gold? money? currency?

Interesting thread on philosophical points of currency.

I'd throw my two cents in. So, maybe people forgot that money is only a tool in real life, and money also is the thing that got transferred into games because it existed in real life. Also games are not real life.

P.S. Yeah sorry) Offtop

Always keep in mind that an in game economy functions very very differently than a real life economy. Many of the assumptions that economists (and people in their everyday lives) make simply aren't valid.

In any case, this thread is going way off topic so I'm going to help it along to the appropriate forum.

wants this new currecny and want does it do havent see it on it before the points

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tpapp157 wrote:

Always keep in mind that an in game economy functions very very differently than a real life economy. Many of the assumptions that economists (and people in their everyday lives) make simply aren't valid.

In any case, this thread is going way off topic so I'm going to help it along to the appropriate forum.

I like what that implies.

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Sickness wrote:

The PoE economy can be seen as either a bartering system or a multi-currency system.
None of them are in any way superior to a uniforum currency system.

The fact that some people used shells as "money" only strengthens my point.


If you are confused by the word bartering, here is some help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter

I disagree. There is no "uniform currency system" and there never was. Moreover, multi-currency system and bartering system are, in fact, superior to a uniform system. As you probably know, different people have different values, and those values change over time. The idea of money tries artificially tie different values to a one single scale. So far it fails to do so both in real life and in videogames. Barter, from the other hand, enables people to trade while using their own values. Besides, using same-as-in-every-other-game-with-minor-differences "gold" as a currency implies using fixed prices, and THAT implies using planned economy, which generally does not end well.

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Hufka wrote:

I disagree. There is no "uniform currency system" and there never was. Moreover, multi-currency system and bartering system are, in fact, superior to a uniform system. As you probably know, different people have different values, and those values change over time. The idea of money tries artificially tie different values to a one single scale. So far it fails to do so both in real life and in videogames. Barter, from the other hand, enables people to trade while using their own values. Besides, using same-as-in-every-other-game-with-minor-differences "gold" as a currency implies using fixed prices, and THAT implies using planned economy, which generally does not end well.

You really don't know much about money, do you?

First, read these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_currency_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

then we can talk.

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Sickness wrote:

First, read these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_currency_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

then we can talk.

Makes me wonder whether you read these articles yourself. The first one clearly refutes your point about multi-currency system not being in any way superior to uniform currency in the "Criticism" paragraph, and the second does the same for barter. If barter "replaces money as the method of exchange in times of monetary crisis", how can you say that it has no superior points? Like, you know, immunity to monetary crisis.

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Hufka wrote:

Makes me wonder whether you read these articles yourself. The first one clearly refutes your point about multi-currency system not being in any way superior to uniform currency in the "Criticism" paragraph

No it doesn't. When I say that multi-currency is worse ion every way I obviosuly mean in the context of PoE, which is an 'optimum currency area'.

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Hufka wrote:

and the second does the same for barter. If barter "replaces money as the method of exchange in times of monetary crisis", how can you say that it has no superior points? Like, you know, immunity to monetary crisis.

Yeah, because there are so many monetary crises in a game where the devs can controll the economy in an yway they want...


Is nit-picking all you can do?

Even if a barter system is thematic, and makes sense for the tone of the game and so on, there's one major problem:

The NPCs don't barter. They sell THIS item for THAT item. If Tarkleigh wants 400 scrolls of wisdom (for various different items), how come I can only get That-Sword-Over-There for an orb of alteration? Now I have to check if he has one of those. Oh, yup, he does. He wants a Portal Scroll for it. Ok. Does he have those? Yup. 4 for an Orb of Chance. (you get the idea.)

now, it's not uncommon to ignore the vendors in a RPG, often the gear you find is better than the gear you can find on vendors. But, why even have vendors sell items if you're going to make it damn near impossible to get the one you want, unless you just horde all your currency items "just in case". (certainly nigh impossible for when you'd most want to buy items: Lower levels.)

Besides that, there's lots of other little quibbles, like inventory space (No crap, I can use my stash. That doesn't really help me when I'm out killing monsters dropping 2 kinds of scrolls, 12 kinds of orbs, baubles, scraps, whetstones, etc etc etc, does it?), the fact that the player values aren't remotely close to the vendor values (1 scrap for a chaos orb? REALLY?!?!), and so on.

think so