Life is Feudal Official Forum

Cian · by **Cian** » 17 Nov 2013, 19:22

I haven't seen anything regarding a monetary system and I've noticed that games like Haven and Hearth and Wurm have a complicated and annoying bartering system due to lack of a functioning economy.

I propose that the following item be included in the game:

Coin Press:

Constructed by the same skills as siege equipment.

Allows for coins to be made using Gold, Silver, or Iron

Only able to be operated by a player kingdom/village (individuals can't mint their own coins)

When minted, the coin becomes listed as a "kingdom name coin" and can be used for currency.

Potential future benefits
Potentially NPC traders could be created that can use said kingdom coins to purchase items stock on those traders by players.

Coins could be 1/10 the weight gold, silver, or iron bars and could be remelted into bars if you have 10/10 in a stack. It makes for easier but flexible trade.

Arrakis · by **Arrakis** » 17 Nov 2013, 19:42

Agreed.

Gold and silver would be more precious and required once coin press would appear in the game.

But I would like to be available only in bigger guilds, who actually own some significant part of the land and has more than 30 members or so.

There have to be some high requirements for something that advanced. Independant coin would mean that guild/kingdom is rich and powerfull.

Anyway good idea, I'm all for it.

CLavish · by **CLavish** » 19 Dec 2013, 13:43

Also, other option than coins is to allow barter with materials. I think both systems should be implemented - coins and barter.

Falke88 · by **Falke88** » 19 Dec 2013, 14:44

Hmmm I kinda think it would be hard to get a worthy coin into games economy...isnt that a pretty complicated system?

Telakh · by **Telakh** » 19 Dec 2013, 14:46

Players issuing coins is a highly negative factor for the economy. You will immediately receive high inflation, money value will go down and the whole game process will end up at forging cash 24/7 by every character and stocking it in piles. That is a poor economy, and uo and other games suffered from it. More of that, metal spots are not infinite and as players disappear offline, their property and coins will vanish for the game foever.

H&H did not have any economy at all but as you used pearls and steeel for trade( it is hardly a barter) 100% of them were consumed and no inflation had happened.

To avoid inflation, cash inflow must be limited(be it a monster drop or another way) and outflow (npc traders and services)must be equal.
Pure barter will be limited by carried weight limitations.
I strongly support cash negative persentage. All the cash looses 1% of it's ammount every week for example. This will prevent players from stockpiling cash and will stimulate trade as it will be better for everyone to buy commodities even from young players in order to convert melting cash in to resources. Less money will be required for the game, prices will be stabilised, players will be playing roles, politics, building cities instead of hunting for gold.
There is absolutely no need for more cash in the game than it is required by the trade and ingame services like paying for claims. Plyers should craft goods and see them to players other then craft/hunt coins or sell stuff to npcs

Dailato · by **Dailato** » 19 Dec 2013, 16:32

I'm not entirely sure but, wasn't it allready the case that gold/silver were to be mined, with their primary use simply being currency? As I'm aware it was supposed to be fairly rare, and thus something worth fighting over.

Second source of income was vendors in the main NPC city I believe, where they would buy your crafted/gathered items for cash.

At any rate, there was allready going to be inflation in the game regardless, the method to combat this was (and to my knowledge still is) the money payed for having a guild/personal claim (not sure if this was taxes or just a flat fee for plunking down the building/claim) and possibly also the maintenance of your buildings (though this may simply require raw materials instead, who knows).

At any rate, I don't think the ability to "press coins" is required, as we can allready trade for the universal currencies of gold/silver by weight (and will be required to do so at trading posts, I believe) but I don't see the harm in it either, asuming turning gold into coins doesn't increase it's value, but perhaps just makes it easier to carry or some such.

Also being able to stamp coins with your own nations "mark" on them could be pretty cool, so I'd approve of that (low priority as it might be).

