Incorporation of the Bank of Tantalus and New Britannian Stock Exchange

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Jatvardur, Jun 26, 2015.

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  1. Jatvardur

    Jatvardur Avatar

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    Had some fun with the player books today. I got one of my short stories published and then went on to create Certifications of Incorporation for the Bank of Tantalus and the New Britannian Stock Exchange. After incorporating the bank Blake and I conducted the first stock transaction.

    These are entities which will exist "on paper" and in a roleplay sense. If it is possible to create these entities in-game with meaningful game mechanics then we will do that too.

    In the pre-alphas I hope to test this functionality and am very glad that player books are finally in. I've been waiting for a long time! I have suggested numerous mechanics for emergent gameplay which can be done with these books. If anyone wishes to get involved then don't hesitate to contact me.

    Some of these ideas I've detailed here (there is copious detail!):
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/r12-testing-books-as-contracts.16732/


    Just before incorporation, you can see the editing UI:

    [​IMG]


    Incorporated (published):

    [​IMG]


    After incorporation, share certificates were created:

    [​IMG]

    Then Blake and I conducted the first stock transaction:

    [​IMG]


    Blake actually changed the gold amount to 10k, but I snapped the pic just before that.

    We agreed that the bank would be company 1, but it makes sense to also incorporate a stock exchange as a company too and so the NBSE was born:

    [​IMG]



    Some of these documents may change over time as the idea is refined. I also suspect that document management will be a challenge and that may also have an impact upon the content and format of the documents.
     
  2. unicornslady

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  3. Mata

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  4. Jatvardur

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    Apologies. It is posted in dev+. There isn't a non-dev+ sub-forum for economics.


    I have also posted some of the ideas on my guild website too which is public:

    Stock market:
    http://rsfie.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17

    Tradeable Secure Certificates of Deposit (kinda like money):
    http://rsfie.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36


    These might be slightly out of date compared to my dev+ post but the overall thrust is the same.
     
  5. Drocis the Devious

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    Having the ability to record ideas on paper is extremely valuable....but having the ability to SIGN and DATE those ideas is even more important.

    We need this functionality by launch, it allows for so many opportunities.
     
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  6. Blake Blackstone

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    Maybe we should reword Novian to New Britannian. So there isn't confusion in the future. Didn't catch that while we were testing.

    +1 for your work on this. Been a long time waiting for books.
     
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  7. unicornslady

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  8. Jatvardur

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    I agree with the first statement. I've been as patient as I can be since books were first announced and now very glad that they are in.

    The books are signed already. They have the item creator's name (well you "publish" not create) attached to the item. I appreciate that it is more fitting from an RP perspective and from a coolness perspective if they names were signed inside too.

    Books are not technically necessary to do all of the above. The same thing can be achieved in spreadsheets but the reason I waited for books before launching this thread is that it feels nicer to have a book in front of you. Having the token (the book) somehow makes it feel more real. Keeping a track of books I fear could be a total pain and was the reason that I came to the conclusion that most of the work will be in keeping spreadsheets up to date (just far easier to track information that way).

    That's part of the reason we don't need time explicitly added as a parameter, it looks like the devs will add this feature although it isn't strictly necessary. Let me elaborate how I had proposed to solve the issue:

    • Include time within the text of the book. Once the book is published it is uneditable:
    • Add the time value as an entry to a public spreadsheet.
    The book and the spreadsheet should match, and since the spreadsheet is public then it disincentivizes the admin from cheating since it can be checked by anyone. Two copies can be made of the original book which allows for a reconciliation of the time value. I agree that this is not as strong of an assurance as a dev created feature but it shows that it is still possible.

    However, I'm not sure time is all that necessary anyway. Consider that a digital signature might provide non-repudiation in a theoretical sense but that doesn't matter if someone decides to breach a contract anyway. There isn't a lot you can do about it.
     
  9. Drocis the Devious

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  10. Jatvardur

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  11. Jatvardur

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    New Britannian Company rather than Novian Company?

    Didn't consider that. Guess the former is more universal.
     
  12. unicornslady

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    New Britannia would indicate coverage over all lands, not just the continent of Novia. :)
     
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  13. Jatvardur

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    Yeah for the later episodes. I was forgetting the difference between the two. :oops:

    If you have questions feel free to PM. :)
     
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  14. aevans

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    Can you post the plain text files (or a sample of one) used to create the book(s). Also can you see the book's creator in the in-game UI? A property sheet or info on the book object? Screenshot of that?
     
  15. Violation Clauth

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    I'm actually going to be doing numbered and certified books that have value to them that I will track and publicly display in a read-only online format for people to verify if they have a fraud or authentic bank note from Vengeance. My current thinking is doing bank note #'s in the name and then authenticity #'s in the content and you have to enter both online to get it verified to stop people from making fakes if I was to release it in a spreadsheet type format...

    Just an idea you might want to add... numbering them and then offering people a chance to check that :)
     
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  16. Weins201

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    LoL making your own money have fun with that. Wont be much use for anyone else's gold in a town not your own, Perhaps some trade agreements but if some tries and brings me a Share / bank note I will just laugh at them.
     
  17. Sold and gone

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    I believe their intention is a record for financing loans and such. Or possibly rental contracts. To each their own I guess. One thing I do know is that they are not doing it because of no reason at all. :D
     
  18. aevans

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    Keep me updated on what you're doing with this as I'm very interested. (I've got ideas for an actual Web of Trust where the crypto is kept hidden from the end-users - for usability. They would of course have to trust the system that hides all the crypto stuff.)

    One thought on formatting and offline validation...

    [[Title]]Bank Note #1[[/Title]]

    [[[[book]]]]
    [[approximate date]]
    ----------------------------------------

    Bank Note #1
    From Some Bank
    Worth: 0.0001 currency units

    Certification ID: 0x00000001

    [[Author/Creator]]
    [[Title]]
    [[Guild]]
    [[Position]]
    ----------------------------------------
    [[Hash Value]]
    [[[[/book]]]]


    Where [[Hash Value]] is something like H(N(everything_between_the_horizontal_rules))
    And H() is a hash function and N() is some normalization function to cleanup the text and whitespace, etc so the hashes are more likely to match when people copy/paste etc.

    Alternately instead of a hash function, use HMAC and keep the key secret. Only someone who knows the secret key can verify it. So the official web site would know the secret key and could verify and validate the book/document when you paste it into a really large textarea.
     
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  19. Weins201

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    Shares are NOT rental contracts they are giving money for something in the future, a loan is also something different.

    I can understand recording transactions but . . .
     
  20. Sold and gone

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    no shares are not rental contracts, that is for sure. But Shares can represent a company with stockolders invested in properties. If you are in the stock market you are trying to make money off of something. People are pooling money for a reason. So what are some of the the things that people can make money off of? Property rent/sales buying new deeds with mass people entering lottery and "flipping" the deed or placing and renting, vendors, auctions, loans, gambling. So any of these things that can be controlled by a business model can be put in the stock market. The books would be an in game ledger for accountability for transactions and meeting reports.
     
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