View Full Version : Brainstorm Session: How can gold be relevant in D3
Hey guys,
I was just wondering on what some peoples ideas were for making gold relevant in Diablo 3.
In WoW we had mounts, professions, skills, weapons, items, trades, portals, recruitment, Mercenaries. All used gold and made it relevant. it created the stable economy and made gold very valuable and useful. When the most valuable end game mount was 5,000 gold+ in value, people obsessed with farming it and trying to get as much as possible
For those who want gold to be an economic stabalizing force in D3, what ways do you think this can happen? Can you think of anything fun that D3 could do like a mount that is ingame gold costly that people will try hard to gather and keep it for?
I remember the "infinite dungeon" idea being really popular, and I liked it too. What if it cost gold to do? Would it be a stabalizing force or would it just be like gambling? What ways can we enforce this in the trading world? Feel free to discuss!
Very good question Bill Cosby! But I'm afraid that gold in D3 will be just as useless in D2, unless they apply new strategies to counter that is. I suggest something like WoW: make NPC's have some very high undroppable items to sell. Or, if i go to the extreme now, MY OPIOION IS that a good idea would be if you could buy spells for gold or at least improvements of your own. Or better yet, some kind of forgery where would a 'smith NPC' improve your item stats (for example bonus armor to armor or dmg to a weapon) for a price. I think that would be very cool :P
Apocalypse
06-10-2008, 23:53
there are several ways to make gold more valuable in d3, first of all give vendors items that are actually usefull. these could be items that can never drop or not, that does not really matter, they just need to be usefull(i dont really have any ideas here, myself but i am sure someone can come up with something).
another thing is to sell items for way less gold. for instance, have the blacksmith tell you "i already have 15 pieces of platemail and they are not gonna move any faster if i waste money on that one you got". i mean the npc will buy any and everything for tons of cash this is not the way it should work
third and i am sure many will disagree here but, no monster or beat should drop gold at all. the only mobs that should drop gold should be human characters which probably should not be helping diablo anyway. now this could lead to the "monsters should not have any item then" but since diablo is pretty much a item hunting game they need to, no one kills mobs for gold. now thats not to say gold should not be found out on the road. i think gold should be stashed away in chests and the like, stuff that you might encounter on your journey. this might also get people to clear out more levels and not just power rush the game.
Limiting supply is one important element; merchants paying a bit less for most common items, and the lack of any cash cow items (such as skill items in D2) will ensure that supply is more reasonable. Also, gold loss could be part of the death penalty.
Ensuring that demand is adequate is where the meat is; limited skill and stats respecs, where each POINT you want to respec costs a substantial amount of gold is one way; allowing an unlimited amount of extra "stash pages" to be purshased, each at a greater amount of gold, while limited the amount of chars that can exist under a single cd-key (less mules); adding some very expensive items to vendors that people will actually want; allowing people to re-use certain mechanics like say "imbues" or "add socket" for a huge sum of gold; making some recipes use a certain amount of gold, or expensive vendor-sold regeants...
Endless options really.
Well yea, my point also that vendors are to sell usable item instead of that piece of junk they do in D2. That includs, Rare, Set (that can only be bought from NPC), and yes, Uni
que.
I think the existence of a auction house or even web based ebay like place, and ease of delivery of goods and payment, like MMO mail will go a long way in making gold become a currency. Gold will automatically come to reflect the worth of the goods and it won't matter how easy it is to get gold, in the scheme of things. If gold is ridiculous hard to come by, a rare item will be worth 400 gold, if you are bathing in gold by level 35, that same item will cost 100,000 gold, for example. Gold will simply reflect the items it is backing, and cut out the need for lugging around items until you find the person who happens to have what you want and also wants what you have to trade.
Sure you can still trade via barter, but why bother if you see 2 dozen swords of power for sale for 10,000 gold, and you have a mage ring worth around 10,000 gold. You could spam chat and boards for a guy that has a mage who wants that ring, and just happens to have the sword you want, or you could just sell the rings for gold and buy what you want with gold.
This of course assume some kind of auction type mechanism and an automated way to recieve the the items other that private messaging and setting up games in which to meet and exchange goods and gold.
