ATTENTION: Aspirant Businessmen and Town Leaders

[returner]

And like I said before, I know my chars and I know what they would be interested in. And any type of coin system... they wouldn't. THEY enjoy things the way they are regardless. You can think what you want, cause truthfully I could care less.

Ok cool thanks for your somewhat negative contribution.

[Cdls]

And let us not forget the big problem with coinage right now..

counterfeiting would be so easy!

[Mafia Salad]

From an in character perspective, is there any value to currency? I have limestone, I want oil. I can trade my limestone for your oil? Why clutter up the process with a bunch of coins? I understand the real life reasons, but how much do those apply in Cantr? Resource for resources trade and self gathering is just easier.

You better give any of my characters a reason for wanting coins instead of their desired resources/tool/etc. for any of them to buy into the idea.

[Piscator]

I tend to agree. Currency is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. At least in Cantr. People have tried to introduce coins for a long time, not because there is a need for them, but out of the feeling that a "real" society needs a currency.

[Polt86]

A real society needs coins because people generally don't go around carrying huge quantities of some resource. Coins are far lighter to carry than their equivalent value in resources (at least for most resources).

Would you rather carry around 2 $100 bills, or $200 worth of paper/wood/stone/iron/...? You wouldn't even be able to carry $200 worth of most materials.

In real life, it makes no sense carrying around huge quantities of anything most of the time. In Cantr however, it makes no real difference, so there is little point to coins.

[SumBum]

From an OOC perspective, I see Cantr currency as far too much effort for very little value. Bartering works well and is much easier. One of my chars has had a very bad experience with currency and would definitely be against it and anyone who even mentions coins. Not sure about my other chars - some would probably go along with whatever, some might question it or be skeptical, etc etc. As a player I don't see it ever happening (with the current system of production) in the English zone. I think some of the other language zones have had some success.

A real society needs coins because people generally don't go around carrying huge quantities of some resource. Coins are far lighter to carry than their equivalent value in resources (at least for most resources).

Would you rather carry around 2 $100 bills, or $200 worth of paper/wood/stone/iron/...? You wouldn't even be able to carry $200 worth of most materials.

In real life, it makes no sense carrying around huge quantities of anything most of the time. In Cantr however, it makes no real difference, so there is little point to coins.

Exactly.

[AlchemicRaker]

A real society needs coins because people generally don't go around carrying huge quantities of some resource. Coins are far lighter to carry than their equivalent value in resources (at least for most resources).

Would you rather carry around 2 $100 bills, or $200 worth of paper/wood/stone/iron/...? You wouldn't even be able to carry $200 worth of most materials.

In real life, it makes no sense carrying around huge quantities of anything most of the time. In Cantr however, it makes no real difference, so there is little point to coins.

IRL we use coins simply because theres too many resources, and most jobs aren't based on the collection of resources (like cantr is). The advantage you state about weight is true, but thats something of a by-product.

- Natso

[Polt86]

Cantr is also largely missing the entire services sector of the economy, for which bartering would make very little sense most of the time. In a bartering system, what would you ever pay a secretary or an accountant for example?

I guess you could argue that you could pay a car, a house, food, jewelry, electronics...

But it would be hard to find some one who is willing to work a year (or some other relatively long period of time) for you with the agreement that at the end they would receive a car, as an example). In Cantr, this is extremely common to see.

The issue is that in real life, we have many diverse needs, most of which have very little in common. Because of the diverse needs, a common method of payment is needed.

In Cantr, a character only really needs food, which is usually easily obtained. Everything else is luxury. This leaves little need for a common method of payment.

That being said, Cantr does use the informal currency of days of work in most places, which is similar to a monetary system.

[AlchemicRaker]

Cantr is also largely missing the entire services sector of the economy, for which bartering would make very little sense most of the time. In a bartering system, what would you ever pay a secretary or an accountant for example?

I was thinking something similar (that coinage would be useful if there were services involved) but I forgot that IRL we have so much services. The coins are worthless until their users attribute value to them, and for whatever reason we are not giving them value. The IRL value is the simplicity that comes from avoiding the barter system. If furniture was mobile, it and other luxury items would be candidates for coin exchange. But thats also requiring business and industry that I haven't noticed in cantr.


Thinking about it again, it would only take one organized top-tier town to actually make coin valuable. Say they produce all sorts of things, not just steel weapons, but lenses, containers, and luxury items. They send out their merchants who have set exchange rates for coin (they will collect resources based on the exchange rate) and they only sell their luxury items in exchange for coin. Say there was a route that three merchants take (circular), where they'd resupply at their hometown and then go out to their different towns that they supply. The coin would gain value as a way to get items otherwise unattainable.

Stuff.

- Natso

[SekoETC]

Coins are good for when a person is saving up to something big or if they have no particular needs at the moment but might have some in the future.

