A general discussion about clan banks without complaining

[Malik2]

As clan banks have become a regular feature of the regnum clan community.

As they were used to pool resources among members and encouraged teamwork.

As clans, as organizations, have no way to effeciently store items they find.

It would be an excellent idea if the community could take time to reflect how these changes will impact the clan systems as it is now, does it strengthen the clan system or weaken it, how will your clan cope with these changes etc.

It would be nice if we can have this discussion in the open on the general discussion board.

[_Arwen_]

I'll make my first post in defense of NGD and perhaps later I'll post my thoughts on the other side even though most of you will say it anyway.

1) Clan banks clutter up RO's database making maintenance more difficult.
- If every clan has 3 characters for banks (some have more but lets stick with 3 for now) and there are only 20 clans per realm, you have an extra 60 characters in the databases. Add to this each bank containing around 125 - 150 items, now you have 9,000 items to keep track of. All of this adds to the complexity and size of the databases in charge of keeping player info, not to mention it incorrectly inflates the number of characters/accounts on the servers giving NGD bad information which they may need to use correctly plan server hardware upgrades and software changes.

This does not even include clans that had banks and have since died but banks not deleted so these numbers could easily be double what I've calculated.

2) Clan banks can be a cause of dispute with players who donate items then leave the clan.
- I'm not sure if this is a big issue or not, but if someone donates an item to the bank, then is either kicked out of the clan or leaves on their own, their item may now be "lost". Perhaps these players email NGD and now NGD has to deal with an issue with a "system" that they don't endorse causing loss in productivity and time.

3) Probably most importantly is the fact that clan banks kill commerce in the Regnum world.
- This is the reason I feel is the largest driving force behind this change. For better or for worse, clan banks kill the economy in Regnum since you don't need to search for and buy new items when you can just get them from the bank. If NGD intends to add crafting in the near (or distant) future, there needs to be some sort of economy to facilitate the trade of goods created by crafting. Now that there's no place to store your items (beyond a few spots in stashes) you may be forced to sell that new sword you just dropped but have no need for.

However, that being said it's also up to NGD to make it easy for the players to put their items up for sale and so far we have zero support for that. What Regnum needs in order to help its economy grow is some sort of "Auction House" or "Trading Post" to let people place items up for sale/auction and automatically exchange items when a sale is accepted whether or not a user is online. Another thing that is needed is for NGD to fix the return price of items. Currently you only get 10% to 40% of the money back that an item is worth when you sell to a merchant. While this is good because it forces you to try to sell items to other players, I think it would make sense to increase the return rate to 60 or 70 percent since you normally can't sell normal weapons/armor to other players. Until this happens, the RO economy will never flourish and banks will continue to exist in some form.

4) Last but not least, keep in mind its very possible NGD has some Clan enhancements coming in an upcoming release that includes a clan bank and all we have to do is wait patiently.


I hope you all can keep in mind that there are other possible reasons for this change other than to "kill" clan banking.

Sincerely,
Arwen

[AariEv]

The problem is that some clans will now start making more accounts for their banks in order to accommodate for the new update. This will clutter the database even further

[Revolverxxx]

most of the players dont understand the problems these clan banks had. did you know that the really overburdened characters dont display all the items they are carrying. im talking about a carry weight of 1500+/250 etc.

we had a problem in our clan bank where a player was looking for a specific pauldron he donated a while back. It was never given out so we were definate it was there. One of our clan leaders logged on to the clan bank and looked for it.... couldnt find it. the characters weight was like ~1200/250 (not the exact number but more or less). he relogged onto the character, the weight was now ~1340/250. still no pauldrons. after relogging multiple times (i remember logging off and coming back and they were still busy at it) they eventually found it, i cant remember the exact weight but it was somewhere around the high 2500/250 or more.

my point is that characters are not meant to be overburdened and by storing that much items on one character is pushing the limits of what was originally intended so the response is very unpredictable. This update is good, but it needs counter update to fascilitate some kind of clan storage

[Anpu]

There wouldn't be any DB cluttering nor level one chars as improvised banks if NGD first finished with clans before moving to developing other stuff. Now dual wielding has priority over clan systems. They are rushing a lot with game features, leaving them half finished and buggy.

