Coins and Money in Vanguard

[Orlun]

I've noticed in a few of the more recent screenshots that show a players inventory, they do not show any coinage or money ammounts. They do show a catagory for "Coins" though.

Speculation?

One denomination of coin? No seperate coppers, golds, plats or whatever?

Delay putting money into the game till later... for?

To make it harder for the secondary market to begin farming coins?

Maybe they don't know themselves how their money will work. Will it be EQish with steps of 10 )1pp = 10gold = 100 silver = 1000 copper) or will it be Horizon-ish with steps of 1000 (1gold = 1000 silver = 1,000,000 copper)?

Maybe they will do regional currency like was talked about years ago?

What are your thoughts?

[Eclipse]

I like Goooooooolld! (http://www.austinpowers.com)
That is all.

-Eclipse

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

My guess is that itemization if very limited, if existant at all at this stage, or may be just starting, seeing as how all the characters seem to be in the same base set of armor. (not everyons gonna match as well as they do I'm guessing :P)

This means that merchant prices/coinage drops/etc are probably still being refined and not yet ready for implementation.

thats my 2cp (pun intended :p}

[Eternalus Woemancer]

I like Goooooooolld! (http://www.austinpowers.com)
That is all.

-Eclipse

LOL!!!!

I think the regional currency Idea is a rather neat concept. It would help put barrier on "Gold farming".

[Skarlath]

I think Elrar is likely to be right, in that they just havent got there yet.

As for speculation and hopes:

I hope they DO implement regional currencies. It would just be something really nice, and special to see.

I also hope that they are a little bit creative with naming currencies. I have always been fond of AC1's 'pyreal' pieces. Pyreal was a rare metal in AC1, and the ancient 'Empyreons' (sp?) used it to make their currency.

I very much hope that Vanguard won't use exactly the same system as EQ 1. I don't want to see platinum pieces, purely for the reason that many ex-EQ players seem to expect them to exist.

I think in many places, VG will benefit from breaking away from EQ traditions. :)

[Loampounder]

Delay putting money into the game till later... for?
Come on, do we have to get political here as well? You cannot claim that Tom Delay is laundering money through Vanguard to use on Republican candidates in Thresta. Ok, you could claim it but your source is a proven partisan Democrat fan-site...

Seriously, regional coins sound nice but may be too complex (think about player-run offline merchants reacting to different coins...). Perhaps this is why they have not announced or added it graphically to the game yet but I doubt it. To me it sounds more like a mechanism to mirror a change purse.

I would vote to more realism with volume and weight than with more complex coin types.

[Skarlath]

Come on, do we have to get political here as well? You cannot claim that Tom Delay is laundering money through Vanguard to use on Republican candidates in Thresta. Ok, you could claim it but your source is a proven partisan Democrat fan-site...

Seriously, regional coins sound nice but may be too complex (think about player-run offline merchants reacting to different coins...). Perhaps this is why they have not announced or added it graphically to the game yet but I doubt it. To me it sounds more like a mechanism to mirror a change purse.

I would vote to more realism with volume and weight than with more complex coin types.

Its not that hard. NPCs could be toggled as per their currency. Generally, an NPC will only accept that currency. You need to go to a particular place, or NPC, to have money converted.

Nice simple exchange rates. x of this = y of that. Exchange rates could even shift from time to time, to add some fun. Once you have converted your coin into Qalian currency, it will be accepted in Khal.

If you sell something in Khal, or someone pays you as a reward, you are given the local currency.

Some NPCs will know the exchange rate themselves, and will accept multiple currencies. You would expect traders at Khal's docks to accept Qalian money AND Thestran money (im just going by continents, but regional currency would be even better).

It surely wouldn't be that complicated. As long as it wasn't too hard to convert your money in most situations, it would be quite enjoyable.

[Loampounder]

Yeah, there are ways to deal with merchants, but I worry then built in exchange rates just make different coins an academic function. To me, the thrill in a game is not having to do exchange rates in my head. <shrug> But it is a small detail, and would add "realism". Just not sure if a game designer would think the effort is worth it. We shall see, I guess.

[Skarlath]

Yeah, there are ways to deal with merchants, but I worry then built in exchange rates just make different coins an academic function. To me, the thrill in a game is not having to do exchange rates in my head. <shrug> But it is a small detail, and would add "realism". Just not sure if a game designer would think the effort is worth it. We shall see, I guess.

b..b..buh..but everyone likes maths!!

