The Design Components of

Brian M. Slator
(vers. 1, Dec. 28, 1998)

The Blackwood Project is simulating a mythical 19th Century Western town. Participants who join the simulation will accept or be assigned a role in the simulation that will be primarily economic in nature. Every player will be in charge of running a business, much like the NDSU Dollar Bay retailing game. However, in Blackwood, gameplay will be influenced by historical events and players will be assigned roles designed to promote more collaboration and interaction than the Dollar Bay game.

Players will assume roles in the simulation, such as blacksmith, but will not be expected to learn blacksmithing. Employee software agents actually do the day-to-day chores. The players are "only" expected to manage the retailing and business elements of the game.

Time Frame

The simulation begins in the Spring of 1880 with the population of Blackwood at 2500. The game will last for six virtual years (312 virtual weeks), until the Great Flood destroys the town in the Spring of 1886.

Given these figures, the back-of-the-envelope calculation converting virtual time to human time is: each virtual week will last about 8 clock hours, there will be three virtual weeks played out per human day, and therefore the entire simulation (1880-1886) will take approximately three months.

The Impact of History

One major challenge for this project is to find ways to make American (and World) History meaningful to the players of the game. In the inherently hands-on world of retailing, a learn-by-doing approach is natural and plausible. Players will learn about Microeconomics and related topics by actually running a store.

However, there is no obvious way for players to "do" history, beyond whatever means can be achieved to have them "experience the effects" of history, first-hand. At this stage in the design of the Blackwood Project, the following are the mechanisms in mind:

Newspapers: The simulation will track events in the 1880-1886 time frame. As events happen in the nation and around the world, they will be reported in "Special Editions".
Economic Trends: The simulation will reflect the impact of western expansion, the advance of the railroads, and the discovery of silver deposits, in terms of fluctuations in population. This will have immediate and discernible effects on player's businesses as demand (and prices) rise and fall.
Weather records could be researched in order to be more authentic about farm yields.
Atmosphere Agents: The simulation will attempt to support a range of software agents to lend "color" - many of these ideas are outlined in the Preliminary Research Plan.
Other ideas are welcome.

Software Agents

The Blackwood environment will be populated by software agents of the following types:

Customers
Customer agents will be defined on the Dollar Bay model. Each will represent a cluster (consumer) group from a particular neighborhood, and each will have two defining data structures:
1. an "attractiveness" list, where vendors are ranked according to a complex formula determining the level they "attract" each shopper; and
2. a "maximum demand" list, where each of the product types (see below), are associated with a demand value; this list is copied into a "shopping list" at the beginning of each turn, and a virtual week is ended when all customers have exhausted their shopping list
The preliminary list of cluster groups in Blackwood will be:
- Farmers, Ranchers, Railroad Workers (by year two), Soldiers, Lumbermen, Transient Settlers, Riverboat Workers, Teamsters, Miners (by year three), and White Collar Townspeople. Others may be added.
- Merchant Class Townspeople will be a special class of cluster group because they will represent the demand of agents who run businesses in competition with human players. See Player Roles, below.
  The preliminary list of merchant agents in Blackwood will be:
  - blacksmith, cartwright, wheelwright, dry goods store operator, tailor, and wood lot operator. Others may be added.
Employees
Employee agents will also be defined on the Dollar Bay model. Each will see to the daily operation of retailing outlets (see Player Roles, below) and will conduct the actual transactions with the customer agents. However, these agents will be general and will not require specialization according to player roles.
As in the Dollar Bay game, there will be a range of employee proficiencies - at least three levels:
- novice, reports that inventory is gone after supplies have run out
- intermediate, reports that inventory is low before it's too late
- experienced, attempts to order more supplies when inventory is low
Conceptually, employees also do the actual producing of goods; for example, the employee agent in a blacksmith shop does the actual "smithing".
Employees will also board with players. All levels will complain if food supplies or fuel begin to run low.
Bankers
Banker agents will be defined on the Dollar Bay model. Each will write loans depending on the player's ability to pay. Banks will target specific player groups, and there might be Bank failures written into the simulation.
Teamsters
Teamster agents will deliver goods from the Riverboat landing and the Railroad depot. See Suppliers below.

Player Roles

Players will be able to choose among a limited set of roles, although all player roles will be from the Merchant Class. The system will arrange that plausible ratios are preserved so we don't get 100 blacksmiths and no tailors. This could be done by offering new players a controlled set of choices. In any case, there should be a small set of software agents operating in each of these roles so that the simulation can proceed in the absence of any human players. The preliminary list of player roles will be:

blacksmith:
- produces: horseshoes, nails, wheel rims and metal strapping
- sells: sells wheel rims to wheelwrights, sells strapping to cartwrights, sells nails to dry goods stores, in addition to customer agent sales
- buys: buys metal supplies and raw materials from catalogs, buys groceries and household good from local merchants
cartwright
- produces: wagons
- sells: wagons to teamsters, travelers, railroad, everyone
- buys: machined metal parts from catalogs, buys wheels from wheelwrights, buys metal strapping from blacksmiths, buys groceries and household good from local merchants
wheelwright
- produces: wagon wheels
- sells: wagon wheels to cartwrights
- buys: machined metal parts from catalogs, buys metal rims from blacksmiths, buys wood materials from lumbermen, buys groceries and household good from local merchants
dry goods store operator
- produces: supplies (i.e. a week's worth of food and essentials)
- sells: sells supplies, cloth, tools, and sundries, to travelers and townsfolk, sells clothing to travelers and townsfolk
- buys: bulk salt, coffee, flour, sugar, saltpork from catalogs, buys cloth and tools from catalogs, buys nails from blacksmith, buys garments from tailors, buys groceries and household good from local merchants
tailor
- produces: garments
- sells: garments to travelers and townsfolk, sells garments to dry goods stores
- buys: cloth from catalogs, buys cloth from dry goods stores, buys groceries and household good from local merchants
wood lot operator
- produces: firewood and charcoal
- sells: firewood to townsfolk, charcoal to blacksmiths
- buys: wood from lumbermen, buys groceries and household goods from local merchants
perhaps several more

