The current value of Money In Characterly?

erwtenpeller wrote:I play an adventurer. A hero. Not a peasant.

I played an adventurer ... of sorts. If very much not a hero.

She was broker than broke and bartered or was given everything she owned. (Or well, stole. But she didn't tell orcs that)

Yeah, I remember that orc. She was skinned.

Personaly I just said something random that sounded logical at that time, Money has never meant much for me anyway.

Vaell wrote:Yeah, I don't know how anyone carries around 10k gold. Do you do bank transfers?

Magic, obviously.

I like how most of these arguments against determining the value of gold trough game mechanics don't really concern the determining of value of gold trough game mechanics at all. All of the arguments against it, at least from what I've seen so far, have been reductions to the absurd by applying a thought that is used in one sphere to others on which we might not want to apply it.

Arguments like "If you determine the value of gold trough game mechanics, you treat game mechanics IC, which leads to such-and-so undesirable and absurd consequences" are flawed in the sense that nobody in the history of roleplaying games ever has treated all of the game mechanics indiscriminately as IC, because it would lead to the absurd consequences already pointed out in this thread.

That doesn't mean, however, that when there are no other ways to standardize the value of money, basing it on game mechanics isn't the most sane thing to do. Game mechanics are a shared value that is the same for everyone; it is the only way in which you can set in place a system of value that is actually based on a testable fact, instead of opinion and flavor. You can go to the Auction House and check how expensive silk is. How are you going to figure out how expensive sikj is if you are going to completely ignore game mechanics? You'll be building air castles - and the thing about air castles, is that other players can't see them and will have probably build a castle for themselves that's incompatible, which will lead to one of you OOC argueing that twenty bolts of silks should be worth 1 copper and the other will argue that it should be 20 silver; there's really no shared standard. Anything goes, and thefore nothing goes.

When erwtenpeller and I say that we usually rely on game mechanics to set the rules and the standards, we don't really mean that every single thing that happens in the game should be treated ICly. We're not stupid. So those reductions to the absurd are not really going to be convincing anyone. I don't see how basing the value of gold off the auction house forces me to also accept the mechanics of questing as a IC given. You don't either have to fully reject or fully accept the reality of game mechanics. Frankly, I could probably write an argument that shows that rejecting game mechanics will also lead you to absurd consequences, just as absurd or even more absurd as ignoring them will. But what's the use? We all already know that in practise we're selective about what we accept to be IC and what we reject. You don't have to be pedantic about it and mock other people's choices by these absurd reductions. They're cheap retoric tricks that don't actually prove anything.

You could go by vendor price.; or you'd have to consider something very wrong with the economy, with our 1000% interest rate the past decade.

I actually do belive that the original spreadsheet of gold worth is based off gold mechanics.

Of level 1-5 items.
Aka, what pesants would own and pay for.

And then even if you don't Roleplay a pesant but a richer than Mansa Munsa hero. The standard price for a mug of ale would be a few copper coins. Not a gold coin (a thousand times more).
I'd say this is the argument here.

The game mechanics of currency and currency generation speeds say that a mug of beverege (alcoholic or not) is more expensive in Winterspring and the Storm Peaks than in Orgrimmar/Stormwind. Which doesn't really make sense.

I also generally sat on 10-15k gold (if I was below that when actually active I farmed up again). So if I'd gone by what I had in game I'd be fairly well off. Yet ICly I didn't act as if any of it existed. Since for the character it just didn't make sense.

That's some of the reasons that the game mechanic gold income and inflation rate is silly. It's just disproportionate to demographics of the NPCs and rather strange.

Yes, it's a fantasticalworld, yes there's magic backpacks that can carry twenty greatswords in them without breaking.
But a bag of refreshing spring water still costs one copper and a regular ale is between 5 and 10 copper.

PS: Amaryl also pointed out vendor prices and the out of bounds inflation last post of the previous page.

The benefits of basing the value of currency off of the Auction House as opposed to, say, vendor prices of cheap articles, is that the gold transactions players do in role-play are actually meaningful outside of the sphere of role-play: you can't buy diddly-squat on the Auction House with 10 silver, but you can buy quite a a lot with 1000 gold.

I think the chief argument on the other side is: why would you want to seperate these two economies? Why would your transactions in the role-play world be meaningless in the game-world and vise versa? For me, the idea of actually being able to purchase enchants with the gold I won in an IC tournament is attractive. It makes the gold I earned more 'real' in the relevant sense of the word: that I can actually do things with it. Sure, it might make it less 'realistic' in the strict sense some of you laid out, but it also makes it more 'real' in a different sense.