[vaelyn]

I would think not using the different types of coin (plat, gold, silver, copper) would be unrealistic and just plain silly. Having one type of currency, let's say gold, just doesn't make sense to me if Sigil wants to make this game as realistic as high fantasy will allow. The multi-currency system has worked in every game that dealt with extreme or high fantasy.

The one that differes is Star Wars Galaxies. SWG was based on George Lucas' world strictly and is Science Fiction and this was the only game I ever played that had one type of currency: credits. But that works with science fiction. I don't think it works as far as Vanguard goes.

I would agree that it's probably not been implimented yet. There are only at the first stage of Beta, so money isn't on the top of the priority list (it will be soon, or so I hope :)).

[Havelock]

I want to add my voice to the regional currency chorus. If NPCs on different continents each deal with a unique currency system, that will add an awesome new dimension to the game economy.

[Skarlath]

I would think not using the different types of coin (plat, gold, silver, copper) would be unrealistic and just plain silly. Having one type of currency, let's say gold, just doesn't make sense to me if Sigil wants to make this game as realistic as high fantasy will allow. The multi-currency system has worked in every game that dealt with extreme or high fantasy.

The one that differes is Star Wars Galaxies. SWG was based on George Lucas' world strictly and is Science Fiction and this was the only game I ever played that had one type of currency: credits. But that works with science fiction. I don't think it works as far as Vanguard goes.

I would agree that it's probably not been implimented yet. There are only at the first stage of Beta, so money isn't on the top of the priority list (it will be soon, or so I hope :)).

*Just in case*

What you mention is better described as 'multiple coinage'.

Multiple currencies is generally used to describe different areas of the game accepting different money altogether - e.g. south qalians using their own coins, different to those of Thestra, Kojan or even Northern Qalia.



The more I think about it, the more I feel that regional currencies HAVE to appear in Vanguard. The world would make far less sense without them! From the lore so far, the two continents don't seem to even know each other exists. Logically each continent (at the very least) will have developed their own currency.

The only place that a 'pure coincidence' would be slightly improved is if each continent based their coinage on the 'precious metals' system .. but that is just daft.

Regional/Continental currencies all the way!

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

It would be amazing to see the new kind of economy different currencies would boldster. Because their in game worth would fluctuate as the economies of each continent/currency region changed.

Importing/Exporting would actually be an extremely viable trade, as the world will be much larger, and certain goods will need to be traded amongst continents.

You could actually see very powerful trading guilds come about from this like the colonial period of England.

Now this leads me to wonder, can cities, player and npc, impose different taxes on items brought in from traders of other regions?

This would add a whole new dynamic to managing a player city, and really create a place for a diplomat crafter relationship to shine.

Granted, it starts to become a little compmlicated, but for people who loved EVE they would probably love a system like this. It would truly create a game for everyone, and a game where not everyone could potentially be awesome at everything.

It would also be a pain in the ass for money farming markets to move funds and follow the market, as they would need to do more than mindlessly run around farming to maximize profits. As I imagine, real wealth wont come from mindless farming, but instead comanding a portion of the economy, whether by supplying, managing, or creating.

[Orlun]

I've been thinking of ways Sigil could use evolving and fluctuating currency ingame to foil the secondary market. In the military, they would change 'script' often to foil the black marketers. I can't figure out a way to do it that wouldn't hurt the normal player as well though. :(

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

I've been thinking of ways Sigil could use evolving and fluctuating currency ingame to foil the secondary market. In the military, they would change 'script' often to foil the black marketers. I can't figure out a way to do it that wouldn't hurt the normal player as well though. :(

Well the trick is, dont control it.

By allowing it to be totally managed by the players, with the acception of introduction of new items into the database, you give the economy a totally dynamic fluctuation at launch.

So long as the foundation is in place for a system, that doesnt allow mindless "farming" to be the best way of gathering money (or even effective) and require players to travel on dungeons, or play the trade market to create real wealth, or degrees of wealth, you can shatter their quotas.

This is because they would have to hire people who are genuinely good players, and there would be alot of market to corner, since its not globalized. What this does is break it up, and make it more manageble for people who dont play 24 hour shifts to compete.

Granted they'd find a way around it eventually. But smaller more intimate market places would also be alot easier to monitor suspicious activities, because it would bottleneck the ebb and flow of items and currency into the market.

So if lets say, they try to corner the New Targonor economy, so suddenly, there is a large ammount of currency into Targonor that appears to be an anomole at the rate it was gained, and then they notice price gouging and inflation after this currency is used to buy out alot of merchants.

Obviously I'm not master of economics. But I think it would be a useful tool in the battle against the secondary market. It would surely add more difficulty to the game, but these are games that are built to last, and so their economies need to follow the same standard.

