Adding Value To Money

[SirLocke]

From what I've seen, coin currency is completely moot in this point. Items with tangible uses such as curiosities and high quality materials completely dominate the economy. While there's nothing wrong with this, and there's not much reason to suggest things right now since Salem is the focus of any development time at the moment, here's some random ideas I'd like to see down the road to change that and make money have more of a value (semi-pun certainly intended):

1) Revamp village authority upkeep to replenish less authority from villager LP gain and in place of that allow coins to be used to greatly replenish authority. This would make every village hold their coin presses dear in their hearts.
[edit for clarity] The idea here would be to continue to allow LP to be used for authority pretty much as it is, maybe just slightly less, but with the difference being that coins would be used to replenish a great deal of authority. This would make villages with vast amounts of territory favor a coin economy (and even collect taxes as such) to keep their authority stores stocked.
2) Add a new leather working recipe for a coin purse, which would occupy the belt slot and can be used to hold stacks of coins more conveniently.
3) Add uncommon traveling NPC spawns (see details below) that will be willing to offer goods/services in exchange for coins.

The idea here is to give coins real tangible uses within the gameworld, since that's the only way they'll ever become desirable as currency. Again, there's nothing wrong with the barter system, but I for one would love to see more developed areas using coin-based currency. There's a steep hurdle to overcome with the barter economy, and that's the fact that it will take most newer players a VERY long time to start being able to produce the high quality items people look for in trades; having the option to trade for coins greatly alleviates that hurdle and, in my opinion, would greatly improve the social aspect of things. Plus, it'd be great to see highwaymen setting up coin tolls in popular riverways. :p

--Traveling NPC Details---
The idea here would be to have NPCs with low chances of spawning appear occasionally that will give more tangible value to coins. Ideally, they'd be killable for those more ruthless bandit-types out there to try to gank their loot, but not easily so; in some cases, the NPC in question would be able to adequately defend themselves, and in other cases they might have hired help to protect them. The appeal of these NPCs and why they would be sought out is that they would offer reasonably high quality items for sale, some useful services, and even some items only attainable by them. There are many great options to go for, but here's some ideas I've got off the top of my head:

1) Trapper/Hunter - A traveling hunter/trapper that would be interested in peddling some of the spoils of his hunt. He would be adequately capable of defending himself, equipped with decent quality leather armor, bow, and bone arrows. They would offer random pelts/meats/bones for sale, often of reasonably high quality (roughly around something a player with 150 survival and q75-100 tools would obtain). The unique portion would be the rare chance at high quality rabbit and fox furs, which are otherwise sharply capped at low quality.
2) Fisherman - A simple one that really wouldn't be able to defend themselves; equipped with some nettle gear and a decent quality fishing rod, they'd offer various fish of reasonable quality for sale.
3) Farmer - Another simple one that would likely be dead meat if it came across a bandit, equipped with nettle gear, a straw hat, and rarely a scythe, they would offer seeds/crops around quality 30-60 for sale.
4) Merchant - One that would be rather difficult to overtake without a coordinated bandit group, as he would have an entourage of well-trained mercenary bodyguards defending him and quickly leaping to attack with swords and bows whenever someone attempts to attack any member of the group. The merchant would have primarily crafted items for sale, from all manner of crafts. Curiosities, symbel items, weapons, etc. This would also be an area where some items unique to merchants could be added, making every merchant encounter worth looking into.
5) Herbalist - A traveler that could handle its own decently well, though not superbly, by using her fists and a sling. Equipped with nettle gear, the herbalist would offer various low-end foragables of reasonable quality for sale. Additionally, she can offer an herbal remedy service that could be used to regenerate SHP and HHP over a half hour, and reduce travel weariness by a decent amount.


Anywho, just some ideas I had. I'd love to see coins have a better purpose in the game, especially given the effort required to start producing them.

[aso11]

Idea 1. Wut? Coins for auth. Nty.
Idea 2. IIRC, this has been suggest many many times.
Idea 3. I wish. NPC's will not belong in this game any time soon D:

[SirLocke]

Idea 1. Wut? Coins for auth. Nty.

A valid concern, I initially wasn't really clear on the idea I had in my head on this one. I've edited the original post to this effect; the idea on that one was to keep the LP-gain authority system in place, if not at a -slightly- lower rate than now, but to add a coin system on top of it that would allow coin "sacrifices" to generate a great deal of authority. This would make massive villages favor a coin-based economy that they could, say, collect taxes on in order to feed their hungry authority demands further.

[dagrimreefah]

Instead of authority and all of that NPC hooplah (NPCs do not belong in this game imo), how about the ability to make gold/silver nuggets into the most valuable curios in the game (coins), or just make the gold/silver nuggets curios themselves. There is a real tangible and constant use right there.

[NIGNOGNAG]

I would support a semi-coinbased economy. Maybe let one of the big villages act like a bank?

[sabinati]

read the rules and lurk more