Alright, let's talk money.
CURRENCIES
The three most common currencies in the Cetviwos are VirDos, VirDias, and Credits. The last one is a game currency, but two of the most popular MMORPGs use it: The Merc-Game (Flora plays it), the Space-Game (Space-Exploration).
1. VirDos (Virtual Dollars)
VirDos are used in the Metaworld and the Tourism Worlds. 100 VirPens (Virtual Pennies) are 1 VirDos.
VirDos transactions are strictly monitored. You can send/receive only 1000 a day from another player or clan. The AH and marketplace have a price cap of 1000 VirDos. You may spend more than 1000 VirDos on different items, but small shops are only allowed to sell products totaling 1000 VirDos to one buyer per day.
Yes, this resulted from a patch because a young master opened a shop selling pebbles for 1000 VirDos. With RL money, he hired gold sellers who bought them from him.
Exchange: 10 VirDos ~ 1 Dollar/Euro in 2051 ~ 25 Cents now. You can exchange up to 1000 per RL day in both directions. You can buy most of the other currencies with VirDos.
Where to get them: They are bought primarily with real-life money. You can exchange Credits for VirDos. There are a couple of challenging scenarios where you can get them. That's it. Everybody wants them, and nobody has enough.
2. VirDias (Virtual Diamonds)
VirDias are the currency of the Cetviwos Shop. You can use them for creating your lair, vanity items, paying your subscription, and taxes. You can't exchange them for another currency.
Exchange Rate: 1 VirDias = 1 VirDos
Where to get them: CentralTank rewards them for finding bugs and exploits. When the company messes up, players get VirDias. You can buy them directly with RL money or get them with VirDos.
3. Credits (Dits)
Credits are the currency of the MMORPG Servers.
Exchange Rate: 1000 Credits ~ 1 VirDos. You can exchange up to 1000 VirDos per RL day in both directions in the Cetviwos Exchange Hub (CEH). The exchange rate fluctuates.
Where to get them: CentralTank gives them out as quest rewards and loot. You can steal from players or NPCs. They drop if you get killed in the wrong zone. If you are rich, you may get them via the CEH.
4. VirEPs (Virtual Education Points)
VirEPs are the currency of Academia, the virtual campus world. The virtual campus is one of the big money makers of CentralTank and one of their oldest servers. Much of the goodwill people have for CentralTank stems from the fact that they offer a wide range of quality education. Academia is one of the reasons for the explosive growth of the Cetviwos. Parents gift their children virtual reality helmets and pods for education, and the little shits use them to play.
On the other hand, many less privileged students earn their education by working in the Metaworld. Many big companies, greedy for VirDos and cheap labor, offer scholarships and pods coupled with courier and farming contracts.
Currently, global companies are building huge Pod-Hostels in developing countries under the guise of humanitarian help.
Exchange Rate: 1 VirEP ~ 1 VirDos. You can only exchange VirDos for VirEP but not in the other direction. You could exchange VirDias into VirEP freely in the past, but now only when CentralTank offers a special deal.
Where to get them: You can buy VirEPs with RL Money, uncapped, or exchange VirDos for them. While trading VirEPs is impossible in the Cetwivos, CentralTank isn't as harsh in prosecuting offenders as with VirDos.
5. Property Deeds
With a Property Deed, you can buy or enlarge your owned land beyond the Cetviwos Shop's amount. They work on multiple servers. You want to own a pub in Talpica? Get a Property Deed! You want to expand your company's HQ in the Biz? Get a Property Deed! Your clan compound? Your lair? …
While they are no official currency, the high rolling players use them like it. In the Metaworld exists a player-owned auction house that only excepts bids in PD. They are a workaround for the 1000 VirDos trading limit.
Exchange Rate: No official exchange, but you can buy them in the Auction House for 1000 VirDos, for more in the server AHs. Companies used AIssistants to monitor the AHs until CentralTank forbade it. Now, they employ poor saps whose sole jobs are to refresh the AH and click buy as fast as they can when a PD appears.
Where to get them: 1000 Property Deeds drop every day as loot, randomly. It's a common watercooler topic. "Hey, have you heard about the lucky guy who caught a PD? He swatted a mosquito, and it dropped." … "She fell down a staircase and squashed a level 1 critter." … "They conquered a level 200 HI50. Not only did they get loot worth millions, a PD dropped on top. Oh man, the rich always get richer."
CentralTank hosts two weekly events with Property Deeds as prizes in Swords and Boards and Panem et Ludos. Millions of players participate and even more watch it on the central Television web (cTVw). The format changes each week, but they are mostly in Takeshi's Castle/Wipe Out style.
Additionally, some seasonal events have PDs in their reward list, and there is one very long boring weekly quest. Don't mention the quest to Lana, Robby, Hoffi, or Hub, or they start to shiver. They are doing it most of the weeks because VIPs always need PDs. If they spent the time flipping burgers, they would make more money. However, the first thing wealthy clients ask about is how many PDs are available in the Clan shop, so they have to provide them.
