Are these coasters or coins?

On the table below, there appears to be a large stack of gold coins (the size of drink coasters!). At least, that's what I've assumed them to be in various screen shots. I would imagine that the size of these coins was chosen so that it was easier to point and click on them. And I'm fine with that.

I'm hoping that the size and weight of these gold coins will actually have some functionality in the economy. Think about it, a stack of gold that size must weigh quite a bit, and it would also be difficult to carry large amount of coins that size. I think this would be a good thing, as it would help keep inflation down!

Most players are so used to buying a simple sword for large sums of gold (150k!) when the game starts out, they will be inclined to start prices in the 100's or the 1000's for even the simplest items.

But this is less likely, imo, if gold is not so easy to transport. If a single gold coin is THAT BIG and weighs a comparable amount, then carrying it all over the place might not make sense. It may also make gold more rare, and so people will instead seek to barter more, or perhaps use less expensive forms of coins (i.e. bronze and silver).


Thoughts?

 

Nah, he's a priest, they're communion wafers.


(I have no constructive thoughts on the topic, sorry!)

 

Those are Pogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs

 

Having some experience submitting assets my first thought is that they're probably coins that just aren't properly scaled yet. I have a feeling there are a lot of assets who's scale need some fine tuning.

 

Well they COULD in theory do some sort of system where if enough coins are dropped in proximity they could be replaced by a larger object.. a coin pile.. though that could get visually messy if not done right.. as people would want to drop gems and other things in the mix as well.

 

Hmmm... In some European countries (particularly Germanic ones) in the Medeival and Rennaisance time periods had some circulating silver coins that would be close to the size depicted known as Talers including "double talers" and triple talers" which would be more of the size in the screenshot. (Side note: Taler is where "Dollar" comes from). Pre-Soviet Russia had some pretty large and thick copper pieces (5 Kopeks) as well.

Generally though, most gold pieces fron ancient times forward have generally weighed in at an ounce or less (31.1 grams or less), and coins minted to the diameter shown in the screenshot tend to be VERY thin and did not have that much weight to them.

Also as an aside, the physical SotA coin in the Collector and above funding tier as well as on the Store is the same diameter as a classic US Silver Dollar coin (1.5in/38.1mm).

The rough-average size of gold coin that tended to see circulation is that of the classic $5 US gold or roughly 1/5th oz about nickel to quarter size in diameter (size varied by country).

There are larger pieces, of course, but I'm focusing mainly on ones that would see widespread use. It may be a little bit of rambling, but this thread touches a bit of my professional life, so it's fun to take historical coinage use into account in a gaming scenario.

The smallest gold coin I've held was a 1/32 Ducat (5 millimeters or less in diameter, .1 gram in weight) which I had to use a microscope to get a good image. The largest was a 20 kilogram (44 pounds or 643 oz troy) gold Panda (Chinese bullion issue, NOT for circulation).

In terms of gameplay, it's been a constant issue in online games. In UO, gold used to be limited to stacks of 60,000 pieces with banks holding 125 stacks. Later, "checks" were added which allowed players to stack 1,000,000 gold into one item. Obviously this did little to help the actual feel of inflation in the game, lately UO players have been lobbying for 10,000,000 gold checks or even higher. It will be interesting to see how SotA handles monetary concepts.

 

Good point, it seems obvious that a bank note would be in the game. I think it would be very interesting though if there were a reason that the gold had to be transported and stored somewhere though. If there were reasons that a merchant may require physical gold over paper? Just a thought. I really like the idea of having a few gold coins being worth a great deal. The business of 170k gold coins being a standard cost in the game seems more than a bit silly to me.

 

I remember you saying this in another thread. Thanks for putting your 2 cents in again! (pun completely intended)

Would you agree that if gold was not as easy to transport that it may help keep inflation down?

 

I think there is a lot to that. I've seen the differences in UO which based most stacks on the 60,000 max number with weight being the only other balancing issue and other games like WoW which limited stacks of objects to 5, 10, or 20 depending on the item, then giving you a limited number of "slots" to store or carry.

Also, a LOT of the feel of inflation in UO comes from the fact that there is only a single base currency, it's not a tiered system like in WoW or LotRO.

Numbers, though, are just numbers. Players see a large number and immediately cry "INFLATION!!!". A tiered system hides this better, especially when you compare the fact that UO Gold is base compared to Copper for other games (Gold is usually third tier).

The question will remain how much USE will the currency be once a character is established. If there are not enough ways to use and cycle around the actual currency, players will by their nature create a currency out of some other resource (Think Diablo 2 and Stone of Jordan rings). That's what makes Path of Exile interesting. It claims to be "barter" but it's not...exactly. It simply doesn't have a standard coin as currency, instead it has a large mix of items (orbs), each of which can be used to upgrade equipment on its own, or is used as the ingame currency (the standard being the GemCutter's Prism, a fairly rarely dropping orb).

If SotA retains a significant uses for in-game currency even once a character is well-etablished, then I dont think artificially limiting how much can be carried will be an issue in regards to keeping the economy in check. I could see a carrying limit with ingame banks having no such limit and instead giving you the "scrip" which could be redeemed at another bank for gold. Maybe for balance sake make such "scrips" no-drop/no-trade so that the player has to withdraw actual gold to make trades? Just thinking there.

I'm also interested in seeing if later episodes of SotA when the world expands to new coninents if we'll see different countries that use different currencies. But I think that MIGHT be reaching the point of undesired complexity.

 

I read that UO also used other forms of currency in the early days when inflation was so high that no one wanted gold anymore. I believe that's covered in this article: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html

You may have read that before, if not I think you'll enjoy it.

I've also thought that allowing gold to be used in crafting would help give some needed structure to it's use in the economy. For instance, if the best thing you can make with gold is very cheap and not very useful, then this might keep the overall value of gold low. Or if it's very useful and expensive to use gold, this might also keep the value of gold around this price point if it's not too rare. Just more thoughts...

 

Players may have used alternate currencies at various times through UO, but the gold piece remained the "official" currency. Oddly enough, given the passage of 15+ years' worth of UO running constantly, the numbers in the presentation seem outright tame compared to what is common in UO today (items have been selling for 10s of millions of gold for years and now several are priced in the hundreds of millions). Again, I believe a LOT of this had to do with the release of the 1,000,000 max bank checks (like the one shown in the image above) into the game.

Before the checks, a player could hold 7.5 Million (60,000*125) gold in their bank (going to leave out house storage) which at the time I believe even the maxxed out Str characters could only carry 20,000(ish) without being overloaded. Might have been 40,000... don't remember off the top of my head. Checks allow the same character to hold 125 Million in the bank (more if you have the expansion to the bank item limits that raise it to 175 items) and another 125 Million in their character's backpack. The end result of course being the obvious inflation well beyond the presentation linked.

 

Sigh, no one should have that much gold

 

they look like the microwave waffles!

 

Leggo my eggo!

 

BISCUIT

 

corn torillas. you thought SOTA wouldn't have tacos?