Arguments about inflation and the economical realism of the system of currency hold no sway over me, since I consider these elements to be irrelevant to my role-play, just as irrelevant as, say, the molecular make-up and DNA of a Troll. For me, it's so far out of my narrative that it is pretty much inconsequential. Connecting the role-play world to the game-world in relevant ways is to me more important than the economical realism underlying the system of currency I use which, frankly, I couldn't care less about - I'm not here to play out a realistic economical game. I'm here to play the Adventurer and the Hero, not the accountant.

I'd never tell anyone to give a 100gold price for a PvP tournament that was IC. That'd be rediculs.
I'd also not say "Write down that it's 10000 Gold." I'd go with "A big chest of gold and all the glory for the winner!" Icly and write the OOC price OOCly.

Using the AH is also bad for basing the calue of currency because half the inflation (or more) comes from bots that farm both mats and gold. Had the inflation curve not been as fucking silly as it is I'd have found it a sound argument.
As it stands the normal merchants of Stormwind are just lumpy potatoes trying to survive when their customeers throw gold coins around. To everyone but them.

You can't buy anything in the game for 'A big chest of gold' though, that's the thing!

I think you have to make a choice: either you completely dedicate yourself to role-playing money and forego any reference to the mechanics of how gold works in the game, or you fuse the two together and accept the reality of the game's economy as the economy. I don't think it's feasible to create use the in-game money while simaltenously denying its in-game de facto value on the auction house.

So yes, either it's "Big chests of gold" you use to trade with exclusively in role-play by giving people "A purse full of coins", so you can leave things ambigious: or it's gold as in the game gold. I don't see the point in some kind of mixed standard, which has the absurd consequence of a discrepancy in what gold is worth in role-play and out of it.

When faced with such dilemma's that will either push the game mechanics and role-play further away from one another, or harmonize them, I will almost always choose the option that harmonizes them. Therefore, I prefer to base the value of currency on the in-game auction house.

There I am the opposite.
Whenever I've been in an IC tavern I've always just "dropped a suitable amount of coins on the counter" while trading the propper value for the drink in the window.

Cointing coppers/gold is boring.
Imo if you follow the AH in WoW you'll just get immersion breaking sums of cash unless everyone RPs fucking robber barons.

To be honest, the game's economy, is actually very shitty, its so shitty that we'd be living in the weimar republic by now... or current day Zimbabwe, mostly due to shitty, shitty design.

Ultimately, to me; wealth is fluent; I have enough for what I want, and I don't have enough for what I want. What that enough is exactly is meaningless. only the fact that i have enough or not matters.

And as such; putting a value on it is meaningless.

You can decide to use the auction house, and find it completely normal; that the silk you bought 10 years ago when it was actually had a purpose now costs 100 times as much. (or not) or you can decide that your dude just has enough to get by because that's what you need to get your roleplay.

I really don't see the problem. Its not like erwt will shove I got 100k gold down your throat, nor will you shove; do you have a silver so i can buy a meal, down his throat.

I do wonder do, why don't you RP the shitty wow economy? or heck the two different economies: auction house + vendor economy... the discrepancy between both is mindboggling if you think about that ICly.

Hence go with the most sensible option: Have enough, or not enough, depending on what you want to get out of it.

To each his own then, I guess. I can see your point of view and I consider it consistent and sound, so I have no complaints.

As a community we just have to accept that some paradigms of role-playing are incommensurable. The paradigm erwtenpeller and I represent is one of high magic, ridiculous over-the-top science and everybody playing heroes capable of leveling armies with their awesome powers. In that paradigm, the PCs from the videogame are the standard. However, I have also seen people play and argue in favor of a diametrically opposed paradigm: that players should strive to be as close to the NPCs, rather than the PCs. Lorainne once literally said that she thought role-play was about taking on the role of one of the thousands of NPCs that live in the World of Warcraft, be they guards or bakers. That's another valid paradigm - but it is one much further removed from game mechanics. In that paradigm, it is completely absurd to throw around such big sums of money, since you're trying to be as close as the average joe on the street as you possibly can.

So yeah, live and let live. Accept that other players have radically different ways of thinking about these matters that aren't any worse than your own, just different - though of course judged from paradigm, the actions undertaken in the other are absurd or lollerish. From the NPCs paradigm, people in the PC paradigm are overpowered lollers. From the PC paradigm, the people in the NPC paradigm are silly for trying to suppress aspects of their character they are supposed to be role-playing to the fullest.

