pls add gold to buy items

Those are theories and practices that we haven't seen come into effect yet. Having the possibility of the system not working isn't a reason to change it to a system that has been proven to not work correctly without artificial influence.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Those are theories and practices that we haven't seen come into effect yet. Having the possibility of the system not working isn't a reason to change it to a system that has been proven to not work correctly without artificial influence.

This is one of the things I really like about the approach of this game. I don't want to get to political (especially because it is difficult for me to do that in English), but money has always been a problem, when it didn't have a constant value on its on, be it in reality or in a game. It's difficult to grasp the artificial nature of it once you are used to trading with it.

Inflation happens in games. Its insanely difficult to stop.

I treat that statement as face. And the only game I've seen come close to stopping inflation was EVE. And why did it happen in EVE? Because you COULD fly cheap ships. But if you were a rich bastard, you could do better by flying expensive ships. Except that the expensive ships, if you died, resulted in the most loss. Plus the other money sinks they had managed to fairly well account for the inflation from ratters.

Now, for PoE.

ARPG games cannot have enough money sinks using a gold-based system, without having hardcore-loot. That is, if you die, you lose loot.
Even if that were in place on D2 or similar, there would still be inflation.

The amount of money generated by grinding is just too ridiculous.

Sure, barter may be kinda annoying, but CHANGES WILL COME to help that. And I'd sure rather have this system than the one from D2/TL/TQ/etc.

As to the people who think we should have a non-infinitely-generated resource (fairy dust) that stacks infinitely (or to a ridiculous level):

Having to deal with inventory constraints helps put pressure on the economy. You have TONS of space to work with. Pretend that they gave you 10 less inventory slots and 10 (x4) less stash slots. You wouldn't have to worry about the inventory from the orbs anymore, BUT you'd have less total space to work with by FAR.

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wyldmage wrote:

Inflation happens in games. Its insanely difficult to stop.

No it isn't, just players don't like what it takes to stop it. PoE has no solution for inflation other than letting the default league(s) rot and creating new empty leagues. Just like D2 and its ladders and players don't much like being forced to start again with nothing every year or so. The beginning of a ladder season sucks because you have nothing the end sucks because everyone has everything.

PoE's consumable currency items do nothing to stop inflation they simply transfer monetary inflation into item quality inflation which is a worse problem because having a lot devalued 'gold' in your stash does not change the difficult and balance of game play the way everyone having everything they wear being +20% quality with the maximum number of preferred mods on the best quality base items does.

Arguments about inflation are completely irrelevant to the need of a viable currency to facilitate trade anyway.

Limited stash space isn't a solution to anything either. At least high quality items in your stash are not affecting game play. If you are forced to get rid of items they will be given or traded cheaply to noobs ensuring everyone experiences the item quality inflation problem.

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Fluffy wrote:

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wyldmage wrote:

Inflation happens in games. Its insanely difficult to stop.

No it isn't, just players don't like what it takes to stop it.

Which is arguably why it's so difficult to stop.

Basically, inflation occurs in RPGs because improving your character(s) is fun, and "falling behind" isn't.

Also, I might point out that having a lot of "devalued" currency in the stash is a sign of already having exhausted all the methods of using that currency to improve one's character... which basically means "item quality inflation" has already happened.

Fluffy,

In Diablo 2.. or whatever game you'd like to use, how many times did you trade items with other players, where the trade involved an item for gold? I have never played a single ARPG in which I have given an item for gold. I have done so in MMO's, which are rife with gold sinks, but not in ARPG's in which the only reason to have gold is to fix broken gear.

That fact increases with the level of the players involved. When at the upper levels, in any game, gold quickly becomes meaningless and items become the standard. A zod rune is worth X item, for example.

The only way for gold NOT to become meaningless, is to impose upon the player higher and higher costs for items (this is often the case in MMO's, which impose higher and higher repair costs or the need to buy certain items for crafting, or mounts.. etc).

