So, we’re having an interesting discussion in Discord and I thought I’d toss it out here for more opinions.
Money, currency, gold, is not his motivator in life. He only wanted adventure!
So, since the lore hasn’t been updated since the Cata revamp and was reinforced in WoD (our last touching upon the subject), I legit believe the economic imbalance present in WoW the game is completely identical to the economic imbalance found in the Alliance post-War against the Lich King.
The Alliance’s economy has totally collapsed. People are being given 25 gold and working a gig economy if not in the Military Industrial Complex. Mounts cost upwards of 250k gold. A single piece of green gear from Elwynn Forest will put you back a couple hundred.
I have to imagine Vanndrel carries at least 500 gold with him if he’s traveling to the “mainland”. Kul’tiras’ economy was insulated from the Alliance collapse, but he’s living in Stormsong Valley which post-War is probably still trying to rebuild itself. Thinking about it, he probably only took a solid 200 gold with him to Dornagol when Lady Proudmoore asked for volunteers. No sense carrying a bunch of party favors when all it’s being used for is buying drinks on the boat.
I figure the size of a 50 cent piece.
I try to have a gander at NPC vendor prices in the current content before doing that kind of RP, so I’m giving the sellers a “fair” market price for the goods and services. Honestly, I just try to work with the economy Blizzard themselves establish within the world.
TBH I kinda run with old Vanilla WoW gold prices because it just seems silly to be like, hi it’s me, I got 500,000 gold pieces in my bags/bank. 1 or 2 gold would be like $50-100 in IRL monies to me.
Okay but I do like this so gold still probably $50-100 in IRL monies but the economy has collapsed and economic imbalance means the cost of items are just insane.
As for my character, I headcanon that the Draenei actually don’t really use gold. There’s some flavor text somewhere from an NPC at the Exodar that says that while the Draenei have moved on from using gold, they recognize "gold makes the world go round". Which I know is just silly flavor text referencing a song but I am a World of Warcraft RPer and I’m going to make up a complex headcanon based on a one liner joke someone probably made and promptly forgot about when populating the Exodar with NPCs.
SO YAH! I headcanon the Draenei don’t really use gold, but understand that if they are going to get by in the Alliance, they are going to need gold to some degree. I’m not going to write a bunch on all that and just talk about my guy Juspion.
Now Juspion, he started out insanely broke but now he’s actually doing well because of funny cartoon hijinks.
The first is he had a small gold stipend that all Draenei receive when leaving the Exodar for the rest of the Alliance. He some how got tricked by a Gnome with a suspicious mlm business to turn his gold into BIG MONEY. Well, that Gnome delivered, by literally turning his handful of gold coins into GIANT gold coins and then minting it down into small usable gold coins. That Gnome then helped him funnel that gold into various goblin and Alliance bank accounts to avoid suspicion. Juspion has no idea that he committed gold fraud.
In addition to that, he still receives weekly pay cheques from our last guild Picks and Pints and they are signed by our old Guildmaster. No one knows why he still gets pay cheques but he does and that’s that.
He still lives well below his means, happily gives gold to people but he’s literally a billionaire LOL.
It has no impact on the character, it’s just funny that for weeks I’d RP at the cask broke as hell, then it was like, what happened to your money, oh I gave it to a gnome and then as each week went by this side story on Juspion’s finances turned into wait did you commit fraud???
I think ‘wealthy’ also applies differently across certain strata of society, and the views in-between these levels would also be interesting. There’s also the fact that income doesn’t necessarily factor in expenses, taxes and unexpected costs from natural disasters, wars, health issues etc.
A civilian merchant, craftsfolk or basic soldier is likely to consider four or five gold coins ‘excessive’ in terms of cost, and a ‘wealthy’ person amongst their level is probably somebody who could claim a steady income of twenty to thirty gold per week. Grunts and Footmen are paid in silver, from memory, so its unlikely to me that they’d see large amounts of gold change hands in person. Somebody making hundreds of gold would be ‘stinking rich’, and somebody making even more would probably been seen as absurdly wealthy and probably should be taxed more.
There’s also the fact a lot of starter white and grey items cost silver, not gold, coins, and these are the bare basic, no enchantments, yes it will cut, stab or smash a Kobold, Gnoll, Quilboar or Murloc items. This is also likely the area where you’ll find people selling low-level magical items, alchemical goods, basic labour and raw goods in small quantities.
