Thread: MC: Currency
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2011-04-25, 21:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraetos View Post
Brad and turtle shouldn't be removed from the economy, they are an essential part of it! They would be running the only shops on the map which would be guaranteed to have everything "in stock." They would in turn be giving out slimeballs to new players and as grants for new projects as they saw fit i.e. slimeballs would replace "hey I'm building X can I have some Y?" requests.
So instead of saying "ZOMG I will never find enough lapis" and having an admin drop me some, I would say "Brad, I'm starting a new project" and he would give me X slimeballs, which I would then give back to him in exchange for lapis?

That just seems needlessly complicated. How would we determine the "worth" of different projects? Would each building be worth X? Would bigger structures be worth more? My current project is somewhere between "arteggio big" and "bobsky big." How many slimeballs is that worth? What if Rowdy wants to make Mega Man pixel art? That's a smaller project but it would still need lots of rare dyes. &c. &c.

It just sounds like creating a hassle (especially for the admins) where there is none, now. I didn't glass-iffy part of the Bridgeport skybridge because I wanted to earn money. I did it because I thought it would look better and I wanted to contribute (and because I wanted people to be able to better see my house from above ). Bryson didn't make a new cobble generator for money. You didn't remodel the post office for money. And yet all those things still got done because that's sort of the point of the game. Building things and helping each other is just fun to do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraetos
Also, I feel like bartering items between players is awkward and we don't do it much. Having currency would greatly increase the frequency with which we give each other stuff, because if we have currency, then we can trade our surplusses away when we have them, and not when/if we find out that someone else has something we need.

The way I see it, if we standardize the means through which we all exchange items, we will be more inclined to exchange items. That's what I'm going for, I don't care about simulating a "real economy."
Really? The whole thing seems a good bit more inconvenient than just bartering, to me. It's not even bartering, really, it's just sharing. The sand I gave Bryson was worth something to him and nothing to me. Why wouldn't I share? But then if we start saying that each stack of sand is worth 5 slimeballs, and collecting 50 slimeballs is the only practical way I could get any lapis, then I'd have to be all "pay up" for giving him something I honestly didn't need for myself. It'd be purely artificial value.

I have plenty of wool now. I'll gladly give white wool to anyone who wants it. I would have just given you red or black wool the other night, Kraetos, if I didn't need all I can get my hands on for my next project. Outside of that, it has no value to me. If I ever stop making colorful things, my dyes are yours.

I don't think Minecraft needs a way of keeping score. Seeing the cool things you people build and getting complements on what I build is satisfying enough. Anyone who doesn't like feeling like they "owe" Brad for his assistance can put things into the Exchange in return, or whatever.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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