randomoness for a game...

[file cabinet]

backstory:
writing a web-based 'stock' game based off of an out of print board game called Stock (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2680) Ticker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Ticker).

the difference that in my version it will be this:
- at the beginning of the game all stocks will start at $100
- there will be 100 stocks
- all players will start with $20,000 and can invest however much they want
- after about a day the stock prices will start changing
- stock prices will update at a set interval(2/4/8/16min, or something similar)
- if a stock's price reaches $200.00 it will "split" -- the shares someone owns of that particular stock will double and the price of that stock will be set back at $100.00.
- at each interval what could happen is a stock could increase/decrease by are $5, $10, or $20 or pay a dividend * 5 or 10 or 20 or do nothing.
30% of the time it would do nothing
40% of the time it would be increase/decrease/dividend by 5
20% of the time it would be increase/decrease/dividend by 10
10% of the time it would be increase/decrease/dividend by 20
[this is also subject to change..]

now for the question:
how to determine the randomness of prices going up and down.
my idea thus far would be something like this:
10% will have a 75% change of increasing at each interval
10% will have a 55% change of increasing at each interval
40% will have a 30% change of increasing at each interval
40% will have a 20% change of increasing at each interval

the percentage of "better" stocks are determined at random at the beginning of the game... so what stocks would do well would be predetermined but does that seem reasonable?

comments.. ? do you have a better suggestion of how to handle the "randomness" ?

[CoHo]

Why not just use real stock data?

[file cabinet]

Why not just use real stock data?

determine randomness from patterns from the real stock market ... or use real stock data for buying and selling?
what I think you mean is using real stock data to buy / sell virtually... ie., a live stock market simulation, something like this: http://www.stocksquest.com/

reasons for using made up data...
1. controlled environment.
2. simplification.
3. I like the Stock Ticker boardgame and wanted to use that as a base.
4. the real stock market moves slower[I think, I don't know enough about it].

[CoHo]

Yeah, basically like the url.

I've never played the stockmarket game but right now it sounds a bit simple.

Maybe a list of events to add to the concept? Think up like 200 different ideas, like so:

"CEO dies in pizza eating contest, stock drops 15%"
"Latest product schematics stolen by ninjas, stock drops 25%"
"I Love Corporation X t-shirts become new fad, stock increases 5%"

You pull one "card" per company per turn

[file cabinet]

mmm.. I don't think it will really be turnbased because you would be able to buy/sell whenever you want but you would be competing will all the other players.
while adding a description to each increase/decrease seems like a good idea, it doesn't seem necessary... reason being is that I think users would only want to see a line graph of the stocks progress rather then the actual reasons for it going up/down.
I feel like I'm leaving out details.. or something.. the game would be a free multiplayer online game.. one game would last a month... and.. yeah.. does that help you understand better?

[CoHo]

How many stocks total did you want to have in the game?

[file cabinet]

in my first post I said 100 but that is always subject to change.

[CoHo]

Oh, I didn't notice that.

I guess the only problem I see is there doesn't seem to be a way to have any sort of strategy. I mean, with the real stock market you can research companies, view their history, compare them to other companies in the same industry, research the industry and make terrible decisions.

With this game it appears to be totally random. In the very beginning you randomly pick a number of stocks and hope they do well. If they don't you can randomly pick a new batch. After a few days you can do some small research but it would either wind up with everyone picking the same stocks after a period of time, or everyone choosing randomly.

You could have different classes of stocks, like in the stock market:

Penny Stocks,
These are super cheap, like 0.04 a stock. You could make lots of cash on penny stocks (because it just needs to go up a penny or two) but they are very random, and most of the time they go down or don't move at all.

Mid-Tier stocks
These are in the $10 - $30 range, they change price but not nearly as much as the penny stocks do. A penny stock can move from 0.25 to $1.50 (x6 the price) but a mid-tier stock would be doing very well if it doubled.

Upper-tier stocks
These are the long term options, like $100 to $200 a share. They normally rise but only in small fractions (+/- %6), you would never see a stock like this double in price. They are purchased because of their stability.

IPOs
These are stocks that are just hitting the market. You have the opportunity to buy before they hit the market at their IPO price, or you can wait until after the market. If you buy before you won't know how the market will treat them, the stock can skyrocket as soon as it hits the market, but it could also plummet. For example, you could buy a pre-IPO shares for $20 a share, when the stock hits the market it may be worth $40... or it could be worth $10 (by the end of the day).


*shrug*

[file cabinet]

you have a very valid point.. it would probably help to have more variation then it would as I described it could be. I do want to make it "simple" and "easy to play"(and hopefully fun) though. there could be penny / mid / high type stocks but I still desire to follow the way Stock Ticker was played. the game would be based on chance and taking risks. It wouldn't be hard to have a different "algorithm" though but I want to start with the "Stock Ticker"-style to see how that works out.
now.. with what you described.. I could have 99 stocks..
33 penny stocks which start 1.00 [splits at 2 dollars]
33 mid stocks which start at 10.00 [splits at 20 dollars]
33 upper stocks which start at 100.00 [splits at 200 dollars]

the game would always start out even... then you wait for the randomness to ensue.. the randomness could be controlled in the sense that some stocks would have a higher chance of going up[refer to my main post or ask for me to clarify]..

[CoHo]

Are you more interested in realism or fun?