People who run small to mid-sized companies, manufacturing groups, merchant/cargo ships, multiple farms, or who are in the trade of white-to-green or green-to-blue items, are likely considered ‘wealthy’ in the eyes of their peers if they can claim 500-1k gold income per week, but that’s also far more likely to be a volatile income and one that is also likely to be dipped into repeatedly when the market turns from bull to bear, and enhanced in the short term when the market flips from bear back to bull. Actual personal wealth is likely much lower, probably 100-200 gold per week, but given the volatility of the economies of the Horde and the Alliance after all these conflicts, and all these unpaid debts and loans piling up …
This likely includes merchants selling mid-level magical items, people selling specialist goods, tools and services, leaders of basic mercenary groups, commissioned officers in the various armies and other military forces, special forces amongst the armies and special forces, and people who buy and sell raw goods in larger quantities.
Folks who operate in very potent positions, such as Trade Princes, Faction Leaders, leaders of civilian industry groups, high-level mercenary groups and leaders of merchant fleets probably have a weekly income of 1-10k per week, but much like the previous bracket, they’re likely to dip into that heavily, and repeatedly, to make ends meet for their businesses and purposes. That said, their reserve wealth is absurdly impressive and they have both the influence and the economic might to push things to go their way even if they’re operating on a perpetual loss of income.
The goods we receive for our services, the piles of gold and silver we get, likely come from the reserves of the Faction Leaders and the military, rather than the general reserves of the Mega-Factions themselves, as our efforts are ‘extraordinary’ services, and even with our reputations, trying to explain to a bean-counter you hired a half-naked raving lunatic with the powers of God and Anime on their side to go kick an pan-dimensional eldritch horror from pre-history in the mystery flesh orifice until it fell over and went back into its crack in-between realities is gonna be an experience nobody wants on-top of the stress of leading an entire people.
To quote the Great and Mighty Kevin: “I am an accountant! Do you know how much I hate Mankind?”
Adventurers operate outside of this strata system because we can go from flat broke and about to start dancing on mailboxes to make rent to having more gold to our name than a Mega-Faction in the space of a week and back again. Our needs range from basic food and shelter to needing to find a craftsfolk who knows the secret of forging the blood of an Old God, the core of a Titan Watcher and a small mountain of rare items together to make one piece of kit when we’re wearing a suit of armor that’s worth more than the GDP of a small nation.
There is no such thing as an ‘average adventurer’. We’re insane. We range from local heroes accepting pouches of silver and the occasional magical item for keeping the local Gnoll and Quilboar population out of the farms and ranches to terrifying figures standing atop a mountain of shredded Demon corpses, guzzling tankards of healing potions so strong that they’d probably cure three generations of diabetes to the average person who have to be contacted via magical means or highly skilled operatives because we’re always on the move and have no fixed address.
The ‘average’ for my characters is about 100 coins of mixed copper, silver and gold, with promissory notes for larger costs they might incur or need for purchases. As I run with them all belonging to three large, roughly interconnected groups, each of these groups functions like a mercenary group. The payments are collected, put together into a collective group and stored in the bank, and from there, payment is doled out based on need and work done on behalf of the group.
Somebody goes and clears out a bandit den? They get a share worth 1/2th of the reward, and monthly, regardless of if they did anything else, get a standard wage of 100 gold a month to cover living costs, shelter, food etc. If they need additional resources, like new equipment, healing or other alchemical potions, enchantments, portals to odd locations, etc etc, then the group provides it at cost so long as the individual can pony-up the supplies.
If its a group effort, the individuals involved get 1/2 the reward and the rest goes to the group pool, for purposes of gaining a larger amount of interest and for protection against individuals going rogue or being conned into scams and other problems.
Gold made from personal means such as private businesses, farms or similar does not apply to the group pool, and several members have their own businesses, farms etc that serve the groups as bases, supply houses and the like.
I know Gen’tarn carries around a small leather Bag of Holding that he carries 20,000 in mixed gold and silver coins of his own money because sometimes you just need to buy something on the spot and move on, and is often referred to as ‘Uncle Moneybags’ by the younger members who have come to realise its not the group’s money, its his private funds, and the result of investing very carefully in certain things over the years.
An Alliance Gold Coin is likely a flat disc of gold, stamped on one side with the Alliance crest and the other with the symbol of the nation it was minted in, sized about the same as the top of a can of Monster. It’s BIG. Silver coins are likely shaped the same but half the size, and copper pennies are probably a third of the size of a gold coin.
A Horde Gold Coin is probably a hexagonal coin of similar size, but stamped with the Horde symbol on both sides, while a Horde silver coin is likely a pentagon, and a copper coin is likely a square, likewise decreasing in size along similar lines to the Alliance coins, as a gold coin is so ‘expensive’ compared to the others that you’d end up with significantly more cost in just the raw materials for the lower denominations of coin than it would cost to make a single, larger gold coin if you tried to exchange one for the other. The Horde coins likely would be of different shapes as many of the original members of the Horde came from groups that didn’t have standardized writing or education systems and a visibly dynamic system would help with that.
