|
When you take it literal there's lots of things that don't make a lot of sense about the fallout universe. Alone the technology is all over the place. I think no-currency bartering would still be a big thing in a world like fallout though, seeing that people complain that they can't exchange the 50.000 pounds of random cigarette cartons and pencils they picked up for 250.000 Caps I think bartering as a game mechanism would not be very popular, but would make a lot of sense. You could kind of simulate this by taking every cap from the trader and the player away, now you only can take other items in exchange for whatever you give. Items having such a fixed value for everyone in every situation would still not make a lot of sense but there you go. I've not seen a single game to date which made a sensical approach to item batering.
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 14:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 07:09 |
|
|
Fintilgin posted:I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to discover that they intended to do this, but 'caps as money' was something Bethesda wanted to keep as a series touchstone. Actually, as an interesting side note, I remember reading an interview along the lines that they originally had considered setting 'New Vegas' in an entirely different (unstated) city, but that Bethesda had wanted to reserve that city for themselves and it was one of the very few changes they requested. I really wonder what city that was! My money's on Boston because of The Institute that's hinted at a bit in Fallout 3. I think it's just an excuse for them to make a Blade Runner city with a wasteland around it. The Institute was introduced in Fallout 3 anyway, right?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 15:42
|
|
|
Police Automaton posted:When you take it literal there's lots of things that don't make a lot of sense about the fallout universe. Alone the technology is all over the place. I think no-currency bartering would still be a big thing in a world like fallout though, seeing that people complain that they can't exchange the 50.000 pounds of random cigarette cartons and pencils they picked up for 250.000 Caps I think bartering as a game mechanism would not be very popular, but would make a lot of sense. You could kind of simulate this by taking every cap from the trader and the player away, now you only can take other items in exchange for whatever you give. Items having such a fixed value for everyone in every situation would still not make a lot of sense but there you go. I've not seen a single game to date which made a sensical approach to item batering.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 15:50
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Carrying enough bottle caps to do any trading would undercut cargo capacity significantly. :needs a literal wagonload of caps to buy a rifle and pair of pants: quote:EDIT: I mean caps are fine as a goofy video game currency, but in a world where states are minting their own money, trying to justify caps with any real world logic just exacerbates their absurdity. :jams his hand into a giant sack full of jagged, rusty metal disks anytime her wants to purchase anything: People in eastern NCR and the Mojave Wasteland lost faith in the NCR government's a) ability to back the listed value of paper money and b) stability overall. If you're living in Bakersfield, staring at a piece of paper that says "redeemable for value in gold" and you have no faith in the government's ability or willingness to do that -- or if you see that the government has changed the currency to say that it is not able to be exchanged for a backed good -- you may very well listen to the strong consortium of local merchants offering to exchange that paper note for currency backed by water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America_dollar
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 16:48
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Carrying enough bottle caps to do any trading would undercut cargo capacity significantly. :needs a literal wagonload of caps to buy a rifle and pair of pants: I don't think you realize who you're talking to. I think he might know a bit more about that universe than you do. Edit: herp derp oh hey new page, nice to see you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 16:56
|
|
|
It's not really about authoritatively defining the universe as much as plausibility.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 17:07
|
|
|
Well yeah, but plausibility goes out the window when it comes to certain Fallout things. Though I personally loved when Follows-Chalk comments on the fact that I've got a huge bag of bottle caps that jingle whenever I move and that it would be really hard to be sneaky carrying it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 18:25
|
|
|
AND ANOTHER THING, radiation doesn't really turn people into zombies, you can't hack computers by playing Mastermind, and the vaults would be way too cost-inefficient to run!