6. Gold Coins
The Cetviwos Gold Coins only exist within the KingdomBuilding Game. CentralTank and Scammers and Goldsellers are in a perpetual war to outsmart each other. Their fight is unreasonably fierce if you consider that you can't do anything with the coins outside of the KindomBuilding Game. Though, having a massive amount of Gold Coins is a sign of status and brings valuable achievements. Counterfeiting or trading gold coins is often referred to as "the Hidden Game."
Exchange Rate: None at all.
Where to get them: The only way to acquire them is by playing the KingdomBuilding Game.
Flora won't play it because it’s a full-time commitment. If you are interested in the mechanics or in a side story about someone who plays it, drop a comment.
7. Contribution Points (Cons, never CP)
Contribution Points are the currency of clans, alliances, and factions.
They are specific for the organization. That means you can't use Riverstones Cons to get a t-shirt in the 7Masters Dojo.
Often, they are used like the bonus programs of shop chains: Buy something over 50 VirDos, get a contribution point free. From buying martial arts courses, Flora has some Cons of the 7Masters Dojo.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Exchange Rate: The organizations can buy them from The Cetviwos Shop: 1 Con = 1 VirDos. You can't transfer Cons between players. An organization can assign up to 1000 Cons a day to a player.
Where to get them as a player: You get it from the organization. The method depends on the organization. In the Riverstones, you can buy them with real-life money or Cetviwos money. You can get a part of your clan taxes back as Cons. Hence Flora has a lot of Riverstones Cons.
Where to get them as a clan/faction/alliance: Clan quests, achievements and rating of the clan members, prize money, and VirDos exchange.
Summary: Does the description sound like it is a legal way to "sell gold"? Then I did something right because that's just the case.
Let's meet Anish. His father is rich and gives him 10 000 dollars in pocket money per month. Anish transfers 100$ per day via the regular Cetviwos money option (3k $). With this, he gets 30 000 VirDos a month, but that's too little for a rich young master. What should he do with the other 7k $? Save up? Lame! Do RL stuff? Even lamer!
So, Anish hires a gold-selling clan. They take 7000 $ a month and give him 1000 Contribution Points per day. He buys items from their clan shop with Cons and sells them to merchants for VirDos. How much VirDos he can make depends on how badly the clan and the merchants are ripping him off. In quality gold-selling clans, one Con can buy more than 1 VirDos worth of materials. However, the reality is more that they promise you riches and in the end, the stuff in the store is overpriced.
For Robby, it is a point of pride that the contribution point prices in the Riverstones shop are roughly reflecting the VirDos market value. The advantage is that you need to contact only one merchant a day. Of course, most customers join the Riverstones for their services, but many richer ones just want one more way to buy an advantage in the game.
COMMERCE AND SHOPS
1. THE CETVIWOS SHOP
The Shop has the following main categories:
* Construction (Lairs, Clan Compounds, Shops, Printers, Workshops …)
* Accessories (Furniture, Games, Skins, …)
* Alleviation (Inventory Space, Teleportation Circles, Portals, Remote Access to Services like portable Mailboxes, …)
* CentralTank Services (Subscription, AIssistants, System Access, Statistica, Utility Bills…)
* Special Offers
If you look for something, you always find it in the category you wouldn't have expected.
Accepted Currencies: VirDias.
Conditions to Sell: CentralTank can choose to feature one of your products. Some people decline because they don't want VirDias or higher margins. Flora has some items in the shop from her alpha testing days (a fountain, two skins for Workshops, a cupboard) and one new, which she has officially permitted, the Stehaufmaennchen.
2. The Central Bank
The Central Bank is the only official bank in the entire Cetviwos. It handles all the currencies and transactions of all the servers. There, you can access the Exchange Hub, the local marketplace, and the local auction house.
While storing money is free, you have to pay for lockboxes according to their size.
You can withdraw money via your Mailbox if you pay for it. (Flora did).
VirDos and untradeable currencies like VirDias and VirEPs are listed in your account, but you have full access to them without visiting the bank.
Accepted Currencies: All.
3. The Auction Houses
There are several non-connected AHs in the Cetviwos. The two biggest are in the Metaworld and on the Cradle. The Metaworld AH handles the shipping to your mailbox.
You can access the Metaworld AH remotely, but you have to visit the other AHs or their branches in person or hire a trading company.
Accepted Currencies: Primary currency of the server.
Conditions to Sell: You can put any tradable item you own in the auction house for up to a week. CentralTank takes 10% of the starting price and another 10% of the end price if you sell it. Some titles and abilities decrease the fees.
Additionally, some players organize auctions. Beware of scammers!
4. The marketplace
The marketplace is for trading items. In the Metaworld, it's virtual and has three sections: Sell, Buy, Create, Shop.
