Should gold have weight?

[ddillon]

With weightless gold, concepts like an item being worth its weight in gold become meaningless.

 

The only situation in which your argument has any relevance is the case of items weighing less than their equivalent value of coins. With gold having weight, if a gem has a value of two gold coins but weighs less than those two gold coins, then it is more efficient in terms of inventory management to retain the gem instead of selling it. Now you have a store of gems and other such items in addition to your store of gold. Inventory management is more complex. Here's the question: What does this add to the game? Why would it be desirable?

 

In games having weightless gold, whether or not an item is worth looting can still be judged by the ratio of its weight to value. For example, in Bethesda rpgs, I skip most items having a value less than ten times their weight early in the game. Later, I sometimes skip items not worth at least twenty times their weight. Sometimes, even that much inventory management can be tedious.

Edited September 29, 2012 by ddillon

[Volourn]

"Second, you're assuming that weighty gold existed for a legitimate reason. "

 

Gold should have weight for the same legitmate reason all equipment should weigh - that's the way it should work. But, hey, for convience let's not have swords and armour weigh anything either. It's just an inconvience, afterall.

 

Real role-players -hardcore or not - should support weighted coins. It's the logical and most fun thing to do.

[Cantousent]

Okay okay, I'm not trying to be insulting, but the gold/weight thing is just stupid. Yeah... realism? lol Like these games are ever realistic. The first argumengt, and the the best argument is the best. It's not worth it. Gold weight should only be included if it adds something more substantial than moving back and forth more often to deal with the mechanic. It won't be. It will almost certainly be nothing more than just busy work for the PC. If it doesn't add something tactically or strategically to gameplay, it's just auto-eroticism for the 'hardcore' (haha) players.

 

EDIT: I would be sorry if I offended the hardcore players (lol), but I'm a little beyond caring. Tomorrow I'll probably give a crap. I guess.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Cantousent

[Adauli]

If at all it should be option at gamestart to give curency a weight but as this have to be balanced seperate I voted for no weight.

[Critical]

Okay okay, I'm not trying to be insulting, but the gold/weight thing is just stupid. Yeah... realism? lol Like these games are ever realistic. The first argument, and the the best argument is the best. It's not worth it. Gold weight should only be included if it adds something more substantial than moving back and forth more often to deal with the mechanic. It won't be. It will almost certainly be nothing more than just busy work for the PC. If it doesn't add something tactically or strategically to gameplay, it's just auto-eroticism for the 'hardcore' (haha) players.

 

EDIT: I would be sorry if I offended the hardcore players (lol), but I'm a little beyond caring. Tomorrow I'll probably give a crap. I guess.

 

No NO Cantousent! Dont tell them that the premise of fireballs appearing out of peoples hands isn't real! Im having too much fun reading the rest of this thread and its funny explanations of invisible people who steal infinite amounts of money.

 

We have to save some for later....

Edited September 29, 2012 by Critical

[Vaeliorin]

I dislike weighty gold simply because every time I've ever encountered it, the whole purpose of it seems to be to screw over the player. Gold will have weight, so generally there will be some way to exchange gold for something less weighty...but the less weighty thing never sells for as much as it costs. It basically just works as a gold sink that depends entirely on strength, so there's no way for it to really be balanced for.

 

If they do make gold have weight, I want a portable hole. That way, I can do like my old D&D group did, and just have a portable hole that serves as a vault, ala Scrooge McDuck.

[motorizer]

it should be part of the expert mode

[HansKrSG]

"Heck no! This is a world of magic and such and my bog of holding weighs the same wether it has 1 gold coin in it or 1 million gold coins in it. Money having weight is just one of those annoying things that just get's in the way of fun. "

 

Weighted coins makes things like bag of holding even cooler and more valuable.

 

 

"Long story short, inventory weight management mechanics doesn't add any "entertainment" to the package for the vast majority of players. If it doesn't make the game more enjoyable to the majority of players there is no real reason to include it."

 

Nonsense. Plus, stop speaking for others. Stick to speaking for yourself. Don't pretend to know what Timmy Of The Block wants or finds fun.

 

I personally find weighted coins and varied coins FUN. they makes games MORE enjoyable.

 

Tough you are right that people should speak for themselves, reading through these posts, it seems that most of the posters do not want weighted coins. That being said, I am all for varied coins, who pays a gold coin for a piece of bread anyway?

