Do we need a copper currency?

Something that I've been wondering for a while is if we really need the three tiers of the primary currency that we have seen so far in AoC. It appears that Ashes of Creation has a system similar to World of Warcraft where 100 copper is equal to 1 silver, and 100 silver is equal to 1 gold. If we have these three currencies then I should expect to see items with values of a silver or less, otherwise copper serves no real purpose. Based on what I've seen so far, even low level players will be acquiring silver and gold as rewards far more than simple copper.

I feel that if players are always going have enough money in their bags to ignore the existence of copper, then keeping it in the game just becomes information bloat. Lets look at it with USD. Would having a coin that is 1/100 of a penny make your life any easier? People already complain about having to deal with change now that almost everything costs more than a dollar. Adding currency that is even smaller would only serve to make things more complicated.

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tautau

I suspect this will be subject to testing and balancing in Alpha 2. It really depends on the money supply and vendor pricing (and other related in-game costs). Since all of that is within control of the programmers, they should be able to set item values how they want them at release. After release, inflation management through gold sinks and other means they will have to manage, and hopefully they will do it well.

Depraved

BraydenS wrote: »

Something that I've been wondering for a while is if we really need the three tiers of the primary currency that we have seen so far in AoC. It appears that Ashes of Creation has a system similar to World of Warcraft where 100 copper is equal to 1 silver, and 100 silver is equal to 1 gold. If we have these three currencies then I should expect to see items with values of a silver or less, otherwise copper serves no real purpose. Based on what I've seen so far, even low level players will be acquiring silver and gold as rewards far more than simple copper.

I feel that if players are always going have enough money in their bags to ignore the existence of copper, then keeping it in the game just becomes information bloat. Lets look at it with USD. Would having a coin that is 1/100 of a penny make your life any easier? People already complain about having to deal with change now that almost everything costs more than a dollar. Adding currency that is even smaller would only serve to make things more complicated.

dont overthink this. its a flavor thing. also the values that you saw on the streams arent final -_-

Tyranthraxus

I don't know that any game has ever featured *salt* as a currency - but there are times/contexts IRL where it was traded as a near-equal with gold.

Would be fine with it, if they changed the money system to something less-traditional.

Noaani

Im all for it, but i do think that at some point when MUDflation sets in, the developer should do a decimal shift and knock each currency down one, so gold becomes silver, silver becomes copper.

Since the way currency in MMO's usually work is simply as a single value (1,940,876 would he stored on the server, and would be passed to the client and displayed as 194 gold, 8 silver and 76 copper on the client UI), it is actually fairly simple code to implement.

darthaden

YES WE DO! I 100 gold to purchase an item is a lot more appealing than 100,000,000 gold

Veeshan

should bring back platinum coin from Everquest haha although there conversion was 10/10/10/10 instead of 100 :P
I much have rather muiltipul types of coin than what new world has though selling thing for .2g instead of 2 silver or what not is silly.
Yeah let me just cut a coin in 1 fifth to pay for .2 gold :P

also coin bloat is real too spending a million gold coin for something rather meh like a sword is dumb too

The gap between max level gold drops and low level gold drops (quest, rewards and all that) should be a little closer together than we see in like retail wow now too i honostly think everquest did it the best with gold gain rates between low levels and high levels. there were also some low level drops that sold quite highly which was a little hit like plague rat tail had a low drop rate but they sold for 1.7 plat and dropped from lvl 2 mobs which was alot for a lowbie at the time when normal mobs dropping 5copper to 2gold (10 copper = 1 silver, 10 silver 1 gold and so on). max level mobs would only typicaly drop like 5plat in coins and 1-100 plat (rare gems sold for 70-120 depending on what typicaly a mob would be worth like 10plat at max level) worth of items if lucky outside of equipment drops off named mobs

Noaani

darthaden wrote: »

YES WE DO! I 100 gold to purchase an item is a lot more appealing than 100,000,000 gold

Yeah, but 100,000,000 gold to sell an item is a lot more appealing than 100 gold.

