Currency's effect on storage

[SgtPepper]

Everyone seems to believe that HGL is Diablo 3.0, and as such, will stick to certain methods.

The method which I wish to address is that of currency.

FSS, i believe, has the intention to actually put value behind Pa - unlike gold in Diablol. This is very important. This means that rather than lug around every worthwhile item you've ever found, you can simply throw it up in an auction, or trade it for Pal. Ultimately, this should decrease the need for extensive storage, as Pal does not require space.

The real question of the thread is directed towards the developers:

Will Pal have value?

*Commence discussion of Pal's value's effects upon... everything*

[OnyxAbyss]

As long as the auction house uses Pal for making transactions, it will always be worth something. The inflation totally depends on how easy it is to obtain said pal. If it is easy to get, prices will go up, and eventually people may stop using the auction house as much and just opt to trade items in person. Or, pal will be reasonably hard to come by, and prices will inflate much slower. It is impossible to stop inflation, but you can tone down the rate at which it inflates.

[Alhanna]

i sure hope it has vaule. it's much easier for some of us who aren't that business minded to be able to look at things in terms of numbers.

[David Ritchey]

I hope there isn't an attainable cap on Palladium like there was in D1 and D2...

[zoner7]

I've mentioned this quote on Guru before when people were discussing this topic:

Milton Friedman said, "the pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value."

What this means is that currency is only valuable because those who use it agree that it is has value. It would be worthless unless those who use it assigned it a common value.

Similarly, as future users of the palladium currency, we will be able to assign this currency a value. When someone has an item to trade, offer palladium in return. If people continue to do this, it will achieve value.

Claiming that Palladium will be worthless unless there are services is a faulty argument, because there will always be items to trade for using your palladium: this is a service enough and practical reason for palladium to have value.

[David Ritchey]

The lack of maximum gold and the gold % lost upon death really inspired medium to high players to seek something of more possible real value than could be conveniently attained with gold in d2. It would take an absurd amount of very high level mules to be able to offer or accept an amount of gold which would reflect the efforts necessary to attain any kind of rare, good items. And even after aquiring such characters, trading it would be anything but safe.
An auction-house in D2 using gold would remain un-used for most things. Who wants to trade their Soj away for 1 million gold, and their WF away for 10 million? Not me. Finding an Uber took far more time and effort than could be represented by the monetary offers safely possible in D2.

The $ system will be much better if players don't lose a huge amount of money upon death, and they can store amounts of money which can actually equal the average effort value of the items.

[northrop]

based on the rate and amount of dropped Palladium, and the prices of items and/or services... i can't see the Palladium being any more valuable then it was in D2.

and if that's the case, then the auction house is in trouble. if people trade with items only, people will value different items differently.

silly example; say i want to trade my Shako, and someone puts up 5 sojs, and then someone else puts a single Jah rune. depending on what i need, i might get the sojs, or i might pick the rune. but with no monetary value, i don't win, since i don't get the best deal.

with Palladium, this problem is solved, because i trade my item to the highest bitter, and i always get the best possible deal.

in other words... it won't be long before some Relic becomes a SoJ of HG:L :(

[Thecla]

Will Pal have value?

Short answer: No. ;)

[Exion]

Palladium needs to have value. Dealing with "item for item" trades made it tougher to know what things were worth,and I don't think the auction house will matter much.

[Kittenbitten]

Unfortunately, pal having value, will make the influx of bots and chinese farmers (due to free play) unbearable methinks. It could really f up their subscription system potentially if people are playing constantly, but none of them are paying the sub.

It would be best for the economy though.


in other words... it won't be long before some Relic becomes a SoJ of HG:L :(

Well in D2 they actually did have a currency post 1.10. It was Pgems. It was attainable by everyone, it was usable and it was tradable for everything with the exception of certain high end runewords. And even then I believe in some cases with the high rune duping, anything could potentially be bought with pgems.

There is always the chance that HGL will have something similar to pgems, that, while not palladium, will have some monetary value to players.

[SgtPepper]

There is always the chance that HGL will have something similar to pgems, that, while not palladium, will have some monetary value to players.

Wouldn't it just be simpler if Pal had value?

Once again: Botting will be infinitely more difficult in HGL because the randomization, lack of LAN for reverse engineering, and lack of a "Click-to-kill" game play.

[Kittenbitten]

Wouldn't it just be simpler if Pal had value?

Once again: Botting will be infinitely more difficult in HGL because the randomization, lack of LAN for reverse engineering, and lack of a "Click-to-kill" game play.

Well botting was possible in both Diablo 2 and WoW. And while it might take a while, I wouldnt underestimate modern java scripters. With color recognition and programs that simulate mouseclicks it would be unwise to say something like "its too hard".

