I know most folk that come from other MMOs consider platinum the primary currency of DDO, but I’m an old school D&D (more than 20 years) player. I’ll make some comparisons to American currency below for the purposes of my example:

D&D $ equivalent Name
copper (cp) 00.01 Penny
silver (sp) 00.10 Dime
gold (gp) 01.00 Dollar
platinum (pp) 10.00 Ten Dollar Bill

Let’s say I need to buy a new TV. I go to the bank to take out $4,000. I don’t ask for Four hundred ten-dollar-bills. I ask for four thousand dollars. Don’t you? Then why do you ask for things in plat in game? It’s just a larger currency.

In Turbine’s defense, they in the past, have gauged things in gold. Update 5 now makes the standard currency plat. In my D&D games, beyond level 3, we don’t even discuss copper and silver… we just round to gold. In Guild Wars, my first MMO, they have two forms of currency: gold and plat. Very simple, very clean.

When Gygax and Arneson created D&D in the late 70s, it was the first game of its type. In order for the masses to understand the economy, they needed to relate to what we as Americans knew. They gave us copper and silver because back then, a dime was something you could buy something with… now it’s something your kids find in your couch cushions. We could stand to get rid of these archaic forms of currency instead of focusing our economy on ten dollar bills.