Yours truly -The Pope

Telakh · by **Telakh** » 19 Dec 2013, 21:04

Silver and Gold are materials for jewelry crafts. If minerals will become currency then it will be a game about mining, not feudalism

Atiden · by **Atiden** » 20 Dec 2013, 00:59

Silver was really the only metal to be turned into coins during the medieval period, by that time there was more than enough gold coins floating around from other civilizations, present and past, but it was not uncommon for a miner to find a precious ore and end up using that for trade instead of coin, but since this is a fictional place, we can stick to the need of gold and silver being changed into coin to make things simple.

I do agree with the fact that the players won't be able to handle the job of minting coins for the entire economy, not simply because they might inflate the economy by making tons of coins for themselves, but also because of the fact that the economy is liquid, and without something to tell them exactly how many coins they should make, they could end up making too few or too many coins just by accident.

The only real way I can see this working is there has to be a set maximum amount of money in the game, the gold and silver mined would be brought to the NPC city to be exchanged for their blank coin versions (as to why their blank I'll discuss later), where upon the person who mined the gold/silver would then go and spend their new money on items other players have made, thus the circulation of money begins, but once all the gold/silver is mined, that is it, no more money to be added into the circulation, eventually the players will decide just how much each coin is worth and just how many of those coins their item is worth, as for people who will end up without enough coin to buy items, trading of goods will take place.

For instance, I'm at a blacksmith's shop and I only have 40 silver coins, however a sword I want costs 60 silver coins, I can make up the difference by adding to my 40 silver coins enough wood or other materials (iron, copper, leather, etc.) in order to make up the difference.

This way we avoid inflation and at the same time make it more realistic, in a lot of places coin was absent do to taxes, bandits, or just an overall lack of gold/silver to actually make the coins for that area, so people had to rely on trade of goods and services in order to survive, also since the coins are blank it will allow well off kingdoms the ability to make alterations to the coins to make them "theirs", and the fact that the gold/silver has to be brought to the NPC city in-order to be turned into coins, the gold/silver is available to being bought by jewelers, the overall amount of money in the game will go down, but in the end the jewelry or where ever else the gold/silver went to be used for, could be melted down and reformed as coins, just like it would be possible for the coins to be melted down and used for jewelry and other items.

Arrakis · by **Arrakis** » 20 Dec 2013, 01:19

Well I don't if I missed anything, but as we are running this topic I would add few of my ideas, of just putting all possible existing items like armors, weapons, tools - just not potions - in some npc shop with some really high prices. That would let's say put a limit on how high may players put price on the items they will craft and people will just fight on these auctions to put the best price for the best items, which will basicly mean that they will lower and lower the prices possibly to the point, where they will earn 1 bronze coin more than they have spent on crafting itself, but I doubt it will happen, I never seen it happening in other games so that means people have some intelligence and they know that they should put price high enough so they would actually earn more for better crafts.

Also I think there should be just standard monetary system as it is in WoW = Gold / Silver / Bronze coins, with that small difference that here we would actually have physical money, money that can be put in the chest, dropped on the ground or stolen from the beaten player, and that's that. There should not be any limit, because who would make that limit of how much coins is in the game? There should be already kings and banks with all this gold that will just be spread among other players, which is really impossible to do as there will also be npc shops with armors and weapons in towns.

Honestly I think coin press in players hands might work only if they had their own cities and kingdoms, coins that has some value only within one country. But other than that it would cause a lot of chaos, but there again, all ores can be exploited and once last gold ore vein is gone, then the problem appears. If neither there is a limit of coins existing in the game or coin press that players can use to make their coins, then in the end in future there would be no more coins to make, and that would end with some players being poor from the start to the end.

It has to be realistic, but it has to be simple, and since we have main npc city, therefore we don't have to worry about it, because by the definition of lore all coins may just be made in that city.

Well, that's at least what I think.

En_Dotter · by **En_Dotter** » 20 Dec 2013, 02:30

I dont see the point of issuing a universal currency system or any currency system in a game such as this one. If we, the players, build everything then its implicit that we will make our own currency. Be it coins (of various materials) or even little twigs.

I give you 2 twigs for those 5 horses! - said the guy looking a strong white mare and a brown stud.

Make it 2 and a half and u got urself a deal! - happily replied the stable boy, hoping to finally invest his twigs into a brand new inn and forget being a servant but his own man.

