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**BountyHunter** · (This post was last modified: 10-09-2011, 12:27 AM by BountyHunter.)

In-Character Currency

-Overview-

Many of you have noticed a new trio of items on CotH!

Well, alright, not new. Newly accessible! We've decided to implement an in-character system of currency for the server. There are a few different reasons for this addition, but overall the belief is that an IC coinpurse can create some new RP opportunities, as well as give characters a drive to attend events and go adventuring. Some examples of RP concepts which will benefit from this system would be;

Merchants
Previously merchant characters were essentially giving away their wares. All in all money has not been considered as a finite resource to most characters, making purchases rather invalid when there is no actual cost associated with it. This goes the same with auctions in that one player may bid over and over, regardless of winning the past ten auctions. This would give the other attendees a greater ability to purchase goods as well, and also help keep the values sane.

Bandits
Footpads, rogues, cutpurses! These ruffians patrol unguarded roads just waiting for a victim to stumble down their path. With an in-character currency these characters now have a more tangible reason to exist, and one which will certainly affect their victims more. This goes for criminal activity in general; it now has a representation for the wealth its garnering.

Nobles
Nobles are one of those special profiles which so far have seemed a bit situational to me. In most places their nobility hardly matters, and with the average Joe usually toting around up to 200 gold the noble's money doesn't play much of a part either. In this system of currency though nobles would indeed have a visible lead ahead of the normal characters in terms of wealth. Personally I believe this gives much more weight to these special profiles, and makes them stand out quite a bit more. Hence, we shall be allowing them 30 extra gold per noble house.

-Distribution-

But what's there to be said about how to -get- this newfangled 'money', Bounty? Well I'm so glad you asked, me!

Let's cover what we all know first-- There are two instances where you will be able to collect a sum of cash from the NPC vendor in the Out of Character Cavern; 5 silver at level 50 and 5 gold at level 80. As far as free handouts go, that's the limit.

Now, without a source of income things would become stagnant-- as such GMs are going to be hosting events with monetary rewards. In order to keep some consistency there are three levels at which an event can pay a group, that being 20 silver for a small event, 60 silver for a medium event and 1 gold and 50 silver for a large event. This is only a restriction placed upon the GM team of course; players may overpay or underpay our standards freely.

On that note, though, players should help circulate the cash as well; I don't mean spend half your gold buying something from someone, but it helps to have cash flow other than in GM run instances.

-Price Suggestions-

'But Bounty!' you proclaim once more, with a fixated gaze of longing and some minor confusion, 'What kind of value do these coins have?'

Another excellent question. To answer it we've compiled a list of sample prices which you can apply to your own wares and the like; this is by no means a set in stone rulebook for anyone, but it should help you figure out the value of your coins in relation to other purchases. You'll find it below, within the spoiler tag:

Spoiler:

-GM Endorsement-

'But wait Bounty, don't go just yet!' you cry out, by now having developed a slight froth. 'What about those who run events who are non-GMs? Won't they get muscled out by the GM events providing gold rewards? Won't they suffer if they have to pay an event group?'

Oh thee of little faith.

We realise that those running events are essentially paying you to come participate; but, we have a way to avoid having the event holders shell out money from their own pockets!

What you might call this is an Endorsement. Instead of paying a group on your own character with their own money, let a faction handle it! If your doing your event under the banner of a faction (killing Defias for Stormwind, hunting for food for the Crossroads), then a supervising GM can dish out cash rewards once the event is completed. ICly the cash is from these factions either way; one does not go out on a hunting party and then pay his allied for helping.

Due to the nature of this process we do wish to have GMs actually supervise the event, to make sure that it is worth the amount of gold being given. When money is coming from a GM endorsed event it will have to adhere to three ranks of money, by extension of this.

And with that, I do believe I've concluded all of my points on this matter. Feel free to leave your questions and comments below and I or another member of the staff will attempt to furnish you with an answer!

If we're good, then happy spending!

Written by Rigley

**Cressy** · 10-08-2011, 10:14 PM

Yay. IC currency.

**Roxas65** · 10-08-2011, 10:44 PM

(10-08-2011, 09:57 PM)BountyHunter Wrote: Large House
80 (plus yearly expense of gold

I lol'd at this. Exactly how much gold is an orc donning sunglasses worth?

**Kirabo** · 10-08-2011, 11:20 PM

I'm personally astonished by this popping out so randomly.

Maybe it's not random? I can never decide.

Otherwise, yes. I approve of this wholeheartedly, for many a reason. It'll bring the life of the server back, it may even bring the people closer, with buying drinks at the "Salty Sailor's", or it may push them far apart if they get mugged.

All in all, you guys have my maximal endorsement.

**Psycho** · 10-09-2011, 12:12 AM

Glorious.

**BountyHunter** · 10-09-2011, 12:27 AM

Smilies have hence forth been eradicated. Thank you for your time.

**Nixie** · 10-09-2011, 12:57 AM

Wonderful! This should get at least a bit of the ol' CotH back.

Uthaniel · 10-09-2011, 03:22 AM

Quote:Dragon
10000000000000000 (Plus more money than you have a day) gold

Good, I can afford that!

**Wendigo** · 10-09-2011, 03:47 AM

I'm bit confused...

The incomes compared to expenses seems a bit too low to me, at least when I consider that in 6 weeks on server I got to one event [med sized] it would mean that in few RL years of playing I can finally buy something.

Also what about normal work? I think there should be some minimal daily income for lvl 80 character to keep up with financies the character might make with some commoner's work, but at least some income not reliable on event hunting.

