There's a problem with money in the game

[Erythil]

I would like to see cash dumps for cosmetic things.  30,000 coins for a small piece of metal jewelry, 20,000 coins for a ratlon, that kind of thing.

Or maybe set large financial goals for building projects.  During my tenure in Kurac there was an extremely large fundraising goal set to achieve Kurac's return to Allanak, and this was a good funnel for all that excess cash.

[Miko]

unintentional post

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I'm not big on the idea of giving PC Templars the ability to audit / withdraw from Kurac willy-nilly, especially without the PC present. If you had saved up 10k sid for the sole purpose of hiring Scary McDuderstein to assassinate a Noble, and then after the deal was struck you went to your bank account and found your balance at 8k, unbeknownst to you...  And actually, in that circumstance, you might have gotten off lucky. Giving PCs the right to generate any revenue they want for their own personal desires, while simultaneously enforcing their opinion of what is realistic for other PCs to have... It's a recipe for frustration and disaster.

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the other implementations that have been discussed of taxation via Nenyuk accounts though.

I do like the idea of auto-taxation at the bank. Utilizing Nenyuk would be a sensible way for the templarate to tax the commoners (who are largely unaudited, untracked, and unaccounted for). For that matter, why is Nenyuk not charging you on the money they keep safe for you? Out of the goodness of their hearts? This could even be a sliding tax scale, based on the total value of your account balance after the deposit is made. 5% if balance <= 1,000.  10% from 1k - 5k, 15% 5k-10k, 25% > 10k. Something like that.

Alternately, Nenyuk could do what old banks historically did and issue you account notes for your deposits. Each time you make a deposit, they hand you a ticket for the amount. (Or make certain amounts, such as 100, 500, etc - like bills). If you lose that ticket (or have it confiscated), you lose your money. This would be almost too harsh, as pickpockets, raiders, and assassins could wipe out 100% of your wealth (if you didn't work for a House that had safe storage for these tickets.)

[Barzalene]

I would like to see cash dumps for cosmetic things.  30,000 coins for a small piece of metal jewelry, 20,000 coins for a ratlon, that kind of thing.

Or maybe set large financial goals for building projects.  During my tenure in Kurac there was an extremely large fundraising goal set to achieve Kurac's return to Allanak, and this was a good funnel for all that excess cash.

But Kadius shouldn't necessarily sell their best stuff to Joe Blow. Makes things awwards when lord and lady fancy pants go shopping

[Marauder Moe]

I'd be OK with making banks harder to use if either Zalanthas invented paper money or coins were simply made less heavy.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

If anything they should be made more heavy. (For realism, not playability.) If the system were as simple as 1 coin = 1 coin, then 500 obsidian coins would probably weigh at least 100 lbs. But since we're stupid, unlettered commoners I can't imagine there being a coin with a 100 chiseled onto the back of it either.   

For that matter, why obsidian? Are there slaves somewhere painstakingly chiseling dragons onto the back of every coin? How many coins could one slave make in a day - two? Would they not use something simpler, like ceramics? Something you could actually create a mint for?

[Desertman]

The banking system in Armageddon is very much in a lot of ways an OOC construct all together. It exists primarily for ease of playability and the convenience of the players, if not the characters.

Before we start looking at things like currencies and realism surrounding currencies, we have to look at how that currency is even handled as a whole.

What good is looking at what the money is made out of, if the very system that governs that money for the most part isn't realistic at all?

[Erythil]

I would like to see cash dumps for cosmetic things.  30,000 coins for a small piece of metal jewelry, 20,000 coins for a ratlon, that kind of thing.

Or maybe set large financial goals for building projects.  During my tenure in Kurac there was an extremely large fundraising goal set to achieve Kurac's return to Allanak, and this was a good funnel for all that excess cash.

But Kadius shouldn't necessarily sell their best stuff to Joe Blow. Makes things awwards when lord and lady fancy pants go shopping

At present, not even nobles can buy these kinds of things, when lore-wise they ought to be available to some extent, or else Borsail never would have restored its stocks of silver rings after their property got scuttled.

[Talia]

At present, not even nobles can buy these kinds of things, when lore-wise they ought to be available to some extent, or else Borsail never would have restored its stocks of silver rings after their property got scuttled.

Nearly all noble PCs are pretty much nobodies in the grand scheme of things. If the player of a noble PC wants to be able to buy (or receive) super-duper-extra-special things, then s/he needs to be getting noticed by The Powers That Be. Mere coin won't buy metal or other mega-bling.

As commented elsewhere in the thread, just because you have money doesn't mean you're somebody. That's not how the economic and sociopolitical system of Armageddon works.

[BadSkeelz]

If nobles are nobodies, and indies are nobodies, and GMH agents and such are also (presumably, 'cause they're common-blood vending machine) nobodies, do we even have somebodies?