Edited September 29, 2012 by HansKrSG

[draft1983]

Okay okay, I'm not trying to be insulting, but the gold/weight thing is just stupid. Yeah... realism? lol Like these games are ever realistic. The first argumengt, and the the best argument is the best. It's not worth it. Gold weight should only be included if it adds something more substantial than moving back and forth more often to deal with the mechanic. It won't be. It will almost certainly be nothing more than just busy work for the PC. If it doesn't add something tactically or strategically to gameplay, it's just auto-eroticism for the 'hardcore' (haha) players.

 

EDIT: I would be sorry if I offended the hardcore players (lol), but I'm a little beyond caring. Tomorrow I'll probably give a crap. I guess.

 

Thats like saying that having weight for other items is just to be realistic? Its not there just to be realistic it's there because it's always there and pretty much expected in an rpg. But for some reason gold coins having weight is not?? it gives another decision to make.. do i take the sword and drop gold? or do i not??? - if you was a looter and you found some treasure, you'd grab all you could carry wouldn't you?? wether it would be a gold coin, some gems, a weapon, a precious artifact... a gold coin is an item, just like all the others, so you feel you should be able to carry a few of one item and an unlimited amount of another item??? it's that that is stupid....

 

It's not just about the gold, it's about all currency, each coin is 1 item and should be treated that way.

Edited September 29, 2012 by draft1983

[draft1983]

You ahve a player house to deposit all your stuff so i really don;t see any issue of currency having weight

[Bland_Boy]

Now that I think more. I don't really care either way.

[Troller]

Sure, make gold weightless, so that when a thief picks your pocket, he gets a fortune worth of coin and can retire and live a good life

also bank robbers must have an easy time too, going into a vault full of gold with just a backpack, getting billions of coins in their backpack and walk away to his new billionare life

Edited September 29, 2012 by Troller

[hideo kuze]

The problem is not gold having weight, the problem are broken economies and games.

Asking for Higgs boson free gold only makes sense in games with broken economies.

 

 

Typical RPG:

- help us, we are just a bunch of peasants and our blacksmith is only able to sell wooden swords

- 10 levels latter...

- blacksmith is now selling uber armor of radiant awesomeness, only for 99,999.99

- 10 levels latter...

- you're the richest and most powerful character in the game, yet the merchants somehow still have the most powerful gear you ever saw, are selling it for millions of gold coins while asking you to save the world

 

Other example:

- no money for healing potions

- scavenge everything for gold

- start hoarding healing potions and buying lots of them

- massive drinking of healing potions at every major combat

 

 

I rather have a game that is not item based and as such, not gold based.

 

Variety in items? Yes

Variety in item material quality (rusty, bronze, steel, star metal)? Yes

Lots of magical item tiers (like Diablo games or +1, +2... +10)? No

Items with different properties and uses (eg: sword is bad against skeletons) ? Yes

Recipes for crafting items with skill requirements? Yes

Most powerful magical items can be crafted by you? No, but if you pretty much maxed out that craft/blacksmith skill you're able to craft some powerful ones.

Most powerful items in game are just a few and have a rich history/lore behind them? Yes

Edited September 29, 2012 by hideo kuze

[wormix]

Weight =/= monetary value, a 5 year old child could tell you that. monetary value of an object is based on its utility, its demand and its scarcity.

Nowehere did I state that weight == value. Infact I stated that the value to weight RATIO is important. Basically your weight capacity in the game is there for one of two things. One is your combat effectiveness. You can only carry a certain amount of weapons, potions, etc. And the other is carrying stuff you dont want to sell. In a game where you're picking up items to sell, these items are directly competing with gold for how much you can carry out of the dungeon. If you say that you should be able to carry as much gold as you want out, then why not every item? Having a game with weightless items is fine from a design standpoint, as long as it's one or the other.

 

"Its worth its weight in gold" is a phrase, NOT A FACT! You say it when something or someone was worth (or worth more) than everything you spent to acquire it or their services. The rest of that paragraph is just... ugh.

This is a very simplified scenario that explains why gold needs to have weight in games where a lot of items you pick up, you only pick up to sell at a later point. You can apply this to any dungeon, just condensed. It doesn't make any sense for gold to be 'free' while other items which are only valuable to the party because they can sell them in town, need to have their weight considered.

