View Full Version : Jay Wilson on Trading and Currency
DarkGoat
28-08-2008, 10:35
In a new interview Jay Wilson talks about their plans for trading and currency in D3.
Diablo, at its core is basically a trader's game. If you look at other types of progression based RPG games, World of Warcraft is a great example. In World of Warcraft the best items are you know, held by the raiders. In Diablo the best items are really held by the traders. You know those people that are really good at trading with other people. We have no intention of destroying that design or that group of players. That being said a bartering system is actually a very exclusionary trading system; it essentially favors a very small group of elite people and it's not just that those people have entry into it. It's that anyone who wants to gain entry to that system, anybody who wants to just trade items with people, they have this huge barrier to entry, they just can't get into because they don't the value of items, they don't know what's worth what, they don't know what they need. So an elite trader would probably say, ‘Oh well, I like that I have this exclusive knowledge,' but he's actually denying himself customers essentially because there's no common language. A currency really provides a common language: that's the point of a currency. So we do want to support some kind of currency, we don't want to do some of the stuff that Diablo 2 did where they kind of actively devalued gold. We really do want to make gold, or potentially another currency – it may not have to be gold – a valuable commodity that players can use to be able to trade items. That being said it doesn't really prohibit item trading like people can use items as a currency. We have no intention of adding a Bind on Pickup or Bind on Equip, if we did it would probably be for like quest items not for actual functional, like items which people use to hack down monsters and stuff. There's nothing that's stopping bartering in that system but it does give people at least some kind of language you know if you've got two items and ones like a little bit more valuable, you can pad it with currency as well.
There's a few things here that I don't agree with. A beginning player should NOT know the value of items in terms of some fixed currency. That should be something that one learns from talking with others, or experience using them etc. A beginning player should not have any reason to want to trade with elite players, nor should they be in a position to do so. One must learn the value of various attributes and various items by playing the game, and not just be told what everything is worth. The currency must not be determined by the game itself. A natural economy is always an economy that evolves, and is determined by the society of players, like in Diablo 2. A fixed economy is not fun.
What are you talking about? Diablo 2's economy is by far and large, the worst I ever experienced; and I am *not* even starting to talk about dupes. Do you have any idea how many people get scammed entirely because this is a bartering system with no reliable way to check value in-game?
Also, how is having a gold currency magically create a fixed economy? Players still determine the price by supply and demand. They just do it in a way that isn't utterly obnoxious for new players to learn about and enter.
One must learn the value of various attributes and various items by playing the game, and not just be told what everything is worth. The currency must not be determined by the game itself.
True but the economy in diablo 2 isn't remotely intuitive. If I travelled back in time and told my past self that I'd end up trading for items with Pgems I probably wouldn't believe myself. A fixed currency makes perfect sense but it's still up to the players to determine how much item X or Y is worth.
WoW already has databases of items found. The same stuff can be applied to Diablo 3.
It could be as simple as:
Gold on Realm: 3 Million
Item A Equipped on Realm: 500
Estimated Value of Item A: 6,000 Gold
The more an item is being used, the less value it has. Which means that my Wimpy Cracked Dagger of Sloth is worth 3 Million or so. I'm rich!
Tashohnie
29-08-2008, 11:38
I like a gold economy. I really do. I played a game years ago and money was so valuable it was the main resource of trading. It gives additional things to farm, items, gold. I like the idea
DarkGoat
29-08-2008, 12:05
True but the economy in diablo 2 isn't remotely intuitive. If I travelled back in time and told my past self that I'd end up trading for items with Pgems I probably wouldn't believe myself. A fixed currency makes perfect sense but it's still up to the players to determine how much item X or Y is worth.
Why exactly would you need to know what the currency will be in the far future?
Sein Schatten
29-08-2008, 14:07
WoW already has databases of items found. The same stuff can be applied to Diablo 3.
It could be as simple as:
Gold on Realm: 3 Million
Item A Equipped on Realm: 500
Estimated Value of Item A: 6,000 Gold
The more an item is being used, the less value it has. Which means that my Wimpy Cracked Dagger of Sloth is worth 3 Million or so. I'm rich!