That said, in most games, the conversion would be 1,000,000 copper equalling 100 gold, not 100,000,000. In a game with 4 currencies (copper, silver, gold, platinum) where each denomination is worth 100 of the next, 100,000,000 copper would equal 100 platinum.

Caww

Yes, we need Copper coins otherwise how can I low-ball your listing by a single copper and get the sale?

George_Black

Tera Online had two coins. Very quickly the less valuable one was pocket change and everything was done in gold (+ the daily/solo/vendor npc gameplat alt currencies).

We only need 1 coin.

Aszkalon

Noaani wrote: »

Yeah, but 100,000,000 gold to sell an item is a lot more appealing than 100 gold.

I have another WoW-Story here ... ... ... ... ... ... and it is a Story - about Greed ... ... ...

About a full Year before the Release of "The Burning Crusade" - on the german Server we played, "Mal'Ganis",
we encountered a Player - who probably thought, he was smart ... ... ...

He had the legendary Hammer of Ragnaros. The Legendary Item. "Sulfuras" is the Name, i believe.

He had it.
The full thing.

Not just the Item Drop that needed Extra Ingredients/Materials to be completed.

Yes. As a GNOME - MAGE ... ... ...

He also had no Guild, apparently. It was a ridiculous Sight. So now he thought, he "had a Monopoly" ... ... ... ... he had something, that EEEVEEERYYYOOOONE wanted ... ... ...

Or so he thought.

" His Hammer " - appeared in the Auction House ... ... ... for a WHOPPING +3800 Gold, or so.

This was WoW Vanilla, i mind People ... ...
I may be as Casual as it gets, being mostly a Single-Player kind of Person - even if i can put in L~OOOTS OF EFFORT AND TIME into the Game,

but for me,
Amounts of Gold, like " Seventy Gold ", or a HUNDRED Gold or above - or above "TWO" Hundred Gold ... ...

... ... that was a lot of (ingame) Money.

S~oo !
What was the Plan here ?

My dear Brother played a Paladin - the not unlikely PvP-strongest Paladin on the Server Mal'Ganis back then. "Diem", a Human with full Ahn'qiraj Raid Tier Set.

He also had a powerful, epic Weapon. Only the Hammer could have "boosted" his Power in Vanilla more.
This is why we stumbled upon this Gnome Mage and his Sulfuras Hammer in the first Place.

So we asked this Guy, of why he would put in such a legendary Item for such an overprized Amount of Gold into the Auction House. From "OUR" Perspective, a "Non-Raider" would probably make around +700 Gold in the whole lot of WoW Vanilla, or so.

We played a lot. We did what not all People would have approved of. We "BOTH" played Diem to help him being strong. (lol)

But +3800 Gold ? No Chance, lol.
We asked him, how he got the legendary Hammer in the first Place. He answered us with a good Story.

So he told us,
he was actually the " Guild LEADER " of a whole Guild on that Server, which raided Molten Core and Blackwinglair.

And it seems, THAT GUY - snatched the Ingredients/Materials to complete Sulfuras - FROM the Guild Bank - to the legendary Weapon State, as soon as that "epic Hammer"-Version as the Main Ingredient, dropped.

He took off, left the Guild he punked - and thought he " HAD USED " his former Guild Members, to obtain the ultimate Monopoly.

Monopoly for what ?

For what but of Course ? For the Chance to "BLACKMAIL" someone - "ANYONE" - on the whole Server, to give him such an INSANE AMOUNT of Gold for WoW Vanilla Standarts back then,

that in simple Terms -> a WHOLE GUILD or about as many People - would have to LAY TOGETHER - ALL THEIR GOLD, they made in God-who-knows how many Weeks or Months,

give it ALL to him -> just to give (LOL!) ONE - PERSON - a noticeable bit of a Boost in direct Melee Damage.

