why currency wont work in Cantr

[km17]

Ive ran through a few possiblities as to why currency will not work, so here i go.

One IG we dont Value gold or silver more than iron or steel, people would rather have iron and steel than get rich with gold. face it in RL gold and silver dont do much either, we put more value in them than they are worth but we dont do that ingame so untill we put more value in gold and silver currency does not even stand a chance.

second is the lack of roleplaying in most areas, using coins requires you to roleplay heavily to make people belive that it is worth something.

third is that we use way to much OOC knowledge IG to get things done, how does a newspawn know how to make iron? how does a newspawn know how to make steel? it seems they are born with this knowledge and you never see someone explain it, again that comes done to good roleplaying.

why i posted this. so we can fix it. knowing our problem is the first step to fixing it, we will always use OOC knowledge to some point but we must try to limit that, think, gold, silver, copper should all be worth more than iron and steel. and roleplay more than you ever have you dont need to be on all the time to roleplay very well.

[T-shirt]

Decay is the key to coins as has been written in other posts.

One gold coin left in a drawer will retain more value after three years then one gold coin worth of butter in that same drawer.

[km17]

also the lack of multiple town goverments, everyone seem to want each town to be its own goverment, face it most goverments (not all though) are bigger than just one city, that is also the reason why we dont have wars IG, no one is pledging allegiance to a single goverment that spans 5 or 6 towns. this is probbly the second biggest contributer that makes currency not work and the game not as exciting.

[Piscator]

third is that we use way to much OOC knowledge IG to get things done, how does a newspawn know how to make iron? how does a newspawn know how to make steel? it seems they are born with this knowledge and you never see someone explain it, again that comes done to good roleplaying.

As far as I know they ARE born with that knowledge. If I'm not totally wrong newspawns are allowed to know the contents of the wiki, including the knowledge of making iron and steel.

[zisked]

The cause behind most problems in Cantr, in my opinion, is that the admin is trying to implement things that sound great in theory, but don't work in practice because Cantr does not have the number of players required. It's premature to expect players who already spend a great deal of time travelling and collecting resources to switch over to a coinage system - how many tens of thousands of years was humanity around before coinage came into play?

There aren't enough stable town governments, let alone regional governments, to enforce coinage when the fact of the matter is that any character - OOC aside - would rather have a new sword or tool or shield that will immediately improve their life and which they have the ability to earn through manual labor - than a coin that can't be eaten or used or traded.

Honestly, at this rate, I don't see the use of coins becoming wide-spread in this game. The features have already outstripped pragmatic growth and led to an environment hostile to role play.

[dryn]

why i posted this. so we can fix it. knowing our problem is the first step to fixing it,

Fair enough statement but I don't see why the lack of a currency is a problem (as itself that is). It is a tool, if it is needed, it will be used.

I know of one place that employed a system that used coins. He was an employer of a well established factory. I doubt I am saying anything new but feign currency needs trust (in the less intimate sense of the word). He had trust as he was churning out loads and loads of iron.

He built a system that needed coins and he had the trust of his employees and it worked rather well.

(Anyway, given an ease of proximity to both, I would rather make a gold currency then an iron one (backed by iron still of course). For the only reason that it saves a little iron.)

[Marian]

...gold, silver, copper should all be worth more than iron and steel. and roleplay more than you ever have you dont need to be on all the time to roleplay very well.

Uh...why? Pretending gold is valuable just because it's valuable in RL and in most fantasy games is about as OOC as you can get, IMHO.

[The Sociologist]

Oh boy, I've written on this so many times. What you need for coinage to be acceptable is roughly the following: divisibility, durability, convenience of handling and transport, and convenience of exchange value per unit.

Given that any character in Cantr can divide any substance into amounts as small as 1 gram, whereas coins are less divisible, and given that a pile of raw meat stored indoors will last just as long as a gold coin (!), and given the utter tedium involved in manufacturing coins then handing them over to someone 1 coin at a time (!)...

...you can see why coins have not done well in Cantr. They violate all the basic parts of the definition of what coinage is in the first place. So asking for better roleplay is not a solution here. Indeed, roleplaying irrational outcomes would be a curse.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

If you wanted "coinage" to work in Cantr, then the only possibility would be to have "grams of coinage" just like any other material (so at least it isn't any less divisible than other materials), institute rotting for all materials but with coinage exempt, and add some other bonus that will make it easier to handle and transport. Maybe make it not contribute to your inventory weight (because you're assumed to be carrying it in a separate money belt or some such - that was Mykey's suggestion, and a good one).

