On the subject of Gold.

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Armstrong wrote:

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Dreggon wrote:

I wonder what would happen if gold was introduced as a "currency", but the vendors didn't accept it so it's completely worthless except for what people assign its value to be.

You would most likely end up with the exact same problem you have now. It's not about gold vs. SoWs imo; it's about having a currency that actually has value.

The game already has currency that has value, about 30 different ones initially each with a single denomination until they realised they needed fragment and shard denominations for some of them to support vendors buying junk. I couldn't believe it when I read about fragments and shards. A currency system which is so rubbish it can't even support selling junk and instead of accepting they got it wrong and thinking again they plaster over the cracks they noticed this week.

The game needs a viable trading currency (which I am quite happy to call gold) and it needs NPC vendors to trade between gold and the existing things called currency items. The NPC traders need a starting 'float' of gold and currency items and that float needs to grow a little as the number of players in the game world grows, apart from that float they don't create gold or currency items just trade them. Gold doesn't need to drop in the game, gold would be the equivalent of IOUs from these NPC vendors.

They must have no or very little mark up so players are not tempted to bypass them.

Their prices need to be controlled by player supply and demand and it is quite easy to do, they just have target stock levels for each type of currency item and prices progressively go up or down depending on how much their stock is below or above the target.

This would relieve players from having to manage stacks of 30 different currency items, let them quickly and conveniently exchange currency items they don't want to consume for ones they do, and provide a viable trading currency for player to player trading without which any kind of auction house would be farcical.

So this has obviously been a hot topic. And when the novelty of this barter system wears off I'm expecting more and more gamers to realize how inconvenient and obtrusive this whole business really is.

Many supporters of the system argued that the currency system does not fit the post-apocalyptic fantasy world of Wraeclast. I'd like to address that argument with a quote from this book: Radford, R. A. (November 1945). "The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W Camp:

"People left their surplus clothing, toilet requisites and food there until they were sold at a fixed price in cigarettes. Only sales in cigarettes were accepted - THERE WAS NO BARTER!!! [...] Of food, the shop carried small stocks for convenience; the capital was provided by a loan from the bulk store of Red Cross cigarettes and repaid by a small commission taken on the first transactions. Thus the cigarette attained its fullest currency status, and the market was almost completely unified"

So prisoners of war could make it happen...now let's look at Wraeclast: The game starts by putting you inside a huge ship. So that means that they have people who can design and build large ships. They have merchants that constantly have different items on display: bows, metal armor, swords and shields also made out of metal, clothes etc. which implies that they have mines, blacksmiths, carpenters, trading routs and so on. We are to believe that the world that has that technology plus magical teleporting and magical skill stones, somehow does not have the capacity to use universal currency of intrinsic value.

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Vlady wrote:

So prisoners of war could make it happen...now let's look at Wraeclast: The game starts by putting you inside a huge ship. So that means that they have people who can design and build large ships.

...you realize the ship isn't actually built in Wraeclast, right? The point isn't a postapocalyptic world so much as a postapocalyptic continent. They can still make ships over in Oriath (good luck convincing them to pick you back up, though).

you can trade anything for anything if there's a need. no real curency values or floating ones are way better for non strictly farming players.
bartain, bargain... you got what you want... what's your real need for gold? why?
you're so used to our roten econmics way of doing that you can't absolutely manage to fit in a diferent way of doing trade.
this is almost sad...

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Skivverus wrote:

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Vlady wrote:

So prisoners of war could make it happen...now let's look at Wraeclast: The game starts by putting you inside a huge ship. So that means that they have people who can design and build large ships.

...you realize the ship isn't actually built in Wraeclast, right? The point isn't a postapocalyptic world so much as a postapocalyptic continent. They can still make ships over in Oriath (good luck convincing them to pick you back up, though).

It's very elegant how you misinterpreted what I said buy quoting only one part and dragging it out the context. It's not important where the ship itself was built. The point is that there are ships, merchants, blacksmiths, warriors...the whole lot. Why didn't you quote me on that. Or is everything being made in Oriath and then sent to Wreaclast through magical portals (except for coins).