Coin forges/presses should be cool. If my clan, as a guild or a kingdom, or whatever else issues coins then players will know the real worth of those.
If i take my coin 300km away and try to buy something i dont know if anyone would take that. Much like real stuff - USD and Eur are mostly accepted everywhere, but for the rest of the currencies we need to exchange.
Make it happen.
MINT DOZ KOINZ! NAO!

EDIT:
Important thing. Custom coins ("My realms silver coin" for example) could be really good thing. It could be used as a "password" for entering or trading in some areas. I want to set a base far away and a lot ppl that could visit that establishment could be potential danger. So i will issue 10 platinum coins that will be only used as a "hall pass" to certain individuals. And a lot more stuff.

Mighty_Chicken · by **Mighty_Chicken** » 20 Dec 2013, 03:05

While making your own coins and putting your faction 'stamp' on it would be cool its impractical. There are people in countries that have been trained for years irl to manage making money and yet there's still loads of inflation. If you let greedy gamers get their hands on these coin presses it would REALLY increase inflation. That strong white mare would now be worth 40 gold instead of those 2 and a half twigs.

Cian · by **Cian** » 20 Dec 2013, 03:48

That isn't going to change no matter what you do. The inflation is going to exist even if your tracking lumps of ore for mares as opposed to coins.

It's all going to be balanced based on the amount of work required to create somthing vs somthing else.

Wurm for example has coins but everything is valued by the number of actions required to make an item.

Haven and Hearth had coin presses and some people used them and some didn't. The main currency was usually raw metals or natural scavanged resources of higher qualities.

En_Dotter · by **En_Dotter** » 20 Dec 2013, 04:33

One more thing. No matter what currency we give to the players, be it twigs or coins or unicorn donkies with feathers instead of hair, players will dictate the "inflation". I have been playing cRPG for some time and there are 2 official currencies (silver for strategus and gold for "normal" servers). Prices of things are always fluctuating no matter what currency you use. Sometimes you can even use gold to buy stuff silver is used and vice versa. Other times there is no way. at one point price for the same item can go from one value to 30% higher or lower.
Its the simple law of supply and demand.
Of course at one point any currency will get inflated and will be "useless" but those spikes in value are natural. As much as currency will be "worthless" in a week or 2-3 it will be deflated and will be quite valuable. Also having multiple currencies helps the economy.
Exchanging currencies treats inflation and deflation.
Why not have a bit more complicated currency system for a change? Why always platinum, gold, silver, bronze or other universal things. I mean i most games 100 copper/bronze equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1q gold. That doesnt make it any more different than having only gold or only silver or any other metal.
But if we have totally different currencies we would be able to influence other realms/clans/orders more effectively.
Opens up more strategies how to either help each other or destroy each other.

Example: my realm has a lot of gold, and other realm has a lot of silver. That makes silver worth a lot for my realm. Instead of giving pure gold for pure silver i would give maybe 50% in gold and 50% in my gold coins. And also i would offer discounts for their ream population to buy stuff in my realm with gold coins.
Now it is possible that gold coins become main currency in both realms. That makes my realm the dictator or prices. I can just stop giving the coins and gold and forbid trade of those items. At that point the other realm needs to mint their own currency or to increase the production. I can damage or destroy their economy and then just take over.

Now you can say "well use any item as currency even ur gold ores...". Well, its not that easy. Currency is a final product. Gold ore is a raw material. U cant use raw material as effectively as currency itself. Why? Well they can import gold from a 3rd party but they cant make a coin with my realm's signature on it. The gold coin they would make would be useless in this situation. It is the same as if they minted their silver coins since i mentioned they had a lot of silver.

Please give us custom currency. It will open up a lot of love, hate, wars, alliances, deceits, plots, trade options, back stabbing, intrigue and on top of that MORE COMPLEX GAME PLAY.