There are many other types of games that use weightless money, like RE4 which has a very well designed inventory for the type of game it is. But in an RPG where it is assumed all items have weight, it never makes sense for gold to also be weightless (except for party-pooled gold, but when why is only gold poolable?)

 

"So why is gold special?" Hmmm well because its currency. Currency was invented so that you didn't have to carry your cow to market and sit there until you could find someone to trade the cow for tools. Gold was selected as currency for a few reasons the most important being: IT WAS WORTH FAR FAR FAR MORE THAN ITS WEIGHT, thus you could carry it with you with out spending extra time and energy to get the cow to market.

"IT WAS WORTH FAR FAR FAR MORE THAN ITS WEIGHT" You just said before that weight =/= money? Now it has a worth, I'm confused :psyduck:

I said why is gold special compared with OTHER items that also only exist to be used as currency. In a barter game you could also take a magical sword you looted to buy what you need. Does this mean it should also be weightless so you can carry as much as you want? Before you mention the utility of the sword, almost every item useful to the player in an RPG with increasing item efficiency eventually becomes useless except to sell.

 

Wait someone has a problem, because they want to go back in order to get gold which is just sitting on the ground undefended, free for the taking and is used to buy better weapons and armor to help you win the game? Yes, because making gold disappear from the game seemingly from people who ARE capable of carrying as much gold as they want, fixes everything.... (sarcasm there)

In short: Yes. First of all, just because gold has weight doesn't mean you'll be literally swimming in it after each dungeon, and again is an argument against bad design rather than gold with weight. Second of all, if you prefer to go back to loot items on the ground of a dungeon already defeated, that's your choice. The game should not be designed so you can loot as many items you want to feed your horder compulsion. Items disappearing from previously cleared or visited dungeons is a very simple concept both from a design and realism view (bandits/locals/whatever loot the place while you're gone)

 

How is that view point weak? Because you reference an unknown quality or quantity... is your reasoning. Ummm .... NO. At this point Im done explaining.... I just cant not worth my time.

Because every single person who is defending it comes up with a specific scenario (that makes zero sense to be in a game in the first place) in order to explain why they oppose it. It is weak because it's obvious that they're just arguing this scenario in order to defend it, rather than thinking about it properly. It can also be applied to any other item: items shouldn't have weight because it takes me 10 trips to sell all my loot in Skyrim. And yes I'm referencing an unknown, which shows that whether it works or not is to do with how well it's designed, which is key. There may or may not be flaws. Weightless gold on the other hand, is always flawed in this type of RPG.

 

Sorry if I half-assed the response, but well... the post seemed half-assed. In fact I probably just got trolled.

But its ok, I'm bookmarking this for future use. Promise not to use the name.

 

Edit: Ok I lied

I was going to make a quick reply and then it turned much bigger and less focused. There are numerous errors and problems in my post that you could point out. However most of it would be to do with the type of game being referenced. Gold became weightless because it ended up being pooled between the party, and it became too difficult to incorporate it into the encumbrance system. In Action games, where you don't pick up items to sell, your inventory capacity is only for determining your combat capabilities, and gold haing weight doesn't make sense. But in any game where 'useless' items (such as magical +3 swords when your entire party is using +5's) are assumed to have weight for whatever reason, handwaving weightless gold doesn't fix any design issues, it just creates more ones.

 

As for being called a troll, trolls are the new nazis I guess.

[Sisay]

Daggerfall had a fun implementation of money with weight. The thing is, it also had banks and letters of credit to make it less of a hassle. Without these, gold with weight is additional tedium for no particular reason. I liked the system in Daggerfall, but I can't imagine implementing something like that in Project Eternity would be worth the opportunity cost. So no, gold should not have weight in this context.

[Critical]

First off you need to reread your previous argument, your poor wording and the claims you used are exactly the reason why you got the response I gave you.

Sorry if I offended you by calling you a troll, but half way threw my respond I just couldn't believe someone would make such an argument with so many clear flaws. So I checked your profile page and it showed you made your account just an hour before you made your post (also your first post). So ya, I did think there was a possibility that I was getting trolled.

 

Weight =/= monetary value, a 5 year old child could tell you that. monetary value of an object is based on its utility, its demand and its scarcity.

