Re-Rethinking Gold as a Currency

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Sickness wrote:

Nope, the economies of the word ar far to different.
Did you not see my link in a previous post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_currency_area

Why do you think the euro was created?
To increase economic efficiency!

I did miss that, but that's not any better than a single world currency. Sure the rationale behind the Euro was efficiency, but we see how well that's really working out. There's more doubt on the integrity and viability of the Euro than ever before. Thank goodness too! I would hate for the Amero to ever be realized because of the success of the Euro.

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Epicurwin wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

the people making this game don't want to use gold. So really, this entire thread is moot.

You can have a uniform currency without gold.
This thread is not moot, or is it somehow wrong to argue against the devs? Are they not just people like everyone else can can make mistakes and change their minds?

A thread will never be moot just because it disagrees with the devs.




You will see in a year that people will be primarily using only one of the orbs to trade with (just like IST became the primary currency of d2).

So, not only will you get what you want anyway, but it will be a market solution. Everyone wins. YAY!

No, no one wins. The players lose for having to use third-party trading sites like d2jsp. The devs lose because barely any of their goals are met. Item values are easy to quantify, gold farmers can farm just as well as they always do, and the value of items stays steady.

The only thing that they manage to pull off is avoiding gold sinks, but of course controlling inflation on twenty different items is far harder than gold. With gold you can accurately calculate how much gold a person is going to get compared to the sinks they'll have to spend. With these consumable items their value is subjective and it's very easy for one item to end up flooding the market if not enough people decide they want to use it. Of course the market is self-correcting in that regard, but it's still a pretty ramshackle solution.

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Sickness wrote:

Your description of the devs make them look stubborn and ignorant.
I am convinced that they aren't and that there is still hope for a uniform currency so this game can live up to it's potential.

This game's potential is dependent on how well the dev's manage to be different. They can easily fall prey to the myriad of other online games and get left behind by creating just another clone. GGG is taking risks so they won't be left behind and put on the shelf with all the other conformist developers.

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Sickness wrote:

The best way you can support the game is by being critical, not cheering at everything they do as you are.

This is true. But there's also a difference between supporting a great idea and simply being a fanboi. I've criticised GGG plenty and made plenty of suggestions while questioning many others. The fact that people support some of GGG's decisions does not make them blind followers.

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FaceLicker wrote:

I did miss that, but that's not any better than a single world currency. Sure the rationale behind the Euro was efficiency, but we see how well that's really working out. There's more doubt on the integrity and viability of the Euro than ever before. Thank goodness too! I would hate for the Amero to ever be realized because of the success of the Euro.

The problem with the world is that it's not an optimum currency area.
The problem with the euro is also that it's not as much of an optimum currency area as people first had though.


PoE however does not have that problem. There is no downside to a uniform currency.


Out of curiosity, why are you againt the Amero? Has it got anything to do with optimum currency area? (that is the reason I am against it)

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Sickness wrote:

Out of curiosity, why are you againt the Amero? Has it got anything to do with optimum currency area? (that is the reason I am against it)

I know I'm against it because it encourages the tragedy of the commons. Being shackled together with two other countries when you have no guarantee that they'll pull their weight is dangerous.

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FaceLicker wrote:

This game's potential is dependent on how well the dev's manage to be different. They can easily fall prey to the myriad of other online games and get left behind by creating just another clone. GGG is taking risks so they won't be left behind and put on the shelf with all the other conformist developers.

If the cost of being different is doing something bad it's not worth it.
It doesn't matter how different the game is if it's a pile of crap (Important to note that I love PoE and I'm not saying that it's a pile of crap)

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FaceLicker wrote:

This is true. But there's also a difference between supporting a great idea and simply being a fanboi. I've criticised GGG plenty and made plenty of suggestions while questioning many others. The fact that people support some of GGG's decisions does not make them blind followers.

I would be more convinced if you supported GGG by countering our arguments, not by saying "you are wrong because the devs said so".

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Sickness wrote:

Every argument have been effortlessly refuted.

From your point of view. From mine (ours, including others here), your arguments are just as fallacious as mine are to you. Opinion doesn't make correctness.

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Sickness wrote:

In D2 people needed every high rune but they were still valued in Ists because it made it much easier. It was a natural development on the market to simplify trading.

But, other runes were still considered currency. It's not like everyone traded in only Ists. That's not a uniform currency; it's a preferred median currency.

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Sickness wrote:

Your description of the devs make them look stubborn and ignorant.
I am convinced that they aren't and that there is still hope for a uniform currency so this game can live up to it's potential.