In the PC paradigm, Vaell's example of the level 90 beggar rogue is a moot point, because in the PC paradigm people don't really play beggars. They play rogues. In my current role-play enviroment, I don't interact with players who choose to play beggars. I interact with shamans, rogues, warriors, warlocks etcetera.

So please, consider how absurd your own actions and beliefs can be from the other's point of view, before you start accusing others of being absurd. Most if not all accusations of absurdity are dependant on premisses the other party you are accusing might not abide to.

EDIT: In essence, I am in agreement with Amaryl's last post.

Hey Thelos, I take offense to that, The fact that my guidelines are also absurd, don't make yours any less so!

Amaryl wrote:Hey Thelos, I take offense to that, The fact that my guidelines are also absurd, don't make yours any less so!

Absurdities all around!

RP debates in a nutshell.


Fyi: http://www.defiasrp.com/t3695-financial-role-play that's melni's original thread.

Either viewpoint is fine so long as people can avoid being knobs about it in practise.

I lost track of the amount of time when running the Pig, we would for convenience sake ask for 'x' silver/copper for a drink (pureply icly, though I think- at some points we just asked for actual beverage in game cost so we could keep stocked) and every so often be be faced with OH MY GOODNESS HOW EXPENSIVE yadda yadda. When really it was just 'please pay x amount of money for your beverage'. The Pig was meant to be a shabby pub with cheap prices but occasionally you'd have people reacting as if 1silver was a prince's fortune. This is where the differing viewpoints really clash, I'd have customers leaving tens of gold in throwaway tips sometimes and in the same night, people complaining about 5 copper being a huge sum. At point of sale it is impossible to gauge their viewpoint which led to some very weird scenes now and then.

Other times it was less of a problem, for merc jobs for example, we would whisper the client oocly to ask what they considered a cheap/medium/expensive range for the job so haggling could still happen ic without being ridiculous for either side.

I think you completely overlooked my points so I'll bulletpoint them:

• Equality is something that clearly doesn't exist in the WoW universe. If you say everyone has a certain amount of gold then how can you determine who is a noble and who isn't?
  
• To follow the point before, would you expect a person wanting to rp a noble to grind 10s of thousands of gold just to situate himself as a superior class?
  
• Magic is kind of a cop out excuse. If it requires a feather to make one's self lighter for a brief period of time, you're going to need a bloody peacock to carry 10k gold!
  
• You are picking and choosing between what is absurd IC. All of the gold you have gathered has been through OOC means and then you're applying it to IC.
  
• How can we go by an Auction House economy which is mostly populated by OOCers? Again, picking and choosing when an OOCer should be taken IC is a bit ridiculous. If we accept a massively inflated economy then why not all the dragon-flying house-hoppers in Stormwind too?
  
• You believe someone should have to grind to play a character of their choosing? Doesn't that limit role-play?
  
• How does gold become so readily available? It's described as a precious stone in the previous Warcrafts. 10k is the equivalent to about 3 goldmines.
  

Disclaimer: As I've said before, no one is trying to enforce their playstyle on others. We're also expressing our opinion, it's just more direct. Thelos and Erwt can do as they like, the same way others can question it.

Not that I support the opinion but here are the obvious answers, duh:

Vaell wrote:I think you completely overlooked my points so I'll bulletpoint them:

• Equality is something that clearly doesn't exist in the WoW universe. If you say everyone has a certain amount of gold then how can you determine who is a noble and who isn't?  not everyone has the same amount of gold, not everyone is Soltys. people who trade better, who grind more, who play the economic game obviously have more money, and can do more stuff. (i.e get more money)
  
• To follow the point before, would you expect a person wanting to rp a noble to grind 10s of thousands of gold just to situate himself as a superior class? Yes
  
• Magic is kind of a cop out excuse. If it requires a feather to make one's self lighter for a brief period of time, you're going to need a bloody peacock to carry 10k gold! We don't need feathers anymore do we? Magic has advanced beyond reagents in WoW mechanics obviously.
  
• You are picking and choosing between what is absurd IC. All of the gold you have gathered has been through OOC means and then you're applying it to IC. Who says that? why can't dailies be IC? the auction house is taken as being IC, buying gear is determined as being IC, you're the one not doing it.
  
• How can we go by an Auction House economy which is mostly populated by OOCers? Again, picking and choosing when an OOCer should be taken IC is a bit ridiculous. If we accept a massively inflated economy then why not all the dragon-flying house-hoppers in Stormwind too? Who says we're picking and choosing? I'm not, you are obviously. Ignoring someone, doesn't remove their effect on the world.
  