Nowehere did I state that weight == value. Infact I stated that the value to weight RATIO is important. Basically your weight capacity in the game is there for one of two things. One is your combat effectiveness. You can only carry a certain amount of weapons, potions, etc. And the other is carrying stuff you dont want to sell. In a game where you're picking up items to sell, these items are directly competing with gold for how much you can carry out of the dungeon. If you say that you should be able to carry as much gold as you want out, then why not every item? Having a game with weightless items is fine from a design standpoint, as long as it's one or the other.

 

This shows the problem with your previous argument. If you had explained it as you have now, it would have made far more sense. Its very easy to see where I misinterpreted your viewpoint to mean weight relative to gold as a fixed factor. Next time you should consider explaining your view better and not expecting us all to get what you mean. The misinterpretation of argument happens a lot when you have only language as a medium for discussion.

 

"Its worth its weight in gold" is a phrase, NOT A FACT! You say it when something or someone was worth (or worth more) than everything you spent to acquire it or their services. The rest of that paragraph is just... ugh.

This is a very simplified scenario that explains why gold needs to have weight in games where a lot of items you pick up, you only pick up to sell at a later point. You can apply this to any dungeon, just condensed. It doesn't make any sense for gold to be 'free' while other items which are only valuable to the party because they can sell them in town, need to have their weight considered.

There are many other types of games that use weightless money, like RE4 which has a very well designed inventory for the type of game it is. But in an RPG where it is assumed all items have weight, it never makes sense for gold to also be weightless (except for party-pooled gold, but when why is only gold poolable?)

 

Listen you are the one who paired that phrase with a specific scenario that was very simplified. Think about it. You have a specific scenario (you called it such), yet you decide to explain it in a simplified context and you didn't think to assume it might get misinterpreted. Your previous scenario is very poorly explained makes quite a few assumptions we are forced to believe for it to work. Its a poor explanation and explains exactly why you seemed to be attributing the phrase as fact.

 

I'll explain this again, Gold can and is used as a form of currency. It happens to be that in the real world, Gold (Au) has weight. My Debit Card here weights less than a pound (I'm pretty ****ing sure of it), yet it has the ability to contain a direct link to my account which contains currency. The weight of my debit card and its weight in gold is not directly equal to them being equal in monetary value. Why do you think "credits" in scifi rpgs have no weight, because they either don't or the weight of the distribution device is so minimal its not worth talking about. I can see where someone would make an argument that gold should have weight because its unrealistic for a normal human to carry so much of a particular precious metal that can have a fair amount of weight if its in large quantities. In fact I'm pretty sure that's what most people are suggesting in this thread when they support gold having weight, yet you seem to be suggesting that you believe it should be so for gameplay purposes.... yes?

 

"So why is gold special?" Hmmm well because its currency. Currency was invented so that you didn't have to carry your cow to market and sit there until you could find someone to trade the cow for tools. Gold was selected as currency for a few reasons the most important being: IT WAS WORTH FAR FAR FAR MORE THAN ITS WEIGHT, thus you could carry it with you with out spending extra time and energy to get the cow to market.

"IT WAS WORTH FAR FAR FAR MORE THAN ITS WEIGHT" You just said before that weight =/= money? Now it has a worth, I'm confused :psyduck:

I said why is gold special compared with OTHER items that also only exist to be used as currency. In a barter game you could also take a magical sword you looted to buy what you need. Does this mean it should also be weightless so you can carry as much as you want? Before you mention the utility of the sword, almost every item useful to the player in an RPG with increasing item efficiency eventually becomes useless except to sell.

 

This is a really poor defense for what you stated, but I'm trying to be nice here. First off you made a claim about why Gold was used as (not stated directly, but indirectly) currency. I thus began to explain why currency was created and why gold was used. Which leads me to this,

 

> is NOT =, these are 2 completely different symbols of math. You know this, I know you know this and I know you are dilberatly trying to make an untrue claim about what I said as a scapegoat. If you really don't know this then well I'm sorry I'm the one informing you of this, but its true. Its not an opinion, its not a point of view, its a fact that "> doesn't mean =".

 

Currency (noun): A generally accepted medium for exchange.