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 18:27
|
|
|
rope kid posted:you may very well listen to the strong consortium of local merchants offering to exchange that paper note for currency backed by water. Yeah, but wouldn't the Hub issue 'Water Dollars' or something, instead of bottle caps? They don't create the caps or control them. Any jerk who raided a bottling plant in Idaho or something can come wandering in with a huge number of caps and upend the economy. Plus there are no denominations, which would make them really awkward to actually transport in large numbers or use on a day to day basis. I'd happily accept a Hub paper currency called 'caps', based off earlier days when literal caps were used. FlyingCheese posted:I don't think you realize who you're talking to. Yeah, I do.  Seriously, I'm perfectly 100% happy with caps as a goofy video game conceit. But when you start introducing real currencies, talking about fiat money, and discussing ease of transport for long distance merchants (i.e. taking things seriously), I stand by bottle caps being increasingly and unsustainably absurd. EDIT: Tetanus Bucks, the currency that kills you. Fintilgin fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 19:20
|
|
|
Just let it ride. Every Nuka-Cola you buy is one cap cheaper than the asking price, baby.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 20:30
|
|
|
Nucular Carmul posted:I actually used to live in Vegas, so this game has a special place in my heart, since I know all those little towns outside the city actually exist, I've ridden the Primm roller coaster in fact. Never been to Vegas, but I enter data from that region a lot and I'm frequently reminded of the game by the addresses. The other day I came across a Jean, NV address in a batch I was typing. I thought "Oh, that's that little town down the road from Goodsprings with the skydiving school", and a few records after that I had an address on Coyote Road in Goodsprings.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 20:33
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Yeah, but wouldn't the Hub issue 'Water Dollars' or something, instead of bottle caps? They don't create the caps or control them. quote:Seriously, I'm perfectly 100% happy with caps as a goofy video game conceit. But when you start introducing real currencies
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 22:00
|
|
|
rope kid posted:They certainly try! They also used (and backed) bottle caps previously, which is something that old timers remember. It's true that having other denominations would make bottle caps a more efficient currency, but plenty of inefficient denominational standards stay in use for a long time without being optimized. Very true, but then again the penny isn't a uneven, big, difficult to store object with rusty and sharp edges. I think alone out of practical concerns bottle caps wouldn't ever be a currency, for the same reason the penny isn't the size of a medium pizza. Also the whole denominations thing... you could get creative and say that different brands of bottlecaps have a different worth etc. but ah well. I think basically every smaller group and region peaceful and stable enough that would consider themselves civilized in a world like that would either barter or have it's own currency, even if it's folded up toilet paper with a floral pattern on it. How much worth one currency has with a different society would probably depend on how much economical contact they actually have and how economically strong they are, even then currency would probably see most usage internally, and not across the groups, where bartering would take place. In a world this uncertain keeping foreign currency might be unwise and there would overall be little trust in things that don't have direct worth. Of course it would also depend on how advanced a group is, in NCR mainland you could probably go down to some store, get something for your fancy paper money with different people on it and be sure that you'd get roughly the same worth of items tomorrow, while people like those living in the Capital Wasteland would probably depend more on exchanging goods with other goods or services, and less on currency overall, as the power in a region like this can shift rapidly and there just wouldn't be much trust beyond the group of people you directly live with. But widespread use of bottle caps (or even any other currency) I just could not see in a world like this, but that's my opinion. It's all kind of moot really because games usually don't even bother with implementing different denominations if currency is a thing in the game, because it's simply easier to handle straightforward numbers. I wouldn't want to be the poor bastard who has to carry around 5000 goldcoins in skyrim either. I once coded a system like this for a free MMORPG, it had copper, silver and gold coins which where currency for the NPCs but also actual items. Their worth was 1, 10 and 100 valueunits, respectively. Nothing too fancy. NPC traders would exchange coins and also give exact change on purchases. People would get confused constanly and report calculating errors where there haven't been any. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2012 22:32
|
|
|
rope kid posted:They certainly try! They also used (and backed) bottle caps previously, which is something that old timers remember. It's true that having other denominations would make bottle caps a more efficient currency, but plenty of inefficient denominational standards stay in use for a long time without being optimized. It's true. Ammunition makes a good in-game currency (on non-hardcore mode anyways) when you've sold enough stuff to a merchant to exhaust their cap reserves. I would have liked to see greater acceptance of NCR money by the actual NCR, though. Guys like the NCR supply officer near the two ranger statues won't take it for repairs, and it's there's not much of it around, even in the NCR areas. I get that it's supposed to be essentially a collector's item like the pre-war money, but couldn't there have been a bank or something in Vegas that exchanged caps for dollars at a set rate? Frog fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Apr 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 00:11