1. Sell: You give your tradable item to the Marketplace Root Shop, run by Central Tank with similar fees to the AH but a fixed price and a listing duration of four weeks. If you own a shop, you can list your items there for free, but you still have to pay the 10% fee if it sells via the marketplace.
If you buy something from this category, the marketplace immediately delivers it to your mailbox.
1b. Sell+: This option is only available to certified shops. They guaranty to provide the item within 5 minutes to the marketplace.
2. Buy: You can list something you want to have and how much you want to spend on it in this section. If you aren't specific, you get something like the Cheese Slayer.
People can hand it in via mail and get the money automatically. Maiket, the AI of the marketplace, decides whether it matches your request. She also handles the ungodly amount of complaints from this feature, usually with a standard text saying that you should have configured your request more carefully.
Aidan has posted I-Buy listings for Doom Moon Multitools for Flora.
3. Create: You can offer to build something for a customer. You list the price if you need special materials and how long it will take.
4. Shops: List your shop and what it offers. Only then people can do online shopping via the marketplace interface in your shop. Standard listing is free. You can pay for fancy branding, pictures/video, better placement…
5. Metaworld Shops
As a player, you can open a shop in the Metaworld. The smallest one is as big as a tv-screen and can only sell via an interface similar to online shopping. The biggest ones are mega-malls with employees, Natives, or players.
For electronic sales, you can use the standard template like Flora, buy additional interface features, or even develop your own interface like Huffgrin Skateboards and Active Wear.
Similar to the marketplace, you can transfer items directly to your shop. They won't clutter your inventory or lair, and maybe someone will even buy them! The latter is not very likely if you didn't list the items in the marketplace. Listing your shop in the marketplace is like owning a website and putting it in a web catalog. On the other hand, listing your products is comparable to a seller on Etsy or eBay.
Another option is offering items that are printed on-demand. If you buy a shop-transfer-interface for your printer(s) and can provide a delivery time to your shop in under five minutes, you may list them as regular "Sell+" items and not "Create" items. Huffgrin has a production hall with 50 printers. There are too many possibilities to stock them because you can customize your skateboard's deck, wheels, and truck. Hence they print every order.
If you own a shop, you have to offer refunds. It doesn't matter how you sell your stock, in a real-virtual shop, in an online shop, or listed in the marketplace.
You have to pay a monthly rent dependant on your sales and shop size. If the system ships the goods, you have to pay 3% to CentralTank.
Prices can only be in VirDos, if you didn't have a branch on a server with another currency. Huffgrin has branches in Sports and Boards and on the Cradle. Hence they can also trade in credits.
Besides the marketplace categories, a shop can also offer services like Ricky's Runners' Free-Running courses.
Shops try to give their customers a good experience that they go and visit their shops personally. Huffgrin has a Skatepark and Ricky's Runners a Free-Running Gym. I don't want to spoil what OppressingOpulence does…
For a crafter like Flora, it's highly advantageous to have her products in these shops. So, Flora gave them discounts on the royalties so that they can list her products and still make a profit.
6. Clan Shops
A clan shop can provide everything a player shop can offer, but they can also use their own currency: contribution points (see entry above).
You can only buy from a clan shop if you are a member of the clan, an allied clan, or an "Outer Court" associate.
The Outer Court: Many of Robby's customers are in the clans of their companies. They can't leave their company's clan, but they want to hire Robby for dungeons or for clan shop access. So they join the Outer Court.
Let's meet Harry. He works as an investment broker in the Cetviwos. His work contract states that he has to be a part of the InvFox clan because they use the chat system for work-related issues. In his free time, he likes to play as a mage. Like everyone, he had some bad experiences with pick-up groups, but his work obligations make it impossible to join a nice clan. What can he do? Join the Outer Court of a clan!
Let's meet Claire. She works for FindLoveInTheCetviwos, a dating agency. They organize events for singles and host parties. The clan needs equipment, but they have no VirDos income. So she joined the Riverstone Outer Court and pays Robby an RL fee, and gets contribution points for it. With the contribution points, she buys the equipment from the Riverstone's clan store. Currently, she tries to convince Robby to ally their clans. Her clan would get contribution points for the Riverstones to access their clan store, while the Riverstones VIPs could use the contribution points of FindLoveInTheCetviwos to attend their parties and events.
7. Royalties
Royalties are earned if you publish a blueprint and somebody prints it. You don't have to produce an item or even provide the materials.
Flora has only a few of her creations published: the skateboarding skins, household appliances, and the Stehaufmaennchen. For many of those above, she has contracts with businesses like Huffgrin or OppressingOpulence. These shops have to pay lowered royalties to her when they print out her stuff.
Copyright is automated in the Cetviwos. If Aito printed the books she has copied from the Riverstones (Chapter 2.46 Spa Day), she would have to pay a fee. Flora had to pay the Magetech Institute when she adapted their light mech-suit into the Messenger.