 

Your Magical sword isn't currency.... it can be exchanged for currency, but it is not gold or what ever currency in commonly used. Unless in your fantasy RPG world people buy cows, pay taxes, and sell goods with magical swords (in that context magical swords do become currency).

 

Wait someone has a problem, because they want to go back in order to get gold which is just sitting on the ground undefended, free for the taking and is used to buy better weapons and armor to help you win the game? Yes, because making gold disappear from the game seemingly from people who ARE capable of carrying as much gold as they want, fixes everything.... (sarcasm there)

In short: Yes. First of all, just because gold has weight doesn't mean you'll be literally swimming in it after each dungeon, and again is an argument against bad design rather than gold with weight. Second of all, if you prefer to go back to loot items on the ground of a dungeon already defeated, that's your choice. The game should not be designed so you can loot as many items you want to feed your horder compulsion. Items disappearing from previously cleared or visited dungeons is a very simple concept both from a design and realism view (bandits/locals/whatever loot the place while you're gone)

 

I'm sorry but Hoarding and Greed isn't precisely the same thing. What makes Hoarding a problem is that someone applies an immense psychologically utility value on goods they acquire. A hoarder in a video game, wouldn't just take everything in order to sell it at a shop. A hoarder would take nearly everything in a dungeon and store it, because their mind has placed a value on keeping the item for many possible reasons. Your understanding of what hoarding is, is incorrect. Saying people are greedy, to take everything in a dungeon in order to sell it is more accurate.

 

How is that view point weak? Because you reference an unknown quality or quantity... is your reasoning. Ummm .... NO. At this point Im done explaining.... I just cant not worth my time.

Because every single person who is defending it comes up with a specific scenario (that makes zero sense to be in a game in the first place) in order to explain why they oppose it. It is weak because it's obvious that they're just arguing this scenario in order to defend it, rather than thinking about it properly. It can also be applied to any other item: items shouldn't have weight because it takes me 10 trips to sell all my loot in Skyrim. And yes I'm referencing an unknown, which shows that whether it works or not is to do with how well it's designed, which is key. There may or may not be flaws. Weightless gold on the other hand, is always flawed in this type of RPG.

 

Edit: Also, just because other people make an assumption about an unknown, doesn't mean you should do so as well. You should identify the weakness in the premise and explain their error.

 

Sorry if I half-assed the response, but well... the post seemed half-assed. In fact I probably just got trolled.

But its ok, I'm bookmarking this for future use. Promise not to use the name.

 

Edit: Ok I lied

I was going to make a quick reply and then it turned much bigger and less focused. There are numerous errors and problems in my post that you could point out. However most of it would be to do with the type of game being referenced. Gold became weightless because it ended up being pooled between the party, and it became too difficult to incorporate it into the encumbrance system. In Action games, where you don't pick up items to sell, your inventory capacity is only for determining your combat capabilities, and gold haing weight doesn't make sense. But in any game where 'useless' items (such as magical +3 swords when your entire party is using +5's) are assumed to have weight for whatever reason, handwaving weightless gold doesn't fix any design issues, it just creates more ones.

 

As for being called a troll, trolls are the new nazis I guess.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Critical

[wormix]

I'm not really sure what to make of your post because you don't actually address the point I'm making. I explained why it's wrong for any common item to not have weight from a gameplay perspective, because having to reiterate how it's wrong from a realism perspective is needlessly pointless. Instead you seem to prefer to make condescending comments, and nitpick the definitions of currency and greed. You fit the definition of a troll more than anyone else in this thread.

[Critical]

I'm not really sure what to make of your post because you don't actually address the point I'm making. I explained why it's wrong for any common item to not have weight from a gameplay perspective, because having to reiterate how it's wrong from a realism perspective is needlessly pointless. Instead you seem to prefer to make condescending comments, and nitpick the definitions of currency and greed. You fit the definition of a troll more than anyone else in this thread.

 

My goal was simply to end the argument now that you had decided to better explain and expand on it, but your asking for my view. Fair enough....

 

I'll laying down your views, how I understand them,

 

You believe that the purpose of Inventory is for two things:

1. For combat usage (Im guessing this includes equiped items)

2. For items you will use later.

Thus, the purpose of picking up items to sell them, is to you an incorrect use of inventory?