|
|
|
Frog posted:I get that it's supposed to be essentially a collector's item like the pre-war money, but couldn't there have been a bank or something in Vegas that exchanged caps for dollars at a set rate? Don't the casinos do that?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 00:13
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Don't the casinos do that? I'd never actually played the games, but yeah, you're right. I always thought they only paid out in caps for some reason. Forget that whole diatribe then.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 00:19
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Carrying enough bottle caps to do any trading would undercut cargo capacity significantly. :needs a literal wagonload of caps to buy a rifle and pair of pants: You go to buy a car, you bring along a suitcase full of dollar bills? Maybe back in the Fallout days everyone hauled bags of bottlecaps everywhere but by FO3/NV most people just charge it to their caps card.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 00:21
|
|
|
rope kid posted:They certainly try! They also used (and backed) bottle caps previously, which is something that old timers remember. It's true that having other denominations would make bottle caps a more efficient currency, but plenty of inefficient denominational standards stay in use for a long time without being optimized. Yeah, but there's a reason no one uses pennies anymore. There's inefficient and then there is completely implausibly inefficient. The lack of denominations makes it so inefficient as to offend common sense. Looking at the Gun Runner inventory there's at least a couple(?) hundred thousand plus worth of value in caps. I can easily see a decent sized, heavily guarded caravan moving a million caps worth of goods. How do these transactions take place? Do they literally sit out there in the radioactive California sun counting out 753,000 physical bottle caps? Do they somehow do it by weight? I can see tribals or a tiny, isolated town like Shady Sands using small numbers of bottle caps as a local exchange mechanism, but the moment you start dealing with any large number of caps it becomes absurd. As soon as any large number of caps began being exchanged over long distances some form of cap scrip would spring up: THE BANK OF VAULT CITY WILL EXCHANGE FOR THE BEARER OF THIS NOTE THE SUM OF 1000 BOTTLE CAPS. Which in short order would become defacto currency. How does the Hub 'back' caps? Can you exchange a certain number of caps for a standard measure of water? How do they account for the fact that they have no control over the number of caps in circulation and any one can come in from outside the area with a huge stock of caps and screw everything up? Some form of Water Bucks (1 W$ = 1oz of water at any Hub trading post) seems more plausible to me. rope kid posted:There isn't an definable difference between a "real" or "imaginary" currency. If people treat an object as a store of value/medium of exchange, it's currency. Yeah. Sure. I realize that. People could use head sized rocks as currency, and as long as everyone agreed they had value it would be currency. They don't do this because head sized rocks would make awful currency. I stand by my assertion that having to deal with hundreds or thousands of jagged, rusty, tetanus laced metal discs for regular every day transactions would be equally awful. Ultimately though, it's funny the things that bother you or take you out of the universe. Fighting giant roboscorpions with my atom powered punchy fist? Okay! The logistics of the large scale use of bottlecaps as currency? Ugh... :strokes neckbeard, posts picard emoticon: It's always the little poo poo that gets me. Like you're in some scientific facility that has supposedly been abandoned for centuries and there's three nightstalkers locked in a little closet sized chainlink enclosure, behind a computer locked door, and all I can think is "How did they get there? What have they been eating? Nightstalkers can't operate doors. Who's feeding them? This doesn't make any sense."
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 03:10
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:It's always the little poo poo that gets me. Like you're in some scientific facility that has supposedly been abandoned for centuries and there's three nightstalkers locked in a little closet sized chainlink enclosure, behind a computer locked door, and all I can think is "How did they get there? What have they been eating? Nightstalkers can't operate doors. Who's feeding them? This doesn't make any sense." You're talking about Old World Blues, so the answers are going to be equal parts "SCIENCE!" and "Robots did it." Alternatively, consider that we are talking about Borous here. He's probably been cloning nightstalkers, stuffing them into that kennel, locking them away and forgetting about them, discovering the inevitable corpses, and re-cloning them for the past century. That reminds me, people with Animal Companion should have gotten a honest-to-God companion-type snake-puppy in Old World Blues.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 03:37
|
|
|
I always thought 1 cap = 1 cap full of water.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 05:52
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:I always thought 1 cap = 1 cap full of water.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 06:44
|
|
|
Father Wendigo posted:You're talking about Old World Blues, so the answers are going to be equal parts "SCIENCE!" and "Robots did it." What do you think all those big pipes carry?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 06:48
|
|
|
Tubgirl Cosplay posted:What do you think all those big pipes carry? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 06:55
|
|
|
J Bjelke-Postersen posted:I just got back from a trip to the States and I feel guilty that I liked visiting Hoover Dam and poo poo around the Mojave more than normal touring due to New Vegas... I have a road trip around the west US in June, and I'm expecting exactly the same pattern. I'm hoping we can swing past Goodsprings.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 07:04