D3 doesn't support mods and will (probably) have no armory. So, no, this isn't possible in D3. ;)
strongdwarvenale
29-08-2008, 15:36
I'm against a fixed currency. If you play with friends you can simply trade items without having to go by what it's worth, but by who needs what more. If you trade in bnet or in forums, items' values will develop over time. There's always going to be web pages with price guides, going by drop rates etc. There you can find an estimated value of whatever item you wish to trade. Then you can go see if there's many people buying and/or selling that item and then you can make a reasonable estimate on what the thing is worth.
An ingame currency would only work, if you could spend it on really good items. Gold is mostly useless in D2. Gold in masses is only good for gambling and that's not exactly an exciting form of treasure hunting. If they were to introduce a currency in D3, there would have to be merchants with stuff that's really valuable, but at the same time not as good as the best unique/rare/magical items or other ways to spend it wisely. That'd be cool, but difficult to balance out.
PG's as lowest currency is fine for me:)
Sigh. Gold gold gold...great in the real world but bad for the gaming world. In D2 people traded down and up all the time. MANY times I would trade something that drops fairly often for something that does not. Why? Because that person wanted it. If this gold currency thing starts, no one is going to do this. Why trade these boot for 100 gold when the game and websites say its worth 150 gold? I know it sort of the same, but its different in game and affects the economy entirely.
I think what the guy ment is that the currency won't have to be GOLD. But they're trying to figure out another tradeable currency similiar to runes and gems. And I really enjoyed the system that diablo always had... 'Till a certain point, where it was impossible to get a legit soj from a trade. Time will tell.
sirwhere
21-09-2008, 02:10
there's an easy way to make gold valuable.
have items being made by smiths at towns, for a gold fee. with a couple milions you could have your custom-made cruel sword. Now double the gold for an extra 1% in enhanced damage and gold suddently becomes VERY valuable.
this, or something like it.
if gold becomes currency, then that would really mean gold will be dropped LESS often by monsters. like what... 1piece per monster? how the hell are we going to buy items from vendors?1
pastrychef
29-09-2008, 23:05
I support this idea of using new fixed currency such as gold or something else (like perfect gems) other than duped high runes as the new currency in D3. I don't really like the idea of buying duped runes for forum gold (and forum gold is bought using real life money...). Seriously, no one should use their hard earned money for forum gold so that they can buy a pixelated glyph written on a pixelated piece of rock. It's a shame that the gold in diablo 2 is obsolete.
One example of an MMORPG game that uses gold and has a balanced economy is Runescape. They have this system called Grand Exchange where the prices of every single item in the game is shown, and it greatly helps new players that have no concept of trading or bartaring. Even before the introduction of the Grand Exchange, players still used gold to trade. This is just an example of an MMORPG game that uses in-game gold. I'm pretty sure WoW also uses in-game gold to trade for items, I've never played it myself but according to my friend that plays it gold is the dominant currency.
Anyway, this is just my opinion, I might be wrong about the whole concept of trading in diablo.
stillman
30-09-2008, 02:32
there's an easy way to make gold valuable.
have items being made by smiths at towns, for a gold fee. with a couple milions you could have your custom-made cruel sword. Now double the gold for an extra 1% in enhanced damage and gold suddently becomes VERY valuable.
this, or something like it.
I think this is a great idea, regardless of wether gold is the currency or not. They could also have Smiths making customized armor with each def point costing exponentially more gold after a point.
The main thing I care about is this: I just don't want to see gold or stamina or anything else become a useless joke like it is i d2. It makes Blizzard's designers look bad, putting stuff in the game that is nearly useless. Sheesh.
Jumped Up Pantry Boy
05-10-2008, 18:10
I think pgems and runes are a great currency, they fit all the requirements.
They're attainable through work, they're available to everyone, they're useful for many things and the main part - they're consumable.
Any alternate currency must tick all those boxes or it will just be like gold is in D2.
