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The Value of an Arcmark

Wes said:
I don't have any objeciton to the currency's existence but saying it's worth any amount of KS is kind of a stretch since nobody in Yamatai accepts them especially not currency exchanges.
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FrostJaeger said:
1 AM:15 DA does not equal 2 AM:1 DA, @Zack.
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If the currency is going to end up making a hyper-inflating DA exchange with USO, then no thanks. I do not intend for Nepleslia to accept conversions or do business with those who bankroll your currency. I would much more prefer we reach a middleground and you simply make 2 Arkmarks worth 1 DA. This way, you can at least trade with Nepleslia if you want to acquire a currency Yamatai WILL accept and allow your players easy access ICly to trade with.

I'm not a fan of the attempt to basically go "well, we won't make a ton of it so it's super valuable" when in reality there's really not much reason for either superpowers to trade with you. This might work if you were trying to put your currency to a smaller nation closer in-scale and military power or with a closer trade value, but the economic promise of USO doesn't make enough sense for me to open-up a currency trade that would make all but the richest Nepleslians able to really do business with or in USO.

I have to care for my faction, too. If the currency won't be favorable, then Nepleslia will outlaw trade with USO and not accept any amount of your currency. If you really care for RP, then I recommend you at least meet me halfway and take the very generous rate that guarantees trade versus put yourself in a corner and isolate the currency.
 
On the note of “caring for my faction,” I’d like to request that 3 Arcmarks equal 1 DA, because with 2 Arcmarks being worth 1 DA, Elysia kinda gets shafted despite having many times the economic output of USO, a much, much, much longer relationship with Nepleslia, and not one but two shared borders with Nepleslia - thus it doesn’t really make sense to me that they (Nepleslia) would give the Arcmark a better exchange rate then the Aureas.
 
hat's one of the things that is brilliant about Zach's proposed value. There is a 'currency exchange' at every Akemi's. In fact, there is an argument to be Tmade that because it's backed by a real valuable thing (an ArcCombo which includes a delicious fresh AkemiBurger, hot Fries, and a normal sized Usoda in the favor of your choice and you can upgrade to a large Fries and Usoda for only .10 ArcMarks) whereas the KS far as I can tell is a fiat currency. Which means that it's value isn't linked to anything. The only value the KS has is it's value as a medium of exchange which is not easily quantifiable. However, the value of a ArcMarks has a very definite real value anywhere delicious burgers are served.

You might decide that you can get 3 ArcMarks for a single DA. That's fine. All that means is that I can get myself three meals for the low low price of only a single DA.
 
7.50 KS would be the value of a combo-meal at Akemi's.

Uso is saying she'll foot the bill for a combo-meal at Akemi's in exchange for one ArcMark.

Since something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, you'd be able to reasonably exchange one ArcMark for about 7.50 KS.

Since the cost of an Akemi's Combo-Meal is only going to go up in the near future, the currency is also going to be deflationary so it'll make sense to hold it long term.

Also because the Polysentience / Pantheon / Internep / Etc is a thing. You can exchange your hard earned FIAT currency for delicious burger-coins anywhere, peer to peer, without the need of an exchange.

Holding ArcMarks would even generate a little bit for you to live on. So we're getting our local population a few steps closer to retirement.

"Wow, that's cool Zack, but what if my character is a neko?" - Well, you could even donate spare thought cycles from that digital brain of yours to run the ArcMark network. No need to worry about going hungry when you're always one ArcMark away from a Combo-Meal.

---

Soban's got the right idea. Basically you guys wanted me to put some effort into the ArcMark so I did. Holy shit does this beat the pants off everything else you guys are doing with currency in the setting. There's just so much cool shit you can do with a Cryptocurrency in a future setting!


Best part is, just like regular crypto, it doesn't really matter what you guys think about the exchange rate. It's basically pegged to the cost of a burger at Akemi's. Its worth what people will pay for it, and Uso's happy to buy some burgers.
 
Slight change to the article. The value section now reads:


1 ArcMark is equal to: 1 ArcCombo with Fries and an Usoda from Akemi's

1 ArcCombo with Fries and an Usoda from Akemi's is 7.50 KS or 15 DA



This should make it more clear that the ArcMark is pegged to the value of the ArcCombo, which can also be purchased for normal value-meal rates from Akemi's.
 
You guys....the currency comparison is just to show value. It's not 1AM is worth x KS it's 1AM is worth the same -value- as X amount of KS. 'Exchange' rate only holds up based on government agreements. And @FrostJaeger stop saying anything about 'fairness' to people. 1AM could be worth 100 KS and that's not 'unfair' to anyone. Becuase 1, we pay everyone based on the value of KS. So if a bounty was worth 100KS, they wouldn't give them 100AM they'd give them 1AM. From and OOC stand point currencies is purely 'fluff' there is no 'advantage' or 'disadvantage' to his currency being worth more or less in the mechanics of the site because everything is based on KS in the backend.
 