However, PoE has no mounts, or crafting system (by which I mean a system in which you could actually create items, not simply modify pre-existing items). PoE thus has no reason to introduce gold into the game. because:

a. there is nothing in the game that requires the use of gold.

-and-

b. trading in the game will be based off of the values attributed to items (decided by the player base once the rarity of items is determined). And, also..

c. Trades between players (I surmise) has little if anything to do with gold.

All of this talk of inflation is besides the point, inflation will occur in PoE with or without a gold based economy.

*edit*

To sum up my point on this entire topic:

Gold is pointless because players don't want gold, they want items. Gold can be used as a means to obtain items, but it only serves as a middle man that PoE has cleverly done away with.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

In Diablo 2.. or whatever game you'd like to use, how many times did you trade items with other players, where the trade involved an item for gold?

How much gold 90 lvl in D2 could carry?
About 3 million if I'm not mistaken (10k per lvl + more than 2 million in the stash).
How much gold was needed to gamble stone of jordan ring (common currency in pre lod D2)?
Several million (6-8) on average IIRC.
How much some average end game item was worth in D2 (classic)?
Few to several sojs (15 to 60-70 million of gold).
There was no trading for gold because pretty much every item was worth more gold than a char could carry so market found a bigger gold denominative in SOJ.
It made trades for better items possible.
So in D2classic gold wasn't worthless.
Full stash + max gold on char was worth about 1/5 to 1/4 of soj.
I used to buy gold for perfect skulls, just to get money for gambling sojs faster.

Every time you traded something for soj you traded just a couple of million gold (denominated in sojs for ease of use).

Gold worked well in D2C the only design mistake was setting its drop rate at such manner that average char could get full stash in few hours of playing.
Either more room for gold in stash (100 mln or sth) or drastic cut of amount of gold dropped by mobs would make using sojs as a currency not needed.

Blizz learned the lesson -> gold in wow is split into 2 lower denominations (silver worth 1/100 and copper worth 1/10000) therefore players don't have to deal with some crazy amount of ingame currency later and in the same time game could be balanced and rewarding for newcomers.

I can't see why it couldn't be replicated in PoE (but with currency items instead of gold and its denominations).
Sinkage schemes are not a problem imo.

Ness,

sinkage problems aren't a problem.

PoE has a sinkage mechanic as well, that the currency items are used to increase the power of items you possess.

The difference between the two is that..

(a) gold sinks aren't fun, unless you love fixing items?
(b) PoE's sink is fun, as it allows you to increase your power in the game.

Now, you could set up a gold based economy with a sink like (b) as well, which would also be fun... say paying 100 gold to get a random mod on an item for example. But, that doesn't matter.

I can only say that the system PoE is currently using is really cool, and I would only like Gold as I do with the scrolls, if there was a man who could identify Itens for us, giving your item mods, and such, for gold!

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Gold is pointless because players don't want gold, they want items. Gold can be used as a means to obtain items, but it only serves as a middle man that PoE has cleverly done away with.

A 'middle man' as you call it is exactly what a currency is. Something which is universally accepted as valuable because it can be universally traded to and from things of real value. It must be easily managed and is used as a universal metric to measure the relative value of items with real value. It must have sufficient 'resolution' to accurately measure the value of the least valuable real items. Currency is used to facilitate trade instead of bartering and man has known it is a requirement for trade for thousands of years.

PoE has not cleverly done away with anything. It has given us 20 odd (and soon to be more) items of value and called them currency while none of them meet the requirements of a currency, they are just items to barter with.

When we get an auction house (and we will and it will be forum based) how is the house supposed to determine a winning bid or players determine the high bid when bids are in the form of 3 x orb + 2 y orb and half a stack of wisdom scrolls? The idea is farcical, as farcical as the 'prices' of the current NPC vendors which brings us back to the OP's post pages and pages ago.

The game will get a trading currency, doing without is not an option. Maybe it will only exist in the auction house and forums, maybe the auction house/forum will trade between currency and 'currency items' rather than an in game NPC.