When will a Currency come to the Game?

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Xapti wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

The currency in the game is already present in the form of currency items.
Not using an gold-style currency without intrinsic value was a conscious design decision which we do not expect to change.
You can read more about it here.

gold technically does have intrinsic values in most games. Diablo 2 for example, has it's use in gambling for items, as well as repairing items

I suspect this is just us using the terminology differently - I would disagree with the idea that the value you describe in intrinsic to the gold. It's simply an NPC allowing you to exchange gold for a service and/or item - the gold itself has no value other than what players and/or the game will offer in trade for it, be that more items or the service of repairing items. This is in contrast to the currency items in Path of Exile, each of which can be consumed to perform some useful function without needing to exchange it for the service being performed through an NPC/etc.
The difference practically is minimal - there's not a huge mechanical difference between a scroll of wisdom and a do-nothing scroll which the town sage will accept as payment for identifying one item, beyond the need to haul it back to town to do so, but I think the difference in feel is significant here and makes people think of the items in question differently to just gold.

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garr0t wrote:

On a personal level, I am attracted to a goldless economy, and I do not feel it is necessary to have a fiat currency for efficient trading to take place.

For those of you intellectually inclined to do so: I urge you to read Fiat Currency in France.

I challenge you then to draw a parallel between what history has taught us about using an asset backed (gold standard) note versus fiat currency and what is currently happening in the global economy today.

To me, GGG's choice to do away with a fiat currency is refreshing, if only because it allows me to forget about the chaos that is happening in the real world ever since the US moved away from a gold standard.

Artificially pegging any item that does not have a finite availability (be it gold, scrolls, orbs, etc.) with a fixed exchange rate will invariably lead to item inflation. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics should see this.

The problem with any in game item is that supply is constantly being increased as people play the game (it is like a government/bank that continues to print money). As people kill monsters/open chests and stuff spits out, they are basically making the 'bank' print money. As currency supply increases, people will offer more and more for the same item. This is called inflation.

The concept of a money sink is to design a game mechanism that reduces the amount of currency in circulation. The problem with this is that no money sink is perfect because it is up to the user to voluntarily give up her/his money.

GGG's choice to use expendable items is a partial solution to the constantly growing money supply because the expectation is that people will use these things for their primary purpose and not just for trade. This should help address some of the risk of inflation.

There will always be a currency/trade problem in a gaming world because new items are being created at no cost all the time.

The only way for a fiat monetary system to actually work in game is to have a finite amount of currency available that would be issued on demand to players through a central bank. The problem with something like this is it would require a huge amount of administration and a huge amount of research to set exchange rates so that inflation doesn't happen. That is why every government has a central bank, with hundreds of very well educated staff monitoring market trends and data.

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zeto wrote:

I'd disagree on the 'well' portion of that. Trading is one thing... trading easily and efficiently is another.

I truly believe that without a REALLY robust system, trading will be fractured into trading communities and luck.

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zeto wrote:

I'd disagree on the 'well' portion of that. Trading is one thing... trading easily and efficiently is another.

I truly believe that without a REALLY robust system, trading will be fractured into trading communities and luck.

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I can imagine GGG may get to a point of implementing an auction process where we can post items up on the trade forum that expire after a period of time and we can then select the best offer from the list of responses to initiate a trade event that will automatically fill itself and move items to each other's respective stash or trade tab in game.

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Willowimp wrote:

This whole "no official currency" stance reminds me of another online RPG called Dungeon Runners.

Gold was made meaningless because it was not tradeable. Instead, the developers wanted the items themselves to be the currency. Sound familiar?

The idea was a colossal failure. Trading between players was non-existent. Rants about the currency-less system filled the message boards. The devs held their ground. No more Dungeon Runners.

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dust7 wrote:

Like it or not, if GGG does not introduce some revolutionary system where offsite trading is prevented, FG will be the currency of the game for the same reasons it was in D2.