I realize auction houses and mail were brought up a while back and a lot of people said NO NO NO, simply because WoW has such things. I happen to think they are good things and if we are going to get some stuff from WoW, I sure hopes its better ways to sell/trade items to players, not making vendors the mainstay of making gold useful.
One way that I know of is to have gold be used to buy upgrades for items.
GoHabsGo
07-10-2008, 05:20
-Gold required in the respec process
-Gold to upgrade the durability of items
-Gold to buy maps of upcoming areas from NPC
-Constant gold cost for every kill made by your mercenary (if they are still as strong as they we're in D2)
-Gold to upgrade your stash size
-Gold required in the respec process
-Gold to upgrade the durability of items
-Gold to buy maps of upcoming areas from NPC
-Constant gold cost for every kill made by your mercenary (if they are still as strong as they we're in D2)
-Gold to upgrade your stash size
Why is everyone fixated upon gold only being useful if an npc takes it from you?
Look at any game with ease of trading/selling goods. Coin becomes useful. The only way gold will become obselete in the presence of a good auction house selling system is if Blizzard makes the best drops in the game, drops that can't be traded. In that case, gold will be meaningless and nothing they can add to the game will make gold be anything but a time sink that you need to do to afford to play and repair your equipment.
-No more easy gold like 35k per item for a single +skill or basic armor
-No more gold lost to death penalty (already there though)
-Access to a wide player based economy system, like an AH
That'd be ideas to make gold revelant. But I don't want a gold currency, trading is better :D
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That'd be ideas to make gold revelant. But I don't want a gold currency, trading is better :D
We will have to disagree here. I don't like trading. My participation in a game ends at killing critters and looting them. I don't really want to have to spam message/chat boards to find the one mage looking at the board who wants the item I have, who happens to have the bow I want and doesn't have an alt he's saving it for.
Then I set up a trade time and game, and he doesn't show up. Its clunky and really not a positive feature of the game imho.
Maybe have a wandering mercenary traveling the world and he sells rare stuff that u can only get from him, but he is always traveling and at random places all the time.:coffee:
Maybe have a wandering mercenary traveling the world and he sells rare stuff that u can only get from him, but he is always traveling and at random places all the time.:coffee:
Then we'd just see:
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
-no we haven't
-q0c0p leaves game
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
(repeat this however many times)
-portal opens
-cool thanks!
No one would search the whole game to discover Beelze the rare vendor's location, they'd just hop games to find him.
Sein Schatten
07-10-2008, 14:24
Endlevel monsters drop only 20-30 gold. Sounds not much but you kill a lot of monsters so it evens out a bit.
Vendors buy all items but they pay you only a tiny sum. Depending on item like 3-4k gold max.
Moneysinks like repair cost based on ilevel of the item. Powerful items are expensive to repair. Obviously, because people with powerful items can kill monsters fast.
Respecs cost gold up to a maximum. Cost decrease over time, though.
AH with a fee for better trading.
Apocalypse
07-10-2008, 14:25
We will have to disagree here. I don't like trading. My participation in a game ends at killing critters and looting them. I don't really want to have to spam message/chat boards to find the one mage looking at the board who wants the item I have, who happens to have the bow I want and doesn't have an alt he's saving it for.
Then I set up a trade time and game, and he doesn't show up. Its clunky and really not a positive feature of the game imho.
i agree, if they do a AH like feature(which is more for a mmo) i might do some trading otherwise everything i get goes to an alt or i just give it away
Then we'd just see:
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
-no we haven't
-q0c0p leaves game
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
(repeat this however many times)
-portal opens
-cool thanks!
No one would search the whole game to discover Beelze the rare vendor's location, they'd just hop games to find him.
haha that made me laugh out loud I could totally see people doing that.
I also really really like the idea of being able to upgrade your stash size. I know there have been a lot of different discussions about how to make a generalized account mule, but if you can just buy a bigger stash tab who cares. That would be really cool.
I think it is going to be hard to get an agreed upon currency though in d3. I feel like it could be hard to break people of the trading items for items habit.
