Neither, I say poker chips!

Its vegas baby, its got to be chips.

From what I've read, here are the benefits and costs:

GOLD: Supposedly plentiful, universal value, easy to carry (1 pound is a lot of wealth), reference to old fallouts, not as charming as others, hard to measure (who has exact scales these days?). Gold mining required/upsets econonmics

CAPS: Definiteley plentiful, Near-Universal value, not as easy to carry(10,000 bottlecaps?), Reference to old fallouts, not as charming, hard to count (451, 452, 453...). Easy to counterfeit (possible quests?)

CHIPS: Absolutely plentiful, local value only, easy to carry (10s, 50s, 100s), new currency, makes sense. Very hard/impossible to counterfeit (machines destroyed)


I am in support of chips, because they confine the player to the area (the invisible walls make sense), traders coming into town can use a currency exchange,and they have the "Vegas Feel" to them.
Otherwise, the game could take place anywhere.

And as a pre-emptive response, The local government can exchange currencies if you use a DLC to travel to a new place (though Reno seems like it would accept poker chips as well)

PLUS, a raider saying "GIVE ME ALL YOUR CHIPS!" sounds more like an awesome story than "GIVE ME ALL YOUR GOLD!", which seems cliche'

You can tell from the go the capital waistland is not as developed as the west coast, fallout 2 which is before fallout 3 has fully functioning cities built from scratch, all the settlements build from scratch in fallout 3 dont really seem that big or advanced. If you looked at the amount of bottle caps in the DC area compared to the amount chips in the whole of vegas i think you would find vegas would have a very low value currency if the did use chips. Hundreds of thousands of chips, if not millions, are in each casino, in a adverage store you would maybe have a few hundred caps and in the waistland most would have been lost while the chips would be in the casino's own private vaults. Bottlecaps where dropped by the NCR for a reason, once certain machines could be made of repaired they could be forged and due to their age fakes couldnt be easily seen (plus theyre not worth much). It would be nice to see chips u can use only in the casino u brought them from, like in real life, however as a city wide currency they would just be too easy to forge in the fallout world, plus casino's wouldnt really accept other casino's chips...

1. There are also millions of caps, as evidenced by the BoS's reserves. There are also some items worth less than a cap, that you had to pay extra for. Chips, if they even had a lower value, would make transactions easier, especially due to denominations like 50's, 100s and 300's

2. Every chip was meant to be redeemable for dollars, so casinos could recognize each others coins, especially if the original currency was burned away. The value should be same even if the colors aren't

3. Bottlecaps would be easier to forge than chips, which were specifically designed to stop counterfeiters and cheaters. A bottlecap is just formed aluminum with a design, poker chips are high-quality plastic/metal products. Although a counterfeiting quest could be added, this is not a serious concern.

4. I think it would make sense for currency exhanges to exist, if only for travelers to boost the local economy (depending on prevalence, I'm thinking 10-1 for chips or maybe some variance if the economy is booming or busting) Take a look at the "realistic economies page for more.

The idea of currency change would be interesting... But would they implement it?

Sure. Imagine that for the first hundred years or so, Vegas is isolated. They make the chips currency. One day, a trader comes in with some awesome stuff, but can't sell any because he wants caps.
Next day, a trader comes in wanting to BUY stuff with caps. Remembering the first trader, a smart guy trades chips for caps after talking with him and choosing a value

Next next day another trader comes in, wants to sell. Only the smart guy can buy the stuff, which he sells to the city.

This builds up into an entire Trading outpost (wild-west style) where you can go to exchange caps for chips, or buy and sell merchandise.

Caps, because it's FALLOUT.

Well some would argue that fallout 2 is FALLOUT and fallout 2 had gold. Fallout:NV takes place closer the places of fallout 2 than fallout 3 did, and in fallout 2 caps became useless and they changed the currency to gold.


Poker chips and a currency trade system would make sense if Vegas was just recently discovered, and has no knowledge or has never traded with the northern and western cities.

I liked the cap idea for FO3 because of all the nuka-cola around and one of the main plants being located in DC. Caps wouldn't be too bad in New Vegas, but i'm agreeing with fellow players thinking the currency should be in poker chips since it is vegas. One thing you could do is currency in cigarettes, but i'm not sure how well that idea would go over. Gold wouldn't be a bad idea either since it is one of the currencies that is respected almost everywhere.

What would be interesting though is if areas of New Vegas had their own form of currency. You had to carry around gold or gold dust for one area and caps for the other area maybe even paper money/pre-war money for some areas setup in the old casinos.

Blasphemy

Cigarettes have been used as currency, but I don't think enough of them survived 200 years. Everyone just wants to smoke them.

Also, factions using different currencies sounds good, but might get tedious. Besides, in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, people are desperate for any kind of unity, and it reflects poorly if a single city has five different currencies. Traders would probably just force people into accepting chips, at least in that city.

