Maybe ya gotta make do with what you got a lot of. This Nuka Cola business musta been pretty hot to have so many bottle caps laying around that they could be considered a currency. And can one mine in Redding really back the NCR? How much is in there? Too many questions, not enough answers.

That's what I'm saying, though. Currency must either have intrinsic value or be backed by something that does. Bottle caps make ok currency if they represent something like...say...clean water, but by themselves they have no value. You don't just up and declare something "currency" just because you have a lot of it sitting around. That's not how it works. If you think about how currency and economy actually work, there are a lot more questions and things that aren't believable about the caps implementation than gold.

As far as there being enough gold in the Redding mine...it's a game. It has as much gold as the game creators need it to have.

I guess somethin' other than money had to be used for currency in a...Post-Apocalyptic game like Fallout, ya know? And maybe gold is too shiny, too rich to fit that. Maybe even too...Medieval. I dunno. Gold just doesn't sit well with me here. I'll be fine if that's what they got, I mean, currency is currency.

Right, but in Fallout 1 caps were used because they were backed by the water merchants...they could be traded for water. Water was too heavy to carry around to barter with, so they came up with some easy to carry and hard to counterfeit (with the technology of the time) token that could be used instead. This is similar to how certified notes began to be used instead of gold in the real world because it was easier to carry and easier to replace if it got too worn-out to use anymore. Nobody just decided, "hey, there's all these bottle caps sitting around, let's use 'em for money!" You can't just create money like that. In the absence of a real economy you have a barter system, and everybody needed clean water, so it was an ideal commodity to use to represent wealth.

Again, this is also 203 years after the war. They'd probably have the tech to counterfeit bottle caps. Think about how far our tech has come since 1807.

Truth be told, in Fallout 2, never spent a dime. Complete Barter. Sometimes the Great Fondango forgets he has the scratch. Luckily, Gecko Skins were a great Cash Crop.

"I don't think it would be confusing. Caps, gold, dollars, etc., are just something you have a certain amount of and things cost a certain number of them. You could change it to mole rat tails and it wouldn't be confusing. :shrug: If we're saying that it would be confusing as far as the lore is concerned, well, caps already are. Bethesda gave no explanation as to why they use caps in D.C."

True, they didn't give an explanation on why they used bottlecaps, and that was kind of a flaw, but then again perhaps they just thought a lot of people wouldn't give two caps about why caps were the currency. But my point is that we're talking about using gold in a world of broken cars, ruined skyscraqers, and radiation. Not majestic castles, dragons, and magic spells. Caps makes sense for the setting, gold does not.

"I agree that some players wouldn't cotton to the idea of multiple currency types, but that's where I lose your reasoning. It makes just as much sense to use NCR currency as anybody else's. They're the most established entity in the region."

Again, the storyline is them trying to take over New Vegas, a la they wouldn't have settled in their currency yet. For instance the Euro is pretty much the most established currency currently in the world (as it's used by several different countries in Europe), but not everyone in the world uses it. It would make just as much sense to use the Euro, but not everyone uses it.

"Um, you're ignoring thousands of years of real world history here. Gold will always make sense (more sense than anything else, really) as a currency in any setting that has an unstable economy because it has intrinsic value on top of being rare. Currency shouldn't be abundant...it should be controlled. Otherwise there's no way of identifying its actual value. Of anything else one could come up with gold makes the most sense...our own real-world history proves that. Gold coins have been used as currency all over the world, and much more recently than "medieval times.""