The thing that is so good with a gold-economy is that it is much easyer tog et what you want. Example how it is in diablo 2:
I have a Sword that i want to trade for this hat ive been looking for. Now i must find a player that have my hat, and also want my sword. This could takes weeks if its rare items involved.
how i want it to be:
I have this sword worth 1000 gold and want a hat worth 1000 gold. Now i just have to find a buyer who wants my sword. get payed in gold. And instead of needing to find someone who have the hat AND wasnt my sword, i can pay him in gold so that he later can get what he wants.
I have this sword worth 1000 gold and want a hat worth 1000 gold. Now i just have to find a buyer who wants my sword. get payed in gold. And instead of needing to find someone who have the hat AND wasnt my sword, i can pay him in gold so that he later can get what he wants.
Isnt that , in a nutshell , how it works nowadays on Bnet ? Trade your sword for runes , use aforementioned runes to purchase shiny new hat ?
To remain on topic, I am against a gold based currency . Diablo 2 is what it is today BECAUSE of the user based economy . Being able to accumulate wealth from a multitude of sources and methods really keeps this game alive , imo . Jumped Up Pantry Boy made an excellent point id like to quote
I think pgems and runes are a great currency, they fit all the requirements.
They're attainable through work, they're available to everyone, they're useful for many things and the main part - they're consumable.
Any alternate currency must tick all those boxes or it will just be like gold is in D2.
Also trading will get easier when you can offer gold and not some weird rare item that the guy is looking for. So if you happen to not have the specific item that the trader is looking for he can always accept gold and try to get the item with that gold from someone else.
Isnt that , in a nutshell , how it works nowadays on Bnet ? Trade your sword for runes , use aforementioned runes to purchase shiny new hat ?
No it is not, because gold makes everything so much more simple, its easyer to understand, runes are not since there is no way to know how much a rune is worth when you can only meet its worth in other runes. It is also harder to do business because every item has an exact value in other items, you can for example buy a hat for 213 gold coins, and then you are in luck and find someone who is willing to pay some more for it, you just made a good deal. But since an IST rune for example is so much worth, you will only find that item for one ist rune because charging 2 ist runes for it will double it so you cant raise the price.
Of course you can say you want Ist um pul for that hat but most players will not buy it because they have no idea how much those runes are worth.
Im just speaking bull**** here because im tired and my own text confuses me.. Anyway.
Rob.
patriach owen
13-10-2008, 23:43
Im with Jay all the way. (No rhyme intended :D)
seriously... I think that the WoW economy is stronger than Englands... he knows what hes talking about. :P
To get gold to be useful in any game you have to understand the currency's "lifespan". It must have a birth, mid-life, & death, and those 3 phases must be balanced against each other. I probably sound like a lunatic right now so let me try to clarify.
The birth of gold is where the game creates it, i.e. 'it drops'. This introduces gold into the player-based economy.
It's mid-life is all the hands it passes through, getting traded from player to player. It remains in the player-based economy and is the lifeblood of a currency based economy.
The death is when the gold is consumed, i.e. spent at NPC's. This removes the gold from the player-based economy.
ALL three of these need to be balanced to make a currency valuable. DII handled #1 & #3 (though probably not as well as it could have). Monsters dropped gold -> currency introduced to economy. Gambling, runeword/charges repair costs, etc -> goldsink to remove currency from economy. There is nothing in DII that promotes #2. DII's gold model is like filling a bucket with a hole in the bottom; lots of currency moving in & out of the economy but you still end up with an empty bucket.
I think for it to work as a currency based economy, you need to promote the changing of hands of that currency. It has to get circulated amongst a large number of the player base. The problem is coming up with something that makes people want to pass their money to other players. WoW did it by forcing you to use their currency. There's no trading, except by friends that trust each other enough to send items by mail, or again forcing the use of currency with the COD mail.
