry with you, and like you've said, just because there's something you don't like, doesn't make it necessarily stupid or a bad idea.

It is not because the game is incomplete

But it is incomplete. It's still considered an alpha, and therefore unfinished.

Now, can we please drop this shit and go back to talking about coins and angry people throwing the mayor out of office?

Yes, except it creates a problem of what happens if you do not have enough Gold&Silver&Copper to pay your dwarves extra wages (or any wages at all).

In regards to the monetary front, even though "gamey" (I fucking hate that nobody knows what a gameplay concession is,) coins wouldn't strictly be needed. Just someone to give everyone thier pay stub which is added to thier "account." For internal fortress sales and purchases, no coins are needed. Preferred, probably, but not necessary, though if one is rolling in even just copper or silver, then the problem of providing the coinage is solved (especially since copper and silver ores are easily the most common kinds with galena and tetrahedrite being seemingly inescapable.)

Now, obviously they'd need coins to buy stuff from merchants visiting the fort or from visiting hill dwarves, because Clutchtown Fortress script (aka abstracted moneies; the old economy did do at least one thing sensibly for gameplay,) is going to be worthless to a resident of the hillock Turnfurnace or to merchants from Justiceforked. But the coinage need not be in gold exclusively (though if you have excess, it'd be better to issue gold coins so less coins have to be kept track of,) just enough copper or silver.

And of course there still needs to be a means to recombine stacks (not just for coins, but for ammo as well,) for coins to even be viable at all.

[Shazbot]

I do want to say that wage and price controls already exist in DF and are the reason why merchants will unload a mountain of weapons, tools, food and raw materials in return for a masterpiece syrup roast. I would also go so far as to say they're a reason the old economy failed; ten thousand empty rooms wouldn't fill with ten unskilled haulers because supply and demand weren't affecting the prices. However, if you want to go down that route, with player-mandated prices and a central totalitarian economic plan? Go for it, and implement all the tools needed.

But for Armok's sake, include the alternative and make it vibrant enough to work on its own. Teach people about economic systems, the pros and cons, through Dwarf Fortress. Don't shoehorn one system or the other in because its your ideology. Think of how we handled sex and gender and how everyone can be happy because the system is so robust. The next economic system needs to be that powerful and I suspect Toady has that in mind.

[Ribs]

The previous economy was gimmicky and not very well thought out. Toady said that the main reason he even came up with it in the first place was to have an excuse for dwarves to have coins in their little chests and coffers, so you'll be able to find them when exploring the fortress in adv. mode. Also, that system was never "replaced", it was just deactivated.

Back then (pre 2009) the main focus of development (ultimately) was adventure mode. Today, not so much. He's already said that the next time he decides to go back to developing an aconomy he'll do it seriously, and it will be the it's permanent rendition. We can rest assured that any features that were wonky back in 40d will work much better next time.

So things like shops and an internal economy are likely to go back in the game(not impossible that he'll do something different, but still very likely that they will come back), and will probably work surprisingly well relative to how they did in his previous attempt because he'll put a lot more work into it.

[Ribs]

I do want to say that wage and price controls already exist in DF and are the reason why merchants will unload a mountain of weapons, tools, food and raw materials in return for a masterpiece syrup roast. I would also go so far as to say they're a reason the old economy failed; ten thousand empty rooms wouldn't fill with ten unskilled haulers because supply and demand weren't affecting the prices. However, if you want to go down that route, with player-mandated prices and a central totalitarian economic plan? Go for it, and implement all the tools needed.

But for Armok's sake, include the alternative and make it vibrant enough to work on its own. Teach people about economic systems, the pros and cons, through Dwarf Fortress. Don't shoehorn one system or the other in because its your ideology. Think of how we handled sex and gender and how everyone can be happy because the system is so robust. The next economic system needs to be that powerful and I suspect Toady has that in mind.

Yeah, wage and price control would be complicated to do in DF. That's why I'm against price control at least, so it will be less overwhelming to the player (and also less ridiculous). Wage control is easier, since in the end all you really need is to give them enough "money" to buy food, and you can have a lot more freedom with just giving dwarves more money. Although it could also have weird consequences

[Shazbot]

I would love to see all my dwarves flood into the trade depot when the merchants arrive, selling things from their personal possession and buying trade goods. Imagine how organically dwarves could satisfy their own needs and eliminate their junk hoardings this way.

[Ribs]

I would love to see all my dwarves flood into the trade depot when the merchants arrive, selling things from their personal possession and buying trade goods. Imagine how organically dwarves could satisfy their own needs and eliminate their junk hoardings this way.

Yeah, I think that would be really cool. Toady said something about including fairs and market places in the future where merchants will constantly move in and out, to buy and sell things. It would be fun to have this as an alternative to having to worry about producing food and clothing yourself, or having to rely on complicated trade agreements where you manually buy things in bulk.

[StagnantSoul]

Of course, it would be an option to do all this for those who don't like it. You could just not build a trade depot or market, and sustain yourself off of your own resources and keep the wage stress at bay by simply giving them all metal tables and thrones and do nice engravings everywhere, stuff that used to be used to keep those terrible traumas like losing a loved one away that don't currently serve much of a function. This minimum wage idea sounds good to me, if a bit more simple than the player assigned payments. Maybe have both, a minimum wage plus a payment for each amount of multiple jobs a dwarf does. Five mined ores get you four more coppers, ten chopped trees gets you a silver, producing a sword gets you two silvers, etc etc. A merging of the two systems. Supply and demand seems like it'd be hefty on fps, as it'd require monitoring of the whole world on a minute scale. Or, it could just be randomized for other civs like your liaison's is.

[Alfrodo]

If FPS is that important, maybe Supply / Demand could be disabled.  Supply and demand would only really be that important in out-of-fort trading.  Because let's face it.  Are those elves REALLLLLYYY going to need those 47 +Serraded Green Glass Disks+?

I'm not sure how it would effect in-fort though.  Just because there's a low supply of swords elsewhere doesn't mean that "Sword Sword the Sword of swords" (A fortress designated entirely to really fancy sword production.) should have higher prices.  Maybe I don't understand Supply and Demand...

But I see why swords or sandwiches would decline in value if there are 4,000,000 of them in a fort. Though.

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