I mention this because you could add things that aren't true in the real world but people could use them to build more of a strategy. I'll just brainstorm out a few ideas.

$200 Spy on another player: When you do this you can get a snapshot on what stocks that player is buying. You may view a few stocks or all of them, depends on chance.

$500 Buy a good event card: You can purchase cards that (on average) will turn out to be good things. You can use these cards whenever you want. Like this
Price Hike
Choose any stock and its price may rise %1 - %10 by the end of the day

$500 Buy a bad event card: Same as good event cards but they force prices to drop.


So if you spy out another player you could try and undermine their stocks, but that would cost you money...

[file cabinet]

mmm.. I was thinking you would be allowed to view another players stocks...
ooh.. what about paying money to prevent other ppl from viewing your stocks?

but.. what about something more "wild" such as 'attacking' another stock user somehow? i.e., "sue another user for $10,000" then it gets taken to court and the randomness decides whether the person wins/loses the case and by how much. ie.,
"you sue another user for $10, 000."
"the court decides you're at fault so you pay for the court fees, $2,000." or "the verdict was in your favor and you were awarded $4,000 + court fees($2,000)."

also.. there could be different markets ppl could participate in... Japan / USA / China / British stock market. you have to pay to join a market you're not already a part of. at the beginning of the game you choose what stock market you want to start with.

also.. this "idea" was partially inspired by my experience with 'pimpwar', http://pimpwar.com/start.pimp [there are other games like this online]

mmm.
[i don't if I like the idea of being able to sue another user.. but hopefully a better idea coudl come along.,. actually I like that idea even less especially if users abuse the system somehow.. mmm, blah]

oh!.. what about being able to invest in something other then stocks..?.. something to make it more competitive.. mm.. err.. I duno..

[file cabinet]

I was just talking with someone about this and he suggested adding in an economy aspect... which.. well.. makes the 'game' sound much interesting.. like a text-based a MMORPG[I think, I haven't personally played an MMORPG but I heard of one that was similar to this idea]/MUDS/etc.
example..
it is the christmas season.. share prices are up everywhere because ppl are spending more money.
oil prices go up.. so the cost of goods goes up which affects stocks...
...
a heat wave hits spurs ppl to buy more suntan lotion so the stock price of suntan lotion goes up as a result.

anyway.. as you can see this could get really elaborate..

doesn't that sound much more interesting? rather then the 'randomness'.. it will all be based on economics.. too bad I didn't pay attention much to economics in high school. guess I'll read up on it.
and the objective of the game would be greed.
tradewars is a game that is vaguely similar to this but is less 'elaborate'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradewars

economic indicators.
http://economics.about.com/cs/businesscycles/a/economic_ind.htm

example usage:
there will be 1 global economic indicator, oil. this will affect ALL stock prices.
there will 3 markets. china, europe and the USa. each market will have its own economic indicators, examples, GDP / unemployment / inflation / government policies / politics / war / terrorism / natural disasters.. those will affect the certain stocks in that economy[these could be broken down even further, i.e., politics > government is overthrown, natural disasters > tornado destroys car factory, etc.].
an economic indicator will affect the economy short term or long term.

there will be 10 industries, i.e., entertainment, foods, industrial, metals, etc. [ a change in the economy will affect one or more of these industries]

one economy can affect another[financial contagion]:
http://economics.about.com/cs/moffattentries/a/contagion.htm
e.g., the china embargos the usa, the usa no longers needs nike shoes so china's unemployment goes up, etc.

possibility of an 'autarky' possibly as a result of a war or some other bizarre reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autarky

I picked up 3 books from the library. I already read a part of the first one.
I think I will need to to read all of them so I can think this through all the way..
the economies will be mixed economies, some leaning toward command or market economies [no traditional economies].
scarcity of materials will also have to factor in..

also, I think I will be making a direct clone of stock ticker then doing the more complex version..

[Architectonic]

Kind of sounds like that Avalon Hill game "Stocks & Bonds" that we have stashed away in a wardrobe somewhere.

I agree with the others that you should incorporate more features into the game that will allow you to apply a real strategy and be fun to play. Sure it won't really be even close to the same as investing in the market for real, but it still may be fun.

Actually, having random price movements will always result in an unrealistic game because stock prices are not random. They do often have a seemingly random element, but on the whole they are not random.

The economic aspect that you mentioned is a much better idea (even if the triggers themselves are random) - in the real world, when the economy is strong due to various fundamental cycles, it is a bull market and stock prices tend to gravitate upwards. When certain sectors/industries are strong, based on various fundamental cycles, stocks in those sectors end to gravitate upwards. Obviously you have the reverse effect in bear markets.

Splits should randomly occur at prices in a particular (relatively high) range. Different sorts of stocks should have different behaviour as mentioned... You also have to make sure that when a player trys to accumulate a large amount of a particular stock over a particular time, the higher the price they will have to pay. Obviously if they try to dump a large amount of stock in a short period of time, they will get a very poor price, spiking the price down for a short period of time before it recovers. There should of course be finite amounts of shares and companies may also randomly have buy-back schemes or sales of new shares.

Maybe even when players have accumulated particularly large amounts of a particular stock, they can have an influence over that particular stock, perhaps having an effect on a competing stock (ie, making it go down).

Perhaps with the "event card system", maybe you can take risks to manipulate prices or conduct insider trading - but if you get caught, you have to spend a large amount of money on lawyer bills. :D