For example, rather than writing in a society just learning each other’s languages and establishing a functional economy on a national scale, just a sign with five squares next to a rough loaf-shape of bread would be easily interpreted as five coppers for a loaf of bread, while 1 single hexagon next to a basket of apples would likewise indicate 1 basket of fruit for 1 silver coin.
I generally go for a tankard of cheap beer is probably 2-3 copper coins, a bottle of decent wine is 5-7 copper coins, a counter-meal of good quality is a silver coin. The good stuff up on the shelf behind the bar, not the generic local craft-beers, the stuff that’s made in larger quantities with far more care for brand-name and quality, probably you’re paying in silver for.
Actual high-quality booze? A gold, at the very least, for a bottle of good Dwarven whiskey or Mulgore fire-water.
General goods like a day’s amount of food is probably anywhere from 1-3 silver coins in raw food, unprepared, or 5-6 in prepared form. Basic clothes are probably 5-9 silver to 1-2 gold, depending upon how fancy you’re getting. A commoner’s wedding dress probably costs 10 or so gold, white wool and cotton chiffon, while a noble’s wedding dress might cost several hundred gold, be made of silk, pearls and lace.
A basic iron sword, simple, functional and effective, probably costs about five or so silver, while a full suit of basic mail armor costs a few gold, meaning even a basic adventurer still requires a fair bit of seed-wealth to even gets started.
A healer probably takes payment over time, or in goods and services, to provide magical, alchemical and mundane healing to the general population, but a person selling healing goods likely tosses around basic healing potions for the general injuries the civilian population deals with for a few silver coins, and those simply require peacebloom, silverleaf, a glass vial (inert holding materials could also take this role so as not to pollute or ‘activate’ the healing potion. No formerly-living materials like wood, hide or the like, only inorganics.) and most importantly, the skill required to make the healing potion in the first place.
I think we also have to factor in the time, effort and costs of mastering a skill or a trade into the end cost to the customer, and that’s something I do think players overlook far too often.
We’re horrendously over-qualified for the civilian sector of our Mega-Factions. A single day of an adventuring Alchemist could churn out enough basic healing potions to crash the market and render the whole thing worthless to everyone else. An adventuring Blacksmith knows how to work Saronite, Titansteel, Ghost Iron, Felslate, Bismuth, the list goes on, and can fashion armor, weapons and tools from nearly every known metal or ore in the world.
Hell, most of the PCs I run with work as Adventurers purely because they can send home chests of copper and silver, rolls of cloth, crates of preserved food, seed-stock, wagons of livestock and basic goods, rather than personal wealth beyond what they need to maintain, replace and improve their adventuring kits, not only to support their immediate families, but because they came from environments of such poverty and low income that holding onto all this wealth is so alien to them that sitting on a mountain of coin is just … absurd.
And they know damn well that coin comes from taxes, in one form or another, so payment in goods and services is preferable because it is less likely to do harm to the locals in term of levies and taxes and ‘appropriation’.
Eh… just depends on the character. Some of my guys boast they have limitless wealth. Do they? Are they just bs’ing? Who knows?
In general, I tend to go by the prices of normal vendor items in cities and the like to determine a vague idea of the values of things. I otherwise don’t think about it too much in most cases. I somewhat nebulously consider wealth to start somewhere in the thousands for gold, though that is hardly based on anything in-universe.
Many of my characters are unlikely to carry much spending money; generally, I’d imagine its usually enough for food, and in some cases board, assuming they aren’t too broke for that. Some characters, like my Death Knights, often carry no money with them at all due to a lack of need or interest in buying things. In one peculiar case, one of my Monk characters, Liangyu, has taken a vow of poverty and so can’t hold on to any money. I’d say there’s only maybe three or four characters of mine who’d carry a lot of coin on them: my two Highborne Mages, a vintner, and the owner of a manufacturing company.
I’d like to think a single gold piece is about the size of a quarter. I’ve no real reason to think this other than the quarter being one of the highest value coins commonly held by people when folks still actively carried coins.
I handwave this. There are too many competing ideas about the value of money to make it work between groups. Historically, real wealth was land and secondarily in things like government debt, plate, jewelry, and clothes.
Usually 20-30 gp in mixed coins, transactions bigger than that are handled by letters of credit.