And theres still always cheap labor to do it, but I imagine labor will go up in china shortly, once people realize that some chinese people are super rich and others are working for 14 cents an hour.

[Sp3tSnAz]

While I would like it to have value to increase ease of trading (as no matter what the means of trade is, there will be some kind of botters, and things like taxing those and so on are the ways to prevent them, not to make value of gold worth less), however there was a quote on here a while ago where FSS said they want the value to be like it was in D2, ie. easy to obtains, which imo means it won't be used as a trading medium.

How Auction houses will work though is beyond me in this case... Mayb some other trading currency will be introduced to auction houses... for example broken down item parts from a rare type of armour or something... no idea really... however I do hope gold gets some value eventually....

[Catalyst27]

Hmmm.. so long as it's not as worthless as Diablo 2 gold i don't mind. Whether it is easy or hard to obtain would only mean that prices fluctuate accordingly and not determine whether it useful or useless.

[Sp3tSnAz]

Yeah, but easy to obtain like in D2 was a joke... one high level armour got you 35k and you could find those very easily...

Judging from was FSS has said, various vids, and ppl form Cday, it seems that the drop rates atm at least are as high as this, so it's way too easy to get... It doesnt matter what stuff is worth, because there will be a max gold to be able to hold, so gold needs to be much harder to obtain in large quantities imo for auction houses to work...

[Wobbley]

I am pretty sure they have seen the mistake of diablo and would not do the same mistake twice. Unless they WANT to ;)

[ScytheNoire]

Palladium will have value as long as there are things to purchase that are worthwhile. Diablo II's gold had no value since there was nothing to really buy beyond wasting it gambling for random items.

But this isn't the 90's, it's almost a decade later, and game designers have learned a few things since then. As long as there are things worthwhile to spend money on, currency will have value. An auction house is key, but so are other things. Just look at World of Warcraft, which did a superb job of creating an economy. Flagship has to strive for that, and I believe they will.

Times have changed, stop comparing this to Diablo or Diablo II, they aren't even going to be remotely similar. All you who are expecting Diablo III need to go play something else, this isn't Diablo III, it's Hellgate: London. And there will never be a true Diablo III, just like Fallout 3 will not be the true Fallout 3.

[Sp3tSnAz]

It's not that Scythe, it's the fact that they said in a number of places (not looking for them now) that the gold in this game will have value like in did in Diablo 2, and they have said this multiple times, so it's not US comparing it, its FSS.

That statement worries me...

[Reptile]

Palladium would be worth something, if we could buy something that REALLY affects the character/gameplay. More inventory or stash space, maybe? Or WoW -like bags. Stuff that we cant get from monsters.

In Diablo, I had tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of money that I never used. I looted all my equipment, the potions, everything.

[Bastillian]

Didn't they mention that you need Pa to use those machines in stations??(can't remember what they are exactly) This should add too the value aswell no??

[Sp3tSnAz]

Thats the thing... to me value doesn't come just by having something to spend it on, but also easy of obtaining it...

Why spend items to get the Pd, wen you can obtain the same ammount in under 10 mins.. thats what Im hoping doesnt happen and that it's actually difficult and time consuming to obtain like in WoW...

[chakl]

Didn't they mention that you need Pa to use those machines in stations??(can't remember what they are exactly) This should add too the value aswell no??

Yup, you will be using the PA mainly for equipment upgrades, and some random occurances which i cant go into detail at the moment.

before it was also said that there may be an auction house, if there is an auction house then you have nothing to worry about as PA will have value there and will become more universal.... then SOJs

[Tingi]

Pal may also be used for the limited respecing that is going to be added.




mod: excuse me?

[zoner7]

Hmmm.. so long as it's not as worthless as Diablo 2 gold i don't mind. Whether it is easy or hard to obtain would only mean that prices fluctuate accordingly and not determine whether it useful or useless.

That is something that I have tried to stress for such a long time. Totally agree with you.

Additionally, someone mentioned earlier that gold was a little transitory, because it was too easy to lose, particularly after death. I think it is key to change this feature. Maybe make it so that you can lose gold in your inventory but not in your stash, and allow your stash to hold an infinite amount of gold.

[Scourge]

I find in MMO's that currency like gold or whatever is only valuable if there are cool and expensive things to buy with it. But the things I am talking about are mounts, housing, specialty-vendor items, etc...

In other words, money is only useful if there's something to buy with it.

Otherwise, people will TRADE items rather then buy/sell them for gold, because at least you're getting something tangible in return.

Gold in Diablo 2 was used for repairing items and gambling. That was it. Therefore it was largely useless. That's why duped items like SOJs became the game's primary currency - because every class could use a SOJ to boost their character's skills.