The Punchline of this whole, sad Joke - involving the deadly Sin of Greed - comes now ... ... 😁 . 😁 . 😁

One Month passed - since we saw " Legendary Sulfuras " in the Auction House, for the first Time ... ...

Then it became " Two " Months ... ...

... ... ... and then " THREE " Months ... ...

And then Four Months ... ... ... ... ... and then Five ... ... ... ... ... and then Six ... ... ... ^.^;" ... ... ...

Seven ... ...
... ... Eight ... ...
... ... ... " NINE " ... ... ... ^.^;" ... ... x'D

Anyone who knows, how the Auction House back then worked and functioned - should realise, what this means.

The " Silver/Gold Costs " -> for putting in an Item, went up to a certain Extent -> regarding of the Degree of how rare and/or powerful the Item was ... ...

I think back then, You could ONLY for a Maximum of " 24 Hours " put an Item into the Auction House.
" NOT " 48 Hours, like added later on, in the Game.

And every single Time he did this -> he had to pay around One, or Two - or maybe up to Three or FOUR Gold, to put it in for a whole Day - so that someone could buy the Hammer for him, for the ridiculous Prize of 3800 Gold or so.

Imagine doing this for about - " OVER - A - WHOLE - YEAR " - trying to blackmail DOZENS of People, to give You the greatest Ton of Money You "THINK" you could extort from them. 😁 . 😁 . 😁

One Day, around Three or Four Months later when we didn't watch the Auction House anymore ... ...

... ... " The Burning Crusade " dropped. First Expansion of WoW. Horraaaay ^.^ flying Mounts and so on. x'D

Then one of the first Days - in Hellfire Peninsula -> we met the Gnome Mage again, running into him, in an Open World Quest.

Of Course, curious -> we asked him, if he had managed to sell the Hammer to Someone. After all, THIS Expansion would make Sulfuras not be the strongest Melee Item anymore. It's Value would drop, right ?

He first hesitated for a few Seconds to answer.
Then, he just whispered us back as an Answer, something like :

" Hmm, meh ! I just sold it to an NPC in Stormwind's Trading District then. "

Kinda like shrugging with his Shoulders. Funnily, i think there was at least in Text an Emote for this.

O~HHHHHHHHHHHHH, the B~UUUUTTHURT of him must have been MORE legendary than the Hammer he basically "JUST" destroyed !!!!!!!

He surely had put at least plus WHO KNOWS HOW MANY Hundred of Gold into that Auction House,
trying to extort and blackmail People into giving him an EVEN BIGGER Amount of ingame Money/Gold for the Hammer,

and when he realised he betrayed and f~xxx~ed over his Guild for nothing, stole probably everything he could sell for Gold for nothing,

and could not sell the Hammer that was slowly but surely "RUINING HIM financially" ingame, regarding Gold,

he had a probably very hateful Rage-Tantrum one last time -> and destroyed the Hammer ONLY SO in an Attempt to spite and get back at the countless People he couldn't force to give him a back then extra-gigantic Amount of ingame Money.

Around +10 Years later or so, for "Completion" and to get the Transmogg-Model/Graphic of Sulfuras ourselves, when everyone could already since long Raid Molten Core Solo,

we completed the Hammer and got both the "Extinguished" AND active Model for Diem - my Brothers Paladin.

Yes.
Without paying a single Gold Coin to anyone.

There is a saying that Crime doesn't pay. I like to agree with that. That Gnome Mage Player became the biggest A~hole on the whole Server for Years - trying to "FORCE" Players into making him rich ingame.

And it backfired. Spectacularly. He went down with flying Colors. 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂

While this whole Story has nothing to do with anything or Anyone here in the Forum i believe,

when You wrote " 100.000.000 Gold ", Nooaani. - I had to think of him. Thank You, Man. For making the Blood rush through my Laugh Muscles. 😁 You reminded me of a hilarious, amazing and epic Incident from long ago.

