Currency of WAR

A interesting discussion began on Warhammer Alliance today, questioning the coinage of WAR. A video showed what looked to be the classic gold/silver/copper system, but was countered with a quote from a attender at a event stating that

"Money is copper silver brass"

So apparently gold is replaced by brass. Outrageous as it might seem, that could be valid because - as a poster pointed out - in history various metals have been used as coinage, depending on access to the metal and what people accept as valuable.

Another poster countered with the statement that in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), the currency is 1 Gold Crown = 20 Silver Shillings = 240 Brass Pennies (which is similar to the old British Pound system). From there the discussion take on even more kinds of currencies, even orc teeth!

Back when I started playing World of Warcraft I didn't like the way it made silver and copper obsolete after a few levels, and entirely started to focus on gold. If something was worth less than a gold, you didn't really have to hesitate much, just went ahead and bought it. The value for gold decreased fast near the end of my play time, when the daily quests where fast, easy, and awarded large amounts of gold.

I got a pleasant surprise when I switched to Age of Conan where instead of the regular three coin types there was four: tin, copper, silver and gold. By the time you got past the starting area you had a few coppers, for which you could buy a entire set of armor, bought with tin. From that you had to struggle to earn your precious silver coin, and gold felt like a lifetime away. Which it was. By the time I hit level 40 and was eligible to buy a horde, I had no way near the required few gold coins. While in a sense that was bad, as run a lot, it was also good as you started caring about the small coins; if you ever wanted to get that horse, you had to think about how much you spent.

Gold are supposed to be valuable, and the only way it can become valuable in a game is if it's rare. Once you get hordes of gold you stop seeing it as a valuable thing. I can look back at my current campaign in Dungeons & Dragons with my friends, where our Dungeon Master gave us hundreds of gold right from the start, and thousands later. So when we got a mission with a reward of thousands of gold I didn't feel interested, as the reward felt small in my eyes, even thought it was considered huge in the world we played.

Recently I tried the free trial of EVE Online. I was bored and looked for something to spend my time on until better titles came out. I hadn't felt that much intrigued by the sci-fi theme, but the feeling I got when watching videos and reading the news about how corporations joined another in a alliance and raided a system of another corporation, in much the same was a news reporter can announce that a country in Africa had crossed the border and raided a city in a nearby country, dazzled my mind. Epic was the word that came close to my mind. I could write more of what I felt about it, but the topic of the post is currency, so I will skip to that part.

When you started the game you had the smallest of ships, and as you played for a time you could afford larger and larger ships, the price for those biggest in the class you were skilled to have never really being more than half a million. Then you start browsing bigger ships in the Market, seeing what is to come, and see the really huge ship designed for battle going for hundreds of millions. It's then you start feeling small and wondering how the h3ll you can assemble those vast amounts. That's a road block for players, looking up to the top of the ladder.

Me, I started researching in how players are actually supposed to get there, but others might just throw in the towel and say "can't bother!". I almost felt that way when I played the AoC beta and realised how much gold you needed for a mount compared to how much I had. Unless you know that you get more money as you progress, staring up that ladder can really be discouraging.

I look forward to what WAR has in store for it's economy, everything from coins and mounts to trading and crafting.