Global Currency or Item for Item Barter?

[mrcalhou]

It would have value. That's what I've been trying to say. The value would be that it is easy to use. The value would be the same as the resources and items that it would be used to purchased. If I was designing this system it wouldn't just be for player-to-player trades and taxes, though. I'm almost certain that I've said that in this thread on numerous occasions. Unless money entered into the game at the same rate as new players and new resources entered and items left, then there would be inflation. So having currency sinks would be a design choice that would help limit vast price fluctuations, and depending on how it was implemented could provide additional layers of player choices that can't be had from just an item-to-item tradeing system.

Shrimps, I already addressed your first sentence by using the term "programmed currency." I assumed it was obvious that I meant that the developers would have it programmed so that that was the currency that was recognized by whatever building or object serves to assist players in tradeing with each other. Shrimps I also already mentioned Metro 2033 in this thread as a way I'd have liked to see currency introduced into a game like this. I think it's an honest shame that there won't be guns in this game. The whole being labled post-apocalypse thing threw me off.

But money wouldn't be useless. I don't know how many times I have to reiterate that. Actually, think about it in the real world. Money is useless since you can only use it to acquire things that you really could get by tradeing your things or services to someone else for things and services. But that's not really true is it? No one has the time to actually trade favors to each other for all the things they need, and I really doubt that you would be able to trade some things that you own for something at the grocery store. So what happened? Governments instituted currency systems to help people trade and perform services for each other. The only reason it works is because everyone accepts it. Otherwise it has no value, just like you two have been talking about. Let me say it again, a currencies value is in the fact that everyone accepts it.

As I mentioned in this thread, the developers would have to program the currency to be accepted for trade. That is it's value. The value is that everyone accepts it that uses that system to trade. You don't have to worry about not having the right things, because they could just take your currency and trade that for what they want, much easier than taking your items that they don't need and then trying to find someone else to trade those items for the thing you really want. But, even if a currency system is implemented into this game it would not take away your ability to trade item-for-item.

[MrDDT]

If you look at the real world, money WAS backed by something worthwhile. Really when you were trading someone 1$ for a pen. You were really trading them 1$'s worth of gold. Someone would then goto the US and trade in a 1$ for gold anytime. Now they went off the gold standard after MANY years of putting money out into the world. (Its for many reasons too).

So what you are saying that money would be worthless is that you are going to put in also a system where money can be traded in for something worth while no matter what?

Im not a big fan of having to have money sinks in a game when you dont need them. The sinks should be items breaking, or decay.

Read up on how Econ's work. You will find that money is backed with real world items and systems that are not, have issues when they can just print as much as they would like.

Your system will work if they put in game systems that people need that use money. Which isnt needed and takes away from a true player econ.

So again, tell me why I would what to give you leather for your money? It has no use other than its "easy to use" whats it easy to use for? No one is going to want it because they cant get anything with it or do anything with it.

Think about this, what if you had $2 bills, and you wanted to buy stuff from a vending machine. It has no use there. Sure you could trade it to someone for 2x 1$ bills but I tell you what, if they needed those 1$ bills to get sodas they not going to want a 2$ bill now will they? You are assuming everyone is going to just accept that money has a value. Yet what is going to happen is that people are not going to want it because it has no value. Easy to trade is of value to no one without other uses.

Tell you what, bottle caps are easy to trade too, does that mean its going to be worth anything? Or what about playing cards?

[mrcalhou]

If you look at the real world, money WAS backed by something worthwhile. Really when you were trading someone 1$ for a pen. You were really trading them 1$'s worth of gold. Someone would then goto the US and trade in a 1$ for gold anytime. Now they went off the gold standard after MANY years of putting money out into the world. (Its for many reasons too).

So what you are saying that money would be worthless is that you are going to put in also a system where money can be traded in for something worth while no matter what?

Not quite. I don't really think the gold-standard is a good idea. I don't think that it is necessary. Aliksteel would argue with me on that, but I personally don't think it's a good idea for reasons that aren't important. I was thinking about games I've played like Eve-Online, Entropia Universe, and Afterworld. They have systems in place that take money out of the game. Eve-online and Entropia Universe allow for players to pay money to repair their items. It works good in Eve, because if your ship is blown up you lose a nice chunk of your assets, so paying money to an NPC system to keep your items fully repaired doesn't hurt the player-base economy, since everything else is made by players. (something I think thta this game needs to keep the economy going. Darkfall doesn't have this and that game's economy is practially dead. It's horrible). Eve-online and Afterworld also have currency fees when manufacturing items, while this wouldn't thematically fit into the game in its current state, it's a good way to get money out of the system for two reasons: 1) Currency is taken out of the game at the point of manufacturing and 2) Slightly more money is taken out as taxes since sellers sell their product at a higher rate to cover this cost.