I think it would be good if there were more dual action foods, even though you worked to get rid of them, because it would allow more diversity for meals. When you're a rich person, you can buy or produce a lot of stuff but eat only a fraction of it, especially of the stuff that seems tastiest, just because it's healing foods and you never get hurt. It would be out of character for rich people to start whipping or cutting themselves just to be able to enjoy some ice cream or spinach soup. Also there could be more energy foods even if they weren't efficient, because people get tired due to several reasons, so that would enable eating/drinking something. If Cantrians had limited stomach capacity then it could even be made so that people could eat anything they like, even if they weren't wounded or tired, just to enjoy themselves. I have at least one character who wouldn't care about the costs if you were actually able to eat more than now. I think it would also contribute to the game if characters lost weight when they were starving, and gained weight if they ate more than they need, so people could get fat as a defense strategy against dragging. Also it would be a status symbol, "I can afford to eat more than what's necessary to keep me alive". This would increase consumption, and not in an artificial way.

As for the service sector, at least prostitution can work in Cantr, although it might be difficult for potential customers and service providers to find each other, perhaps due to the social stigma that makes it difficult to mention you're either looking for or ready to sell such services. If it was more common, then people who never rp sex might also consider if it would fit the personality of my character to buy services from hookers, and you could simply tell the other player you don't want to go into details. Just fade to black, the girl (or guy, why not?) gets her money and your character gets a certain reputation, whether it's a charmer or a socially awkward person who could never have a real relationship, or an abusive chauvinist pig. In LARPs people substitute shoulder rubbing or some other innocent pastime to simulate sexual activities, while in Cantr there mainly seems to be a division to players who go all the way and players whose characters seem completely asexual. Simulated stuff seems to be a minority.

Another service that can work is massaging people. It's asexual so there's technically a wider pool of potential customers, but it takes a bit of creativity to describe massage in enough detail to create a satisfactory experience, and you also need to be observant to the signs of when the customer's player is starting to get bored and it's time to start advancing things faster or call it a day. Also it takes time in real life because if it's not finished in one session, you might end up posting back and forth for days and never be quite sure when the other player is online and available.

Also one thing I'd like to see in Cantr is restaurants. I remember Kallie's in Tircqi, they had a pretty wide selection. They could give you food to go or serve it on the spot. Now that plates have been in the game for a while, a restaurant could just assemble a plate and give it to the customer, who'll take things out and eat them once they wake up. A good place would measure the weights so that there are little or no leftovers. You're not buying supplies for a year, you're buying a fancy meal that should consist of at least two or three but preferably more resources. It would be good if it could be coded so that a person could set a container as a preferred location to eat from, instead of eating things from the inventory.

To liven things up, I may ask other people to fetch stuff for me or to help me carry things, even though it would be faster to do it myself, because it creates interaction. It just requires being able to trust that the other player will log in within some reasonable time and your character won't have to go starving when they could've gone to pick up food for themselves, or embarrassing oneself in front of a trading partner by making them wait.

[EchoMan]

From what I've seen, the raw gold will get you a better deal than the gold coins. Most characters don't know how to value or react to coins. But then again, if a town made a whole bunch of coins and started pying DOW's with coins they might have something going. But I think it would require quite a lot of people being !employees" to get this system working.

[SekoETC]

Yes, people will have to be ensured that you can buy more than it's weight in gold with your gold coin, or more than it's weight in iron with your iron coin, and that they can be exchanged for all the items and resources in town.

[Dudel]

The problem is people in Cantr want to skip a step.

Money didn't come from nothing. People didn't get it in their head to simply print cash. First they made a common resource their form of currency (gold, silver and copper) and slowly they said "Wait a minute, this is a pain in the anus. Lets get a better idea and make paper stuff that matches a value of gold in a bank (which they actually had somewhere FYI) and exchange that instead." Now there isn't much of anything backing your paper bill other than trust in your government. That's another thing, people have to trust the government/bank in order for coins to work. In Cantr you can't even trust your partner, let alone some random jerk you don't know.

Cantr coins have no backing value other than what has gone into making them... if I recall correctly those resources are worthless for the post part so that makes coins worthless for the most part.

[AlchemicRaker]

You're right... they used to have certificates and such, which could be traded, or exchanged for what they were backing.


What I've thought about, personally, is that sealed envelopes may be better for enchanging than gold coins. In the case of gold coins, which are fakeable, the coin shouldn't ever really be given more value than the gold that went into making it. But Sealed envelopes can't be forged. The problem is that they can't be stacked, either, but whatever. If there was a banker who sealed a ton of envelopes and kept a vault to exchange the certificates in if needed... yeah.

Cheers
- Natso

[returner]

You're right... they used to have certificates and such, which could be traded, or exchanged for what they were backing.


What I've thought about, personally, is that sealed envelopes may be better for enchanging than gold coins. In the case of gold coins, which are fakeable, the coin shouldn't ever really be given more value than the gold that went into making it. But Sealed envelopes can't be forged. The problem is that they can't be stacked, either, but whatever. If there was a banker who sealed a ton of envelopes and kept a vault to exchange the certificates in if needed... yeah.

Cheers
- Natso

This is a nice idea too.. but I -think- envelopes can be forged too. I won't post how here, but I think they can...