It will be interesting to see if this is indeed the approach they're taking towards it :)

[Loampounder]

It would be amazing to see the new kind of economy different currencies would boldster. Because their in game worth would fluctuate as the economies of each continent/currency region changed.
This just sounds too exploitable. It's a cool idea, but I don't want to see money exchange being a source of income. Any loophole in travel would be exploited to move large amounts of money around just to get a profitable exchange rate. People will find out that buying a few thousand pie pans in Qalia with Thestrian coin and then selling them at the same town for Qalian coin would turn a 10% profit. Suddenly, pie pans market explodes as shady men all over town buy every last pie pan. Thousands die without their life-sustaining apple pie.

It could work with a balance, it would just needs to be watched. I would hate to have that QA job.

It would be nice to see a reason to have a certain type of coin, but I think it would need to be tied to a money exchanger instead of casual eschanges at a merchant (want realism?). That way, exchange would just be a basic tax (i.e. money sink) that would hurt you if you leave your home area. Players could offer money exchange services, but the maximum would always be the NPC excahnger. It could tie goods to a local economy and would help the fish-out-of-water idea when you change major towns without being life threatening (i.e. the way EQ did KOS factions).

[Skarlath]

Would fluctuating exchange rates allow some players to make large amounts of money through no work at all?

Those who make money on the currency exchange in the real world do it by moving their money into a currency which is currently cheap, and move it again when that currency becomes expensive.

If all currency exchange requires is a chat with an NPC, then a player could convert large sums of money into the cheapest currency, and move it back in a months time. In theory, those with large amounts of money will be able to make HUGE amounts.

But of course, there are controls. Perhaps put limits on what the NPC will buy from you (The exchanger in Khal is likely to only have a certain amount on him, and so phsically cannot buy more of your thestran coins past a certain amount. He also may not want to.) You can control access to these merchants themselves - make them few and far between, perhaps the NPCs who can exchange Targanor coins for Falgarholm coins may be quite rare, as Falgarholm's residents may not be too used to outside dealings.

Then of course you can ensure that fluctuations are small, so that the small amounts of money people can transfer will not multiply too hugely.


It would be great if some communities/regions didn't use coinage or set currency at all. Instead they would accept bartering. Each NPC trader would accept certain items. Every item in the game has a certain 'intrinsic' value anyway. Items on their 'want' list would act just like money.

I think it would be a nice touch. :)

[Dillgaar]

i want to see fluctuating currency rates and vendors that wouldn't take anything but the local currency... I would love to see the possibility of bartering... say you sell the item to the vendor and want to buy another item, it would take the item at its cash value or a percentage of value and then take the remainder in cash... this would save time and create a type of barter system... doing this with player vendors wouldn't be an option though...

It would be nice to have to think about what money you have and were you want to buy things as well as the continent/region you are in...

It would be better than ust carrying around a few thousand plat and runing to a vendor or whatever...

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

In response to loampounders exploit idea. Granted, this is possible, and in fact probable to happen, however you have to figure in the rarity/demand for certain items.

Maybe they dont like pie in Qalia, so why would they buy the tins? Or maybe they just have tins readily available.

And also, I agree, I didnt mean that merchants accept any currency, it must be that regional currency, and have some kind of brokerage house that exchanges money.

But in order to exchange, you have to have adequate faction with the region. And perhaps even build a faction with like the exchange guild? To get better exchange rates.

And you have to keep in mind, this exchange cannot be done globally, you, the person with coin, would have to travel to a bank that could exchange your currency. And going off of Skarlaths idea, perhaps you'd have to go to the main bank of a major trade center to get an exchange. Because I'd imagine the ammount of available wealth and currency for exchange, would be based upon the ammount of money transfer within the city itself.

So you cant just go to any bank, and have access to all of your money, since banks are not global, trade is not global.

If executed correctly, the logevity of this system could long outlast the game itself.

[Loampounder]

Maybe they dont like pie in Qalia, so why would they buy the tins? Or maybe they just have tins readily available.
OK, now this discussion is getting just too freaky, bordering on heresy.
:)

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

OK, now this discussion is getting just too freaky, bordering on heresy.
:)

rofl. its not my fault they don't eat pie in the desert...its just the facts of life!

[Skarlath]

rofl. its not my fault they don't eat pie in the desert...its just the facts of life!

Looks like i'll be rolling on Thestra then.