**Wuvvums** · 10-09-2011, 04:09 AM

I think other income comes from the players itself. It may not seem like much at first but once we have a lot of players with five gold each on them the economy might gain some momentum and we can start working for other players to make a living.

I know before the official announcement I've made 15 gold on one char selling slaves, for example.

**Rigley** · 10-09-2011, 04:39 AM

(10-09-2011, 03:47 AM)Wendigo Wrote: I'm bit confused...

The incomes compared to expenses seems a bit too low to me, at least when I consider that in 6 weeks on server I got to one event [med sized] it would mean that in few RL years of playing I can finally buy something.

Also what about normal work? I think there should be some minimal daily income for lvl 80 character to keep up with financies the character might make with some commoner's work, but at least some income not reliable on event hunting.

It's also notable that you honestly would not likely have to pay any of those amount... ever!

The idea behind the price guide is to offer some guidance as to how players might value their gold; as in, a bearing to show people how much 20 or 70 gold is actually worth, since previously we had a lot of people shelling out triple digits on a whim.

GMs aren't going to ask you for cash for making a new RP set, but you might want to charge someone you've made an item ICly for, such as a new weapon or clothing set or so on.

It's also worth mentioning that I put those larger prices under 'guild purchases', which would be objects bought by an entire guild instead of one person. You can most likely live in a home for less just paying rent, but that's the actual purchase cost of it.

**Xigo** · 10-09-2011, 07:00 AM

So...

... Rigley wrote a post for Bounty?

**Rigley** · 10-09-2011, 08:01 AM

It was less of 'wrote the post for him' and more of 'wasn't around when it got approved'. :B

So glad it's out!

**Scout** · (This post was last modified: 10-09-2011, 10:00 AM by Scout.)

I would honestly decrease a lot of the prices that you've shown as sample prices. Everything is vastly inflated right now, to the point that a copper coin is incredibly useless.

A gold coin is intended to be a lot of money, right? A sword doesn't cost very much, however, and neither do clothes, strictly speaking. When people talk about gold coins, they generally look at them in the awe-inspired "only rich businessmen would throw around vast sums of gold!" sort of way. But, as it is, you're saying that a small house is worth the same amount of money as ten ordinary quality swords, which is, to be perfectly frank, entirely ridiculous from an economics standpoint.

So. I would like to propose my own set of prices. For the less expensive items, it makes much more sense to reduce the price by ten times. A set of normal clothing? One silver piece. A sword? Thirty silver pieces. Plate armor? Two gold. This puts the prices of many formerly-insane items well into the reach of a normal adventurer, assuming that the five gold you're handing out to level 80 players is how much the average adventurer/mercenary/what have you would have after a decent amount of time working their trade. However, many of those prices could (and should) remain the same. Namely, those relating to houses and more exotic commodities.

All in all, I would structure the system assuming that 50 copper is roughly equivalent to the price of a generous loaf of whole-grain bread, and then work your way up from there. That way characters aren't literally emptying their pockets whenever they go to buy something. Also, just use common sense when coming up with prices.

**Wendigo** · 10-09-2011, 01:00 PM

That's exactly what I meant and I fully agree. For example food definietly should be in amounts of coppers since otherwise commoners would die out of starvation all the time. Cheap food 10-20 copper, good food 50 copper, glass of rum or cheap booze 30-50 copper, glass of good whiskey 1 silver and so on.
I study only basic economics on uni but I can tell these prices are just utterly ridiculous when you compare them yeah. 50 gold for new motocycle? Hell yeah [though i can imagine you can build your own from used parts for 10 if you will be able to get some help and someone to teach you engineering, that's what's my character after] but 10golf for set of clothes? So five sets of normal clothes are worth of one new motocycle... hells I need to get myself new harley! *returns after while.* Darn...I just found out I can get set of quality clothes under 100 buck but they apparently want to 50k for harley...

To create at leasts semi-realistic economy you to set average wage. Which means how much will a normal commoner, not poor but not rich either make per day? From this you can calculate that about 10-20% should be basic food expenses. Sure if this character has to feed a family it will go up to 40-60%. but we are talking single now, now daily tent is 10% how comes so, well it's because in wow we have different kinds of feudal systems, in this system noone owns the land but the ruler, rules gives the land to people and for this he gets 10% of everything they make, so for example for farmers 10% of all food they produce. But to make this simple let's say this character has to stay in inn, now inn is bit luxury and should cost about 30% of the wage. Rest the character can save, in 14 days he should be able to get normal set of clotes with boots for example, for simple sword about month, fullplate armor sure it's expensive to make, new one would cost for sure at least 4 months of work, but then again you can get used one for 1/4 of price.

What this means... let's say average commoner makes 10 silver per day.

This means that all food that day should cost him 1-2 silver, so that's from 20copper for bread to 80copper-1silver for full meal. Night in inn [not single rooms, traditional inns rented beds, only the most wealthy could affor room, room should cost 10silver and more] will cost 3silver leaving him 5silver to save. In two weeks he'll have 70 silver which is enough to buy set of normal clothes, sword will cost 1,5gold and new armor 6.

Now you can see how much off those prices are, that's why it seemed weird to me, it's not a bit off, it's waaaay off. Also I think every 80lvl character should be able to get half of that wage per day, simple said if this character will eat, sleep somewhere, travel and so on it's used from the first half, second half is what character can save from some minimum amount of work.

That'll keep the economy alive and moving with time.

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