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why so many levels of currency?
maroon89
Member Posts: 51 Arc User
You've got the usual gold, silver, copper and I understand Zen (the moneymaker), but why do we need astral diamonds, glory, seals, and bounty tokens. It seems needlessly complex to me. Is it some effort to combat gold farmers? Why can't we just have gold, silver, copper, and Zen? Someone please enlighten me!
Post edited by maroon89 on
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Glory: you want to buy the PVP stuff from the PVP vendor you gave to actually do PVP to buy them - this makes sense to me. The same thing applies to the Gauntelgrim (sp?) gear.
Bounty Tokens: sell on AH(by the time you get enough of them to convert to seals you usually have out leveled the zone and the gear you can buy from the seal vendor in the zone - unless you buy them off the AH to get the gear as soon as you can equip it - I don't think it is worh bothering to do this but clearly others disagree as I never have issues selling the bounty tokens on the AH).
Seals from Epic dungeons:I really have no idea what they are for as the gear you can buy with them is not that good (salvage fodder) other that buying a wererat companion.
Different playstyles (in other words, particapting in different in-game activities) are rewarded with different currencies.
Gold: This is your standard reward for killing stuff.
AD: This is a reward for investing time in the game. It rewards you for just logging in (Invoking), for participating in crafting (Leadership), for taking part in events (CTA, Daily Skirmishes and Daily Dungeons), for using the Foundry (Daily Foundry) and so on. A tiny percentage of AD comes into the game from pack sales and things like the recent NVIDIA promo, but in general AD only comes into existence by people playing the game.(Even Salvage requires you to play the game to get the item you are salvaging.)
Glory: A PvP currency is common to lots of games and lets them provide a way for people who don't like PvE to gear up.
Bounty: This is really just a zone-based Reputation system that has been monetized.
Seals: This is kind of like bounty only based on level tiers instead of zones. I think its the one that needs the most work to make it relevant. But there are other threads about that.
ZEN: This rewards you for direct cash contributions to the game.
Trade Bars: These are a sort of secondary reward and/or consolation prize for gambling on lockboxes.
Celestial Coins: This is another time based currency focusing specifically on getting the player to come back every day.
Ardent Coins: Loyalty reward.
etc.
So, how do these different playstyles all help fund the game? There may be several steps involved, but the various currencies can almost always be converted to each other (or at least they can be used to obtain the stuff you normally buy with that other currency). Therefore ZEN can become almost any currency (or the stuff you buy with that currency), and almost any playstyle can stimulate sales of ZEN. This, in turn, makes this the only F2P game I know of that gives you the ability to obtain virtually everything available without ever paying a single penny. Two things make all this happen.
First, there is the Auction House, which allows you to directly convert AD to items and vice versa. These items either come from loot (which is another reward for killing stuff), ZEN purchases, AD purchases (from Wondrous Bazaar), Gold purchases or trade bar purchases. The Auction House connects all these currencies together with AD as a common medium for turning any currency into any other currency, or the rewards from one playstyle into the rewards from another.
Secondly, you have the AD Exchange where you can trade AD and ZEN.
Working together, the AH and the Exchange allow you to turn cash into AD and then into anything available on the Auction House, or any item or sevice sold directly for AD. Likewise, anything that isn't bound can be sold on the AH to convert it to AD which in turn can be Exchanged for ZEN so you can buy anything in the cash market. If something is bound, you can vendor it to turn it into Gold or salvage it to turn it into AD.
TL;DR VERSION: While the currency system could certainly be less complicated, it rewards every kind of gameplay with something. Then it gives a way to use ZEN to buy just about any of those rewards. Therefore, all kinds of gameplay can stimulate sales of ZEN thereby funding the game. This system also lets you obtain rewards given to other playstyles without necessarily engaging in those playstyles.
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