What if the Auction House was like the fg message board? Or whatever its called (not sure as ive never done it before)
TenYearsGone
07-10-2008, 18:12
One time cash sinks won't work. It would just be a requirement, almost like a quest, to get the gold to increase your stash size. Titan Quest has this in the expansion and it's only a temporary gold sink. You need recurring sinks.
And I am not a fan of repair costs.
Stingier gold drops, sale costs and worthwhile items from vendors will help with an economy. The portal idea I like. No longer have TP scrolls or ID scolls drop and make them expensive (and the scaling cost idea isn't bad either).
Apocalypse
07-10-2008, 18:23
the first thing that would have to be done is to remove gold loss on death, i think most anyone would agree with that. gold will remain pretty worthless if it can be lost so easily.
edit: the upgradeable stash is a limited gold sink but that does not mean its not good. they could have the stash get upgraded several times. you are right though that there needs to be other sinks and that really ends with vendors having stuff that is worth anything at all(not just items mind you)
what about it they charged you gold to travel between acts, or to use a waypoint? Kind of like a travel cost?
Apocalypse
07-10-2008, 20:23
what about it they charged you gold to travel between acts, or to use a waypoint? Kind of like a travel cost?
Interesting but I think that would fall more into the annoying category, things like travel should be available for everyone. You could possible charge a one time fee for a waypoint activation but that 1. assumes the game will still have them(did I miss something?) and 2. people will eventually only pay to activate the important ones. now as for travel between acts, that is better suited to travel costs imo but I am unsure how it would work in a mp setting where the player can join a game with 3 people in act 1 and you are already in act 2, would people pay to travel back and join the group only to have to pay to get back to act 2 later?
TenYearsGone
07-10-2008, 22:00
I tend to agree. You don't want to restrict travel. Let just say you died toward the end of an act and didn't have enough cash to take a wp, then you'd have to walk the entire act (with or without your items). And if gold is hard to come by, it might be virtually impossible to get back to where you were. That wouldn't make for a good gaming experience.
Same thing for the end of an act. Let's say you just kill Diablo but don't have the cash to enter Act V. What a buzz kill. Plus this would go into the temporary gold sink as it might only be required a limited number of times throughout the game.
I do like the idea of gold being required for Cube formulas. Lets say the cube is replaced with a Seer of sorts that executes cube type formulas for a fee. Now we're talking!
ohhhhhhh. Cube formulas is cool, but is there going to be a cube? WE kind of saw a makeshift one in that gameplay video I think?
What if for travel, first time is free so if you complete the Q at the end of the act, you get a free pass, but otherwise you have to pay in a new game. So i make a game, kill andy, pay to go to A3 to do meph, kill meph, forgot Countess so I go back for free to do countess because I already paid to travel or something like that.
I am just trying to think of some way to do a consistent "sink" but agree I am not encouraging this haha it would be very annoying. But it would encourage people to also sell items instead of mule them. "oh, heres my 4th pair of sigons boots i could mule because i might have 4 new low lvl chars that could all use them at some points... (trust me ive done this haha)" vs "crud, im low on gold and want to MF for an hour...ill throw these sigs boot on the AH and use the gold to mf between acts"
IDK just trying to be creative!
What if instead of a "mount" a trainer teaches you Teleport for like 500 gold (assuming again that gold is very scarce and there is copper and silver and what not). that would be kind of cool too! but that stems a whole nother debate on if teleport should be in the game which has been addressed several times haha ;)
Oh! the trainer could be the "old sorc" as a NPC haha. she could be like Anya and to get it trained you must bring her 2 occy rings, hoto, CTA, and a bugged shako. lol
Apocalypse
08-10-2008, 00:00
crafting has always been a good cash sink for mmo games, now will d3 have a crafting system? something more advanced than the cube? not really sure myself, dont actually think it fits the game.
personally i dont think the biggest problem is getting people to spend the gold they have, i think its that there is just so much of it. if you limit gold drops or like i said earlier, no gold drops at all, you can only find it in chests or what have you, then it becomes much more valuable.
also i still believe not losing gold on death is the first problem to be fixed
Drytchnath
08-10-2008, 03:02
There should be certain vendors or weaponsmiths that allow you to order custom items for a very high price. Maybe you can specify the type of mods, but power/quality of mods desired depends on the gold spent and possibly raw materials that the player provides.
