A typical approach would be to have copper as the base currency, 100 copper equal one silver, 100 silver equal one gold. EQ had platinum as a high-end "cash" type currency and was extremely hyper-inflated.
I don't recall any official opinion on names of currency although there is a general *assumption" Pantheon will be similar to EQ in currency.
Names are easy to change even at the last minute so whatever they are doing in pre-alpha is not necessarily dispositive.
If I had to vote I would vote in favor of not being too creative. There is enough to learn with a new game without having to memorize an all new set of names for currency.
Honestly I'm not a fan of the whole copper to silver to gold etc transition, as pretty much copper usually NEVER have any use and at the start of MID-levels even silver is pointless. I would like to see either currency unique to each race (which eventually could be changed into universal currency upon looting ... or not) or just one currency without any other fuss.
One currency hurts the RPer in me but it really makes sense if there is no server limit to any of the currencies, the different currencies just up convert automatically and weight nothing. Simplify it into a single currency type.
Now limited racial currencies that are secondary could be interesting if there was some form of limiting the ability to horde said currency. It would sort of create a competitive quest system where the first to complete gets the available rewards and no new quests are given until the currency has been spent. The currency can be spent on faction specific, limited quantity, highly valued items.
Personally I like the idea of having a standard (copper-silver-Gold) type of system because it allows for conversion of currency to a larger valued coin to reduce the weight on the character.
I’d like to think that with markets being primarily local, we the players will need to carry our valued coin with us to others towns, and this makes for a situation of being robbed by Bandits, Raiders or other players on PVP servers.
Woe is me says the traveling merchant who forgot to hire protection.
When you say one currency takes away from the RP aspects I assume you don't mean having simply a single generic currency rather than denominations. As in Star Wars having credits not split into any other units.
I assume you mean not having local currencies for each of the separate factions and races except where the lore supports them having a common currency for an area that includes multiple races and factions.
That would make things much more complicated and interject exchange values which might fluctuate constantly.
Sounds very good to me.
I read through some of the replies and I'm not really sure what we're arguing about (though to be fair, there's not much arguing). My thoughts:
I think it's ok if the game gives different coin types different names. Example: Copper = Flags, Silver = Dragons, Gold = Crowns, and so on. I feel like that adds just a little roleplay flavor to a system we're all used to from many other games.
I also think it's ok if Pantheon sets its own conversion rates. Many games do a 10x conversion rate (10 copper = 1 silver), but many other games do a 100x conversion rate (100 silver = 1 gold). So I think whatever conversion rate Pantheon sets, even if it's something new like 50x (50 gold = 1 platinum), players will adapt. I do agree with coin weight as a reason why you would want to convert.
I don't think that a single currency denomination (gold) is really the right fit for Pantheon and the depth of the world we want it to have. While some MMORPGs have certainly done that, and it does make things simple for players, I do think there's lore value in having different currency denominations and we shouldn't just throw that out.
That being said, if a year after launch all anyone cares about is "plat", then those different currency denominations did not really have the value that we'd have hoped. Ideally, if Pantheon goes with the standard copper/silver/gold/platinum - then we don't want all level 50 adventurers walking around with hundreds or thousands of platinum coins in their banks and money pouches. With those denominations, silver and gold should still be the standard coin of the realm, and platinum should be for the really massive things. Even having a single platinum coin should mean you're feeling pretty rich.
Finally on the topic of different regional or racial currencies - I'm all for it, but I feel that it might also be a little too much to ask of the average player. It all depends on just how meaningful travel ends up being and how often one might be expected to travel between continents. If it turns out that continental travel is a very rare activity (much more rare than in EverQuest or most other games) then sure, let's do regional currencies. On the other hand if high level players are frequently traveling from one side of the world to the other, it probably doesn't make sense to do this.
If there are regional/racial currencies, the Skar should use something like bits of bone (as coppers), dessicated eyeballs or fingers (silver/gold), shrunken heads (platinum) etc. (Halloween mood may be at work here, feel free to dismiss this idea).
Then again, the exchange rate for skar-to-elven coin (or the reverse) would be zero. Make for interesting black market exchanges, but likely too complicated / irritating for most players.
I'm usually for anything that adds immersive interest, but *shrug* I can't get excited about coins, sorry.
If there were different coin names in different regions it would be confusing. If they were actually different materials it would be really confusing and should really involve exchange rates which would be doubly confusing.
Using copper/silver/gold/platinum is just a way of making the role-playing agnostic. Each region could well refer to the coins differently, but for gameplay purposes would be the same thing.
I don't know if local currencies would work. If it means extra hassle for trading between players, then players will probably just switch to a meta currency like gems (or some other valuable item available everywhere).
In general, I would prefer a simple currency. Just gold (or whatver), but no smaller units like silver/copper. These just become irrelevant too quickly.
Eventually players will decide one currency is king, and then all secondary currencies would have to be converted before doing any player trading, nullifying any real gains of different racial/regional currencies. Or like Sarim said, they will pick something else that is more commonly gained as a form of currency, like gems
