If people try to establish a central bank in my kindom I will drop everything I am doing to murder those people and obliterate their family lines from the server.

This is a pipe dream. If you think you're going to engender this kind of cross kingdom cooperation you've got another thing coming.

Also, I'm not sure what fate you're referring to with 99% of other MMO's. Hyperinflation is only a problem with infinite resources and infinitely re-spawning creeps all of which drop gold and items. Elyrian animals won't drop gold or items, and the more you hunt them the less of them there are. The hyperinflation of titles like WoW won't be an issue here.

Implementation of a bank will be hard. Banks are based on trust, and I imagine the first successful ones will be backed at a Kingdom level.

As far as currency, I will be curious what happens but I think the running thought was to let Kingdoms mint their own. Will definitely be something we get answers to, but not until closer to launch. Right now it isn't relevant for SbS.

I volunteer to be the trusted steward of gold and silver in my kingdom. :D

Posted By Sackeshi at

1.Create a Universal Monetary Value, and Universal Currency. One "Elyer" for example= 0.05 ounces of Gold/33 ounces of silver Again just an example

2.Set up a Universal Banking System The banks would be responsible for simply exchanging G/S for monetary notes, and monetary notes for G/S.

3.Establish a small group of users who over see the system and stop it from imploding. How? By allowing one person per kingdom to be appointed. These people could certify a very small group of people to create/print monetary notes.

4.Printing to demand Its a simple process, the over seers and banks keep tabs on how much G/S they have and how many notes they have. If someone comes to trade in G/S for notes to spend, they check with everyone to see if there is any available, if not then according to a universal ratio of notes to G/S the printers would be asked to print said amount and then the bank would collect and hand over said amount to the player in exchange for the G/S.

5.Once all the Gold/Silver is minded Once its gone its gone, no more notes printed and no other metals used.

What do you think?

So you support bimetallism? One problem with that, the Cross of Gold speech notwithstanding, is that it creates monetary arbitrage opportunities if there is a major find of either metal without a balancing find of the other.

Pick one metal. Or, perhaps, let each kingdom pick a metal (or other basis) for their own exchange system.

Personally, I recommend, following Adam Smith, that all currency and exchange be based on grain.

Posted By Beathan at 01:03 AM - Thu Nov 22 2018

Posted By Sackeshi at

1.Create a Universal Monetary Value, and Universal Currency. One "Elyer" for example= 0.05 ounces of Gold/33 ounces of silver Again just an example

2.Set up a Universal Banking System The banks would be responsible for simply exchanging G/S for monetary notes, and monetary notes for G/S.

3.Establish a small group of users who over see the system and stop it from imploding. How? By allowing one person per kingdom to be appointed. These people could certify a very small group of people to create/print monetary notes.

4.Printing to demand Its a simple process, the over seers and banks keep tabs on how much G/S they have and how many notes they have. If someone comes to trade in G/S for notes to spend, they check with everyone to see if there is any available, if not then according to a universal ratio of notes to G/S the printers would be asked to print said amount and then the bank would collect and hand over said amount to the player in exchange for the G/S.

5.Once all the Gold/Silver is minded Once its gone its gone, no more notes printed and no other metals used.

What do you think?

So you support bimetallism? One problem with that, the Cross of Gold speech notwithstanding, is that it creates monetary arbitrage opportunities if there is a major find of either metal without a balancing find of the other.

Pick one metal. Or, perhaps, let each kingdom pick a metal (or other basis) for their own exchange system.

Personally, I recommend, following Adam Smith, that all currency and exchange be based on grain.

I also am a fan of such a way of thinking.

It is easier to utilize the value of a critical resource or product and build up, then to use a luxury good (precious metals) as I believe it would be more stable rather than attempting to utilize a kind of gold standard.

Yep. Perhaps people should be paid in bread or bread vouchers. Then the government would just need to maintain a fully stocked bread warehouse. It is unlikely that there would be a run on bread, meaning most of the vouchers would be exchanged rather than redeemed.

We could also use that to set a normative pay rate for day labor — the amount of bread needed to keep a laborer alive and healthy enough to work. With that normative rate, skilled workers and employers would have a scale to work from when setting wages and negotiating contracts.

