The value of Coin.

This is something that I think has been discussed before.
Maybe not on this forum, but certainly in game.

Got the question about an open discussion in my head after this post in the wanted thread:

Braiden wrote:

Biterius wrote:I'm not worth 10 gold, add another zero

Perception of gold is diffrent I presume, it's equal to roughly eight months full pay for an average worker on the scale I use.

What is a reasonable check on who has what sort of coin?`
How much would a standard meal cost at a tavarn?
Night in a one person room of an inn?

How much would lodging for a month cost, a house?
What would a "normal" guardsman earn in a year.
A wood cutter?

What does a standard set of pesants clothes cost for those who live in the city? (Assuming most country folk would to a greater degree make everything themselves).

Personally I see it that the general populance would do things in Copper, not silver, not gold. copper. This is for day to day needs.
I can see staying at an inn, dinner, lodging and breakfast, for one night, Costing one silver.
I, as Braiden (if I understood it right), don't see gold as something the general WoW person has in abundance. Maybe a carpenter makes around one gold a year. This is after jobb expenses. So one gold a year for living.

I also see the upperclass having filthy amounts of more money to use, and spend.
I also see that quite a lot of transactions among less city living people happen just in trade. Product against product etc.

So, thoughts from other people?
Am I mostly alone in thinking that the In Game amount of gold our characters have is sort of ... off. Considering on Muzjhath I have around 1500gold or more. While ICly she has less than a silver to her name since she considers money mostly useless (she's not the brightest bolt in the bin).
So considering the filth amounts of gold the general level 85 has just from reaching level 85, you can't use in game wealth as a good or accurate measure of in character wealth. Since then the worlds economy would have been broken a long time ago. This is at least what I feel.

Go!

I don't agree with using in-game abundancy of currency in RP. That would be incredibly silly. However, at the same time, I don't use the current system that's in place with some of SW Rp'ers at least.

Mainly because I find it incredibly limiting. My characters aren't in the 1800s and I'm not going to play as if they are.

Kudos for people that use the system, though, since it took a lot of work.

The cartel tried to operate after this http://www.defiasrp.com/t2605-prices-and-economy-of-stormwind?highlight=economy

I have no idea of what that system is since I hardly touch Alliance RP.
So please just don't write "that system" but write it out.

My discussion goes along the fact that gold is a rare metal and still in todays world is increddibly expensive.

I personally think it would be handy to scale the "costs" of things to the auction house economy and especially in-game vendor prices. Seems like the more logical thing to do. There -is- such a thing as inflation, that gold was worth a years pay in ye olden earth times does -not- mean that has to be the case on Azeroth.

But that's just my opinion. I generally handwave gold transitions in RP with fictional currency anyway. (as in, i don't give them my OOC gold)

My mage has over 30k in-game gold, it would be silly if I pretended I had that amount IC.
I try to follow the guide Ezlbag linked and it works alright in most cases, atleast for me.

Haven't been too picky about exact prices in RP myself. But then again, I tend to think orcs (which I have used for trading the most in the past) tend to stick to a certain sense of autarky or self-sufficiency in terms of trade, like trading their skins or whatever else they've got for other products. I don't imagine they're exactly the wealthiest of Azeroth's inhabitants anyway, so society ought to adapt to such conditions.

indeed I i generaly tend to go along the lines of 1/2 gold is the most any standerd civilian would earn in 1 year then scale up or down acordingly

There's very good examples that I use over here, those are the ones I go by but I get that others doesnt have the same perception of currency and as such I always try to make comparations when posting specific sums as rewards or pay.

Well i've mostly seen like 1 silver a normal alcoholic in a inn (Mostly Recluse or Pig). People like to say copper is a better value for lower class items, though people tent to use their own systems as long as they are somewhet balanced it doesn't matter.

My discussion goes along the fact that gold is a rare metal and still in todays world is increddibly expensive.

True, though i'd hardly thing in rp it would be 100% gold, they would probably (Since there has been wars and all that, lack of ore so on, i guess) use diffrent metals in the mixture, but keep some gold for the yellow shine.

Muzjhath wrote:
I can see staying at an inn, dinner, lodging and breakfast, for one night, Costing one silver.
...
Maybe a carpenter makes around one gold a year. This is after jobb expenses. So one gold a year for living.

I don't think those two lines work well together. At this rate, a traveling tradesman would have to -earn- 356 silver a year just to have lodging and 2 meals. With the average joe only making 28 copper a day by this count, he'd have to sell a shitload a day to get around and.. quite frankly.. they didn't have supermarkets were they could sell thousands of items a day.