|
|
|
Police Automaton posted:Very true, but then again the penny isn't a uneven, big, difficult to store object with rusty and sharp edges. Fintilgin posted:Yeah, but there's a reason no one uses pennies anymore. There's inefficient and then there is completely implausibly inefficient. The lack of denominations makes it so inefficient as to offend common sense. Looking at the Gun Runner inventory there's at least a couple(?) hundred thousand plus worth of value in caps. I can easily see a decent sized, heavily guarded caravan moving a million caps worth of goods. How do these transactions take place? Side note: in the olden days when we planned to support post-Hoover play, I did want to introduce two new forms of currency in the event that the player supported an NCR or Legion victory: an NCR $500 bill with either President Kimball or Chief Hanlon on it, depending on the ending, and something commemorating the Courier on the back, also a Legion double aureus (worth 200 caps) commemorating the Courier on the back and conquered General Oliver on the front (in the style of Vercingetorix on Roman coins following Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul). quote:I can see tribals or a tiny, isolated town like Shady Sands using small numbers of bottle caps as a local exchange mechanism, but the moment you start dealing with any large number of caps it becomes absurd. As soon as any large number of caps began being exchanged over long distances some form of cap scrip would spring up: THE BANK OF VAULT CITY WILL EXCHANGE FOR THE BEARER OF THIS NOTE THE SUM OF 1000 BOTTLE CAPS. Which in short order would become defacto currency quote:How does the Hub 'back' caps? Can you exchange a certain number of caps for a standard measure of water? quote:How do they account for the fact that they have no control over the number of caps in circulation and any one can come in from outside the area with a huge stock of caps and screw everything up? The reason why the Hub chose to use caps instead of a new currency is largely the same reason why the game universe uses caps: nostalgia. Remember caps? Before NCR hosed everything up? You may even have some caps still sitting around from dad's old stash. Well, that's money again. Hell, if you want to come down and turn 'em in, we'll give you water for them right now. Yessiree, the good ol' days are back again. quote:Yeah. Sure. I realize that. People could use head sized rocks as currency, and as long as everyone agreed they had value it would be currency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones rope kid fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Apr 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 09:32
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Like you're in some scientific facility that has supposedly been abandoned for centuries It hasn't been abandoned, it's got six brains in jars floating around doing things and that's not counting the lobotomites and robots.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 09:42
|
|
|
xiw posted:I'm hoping we can swing past Goodsprings. I did this. I'm so guilty.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 09:47
|
|
|
rope kid posted:And this is discussed in-game: BoS raided NCR's gold reserves until NCR could no longer generate gold coinage nor back their paper money. They abandoned the gold standard and established fiat currency, which is why its value is inflated over both caps and (especially) Legion coinage. I wasn't aware of this. When did it happen and where in-game was it mentioned?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 10:10
|
|
|
If it makes you guys feel any better when my family visited New York a few years back, my brother and walked around comparing Battery Park and Liberty Island to their renderings in Deus Ex. My only complaint about currencies in New Vegas is the relative paucity of in-game sources for them. All vendors have caps; only a handful have faction currency.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 10:29
|
|
|
rope kid posted:Hub merchants like the Crimson Caravan hire people like the Courier to deal with it. Heh. Missed that quest. I didn't end up doing any quests for them, really. That's clever. I still don't buy physical caps staying in circulation long. 50 cap note? Sure. Bag full of rusty tetanus bucks? Not so much. I could see House issuing Mojave cap scrip or maybe even each casino issuing their own, with physical caps only being used for the smallest transactions. I'm willing to concede the point though.  Pope Guilty posted:If it makes you guys feel any better when my family visited New York a few years back, my brother and walked around comparing Battery Park and Liberty Island to their renderings in Deus Ex. Did this on my honeymoon. "Hey, babe, mind walking a few more blocks south so I can go on a video game pilgrimage?"  Pope Guilty posted:My only complaint about currencies in New Vegas is the relative paucity of in-game sources for them. All vendors have caps; only a handful have faction currency. Yeah, you could find it on dead npcs, but there was very little lying around in the game world compared to caps or pre-war currency. In fact, I'm not sure I can specifically remember running into the 3Dmodel for the NCR currency floating around in the world. I'm sure it must have been around though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 13:32