[Harmless]

Talia: Though it's true coin alone does not power and influence get, do you (and staff at large I guess) agree that there should be methods by which or accepted approaches for those with ACTUAL power and influence to drain coin and other wealth from commoners with coinpiles but low influence and standing?

Note: Fines are limited. A commoner has to avoid committing an offense to avoid fines, and most all of our players learn these from earlier characters. Do you think we need more than fines, do you encourage players to pursue auto-taxation, and do you think any of the ideas about banking etc have merit here?

badskeelz below: see my note about fines' limitation secondary to metaknowledge.

[BadSkeelz]

Talia: Though it's true coin alone does not power and influence get, do you (and staff at large I guess) agree that there should be methods by which or accepted approaches for those with ACTUAL power and influence to drain coin and other wealth from commoners with coinpiles but low influence and standing?

Crimcode immunity and the kill/order command can do wonders.

[Talia]

Talia: Though it's true coin alone does not power and influence get, do you (and staff at large I guess) agree that there should be methods by which or accepted approaches for those with ACTUAL power and influence to drain coin and other wealth from commoners with coinpiles but low influence and standing?

Players of PCs who would be in a position to go to Nenyuk and ask, "Yo, how much does Amos have in his bank account?" can do that and have done that.

Other methods probably exist. Players of PCs who are in these sorts of positions can work directly with clan staff if they want to. That being said, in my experience and observation, most of the time players do not want to create this kind of conflict, and would prefer staff (the V/NPC world) do it for them. To which I say...ehh. I'm happy to help you create conflict but I'm not interested in being the sole source of it.

[Marauder Moe]

If anything they should be made more heavy. (For realism, not playability.) If the system were as simple as 1 coin = 1 coin, then 500 obsidian coins would probably weigh at least 100 lbs. But since we're stupid, unlettered commoners I can't imagine there being a coin with a 100 chiseled onto the back of it either.  

For that matter, why obsidian? Are there slaves somewhere painstakingly chiseling dragons onto the back of every coin? How many coins could one slave make in a day - two? Would they not use something simpler, like ceramics? Something you could actually create a mint for?

I've assumed that there is actually an obsidian mint somewhere that stamps the coin images into near-molten coin-shaped shards.


Anyway, I did the math a bit on this.  Let's assume that an Allanaki coin is roughly the same diameter as a quarter, but twice as thick.  A quarter weighs 5.67 grams.  1000 quarters is 5.67 kilograms, or 12.5 lbs.  Quarters these days are nickel-plated copper with a composite density of roughly 8.9 kg/m^3.  Obsidian/glass has a density 2.4-2.6 kg/m^3, so roughly 1/3rd that of nickel/copper.  With our assumption that obsidian coins are twice as thick as quarters, that means obsidian coins weigh 2/3rds as much.  

So 1000 'sid is 3.78 kg, or 8.33 lbs.

I suppose that means that the weight of coins in-game is actually not too far off from reality, and I see now why my spindly aide had so much trouble hauling 10,000 'sid to the bank.  

[Delirium]

If nobles are nobodies, and indies are nobodies, and GMH agents and such are also (presumably, 'cause they're common-blood vending machine) nobodies, do we even have somebodies?

some·bod·y
pronoun
1. a person of importance or authority.
synonyms:   vNPC, NPC

[wizturbo]

Talia: Though it's true coin alone does not power and influence get, do you (and staff at large I guess) agree that there should be methods by which or accepted approaches for those with ACTUAL power and influence to drain coin and other wealth from commoners with coinpiles but low influence and standing?

Note: Fines are limited. A commoner has to avoid committing an offense to avoid fines, and most all of our players learn these from earlier characters. Do you think we need more than fines, do you encourage players to pursue auto-taxation, and do you think any of the ideas about banking etc have merit here?

badskeelz below: see my note about fines' limitation secondary to metaknowledge.

Believe me, this already exists.  Go get a ton of coin, and make it clear you have it...  You'll meet them real quick, and it won't matter if you've broken any laws or not.

[ibusoe]

I'd just like to chime in that in large part, this kind of thing is working as intended.

Zalanthas is not America. Money is not power, power is not money. Zalanthas is more akin to medieval lands, or ancient ones. Seeing money as the primary sign of wealth is more of a modern notion.

Disagree with you on several points, although I thank you for taking the time to share your opinion. 

I think the original poster may have gotten it somewhat off as well.  I'm not sure if he is new or not, but if it is it might possibly explain how he has gotten the impression that he has.

I could spend 20,000 pretty easily in this game.  Like in less than a game week.  If the right people are online, I could spend it in a game day.  I'll speculate that I could spend 40,000 without too much trouble.

I'm not really clear on how he got the idea that money isn't useful in the game?  Has he met people who are turning down money?  In that case maybe he is simply not offering enough money.

One problem I think he may be running into, is with the clan kids.  There is certainly a certain type of gamer here, who cares only for climbing the clan ladder or whatever and these guys are never really that worried about money.  To some extent, that's realistic.  You wouldn't worry about getting compensated work if you already had a difficult military job, one which paid all of your bills?  You have enough work, you have enough money.