Anyways.. I've seen many different currency systems and they wildly varry in what is "reasonable", by a large factor and I would struggle to RP with people using a different currency system. So I fall back on a relative value instead. My "poor" characters count their coins twice, wheter the bartender asks 2 copper for a pint or 3 silver. Everything is expensive to them. Characters with a decent income can afford their personal comforts but would still blink at any sort of investments.

The wow setting has a bit of a problem when it comes to its coin system anyhow. 100 copper to a silver? Imagine buying a 10 copper drink with a silver coin and then count 90 coppers to be returned. Bah... You work it because you have to.

I think it was Jean Pierre who brought this up OOCly and it makes sense. The only reason our characters are so rich by 85 is because they're being paid (through game mechanics) to do heroic things that most of our characters wouldn't be able to do. You play the ultimate mercenary. You're pretty much Deadpool as you level, slaughter 20 men here, collect 10 bear hides.

But on topic, the way I look at it...

that gold was worth a years pay in ye olden earth times does -not- mean that has to be the case on Azeroth.

Then why are there a lot of poor people in Azeroth? Why did the Defias B ever even exist? Look at all the beggars in Westfall. If gold and wealth is so easy to acquire, how come those guys go bat-shit-crazy when you lay down a bowl of stew?!

I tend to go by a simple five to ten silver a week is the pay for the average common person.

Vaell wrote:
Then why are there a lot of poor people in Azeroth? Why did the Defias B ever even exist? Look at all the beggars in Westfall. If gold and wealth is so easy to acquire, how come those guys go bat-shit-crazy when you lay down a bowl of stew?!

I tend to go by a simple five to ten silver a week is the pay for the average common person.

Because wealth, and economies are abstract concepts, else in the uk for example one pound would still be a literal lb of gold...
You see a lot of poor people in those area because they have no employment, whether a month's average pay is 100 gold and rent 50, or pay is 1 gold rent 50 silver, makes little difference besides semantics.

I tend to just go off societal status, it does get tricky setting prices for jobs, or prices in a bar though, not to mention tiresome trying to set a medium costing system just for endless punters to loudly exclaim ONE SILVER FOR THIS BEER THAT IS FIVE YEARS WAGE SILLY MADAM over and over . For jobs at least we can whisper before hand to see what they oocly consider reasonable or large amounts- working a busy bar it can and does cause silly moments/confusion. Generally the Pig's meant to be a fair cheap/lower-mid priced bar.

No, but the difference is how accessible coin is if you go by game mechanics. Pick a few flowers and you get yourself 10 silver.

EDIT: Which would buy you like 50 loaves of bread.

Well if we go by that mechanic, then we can fix it by making taxes real. Braiden will now bully people into paying 90% of your quest income as tax money. And you can't hide what you have earned... Your statistics and achievements sho- I mean.. his officials have written down every penny you earned!

Muzjhath wrote:I have no idea of what that system is since I hardly touch Alliance RP.
So please just don't write "that system" but write it out.

My discussion goes along the fact that gold is a rare metal and still in todays world is increddibly expensive.

Gold Coins tend not to be actual gold. Just gold coloured, or plated. I think it's the same for in-game gold.

Na Anaei, their gold The normal fix was to paint lead coins gold and that is why people bite the coins, if there are teeth marks it is lead. A gold coin is prob 96ish% gold in wow times, maybe more. The rest would be impurities and prob an adding of a harder metal to make the coins last though note it is a mixture not a compound, gold is a noble metal and will not react with anything.

The main thing with gold is it is really heavy. Like really really heavy. It weighs about the same as lead so anything more than a small bag is going to sart to encumber you. Jarric is easily one of the richest chars and he doesnt even carry gold for that reason and because it isnt safe.

As to the value of gold, it is quite subjective. IRL terms the total amount of gold all humans have ever mined could fit in one container ship. In darkage britian there was prob less than a ton of gold in the country, add this to its "magical propities" such as not rusting and you can see why it is valuable (a gold coin from a thousand years ago would be unchainged now). However we have no idea of the amount of gold in azeroth or how much of it is mined...also how much mages have faked so a eal estimate is impossable. I would still RP it as v valuable, I place one gold to be around £8-12K irl terms. Worth killing for.. maybe... and around 3/4 of your common mans GDP for the year.

As to the rest of the thread, I think JP has it right, there are ic things your char can do to suggest its wealth and project it to others (which is the point of RP). Only buy a small meal for example or cheap skin of grog... patchy clothing or an old warsword.

Jeanpierre/Inias wrote:Well if we go by that mechanic, then we can fix it by making taxes real. Braiden will now bully people into paying 90% of your quest income as tax money. And you can't hide what you have earned... Your statistics and achievements sho- I mean.. his officials have written down every penny you earned!

You just gave me a brillaint idea... Pandaria will be full of tax collectors next to every npc.