[proposal] Titanium Bars : The alternative currency

Hi!

I've been doing some further thinking about titanium ore and it's derivatives titanium bars and crossbows/damascene swords.

Right now (on Northisle at least) there is the odd situation that the sum of items needed to create an item (crossbow for example) cost far more than the regular market price of that item. In the case of crossbows there is somewhat limited demand because not everyone is L36 yet. Secondly, there is enough supply to satisfy this limited demand, in the form of loot from high-end adventures.

Since both crossbows and damascene swords (the only two items using titanium bars) are both going to be used in a way that they are not sacrificed, the demand will remain to be relatively low in the foreseeable future. With the upcoming burst of people who will be able to search for high-end adventures containing crossbows and damascene swords I predict that after a small surge in demand things will level again, not unlike Longbows or Steel Swords did in the past.

This effectively renders titanium ore / bars useless, since doing an adventure and getting 500-1000 xbow chance is much more economical (hey, it takes around 10-20 adventures just to get resources for a single titanium smelter and crossbowsmith - giving you tons of crossbows in the process).

The alternative currency : Titanium Bars
So, we are left with a material that has no function in production, yet is has properties that make it interesting as a secondary, stable currency. Let me list it's strongpoints :

• It's production parent - titanium ore - can only be gotten through adventuring (a costly and limited affair)
• Has to be produced by a costly building (titanium smelter), working at a slow pace (250/24hr when buffed)
• Has no function as a material (producing xbows and damascene swords is pointless!)
• Is 100% "open source" and driven by population efforts; not some artificial coin that can be exchanged through cash-bought-gems, causing deflation.
• Has the appeal and status - it's a silvery bar of goodness :-)

Just like in real life I see no problem in having multiple monetary standards working besides each other ; gold and silver have existed for centuries simultaneously in all mayor economies of the world. The settler population itself seems quick to adapt to new payment standards (witness the egg-craze, although obviously that was a store-driven event, not player).

The above is just a proposal obviously, some speculation included. It is based upon the issue that it is currently pointless to build crossbowsmiths since making them costs you (even when buffing entire chain) more than the ever dropping current market price.

Your thoughts are welcome :)

Because shellfish-casings, gold and silver had any use for people in (early) human history? The items only unique property was that it was rare/hard to obtain, shiny and did not oxidize. It's ornamental value was developed later, once it was deemed valuable. An item that was just pretty but not rare never developed into a stable currency (glass beads for the Native population of South America during the Spanish invasions for example).

Rarity and durability are really the only two things that are needed to make anything into a coinage standard. The benefit of titanium would be that it's price is only influenced by the amount of time and energy you spend obtaining it. I think that makes it an interesting material. I cannot deny that it's inherently useless for production purposes, that is the obvious crux of my proposal :)

it's almost same for IS, SS, LB
the only weapons you need is Horse and Bronze sword.

I was about suggesting change whole droops
for example, coins are not supposed to be produce, but only dropable from adv (low-high lv adv) and give material to produce weapons instead weapons.

but then again... it would change whole game system.

I have no idea what supposed to do with it.

PS: at least titanium actually can be used my most people who actively trading at global-3, I had lot's of saltpetre, what to do with it?

The whole problem is that bronze swords are too important in this game. So everything is based on the value of bronze swords. If there was for example a maximum amount of recruits you could make each day the game would look so much different and iron swords, bows ect. would have more value then they do now.

For Ti to be useful as a currency it would have to be accepted by the game itself and at a sufficiently attractive exchange rate that those capable of producing it would be content to use Ti in place of or alongside the gold, granite and to lesser extent ewp that currently drive the high-end economy. Otherwise you have a currency that is destined to fail, because nobody is interested in owning the currency itself, simply trading it away for something of more use to them. As it stands the people who cannot produce Ti bars have no incentive to accept it as a currency because the game does not accept it.

It would only be a viable currency if it had a valuable use. Gold coins are used in a lot of things, and their greatest value is building upgrades.
If Titanium were to be used for (example) level 6 building upgrades, then the idea would have some merit.

Hm, I just noticed this :

http://www.defocus.nl/temp/titaniumore.jpg

I guess that kind of ends the whole concept of it being limited to find. Also it seems that to make a currency in this game, unlike in real life, just having something be rare and hard to get is not enough ;).

@ tierarzt : I know it can't be "used" for anything, but it's rareness made it a potentially interesting exchange-unit. Now that I've found out that in the future we can mine titanium..I guess that I'm no long convinced; )