Earlier this year, an MOP commenter replying to us on social media suggested that Guild Wars 2 was a “mess” – and part of the reason was a glut of currencies. I didn’t agree with most of the comment, but I can absolutely get behind the currency problem, and I’m not talking about basic coins and gems. I’m talking about all the others. Oh sure, they’re tidily tucked away in a smart panel, but mentally keeping track? A nuisance.
Lord of the Rings Online is another of my pet MMORPGs, and it has exactly the same problem. Their solution has likewise been to tuck everything away into a wallet that is color-coded to display whether the currency is character-bound or account-wide, but the problem is too many currencies meant to circumvent balancing the coin economy, not in how cleanly it’s organized.
Which MMOs could use a currency crunch – or better yet, a currency do-over?