• You believe someone should have to grind to play a character of their choosing? Doesn't that limit role-play? Yes, you have to or you're stuck with lvl 1 outfits, which aren't giving you a whole lot of options. So this point really is moot.
  
• How does gold become so readily available? It's described as a precious stone in the previous Warcrafts. 10k is the equivalent to about 3 goldmines.
  

NPcs have gold, they give it to me, you saying NPCs don't have money to feed themselves? or to hire other people do some work?
Disclaimer: As I've said before, no one is trying to enforce their playstyle on others. We're also expressing our opinion, it's just more direct. Thelos and Erwt can do as they like, the same way others can question it.

Amy, that post is glorious.

Muzjhath wrote:I'd never tell anyone to give a 100gold price for a PvP tournament that was IC. That'd be rediculs.
I'd also not say "Write down that it's 10000 Gold." I'd go with "A big chest of gold and all the glory for the winner!" Icly and write the OOC price OOCly.

The Marauders have been doing that for as long as I've been with them. A prize of either 10k or a nasty scorpion mount for the winner. Never seen anyone complain about it, or call it absurd.

Thelos wrote:The benefits of basing the value of currency off of the Auction House as opposed to, say, vendor prices of cheap articles, is that the gold transactions players do in role-play are actually meaningful outside of the sphere of role-play: you can't buy diddly-squat on the Auction House with 10 silver, but you can buy quite a a lot with 1000 gold.

I think the chief argument on the other side is: why would you want to seperate these two economies? Why would your transactions in the role-play world be meaningless in the game-world and vise versa? For me, the idea of actually being able to purchase enchants with the gold I won in an IC tournament is attractive. It makes the gold I earned more 'real' in the relevant sense of the word: that I can actually do things with it. Sure, it might make it less 'realistic' in the strict sense some of you laid out, but it also makes it more 'real' in a different sense.

Arguments about inflation and the economical realism of the system of currency hold no sway over me, since I consider these elements to be irrelevant to my role-play, just as irrelevant as, say, the molecular make-up and DNA of a Troll. For me, it's so far out of my narrative that it is pretty much inconsequential. Connecting the role-play world to the game-world in relevant ways is to me more important than the economical realism underlying the system of currency I use which, frankly, I couldn't care less about - I'm not here to play out a realistic economical game. I'm here to play the Adventurer and the Hero, not the accountant.

Quoting this entire block for emphasis. I've found that the more aspects of the game I can tie in to my role-play, the more I enjoy them. My character is a magical tailor and enchanter, and I like to be able to give other players enchants and embroideries and items that actually help them.

And, I will never accept that a level 20 character can be as strong as a level 90 character. Because they are not, there is no way to prove their power. And as soon as one player stops investing in that make-belief--- The entire thing comes tumbling down. Going by the same principle I don't like people using humans as High Elves and things like that. When you strip away the add-ons and the emotes, you're left with a human. No matter how many layers you stack on top, you're still left with a human.

Vaell wrote:I think you completely overlooked my points so I'll bulletpoint them:

Don't.

Seriously.

Don't.

If I have to endure any more of your cheap rhetorical tricks, Vaell, I am going to pop a blood vessel.

The question have been answered good enough. Thanks for the answers. I'll leave it here.

Amaryl wrote:Not that I support the opinion but here are the obvious answers, duh:

Vaell wrote:I think you completely overlooked my points so I'll bulletpoint them:

• Equality is something that clearly doesn't exist in the WoW universe. If you say everyone has a certain amount of gold then how can you determine who is a noble and who isn't?  not everyone has the same amount of gold, not everyone is Soltys. people who trade better, who grind more, who play the economic game obviously have more money, and can do more stuff. (i.e get more money) But there is a massively clear divide between gold being worth someone and said person has 50g compared to a poor guard who has just 3g. In the "10k logic", you'd need to be in the 100s of thousands of gold to even have a class gap.
  
  
• To follow the point before, would you expect a person wanting to rp a noble to grind 10s of thousands of gold just to situate himself as a superior class? Yes It's usually the people who waste more timing grinding gold that have more, it's not hard to earn gold - it's just time consuming. The irony of Thelos and Erwt always trying to be the most liberal in any argument yet claiming that someone with less gold has to stick to playing a lower class is fruitful.
  
  
• Magic is kind of a cop out excuse. If it requires a feather to make one's self lighter for a brief period of time, you're going to need a bloody peacock to carry 10k gold! We don't need feathers anymore do we? Magic has advanced beyond reagents in WoW mechanics obviously. Not everyone is a mage. We also have to take mana in the same way that it's treated by NPCs. You do not have an infinite source. It takes its toll if you cast spells.
  
