On the subject of Gold.

@Sickness

I just have a 180 degree different opinion than you do, belittling people isn't going to make you the "winner" of any debate(it may just be the way I am reading it though), be more considerate about how you come off as a MEMBER of the forum when expressing your opinions, well I may not agree with your personal views you are entitled to them and we may disagree on the subject of "developer regulated economies", which is EXACTLY what gold is, wherever a government (development team) decides what is valued you have a lack of choice due to "the man" telling you what you can trade for what, what the tax % is going to be... and every other little detail about a game's economy.

The point is this:
If you don't like a trade because to you it seems unfair make your own list of how you yourself prioritizes your finds and their worth and if you and your trading buddy compromise that is GREAT, but if not I DON'T want ANYONE else to decide the value of my items and force less experienced players into a monetary standardization when the Devs can be focused on other things that make this game incredible.

EDIT!
I extend an olive branch to you in hopes that you may become happy sooner or later.

EDIT!!
Please Describe a system in which GOLD is useful, in every game I have ever played it eventually is just a number.

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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).

Refer to the Beta Manifesto Player-player trading thread and we see this rubbish postapocalyptic continent may not have ships but it does have the internet with a universal social networking site, built in ebay, and instant digital delivery. Who needs ships to move things around when you can just send them across the internet digitally?

Arguments that an organised currency doesn't fit into the primitive setting of the game - just lol.

Adding to my previous post (and it is something I have speculated previously) they might implement 'forum gold' as a trading currency, particularly to support an auction house and the orb vs. gold NPC traders I mentioned could be a built in auction house feature.

I "like" fluffy lol seriously where's the "like" button?

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cybrim wrote:

I just have a 180 degree different opinion than you do, belittling people isn't going to make you the "winner" of any debate(it may just be the way I am reading it though), be more considerate about how you come off as a MEMBER of the forum when expressing your opinions, well I may not agree with your personal views you are entitled to them and we may disagree on the subject

I don't think someone who knows aboslutely nothing about economics should voice their "opinion" on the subject believing that it is jus as valid as anyone elses.

You are so completely out in the blue about gold that I don't know where to start...

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cybrim wrote:

"developer regulated economies", which is EXACTLY what gold is, wherever a government (development team) decides what is valued you have a lack of choice due to "the man" telling you what you can trade for what, what the tax % is going to be... and every other little detail about a game's economy.

You are completely missing the point of gold. It would NOT be regulated any more than the current "currency", and the devs would not be telling you the values of anything.
How exactly do you figure that the devs would fix the relative value of items/orbs just because they introduced gold?
It just makes no sense whatsoever.

And why in the world would you have a lack of choice because of gold?
Gold would not hinder trading in any way. It would encourage it.

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cybrim wrote:

If you don't like a trade because to you it seems unfair make your own list of how you yourself prioritizes your finds and their worth and if you and your trading buddy compromise that is GREAT, but if not I DON'T want ANYONE else to decide the value of my items and force less experienced players into a monetary standardization when the Devs can be focused on other things that make this game incredible.

I am sorry to tell you this, but you are NOT deciding the value of your item. Supply and demand is. Currently that is just a much slower and less efficient proccess.

The problem is that it is alot harder to know what is fair. Inexperienced players are the ones who suffers most from this system. Gold and some sort of AH would greatly benefit them.

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cybrim wrote:

Please Describe a system in which GOLD is useful, in every game I have ever played it eventually is just a number.

If you can use gold to trade with other players then it is useful. NPCs can also sell various things for gold to further encourage usage of it and reduce inflation.

What games have you played exactly, where gold is just a number? (I am assuming that means that it had no use whatsoever)


http://www.slideshare.net/knorman31/advantages-of-a-monetary-system-over-barter

moo

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akajinroh wrote:

Don't need gold. Higher drop rates, a method to craft, or more complex method that would enable the ability to acquire all types through trading would round out the economy. Maybe there will be an act 3 or 4 which will solve these issues since you can partially get what you need via vendors as is I'm willing to bet vendors will offer more rare orbs in later acts. WAIT and find out before calling for these guys to rebuild their entire idea because you lack patients and imagination.

This whole thread became a dork pissing contest. The system is innovative and it works. We don't need gold and I for one don't want things simplified. Imagination and thinking should be rewarded and enjoyed.

I don't want the devs to have to sit around and put a value on an item. An auction house could be ok but this would likely yield the micro-trasaction temptation and kill the game with the paid digital baby sitter. Where else in the world is a price just set and there's almost 0 negotiation? Apple products maybe but that's about it. I'd rather see the devs making a game and not worring that you don't think someone should charge you 4 orbs for the sword you really reaaaallllly want with a cherry on top. Give me a break. Charge what you want and if someone buys it - that's what it's worth. If you can't sell it unless you lower your price - that's what it's worth.

Last word.

I was quite suprised at seeing merchants pay for items with random items, very cool idea.

Is there gold in the game though ?

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__Z__ wrote:

sorry to have offended you if it's the case (my sometime poor english writing skills don't help...).

No you haven't. It's all cool. And your english is fine. We all make mistakes while writing. Not a big deal. Oops, I said I wouldn't post here anymore.

Anyway, I get the feeling that my posts are too long and boring, and that people generally skip them and don't get to the point.

Having a universal currency in no way implies that you wouldn't be able to enjoy recipes, craft, farm, experiment, trade or barter(avoid trading altogether)in any way you like. It means that you will be able to do all of those things, that are already in the game, minus all the limitations, inconvenience and unfairness of exclusively barter system, plus...in no logical way can this currency contradict the lore.