Anyway I don't really have an answer without forcing a currency (with auction houses or similar). Just though I'd throw out my thoughts. DII just doesn't give you a reason to give the gold to someone ELSE.
fatalend
16-10-2008, 03:35
You need different types of goldsinks in a game in order to make gold effective. First of all you need "necessary" ones, that force everyone that plays Diablo 3 to spend gold. This can include repairing items, or resurrecting your merc, things like that. These aren't necessarily "fun" goldsinks but they are ones to guarantee that gold is moving out of the economy and it doesn't build up much.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
In addition to these above sinks which aren't considered "fun", you do need to add ways to spend gold that get the player involved and having fun, such as respeccing skills, enhancing items, crafting, adding sockets to items, etc. all for a payment of gold. Don't just allow socketing and enhancing items once per difficulty level as in Diablo 2. Allow players to do these fun things, but have to pay for them.
The "fun" goldsinks need to be things that ALOT of people will get involved in. In Diablo 2, there was gambling. The chance of gambling and getting a worthwhile item was SO low that most players never gambled. Therefore it wasn't an effective goldsink, think about these things blizzard. Gambling is fine, but you need more.
Auction houses help to a large extent, because it allows for easy interaction and trade of items and money. It's simply convenient. However, the diablo 3 devs have to be careful with this because unfortunately it ruins the player interaction of trading which is a staple of the Diablo series.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
This wouldn't have prevented gold from being valuable in HC. Gold will not have less value because of this reason, but only more since the scarcity is greater. If a necessary ingredient to play the game becomes more scarce its value increases.
On top of that, losing something valuable on death should be an encouragement to get killed less. The point of SC should not be to die as much as you want without penalty; you can actually play this game without dieing (a lot).
The one and only cause for gold not being valuable is that there is nothing you can do with gold that requires large amounts of it except gambling. But gambling requires such large amounts of gold that it is not very appealing to most, and the gold cap is hindering it a lot.
What is the value of money? The only value money has is the value that people give it. That said as people have already stated, the way to make gold an effective currency, is to give the player useful and worthwhile things to do with it.
Some ideas (some already suggested):
Gold to increase defense/attack value of an item (price to upgrade the item increases exponentially)
Gold to add sockets (price increases exponentially)
Gold to buy runes and gems (extremely expensive)
Gold to "enchant" the item adding magical effects to it (turns into blue item; expensive)
Gold to "imbue" the item (Turns it into a rare item; extremely expensive)
-------
If some or all of these ideas were implemented, gold would suddenly have value. If it had value it would be sought after and used.
What is the value of money? The only value money has is the value that people give it. That said as people have already stated, the way to make gold an effective currency, is to give the player useful and worthwhile things to do with it.
Some ideas (some already suggested):
Gold to increase defense/attack value of an item (price to upgrade the item increases exponentially)
Gold to add sockets (price increases exponentially)
Gold to buy runes and gems (extremely expensive)
Gold to "enchant" the item adding magical effects to it (turns into blue item; expensive)
Gold to "imbue" the item (Turns it into a rare item; extremely expensive)
-------
If some or all of these ideas were implemented, gold would suddenly have value. If it had value it would be sought after and used.
pretty good ideas. but it's also highly dependent on how much gold drops and how easy it is to find it.
you gotta remember that d2 had a somewhat similar money sink in gambling. it was a nice way to sink a few million gold into the economy and a semi-fun diversion, but that was about it. you still never saw anybody trading anything of real value for gold.
Well the above suggestions would increase demand. Assume the supply was held at a constant rate. The end result? An increase in value.
whiteboi
18-10-2008, 02:00
A gold currency like wow works very well because it take a lot of currency and makes it look like its not very much. Meaning gold is derived from silver and then derived from copper and so on. This means 1 gold is really 100 silver is really 100000 copper and so on. Mianly it makes it much more MANAGEABLE. However, i do not want this system in diablo 3 because I want diablo 3 to have its own unique system.
I am all for blizzard creating something different than a gold economy and also different than a bartering economy. What it could be I do not know!
And what about gold to buy quests?
Just like Uber Diablo with sojs, but instead of sojs, gold.
But instead of making quests permanent, make then to have a lifespan of 2 months, so you can have the feeling of exclusiviness in participating in such quests and get rewarded by TRUE unique items.