The people who run these clans are the medieval equivalent of trust-fund kids - they probably don't care much about money either.  Even certain areas of the game don't use money much, operating more on kind of a barter economy.

I would suppose he's just asking in the wrong places.  Two characters ago, my character didn't give a damn about money.  He only needed enough loot to stay drunk.  My last character, would have ridden across the known world and taken out a noble for less than a large, he was completely desperate. 

I don't think the suggestions that people have to make cooler ways to spend money are at all bad.  It certainly couldn't hurt. 

[Eyeball]

I could spend 20,000 pretty easily in this game.  Like in less than a game week.  If the right people are online, I could spend it in a game day.  I'll speculate that I could spend 40,000 without too much trouble.

If anything, my opinion comes from being a very long term player, not from being new.

Yeah, you sure can. You can blow it all, on spice, booze, whores. You can just toss it onto the street. I even said that right in the original post. But not on anything lasting. Once you're tired of playing a booze hound or spice head, 20,000 coins is of little value to a commoner; there's nothing to spend it on.

I don't understand the resistance to the idea of being able to do other things with the money. Buy hovels or homes, hire a couple of crappy NPC guards for a crappy workshop, a wobbly cart to haul goods in, a pile of bricks and beams to build something with, commission a large piece of art or sundial or whatever, the limit is the imagination. Don't you want your character to be able to have material goals beyond just buying Salarr's best sword? Don't you want your character to be able to have greed for money as a valid motivation instead of a futile accumulation?

[Desertman]

Money will only buy you the loyalty and/or service of those people dependably who would have followed you for free anyways.

Your money might even buy you the favor or loyalty and services of someone who doesn't like you for a while, right up until you try and buy them to be on your side against someone they DO like and respect more than you personally.

Money is power to an extent.

The real power? Being the type of person people will respect and follow and won't betray for any amount of money.

[Talia]

Buy hovels or homes, hire a couple of crappy NPC guards for a crappy workshop, a wobbly cart to haul goods in, a pile of bricks and beams to build something with, commission a large piece of art or sundial or whatever

Workshop - This is possible, see player clan progression documentation.
NPC guards - Also possible with player clan progression.
Commissioning art - Possible through the mastercrafting process and and/your PC's connection with some kind of artist who can do that.
Buying or building structures - Not possible right now. I don't know if it will ever be possible but I do understand the desire for it. In part this is a code issue but in part it is that the documented social structure of places like Allanak just doesn't really allow for it. Though you could say that this is possible as part of player clan progression (eventually you can work up to an estate).
Wagons and carts - Not possible right now because we don't have the code for it. Still on my list to do someday when we can get the code for it.

None of these things are easy to do, and they don't require simply throwing money around to get them done. But they wouldn't be valuable or interesting if they only required money or were easy.

[Narf]

Wagons and carts - Not possible right now because we don't have the code for it. Still on my list to do someday when we can get the code for it.

You realize that if you ever did get the wagon/cart code working, you would be heralded as an Armageddon hero for ages to come?

Just sayin'

[Synthesis]

Wagons and carts - Not possible right now because we don't have the code for it. Still on my list to do someday when we can get the code for it.

You realize that if you ever did get the wagon/cart code working, you would be heralded as an Armageddon hero for ages to come?

Just sayin'

Knowing Armageddon code, it'll probably be saddled with some ludicrous downside/failure, so that you need pilot at (master) just to push your vegetable cart down the road.  Also, the cart will cost 10,000 'sid, aggro creatures will attack and destroy it, and if you fail a pilot check, the cart will be crim-flagged and NPC soldiers will attempt to pilot it to jail, but will end up just randomly joyriding your cart around the Bazaar due to the constant random pilot failures (unless they fail the "enter cart" subdue check, in which case they'll just cut it to splinters, and then any NPCs in the room will start collecting your goods from the street).

[RogueGunslinger]

That reminds me of when a Chalton destroyed my tent and attacked me. Still mad.

[nauta]

That reminds me of when a Chalton destroyed my tent and attacked me. Still mad.

I was once attacked by a scrab while having an intimate moment in a tent.  It's when I learned that armor didn't really matter at least on that PC.

[Talia]

Knowing Armageddon code

Carts and small wagons are planned to be basically skimmers that can go on land.

You realize that if you ever did get the wagon/cart code working, you would be heralded as an Armageddon hero for ages to come?

Sure, but that's not why I've wanted to get it in game. It would be fun and neat and the players would enjoy it. Rathustra and I did a ton of work on it in 2010, then I couldn't get anywhere with the code, and then all of our work got eaten in the wiki crash. So I need to re-document everything he and I built (we had built a lot; we had all of wagon-building figured out), and there needs to be code to support it. So it's not top of my list right now, but it's still a plan for someday.

So please no one be holding your breath over it. But be hopeful for someday.