By "medieval times" I was referring to the setting of most fantasy games (which are set in a medieval-esque setting). As far as real world history goes, we're talking about a game. The game is not concerned with having a perfect economy unless that is the focal point of the game; it's not in this game though. And if I am putting my fingers in my ears and humming very loudly to history, what about the guys that made Fallout 2 with introducing gold coins as the currency? It's set in California, which back in the 1800s was virtually drained of it's gold deposits (Gold Rush anyone?). If you want to talk about the real world, then finding a gold mine that somehow has enough gold to supply the entire NCR and without it being the top-dollar of the currency (most civilizations that used gold didn't just use gold, they used other minerals as well to set up different levels of value) doesn't make much sense at all.
*points to the already-established-in-Fallout-lore gold mine in Redding*

Not to mention salvaged jewelry and pre-war caches. An entity like NCR wouldn't have that much trouble...especially since they already have access to a gold mine."
I was really hoping for a real gold mine. :cryvaultboy:

"I have no problem with the return of caps, but with it being 203 years after the war and no explanation for how they're backed (so...they're just bottle caps? that makes no sense at all), gold really does make more real-world, logical sense."

"Real world". Exactly. In reality, gold makes much more sense than aluminum bottlecaps, but then again so does using paper money backed by gold like we in the U.S. do (since it's much easier to carry and doesn't weigh close to as much as gold coins would). But this is a video game, where radiation will turn you into a zombie-like entity or allowing you to regenerate from limb damage, rather than just giving you testicular cancer.

There's also that whole 1950s vintage of it. Remember, this game is supposed to be retrofuturistic and take in aspects of the 1950s if it were set in a post-apocalyptic time. It also brings in that whole feel of even the smallest things in life can make a difference if you really look into it.

P.S. Sorry for not quoting your parts and just using quotations. I tried to get it right, but kept getting error message, so I just decided to ditch that. -_-

This is what most modern governments do, though. During the 20th century, most governments moved from backed currency to fiat currency. Of course, you have to replace "sitting around" with "that you created", but it's the same general idea. U.S. dollar bills no longer are labeled as silver certificates or gold certificates because they are not backed by anything other than the guarantee of the government that they are legal tender.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Series1934_100gold_obverse.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/US_$100_1990_Federal_Reserve_Note_Obverse.jpg

So what you sayin' is, that after a while, even with no water to back it, Caps just become the standard- maybe comfortable, easy for the masses.
I mean...they were already usin' yeah? Why not.

All I'm doing is explaining how fiat currency works in our world, nothing more.

Why the change back to caps when NCR was using coins? Even if caps are back by something. There would not be enough caps to go around for 700,000 plus people. NCR had the gold coins and they were backed up by NCRs manpower, farming, Mining and industry. what is the cap backed up by? dirt?

Yeah I can buy that.

True, but we could say it's still backed by the merchants (since FO3 didn't have water merchants unless you got Broken Steel). And like I said, they chose bottlecaps because it was in FO1, and because it was a vintage collection back in the 1950s, much like quarter-collecting today. It's not because of the abundancy (except for maybe in-game wise), but because it's iconic to the 50s, was used previously, and makes more sense than gold. We see gold as very valuable in the real world, so if we're spending 200 caps to repair a crappy assault rifle in a post-apocalyptic future, it doesn't fit hand-in-hand. Caps do because you'd find them much easier in today's world than gold. Paper money would've been best, but how much remained? After all, much of it was probably destroyed after the war, and nobody/very few people were aware of what this green paper was used for and just considered it to be junk (ironic eh?).

Well for one, the storyline of the game is going to be about NCR vs. Caesar's Legion vs. the people of New Vegas for control of New Vegas (correct me if I am wrong). They would not have implemented their currency into the New Vegas economy yet. Thus, NCR coins would not make sense. Plus like Sawyer said, the currency could've just eased from being backed-up to a flat currency, and thus it's backed by being the currency of the wastelands that basically everyone will accept vs. a region that found a gold mine and switched their currency. Most people that do not understand the worth of gold (i.e. people who were not educated of world history due to a nuclear apocalypse) would not understand how much each single coin is worth, while they do with caps. That's also why they wouldn't immediately change the currency.