Additionally crafting items shouldn't be 100% efficient. I love how the scope of Eve's crafting allows for increased efficiency as your skill with refining and manufacturing increases. I find it odd that this game doesn't use more metal ore type resources since smelting and forging are ancient techniques.

Im not a big fan of having to have money sinks in a game when you dont need them. The sinks should be items breaking, or decay.

That's a personal feeling. While I agree with you that items breaking and decaying are good sinks (and extremely necessary for any player driven economy), they shouldn't be the only ones. While I know you are going to use this as a reason to attack my idea, I don't really care since it's just your opinion and you are already extremely biased against a currency system, but anyway, a currency system would need money sinks like I mentioned above to get currency out of the game. That does not make it a bad thing. It really doesn't. It's just your opinion that it is.

Read up on how Econ's work. You will find that money is backed with real world items and systems that are not, have issues when they can just print as much as they would like.

Your English is making it difficult for me to understand the point that you are trying to make (note: this does not mean that my English is perfect--it only means that I cannot understand this). However, based on how I interpreted what you wrote, I'll reply with two things. 1) Money is not always backed with anything anymore. Most of the United States economy, and I'm sure most other economies, is service-based not item-based. The bulk of the money that is tradeing hands is because of people doing things. Like office workers, professors, government employees, doctors, cashiers, food and hotel employees, etc. 2) As far as the issue of "just printing as much as they would like," real life governments, despite public opinion, are run by pretty intelligent people. In fact directly related to this comment, there's actually a government policy directly related to this: It's called "monetary policy," that's the policy that the federal reserve uses to guide whether or not they should increase or decrease how much money is in circulation. It is this reason that some sort of currency sink would be needed, since money would be introduced, it'd need to be taken out. I still fail to see a problem with the idea. Finding ways to balance it would be tougher, but that's not the subject of this.

Your system will work if they put in game systems that people need that use money. Which isnt needed and takes away from a true player econ.

And, yet, I still don't actually see a problem with that. I think that that's a good thing since I will never trust a player-base to run an economy without some programmed ways of helping it to keep the economies steady.

You keep saying this, yet I keep failing to see what the problem is.

Same here.

So again, tell me why I would what to give you leather for your money? It has no use other than its "easy to use" whats it easy to use for? No one is going to want it because they cant get anything with it or do anything with it.

I would want it. Thus, your arguement is invalid.

Think about this, what if you had $2 bills, and you wanted to buy stuff from a vending machine. It has no use there. Sure you could trade it to someone for 2x 1$ bills but I tell you what, if they needed those 1$ bills to get sodas they not going to want a 2$ bill now will they? You are assuming everyone is going to just accept that money has a value. Yet what is going to happen is that people are not going to want it because it has no value. Easy to trade is of value to no one without other uses.

Dude, you're really trying too hard, but thanks for the laugh. Yeah, of course this happens in real life. I still curse the drink machines at school for not accepting my card, but you know what? The money that's in my bank account has the same value as the equivilent in paper or coinage. It's just not in the form that that particular drink machine will take since it's old and didn't have ability to sync with the internet when they installed it. This discrepency wouldn't actually happen in a game when the developers program it, unless they were foolish and didn't understand how these things work or they were trying to fuck with us. It's the same thing with your two dollar bill example. It's a technical limitation of the machine. If you go to a store, they'd gladly take that two dollar bill and accept it as the same value as 2 one dollar bills or a fifth of a ten.

Tell you what, bottle caps are easy to trade too, does that mean its going to be worth anything? Or what about playing cards?

Do you not understand what a currency is? Did you not even bother to read this thread? I've wrote posts a few pages back about this. People get it in their head that the only kind of currency is coins or paper, but a currency can be any damned thing. It. Does. Not. Matter. What. It. Looks. Like. The only thing that matters is the functionality.

[MrDDT]

Last time because clearly its going over your head.

2$ are only worth 2$ because you can buy things with the 2$. If you only were able to buy items from vending machines and NO WHERE ELSE. 2$ bills will be worthless. No one will want them, no one will trade for them, no one will use them.