You see, I didn't invent this:

The coincidence of wants problem (often "double coincidence of wants") is an important category of transaction costs that impose severe limitations on economies lacking money and thus dominated by barter or other in-kind transactions. The problem is caused by the improbability of the wants, needs or events that cause or motivate a transaction occurring at the same time and the same place.
In-kind transactions have several limitations, most notably timing constraints. If you wish to trade fruit for wheat, you can only do this when the fruit and wheat are both available at the same time and place (and, additionally, only if someone wishes to trade wheat for fruit). That may be a very brief time, or it may be never. With money, (broadly speaking, any commodity used as a medium of exchange) you can sell your fruit when it is ripe and take the money. You can then use the money to buy wheat when the wheat harvest comes in. Thus the use of money makes all commodities more liquid.

In PoE, we don't have fruit and wheat...but you get the point, right? This is not the matter of my opinion, or what I like or dislike. It's the simple fact. In the absence of money, all of these transactions suffer from the basic problem of barter -- they require an improbable coincidence of wants and events.

Whether you like this or not is, of course, your right and I salute you for that...and I personally don't have any problem with people vigorously defending this trade system. However, regardless of our preferences, we will all be hampered by it's severe limitations. You can't escape that fact. It's like gravity.

Also, someone said that orbs in the game have intrinsic value, which also isn't exactly true. They have very elusive value. They are commodity and barter items that are not liquid. Imagine that I have a pile of...let's say...5 different types of orbs with the following ratio 13:2:6:23:11 vs. someone's pile that has ratio of 1:31:19:3:1 So which pile has a greater value? They both consist of 55 orbs. What is their true, innate or intrinsic value? In terms of other items (weapons, armor etc) - what can I get for pile 1 vs. pile 2 ? You would have to figure that out for every transaction, because there isn't a single universal value equivalent that can be used for comparison, which in turn makes orbs non liquid commodity items. Now add 10 more orbs. How do you like them apples?

Then come here after few weeks of actually trying to buy and sell stuff, and tell me what items did you acquire, how many transactions you made, what did you sell, what is your inventory worth, how time consuming and fair was the exchange?

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Sickness wrote:

I would love to hear that aswell.

I dunno how you read my post...

I read it that you made some glib comment to somebody that the current system has no value because its no better at controlling farming than a gold based system. This very point assumes there is a system which can prevent farming, when in fact there isn't.

On a side issue though, this system however does make farming more problematic for bots which is a big consideration when you have a F2P game where anyone can make accounts.

But no I didn't misread your post, you just multiquote so many minuscule points and argue with so many people you forget what I was referring to.

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Sickness wrote:

Gold can have intrinsic value, and infact usually have.

Side note, a currency does not NEED an intrinsic value.

No it doesn't. Gold has a perceived value (in gaming terms) it has no real value, only the value that a Developer assigns to it by setting a baseline. For example 25Gold for 1 x scroll of wisdom.

Where as a scroll of wisdom has a real intrinsic value in that it is able to perform a function of its own in identifying weapons. Using this system players will over time gravitate toward the hoarding and use of certain orbs/scrolls more than others and in trade terms they will become more valuable while others will be perceived less so.

In a gold system all you are doing is adding a middle man (or a mechanic) to facilitate the trading of those exact items (orbs/scrolls) which we currently have, so please explain why this would improve things at all?? Have you never played an arpg before?? Cause unless they have tightly controlled loot systems gold just doesnt work. It works in MMOs like say WOW or your game of choice DDO cause those have tightly controlled economies and loot systems. The DEVS and players can easily attach gold values to everything in the game ahead of time because everyone knows what will appear beforehand.

In an ARPG or any randomised loot system this becomes MUCH more problematic. Cause in real terms vendors are basically useless, they are just a way to get rid of junk and get something vaguely useful back. Take D2 nobody traded for GOLD cause it was worthless, its only purpose was to gamble with, and that was a sideline at best. Indeed even in MMOs you will often hear the phrase 'gold sink' bandied around, thats basically cause beyond a certain point gold loses its meaning UNLESS its a finite amount.

Now take a game like EVE with a highly advanced economy. At any one time there is only a finite amount of cash in the game, there are a few ways to earn money from NPCs but that is offset by players losing ships and equipment. What you have there is a working economy where money has REAL value, cause its finite. In a game like POE gold (if it were implemented) would be infinite, and therein lies the problem, one that you are determined not to acknowledge.

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Sickness wrote:

You said that all games have similar player trading.

If you never have played a ARPG in which gold served a purpose, would it not then be "unique and innovative" to come up with a system in which gold works, instead of sticking with the same old, and clearly worse, barter systems?

You misunderstand me, ive never played ANY online game except EVE where gold (or currency) had any real meaning. Cause the very concept of giving a value to something that is produced infinitely but never disappears is utterly flawed. You seem intelligent how do you not get that?

The only exception to this are games which implement clever gold sinks, in those games they force a meaning/purpose onto their currency by making certain extraneous game systems reliant on it. Those systems are nearly always forms of vanity/elite gear (needed for crafting) or something like player housing. All concepts which just aren't needed and wouldn't work in an ARPG like POE.

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Sickness wrote:

The OP was talking about how to use vendors to make player trading better.
When people are talking about trading, it is generally player trading.

Your wrong mate, he was merely saying that while perfectly good the current system needs tweaking. He never mentioned player trades or gold for that matter.

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Sickness wrote:

Does it bother you that I reply in this form?

Yes, for one it assumes all your points are so important and mindblowing they deserve a special place, where as in fact often you just write a two line offhanded brush off. And secondly it makes replying to you very tedious (even more so)

I don't know jack about economics...



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.

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).

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

1. has intrinsic worth.
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.
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.

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.