The Merchants would have been taken over by NCR, and NCR was using coins. NCR is the Big super power of the wasteland. Any Merchants out there would deal with them. So that means they would use NCR's money, Gold Coins. Merchants would have caps to trade with slavers and tribals but they would be getting rich. Caps would become worth less to them and NCR. The Merchants would be like the Europeans buying huge tracks of land from the Natives with beads. It would be the same for the Merchants of the wasteland when buying stuff from tribals and slavers using caps.

Gold, due to the simple fact that the NCR, Vault City & New Reno back it, while on the other hand, the Water Merchants stopped backing Caps sometime following the end of Fallout 1. Having a currency simply for the "cool factor" just ruins the game!

I don't follow this reasoning at all. Gold (along with other precious metals and stones) is exactly what most real-world civilizations have been inclined to use in the absence of some kind of established currency. A post-apoc world that has lost its established governing bodies would do exactly the same thing...they'd use something with intrinsic value (like water) because there's no universally accepted substitute. It has nothing to do with a post-apoc vs. a fantasy setting.


Fair enough, but still, gold has universal intrinsic value. Even if you don't use it as your official currency it still makes a lot more sense for gold to have value in the setting than bottle caps. :shrug: Even if I don't belong to NCR as a citizen I'll still take gold in trade because it's...well...freakin' gold! People want it and it's rare. It's a bargaining chip (so to speak ) whether you recognize NCR or not.


So, sell me on why bottle caps make more sense. It's at least feasible that NCR could find a source for gold (a previously undiscovered gold mine or whatever). We can't even get that far into explaining bottle caps.


Me too. I'd take a real gold mine.


So, "anything goes because it's a game" is this argument? Not trying to be a jerk, I just don't get the point you're driving at.


Actually I think that Bethesda went off the deep end with the 1950's vibe. I've been playing these games since Wasteland in the '80s, and Fallout 3 was the first that had the 1950's theme presented in such a all-encompassing way. I'd actually prefer if they eased back on it a bit. Anyway, what does this have to do with bottle caps?


Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. However, it took years of creating an established economy to get to that point. The money is backed...it's just backed by something more abstract than gold or silver. In the absence of an established economy people are going to fall back on things that have value in the here and now. If the government collapsed I could trade gold or water for stuff...that paper money isn't going to mean a thing.

If I even hear a rumor of a fight club popping up in New York I'm gonna start filling my mattress with gold and bullets.

1) My reasoning was that this a world 200 years after a nuclear war. They're not going to know that gold was used by many cultures, and are going to use the most easily found, non-produceable resource they can for trading. Plus many of them have never seen gold in their life, thus using it to buy other things probably wouldn't work out too well. It could, but this is in a lawless world.

2) And in Fallout, caps could essentially be the same thing. Maybe you haven't done this, but if I run through a subway in FO3, I drink as much Nuka-Cola as I can to regenerate lost health; thus the backing (for me) is that Nuka-Cola heals me. Since Nuka-Cola was so big, the backing instead of water would be Nuka-Cola as that was what fed the wasteland their source of water (aside from the irradiated dirty water). The caps also came with every bottle, and everyone from the rich old man at the top of a hotel to the bum outside of Megaton could easily trade with.

3) As I said, it's more readily available than gold, it's iconic to the 50s, and most of the wasteland has already been using it. Plus the storyline is going to be NCR trying to take over New Vegas; they wouldn't have implemented their currency yet. That good?

4) Yeah, it is my argument. I told you before that a gold mine in California that could supply everybody is infeasible outside of the gaming realms, since back in the 1840s-1850s, we had a little thing called the California Gold Rush that basically cleaned California clean of it's gold reservoirs.

5) The fact that bottlecap collecting was big in the 1950s, just like quarter-collecting is today. That's where bottlecaps make sense for a 50s-themed game. And I personally prefer the 1950s feel. The 1950s was the atomic age; we were in the beginning of the cold war, we had a fear that the nuclear bomb was going to annihilate the planet, and in Fallout that essentially happens. It's like an ironic representation of the future for the people of the 1950s.