Also, for this year, we can probably forget any kind of clan update, as they announced what they are going to do this year (thread where Kailer explained they won't have time to take a look into Evasion because schedule is busy). If they don't have time for one of the biggest problem in Regnum, which created tons of threads (just like lack of clan banks created tons of level 1 chars), I personally don't expect anything for clan either.

[Malik2]

Aaris is right, where some clans may drop their clan banking, others will end up with multiple lvl 10 or 15 probabaly barbarian banks to hold items, so instead of 3 lvl 1 characters we will be looking at 30 or 40 individual characters to hold all the items.

Arwen makes good points.

Although I also agree with Anpu that if there was some clan enhancement coming we would have been informed.

I know plenty of people who have never tried to sell an item on realm chat becasue they just gave it to the clan, since we can't save for the clan, will this change turn realm chat into more of "lets make a deal" than it already is?

[Freduardo]

I've previously contributed quite some items to my former clan's banks. And although I do not want to condemn such behavior per se (the idea behind it is good). It often leads to item hording. Shitloads of useful stuff that isn't being used and just sits there in a lvl 1 character.

I would agree though that something needs to be done. But I'd like to see that something to go more towards a better trading system or auction house than just another way to hamster all kinds of items for a select few people.

Imho.

[Groark]

The solution is what Arwen said:
"What Regnum needs in order to help its economy grow is some sort of "Auction House" or "Trading Post" to let people place items up for sale/auction and automatically exchange items when a sale is accepted whether or not a user is online".
There is a game (Runescape) with that buying-selling system and it works perfect.

[Greyman_tle]

As I see it NGD - if the OP premise is correct and its a DB issue - have shot themselves in the foot.

Clans improvised a banking system, as there was none availiable - even thou it has been repeatedly asked for.

The clan im in b4 the update allready minimisd the amount stored in the banks to stop the 'disappearing item' problem, but this still OB's the characters.

The most likely outcome will be an increase of bank characters, as that appears to be the only way around the new system.

Assuming this would increase trade is all fine well and good, if we had a trading system.

What a clan wants to do with the items they find...is up to the clan.

slight worry - if it was done to lessen DB load...the system is flawed. It runs along the same lines as...WHY? does the forum go offline when the game servers are being updated...I can only infer that its on the same server...and if its on the same server how much else is?...all the worlds?

Players will find a work around for this that suits the players....this probably wont suit NGD.....hopefully NGD will listen to the players at some point.

[Gytha_Ogg]

As I see it NGD - if the OP premise is correct and its a DB issue - have shot themselves in the foot.

Clans improvised a banking system, as there was none availiable - even thou it has been repeatedly asked for.

The clan im in b4 the update allready minimisd the amount stored in the banks to stop the 'disappearing item' problem, but this still OB's the characters.

The most likely outcome will be an increase of bank characters, as that appears to be the only way around the new system.

Assuming this would increase trade is all fine well and good, if we had a trading system.

What a clan wants to do with the items they find...is up to the clan.

slight worry - if it was done to lessen DB load...the system is flawed. It runs along the same lines as...WHY? does the forum go offline when the game servers are being updated...I can only infer that its on the same server...and if its on the same server how much else is?...all the worlds?

Players will find a work around for this that suits the players....this probably wont suit NGD.....hopefully NGD will listen to the players at some point.

We did get character stashes, and then account stashes pretty quickly after that, maybe clan stashes are on their way.

Maybe the character item limit was to help with the item duping situation, and just inadvertently broke clan bank characters, and it has nothing to do with clan banks.

Maybe this is an attempt to shake loose some of the dusty old items mouldering away in the bottom of clan mules before they all get dumped into the shiny new clan stashes.

We won't know until we find out.