Why should coins/currency be game-mechanic?

If one kingdom wants to use gold coins, another base their economy on grain, what does it matter? Allow each kingdom to decide how they want to manage, or try to manage, their economies.

Making currency a game mechanic take away a lot of in-game role profession relating to for example trade, exchange, and minting.

the economy is balanced already. you might want to read up on older Q&As before sugesting features that are planned since the birth of Christ.

Your post is quite misinformed as to how banking an money work both real and in game.

Most MMO's have monetary problems because the money simply spills out of every monster one kills, and it is then destroyed by NPC interactions etc. Neither of these conditions will exists here so the whole basis of fear of inflation is baseless.

Characters are going to mine all precious metals and create coinage (assuming metal coinage is the norm) which will then circulate for LONG periods of time. The rate of mining is what will dictate the availability of coinage and this will be dictated by geology, technology and the profitability of mining and minting.

Historically aka Medieval times their was not remotely enough precious metal which lead to lots of barter and non-monetary exchange. Banking and the creation of credit helped solve this problem. You seem to be asking for 100% reserve banking, which is a total pipe-dream. This prevents the money supply from expanding, and the expansion comes in the form of loans which are stimulative to commerce.

I wasn't aware that any commitment to a monetary system had been made by SBS.

At present, the only way the economy could be balanced is via networks of contracts. Without money, these will be barter contracts only.

Without some pre-existing network of contracts, relative values of items will be quite chaotic at first.

Posted By Beathan at 06:03 AM - Thu Nov 22 2018

Personally, I recommend, following Adam Smith, that all currency and exchange be based on grain.

The only problem with this is that your currency's value is then going to fluctuate fairly wildly from year to year as the harvest fluctuates. If for example, we base our kingdom's currency (Ducals based on who does the minting for a bit of worldbuilding fun) on bushels of barley (as barley grows almost anywhere and gets two harvests a year) the value of one Ducal is worth almost nothing just after a plentiful harvest and is worth much more just after poor harvest.

It's not that hard to deal with but requires some centralisation, decentralised states are better off with value-by-weight for coinage imo.

EDIT: Apropos of nothing the Ducal above is based on the Carthaginian Shekel which had at one point a yearly requirement of 24 Shekels for an average urban family (about twice what an unskilled labourer earned in a year). If I was building out the currency there would be 12 Ducals in a Royal and 24 Counties in a Ducal.

Well OP seems to have several concepts mixed in together, the way you stop inflation is simply by not inflating the money supply, it doesn't matter what material is backing the currency (from merely an inflationary point of view) as long as there is no abundant new source of it (for RL analogues that even gold and silver will fail to protect you from this see literature regarding the value of silver in the early post-Columbian times).

As for backing the currency I would not mind gold since we are basing many things from Earth circa 800-1000 years ago and as before just because you have gold does not mean you cannot have individual minting - these are the coins that are used in each individual area but they are all backed by the same metal which will make exchange rates easy to figure out (if your gold coin has 10 grams of gold and mine has 5 then your coin is worth twice as much as mine) for merchants that travel cross kingdom (much easier than my coin having 10g of gold and yours 10g of silver and now we have to figure out what the exchange rate is at any given moment - avoiding these scenarios is the whole reason we created a standard to begin with).

So basically what we are talking about here is a single metal backed currency for a server (if it is copper, gold or Hrothi alloy is not the most relevant part) this is the best approach IMO as it still allows many features while allowing for normal trade to flow (meaning supports more playstyles with the less hassle):

• Sovereigns can still mint their own currency (just different coin sizes or metal content)
• Deviants can still forge currency (by making a coin that looks official but has less "gold" than the official one)
• Coins can still be recycled for their metal content and reused in a world of limited resources
• Cross realm players will be able to determine exchange rates on the spot without having to go to OOC websites to see what is the current exchange rate between "gold" and "silver" before entering contracts
• NPCs and OPCs will be able to have handle trade with much less complexity than with completely competing currencies based on completely different backing materials (or fiat if that is even going to be a thing)

As for the banking in CoE I imagine them going to be more like "here is a vault for you to keep your stuff secure, pay me a renting fee" rather than "give me 2 coins and I will print you a gold receipt redeemable at a future date" - I can be wrong of course but I would never trust the 2nd type of bank in CoE (merchants of course may beg to differ if there was an "international" clearing system that would allow them to travel without coin in their pocket but... will have to see it to believe it).

