A Barter Economy?

[Elementalkin]

Wouldn't this encourage people to buy from gold sellers?
"We try to give gold value while the best rewards unrelated to gold. A fantasy world with no gold economy would be odd."

So that got me to thinking, could a bartering option work as a substitute for gold? For example, let's say you wanted to sell Windwool Cloth, and the 'price' you wanted for it was, eh, Ghost Iron Ore (whatever). RTS wise, this would be like trading 'meat' for 'lumber', right? Now, perhaps this wouldn't work as a substitute for gold entirely, but do you think it could work as just an alternative currency option on the AH? Or perhaps a separate market system altogether?

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Don't know if it would work. I personally have little value in gold in games (permanent Bugg-Off for gold sellers).

Now if RMT comes to WoW, things would be different as thats RL money and profit. That's what I'm waiting for, actually making RL money on game goods. Be it leveling toons to sell to making objects with 3D programs. WoW then may explode to 20 million subs alone...and who would care about gold sellers then when RL money matters?

[Justignoreme]

I dont see how this would curb gold sellers; they'd just stop listing their ill-gotten ore in the AH and start selling it directly...

[Grummgug]

I had this idea to create my own currency in-game. Basically, I would accept an item and in return send them a piece of mail that read: "this letter is worth 5 grummgugs."

My in-game mails that i send out would become currency itself. Only mails sent by me would be legal tender, so I would control the currency. I could issue denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100.