On the subject of Gold.

@cybrim...yes it should be "pogo stick", I swallowed a word.

You proposed an intriguing idea. I kinda like it to be honest.

I'm not sure if it fits developers vision. Maybe they want low liquidity on purpose, as it makes things more chaotic and spices things up. However, I'm almost certain that players will monetize an item on a larger scale and make it more liquid, on their own. It will be interesting to see how devs respond to that. Will they support it? Try to prevent it somehow? We will just have to wait and see.

Just imagine a situation where you want to trade with other players, but have to rely on an improbable event of having exact number and combination of items that the other party requires, at exactly the right time. Also, often faced with even double coincidence of wants. Where you have to trade in order to get items needed for a different trade (trade in order to trade). It's almost like having a game within a game. A game of complicated, slow-paced economics inside a quick-paced, hack and slash RPG. Hard to imagine that players in that setting won't try to turn one or two orbs into money.

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Vlady wrote:

@ gh0un

zeto is trying to explain to us why the developers choose this path, features of the system, and why they are "sticking to their guns". Even though we disagree in many ways, he brings out valid points and in NO WAY, he is defending or proposing gold based system...quite the contrary. But you would know that, if you actually read more then last 2 posts. Jumping Jesus on a stick.

And i didnt state the contrary.
My post was aimed at the last post before mine and thats why it quotes that post, instead of quoting the OP.
He expressed his concern about people buying stuff with real money, and i said that there wouldnt be any difference between a gold currency system and a item based currency system, regarding real money trades.
Its completely unrelated to whether he is defending this or that currency system.

Titan quest is one game out of many, my point was that MOST games dont offer anything useful at their vendors, not ALL.
There are exceptions, and those exceptions are arguably the better games aswell, so that kinda proves my point.

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Sickness wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

I don't know jack about economics...

Yet you are so keen on giving your opinion.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Gold (or some kind of typical currency) has no intrinsic value, by that I mean, a millionaire in the desert is no better off then a poor man in the desert.

A man with a million gcp in the desert is no better off than a poor man in the desert.

But that's not really how you define intrinsic value, now is it?

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Wittgenstein wrote:

In most games, currency has it's value set (near as I can tell) by two factors:

1. the difficulty of acquiring the currency.
2. the influence of values set by the developers (from shops/currency sinks)

Since (1) eventually becomes trivial (on a long enough time line as more and more of the player base hits upper levels the influx of currency into the world increases exponentially). Also, (2) becomes moot, because top-level players, with the most wealth, rarely need to buy items from the shops. So, at those levels, most trades happen as item for item, not currency for item. Take D2 for example, no amount of gold was going to buy you a Zod rune.

So, I only see currency as having relevance in the beginning of the game, and to facilitate sinks (Like repairing your gear).

If you make less false assumptions you conclusions won't be so wrong.
For example, there is no reason to believe that it will always become trivial to aquire the currency or that top-level players will not have a use for the currency.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

PoE's system is superior imo, because the currency in this game.

1. has intrinsic worth.

Gold can have that.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

2. Due to (1) it (the orbs) are their own sink (you use them, they go poof) which eliminates the need for extraneous systems like repairing.

Gold can have that.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

3. Every player, at every level, obtains the same items. At level 2 you can find a regal just like the guy at level 40. Contrast that with typical currency systems in which the players at the bottom level (n00bs!) simply cannot compete with the buying power of those at the top.

Gold can have that.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Now, of course, I recognize some of the pitfalls with PoE's system. Particularly the fact that players constantly need to ask "What is the value of X orb? How many X orbs for a Y orb?" etc..

However, I don't see that issue as impacting enough to warrant the elimination of the system GGG has in place, and I feel that the positives from the system we have outweigh the negatives.

I dearly hope that the devs don't take feedback from someone who "don't know jack about economics" seriously.

Sickness,

I said I "don't know jack about economics" because, evidently, everyone else in this thread has their doctorate in the subject... to make it clearer, I was being sarcastic!

Thanks for the "gold can have that" replies, I found those very insightful and helpful in understanding your position.

Also, since this is a game, and I DO have a lot of experience in games, I hope that GGG does consider my fedback... as well as the feedback of all the beta/alpha testers, because, that is the point of why we are all here.

To retort:

Gold does not have intrinsic value (hence my analogy of the desert) yes, you can replace 'gold' with 'gcp' but that is just an attempt to side-step my point, which had to do with the intrinsic values of things... I wasn't stating that gold would have no value in the desert but that gcp's would. So I believe you misunderstood me.