God bless You. 😁👍

BraydenS

darthaden wrote: »

YES WE DO! I 100 gold to purchase an item is a lot more appealing than 100,000,000 gold

The thing is that reducing the amount of currencies available doesn't have to inflate the remaining currencies. If we added micro-cents to the USD currency, a vending machine soda would still cost $2.50. Except with that additional currency it might now cost $2.4984. Does the 16 micro-cents that you save on that purchase make any difference? Or is it just more numbers that you don't really care about?

From what I've seen from the current AoC NPC prices, this is what copper will feel like. A currency so low in value that you don't even notice if its tacked on or taken off of the price of an item. I realize that things like this are subject to change, which is exactly why I wanted to bring it up. From my perspective I would like to see Intrepid look into either lowering the initial wealth that players will have (as well as the cost of goods) or remove the copper currency.

And at the end of the day maybe this is a pointless conversation. Maybe AoC's economy is going to be held more in check and there won't be a huge wealth inequality between a low level and a max level player. I'm just making the assumption in this post that the vendor values we see are balanced around a low level player that will have far less wealth than a high level player.

AnimusRex

Yes, we need coppers for those moments when the town wretch sidles up to you, grinning through her broken teeth and pitifully asks "Spare a few coppers for an ex leper, Sir Knight?"

Silvers doesn't sound the same.

Ludullu

Aszkalon wrote: »

God bless You. 😁👍

I call this style of post...

Cause, my god, THE SPACES.

Depraved

NiKr wrote: »

Aszkalon wrote: »

God bless You. 😁👍

I call this style of post...

Cause, my god, THE SPACES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYaJCmJgb9A&ab_channel=xDrJx

Enigmatic Sage

Do we need copper currency? no. Think about how most modern currencies work. $$$ decimal Cents
Will we get it? probably. Give it that ancient roman feel to it.

Would be more interesting though considering there will be various forms of currency economically vs personally.

Lash

Yes because it is less visual noise to type 1 gold into a trade window instead of 10,000. It is a display issue, copper is the cents place and silver is dollars. There is no gold equivalent in real life currencies. It is a game design issue if the devs decide to make 1 silver insignificant right from the start even though it is the hundreds place denomination.

Depraved

it could be that gold, silver and copper are separated, so we are actually getting 3 currencies o.o
so 300 copper isnt 3 silver, its just 300 copper xD

Raven016

Beggars need the penny.

Vaknar

BraydenS wrote: »

Something that I've been wondering for a while is if we really need the three tiers of the primary currency that we have seen so far in AoC. It appears that Ashes of Creation has a system similar to World of Warcraft where 100 copper is equal to 1 silver, and 100 silver is equal to 1 gold. If we have these three currencies then I should expect to see items with values of a silver or less, otherwise copper serves no real purpose. Based on what I've seen so far, even low level players will be acquiring silver and gold as rewards far more than simple copper.

I feel that if players are always going have enough money in their bags to ignore the existence of copper, then keeping it in the game just becomes information bloat. Lets look at it with USD. Would having a coin that is 1/100 of a penny make your life any easier? People already complain about having to deal with change now that almost everything costs more than a dollar. Adding currency that is even smaller would only serve to make things more complicated.

Interesting discussion-starter! I was recently discussing US currency with someone, funny enough. Long story short, we talked about pocket change, and concluded that even if we wanted to get rid of small currency, how would we make exact change?

I'm not an economist and I was never good at economics, but I believe using gold, silver, and copper as a currency is also a way to make in-game currency relatable and easy to understand. For someone like me, it feels more quantifiable than using some more unique examples others have provided. This is just my personal opinion on the subject.

With that said, I think it can be fun and insightful to think outside the box and come up with reasons, examples, and ideas for currencies and how they can work

Raven016

I like selling for 9g 98s 97c
Then the customer will have 1s and 3c in inventory

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