It was also mentioned earlier that maybe the blacksmiths could improve armor and/or weapons. This would be neat, but I would say make the effect gradually wear off. Having a blade sharpened to a razor edge doesnt mean its always going to stay that sharp (unless magic is involved). Maybe after you repair a certain amount of durability, the effect wears off?
Another mod I played had it so you could buy Gems and some runes from NPCs and crafting was more robust which made gold very useful in that respect.
Then we'd just see:
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
-no we haven't
-q0c0p leaves game
-q0c0p enters the game
-anyone seen Beezle the rare vendor, open portal please?
(repeat this however many times)
-portal opens
-cool thanks!
No one would search the whole game to discover Beelze the rare vendor's location, they'd just hop games to find him.
But then in all the games he is at the same spot :coffee:
Benedict
08-10-2008, 11:56
I love gold in D2 . It helps only in very few things , BUT it makes this game that different.
Make it valuable - and you will get another Lineage2 or WoW farming empire.
Some can say - it same like magic find ! BUT , there is 2 HUGE differences :
1- matter of luck : maybe you will get something good in 1 run , maybe in 1001 run.
2- MF require some action , actually you need to play the game and use your skills to do the runs fast enough , while farming is bot-like action - target->kill->pick->target ...
Diablo should keep gold like it was in 1-st and 2-nd .
Starving_Poet
08-10-2008, 17:12
Re: Crafting
In an old interview that I can't seem to find, Bashiok confirmed crafting, but said it would be very different than the current D2 iteration with the heavy focus on runewords.
The difficulty is to create a lasting economy. A balance between gold coming into the economy (in the way of monster dropped items+gold), and gold going out of the economy (all possible money sinks you can think of).
The incoming gold is endless over time, each monster you kill puts gold into the economy. That income never stops, so you need to have permanent money sinks as well.
Sinking only gold makes it worthless: everybody will soon trade in items instead of decaying gold. SoJ reborn. So that leads me the conclusion that we do not only need money sinks, we also need item sinks. And a sure way to get that is durability loss! So that's why durability loss on items is a must-have in the game: it prevents gold getting worthless.
Another thought:
Do NOT allow characters to get gold from selling items to NPC's at all. If selling items to NPC's is not possible, then dropped items do not generate an influx of gold into the economy. You have an item you do not use and so you want to sell it? Well, you have to trade with a player for gold or items.
I like to hear the thoughts of others on this.
Wirt
I disagree but only a little bit. I think that the durability issue in d2, and mercs, and gambling kept gold from being worthless, but barely. Gold was about as worthless as it could get in D2.
The whole point of having a valued economy is to make it so people dont create currency like the hr or the sojs. If someone says how much is that shako, the answer should be 10G instead of 5 sojs or whatever.
To do this you need something in the game that i think everyone is sstriving for that costs a lot of gold. This will create a demand for gold. there will still be people who will trade for items, but majority of people will trade for gold. This is how the mounts in WoW worked.
Thats why i think we need something that is like that. My suggestion again is have a Teleport trainer, but have it be very costly. have it be like 500G or something and have no class have it to start, and make everyone able to acheive it. The old sorc could be the trainer and it would keep gold in demand
I disagree but only a little bit. I think that the durability issue in d2, and mercs, and gambling kept gold from being worthless, but barely. Gold was about as worthless as it could get in D2.
The whole point of having a valued economy is to make it so people dont create currency like the hr or the sojs. If someone says how much is that shako, the answer should be 10G instead of 5 sojs or whatever.
To do this you need something in the game that i think everyone is sstriving for that costs a lot of gold. This will create a demand for gold. there will still be people who will trade for items, but majority of people will trade for gold. This is how the mounts in WoW worked.
Thats why i think we need something that is like that. My suggestion again is have a Teleport trainer, but have it be very costly. have it be like 500G or something and have no class have it to start, and make everyone able to acheive it. The old sorc could be the trainer and it would keep gold in demand
I sort of agree, but do not think the game needs any artificial gold sinks at all to make gold work as a currency. All that is needed is an easy way to sell items.