But then you seem to talk about picking up items for selling.... (which to me seems contradicting of what your saying but this is your view, not mine we get to mine later)

What you seem to be suggesting is: Players should only be able to carry out what they want and the rest of their weight should be dedicated to gold (then a few random items to fill where you don't have gold; that would take a lot of gold in every dungeon for people to abandon taking other items).

We will skip the currency and hoarder definitional argument all together, since it really involves a lack of knowledge on your part.

You also say weightless gold doesn't fix design issue (which are? You never stated them) and creates new ones (What are they? You don't seem to discuss them unless you mentioned it somewhere I missed)

 

Honestly I think this isn't the best solution for what you seemingly want to do, but ok...

You also seem to be contradicting your views in a few places.

 

I disagree with this fundamentally, Inventory is there to store what ever the player wants to store and can store. The Developer creates a limit to inventory mainly for game balance purposes thus preventing players from buying 10,000 hand grenades for the final boss, but also not to break the players suspension of disbelief (which is critical to any sci-fi entertainment, fantasy included). Furthermore, Gold has always been worth more then the weight of items, because gold is highly demanded & scarce (highly priced), thus conveniently used for currency since its weight is minimal compared to its value. What you seem to suggest is that every dungeon would have a mountain of gold, but then gold wouldn't be that valuable would it? Gold is valuable because it is both scarce and demanded. As you stated if there was a mountain of gold in every dungeon, why would we even value gold or use it as currency? Gold should always be an immediate pick up, because (as I said) its price to weight ratio isn't equal to every other item and materials weight in world (its usually far greater) and since its highly unlikely you would ever find more then could be carried out by a party. The main argument I've seen for gold having weight, which seems to only be part of your argument unless I'm mistaken, is not giving gold weight DOES break their suspension of disbelief. Most people can suspend this belief because they don't want to toil with having to manage where all their gold is..... but to other people 10,000 gold coins should physically show their weight on the player.

 

My suggestion to the devs would be to solve the problem the way Bethesda does. Make gold a physical part of your inventory, but leave it with no weight. Its quite easy for any modder to quickly go in and add weight. Players who are really dead set on giving gold weight will mod in the weight. That is if weight will be a factor in inventory management at all, in which case players will likely have to create a full weight mod. (it also seems to be going in that direction)

 

Edit: This is the last I'm going to comment on this, mainly because I regret I've even gone this far...

It either seems your grasping at an idea (about inventory management) that your having trouble describing or your just adding wind to your argument which isn't as complicated as you describe it. If its the former you should take your argument to another thread about inventory management in general.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Critical

[Kevin Lynch]

Adding gold weight to the difficulty level or as a toggle for any difficulty level would be fine with me. I'd never use it, as I'm not going to be that hardcore about my roleplaying, but I get that there are those that would enjoy the challenge it presents.

[Theobeau]

Agree with the above poster, for those who like more realism why not have the option?

 

Also agree with those who suggested that if gold having a weight is mandatory, consider options such as bags of holding/ promissory notes / merchant guilds acting as primitive banks and gems et al being available as high value bater add ins to otherwise currency transactions.

 

Aside:

Some of the themes touched on here are also being debated in the monetary system thread. Interesting that the forum is getting into the nitty gritty of pre-renaissance banking systems.

[draft1983]

I'm not really sure what to make of your post because you don't actually address the point I'm making. I explained why it's wrong for any common item to not have weight from a gameplay perspective, because having to reiterate how it's wrong from a realism perspective is needlessly pointless. Instead you seem to prefer to make condescending comments, and nitpick the definitions of currency and greed. You fit the definition of a troll more than anyone else in this thread.

 

My goal was simply to end the argument now that you had decided to better explain and expand on it, but your asking for my view. Fair enough....

 

I'll laying down your views, how I understand them,

 

You believe that the purpose of Inventory is for two things:

1. For combat usage (Im guessing this includes equiped items)

2. For items you will use later.

Thus, the purpose of picking up items to sell them, is to you an incorrect use of inventory?

But then you seem to talk about picking up items for selling.... (which to me seems contradicting of what your saying but this is your view, not mine we get to mine later)

What you seem to be suggesting is: Players should only be able to carry out what they want and the rest of their weight should be dedicated to gold (then a few random items to fill where you don't have gold; that would take a lot of gold in every dungeon for people to abandon taking other items).