Since we're sitting on a situational value for the currency, @Zack, I'd like to at least ask that a clause get added that (at the time) only USO space and (if @Ametheliana or whoever runs Akemi's now agrees) Akemi as the place this currency works/is accepted. It needs to be cemented that this is not a currency exchange rate, because (as I pointed out whilst speaking with @Syaoran), I'm worried that most players who see this will instantly assume that means they can outright convert it it to DA. I don't mind the idea of player-based trading where someone who has hefty amounts of DA trades for Arcmarks because they find it worth it, but I do mind that this currently stinks as a way to basically float a cryptocurrency "demand" and assign an exchange value versus a spending value where useful

If there's no middle-ground to at least make certain that players and others know this currency cannot be converted (until you agree on an exchange rate that can be worked with), then I do have problem with this as it could lead to ruptures in RP based around currency that shouldn't even be happening in the first place. Whether that's buying large orders or selling large amounts for inflated rates, it's not helpful for the factions to have a crypto-currency overcomplicate the currently very straight forward exchange system that at least does provide options to try using other currency.
 
wait so from earlier it was discussed that 1DA was 2Ark and now 1Ark is 15DA?

as a player who is not so well versed in economics, hell even if i was that sounds weird, does this one burger meal have the power to control currency values or something cause this whole thing is expanding into quite the headache to understand. sorry to butt in like this but it'd be great if there was an easy to understand, definite value or exchange or whatever you want to call it as i'm sure i'm not the only one who may not understand all the extra big words getting thrown around.
 
@club24 This is very straight forward.

The price of a Burger-Combo at Akemi's is 1 ArcMark.

There is a bunch of follow on stuff that happens from there. But if you want a simple exchange rate that means 1 ArcMark is about 7.50 ks (aka, the price of a burger combo at Akemi's)
 
you know, i'd love to say that explains it but it was literally agreed on by you and legix in the last page that 1Da was 2Ark so i don't even know what happened to that. Regardless I think i'll just excuse myself from this convo now since my weak child mind cant comprehend such things and i'll just go back to watching and waiting.

As a side note for anyone who cares, if I'm involved in a thread I'll be checking every response so you dont have to tag me every time kthxbye
 
Ok, so Value is fundamentally what you can do with something, it's use to you. Now, values are inherently subjective and variable. The value of water is quite different to someone lost in the Desert vs someone drowning in a lake. Indeed, it's this difference in value that makes trade possible. It used to be that currencies were essentially physical objects. Gold or silver coins for example. The value of a coin was not what it said on the face, but the value of the metal. Over time, this changed to where instead of exchanging the physical goods themselves, people exchanged certificates that could be redeemed for the gold and or silver. In time, governments cut themselves loose from the attachment to any kind of physical objects. Currency that doesn't have a physical object backing it is called a fiat currency.

Most currencies in the setting and in real life are Fiat currencies. However, the Arcmark is not a fiat currency, it's a certificate for which you can get a ArcCombo. The exchange rate comes in when you want to pay for that combo meal with some other currency. Say KS or DA. Akemi sells their ArcCombo for 7.50 KS and 15 DM respectively. They could sell it for 8 KS and 10 DM if they wanted. However, what this means is that it would be cheaper to pay for a ArcCombo with DM then it would be for them to pay for it with KS. They could convert the 8 KS to 16 DM and then pay for the meal with 10 DM and have 6 DM left over. What this means for the Arcmark is that you can do the same thing with KS and ArcMarks. You have KS, but no ArcMarks. Someone is selling ArcMarks for 7 KS. You can save yourself some money by exchanging your KS for an ArcMark and pocketing the .50 KS.

Now, over a large number of exchanges some of which are good deals, some of which are not, you can get a estimate of how much you could expect to trade an ArcMark for. Because Akemi's sells the same burger for 7.50 KS it is likely but not certain to converge to that amount.

Does that make sense Club?
 
Yes

but again my issue is with why it was said 1 = 2 and now 1 = 15

now feel free to keep going in you discussion as clubbo has left the building
 
In the last page I agreed that it would equal 2 DA because I was planning to do an update to the ArcMark as soon as I could, so the value now wasn't as important.

Really what just happened is the ArcMark just skyrocketed in value thanks to Uso's deal with Akemi.
 
Okay so I wouldike to point out that S6 has been working to improve things for USO.

1 we have a university.
2 S6 sells there products commercially
(Everything from guns, ships, tanks, armor, mechs, motorcycles, sports cars, etc.)
3 we have an engineering department that has the job of improving infrastructure.

So their situation isn't as bad as you think, and as I'm not going to go against zack's work. I do believe we at least back a currency by actual valued resources, which the KS isn't. Having a currency backed by something, has a helluva lot more worth, than by a currency that is not. To be honest in a fictional setting, why bother with currency values, as it only limits players and causes obvious arguements. The point of rp is fun, not realism, and forcing realism into a setting that isn't meant for it. Well is just pointless, and I for one don't care for economic rp. I have thrown my two cents.
 
S6 has been doing fine. You also don’t have to participate in the economic bits in painful detail... but the new ArcMark and currency based stuff will be showing up (by popular demand)

Fine might be an understatement, since S6 is producing a lot of stuff through the NTSE and has a ton of players. It’s larger than pretty much every faction besides Yamatai, and has some IC sales and business ventures backing it up.

Which is also a bit of a problem, since I think we have been at the end of USO is this cool small thing for a while. Plots are more and more going to have to address larger themes.
 
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