After the game is out a few months, people will start to realize the average amount of gold that can be amassed in a weeks play. They'll sort of use that standard to set prices on items. Before long the most sought after helm will become a standard worth for example 400k gold. With 5 of those helms in the auction house nightly, 400k will be the same as that helm. Rather than me trading that helm for 5 different items worth the equivalent for my alt(good luck finding the guy with items I want), I'll just sell my helm for 400k and buy 400k worth of lesser items.
The beauty of a player not npc driven economy is there is a whole lot less balancing needed to be done in gold sinks vs gold income per hour. It doesn't really matter if the average amount of gold you can amass in a week is 1 million gold or 10,000 gold. There is no danger of gold becoming worthless as long as items can be purchased on the auction house. The only way gold would become worthless in a player made economy is if Blizzard decided to make all the best equipment on the game non tradeable. That is the surest way to kill an economy.
The only reason a game like WoW needs huge gold sinks like mounts, tradeskilling and stuff is that there is very little equipment that can be purchased. Most everything is a group or raid drop, that cannot ever be sold to another player. Most everything that can be sold, with some exceptions is mostly trash for leveling alts faster. That works very well for WoW(no complaints here), but won't, I hope, be the case here in D3.
I admit my ideas do not give single player games much reason for gold or do much for "hardcore" people who want to level and only use self-found items. I'm not saying those styles of play are irrelevant, just giving my opinion. Perhaps the good ole gambling for items will still exist for those styles of play.
scratchdtwo
09-10-2008, 16:00
Gold required to obtain a new skill once clvl is reached. You can put points into it to become better at said skill, but to go to the next stop on the tree, you need to visit a vendor/trainer and purchase the skill. (Assuming there even is a skill tree)
Crafting - items can drop (gems etc) but you can purchase them as well from certain vendors for a set price. Make crafting arrows/jav/throwing weapons with magic built in an option.
Armor upgrade - Color. You can pay to have your armor modified to change the color of it for a fee. (personally I love using Guil's Helm and say Rockfleece to be decked out in all black)
401k - Setup a bank, you deposit gold, and it gains interest but you cannot withdraw until a certain lvl, say before a large gold sink at clvl XY to get a huge new skill.
Food - Does a Diablo char eat? Hopefully. You can buy food/water! Better food/water items may give a benefit.
stash is a pretty good money sink, two ways of doing it could be:
1. take a fee for every time you want to access your stash, you willbe renting it. You can store an unlimited ammount of items but the cost to access the stash increase for every item you store. It will be harder and easier to store a item, is it worth the gold or not...
2. You buy a new square in your stash for gold, remember that the current system is one item one square so for every squre you buy you will be able to store one more item. The gold cost for every square will increase for every square, so it will be a moneysink through all the game. It would start low and perhaps double for every square, like 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 = 8 squares for 256 gold not to bad but the next 8 would cost 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 32768 = 65280 and now this is starting to be pretty expensive and it is just 16 squares. Perhaps it needs to be a roof for a million gold or so.
Apocalypse
09-10-2008, 18:59
i like the idea of paying to recolor items, you can do this is most mmo games and i know i always spent the cash to color my gear in DAOC.
TenYearsGone
09-10-2008, 21:54
Can someone help enlighten me on an issue. I have never played WoW. What are the mounts and how do they use up cash? thx
Sein Schatten
09-10-2008, 22:56
Can someone help enlighten me on an issue. I have never played WoW. What are the mounts and how do they use up cash? thx
In WoW gold is only an issue if you are new to the game. Anyone who has played it and used some time to read and ask questions knows how you can amass gold in no time. Hint: 2 Gathering professions and don't buy items from the AH. At 70 do you daily quests. If you have more than one 70 char you will get even more money.
Apocalypse
10-10-2008, 13:31
In WoW gold is only an issue if you are new to the game. Anyone who has played it and used some time to read and ask questions knows how you can amass gold in no time. Hint: 2 Gathering professions and don't buy items from the AH. At 70 do you daily quests. If you have more than one 70 char you will get even more money.
when wow first launched i made massive money gathering items and selling them, then that crap with the christmas cookies came around and i was instantly rich thanks to the selling of the eggs needed
the point is, i think any game you play long enough gold will become a non issue for you, but that should be how it works, imo anyway
the point is, i think any game you play long enough gold will become a non issue for you, but that should be how it works, imo anyway
I see that often is the case but it should not be that way. If gold is useless, why is it in the game at the first place? So the challange remains to find ways to make a lasting economy with gold as the trading currency.
