Looney Labs Rabbits Mailing list Archive

Re: [Rabbits] Rabbit Only Items in Dangling Carrot (was Re: Gray 'mids?)

  • FromMarc Hartstein <marc.hartstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateSun, 28 Jan 2007 14:22:30 -0500
On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 08:41:56AM -0500, Christopher Hickman wrote:
> On Jan 28, 2007, at 12:36 AM, Marc Hartstein wrote:
> >I think there may be a better system out there
> >which both does a better job of achieving the primary intent, and
> >doesn't have negative side-effects.
> 
> What do you think would do that, then?  Should you have use full  
> point value?

I'm increasingly liking the two kinds of points idea.  Using Josh's
terminology for the moment until someone suggests something I prefer (I
recognize there are objections to the term):

Rabbit Points: Spent as they currently are on items with the carrot
symbol and to defray shipping cost of shipments.  May effectively be
"bought" for 1 U.S. Dollar each if you don't currently have enough to
buy an item with a cost in points.

[Notice I'm trying to keep the focus as much as possible on exchanging
reward points for Rabbit-appropriate and Rabbit-only items, with
money being a supplemental option.  I think it's worth doing this rather
than thinking of the points as getting you a "discount" on the purchase
price of these items, in order to help maintain the idea of these items
as rewards and incentives.]

Rabbit Karma: Spent to "unlock" purchase of Rabbit-only items from the
Dangling Carrot.  If one of these comes with every Rabbit Point, then
I'd suggest making the Karma cost to unlock an item somehow proportional
to the cost of the item.

The relative proportions can be easily tinkered with, but the idea here
is for there to be a kind of point you need to get these items which you
*can't* buy for money, while preserving the current ability to
supplement your Points with Dollars if you fall a bit short of the cost
of an item you want.  I *think* this is closer to the intent of the
current system than the current system is.

"Unlock" might not be the best term, although the parallel to modern
video games should be apparent to many.  My intent is that if you
request two of the same reward, you'll have to spend the Karma cost
separately for each.  So, for instance, the stash of grey pyramids might
have a cost of 9 Points and 3 Karma.  Since you're starting off with 10
for bio and picture, you should be able to get a couple of cool things
to get you excited about being a Rabbit before you notice you're running
out of Karma and have to go out and do Rabbity Things to earn more if
you want to keep getting the really Cool Stuff.  In fact, since Karma is
so far only spent on Rabbit-only rewards, the Karma cost for these
rewards could be even higher.  I'd guess that the sweet-spot will be
somewhere between 1/3 of the Rabbit Point cost and the full Rabbit Point
cost of the item, with the exception of Experiment Kit like things (is
that still Point-only?), which should have a minimal Karma cost.

Notice I'm changing terminology again (sorry to anybody trying to follow
my posts).  I noticed as I was typing it that Rabbit-exclusive could be
read to mean "not for Rabbits", so I've switched to Rabbit-only.

Other than potential difficulty of implementation and difficulty of
determining a fair conversion strategy for people with existing points
under the current system, are there any drawbacks in this system I'm
missing?

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