Bottle caps, and playing cards are something I was showing that are light weight. Does this mean that you will have 3 forms of money now? What about 10 forms? Where does it stop?

Gold standard is able to be removed ONLY after years of backing it. If they were to never have put it on the gold standard. It would never have caught on. Not without lots of other types of help from the gov.

Comparing EVE's econ to Darkfall's is a JOKE! Darkfall's falls for way more reasons than you listed. Mostly due to none of the resources needed are limited to areas. NOT because of what you are talking about. Plus in Darkfall there is insta travel. To major issues that have nothing to do with what you just said.

About 100% eff, yes I agree with you as I stated in my crafting post. Nothing to do with this here though.

You keep confusing my lack of understanding with me understanding, and not agreeing with you.
Did you know that a Zebra is white with black stripes? What you think you understand you are not. You dont understand what drives an econ. Its not money that has no backing. Money needs IN GAME USES. It could like you said with EVE where you blow up a ship you get insurance money to buy it back again, you also can use it for crafting items, or paying taxes, or when banking there is a fee.

But what you cant do is say "Everyone use this paper to trade others". That wont work. You MUST have a worth for it. That worth comes from the Dev's. If left up to the players with no in game reason to have it, it WONT be used.

You still did NOT answer why anyone would want to trade you leather for your money, when no one else will take the money as it has no use. Why would I give you something for a piece of paper? You said why you would, because you value this paper for some reason.

[mrcalhou]

What does money back in real life? Nothing. It only works because the government (developers) say (program) it is to be used.

The reason you would want to trade my money for your leather is because you can then use that money to go buy what you need from someone else because the developers would have programmed it to be used for an automated tradeing system similiar to every other game. Instead of:

A: "WTB iron sword. WTT 3 logs, 4 nails, and a piece of leather."
B: "Oh, I have an iron sword. But I don't need nails. I need buttons. Do you have buttons?"
A: "No, I don't have buttons, but you can trade the nails for buttons."
B: "Eh, that's too much work, when you trade the nails for buttons let me know."
A: "WTT 4 nails for buttons!"
A: "WTT 4 nails for buttons! Does anyone have buttons!"
2 hours later...
A: "B, I have those buttons. 3 logs, 4 buttons, and a piece of leather for your iron sword okay?"
A: "B? Where are you?"
C: "Oh, B had to log-off. Family aggro. I have an iron sword but I don't need buttons, I really need nails."

You could, instead, go up to a building, see that someone posted that iron sword for 23 units of currency and buy it because you happen to have currency, like pretty much everyone else does. I'll say that currency would only work well if there are a great deal of consumbles (Item destruction, ammunition, potions, et cetera and so forth), otherwise people would just be stocking piling currency and not using it.

The currency does not necessarily have to be able to be traded in for other things. It does not need to be backed by developer created items. It would not hurt to have those things, though because they would add another layer of player choices, but I do not agree with you that they are necessary above what I've already mentioned in this thread (taxes and tax-like systems, and upkeep).

[MrDDT]

Or more likely happen is people go.

Hey I have an Iron sword.
You go, Oh I need an Iron sword. Hey here is what I got what you want for it?
He asks well I will trade it this for those 3 things there, and you go how about 2? He goes ok.

If they are not backed people wont use them. I see no reason why people will be trading for bottle caps that have no use other than to trade. Unless the game starts needing bottle caps for something.

[Jadzia]

Well even using currency, the price of your dress would be like 1 billion $ which would = the same price of hiring all those 10 people plus the price of whatever heavy resource. If not you wouldnt say yes to it.

So Im missing your point. So are you saying now that all items should be easy to trade too? Because if I want 10000 tons of iron, and the trader wanted to buy it for 1 gold. What do we do now? How is he going to get all that iron?

Thats what you are saying with the dress. He has a rare item thats worth a lot, but you cant trade him because your items are heavy.

Sounds me what you need to do is either forget about this overpriced dress (because you dont think its worth 10 trips of people as you just stated) or you need to start making better friends, and contacts with people that do trade.

Paying the 10 people to carry it for you, well thats their business. I have no idea what they will want. Maybe food, or maybe 10% of the goods being carried. I have no idea, but you can work something out with them assuming that all tribes are not able to have all resources (limited resources like I said 100 times).

You actually agreed with me. I would be able to buy that dress if we had currency system. But you said that the cost of barter trading made it impossible to buy, it made the dress overpriced. So if we had currency system, I would have the dress and the seller would have the money, everyone is happy. With the barter system I don't have the dress, the seller couldn't sell his stuff. Yup, exactly what I said, barter system extremely limits trading, and kills the economy in the long run.