Wirt
DANIEL3RD
10-10-2008, 15:18
I assume that they will keep MF in the game, so running bosses will still be a tactic required. What if you had to buy keys to enter the location. As an example, lets say we needed the Meph quest. We obtain the meph quest by gathering the required items that allows us to enter Durance and we kill Meph and proceed to act 4.
However when we then begin too run Meph, we still get the Waypoint, but the stairs down to meph is locked. This time we need a key. The key will cost us 500 gold.
Every occassion we want to MF Meph, Andy, Baal etc we have to buy the required key.
If this idea was in DIII wouldnt that in itself be a use for gold. You need gold or you cant run bosses.
A player would buy the keys from a vendor and they cant be found or dropped by anything in the game. This way gold would become a commodity. Wouldnt it?
Sein Schatten
10-10-2008, 16:17
I see that often is the case but it should not be that way. If gold is useless, why is it in the game at the first place? So the challange remains to find ways to make a lasting economy with gold as the trading currency.
Wirt
Because any character you played long enough will eventually get to the point where you can't upgrade him anymore. But you keep playing him and thus you get money and nothing to spend it on. Then you have RPers or part RPers who will pay money to change the glow of their items. For me, I wouldn't do it. I only care about stats. And when I reach the maximum power of my character and still play him, I get money. At this point, balance is not achievable anymore. On the one side you have people like me with a lot of money and other people who spend money on everything. How do you make a money sink now? Create goals for the rich and the poor won't reach it or make goals for the poor and the rich laugh at it.
TenYearsGone
10-10-2008, 17:25
In WoW gold is only an issue if you are new to the game. Anyone who has played it and used some time to read and ask questions knows how you can amass gold in no time. Hint: 2 Gathering professions and don't buy items from the AH. At 70 do you daily quests. If you have more than one 70 char you will get even more money.
Thanks. I guess it makes sence that eventually gold is irrelevant as you get 'older' and 'richer'.
Sein Schatten is right in that D3 would need goals for the rich and poor to make a gold based economy work and I think we are doing a good job of discussing it.
From what I have heard, was that WoW did a good job with the gold based community. Granted, maybe that isn't the case. But in the meantime I keep hearing about "Mounts". Is a mount a profession?? I guess I could wiki it.
a Mount was an animal you bought to ride on, like a horse, that increased your travel speed. A new patch just changed it to lvl 30 apparently, but at certain levels, you buy the land animal which cost about 500G and it made life a lot easier. at lvl 60 you could buy an "epic" mount which was even faster than the regular one and cost about 1,000G. Then around lvl 70 (or at lvl 70..) there was a flying mount which cost i think 1,000G where you could fly anywhere in the expansion area at will, and eventually an epic mount which cost 5,000G. This money went to a NPC and dissapeared and you got your animal.
TenYearsGone
10-10-2008, 19:22
Thanks for that
Starving_Poet
10-10-2008, 20:51
EVE suffers from a slight inflation issue, but the in-game currency is pretty damn stable for one simple fact.
When you die, you lose your ship and some-to-all its fittings.
The ship can be insured so that the loss can mostly be recouped, but the mods themselves can not be insured. In lots of ships, and for lots of the older, wealthier players, these mods can be worth more than the ship that they're on.
People will hate me for this, but I think there should be a chance of an item getting destroyed on player death. Simply put, poof.
how about the ability to smelt gold - as a mini game, (while you're wating for friends to join game...) have an ability to create one's own crafted ring, with special properties.. or.. add to weapons.. or .. yea similiar.. and make gold.. .. hard to come by..
how about the ability to smelt gold - as a mini game, (while you're wating for friends to join game...) have an ability to create one's own crafted ring, with special properties.. or.. add to weapons.. or .. yea similiar.. and make gold.. .. hard to come by..
That does sound fun!
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