Why do i want complex? Then you would need not only ppl who specialize in certain combat art or crafting art but also in certain administrative duties that are more in depth - Leader (king or w/e), Treasurer (guy in charge of healthy economy), Trade master (or caravan master for foreign trades), Generals (for army), and so on...
Make it be really hard to have a fully independent realm. When i say independent i am talking about dependance on other realms. Having all administrative functions filled with "perfect" individuals is hard and most of us will fail living to all aspects but that makes game interesting and more dynamic.

Please give "custom" currencies.

Telakh · by **Telakh** » 20 Dec 2013, 06:22

You speak from a completely different points.
Yes, in RL one could mint coints of exchange gold for currency.
Yes, in terms of roleplay it can be interesting to mint coins.
But that it is as different from real gameplay economy, as chalk from cheese.

Any developer faces this problem when creating an online world. There has been a number of scientific articles about gameplay economy.
And all of them lead to a single reasonable solution.

1. As a developer, you set up a currency price by linking currency to some of the ingame services and items. A castle construction deed(UO), a premium account feem payed with ingame currency (EVE), criminal indulgence(yes, it is all the vatican stuff) are good examples.
2. You do your best to adjust currency inflow and outflow to avoid inflation, currency for RL Cash exchange and currency grinding.
To do so you have to limit inflow by making it hard to obtain large ammounts but easy to get small ammounts for new players. For example, you make small monsters that drop 10 coins but limit their spawn so noone can kill them by thousands.
At the same time you create numerous services where players have to spend currency - an ouflow. Pay rent for the claim, buy construction deeds for houses, e.t.c.
3. Create an instrument to reduce cash, accumulated by players. This is missing in most of the games. One of the best solutions is the demurrage - a negative percent on the cash. This means that any cash accumulations will loose certain % every week. This will make pointless any enormous accumulations but at the same time new players will not suffer much.

Only by following these 3 points a developer can stabilize ingame economy.

Minting can be made for fun if gold mining is hard enough and gold coins can be reforged in to jewelry - in this way it will be kind of natural resources barter. But there should not be and there will never be a currency forged by players.
Thx for the attention.

En_Dotter · by **En_Dotter** » 20 Dec 2013, 15:41

Lets for a moment assume that i am 100% right and you are 100% wrong (and im not saying this is true, just for the sake of the argument).
This game is in alpha phase, or will be soon. That means it is a good time to test planned features as well as try out new things. Why not, maybe, just maybe, try out custom currency system during the alpha? It could always be reverted to more "standard" system if it fails. Nothing to lose here except some time to test things out.
I am sure that most of us, if not all of us, can agree that theory is great and perfect, but that practice is totally different. This is a unique chance to test somewhat unique monetary system in a MMO game.
I say devs do it at least in the alpha, for the sake of the development phase called "alpha phase".

Belaniell · by **Belaniell** » 20 Dec 2013, 16:44

Why should a player run currency not work? If the level of existing Gold in the world is limited. I think on the Bitcoin system is also a virtual currency and it work´s yet. I think there is no need of a Coin press and kingdom labeled currency only. Only gold bars 1kg in weight per unit and Gold Dust 1g weight per unit the same for silver, diamonds and other stuff for juwelry also can (will) be used as currency. I Think on a market system where you can buy stuff with all things like 1000 wooden boards for 1000 units of iron ore. it would be a nice social sience project

for that you could almost get grants from the government...

And think you can´t eat gold ...

Sargon · by **Sargon** » 20 Dec 2013, 19:16

En_Dotter wrote:Lets for a moment assume that i am 100% right and you are 100% wrong (and im not saying this is true, just for the sake of the argument).
This game is in alpha phase, or will be soon. That means it is a good time to test planned features as well as try out new things. Why not, maybe, just maybe, try out custom currency system during the alpha? It could always be reverted to more "standard" system if it fails. Nothing to lose here except some time to test things out.
I am sure that most of us, if not all of us, can agree that theory is great and perfect, but that practice is totally different. This is a unique chance to test somewhat unique monetary system in a MMO game.
I say devs do it at least in the alpha, for the sake of the development phase called "alpha phase".