[Eclipse]

I would like to see currency handled very differently. I hope Vanguard creates its own unique currency and exchange rates. Dealing in furs and trade goods is a very cool idea as well.
I loved AC1's pyreal, and loved their use of trade notes even more. Seemed much more mature than the average game.

Not having gold and plat in the game (and this may sound silly) may also decrease the public's access to buying it. Sorry if this seems illogical, but with everyone buying gold and plat on the net, if Vanguard chooses a more complicated system that involves trading and different precious materials, it may be harder for 2nd markets to exploit it.

Just a thought.

-Eclipse

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

Not having gold and plat in the game (and this may sound silly) may also decrease the public's access to buying it. Sorry if this seems illogical, but with everyone buying gold and plat on the net, if Vanguard chooses a more complicated system that involves trading and different precious materials, it may be harder for 2nd markets to exploit it.

Just a thought.

-Eclipse

I despise the secondary market, this is fairly well known, however, there is a spot where I have to draw a line in the attempts to stop them. One of those spots is doing away with currency, and going to a precious metals/barter exchange system. Money is just so much easier to work with, and what about when you dont want 2 cows for 200 lbs of grain? You need a middle man, ergo money takes the place. You can give a value to gold/silver etc, but in its raw state its harvestable...therfore farmable, in its refined state, its money, but its based off of a finite ammmount, or should be, otherwise its just currency, and you're defeating the purpose.

There are better ways to fend off the Secondary Market, than reverting to a feudal system of economy, which never really worked adequetly.

[Loampounder]

Whether or not VG calls them coins, gold, pyreals, credits, blue diamonds, or an assortment of precious metals, it will still be currency. There is no way to avoid it.

[Eclipse]

I despise the secondary market, this is fairly well known, however, there is a spot where I have to draw a line in the attempts to stop them. One of those spots is doing away with currency, and going to a precious metals/barter exchange system. Money is just so much easier to work with, and what about when you dont want 2 cows for 200 lbs of grain? You need a middle man, ergo money takes the place. You can give a value to gold/silver etc, but in its raw state its harvestable...therfore farmable, in its refined state, its money, but its based off of a finite ammmount, or should be, otherwise its just currency, and you're defeating the purpose.

There are better ways to fend off the Secondary Market, than reverting to a feudal system of economy, which never really worked adequetly.

Ack, I think you took my bartering/precious metals a bit farther than I was thinking.
The simple act of exchanging the word gold for pyreal will have an effect. Currency or no, it's psychological.

what I'm really trying to get at is other's creativity. I can't personally think of a solution, but if I continue to throw out ideas, maybe someone will build off of it in a way I couldn't think of.

I would like to see a system where it was far more attractive to invest currency instead of just come across it in bulk.
A banking and investment system, or perhaps a system where you couldn't really go online to buy currency because some currency is only good in certain towns....just make it a difficult and unsavory environment for IGE, and they will be less successful. Even IGE would move on if they weren't seeing success.

Again, just thoughts.

-Eclipse

[Skarlath]

I loved AC1's pyreal, and loved their use of trade notes even more. Seemed much more mature than the average game.

Ahh, AC1, my one true love.

That is a very important point to bring up, and I will spell out exactly the reality of Pyreals and Trade Notes for Non-AC1ers.

Pyreals were the name of the coins. There was only one coin, so 1 pyreal was the smallest division. (Note: Having a one coin coinage system is actually quite likely the way things existed to begin with. People weren't used to maths, and so keeping numbers whole helped [in real life, I mean]).

There was no 'special money bag' in AC1. Coins were items that appeared in your inventory, and would stack up to 10,000 I believe. Even more importantly, Pyreals had WEIGHT! If you carried too much cash, AC1's encumberence system kicked in, and you would move slowly and burn stamina faster than usual. On death, you also dropped some of your coins on your corpse. Carrying around large sums of money wasn't just stupid, it also wasn't practical!

So the inhabitants of Dereth had invented trade notes. Vendors all around the country would write out a trade note, payable to the bearer, for a number of amounts. Now tradenotes are paper, so they weigh almost nothing. They also could be bought to symbolise huge amounts, and so didn't clog up inventory space. And furthermore, they weren't droppable on death, and so they were safer.

You could hand your trade note to any vendor, and they would give you money back for it. However only the original vendor would give you the full amount, all others would offer you a small amount less (the logic behind it being, I guess, that this other vendor would need to travel to the first vendor to claim the money, and so the extra they gained was for travel expenses :))


Coins SHOULD be items (and need to be if there will be multiple currencies). They SHOULD have weights, and there should be paper money.


AC1's money system was very nice. :)