Guild Wars 2

I know this may be something that isn’t of interest to anyone else, but I noticed it just today and it made me wonder. I know there isn’t any general interest in this, but it is still a curiosity, and I do feel like it has a root in lore.

I noticed the other day that the value of gold has risen dramatically. In the original game you’d gain gold at very high rates, sometimes 300 would drop from a high lvl boss. And once you got to 100 gold you would get 1 platinum, which was the highest rate of currency. Now we move into GW2, and what do you get from drops? copper? in fact you learn that the place of platinum is taken by gold, and platinum itself seems to have disappeared as currency. Now I understand that this doesn’t necessarily have to have an in game reason, but it’s no fun just shrugging ideas like this off without trying to imagine why.

Now to me the simplest reason sits with the rise of Zhaitan. You see in the original GW there were two major seats of trade and currency and that was Lion’s Arch and Kamadan. These were major port cities, adventurers from all over came there to trade and save their resources, and in a single day both of these were taken away. Lion’s Arch was completely demolished and sunk by the rise of Zhaitan, more than likely leaving much of it’s riches to the corsairs that eventualy settled in it’s vicinity. At the same time Zhaitan’s navy cut off any access to Kamadan, if the city was still free from Joko. And at the same time, roughly, the connection to Cantha was cut off, both by the empire and Zhaitan, perhaps trapping much gold and treasure within the now unusable by it’s owners. Anyone else have any ideas? Perhaps the inclusion of the other races into 1 currency brought up the worth of the single gold piece?

That is an interesting idea, I would most certainly like to see an explanation in lore if possible.

I wanted to make an update on my post (and I couldn’t figure out how to edit it)

I originally at the end said “… , perhaps trapping much gold and treasure within the now unusable by it’s owners.” I believe I was distracted by something and what I had meant to say did not come through. This is roughly what I meant.

“And at the same time, roughly, the connection to Cantha was cut off, both by the empire and Zhaitan, perhaps trapping much gold and treasure within the now unusable Xunlai Chests, inaccessible to it’s owners.”

I figured that’s what you meant. Seems like a reasonable explanation, though it could also be that it was simply phased out and replaced with a newer, and possibly better alternative monetary system that we see today. I suspect the ex-pirates of Lion’s Arch may have had a major part to play considering the pirates and corsairs on Cantha and Elona each carried gold, silver, and copper coins, as did the Zaishen Order in exchange for the daily quests.

Platinum has become scarse in the last 250 years? most of it was mined and produced by dwarves?

There are far less large scale mining operations with the dwarves gone. the supply of precious metals has declined. platinum levels have dropped to a pointwhere it is far to rare to support mass coin production. Vallue of other metals has increased taking the place of older currency.

You know Asgard, I’d never thought about that. Both the Pirates and the Zaishen have a large holding on Lion’s Arch, and Lion’s Arch is the commerce hub of Tyria so it makes a lot of sense that their system of copper/silver/gold would take standard over the old system.

I’m sure there are other, less obvious reasons for the change as well. It most certainly did not happen over night. One must consider that the Tyrian economy is more than buying and selling. For some Tyrians, trading is a way of life. As jebidiah pointed out, the materials required to produce the money may have become less easily obtainable with the loss of dwarven mining. They did plenty of trade with the human kingdoms, especially Ascalon. There would also be the need for the races inhabiting Lion’s Arch to have the same form of currency and platinum bars may have fallen out of favor with the average Tyrian due to the fact that platinum bars are quite heavy. One could easily carry coins in a purse or pocket and the value would have grown in favor of gold coins over time. This might have led to lighter, more easily obtainable materials being used for lower monetary values, giving rise to silver and copper coins.

IDK WarriorOfAsgard, my character in GW1 could carry 100 bars of platinum in his bag (along with like 5 armor sets, including the one he was wearing, and dozens upon dozens of weapons).

All joking aside, I just recently joined the Order of Whispers a first time on my second character, and I noticed that the bar of platinum is still used as a currency of some sort, but it seems that it is only held by the insanely rich, like Caudecus. The ransom note from the pirates to Caudecus’ lieutenant said that he wouldn’t mind losing some platinum for his daughter’s safety.

Hmmmmm,maybe, the size of the goldcoin increased.
1 gold isn’t really an amount of gold but is one gold coin. If it got a lot bigger it would make sense.

On the other hand It could also be that all the major goldmines are in Elona and Cantha, being mostly cut off new gold supply’s it has become more and and more vaulable.

I’m pretty sure it had more to do with the destruction of the major port city of Lion’s Arch, the removal of the dwarves (one of the human’s greater trade partners), and the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch by corsairs. You see once Lion’s Arch became a major trade port it more than likely kept the same currency used by the pirates that inhabited it at the time. We know from drops in GW1 that both the Zaishen and the corsairs of elona, (who have a large influence in the area) used a series of copper-silver-gold coins for their currency, so it makes sense then, that as the port city grew in power and influence eventually currency shifted towards their standard.