Players will find workarounds, hawking their wares on realm chat, setting up websites to facilitate trades, and using alts as clan banks. The last is the only one that really breaks the official rules (the others are just inefficient and annoying compared to a true in-game system) - maybe NGD is willing to look the other way until the real thing gets finished, then we'll suddenly see a lot of characters with the last name of 'Bank' running around the wz with really uber items. :D

[BigManOnCampus]

Clans improvised a banking system, as there was none availiable - even thou it has been repeatedly asked for.

And now you've got one for individuals. How is this any different from storing items on the character itself? I fail to understand your logic here. You say a banking system was repeatedly asked for. NGD provided it. Yet somehow now that you've got what you want, it's exactly what you didn't want.

The most likely outcome will be an increase of bank characters, as that appears to be the only way around the new system.

This also makes zero sense to me. Most items stored in clan banks aren't stored there to make the clan better, they're stored there because they're items that "oh that might be good for someone, but it isn't better than what I have and I don't want it in my inventory." This is evidenced by the fact that clans regularly sell off stuff in their banks to lighten the load and get around the vanishing bug. If those items were truly valuable to the clan, they wouldn't be selling them.

So the situation now is that every character has it's own stash, a place to put items that aren't great but aren't entirely worthless. This is a net win for the clans because they do not have to worry about these items.

This is also a net win for NGD, because the stash database can be stored separate from the game server, lightening CPU load for more combat calculations.

Assuming this would increase trade is all fine well and good, if we had a trading system.

This is kind a ridiculous complaint. You can trade with players. Is there a market for players? No, but I can't imagine NGD ignoring that forever.

What a clan wants to do with the items they find...is up to the clan.

slight worry - if it was done to lessen DB load...the system is flawed. It runs along the same lines as...WHY? does the forum go offline when the game servers are being updated...I can only infer that its on the same server...and if its on the same server how much else is?...all the worlds?

Players will find a work around for this that suits the players....this probably wont suit NGD.....hopefully NGD will listen to the players at some point.

Clans *CAN STILL STORE ITEMS USING BANK CHARACTERS*, just use the stashes and not the inventory. It's not difficult. With xim you can expand the stashes to up to 50 items, that's a maximum of 350 items per account. If you ever had more than 350 items in a clan account before, then shame on you for not sharing with your realm mates.

The forum probably goes down during game maintenance because if they didn't take it down, the port-80 traffic to the server would likely crash it under the load of players suddenly posting.

NGD does listen to it's players. I'm quite certain they may ignore your post, however, as it's kind of a poorly-thought-out whine.

[_Arwen_]

I seriously hope clans aren't planning on making more bank characters to compensate. If they do they'll soon abandon this because its not a feasible solution. Think about it, I haven't had a level 10 or 15 warrior in a while but I'd imagine they only have what... 150kgs of weight they can hold? Thats... oh 10 items.... I mean come on you'd need 10 characters just to match what your original banks held.

I don't think a viable solution is to buy xim on those accounts since it would cost:

9600 + 8000 + 4000 * 6 = 41,600 xim to be able to store only 350 items. I'd imagine most clans would need at least double that.

Also, suddenly you need to keep gold on your bank characters so you have enough to withdraw/deposit items.

Personally what I think we'll be doing is since only a handful of items come out of the banks and go back in, we'll probably just keep those in the stash and leave the others in the bank till someone wants them, then when they need to deposit give it to a trustworthy member to keep. It will be rough but is probably the best solution.

[iteomagazu]

I often had mules with more than 350 items in it, since I also collected lowie-items to help little clanmates. It doest not make much sense to try to sell lowie-equipment, since people leave the lowie-levels so fast that they do not really look for equipment. But our lowies were always happy to get f.e. epic lvl 21 things. Of course I will stop collecting that now, since we need the space in our mules for high-drops. Is it intended that we do not help our lowies any more?