Somewhere between the size of a US nickel and a quarter, which is about what they were in RL. E.g., a Venetian gold ducat was 21mm and weighed 3.5g and that standard was widely used across Europe for centuries. Later gold coins stuck pretty closely to this because it’s a convenient size.
Different RP groups I’m in value a gp at from between $5 to $500 dollars. I usually go for the low end with a drink being 1-2 gp and a snack being similar.
In RL a ducat in 16C Italy was probably equivalent to around $1000.
My character Sadgati has 21 WoW tokens (5.25 million) in inventory along with about 30 million worth of product set aside for appreciation. 6 characters has 9 million gold each on them plus warband bank has 9 million. To avoid hitting cap, I buy WoW tokens used to pay for subscription. I recently sold gold back to Blizzard store to pay for Sadgati’s transfer over to Alliance. Bought a brutosaur in December. Total current assets including gold: $98,000,000 + appreciation earned from assets
How does this really stack up against other players? I am not sure, really… I see TONS of players on who play WoW 12 hours a day so I reckon that have more than what I have, especially if they are using guild banks with alt WoW licenses.
Really comes down to play habits too. Since I don’t do raids or Mythics, not only does that make my characters much cheaper to maintain, but they are ALSO conducting activities that consistently makes TONS of money. Buying 2000 kaheti slum sharks for 400g or less then reselling them all at 800g or more each, net profit of 900,000g . Did the same with the PvP gems selling at 4500g on average of 100% profit margin. Only regret is I should have waited another 2 weeks because they are 6500g now… LMFO.
Even without auction house flipping, players who plays about 20 hours a week doing PVP, quests, some dungeons while gathering waiting in que will easily rack up very nice amounts of gold. What gets ya are Mythics and Raids because that is TIME in-game losing money!
In character, Sadgati runs a private company called United Trade Services and would likely to be considered a powerhouse in the operations of the global supply chain on Azeroth. Pretending her total assets are net profit of 15%, that would put her trade company at a valuation of 1.5 billion gold.
Wealth consists of a lot more than a pile of metal. Real wealth consists of a network of people willing to help you. Might be that they owe you a favor. Might be that “your money is no good here” simply because of who you are. Might be mutual aid.
Kunbo is involved in an area of the “second economy” where barter and favor-for-a-favor carry a lot more weight than gold (pun intended). IMHO that’s pretty deeply grounded in Pandarian cultures. 10,000 years of isolation, with no central government, so no mints, no taxation, … within a village or a local region people need stuff and services, not coins, and probably love to spend an afternoon over a cuppa or a meal working out a balanced trade.
My favorite currency, in-game and in lore, is lucky-dos. I’ve got a couple of Grummles (using Gnomes as stand-ins) and have tried a few times to get people using gray items IC, with a quick story of why they are lucky.
I keep it very simple
Copper is a cent
Silver is a dollar
Gold is 100 dollars per coin
Me and my friends all generally run with this because it’s easy math and keeps the numbers low. And I think for some friends it reminds them of vanilla times when a gold meant way more
It’s a very loose rule that’s only important in our personal RP, so I never apply it for like market settings and faires where everyone has their own idea of rates. I think for my character they probably keep like… 5-10 golds worth on them, depending on where they’re going
Have you ever considered just how EXPENSIVE dragonflight would be? I loaded a drake into FS 2020 and tried to fly from DFW to San Antonio for kicks. It did a decent job of replicating dragonflight. For starters, the typical drake in WoW is a HUGE animal!! It clocked just under 6 hours and even that would require the strongest drake money could buy. During the Texas summer, a drake would have to land and rest several or more times adding to travel times. On average, a drake would cover about 250 miles per day. A trip cross state would probably take 2 days. Going from New York to Los Angeles would take up to 3 weeks after adding in bad weather along the way!! Anchorage to Mexico City (Winterspring to Uldum) would take up to 6 weeks. That is alot of nights in a motel and visits to truck stops! And, all those cows…they looks very tasty!! Imagine paying for an entire cow a day to feed the thing!! In Warcraft, drakes would be good up to 250 miles, less if very cold or hot out. Anything distance over that, an airship is the best option.
Have 8 million in my war bank . Still feel poor. Just like in real life you can never have to much money.
I’m only “Wealthy” because of my Orc Wife being so good with the AH and selling rare items to people.
So while I’ve never really IC RP’d this fact, it’s how I would approach it.
Kie’thoo simply having wealth or being well off because of his shrewd Orc Wife’s wealth making.
They don’t really pay us Kor’Kron much…
My monk has this as well. She’s allowed to have money to keep herself afloat, but she’s expected to give any money she earns beyond that to others.
also this is how I generally handle it.