"Clear and adamant" doesn't mean "stubborn and stupid." You're the one implying that they're stubborn and stupid for not seeing your side of the argument as correct, even though they've considered it and disregarded that system in favor of their own. Your implication that stating the same things over and over will change their minds says a lot about what you think of the devs, as well.

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Sickness wrote:

The best way you can support the game is by being critical, not cheering at everything they do as you are.

I don't cheer everything they do. I disagree with plenty of things, but I make an effort to view things from the developers' perspective, and doing so generally brings an understanding of why they make the decisions they do. I'm not the one being blind here.

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sickness wrote:

PoE however does not have that problem. There is no downside to a uniform currency.

Other than all the downsides the devs see in it? Again, this is just your opinion on the matter. They're going to make the game they want with the systems they want. Even if your ideas would create what you consider to be the perfect game, they're a 180º to what the devs want. The currency system is one of the core aspects of the game. Changing it to match what other games are doing (even if that's not the intent of the change) diminishes the identity that PoE has that sets it apart from other games. It would be similar to breaking the passive tree into class trees, or giving skills on a skill tree instead of items. Sure, it may make more sense from a certain point of view, but these systems area actually working just fine and don't need to be changed.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

From your point of view. From mine (ours, including others here), your arguments are just as fallacious as mine are to you. Opinion doesn't make correctness.

Then try to refute our arguments.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

But, other runes were still considered currency. It's not like everyone traded in only Ists. That's not a uniform currency; it's a preferred median currency.

Yes it was not the only thing used for trade, because the system was not designed that way.
I never said that it was a uniform currency, my point is tha tit shows the tendancy to approach a uniform currency because of the inherent benefits.
If it was a truly uniform currency that would be even better! But such a thing you kind of need to include when you make the game.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Other than all the downsides the devs see in it? Again, this is just your opinion on the matter. They're going to make the game they want with the systems they want. Even if your ideas would create what you consider to be the perfect game, they're a 180º to what the devs want.

The devs are wrong! The downsides they are stating is not inherent in all systems with a uniform currency!

Take the system proposed in the OP and post 7 and tell me one single downside.

That a uniform currency makes the market more efficient is a fact.
Why should they throw that out of the window in their market design?

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Changing it to match what other games are doing (even if that's not the intent of the change) diminishes the identity that PoE has that sets it apart from other games. It would be similar to breaking the passive tree into class trees, or giving skills on a skill tree instead of items.

It would still be very different from any other currency that I have ever encountered in a game.

And as I just said: If the cost of being different is doing something bad it's not worth it.

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Sure, it may make more sense from a certain point of view, but these systems area actually working just fine and don't need to be changed.

Oh yeah it's working fine. So is the skill tree, lets not ever change anything there. The current end game is "working fine" lets keep it the way it is.
Why do we need another class? The ones we have works just fine, lets keep it that way.

I could go on, but you see what I am getting at.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Other than all the downsides the devs see in it?

Again and again i hear this. All these downsides only occur if you use gold as it has been used in games like d2.

But this is different. Gold is only a middleman between orbs and you. Gold is the only way to get orbs and therefore it is equivalent to orbs.

There is just one major difference: we trade in 1 currency!

Again: All the arguments the devs have against gold are valid if gold is used like it was in d2. But this is a different approach. So please give this approach a chance, think it through and if possible show us why this approach is inferior.

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Baki wrote:

Gold is only a middleman between orbs and you. Gold is the only way to get orbs and therefore it is equivalent to orbs.

This is why I think it's an unnecessary change. It adds a middleman, an extra layer to the system that serves only to add an extra layer to the system.

We don't need another currency that's there just for the sake of being there to act as a bank note. We're dealing with a setting that doesn't have a government; it makes perfect sense that there is no standardized currency. People will trade in goods and services (orbs are potential services), not in a currency that exists for the sake of existing. Gold (or whatever you would call it) wouldn't have value other than the value we're told it has. It would be a fiat currency. You can't have a fiat currency without a governing agency that dictates its value.

So, add "gold" and be forced to add lore for why there is gold and why it's valuable when it has no use other than to be valuable, all for the sake of having a single currency that dilutes the game's social aspect by over-simplifying the bartering process. In the end, all it would accomplish is making some trades easier. It would also remove much of the excitement that comes from finding orbs. In comparing the two systems, I'd be far more excited about finding a Divine Orb over an Alchemy Orb than I would be about finding 8 gold over 1 gold. It's a boring system that brings nothing exciting to the game. We play the game to be entertained, not to be economically efficient.