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Does an MMO really require currency?
thund3rhawk
Member Posts: 2
Where is the game that is strictly bartering?
Why is a gold bar in World of Warcraft not even worth 1 gold or more?
Does currency prohibit the progression of building relationships in-game?
What are your answers/thoughts on these questions? If anyone else out there would like to add their own questions that stay on this topic you're more than welcome to do so.
I'm still sort of brain storming my thoughts and rants on these questions that have been rattling inside my head lately so I'll try to voice those soon.
Comments
I dont think currency is really truly required, but...there is the matter of how does one compensate another for their time? You mentioned bartering...but we all know there are a lot of people in these games you just can not trust. Whats to say they would return the favor...and what if they were willing on the spot, but you werent interested in anything they could offer....how do they "pay" you back?
A much better question is does the real world require currency?
im ok with the standard currency system, tho bartering is always welcome. What i would never support and will be forever against is the economy system of games like Planet Calypso online where your ingame currency is your real life wallet..... simply absurd
WTT "Axe of Uber" for "Wand of Uber"
Nub whispers you "How about a staff of Uber?"
You whisper nub "No thanks, need the wand"
Nub2 whispers you "I have a toe-ring of uber for that axe"
You whisper Nub2 "no thanks, need the wand"
etc. etc.
Sure, I'm exaggerating a bit but currency make trade easier by assigning a value to everything that is easily understood. I would like to see a game with a pure player based economy and without the infinite money mode of current MMOs. Since mobs drop money and mobs respawn, money respawns and over the years the value of everything increases, shafting any late comers. I'm not really sure how one could implement a money-less system that worked well, however.
Currency isn't needed, but it makes trading a lot more convienient.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Xsyon has no currency. If you want to trade with another player, you barter. Also, there are no NPCs, so if you don't want to trade for something, you'll have to find it, make it yourself, or do without. Some tribes have discussed creating currency from various junk items with or without any intrinsic value (suggestions range from nails and bolts to dollars, both of which can be scavenged), but so far, there doesn't seem to be any agreement, much less widespread implementation, of a currency anytime soon.
Be aware Xsyon is very young, has issues, is a pure sandbox with no quests, no tutorials, and at the moment, due to some bugs, very little wildlife (hopefully this will be fixed soon). Right now, it's mostly about building and crafting, and while it is full loot pvp outside homesteads, the combat system also needs some work, and there is no free trial yet. It's my main game, but it isn't for everyone, so you might want to check the Xsyon forum before you decide to jump in and play.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Where is the game that is strictly bartering? There was a reason man stopped bartering. It is inefficient.
Why is a gold bar in World of Warcraft not even worth 1 gold or more? I assume you're talking NPC vendor here? Why would a merchant buy something at face value? No merchant does that. Players buy goods at market value.
Does currency prohibit the progression of building relationships in-game? I fail to see any connection on how currency prohibits relationships. Please elaborate.
In a game in which all items are player crafted the crafting material itself could be used as a type of currency; this is how it worked in ancient times with precious metals and even for some nations today that still rely on some type of precious metal standard.
So if gold was an exceptionally valuable crafting resource it could easily default into a currency just like it did before the advent of actual money.
Currency to me is required, I went through enough diablo II trading where I would create a game looking for some particular item and 10 people would join. I would clearly state "okay guys I know what items are worth what so if you are trying to screw me out of the deal leave now... majority of the time 6 of the 8 people left. Currency allows everything to have a set value whether or not that person needs it... When a person bartering doesn't need what you have to offer, nothing will get done, but if there is an effective currency there is always an easy trade if hes willing.
Even at average when I checked on an item database the average it still goes for in the AH is still around 60 silver which is still under 1 gold. And we are talking a bar, not a coin so even if it came out to 1 gold that still doesn't make sense.
I understand that you feel that it is inefficient, and that I do agree with, but does that not take out a series of communication steps (helping one another) that could further build lasting relationships between players in-game?
I am just going to say this.
Currency is liquid meaning it is easily used for financial transactions.
Currency is easily split up into smaller amounts.
Currency has a commonly understood value.
the reason we use money for trading is because money is more efficient because of ease of use, stable/predictable value, and because it is used by nearly everyone. basics of economics.
now...this doesn't change if you are in an MMO or out of an MMO except for that in the real world, you have to factor in the ease of transportation of money as well. In an MMO you can just carry you 63 different swords or whatnot...the other parts still apply.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Exactly.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If you dont give players a currency, they will make one of their own.
Like these "stone of jordan" in Diablo 2.
Only alternative is to not allow any player trading.
Thats trivial to answer for anyone interested in economy.
As long as you have a free market (and not a planed market), yes you need currency.
Again, if you dont give it to people, they will make it on their own. Just with the stones of jordan in diablo 2. Its simply too complicated if everyone tries to trade their own products around until they finally get what they wanted in the first place. Much easier to simply sell own products for money, then buy the goods you need from the shop.