We will skip the currency and hoarder definitional argument all together, since it really involves a lack of knowledge on your part.

You also say weightless gold doesn't fix design issue (which are? You never stated them) and creates new ones (What are they? You don't seem to discuss them unless you mentioned it somewhere I missed)

 

Honestly I think this isn't the best solution for what you seemingly want to do, but ok...

You also seem to be contradicting your views in a few places.

 

I disagree with this fundamentally, Inventory is there to store what ever the player wants to store and can store. The Developer creates a limit to inventory mainly for game balance purposes thus preventing players from buying 10,000 hand grenades for the final boss, but also not to break the players suspension of disbelief (which is critical to any sci-fi entertainment, fantasy included). Furthermore, Gold has always been worth more then the weight of items, because gold is highly demanded & scarce (highly priced), thus conveniently used for currency since its weight is minimal compared to its value. What you seem to suggest is that every dungeon would have a mountain of gold, but then gold wouldn't be that valuable would it? Gold is valuable because it is both scarce and demanded. As you stated if there was a mountain of gold in every dungeon, why would we even value gold or use it as currency? Gold should always be an immediate pick up, because (as I said) its price to weight ratio isn't equal to every other item and materials weight in world (its usually far greater) and since its highly unlikely you would ever find more then could be carried out by a party. The main argument I've seen for gold having weight, which seems to only be part of your argument unless I'm mistaken, is not giving gold weight DOES break their suspension of disbelief. Most people can suspend this belief because they don't want to toil with having to manage where all their gold is..... but to other people 10,000 gold coins should physically show their weight on the player.

 

My suggestion to the devs would be to solve the problem the way Bethesda does. Make gold a physical part of your inventory, but leave it with no weight. Its quite easy for any modder to quickly go in and add weight. Players who are really dead set on giving gold weight will mod in the weight. That is if weight will be a factor in inventory management at all, in which case players will likely have to create a full weight mod. (it also seems to be going in that direction)

 

Edit: This is the last I'm going to comment on this, mainly because I regret I've even gone this far...

It either seems your grasping at an idea (about inventory management) that your having trouble describing or your just adding wind to your argument which isn't as complicated as you describe it. If its the former you should take your argument to another thread about inventory management in general.

 

I really believe you are arguing just to argue. why is it ok to have weight on items that you only pick up to sell (which are now only the gold that you will get for the item) but it is not ok to have weight on the gold you pick up?? i really don't see what the big issue is apart from the "inconvenience". I dont see anymore inconvenience from having weighty currency than there is with weighted weapons, or armor... it's the same.

 

it's really simple to understand the points this other guy is putting across but you seem to be playing a childs game.

[Loranc]

Whether or not gold has weight, the modding community will certainly have a mod for it. And whether or not it has weight doesn't really impact the game in any significant way. I remember back during the old EQ 1 days, I use to have to dump my copper on my buddies all the time. It was fun times playing a Monk and trying to keep my weight down . But as far as immersion goes, I don't feel like it matters.

[draft1983]

Whether or not gold has weight, the modding community will certainly have a mod for it. And whether or not it has weight doesn't really impact the game in any significant way. I remember back during the old EQ 1 days, I use to have to dump my copper on my buddies all the time. It was fun times playing a Monk and trying to keep my weight down . But as far as immersion goes, I don't feel like it matters.

 

For me it's more to do with the principle - i find it stupid that for soem reason gold coins seem to ignore the law of physics and defy gravity. make helium coins and it's ok for them to be weightless.... job done

[Streamlock]

Gah-this convo always pops it's ugly little head up in every computer RPG with physical in game currency. Everybody is right, and everybody is wrong-as always.

 

It either adds to your enjoyment and immersion of the gaming experience, or the opposite. It's akin to fast travel systems. The only solution is-budget permitting to have the ability to enable/disable it apon character creation.

 

Nuff said.

[Rosveen]

The problem is not gold having weight, the problem are broken economies and games.

Hear, hear.

 

Love for complex economies is my personal quirk. Rolling in gold as soon as I reach level 10 is unacceptable - what I want to see is regional values, banks, and realistic bounties/prizes/etc. With this in mind, I'm all for weighted gold, but I understand why others might not like it, so I'd keep it as a part of hardcore setting.