I way trying to make a point that "post-apocalyptic" does not mean lack of common sense, and that even prisoners in much more difficult situations had the means of using intrinsic currency, and that in no way that contradicts lore here. (unless of course people of Wraeclast are mentaly challenged)

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__Z__ wrote:

you can trade anything for anything if there's a need. no real curency values or floating ones are way better for non strictly farming players.
bartain, bargain... you got what you want... what's your real need for gold? why?
you're so used to our roten econmics way of doing that you can't absolutely manage to fit in a diferent way of doing trade.
this is almost sad...

Intrinsic currency or universal commodity currency was invented 10.000BC and it has nothing to do with our rotten economics. The idea of currency appeared out of necessity for a universal medium of exchange, because barter system is the one that's actually rotten. There is actually no evidence of any economy that relied primarily on barter.

So, you ask why we need gold(or maybe shells:)). I'll give you several reasons. First, read my post in the poll thread(about trading impasse)so that I don't repeat myself. That's one.

In barter system, capacity to trade is extremely limited by coincidence of wants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants

So no, you can't trade anything for anything. Not even close! You will be severely limited by other peoples desires and inability to place an intrinsic value on every item. You will than be forced to go through laborious and time consuming process of acquiring a specific barter item that a seller requires, since it's the only way for you to get the item of your desires in return. You will also be subjected to potentially numerous fraud attempts, because it will be very hard to place a real value on an item.

And how does PoE deal with this. It slaps default values on all items in the same group. A white lvl 23 item with 3 slots and a mod, has the same values as white (no lvl noob) item with no mods and no slots. You get 1 scroll fragment for both.

What about the orbs:
blacksmiths whetstone = 4 scrolls of wisdom
orb of transmutation = 4 scrolls of wisdom
orb of alteration = 4 scrolls of wisdom
armorer's scrap = 2 scrolls of wisdom

other orbs (chaos orb, orb of alchemy, org of regret, chromatic orb, glassblower's orb, org of scouring, jeweler's orb) are 1 scroll fragment.
(also consider that this bartering works only one way)

So the game NPC says that 1 SoW is worth 5 chaos orbs, and thus orb of transmutation has equivalent value of 20 chaos orbs. Since that makes no sense to me (and no one would trade with npc in that manner if it was possible to trade one type of orb for another), the players will be left to decide what elusive value to put on dozens of trading items, on their own. What a mess.

This forum depresses me sometimes, it seems all of GGGs most unique and innovative ideas are the ones an increasingly vocal minority would love to wipe out and turn POE into the gaming equivalent of the colour beige!

Agree with you Rodhull...
I really don't understand why there's always some people around who always try to make PoE fit with their habit, their usual way to always do the same thing that they have already done in every game they'd played...

the devs have chosen this different way to create their game.
why if you don't like that, why you don't go play drakensang or whatever don't contrary your taste for gold?

but in fact, anyway I don't care at all... if the game is good (and by good in an ARPG I mean that's it's only cool to destroy myriads of mobs in a decent and addictive way), I'll trade with turnips if the turnip was the universal currency in that game...
I'm not a trader I'm just some generic monsters basher and somewhat proud to be...

I just want to pass along I just love the whole idea of this orb currency. I just have one request.

If it is possible to place in each town some form of billboard that is updated every 3 days by someone from GGG that lists the most widely accepted orb ratio by players.

This would at least give many new players a more indepth understanding to the whole orb currency and what each orb is actually worth in the economy.

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RodHull wrote:

This forum depresses me sometimes, it seems all of GGGs most unique and innovative ideas are the ones an increasingly vocal minority would love to wipe out and turn POE into the gaming equivalent of the colour beige!

There is nothing unique or innovative about the currency system.
Infact, it's very similar to D2 when it comes to trading.


And even if it was, it's strictly worse than a "gold based" economy, so it should still not be in the game.