NCR uses gold as currency. NCR is big. Everybody knows about gold and its value. Also, outside of the tribals I don't think the people of the West coast wasteland are as primitive as you think they are...especially this long after the war.


No offense, but this doesn't fall in line with how the value of currency works. The caps aren't backed by Nuka-Cola...they just came from the bottles.


Again, that's not how money works. Fiat currency only works when a juggernaut of an economy and organized regulation is backing it. We don't have that. Without the water merchants backing the caps they have absolutely no barter value. None. Gold has value whether you give a flying molerat about NCR or not.


It still makes more sense than caps. Prove to me that there isn't undiscovered gold anywhere in California and I'll concede.


Hehe...we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I love the 1950's references, but they were way, waaaaaaaaaaay overdone in Fallout 3 (IMO).

1) NCR hasn't fully expanded though. They would not have implemented their currency into the New Vegas economy yet. Not everyone knows of the value of gold; some people (a la children) just see it as a shiny, pretty thing.

2) I was making a connection between caps of FO1 with caps of FO3. You say that caps made sense in FO1 because they were "backed by the water merchants". Caps would make sense in FO3 being backed by Nuka-Cola since it was what hydrated the wastelands, and is the source of caps.

3) It's not that it's backed by a superpower, it's just iconic to the 50s, and much of the wastelands had it, far before discovering gold in the Redding mine, thus it made more sense to use caps.

4) I'm not saying there isn't, but to that extent there isn't. You could still find a vein of gold, but you'd be a thousand dollars richer, not a millionaire like you could have been if you got the amount of gold they got from the California Gold Rush.

5) It's a retrofuturistic game though. It's supposed to be futuristic, but set in a retro-fashion (a la the 1950s style).

It's been decades since the events of Fallout 2 in Fallout: New Vegas which means anything could of happened. This means that gold might or might not be more plausible.

Which is one of the reasons that gold is seen as valuable very quickly. :whisper:

As I said, whether or not NCR is involved doesn't really matter. They used gold in real world primitive cultures, and I'm pretty sure they never heard of NCR either.


But they weren't backed by Nuka-Cola. They came from Nuka-Cola. You couldn't trade them for Nuke-Cola. In Fallout the caps could be traded for clean water. That's why they had value.


Ugh....again....just because you have a lot of something doesn't mean it's money. If it doesn't have any value how can you barter with it? We're having a fundamental disconnect there.


This cannot be proven.


Did you play the original games?

People need to set aside fallout 3. And look very closely at fallout 2. Forget very thing you learned in fallout 3 because it has nothing to do with how the Western United States works.

On the West Coast there is a super power called NCR. It is very large and has a population of 700,000 by new vegas time it would be double that.

NCR is not like DC people are not living in a wasteland anymore. There was no Radiantion left in fallout 2. NCR was almost pre-war like.

I hate people that have only played fallout 3 saying that caps are how the world of fallout works. Things have improved greatly in the west.

Fallout 3 by bethesda was not a true sequel to fallout 2. Fallout 3 by black isle (van buren) would have stayed on the west coast.

Well lets not go burning bridges with developers. Fallout 3 was about being a sequel to the series rather than being a direct sequel to the ongoing tale of a resident or descendant of Vault 13, ya know. Beth did good. Can't fault them.
And I'm gonna agree that the two coasts do NOT operate the same. The closest you have to order in the East Coast is in The Pitt, and that's shakey as best, with everyone else eeking out a livin' in shack villages.
Then you got NCR, which is doin' good for itself, getting order and government back in place. Things are a little cleaner, little more organized.

Although true, don't go too far... :stare:

*close by the shoulder, like, whisperin'* ...It just me or does it seem like ever since New Vegas hit R&D, people are starting to look at Fallout 3 like it's diseased...?