The orbs DO have intrinsic value, because you can always, potentially find a need for any orb at any time. However, when you have millions in gold and no longer have anything left to buy, that gold becomes pointless.

Because of that, and developers recognize that fact, they introduce gold-sinks to eliminate the excess wealth that accumulates in the population.

The orbs, are their own sink, which is a superior system and removes the need for extraneous things like repairing or whatnot.

That was my point. I know you disagree, you don't have to reply.

Thanks.

@gh0un You said that he made a useless point, and that real money transactions wouldn't be any different, which tells me that you didn't take the time to read more then last 2-3 posts. Otherwise, you would have known that there is actually a significant difference between those two when it comes to 3rd party RMT.

In this system people will have more incentives to use RMT. Much more then in gold currency systems, because of basic, core features of bartering.

In gold systems, it is much easier to get anything from trade, just by playing the game legitimately and buying it when you have enough gold.

In PoE, you would need to participate in an intricate web of trading to be able to get the wanted item at a fair "price". Watch the flow of currency items, take notice if and how liquidity of certain orbs changes in time. Be prepared in advance. It's much more complex and potentially overwhelming for a a lot of gamers. They will be tempted to use other, more "convenient" methods of acquiring equipment, more frequently then in gold systems, just to avoid all the hassle.

My system defined on page 10 will implement BOTH systems in an aspect that should fit EVERYONE's comfort level.

they can KEEP THE BARTER SYSTEM, by having a currency and barter they would be allowing you the player to CHOOSE how you pay for an item.

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cybrim wrote:

they can KEEP THE BARTER SYSTEM, by having a currency and barter they would be allowing you the player to CHOOSE how you pay for an item.

Just like with gold...

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Wittgenstein wrote:

The orbs DO have intrinsic value, because you can always, potentially find a need for any orb at any time. However, when you have millions in gold and no longer have anything left to buy, that gold becomes pointless.

And when you have hundreds of orbs and no longer have anything left to upgrade orbs become pointless just the same.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Because of that, and developers recognize that fact, they introduce gold-sinks to eliminate the excess wealth that accumulates in the population.

The orbs, are their own sink, which is a superior system and removes the need for extraneous things like repairing or whatnot.

Unlike repair costs or buying potions to consume orbs are not eliminated (scrolls and regret are the exceptions) they are converted to increased item quality so the game world ends up with an excess of item quality and orbs becoming more and more worthless. Orbs are actually worse than some of the classical sinks in other games.

PoE has no solution for inflation in the game world. Some mechanisms which help in other games (like repair costs, consumable potions, soul binding) have been deliberately excluded. Orbs do not solve the problem at all and having gold or other trading currency will not cause it.

Monsters drop stuff without limit, players do not voluntarily destroy stuff, they will only convert stuff into other stuff. Hence the game world fills up with stuff without limit. Excepting scrolls and orbs of regret nothing in PoE is destroyed. This is a fundamental problem and PoE does less to solve it than most other games. Claims that orbs or gold or lack of have any significant effect on this problem are just deluded.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Thanks for the "gold can have that" replies, I found those very insightful and helpful in understanding your position.

If you did know what you were talking about, there would be no confusion.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

The orbs DO have intrinsic value, because you can always, potentially find a need for any orb at any time. However, when you have millions in gold and no longer have anything left to buy, that gold becomes pointless.

Because of that, and developers recognize that fact, they introduce gold-sinks to eliminate the excess wealth that accumulates in the population.

With the gold sink, gold also have an intrinsic value.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

The orbs, are their own sink, which is a superior system and removes the need for extraneous things like repairing or whatnot.

The reason you are struggling is because of assumptions lke this, it's not a superior system. It depends entierly on what the gold sinks are!

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Fluffy wrote:

And when you have hundreds of orbs and no longer have anything left to upgrade orbs become pointless just the same.

If you have nothing left to upgrade, you'll also have no further use of gold - pointless too, no difference.

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Sickness wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

The orbs, are their own sink, which is a superior system and removes the need for extraneous things like repairing or whatnot.

The reason you are struggling is because of assumptions lke this, it's not a superior system. It depends entierly on what the gold sinks are!

Why implement a gold sink, when its only use is to avoid a "problem" that you simply not have if you base your trading without such monetary currency?!