You need different types of goldsinks in a game in order to make gold effective. First of all you need "necessary" ones, that force everyone that plays Diablo 3 to spend gold. This can include repairing items, or resurrecting your merc, things like that. These aren't necessarily "fun" goldsinks but they are ones to guarantee that gold is moving out of the economy and it doesn't build up much.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
In addition to these above sinks which aren't considered "fun", you do need to add ways to spend gold that get the player involved and having fun, such as respeccing skills, enhancing items, crafting, adding sockets to items, etc. all for a payment of gold. Don't just allow socketing and enhancing items once per difficulty level as in Diablo 2. Allow players to do these fun things, but have to pay for them.
The "fun" goldsinks need to be things that ALOT of people will get involved in. In Diablo 2, there was gambling. The chance of gambling and getting a worthwhile item was SO low that most players never gambled. Therefore it wasn't an effective goldsink, think about these things blizzard. Gambling is fine, but you need more.
Auction houses help to a large extent, because it allows for easy interaction and trade of items and money. It's simply convenient. However, the diablo 3 devs have to be careful with this because unfortunately it ruins the player interaction of trading which is a staple of the Diablo series.
I agree with everything you said, Fatalend.
In a D3-style auction house system, I think it would work if players could post sales and offers in the form of a "package" of items AND/OR gold. The seller could review all the various offered packages and click an "Accept" for the one he liked the best.
I would discourage Blizzard from having a built-in gold buyout price, thus requiring personal attention from each player to drive the auction system forward.
Allow a 255 character "Seller Looking For:" comment (editable at any time) to be attached with each sale. This would allow buyers to create offers they think are valuable to the seller.
All packages should have a deposit fee so that players carefully consider their actions. This fee should be based on an arbitrary percentage of the package's cumulative repair cost and gold amount contained therein. This fee is returned to buyers but NOT sellers when the auction expires. All packages should be rescind-able at any time, at the cost of the deposit fee.
Doing all this would require some type of temporary storage for failed auction packages.
Hakarrod
29-10-2008, 18:43
A good way to add value to gold by making it worth more to players would be to require it as a kind of admission fee. People will run bosses and areas countless times for items, runes, keys and whatever else. They go to the most profitable areas for a specific type of treasure over and over again ( talking about in D2, as well as most any other rpg that has drop tables and %'s). What if aside from the normal game there was a place you could go for a price that dropped zero gold and only items, ranging from worthless to awesome. The only way you could get to one of these places would be through an npc who charges only in gold.
Maybe like an arena or something. The better the potential treasure, the more expensive the admission for that particular run/room/arena/area whatever you wanna call it.
The best examples I could think of would be to change the cow level and pandemonium event (uber tristram) ingredients from organs, keys and prosthetics to a fee in gold. There could be numerous "pay to kill areas" with all kinds of rewards and competitions that would require a fee per player in gold to access. Nothing too steep but definitely an amount that would require a bit of adventuring to accumulate. Maybe one such gold-pay-area is ideal for a group of wizards and barbarians and thus players who aren't of either of those to classes would have to find some friends or hire the services of such characters.
Of course you wouldn't find any gold in these areas. Which would bring up the questions about selling items found there. Well if the items only sold for a fraction of what they were worth then it might give incentive to sell to other players since the items might be quite valuable and otherwise hard to find.
We all remember that first day, before we were uber. When every gold piece was cherished. Then, we found that after a day or so of playing, we were suddenly in our 20's and had plenty of gold for what we needed (Repairs). They introduced gambling in D2 simply because there wasn't anything to do with gold after a while. Leveling happened too fast (and totally stalled by lvl 90 or so) but the first thing that you grew out of was the need for gold.
As I mentioned in another post, everyone seems to cringe whenever a comparison is made between D3 and WoW, but WoW has a fantastic system in place. The biggest parts of this system is professions (which require mats) and the Auction house. Jay Wilson mentioned that they have no intention on making things BOP (Bind on Pickup), but why? If you have a BOP item, it means you earned the damn thing! Whats wrong with that? As we saw in D2, anyone can take $10 and get the Ancient Sword of Uberness. It took no skill whatsoever. IMO, the elite items should be BOP.