I think that your proposal will be useless in alpha, 'cause inflation depends on players' number.
Btw, that's a pretty good idea, it will be cool, but it will need "economy studies" to implement it in a game. :fool:

Thokan · by **Thokan** » 20 Dec 2013, 19:30

Self-made money or not, it will not be used.

Since you won't recieve money from daily activities as you would in a normal MMO with quests, mobs, et cetera, you won't automatically receive money.

The argument of the starter town could be made although I doubt most of people will be in the vicinity or bother traveling/porting there.

Without money shoved down your throat the natural and logical cause of action is to trade items of real in-game use and value.

Cian · by **Cian** » 21 Dec 2013, 06:25

There is one instance in which you would be wrong. If coins were minted from gold, which was actually rare. Coins would actually become useful as a form of currency over simple barter economy simply because of the reduced carrying weight of using coins instead of objects.

But, that would require gold ore, coin presses, and the ability for gold coins to be remelted into bars or jewelry as desired.

Thokan · by **Thokan** » 21 Dec 2013, 10:38

Cian wrote:There is one instance in which you would be wrong. If coins were minted from gold, which was actually rare. Coins would actually become useful as a form of currency over simple barter economy simply because of the reduced carrying weight of using coins instead of objects.

But, that would require gold ore, coin presses, and the ability for gold coins to be remelted into bars or jewelry as desired.

It all depends on how the "sell to vendors in NPC city" works.

If it works then it is fine and dandy, and even the lonliest hermit has acess to gold in somewhat way.

If not, why would a lonely hermit, or everybody living a distance from the city even consider trading their sticks and stones for money?

Bottom line. If the proposed money system and it in-flows works then all is good. I'm just worried there wont be enough encouragement or too much hindrance for people to get to the city, and too much encouragement to settle down in the middle of nowhere.
City teleport anyone?

Antiblitz · by **Antiblitz** » 21 Dec 2013, 21:27

Thokan wrote:Self-made money or not, it will not be used.

Since you won't recieve money from daily activities as you would in a normal MMO with quests, mobs, et cetera, you won't automatically receive money.

The argument of the starter town could be made although I doubt most of people will be in the vicinity or bother traveling/porting there.

Without money shoved down your throat the natural and logical cause of action is to trade items of real in-game use and value.

pretty much this ^, allowing coins to be made from gold should be only for simple purchases within the starter town(buying a fancy red shirt, or maybe a nice tool). Allowing a player ran economy out of something like gold will end up having groups hoard massive quantities of it, ruining any bit of the economy for anyone who isnt willing to submit to large groups. The trade of goods should be just about the only resources being peddled. This allows any person or group, large or small to be a part of the economy and not feel feeble.

H&H tried it, and it was thrown out, never used, because it was pointless, you couldnt consume it or use it for anything, and it will be the same if used here. Allowing the community to do the work for you by creating an economy for itself is the best bet, as a developer, you do nothing, and the game creates its own lore, killing two birds with the cast of a single stone.

Cian · by **Cian** » 22 Dec 2013, 17:09

The hoarding will occur regardless of the currency used. It doesn't matter if the trade is stockpiles of bricks, weapons, armor, raw iron, raw marble. ETc.

Economic inflation is impossible to avoid in a game with no resource or money sink.

Thokan · by **Thokan** » 22 Dec 2013, 17:59

Cian wrote:The hoarding will occur regardless of the currency used. It doesn't matter if the trade is stockpiles of bricks, weapons, armor, raw iron, raw marble. ETc.

Economic inflation is impossible to avoid in a game with no resource or money sink.

But every resource has a sink. There would be no inflation.

With hoarding the prices would go up for a temporal time maybe, granted, but that is all.

Everything is of practical use and has a sink. There are too many diverse items for the system to inflate.

BartusPL · by **BartusPL** » 27 Dec 2013, 14:43

Maybe Pope and Cardinal's system can help here?
Only 10(or more) character's with 100 point skill, allowed to making money.

Antiblitz · by **Antiblitz** » 27 Dec 2013, 18:13

BartusPL wrote:Maybe Pope and Cardinal's system can help here?
Only 10(or more) character's with 100 point skill, allowed to making money.

you would then cause a void between player groups.