[km17]

Marian

Uh...why? Pretending gold is valuable just because it's valuable in RL and in most fantasy games is about as OOC as you can get, IMHO.

Yes it is OOC but there are no resources in cantr that are valued beyond thier actual worth, and you can make coins of them, they are just examples if you can come up with better ones post them.


Piscator

km17 wrote:

third is that we use way to much OOC knowledge IG to get things done, how does a newspawn know how to make iron? how does a newspawn know how to make steel? it seems they are born with this knowledge and you never see someone explain it, again that comes done to good roleplaying.



As far as I know they ARE born with that knowledge. If I'm not totally wrong newspawns are allowed to know the contents of the wiki, including the knowledge of making iron and steel.

yes but at twenty years old do you know such a thing, i pesonaly hate the wiki for it contributes to the use of OOC knowledge, this part comes to roleplaying and becuase very few of the playerbase roleplay extensivly knowing how to make iron/steel is generally okay to know OOC and use IG. Its easy to find out for yourself ingame though, build a primitive smelting furnace and look for yourself.

zisked

The cause behind most problems in Cantr, in my opinion, is that the admin is trying to implement things that sound great in theory, but don't work in practice because Cantr does not have the number of players required. It's premature to expect players who already spend a great deal of time travelling and collecting resources to switch over to a coinage system - how many tens of thousands of years was humanity around before coinage came into play?

There aren't enough stable town governments, let alone regional governments, to enforce coinage when the fact of the matter is that any character - OOC aside - would rather have a new sword or tool or shield that will immediately improve their life and which they have the ability to earn through manual labor - than a coin that can't be eaten or used or traded.

Cantr Admins are just making the game more real, i like the new challenges but many players who have been playing awhile are resistant to the changes simply becuase the are new.

and its true, since coinage isnt spread anywhere and coins are worthless except for the value of the materials in it anyone would rather have food or a shield, think how many iron coins are in an iron shield, that goes with the coins not being based off a material we value more than it realy is worth.

dryn

(Anyway, given an ease of proximity to both, I would rather make a gold currency then an iron one (backed by iron still of course). For the only reason that it saves a little iron.)

Logicaly currency at this point would be based off iron, but thats the problem, iron has too many uses and can be manufactured further into steel, there is nothing worth more than iron in terms of value to weight. goes back to needing to value some resources *precious metals gems and such* at higher than the actual value.

i can find a decent rebuttle to The Sociologist, in many ways thats correct but in very few its wrong, why should coins be divisible (can you imagin producing 50 grams of coins a day) that defeats the purpose of coins, being able to divide reources into single grams is a great gift and a curse, but i cannot see coins doing that. And roleplay would help alot, in real life what is one of your biggest concerns, MONEY, so why is it so diffrent in cantr? becuase money has no base in cantr, gold, silver, copper, tin, bronze, are all worthless (with the exception of bronze, which is just impracticaly hard to make).
[/b]

[The Sociologist]

The definition I used is more or less the standard one used in Economics.

Let me put it this way. About the cheapest things you can buy are certain sweets and the like, yet even there they cost usually a dollar or more and at the very least some considerable fraction of a dollar.

Try this experiment: Pop down to you local cafe or deli, offer them 1 dime, and insist on being served 1 gram of sweets. See how far you get! In most countries this is equally so. Coinage is more divisible than any other product. In Cantr, this is not the case. Hence coinage does not work.

[km17]

i can see your point but that is why one coin is worth less than anouther, ie a quarter is worth more than a dime. a gold coins may be worth more than a copper coin.

[Sho]

Sociologist's point (part of it, anyway) is that our currency would still function if the penny was the only unit of currency, but not if the $100 bill was. If the only form of standard currency was the $100 bill, barter or credit would become the common method of grocery shopping.

[km17]

so make a copper coin (not unlike the penny eh) and deem it the least valueable.

[Nakranoth]

Except that coins as of now are still more than a single gram in weight... so you'd be carrying around something 10 g that's only worth 1 g...

[new.vogue.nightmare]

Not to mention the fact that making 800 copper coins certainly would take more effort than farming, say, 800 grams of potatoes. I think you'd also need a condition where production of any mass quantities requires a large amount of overhead. That way, sure, you could have people eking out a subsistence living, or you could have people banding together and specializing. It needs to be such that earning coinage and spending it on something is easier than obtaining the product yourself.