The inventor of Star Trek believed the future wouldnt have currency, but he sooner or later had to give in, once trade with foreign cultures such as the Ferengi has been established.
While the invention of the "replicator" in the second Star Trek show (The Next Generation from 1987) would make lack of trade plausible (just convert rocks to food and clothing, what else do you really need ?), even then they couldnt get rid of money and had to invent "gold pressed latinum" as a form of money in the third Star Trek show (Deep Space Nine from 1993).
So yeah, even Star Trek hasnt managed to get rid of money.
Currency is just a 0 weight, 0 space item. Nothing more. Currency only exists in our minds.
A dollar is a piece of paper. Nothing more, nothing less. But we've all agreed that a dollar is worth something, so as far as we're concerned it is.
If you remove currency then smart players will eventually find another item with as low a weight and as low a space as possible to use as currency. There will just be this long and frustrating period where this hasn't happened yet and even after it's happened there will be people who don't agree with the currency because it isn't developer supported ( like RL currencies are governement supported. ) and will continue to take the hard way.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
I think a better question is why money in MMO's doesn't weight anything. In WoW, my lvl 6x hunter has 300+ gold (I know, not overly much), and it doesn't encumber him a bit. In EQ2, my 3x Warden has 18 platinum pieces, and no encumberance at all...
From what I know, most MMO's allow you to carry ANY amount of money without ANY encumberance or weight penalties. This is just INSANE! In the real world, I'd love to see one to walk around with 1000 €2 coins. Best of luck I'd say. Aside from the weight (somewhere around 8kg), it's also quite bulky. Not to mention, carrying around so much money is dangerous as well with all the crime on the street...
Only system that I know most likely to encumber players is DDO. Well, at least in the pen-n-paper D&D games, currency does weight something, and as DM, I did encumber players when they really had so much money with them, the weight and it's bulkyness would start to become a problem...
Take a look at the Zeitgeist: Moving Forward movie. Whether or not they're actually right I honestly don't know. There's a decent bit of tin foil hat conspiracy going on but there's also some pretty good points made.
But it is an interesting perspective on currency that's definetely worth watching and is bound to get you thinking, and that can never be a bad thing.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
Oh, thats trivial.
Its called a bank account.
You can trivially carry around billions of money in reallife with as much encumberance as a simple single credit card.
...trivial enough that dead monsters deposit their (former) coins into your bank account instantly..? :-D
theres where magic pouches, bags of holding, and converting your money to plat/astral diamonds comes in.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Maybe they have laws that state that your last will always grants all your worldly possessions to whomever murdered you?
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
baks of holding are not very useful, unless you keep some 'spare change' in your regular pouch (seen odd things happen with multi-dimensional storage in D&D). And yeah, jewels and other valuable stones are very nice (I used them a lot myself), but somehow my NPC's always use a minimum 10% charge when buying & selling them *loves money sinks in games* and not all NPC's would accept them either...
I think you're confusing the presence of currency with the lack of custom contracts. Currency establishes a base value and creates a standard unit that most, if not all, agree to. Asheron's Call had the most extensive [player-devised] barter system but it still reverted back to currency based with each server having a different base value or even different base units (SIKs, Sings, motes, etc)
Contract systems, buy/sell orders, loans, shipping agreements and the like are all ways to further establish relationships.
Imagine you're playing your favorite MMO and you noticed that the best prices you were getting on the materials you need were from a particular character. If there was a contract/agreement system in place, you'd very likely contact him and say "Hey, if you can supply x amount of this a week, I'll buy it at y" Currently, most manufacturing and crafting guilds have to manage their transactions outside of the game-provided exchange mechanics.
While this definitely can be done without any coded mechanics, most players are not going to do it (many will not even think to do it) without some game-provided framework to support it, if for no other reason than the ease at which people can back out of a deal or scam in an anonymous online environment. Mind you, this is not to say that they won't scam the crap out of each other using the system, but at least it gets direct and interpersonal trade going.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
How did you get 10 people to join a Diablo 2 game? Max is 8 iirc.
Small Shard = 2 sing keys = 1 stack 7.0 steel = 2 stacks 4.0 steel = 1/3rd stack 5.0 granite = 10 MMD = 1/6 Gaerlon Sword = 32 pyreal motes = 1 ring of SIKs = 5 directive keys = 1/2 stack sunstone 5.0 = 10 units 10.0 steel..
Asheron's call had it.
Actually AC had third party bots that handled the trading of items for you and you could have your own point system for the seventy plus forms of currency that existed in the game -- so if you really didnt want iron stacks but really needed small shards you could set up your system skewed from the typical values. There were bots that only traded in currency where you could say trade 10 small shards for 18 sing keys or 22 sing keys for 10 small shards that played the spread.
Too much complexity as evidenced by players using bots to circumvent the barter system. Better to just have a solid currency system I say, just like in real life.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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