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:I wasn't aware of this. When did it happen and where in-game was it mentioned? The attacks caused NCR citizens (and others who held NCR currency) to panic, resulting in a rush to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's gold reserves. Inability to do this at several locations (especially near the periphery of NCR territory where reserves were normally low) caused a loss of faith in NCR's ability to back their currency. Though NCR eventually stopped the BoS attacks, they decided to protect against future problems by switching to fiat currency. While this meant that BoS could no longer attack a) reserves or b) the source of production (all NCR bills are made in the Boneyard), some people felt more uneasy about their money not having any "real" (backed) value. This loss of confidence increased with NCR inflation, an ever-looming spectre of fiat currency. Because the Hub links NCR with the Mojave Wasteland and beyond, the merchants there grew frustrated with NCR's handling of the currency crisis. They conspired to re-introduce the bottle cap as a water-backed currency that could "bridge the gap" between NCR and Legion territory. In the time leading up to the re-introduction, they did the footwork to position themselves properly. If some old-timer had a chest full of caps, they didn't care (in fact, they thought that was great, since the old-timers would enthusiastically embrace the return of the cap), but they did seek to control or destroy production facilities and truly large volumes of caps (e.g. Typhon's treasure) whenever possible.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 17:10
|
|
|
Hot drat! That's some seriously interesting backstory. Thank you for taking the time to explain it. I really love the world of Fallout and its rich history. Now I'm sad we didn't get a DLC with a side-story in the Hub. I would love to see how much the Hub evolved after a century since we last saw it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 17:17
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:I still don't buy physical caps staying in circulation long. 50 cap note? Sure. Bag full of rusty tetanus bucks? Not so much. I could see House issuing Mojave cap scrip or maybe even each casino issuing their own, with physical caps only being used for the smallest transactions. I'm willing to concede the point though. Uh... you mean like the casino chips you can trade for caps? It's just  that you're so hung up on the cap issue when you don't pay enough attention to the game to notice that an obviously active research facility is active or that the casinos do issue their own currency.As rope kid said, not everyone is the Courier, walking around with tens of thousands of caps. The average Mojave dweller likely relies on barter, using small amounts of caps to even out trades. ~100 caps is probably plenty for the average person to keep around, and that few caps can easily be kept in a small pocket or whatever. It would take up a lot of resources to build a mint, so people would probably rather use those resources to build something useful and just continue using caps for the time being.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 19:55
|
|
|
Preem Palver posted:Uh... you mean like the casino chips you can trade for caps? I know they issue chips for internal casino use only. I meant issue for wider scale use. Chips would have made a hell of a lot better currency then caps. Honestly, I'm not even hung up on the cap thing. I never considered it very much until it came up in the thread here, and I thought it was an interesting thing to talk about.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 20:08
|
|
|
I don't think it's fair to say that chips are currency. At best they are casino gift cards redeemable for caps. You can sell chille's gift cards, but you can't buy a car with them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 20:47
|
|
|
Kharmakazy posted:I don't think it's fair to say that chips are currency. At best they are casino gift cards redeemable for caps. You can sell chille's gift cards, but you can't buy a car with them. Fair enough. It would have made more sense to just have a generic New Vegas chip used as a common currency in/around New Vegas, rather than each casino having their own, especially as the qualities that made bottlecaps a decent post-apocalyptic currency(light weight, durable, fairly plentiful but still a limited quantity, hard to counterfeit) would also apply to casino chips in the ruins of Vegas.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 22:03
|
|
|
Bear in mind that most people are poo poo-poor and that when somebody says they'll pay you well for doing a quest, you're getting maybe 200 caps. Given that most quests involve going to a place and killing people...
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2012 23:53
|
|
|
Sooo, the peeps in Fallout land aren't just using bottle caps because an anthropomorphic millionaire duck once flew over in his airplane and decided to litter after having a bottle of pop? Hey, I thought Rock n' Roll never came to existence in Fallout land? Or was the F03 game manual just wrong about that? I see there's a school for Elvis impersonators, so that's not the case here. Which leads me to my next question. Where the hell is all the Rockabilly and Greaser rock? There are so, so, so many songs that would fit these games perfectly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2012 03:09
|
|
|
Niggard of Oz posted:Sooo, the peeps in Fallout land aren't just using bottle caps because an anthropomorphic millionaire duck once flew over in his airplane and decided to litter after having a bottle of pop? I'm pretty sure they said a single Elvis song would have cost more then the rest of the music licensing put together. Personally, I don't think more upbeat, faster paced songs would fit the mood of Fallout very well. I didn't like the few they included in F3. I thought they did a really good job picking the music for New Vegas.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2012 03:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 07:09 |
|
|
Fintilgin posted:I'm pretty sure they said a single Elvis song would have cost more then the rest of the music licensing put together. I know it didn't come out in the '50s, but every time I get to the Dam fight I put "Viva Las Vegas" on in the background and it makes it just so goddamn amazing. Something about hearing "Viva! Vivaaa! Las Vegaaaaassss!" as you put that last .50 round into the Legate's skull is just profound.  It might be kind of a neat thing if once you get to the dam Mr. New Vegas launches into some "And now, something very special I've been saving for you all..." and it starts playing something more upbeat and fast-paced to score the final battle. Doomsayer fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Apr 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2012 03:25
|
|