[Gideon_Slack]

I often had mules with more than 350 items in it, since I also collected lowie-items to help little clanmates. It doest not make much sense to try to sell lowie-equipment, since people leave the lowie-levels so fast that they do not really look for equipment. But our lowies were always happy to get f.e. epic lvl 21 things. Of course I will stop collecting that now, since we need the space in our mules for high-drops. Is it intended that we do not help our lowies any more?

The practical effect of this will be that equipment will now be shared throughout the realm. Also, since there will be more equipment floating around, prices will probably drop (if more equipment is not outright given away).

On the one hand, it sucks for clans to loose banks. On the other hand, it may be good for realm cohesion. (We'll have to wait and see). And, clans can still store the absolute best of the stuff in their mules (and in stash too).

[Arafails]

This also makes zero sense to me. Most items stored in clan banks aren't stored there to make the clan better, they're stored there because they're items that "oh that might be good for someone, but it isn't better than what I have and I don't want it in my inventory." This is evidenced by the fact that clans regularly sell off stuff in their banks to lighten the load and get around the vanishing bug. If those items were truly valuable to the clan, they wouldn't be selling them.

I have to argue against that. Simply on the evidence of my own clan's banks, where there's an almost constant flow of items out to clan members as they level up. Up until the last update at least, they tend to come back after a couple of levels also to go on to the next person levelling that class. That which didn't go through rotation has at times given away to people outside the clan who might want something a little better than what they had.

[Mr_Egg]

There wouldn't be any DB cluttering nor level one chars as improvised banks if NGD first finished with clans before moving to developing other stuff. Now dual wielding has priority over clan systems. They are rushing a lot with game features, leaving them half finished and buggy.

Also, for this year, we can probably forget any kind of clan update, as they announced what they are going to do this year (thread where Kailer explained they won't have time to take a look into Evasion because schedule is busy). If they don't have time for one of the biggest problem in Regnum, which created tons of threads (just like lack of clan banks created tons of level 1 chars), I personally don't expect anything for clan either.Agree. NGD should stop trying to add new features until they fix what's broken. Even though this work might not be as interesting for them, it will benefit them in the long run as they will have less players permanently ragequitting due to massive levels of evades/resists/positional bug/lag/etc... because lets face it, it is frustrating.


I know plenty of people who have never tried to sell an item on realm chat becasue they just gave it to the clan, since we can't save for the clan, will this change turn realm chat into more of "lets make a deal" than it already is?

As someone else said in some other thread... the realm chat is the home shopping channel of regnum. Maybe if NGD added a trade chat channel it might be easier.... or, like people keep suggesting, some kind of auction system. I can't imagine it being much work to add one extra realm-wide chat channel and label it "trade" though...


Clans *CAN STILL STORE ITEMS USING BANK CHARACTERS*, just use the stashes and not the inventory. It's not difficult. With xim you can expand the stashes to up to 50 items, that's a maximum of 350 items per account. If you ever had more than 350 items in a clan account before, then shame on you for not sharing with your realm mates.

Yeah, but who the hell wants to spent ridiculous amounts of xim on their clan banks? I mean, they don't even want to spend time grinding them, what's the point in putting xim into them?

This would also mean relocating banks to places which are less convenient for players just for stash access, and would require keeping quite a lot of gold in the banks and cataloguing items so people know exactly what they want.

Even so, the largest they can increase the stash size to is 50 items per character and 50 more on the account, nowhere near enough, I'd assume, for the majority of clans..... and yes, Arwen's maths is better than mine if you're expanding the account size too.

On the one hand, it sucks for clans to loose banks. On the other hand, it may be good for realm cohesion. (We'll have to wait and see). And, clans can still store the absolute best of the stuff in their mules (and in stash too).

That's a good point, a few times I've seen someone on realm chat buying x item, and I'm thinking "hmmmm, there's something similar in our banks...". If clans were strictly limited to what they can store, then maybe someone would've still had that item and could've sold it, and everyone would be happier.


I can kind of see where NGD is coming from on this, I mean, clan banks could be classed as against the rules anyway...