And that is my 2 cents, clearly economy will be a big part of this game and having a sound monetary foundation will assist greatly in this goal.

Posted By Sackeshi at

If we want this game to avoid the economic fate of 99% of all MMO'S then we must agree to keep the amount of money finite and semi rare.

Here are the steps

1.Create a Universal Monetary Value, and Universal Currency. One "Elyer" for example= 0.05 ounces of Gold/33 ounces of silver Again just an example

2.Set up a Universal Banking System The banks would be responsible for simply exchanging G/S for monetary notes, and monetary notes for G/S.

3.Establish a small group of users who over see the system and stop it from imploding. How? By allowing one person per kingdom to be appointed. These people could certify a very small group of people to create/print monetary notes.

4.Printing to demand Its a simple process, the over seers and banks keep tabs on how much G/S they have and how many notes they have. If someone comes to trade in G/S for notes to spend, they check with everyone to see if there is any available, if not then according to a universal ratio of notes to G/S the printers would be asked to print said amount and then the bank would collect and hand over said amount to the player in exchange for the G/S.

5.Once all the Gold/Silver is minded Once its gone its gone, no more notes printed and no other metals used.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO PREVENT INFLATION AND KEEP THE MARKET STABLE

What do you think?

Couldn't the use of bank notes be exploited though? What's to keep people from simply making counterfeit notes?

Posted By JohnWhite at 11:46 AM - Thu Nov 22 2018

So basically what we are talking about here is a single metal backed currency for a server (if it is copper, gold or Hrothi alloy is not the most relevant part) this is the best approach IMO as it still allows many features while allowing for normal trade to flow (meaning supports more playstyles with the less hassle)

I am completely against having a single currency for a server. Realistically no kingdom (until the modern age of globalisation (and look how that's turning out)) is going to cede control of their currency and agree to share a currency with his enemies. Even if the entire server is full of peace and love no king wants to have his currency hobbled by the economic mistakes of another kingdom. A wise king certainly isn't going to allow the use of someone else's currency in his lands (especially if he has a highly inflated currency (see the Tokugawa Shogunate's money woes after the Opening of Japan for why this is a bad idea).

I'm even against having a single economic standard for an entire server, variety is the spice of life, is realistic, and allows for player choice. Different economic standards will also mean the worth of currencies will fluctuate at different rates which leads to a more in-depth economic simulation.

Of course, it'll be easier for SbS to program the generic DnD style currencies (despite how ridiculous those are) into NPCs than to allow kingdoms (pre-launch obv) to determine their own currencies and economic methodologies.

As for the banking in CoE I imagine them going to be more like "here is a vault for you to keep your stuff secure, pay me a renting fee" rather than "give me 2 coins and I will print you a gold receipt redeemable at a future date" - I can be wrong of course but I would never trust the 2nd type of bank in CoE (merchants of course may beg to differ if there was an "international" clearing system that would allow them to travel without coin in their pocket but... will have to see it to believe it).

I can see the larger guilds within kingdoms (and maybe internationally) being able to issue their own scrip and enforce its worth, I can certainly see Dukes being able to do so.

I do agree that most 'banks' such as they are will be more akin to safe deposit rentals than anything a modern person would recognise but I think that people will be progressing to loans and interest accumulation fairly rapidly.

In real life we own many types of currency. Dollar bills, dollars from other countries, credit from banks, stocks, bitcoin, oil/gold/silver, you can even trade your vacuum cleaner for a toaster is u find someone willing. So why should coe be any different? In a year i could have for example lumber and animal bones to trade, my kingdom's currency, your kingdoms currency, a stash at my counties bank. also OP suggests banks will control money as in his universal coins, but I believe early banks will not deal in just coins, but also trade goods. lets say im a hunter and i have 1,000 fur pelts. well my home is not secure and even if it was theyre all over the place and make it ugly. So i could have the bank store and secure them. then either withdraw my pelts later, or trade for the same cost in lumber from another guy storing his excess wood there.