[SpellsofWar]

In the end I do hope this doesn't turn into another barter economy, but easy or hard I'm good at earning cash. If its as hard as WoW then I'll be fine, if it is any easier then its less time spent for me. 5.2k gold in two weeks says to me that I think I'll be fine when it comes to farming in HgL.

FOR THE Pd!!!!!

[Tingi]

mod: excuse me?

?

[SpellsofWar]

?

lol

[SgtPepper]

I was curious about what Chakl was moderating... Damn my late arrival!

[zoner7]

People keep stating that PD will not be valuable if there is nothing cool to spend it on.

I'd like to introduce an economy where PD can buy you anything you desire: any piece of equipment in the game.

People seem to believe that this is impossible, unless FSS implements ways for them to spend their gold. Players want cool things to buy with their money. They want to set themselves a goal to glean a certain amount of gold so that they may buy a special perk. But I say screw this system. Why would I want to save my money up for a little perk when it could be used to buy anything my imagination could fathom?

Every item in the game would be worth a set amount of PD, determined by supply and demand, as well as how much currency is circulating throughout the economy. Let's say that I wanted to buy item X, which is worth 10,000 PD, a price that has been deemed by the members of the economy. In order to trade for this item, I would not need to find a different item with equal worth of item X; I would only need to find several lesser items whose sum worth is equal to that of item X, 10,000 PD, or items whose sum total is equal to 10,000 PD - how much gold I currently have.

Let's say that I have 2,000 gold, and I am still trying to find enough money to buy item X. After playing for an hour, I find 1000 PD and items A, B, and C, with the respective values of 500 PD, 3,000 PD, and 3,500 PD. Notice that if you add up my current PD and the values of these items, I will have 10,000 PD, the worth of item X. In theory, I should be able to do one of two things to trade for item X: I could either trade items A, B, C for their respective worths to other players, so that I now have 10,000 PD, and then find a player willing to trade item X, or I trade items A, B, and C, as well as my 3,000 PD to a player with item X, because the cumulative worth of my assets is 10,000 PD.

Thoughts to be developed further:

(I'm just jotting these down, so I don't forget them. I plan to elaborate. You don't even need to read it if you don't want to. I would just like to examine the fallacies in my thinking and delve into specifics.)

Players would prefer fewer items, raising the cost of the item that has more value. But isn't this just basic supply and demand? Wouldn't it be incorporated into the items price? But the number of items used to trade for an item will change every item. How do we accommodate this?

FSS could keep track of the worths of each item, reducing scams, because every player would know how much his item was worth. There would be a set price for each item. This price would need to constantly fluctuate based on user transactions. Perhaps a system could be devised to monitor every trade, and it could be used to calculate the worth of every item based on the community's supple of this item demand and for it.
Prices would not be regulated by FSS; they would be solely determined by the players.

What if a player deputes the worth of a certain item. He believes it is worth more than the value dictated by FSS. He could ask for more PD for this item. This would alter the set worth of the item.-

Is this system too regulated? Does it take some of the fun out of the game? Do we really want to know the exact worth of everything? Would it be better to give a range of value?

It would start off by examining only PD trades, using this to determine initial worth.

What if items are too diverse? Maybe specific mods, which could be the primary cause of variation, in certain items would raise or lower that items value a specific amount. Would items that are too diverse, not help foster, but, require a barter system?

[chakl]

I dont think anyone involved with the game has confirmed his point. just a note.


But anyway, I like to use the old saying, "your baseball card is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it."
to each his own. A cabalist item is worthless to a hunter, but to another cabalist who specializes with that item, it will obviously be worth more.

[SpellsofWar]

I dont think anyone involved with the game has confirmed his point. just a note.

I've noticed that in this forum fact or complete fiction people can and will make a lengthy discussion on it.

[Scourge]

Moneysinks are the key.

There needs to be in-game moneysinks to make currency worth anything.

Player to Player buying and selling is not reliable enough to sustain a working virtual economy. You need the developers to introduce currency-based items like mounts, housing, etc.. etc...

Since this game doesn't not use mounts or any sort of persistent world, it's going to be difficult to introduce attractive moneysinks that you can show-off for the sake of status.

Repairs/Durability, Buying skill respecs, Gambling are some basic moneysinks, but there needs to be more "epic" stuff you can purchase.

Perhaps they could introduce stuff like paying to buy more inventory/stash slots?

Anyway - Flagship needs to offer stuff that we can "SAVE UP" for - that way we have a reason to acquire and save our currency.

[chodelord]

Perhaps they could introduce stuff like paying to buy more inventory/stash slots?

I have a total fetish for buying inventory space in rpgish games. In fact if the game had this I don't think I would care about having enough character slots to play each class.

I would just pick one and just to optimize his storage space. It would be something cool to do after you finished your build.