Players will be required to procure food and fuel in order to run their households and keep their employee warm and fed. This is expressly intended to promote player interaction. We are very interested to see whether collaborations arise from this.

Locations

neighborhoods are defined in terms of cluster groups and their population. These population values will change over time to simulate the various ebbs and flows of the demographic landscape. The preliminary list of neighborhoods (see the map of The Town of Blackwood) will be (better names must be chosen for some of these):
- the Town Square neighborhood, the Old Business District, the Middle/Working Class neighborhood, the New Business District, the Wagon Train Staging Area, the Riverside neighborhood, the North Shanty Town, South Shanty Town, the Government/Financial District, the Wealthy neighborhood.
- In addition, the following outlying areas will be treated like neighborhoods
  - the Lumber Town, the Western Outpost, the Fort Wood Trading Post,
stores are where business is transacted. Each store will be built on the same model (front room, back room, basement, and upstairs living quarters, backyard, outhouse):
- a front room where customers visit and transactions are accomplished. Each has an exit to the street, and an exit to the back room
- a back room for storage and/or production of goods. Each has an exit down to a basement and an exit to living quarters, either up above the store or back behind the back room
- the basement is where firewood is stored, although it could have other uses
- the living quarters should have at least two rooms: a living/cooking/dining area and a sleeping area. Note that every store must somehow make accommodations for a live-in store employee who works for wages plus room, and board.
public places include the town square, the government/financial district, and all the road (MOO exits) built into the simulation. North/South roads are "Streets"; East/West roads are "Avenues"; and diagonal roads are either "Boulevards" or "Roads". The roads leading to outlying areas should be descriptively named "roads"; i.e. "Silver Mine Road" and "Fort Wood Road".
wide open spaces include the ranchland, farmland, hills country, and forestland. There will be opportunity to build small outposts of business at the crossroads in these areas. For example, the Western Outpost and the Lumber Town, will be magnets for local Customer Agents, and other such locations might spontaneously spring up from time to time.
the netherworld: in the middle of the Town Square is a Park, in the middle of the Park is a Wishing Well. The Wishing Well is an exit to the Programmer's Netherworld which will be a broad expanse of tunnels and sewers connecting the individual homes of the the Blackwood software developers. The Netherworld will be closed except to programmers. Programmers are encouraged to make their personal spaces as homey and comfortable as they wish.
other locations will be considered and discussed. For example, although not central to the operations of this game, some very interesting projects would include the authentic simulation of: a small farm, a so-called Bonanza farm, a silver mine, a sawmill, a grain mill, and so forth.

Products

Products will also be defined on the Dollar Bay model. The definition of products, in some sense, is what drives the economic simulation. Products are defined in terms of cluster groups, and the demand value they have for those cluster groups. The preliminary collection of products types are:

groceries and household goods,
lumber, firewood and charcoal,
cloth and garments,
tools,
supplies (salt, coffee, flour, sugar, saltpork),
wagons and wagon wheels,
horseshoes, nails, wheel rims, and metal strapping

Suppliers

In the Dollar Bay model, wholesale suppliers are listed in a business index and players acquire new products to sell by simply filling out an order form. The products arrive instantly and the player simply sets a price when they magically materialize in the store.

In Blackwood, wholesale suppliers will be conceptually "back east", and players will order goods through a catalog interface. An important part of the ordering decision will be shipment method, which will be one of these three types:

by wagon: the slow and cheap method, deliveries will take 6 (virtual) weeks, or approximately 2 full human days.
by riverboat: the somewhat faster and more expensive method, deliveries will take 3 (virtual) weeks, or 1 full human day.
by train: (after the Fall of 1881) the fast and expensive method, deliveries will take 1 virtual week (approximately 8 human hours).

Good will be delivered by Teamsters who either haul them in from "back east" or pick them up at the riverside landing (or the railroad depot after 1881), and distribute them around town.

The other source of supplies will be other players in the game who will sell goods to each other.

Advertising

Advertising will be defined on the Dollar Bay model, but will take only two forms: newspapers and handbills. A town like Blackwood might support several newspapers, but each would tend to be small. Handbill advertising would be available, but also from the newspapers, who would likely have the only printing presses in town. Periodically, newspapers will publish "Special Editions" to broadcast important historical events.

System Administration

Every MOO has an arch-wizard and (usually) a small collection of assistant wizards to do system level administration. In Blackwood, the arch-wizard will go by the name "Marshall Matt Dillon", and the other wizards will be asked to choose their name from the list:

Chester, Festus (the "authentic" deputies), or Gabby, Rowdie, Bullfrog, Wishbone, Hoss, Little Joe, or Sundance

Last modified: 2Jan99
Send comments to: slator@badlands.nodak.edu