  
• You are picking and choosing between what is absurd IC. All of the gold you have gathered has been through OOC means and then you're applying it to IC. Who says that? why can't dailies be IC? the auction house is taken as being IC, buying gear is determined as being IC, you're the one not doing it. I'm choosing to not associate myself with OOC and clear game mechanics when it comes to IC. I'm not picking or choose, I'm drawing a clear line. Dailies could be considered IC, they're the only quests which are more open in their quest text. To those who actually log on daily and say their character has slaughtered 100 odd enemies... That's about as creative as the japanese flag.
  
  
• How can we go by an Auction House economy which is mostly populated by OOCers? Again, picking and choosing when an OOCer should be taken IC is a bit ridiculous. If we accept a massively inflated economy then why not all the dragon-flying house-hoppers in Stormwind too? Who says we're picking and choosing? I'm not, you are obviously. Ignoring someone, doesn't remove their effect on the world. They are picking and choosing for the points I made before. Man on dragon is OOC but AH is IC? Questline is OOC but 10k gold is IC? I could go on.
  
  
• You believe someone should have to grind to play a character of their choosing? Doesn't that limit role-play? Yes, you have to or you're stuck with lvl 1 outfits, which aren't giving you a whole lot of options. So this point really is moot. You could get to level 30 and have a fair enough selection. If your imagination is about as vast as a pinball machine then I apologise for your defect but for the majority of RPers, a number above a head means nothing when compared to their capability to craft a character.
  
  
• How does gold become so readily available? It's described as a precious stone in the previous Warcrafts. 10k is the equivalent to about 3 goldmines.
  

NPcs have gold, they give it to me, you saying NPCs don't have money to feed themselves? or to hire other people do some work? They give repeated gold. Repeated. You kill Sharkman and bring back his head, you get a paycheck and a shiny dagger. The next guy does the same. Why should the gold duplicate? It's clearly not built for role-play. Of course they have gold but they do not have unlimited gold, that's common fucking sense.

Replied in kind with italics!



There is no way to prove their power because they're level 20? Are you serious? As someone playing a mage, you rely on game mechanics to show your power? That's unbelievably dull. Magic is limitless and you're setting a limit to it. A level 20 can be whatever the hell he likes, the majority of RPers will accept it because they can grasp their power through their emotes. That's the fundamentals of role-play. You create something within the world in any form you want as long as it fits with the world provided, you're massively limiting yourself.

And again, if you can't see past a character model then I feel incredibly bad for you.

Thelos, you dived in with your copy & paste "I have my finger in my brother's bum so I'll ignore the points at hand and write an argument about how we're all Rpers and we do it in our own way!". At least Amaryl actually addressed the points!


Disclaimer: Not trying to cause drama.

Psst... Vael... You're doing this again:

Thelos wrote:All of the arguments against it, at least from what I've seen so far, have been reductions to the absurd by applying a thought that is used in one sphere to others on which we might not want to apply it.

I'm not sure if this is meant as an insult, but it's one of the greatest things I have ever seen:

Zalorah wrote:

-snip-:

Zal, lol, atleast i'm the pokemon .

Vaell:

just to prevent getting a huge quote:

1. Ultimately its the difference between someone with the best-gear, and some-one with the worse gear. Ultimately its the difference between a miner that has a shit-load of business and a miner that has very little business. And when factoring in level, it can be between classes. You can be noble, but you'll just be a poor noble.

2. It is indeed not hard, you just have to do it, so why not do it, and why not use it? Why cater to lazyness? Why change game-mechanics in exchange for lazyness? (I don't disagree with your second point, but its not being hypocritical its just about following your own views, but necessarily not shoving them down other-people's throats. which some fair better in than others.)

3. but everyone can buy an enchanted bag/purse, if you want one!

4. Drawing a line, is still picking and choosing. you're choosing where to draw said line, and where it ends. This is just a different line.

5. who says man on dragon is OOC, or questline is? I don't

6. The number means nothing, but what you character can do, means a shit lot. you can't mine admantite at lvl 30, (you can have more than 100k gold at lvl one, by just playing the AH.) You can't actually carry the hand of sulfuras at lvl 20. You can't actually wear the imperial plate until lvl 57. You can't actually participate in RP-pvp and live until you're 90,(and have gear) So you have to grind to do whatever it is you want to do. You just put a limit on acceptable grind somewhere else.

7. Hey Its not my fault the npc ordered in bulk to lessen the price and have gold left-over for the kobold exterminators.


you're simply placing the dividing line somewhere else, why do you even use the game for RP some could argue, just use the forum to RP with?