[crossfire] coinage

[Mark Wedel]

  So I will admit that it has been a little while since I last actually played 
crossfire, and so when I fired it up, went to a shop to buy something, I was a 
little mystified when it said:

It would cost you 1 jade coin, 27 platinum coins, 4 gold coins and 9 silver coins.

  Not that it breaks it up, but rather being somewhat unsure how much that item 
really costs - how much gold do I really need to buy it?  How many jade coins in 
a gold coin, etc.

  I could imagine this is also confusing for new players - while one will come 
across platinum coins in fairly short order, jade coins are not going to show up 
very quickly (if selling stuff to shops, you will only get them if what you are 
selling is greater than that amount).  The bank does not have a money changer 
for jade coins.

  I had advocated in the distance past the coinage ceases to be an object type 
and basically becomes a stat like ability - this makes it easier for the server 
to communicate how much money the player has, and also simplifies a lot of code 
(all code that deals with updating coinage becomes much simpler) - that said, 
there would be some complications, like depositing money on objects that want 
coinage, but that could be handled (at least it would remove the need of having 
money changers in odd locations to cover that case)

  I'm not sure the ideal solution - having that price say 127 platinum, 4 gold, 
... might be better, or 639 gold 9 silver might be better yet.  I suppose a 
clever solution might be to look at the player and see the largest currency they 
have in their inventory and use that - if I only have gold coins, say 639 gold, 
9 silver.  If I only have silver, say 6399 silver coins.

  Alternatively, maybe only list the higher coins if it really high - eg, if 
more than 1000 units, go up, so if something is 1250 gold, it would be listed as 
1250 gold, and not 250 platinum or 2 jade, 5 platinum.

  If one things about it, when one goes to the store, they don't say "that will 
be a 5 dollar bill, 2 1 dollar bills, 3 quarters, a dime, and 4 pennies", they 
just say it will be 7 dollars 89 cents.