Guild Wars 2

This is mainly a question for the devs, but if other users have any insight, feel free to contribute.

I’m just curious what lead the design team to make 3 tiers of currency (gold/silver/copper) separated by units of 100, as opposed to the two tiers/1000 system GW1 used.

What’re some of the advantages/disadvantages of having more units of currency as opposed to having more? Why 3? Why not 4 or 2? What are its design implications?

Thanks!

Probably just bowing to the fantasy convention of gold pieces, silver pieces, and copper pieces (like in D&D and everything else ever). The 100/1 conversion ratio is kind of new, though.

Because in GW1 it was Gold coins —> Platinum bars which were 1000 gold pieces, but most of the people joining GW2 would be confused and so they stuck to a simpler method. That, and Platinum isn’t worth as much due to finding rarer and stronger metals.

The funny thing with that though is that gold was worth very little, fairly on par with copper in GW2, and yet now gold is worth quite a bit.
And we use platinum to make armor :/

gimmethegepgun.1284:

The funny thing with that though is that gold was worth very little, fairly on par with copper in GW2, and yet now gold is worth quite a bit.
And we use platinum to make armor :/

Because there wasn’t any copper, so it was the equivalent. I guess it would make sense if it was the opposite, due to huge inflation, but I guess there was a huge deflation in the market (probably has something to do with the giant hole in Divinity’s Reach) teehee.

And yet platinum, which used to be worth a ton, is now used in large quantities to make armor.
Using it to physically forge it, not buy it.

I also think that this method of representing currency helps reduce the number of incidents where someone types one less/extra 0 when placing stuffs on the market for sale, so I like that

And then there’s the gold hoarding achievement that simply states how many coins in copper you’ve had at one time, forcing you to do the math to figure out what that really means.

I was confused like crazy when I went to buy a few things that were copper priced and then I was broke thinking “where did all my money go?!” I had no idea at the time that is was gggg:ss:cc format and 100 based. So it’s like 100 cents is a dollar, 100 dollars is a gold bar, which is a real devaluation of silver.
And then we farm gold, silver, and copper nodes but can’t turn those into direct currency at the bank, we have to go to the TP and get nowhere near the value for them
I can’t trade a gold bar for gold coins, a silver bar for silver coins, or a copper bar for copper coins (well, that one works out for the most part but it’s way disproportionate for the amount of material).

It would have been much better if the coin currency was a fictional one instead of something based on a mining node you can actually acquire but not transfer.

Gold? Platinum? We should have Orichalcum and Mithril coins, that’s what we should have! =D

I like the non-standard base 100 denominations. It’s similar enough to what you know that you can get it, and different enough that it adds intrigue.
The one thing I was disappointed with is not being able to turn copper ore into copper, etc. When I started, I was SURE that’s what mining copper ore did. (I thought there would be an exchange rate at least, maybe 1:1 for copper, 50:1 for silver, 1000:1 for gold)

We should get off the precious metals system and adopt potatoes as our currency. At the end of the day potatoes are worth more than gold. Stranded on a desert island with a sack of gold and it’s worthless, but a sack of potatoes is lunch.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

We should get off the precious metals system and adopt potatoes as our currency. At the end of the day potatoes are worth more than gold. Stranded on a desert island with a sack of gold and it’s worthless, but a sack of potatoes is lunch.

So you’re saying that the guy that spiked the price of potatoes a few days ago knew something the rest of us didn’t?

Why? Simple… because that’s what World of Warcraft does.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

We should get off the precious metals system and adopt potatoes as our currency. At the end of the day potatoes are worth more than gold. Stranded on a desert island with a sack of gold and it’s worthless, but a sack of potatoes is lunch.

I didn’t know Terry Pratchett played this game!

Gelltor.3015:

Olfinbedwere.5049:

We should get off the precious metals system and adopt potatoes as our currency. At the end of the day potatoes are worth more than gold. Stranded on a desert island with a sack of gold and it’s worthless, but a sack of potatoes is lunch.

I didn’t know Terry Pratchett played this game!

Hey, bro, don’t be mad because Rinsewind knows his stuff!