No, I don't think i would like multiple forms of currency. It just seems like too much wasted resources for something that is bound to complicate gameplay.
I like the idea of chips but that could be nearly as complicated with hundreds of casinos in Vegas for chips to come from.
Caps just don't make sense to me though so hopefully chips are in and their use makes sense.

Maybe in Fallout 5: Lockup Sorry just had to make a prison joke reading that no offense or anything just making a joke. Cigarettes could be a good currency but they can get destroyed too easily such as water or putting them in your pocket.



The idea of different currencies does make things complicated I agree with you on that. Any currency would do. Having different currency in different towns, I agree would complicate things.

lol 1. i was on about in new vegas, in DC there where plenty due to the nuka cola plants however in the fallout 2 world they became disused more then less likely due to them being forged, i remember a comment when the player found a horde of caps in fallout 2. Due to the chip-cap ratio in new vegas however would mean they just wouldnt be used or they would be worth more than chips, in vegas itself there would be more chips than caps.

2. Depending how many chips a casino would have would change their value inside the casino and outside, for example if the green casino chips are worth 3 inside, outside a casino no1 would give them the same value as a red casino chip which is value as 5 cos they know once they went into the casino its value would go back down.

3. if bottlecaps in the fallout 2 world could be counterfitted then its highly likely caps could be counterfitted, while im not a massive fan of the cap idea i think if they where used having fake caps would be cool and certain people would be able 2 tell the difference

4. if there is an exchange it would have to be chips for gold currency, as far as im aware no1 in that area uses bottlecaps anymore

No, not really, no. Caps are items like any other, they just weigh nothing and have a set value of 1 each.

This would be the best idea seen as its Vegas

I'd expect that it will be gold, considering that they were the standard currency in Fallout 2, and since New Vegas takes place after Fallout 2 and on the same side of the country, it would seem to be the logical choice. Really, the main reason that Fallout 3 could get away with using bottle caps is because it's on the opposite coast, and therefore due to lack of contact with the NCR or any other West Coast group the currency used there would not have spread to the Capital Wasteland. Of course, the real reason is probably because bottlecaps were used in Fallout 1 and I'm pretty sure I recall Bethesda stating that they were going for a feel closer to the first game (whether they succeeded in this is completely irrelevant, what is relevant is that some choices would be made with this in mind.)



It would also be unnecessarily complicated and frustrating for very little benefit. Sometimes, gamers complain about oversimplification, but sometimes, developers try to keep things simple because there is nothing to be gained by making them more complex.

It's a matter of adding a single item, making it weightless and assigning a value of 1. Hardly complicated.

It also sounds like it would hardly add anything to the game. For that, all the game needs is, you know, weightless items with a value of 1, no need to label them as currency.

But if the barter system works like in Fallout 3 (which considering what we've heard of the game, I suspect will be the case.) it probably wouldn't work out so well, since caps were handled separately from the items you wanted to trade, and were used to offset any differences in value between what you were buying and selling, moe importantly, depending on your barter skill level, items with only one value tended to sell for less than one cap, meaning that with a system like that, you'd still end up loosing some money in a transaction.

why dont we have a barter system like the first 2 games, so while everyone knows they are currency its only because they have a base value of one and they're weightless

Unfortunately, as a "good", bottlecaps are worthless. Also, bartering only works in a coincidence of wants (both people have something the other wants), so an accepted currency needs to exist.

GO VEGAS CHIPS!!

I think either chips or gold makes the most sense. Why would they go from gold back to bottle caps? Bottlecaps aren't really worth anything and the metals inside of them aren't worth anything compared to gold. Although yes caps are weigh less and would probably be easier to carry around but still. It'd be like okay lets use copper as our currency, no lets use gold, ah gold isn't good lets go back to copper. Then again if all the resources ran out, how would there be more gold to mine, so chips makes more sense in that aspect, plus there would be plenty of poker chips thats for damn sure.

Gold does not really run out. We don't burn gold for are power or lubricate or machines or make plastic out of it. Coins are money. One coin would be like half dollar, 1 dollar another 5 dollars another 10 and so on. There would be no issue with weight. That is how coins work in the real world that is how they would work in fallout world. Chips are the same way but I am not for them being used out side of casinos.
One Cap Only equals one Cap. There are no markings to say this one is worth 1 this 5, 10 and so on. you would end up walking around with Thousands of each only worth 1 cap. Fallout 2 NCR was using coins so why can't we just go with that? There can have a "currency exchange" Caps for coins but you would need alot of caps to equal a small number of caps. like 100 caps= 1 coin.

NCR's money is backed up by industry manufacturing, farming, mining and their Trade net works. The only ones still using coins would be Slavers and other undeveloped peoples/factions. There is nothing backing up the value of their caps. NCR does not have slavery.

caps i think.. but only because i've played fallout 3 and not fallout 1 or 2 :L