2. One person is only allowed to have one account.
3. It is not allowed to take over another user’s account.
And clan banks tend to be shared accounts...

[eerO]

I can kind of see where NGD is coming from on this, I mean, clan banks could be classed as against the rules anyway...


And clan banks tend to be shared accounts...


Aww c'mon! Look at the facts. Almost everybody on RA has a double account, so why should they care about the clan stashes? The clan stashes exist almost as long as this game does and it has become a part of it.


Seriously, this is just another way to get some money. Destroy the clanbanks so the ppl have to buy this premium stash shit. Really. If a normal player is overburned, he sells the items and thats it. So that was made to destroy the clanbanks.

I for myself will sell all the shitty stuff out of our clanbanks and hold the useful stuff, i mean, my clan was putting every shit in the banks, so ill just clean it up a bit, but i still think the banks will be overburned after that.

[Mr_Egg]

Aww c'mon! Look at the facts. Almost everybody on RA has a double account, so why should they care about the clan stashes? The clan stashes exist almost as long as this game does and it has become a part of it. Lol, I know, loads and loads and loads of people have more than one account - I mean, look at the players that play all 3 realms, and pretty much everyone who has more than 3 chars is doing it on 2 accounts, and then on top of that there's banks and stuff.

All I'm saying is that I see where the reason would be, if it's against the ToU in the first place.

[survive]

the main problem I find is the oversite of NGD in discussing/nottifying us of this change before hand, to allow for the emptying/selling/spring cleaning of clan banks ahead of the update. This has created a HUGE inconvinence for clan leaders, who NGD wish to purchase more premium product.

secondly... 5 Account stash spaces... and 15 char.... really? that is it from the start? 5..... it is laughable if it was not so damn annoying :rale:

[bois]

I expect to be flamed for this.

Personally I saw no need for any discussion or notification for this feature which I happen to agree with. As far as I know, clan banks have been in existence since my entry into the game and has become a sort of pseudo feature. However, this feature was never designed or sanctioned by NGD in any way. It just so happened that players and clans found a way to fill a design gap left by NGD. It could be argued that by not dealing with bank accounts , NGD set a precedent for it but, with lack of resources and interesting names clans give banks, this may prove too difficult to do. For this reason I see no need for consultation.

I am sorry everyone. I run a fairly small clan in which I tend to do a lot of housekeeping and as such , the problem of overloaded banks, choked with stuff never arose. I cannot imagine how bad it would be for the large ones but, they tend to have a large organisational structure which should be able to handle such outcomes. I try my utmost to either

A: sell off or give away the crap. I sell for gold mainly and at rates not much higher than the merchants .I use the gold I collect from sales to support my poorer members.

B: Hold on to the best items and make sure they circulate among clan members equitably. I allow members to sell of low/mid level specials if they are strapped for cash. I sometimes even give away magical for free.
In such a formula , I never really have any problems.

The issue I see here (bring on the flame) is that many clan banks are either poorly managed or are so badly choked up with tons of stuff that the clans are totally against releasing into the environment so, they just remain in the bank rotting "just in case" some possible future member might have a slight need for it.
Added to this is that some clans that do sell outside their clan offer such expensive trades that either the free play gamers have to become magnanite slaves, or grind junkies to keep up. The Ximerin players have to become lucky box addicts in the hope that they drop a magic or epic item worthy of trade.

Compounding this is the fact of a non existent economy which is driven by the semi rare element magnanite which replaced the gold as legal tender. Actually there is so much gold about that its value is negligible.

On top of all of this is the woeful state of the entire clan system which needs a total retooling.

To top it all off , there is no functional or reasonable way to trade in this game so many players in need have no viable forum with which to get or barter for the stuff they need. Many a time I see players in need and post in the chat for stuff. Often times it is
A: unanswered
B: unavailable because The player that might have it is offline, it is too expensive, player has nothing worthy to trade or reserved in banks.

The thing is , every time NGD installs a single feature it just opens a Pandora's box of problems that always existed but was pushed off the front burner. All the problems that all the above posters listed always existed , it is just now back on the burning edge again.

