Pretty solid replies. I’ve done calculations/systems for Stormwind military/average living concepts but they were a touch higher than what Traveller went for, ie 5-10 Copper for vegetables and things like that, ranging up to a silver or three for imported, extremely hard-to-get products (Outland, Draenor, etc). I also assumed that products specifically most common/taken from opposite-faction areas push up the price, but not as much (night elf kimchi or w/e).
I’ll likely need to rework it considering that we now have more defined values, but it’s pretty much in line with everything. I remember that gladiators for the Crimson Ring could earn thousands of gold out of bets, with massive fortunes from the great Dire Maul tournament (biggest Crimson Ring event of the year). That’s from The Comic, early volumes—1 and 2.
Generally speaking I agreed to what Konrad and especially Okiba has said on the topic. Gold is suppose to be generally regarded as this thing your general run of the mill farmer rarely if ever gets to see. Doing this adds a certain value to it.
Though when it comes to 10 copper being 1 silver… I’m uncertain, this would be the most convenient of the two. However I feel we don’t have enough type of coins to pull this off.
I’m very interested to see where this topic leads however, as it has been a running problem with roleplay. No one can agreed on this. Which makes it quite immersive breaking when someone suddenly slams their big, chunky pouch on the counter and pays several gold just for a drink and some food.
Finding a solution to this would be a good step towards making the servers feel more united. Though it would also need to be, for a lack of a better term, enforced.
I don’t worry too much about it as long as the other person/s involved and I, are fine with leaving it to interpretation. One I used recently to imply a payment and tip was; Merrin offers Olly a few coins, more than would cover the cost of two hot cocoas.
I used to go by the comparison between the cost of a loaf of bread in game. In SW you can buy 5 loaves of ‘Freshly baked bread’ for one silver, which means each loaf is twenty copper (5x20=100). It seemed reasonable to me that we could then base most prices off of this. If a loaf of bread costs twenty copper and bread is, usually, thought of as a rather staple food, then we can base all further costs on the price of a loaf of bread.
But then I noticed that each new expansion offers its equivalent of bread. And these are priced much higher than the basic bread of SW. So then I got to thinking “Perhaps this is a bad model.” After all, you can apparently buy a fishing rod for nineteen copper when a loaf of bread is twenty. Which implies to me that the crafting of woodwork is viewed less so than that of a baker.
So I then tried to go by quest rewards. Even worse idea. Killing wolves in Elwynn rewards a handful of copper. Defeating Hogger offers a handful of silver. Checking in with the latest holiday vendor gets you two gold, at least.
Then of course, even if we assumed both of the above methods or one of them were true, we have to think of faction differences. It seems to me that the Alliance is -likely- the richer faction but that might not be true. Even if we assume it is true we have to think, are things evenly matched in cost on both Horde and Alliance? Surely the cost of simple wood might be higher in Horde territories due to their lack of lumber and hides would be more expensive in Alliance territories. But of course, for the sake of game play, both factions share the same prices.
Truth be told I think that wealth should be ignored in character, to the extent that we should avoid being specific. If you say your character is wealthy cause he has ten gold there will be someone in the room with a hundred gold. If you say you are poor because you have one gold to your name, someone with ten silver will see you as wealthy.
Be vague. If you are mentioning paying a bill just say ‘hands over a few coins.’ If someone asks how much your guild pays ‘Well above/below/in accordance with the living wage.’
This is going to be a messy thing since races often hold different values to gold on different places.
A gold piece can buy you a month of meals on one place but a scrap of meat in other places etc etc.
Back in the day when I mained Ashiraya, I pondered the approach to money carefully. She (and her son) are the last survivors of an extensive noble family, and while that family lacked influence in general, it was very rich - and when just about everyone died and the inheritance all pooled up in one spot that just exaggerated the effect.
So I started making OOC gold on Ashi (this was back in early WoD) and soon amassed a million gold through garrison and AH games. It’s a total fantasy sum, but it felt like the kind of crazy fortune that the nobles would have amassed over the millennia, so I went with that being her total fortune - gold and treasures adding up to a total worth of 1m.