Damnatorius
09-11-2008, 17:16
Really the cap of how much gold you could store was the main reason for it being useless. I play single player, so I have ATMA, making it real easy to store gold. This way I save every bit of gold and once I save up about 25 mil or so, I go on a gambling spree and end up with 1 or 2 uniques and quite a few decent rares.
The million or so you can store on a char just isn't worth the effort to trade with, while 100s of millions would be. Then again it shouldn't be so that you'd lose a couple of million on dying :P
Even with more money sinks, if you can't trade decent amounts of gold at a time, it won't be worth the trouble.
Welp ive played them both. For a number of years. D2 its about tradeing for what you want. You trade up and down depending on what you need.
Thing about d2 was once everyone figured out what the "currency" item was a dupe would happen. Or contrary to popular believe, single player items was pushed into closed realm, yet that was taken care of in 1.10. But you still had dupes galore.
With wow it was the fact we pay to play. Gives blizzard the backing to hire people to patrol the realms, fix stuff, stop hacks. Ban people.
In wow, every toon i had was a gatherer. Every toon had skinning and either mining or herbs. Up until last month when i finally quit, I was makeing 45k a week off each toon i had. My bank alts, I would lvl up to 35 just to get to the 300 cap for enchanting so i could nuke lvl 60 or so items. Mining uses 3 proffs, herbs now has two. skinning has one same with tailoring. With an auction house, you make a ton of gold. But in wow this is pointless. The best uber items are drops that are BoP. And yes its a sense of bliss when you get one.
Yet if your not a hardcore raider or pvper, you settle for crafted or 5 man instance loot.
Thing with wow is you need the gold. Upgrades off the AH, buying spells, mounts.. etc.
In diablo, it was pointless. 2k drop here and there. You bought .. oh wait everything you need actually drops off mobs.. meh... you had to rez a merc here and there and fix/repair items.
There is no way i can see gold as a currency in d3 unless they limit how much drops.
then again we cant look at d3 like we look at d2.
The idea that 4 people from germany and the two from russia would hold sway on the currency in the game yet again would bother me somewhat.
Then again people are stupid.. they will believe anything told to them if presented to them in a way that seems right.. or they want to believe something so much that the slightest mention of it sends them off on a crusade.
time will tell where it goes.
my only point im trying to make is thus. There isnt an "elite" trader class. The game isnt out, we havent played it. there are no "uber" drops to call forth the "elite" traders yet. WE make OUR own tradeing class.. they evolve outta our need for items.
pimpsanater
20-11-2008, 05:15
Personally I loved the Diablo 2 barter system. I liked it because you had to be experienced and skilled in trading and in the game. Making some fixed currency of course eliminates trading items for items, more based on need and less on set value. I just like trading items for items, and while I agree that set currency is easier for begginers, I think have the fun is becoming an expert. I have also played wow, where gold is very valued and I suppose its ok, although Ive NEVER traded an item for an item in that game. Basically Ill deal with the economy in whatever direction they go with it, but I think learning the economy when its more complex and less predictable is much more fun.
Synchrotron
20-11-2008, 07:09
I really don't know what is the best currency for Diablo 3, all i know is that the economy of Diablo 2 is terrible.
For example, you would never be sucessfull in trading 100 jalals for one Jah rune.
Diablo 3 needs a system that allows you to sell all your jalals for a currency that is at least 0.1% the value of the Jah and not 0%.
GoBigRed
20-11-2008, 18:03
I'd like to see some sort of set currency to an extent, but still make it to where trading item for item wasn't completely worthless to do. I personally didn't like the d2 trading that much, without using a website, it would take ages to find someone to trade with, yet alone actually make a fair trade.
I really don't know what is the best currency for Diablo 3, all i know is that the economy of Diablo 2 is terrible.
For example, you would never be sucessfull in trading 100 jalals for one Jah rune.
Diablo 3 needs a system that allows you to sell all your jalals for a currency that is at least 0.1% the value of the Jah and not 0%.
That doesn't make sense. That's like saying the real life economy sucks because you can't buy 100 lollypops ($0,25 each) with a $100,- bill (just a stupid example). You can use lower value currency (don't know the best term for that), like one dollar bills (pgems) or ten dollar bills (Lem/Pul/Um-ish runes) or something like that.