Dunno about you but I would teach rare stuff to my tribe members but thats just me. Because Im more of a tribe member that helps its members and not a tribe of solo people.

Read my post properly please, I said that they wouldn't teach other tribe's members, not their own tribemates.

The vault/mailbox system was in response to making trading easy. If you want easy, why not start putting these options in too. They wouldnt hurt the econ according to you. Just as light weight money system wouldnt. (According to you).

Comparing the currency to mailbox system is so stupid, you shouldn't keep forcing it. A mailbox system wouldn't hurt the economy at all, but it would take out a lot of fun from the game.
What would happen with PvPers who want to attack the traders ? People wouldn't go out to meet other players. It would affect the social part of the game really bad. Currency system doesn't raise these problems, PvPers can steal the money the buyer is carrying with him, and people have to go out to find their stuffs.

Barter system takes out of the fun in the same way as mailing system. People will just stay at home, since trading items simply won't be worth it, so they don't meet others and PvPers lose a big part of their fun. Resource trading will probably work, but that won't help in PvP, since tribes will send a big defending army when carrying large amount of resources.

Again, if we have a currency system, you can still barter trade, your tribe can barter trade, anyone who likes it can barter trade. So whats your problem with it ? Why do you want to force your preferred system to others ?

[MrDDT]

You actually agreed with me. I would be able to buy that dress if we had currency system. But you said that the cost of barter trading made it impossible to buy, it made the dress overpriced. So if we had currency system, I would have the dress and the seller would have the money, everyone is happy. With the barter system I don't have the dress, the seller couldn't sell his stuff. Yup, exactly what I said, barter system extremely limits trading, and kills the economy in the long run.

No you set the price to something you cant afford. So if I had a dress you wanted, and I asked you to give me a billion coin for it you would because its light weight? But if I ask you to make 10 trips with stone, you wouldnt? Thats my point.

If someone asks you to barter something you cant pay, you say no and you cant buy it, just as if they asked you for coin you dont have or dont feel the item if of that value. It is YOU that believes the dress isnt worth what the person is asking. Its not the system.
If it were me, I would have told that person to bugger off because it costs to much, or I would say great deal because that dress is very rare and hard to make or whatever.

I can say the same about your system.
Well he wanted 1 billion coins that takes like weeks of farming my goods to sell to people in my lands for it which they value my goods low because there are many of it. Yet if I were to trade it to him it would only be a little bit of coin worth of what I have to offer. Thus your coin system DOESNT work because I wouldnt have it because I dont have the coin because of the coin the price is to high.
See what I did there?

The tribemember thing was a simple comment which you believe I was saying something that I was not. I meant what I said. I would teach it to my tribe members without a doubt, not "Maybe" but for sure.

Mailbox system would hurt the econ a lot.

I dont see how barter hurts in the way you say, people would still trade, Ive seen it in other games. Like Roma Victor, ATITD, and Wurm Online. Some of the true sandbox games. PVPers get fun more than just from loot.
You dont think big defending armies are not a good source of PVP? Sounds like they are as they would need a large force to defend it. Sounds like it promotes PVP.
If you use simple money or a mailbox system it will allow 1 fast rider (or none) to carry it all and avoid most pvp. While cargo caravans would need to have protection. So thats good fights for both defenders, and attackers.

Im not forcing anything on others, Im offering my opinion. Why do I want my opinion to be put in over yours? Because yours hurts the game, while mine would help.

It would be as if you asked "Lets have Jet fighters in the game" I think that would remove a lot of the good things the game has going for it.

What gets people to move resources the most is limited resources. It could be like you said of limited recipes or maybe iron, or sheep, or even water. It doesnt matter what the resource is as long as other tribes need it.
One tribe will claim that area, set up a trade route and trade with other tribes for items they need. If that item is of high enough value then other tribes will try to take it by force, either the goods themselves or take the land from the tribe (or try to).
Then the system goes round and round. Thats the key to good trading econ. Which has no effect on money system or barter system.
Moving on why a money system (in my opinion) hurts the econ is because you are then requiring the DEVS to put into the game money sinks and ways to use money in game (to give the money value) instead you could just keep using a barter system and allow players to come up with a system of money. Maybe its human bones, maybe its gems, maybe its cotton seeds. WHO knows what will be of high value, rare and much needed. Key is why have the DEVs do it when the players can?