For what it’s worth, despite the expenses of raiding, ingame birthday gifts and the like, I have ensured to maintain that million gold. For some reason, having that million gold OOC makes it feel more legit, like there has been actual effort behind it.
Of course, judging from the new Traveller lore 1m may be a bit excessive… But that was my approach back then anyway.
Hard to disagree with the general consensus of “avoid specifics, gold is a lot”, but having spent some time thinking about this - and coming to much the same conclusions as Fyne - I would very tentatively agree with Chíel above and suggest that 1 gold is equivalent to about £100.
Using the social categories from D&D, which loosely fit most Early Modern-ish societies like the core Alliance nations (the Horde is anyone’s guess), I would further and even more tentatively suggest a poor worker might earn about 7g per year; a skilled worker upwards of 15g; merchants, officers, or educated professionals upwards of 45g; wealthy landowners/merchants upwards of 280g; and serious aristocracy starting from about 1300g. That’s all before expenditure (tax, rent, food, leisure, etc), so I would generally subtract about 93% to give you what each social class has left over at the end of the year.
OTOH, those are conservative figures, and given the in-game prices and the info from Traveller (which I’m admittedly not familiar with), I don’t think it’d be unreasonable to say a typical income might be more like: poor worker 72g p/a; skilled worker 360g p/a; merchant 720g p/a; landowner 1440g p/a; aristocrat or equivalent 3600g p/a. Again, assuming roughly 93% of that is expenditure, the poor worker would have only 4g 80s at the year’s end, which probably wouldn’t be in gold and wouldn’t come all at once (they might be paid by day, month, season, or project).
Obviously you can never really get any further than assumption, guesswork, and fudges, and yes if we were being realistic prices would fluctuate with place and time etc etc. But those numbers, while mostly drawn from D&D in comparison with Early Modern English figures, more or less fit with in-game prices - which I would say are the best foundation we have, since they’re accessible to everyone.
Also, it is possible - though based on real history, not WoW lore - that a lot of transactions run on on credit (in cities) or payment in kind (in rural areas). Some of a worker’s income, for example, might be paid in room and board rather than cold hard cash, while a landowner might be getting a lot of their income from tenants giving them produce (which might then be sold for money or credit). I don’t know if there’s much evidence of that kind of thing in Warcraft, but it’s a little more practical than carrying around a huge chest of gold whenever you want to go shopping.
In practice, I tend to go along with whoever I’m talking to at the time, and avoid specifics where I can. But I think using in-game prices and “1g = £100” as a rule of thumb will usually see you right.
That’s what we tend to do for transactions like say, the one with Gearfist, for our ‘Wyrmbreaker Munitions’ Brigante does not heave a wheelbarrow full of coins to them, he gives them a promissory note which can be redeemed at a Horde bank for the sum listed. If that sounds a bit like a bank note (UK ones to this day actually state “I promise to pay the bearer the sum of x Pounds” or a Cheque, well, it kind of is, but these things have been used for ages, we’ve found Roman Promissory Notes in London, we know the Chinese used them during the Tang Dynasty, they’re not a ‘Modern’ thing.
For massive sums of money, you are not going to carry it in coinage, I mean the weight alone makes it prohibitive, hence even early civilisations having a way to conduct large transactions without requiring the physical coins themselves. So long as you have the money, and the party given the note can access it, then it works. It has largely been the essence of banking and finance since pretty much recorded history, and is part of the reason why ‘A run on the banks’ is so dangerous, because the bank in question probably does not actually physically have enough coins to hand everyone what they are owed at any given time. It is an institution that works, as long as everyone wants it to work, sort of like the Police. No country in the world has a Police force big enough to actually force people to behave. If Everyone decided “No, I’m going to be a criminal”, then the Police are so few, in comparison to the population, that they simply could not enforce Law and Order. It works because everyone wants it to work (Or most people). The same is true with money.
So Wow is likely to have a system of barter economy, benefits for service, actual coin payment, and promissory notes all operating together, which, isn’t outlandish at all, it just comes down to the levels of payment. Plenty of Real world countries use these systems to this day.
‘Traveller’ does indeed give some insights into money, but also it doesn’t explain prices anywhere after Classic. I mean look at the price for a glass of milk, then look at the prices for one in Pandaria, £160 for Milk?