Sting5 · by **Sting5** » 30 Dec 2013, 13:11

It seems that monetary system depends on how the developers will leave economy strictly to players, or try to balance things with help of NPC:
If LIF will be totaly player populated and controled world, there's no need to add universal currency. Players will decide themselves what is the best object to represent money. As Adam Smith said - the free market has an invisible hand, controlling the macroeconomy.
If we will have NPC's as bankers, then universal currency is the best choice. It's like in real world - if You have government, then it's most likely controlling your currency: value, quantity of coins and cashflow.

To be honest, I start to think that it would be a great idea adding tax collectors and a king, that would control the state treasury... Something like in medieval ages, if You wanted to plow kings land, you had to pay him various taxes (in products, resources or coins), usually so big, that family of less than five people could not survive

Thokan · by **Thokan** » 30 Dec 2013, 21:40

Sting5 wrote:It seems that monetary system depends on how the developers will leave economy strictly to players, or try to balance things with help of NPC:
If LIF will be totaly player populated and controled world, there's no need to add universal currency. Players will decide themselves what is the best object to represent money. As Adam Smith said - the free market has an invisible hand, controlling the macroeconomy.
If we will have NPC's as bankers, then universal currency is the best choice. It's like in real world - if You have government, then it's most likely controlling your currency: value, quantity of coins and cashflow.

To be honest, I start to think that it would be a great idea adding tax collectors and a king, that would control the state treasury... Something like in medieval ages, if You wanted to plow kings land, you had to pay him various taxes (in products, resources or coins), usually so big, that family of less than five people could not survive

They are planning both a tax system for the realms and stimulating universal economy with NPCs, if I recall correctly.

Proximo · by **Proximo** » 01 Jan 2014, 04:46

Buildings require maintenance which requires resources which makes it a sink. Food is always being eaten which is a sink. Maybe you farm alot and cut wood but need stone for a castle so you go trade that stuff for other stuff. Maybe you didn't build near a mountain. Trade will be good especially with localized banking and ahving coins would basically be the represented value of liquidated items.

You sell your chickens for a sum of cash which you can hold onto easier than chickens and use to purchase anything else. Maybe someone is selling fish and doesn't want to trade for chickens. Give him money which translates into anything else.

Antiblitz · by **Antiblitz** » 01 Jan 2014, 06:02

Proximo wrote:Buildings require maintenance which requires resources which makes it a sink. Food is always being eaten which is a sink. Maybe you farm alot and cut wood but need stone for a castle so you go trade that stuff for other stuff. Maybe you didn't build near a mountain. Trade will be good especially with localized banking and ahving coins would basically be the represented value of liquidated items.

You sell your chickens for a sum of cash which you can hold onto easier than chickens and use to purchase anything else. Maybe someone is selling fish and doesn't want to trade for chickens. Give him money which translates into anything else.

where is this money coming from? who is creating it? who is circulating it? thats the problem, there arent npc's giving away money, it will be players who must create it. That in turn makes it useless, as creating currency will be thrown aside to just trade items for items amongst everybody but the richest of land owners.

BartusPL · by **BartusPL** » 01 Jan 2014, 07:03

Maybe some limit can help.
For example:

First options:
Character with 100point of skill can craft 10 golden coin's(or 100 silver coin's) basically.
1,2 months 0 gold.
3 months = 10 gold.
4=9
.....
12 months(and for rest life) = 1 gold.

Let's say that playing 5000 people, 500 player's have 100 point's(of corse not in first month). It's give us 5000 golden coin's per first and second month.

1,2= 0
3=10x500=5000
4=9x500=4500
5=8x500=4000
6=7x500=3500
7=6x500=3000
8=5x500=2500
9=4x500=2000
10=3x500=1500
11=2x500=1000
12=1x500=500
--------------------------
=27500 golden coin's in first year
-------------------------
=6000 golden coin's in next year's

Second option's, permanent limit for every month's. Let's say 1 gold for month for player with 100 point of skill.
=6000 golden coin's in every year.

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