Keighvin
20-11-2008, 21:02
Well, actually your example really doesn't work, since 100 $0.25 priced lollipops is $25. So you would indeed be able to buy them, and would simply get a lot of change back. Unless the store had a policy of not accepting bills over $20 or something.
Synchrotron stated it would be impossible to get 100 Jalal's (lollypops) for 1 Jah ($100,- bill) and that therefore the economy is flawed. Of course you won't be able to make that trade when you can trade more practically with Lem/Pul/Um ($1,-/$5,-/$10,- dollar bills). Why would Jah runes be the lowest value you can trade with?
To get back at the lollypop example: whether or not a store accepts $100,- bills, why would you want to pay like that, when simple $10,- bills exist (aside from the situation when you simply only have $100,- bills)?
Also, even if he would trade like that (Jah for 100 Jalal's), why wouldn't he be able to get his 'change' (in the form of whatever kind of items)?
When this all still doesn't make sense, consider that trying to trade 100 Jalal's for a Jah rune doesn't make quite a lot of sense either. ^^
keep in mind that the trading system in D2 changed radically after and during each patch. remember when CHIPPED gems were valuable cuz everyone found out that u could xmute them with an executioner sword and have a chance at getting a really high dmg sword? remember when asking for 40sojs wasnt that insane of a request? :coffee: all im saying is, if D3's economy is based on currency, at least we have a standard unit of measurement to consider regardless of what the hot new item is. wouldnt you like to have those 40sojs you traded for some bull**** back in .08? i know i would. Thats 120 HRs NOW!!!!
Synchrotron
21-11-2008, 05:02
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
But, what happened to trading with perfect gems? Or at least in the time I played on battle.net (around 2006 I think), they where very often used as currency. The prices back then were something like:
Pul rune: pgems 30-35 pgems
Gul-Zod: 4 Pul runes (when I started playing. probably halfway Ladder 3) to 2 Pul runes (nearing the end of Ladder 3)
But, where are my manners? Welcome to the forum, man!
Synchrotron
21-11-2008, 14:24
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
DarkGoat
21-11-2008, 15:40
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
Diablo is set in the ancient world, not in the 21st century.
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
absolutely. the AH and bronze/silver/gold system of WoW is an impeccable example of this sort of economy: even brand new players could post up their low level gathered items or instance drops and they would have a really good chance to sell.
but that gets into something beyond just currency. it has to do with the fact that 1) trade games would be eliminated, making room for questing/running games. 2) you did not have to be online to make some dough. 3) you could name your own price and if youre lucky, youd get more from a bidding war.
albeit the idea of an AH in d3 has not been officially discussed (maybe i recall a video interview with Jay where he was asked about it, but dismissed it as too early to tell) to my knowledge, you cant deny that it would help the third-world economy of diablo as it stands in d2. in d2, unless you have the most in-demand items and runes, you can rest assured youll probably stay poor until you 1)meet a generous rich person, or 2) get lucky and find something of value.
its things like that which make trading in d2 less than desireable and i would be very pleased to see the system fixed in d3. as far as d3 being too "WoWish" and an AH just adding to that, its effin retarded to ignore a potentially great economy/trading system just because someone else uses it already. it could only improve the gameplay of d3. BAM!
edit: what am i talking about, this whole thread involves jay wilsons consideration of currency and an AH. so yea, it has been and still is being, im sure, officially discussed.
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
Problem here is that Puls and pgems are NOT universal currency, they are simply just something that is more popular with a select number of players, especially here. But the fact remains that there are still a high number of players that will NOT accept them. I distinctly remember last ladder trying to get my first Hoz, and I could not find anyone who would accept a combination of Puls and pgems.
Point of a currency in any economy whether real or virtual is it allows entry into the market for both buyers and sellers. As much as I hate D2Jsp and the people there, I do acknowledge that the system itself is almost flawless. Using a virtual currency that is common and accepted by all allows anyone to enter that market. You do not NEED 10 Puls to or 400 Pgems to get a cherished item. You can sell a few pgems, Puls, and misc other items.
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