This is because the prices are inflated not by the national or worldwide economy, but our characters level, something which is an artificial construction that does not exist in our world, as such, it is really tricky trying to ascribe real life fiscal values to these things. £160 for a glass of milk is ridiculously expensive to a level 2 character, its chump change for a level 100 character. It just doesn’t work like that in our world. If someone tried to charge me £160 for a glass of milk when I was 16, I would tell them to do one, if someone tried to charge me £160 for a glass of milk now I am 44, I would definitely tell them to do one. In Wow however, prices increase as our characters level does. That doesn’t happen. As I say, it is an artificial construct.
I don’t think there is a simple way of saying “This is how much X costs”, because what ‘X’ costs, changes from expansion to expansion. Its why I prefer the ‘Vague’ approach.
I suppose it also depends on how your character values money itself.
My guild, the Red blade clan, are a nomadic sort that don’t depend on markets, wages or banking. We hunt for our food, make our own gear, trade and work on the value of loyalty over monthly pay. Communal life, if you will. What gold we do have is pooled in the clans coffers, and used only when needed, to get things we can’t get ourselves. You want gold yourself? get a trade, earn it, take it from the enemy, sell war spoils etc. Money has less importance and less value.
For say, a Goblin, used to being given a salary, or a human lord, Gold is more more important, something you need to get the essentials for your standard or way of living. All of it coming from a complex system of work, tax, payment, credit and banking. Money has more importance and thus more value.
So yeah, just a thought, currency value also varies not only from faction to faction, but also race to race and life-style to life-style.
This stuff is helluva varied and confusing. Somewhat like actual economics heh?
Like most things in life I don’t like to think too much about it.
Usually I simply think “would my character be able to afford this?” if yes, then I would pay whatever coins the other person asks of me.
I personally find that things like this merely makes RP a chore if I have to think too much about it rather than just having fun.
A universal economy in RP will never happen.
If your character is selling something, then ask the buyer how much he thinks a baker or a blacksmith earns in one week. Depending on his/hers answer, you can then adjust the price accordingly. That way the buyer gets a sense of the cost, and you save yourself a lot of trouble trying to balance the price on your goods
Some people throw gold around them like it’s nothing, while others scrape together the few coppers they can.
‘Traveller’ does indeed give some insights into money, but also it doesn’t explain prices anywhere after Classic. I mean look at the price for a glass of milk, then look at the prices for one in Pandaria, £160 for Milk?
…
It just doesn’t work like that in our world. If someone tried to charge me £160 for a glass of milk when I was 16, I would tell them to do one, if someone tried to charge me £160 for a glass of milk now I am 44, I would definitely tell them to do one. In Wow however, prices increase as our characters level does. That doesn’t happen. As I say, it is an artificial construct.
It’s true, going off in-game prices quickly looks absurd if you visit high level zones - it only really works in capital cities and home territories.
IMO you could explain the huge discrepancy in prices between, say, ordinary cow’s milk (1.25 silver) and Pandaria yak’s milk (160 silver) by thinking of the high level items like yak’s milk as exotic products from far-away lands that are very expensive to transport over long distances. That’s a cop-out because the yak’s milk costs 160 silver in Pandaria, but I think it works alright if you assume that’s the price it would be if sold in Stormwind or Orgrimmar. In our world, during the Age of Exploration, ‘exotic’ goods like pineapples could cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars in today’s money.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to say the in-game prices are nonsense and be vague wherever possible; when talking prices for work like blacksmithing or mercenary-ing I can’t imagine it being necessary to say more than “this is expensive/cheap/somewhere in the middle”. But I do like having a clear baseline that’s immediately visible to everyone, even if it’s taken with a heap of salt.
I imagine that the current gold cost for items in game is entirely accurate.
I mean, the world has been at near constant war for a good many years now and soldiers and manufacturers need to be paid. There isn’t an infinite amount of gold in the world, so maybe the Trade Princes, in league with Horde and Alliance leadership have been circulating faux gold coins in order to placate the masses and caused immense, irreversible inflation.
To buy a loaf of bread in Stormwind these days, you need a rucksack full of “gold coins”.