I play games like Wurm where there is money in the game, and you know what? Its is very very rarely used. Even with the money sinks the devs have in the game. (Few of them but not many). Because there isnt really point. Play on the free server and money is almost never used.

[Jadzia]

Its kind of hard to believe that you really don't understand what I write, I'm getting the feeling that its intentional.

My last try:
1. Currency :There is a dress I want to buy. It costs 100 gold. I have the money, I can afford it, I buy it.

2. Barter: There is a dress I want to buy. It costs 1000 threads. I have them, I can afford it, I want to buy it. But I can't, because carrying the 1000 thread there is impossible. I can afford the original item. If it was sold by my neighbour I could buy it. But since the seller is far away, I can't. Do you get it ? The barter system limits me and the seller as well. Th original item isn't overpriced, thats the normal, common price of it. Its just my bad luck being far from the seller. So actually I'm not able to trade with people far away.

I've read your example about the coin system like 4 times still can't understand, I'm sorry. But even if you are right and coin system wouldn't work well in that case, noone stops you to barter trade if you want to. See ? You can use both systems, always the one which fits the situation better.

You keep bringing up other games as good examples. Wurm do have a money system so I have no idea why are you mentioning it. If people barter trade there that shows that the 2 system can work well together, everyone can choose the one they prefer.
I don't know about Roma Victor. Didn't that game have money ? But since its dead and closed I really doubt its a good example.
Have you ever played Atitd ? It has global chat, huge carrying capacity and instant travel. Still people hardly trade there with far away sellers. Actually there is hardly any economy there, all of the guilds try to be self-sufficient. If they trade with far away sellers they always use instant travel,like chariot system, teleport, spouse teleport.

You talk about money sink. If not money sink then there will be resource sink. How is that better ? There are plans for taxes, decay and renovation, upkeep. The sink is already planned no matter if currency or barter system we will have.

You keep talking about trading between tribes. Thats nice and important. But I want personal trading as well. I want solo players to be able to trade as well. I don't see why do you want these options be limited.

Key is why have the DEVs do it when the players can?

Because they can't. I've seen it in Atitd, it doesn't work. Currency system is so much needed there that players created a virtual currency outside of the game, to help players to set prices and make deals. You have to go and read webpages and Excel sheets about how much is a diamond worth if you want to pay with an axe, and how much its worth if you want to pay with flax. To force the players and the economy to use out-of-game websites to be able to trade is the stupidest thing ever.

[MrDDT]

How is 1000 threads = to 100 coins? Im confused there?

Plus the cost isnt 1000 threads its more into it also. Just as there is more into 100 coins. Does that person have to bring it to you? Do you have to go get it? What if there are bandits on the way? You talk about being far away and not able to pay for it because you are far, but that applies to BOTH money or barter.

No one stops you from using a coin system either then if thats the case you are using. You can say "Hey buddy you want this peice of paper? for your goods? Others believe its worth something". You can do the same so guess you will have your money system in place if thats the case. Heck its already in game.
Problem with your system is that you NEED the devs to put in the game things that WILL effect the barter system. They are called money sinks. Things like taxes, or costs while crafting, or costs on skills or based priced items etc.

You tell me 1 game without a money system then that has a bad ECON (Only one I know is ATITD)?. ATITD isnt doing bad because of its econ, it has a low pop due to poor GUI, Graphics, a complete lack of any kinda of action (combat pvp or pve). Im giving you reasons why a money system is not needed, not that it works or not. I know a money system CAN work, but it removes freedoms. If it doesnt remove freedoms (like wurm) then it WONT be used (like wurm) understand?

Resource sink is better because resources is what drives econ. Limited resources is reasons for trade, trade is the basics for econ. Understand?

Ive played ATITD and its not even like that at all. Fact you would say that EVE is like that because it has the same thing haha. Yet EVE has a great working econ. Many games have out of game resources that tell you what items are worth or not worth. I dont see that being a problem. I talk and trade with more people in ATITD then I ever did in EVE and I was SUPER rich in EVE. You say people are forced to use out of game tools, but they were nor are they FORCED, they choose too.
Darkfall EVE, ATITD, Shadowbane, WOW etc. ALL have out of game tools to help you with econ.

Items are worth to someone what they are willing to get for them. You have to choose what it is worth to you.

Im done by the way. My point has been said many times, clearly you will never understand it. While I understand yours. You wish to have the DEVs put in money into the game because you believe that players cant do it. I dont want to be limited to using a money system because I know barter system works.