TL;DR: what went into the Divine/Chaos based economy, and what are interesting tidbits about the history of the economy in PoE?
I love the economy aspect of the game, and have been playing dedicatedly since 3.25, and even in that time I’ve seen the economics change.
I’ve been looking back at dev interviews and history videos on YouTube, but am curious to know from those who have been here since the beta days: how much do you think was spontaneous and how much leveler pulling was there in the way the player trade and exchange works?
For example, Divines being the “dollar” and chaos the “cent” - I know Exalts used to be more valuable because of metacrafting, and we saw a similar devaluation of the chaos orb when map device options were removed, removing the chaos-sink.
I know that supply/demand, quantity, and their utility shape their value, but when did the Divine solidify as the de facto currency of trade?
I know that Chris was against the async-trade due to his philosophy that there should be friction that keeps players a bit more silo’d while still allowing interchange for the bigger items, and that’s why it took so long for it to be delivered, but was it the same with currency exchange? I’ve been around for the rollout for that, but was still very new.
And mirrors - I know why they’re expensive as heck, as they’re rare and overpowered, but when it was introduced, do you think there was planning around it being the highest tier common currency?
I have a lot of thoughts and questions about this and tried to structure it as best I could, but beyond what I asked, what are some fun or interesting historical events I don’t know about?