Solutions: None that would satisfy the majority. Like many things , this ecosystem is intertwined and installing one thing usually leads to destabilizing something else. Gaps or weakness in the system become glaring.
There are two suggestions that would go a long way and was mentioned above. A new chat channel for trade should be installed as a temporary measure. I say temporary because it will be choked with spam soon enough anyway and lose viability.
Meanwhile , they could start the framework of a comprehensive trading system. The suggestions forum is awash with ideas there. I am sure even a basic system would be welcome.

At the end of the day, again I am sorry but I agree with the way NGD implemented this. If hoarding is the desire then it should come with a cost.

It is working already. I am seeing banks and players already liquidating their repositories and allowing items back into the space.
To look at the chat is so funny and probably a little obscene. I can't imagine banks/players would not distribute stuff with +1 fire resist and +3 blunt to their realm mates and rather stock pile that stuff. Really.

Regards
Artec

[Malik2]

I both agree and disagree with Artec. I agree that this change has exposed a weakness in the clan system and all of his points regarding to that.

Some syrtis clans my be selling some stuff or liquidating. That is not what we are doing. Actually we are trying to formulate a plan for what we are going to do. Arwen is right multiple banks are a nightmare, even more of a nightmare than the current system.

I also disagree with Artec with the idea that clan banks are full of low bonus junk. The TWC and Inq and other clans pooled resources to get magna weapons. Looking at my clan banks inventory, I figure we could probably chuck about 1/2 maybe 2/3 and be shedding some very good items. But even if we did that the remaining would be very very good items and the banks still overburdened.

Even so, we had banked those items to help our lower level members, this is one of the bonuses of being in a clan, in any clan. That is a service that we can no longer provide.

The vast majority of drops I get, have nothing to do with me or my class. I know there are others in my clan that can benefit, I'd rather bank it than spam realm chat or clan chat with offers to sell or simply try give it away. Really I'd give these items I find to anyone for free (except certai individuals who would only use them for thier own entrichment)...but at present there is simply no way to do so.

[bois]

Hence I was quite careful with my words. Several Veteran clans would be expected to have quite a treasure trove of stuff that they would consider keeping. For such a reason I did not say ALL clans. I would expect that such establishments would have a good structure to deal with such eventualities.

I feel for those clans that have to jettison items of quality for mid and low level players however, the decent drop rate at those levels suggests that it would be prudent to support first, your clan and then distribute the rest to your realm. Keeping only very, very good epics, magical and really rare specials (6 and 7% bonuses)would not pose as much a problem then.

I am not too sure about your point about Magnanite weapons and its reference to banks. Personally, I would expect that Magnanite weapons, Dragon items and Super Boss items will all be in use by the clan members at all times and such the idea of them being in banks should not arise. If those items are in banks and not in the hands of players then something is clearly wrong. If it is so then clan comes above Realm and we may be seeing the birth of something unpalatable. Maybe I understand you wrong.

I apologise if I suggested that banks carry a lot of low bonus items. I actually meant player private banks for that. Clan banks however, have a lot of mid quality to good items that by no means rare and should be either sold off or distributed to keep what little economy there is functioning. Larger clans could be reasonably expected to have more active players and as such more grinders. This in turn means they should have a constant supply of fresh items coming into banks. If this is indeed the case then most of the mid to good quality items could and should be in the space for use.

I suppose the situation for most banks will be a process of inventory housekeeping with a keen eye to stock assessment leading to reductions, distributions and clan bank efficiency improvements.
At the end of the day , I am yet to see an argument that would convince me that this system as implemented is not in the best interest of the whole game . I always keep an open mind though.

[Nekoko]

The bank issue is more of a problem for new players than old ones, why? Simply people are going to get rid of low level stuff first. They're not going to hunt around fields looking for some new person they can give it away to. I think everyone will do what I do, hello merchant 25k of gold...

This hits the low levelers and the people starting out...

[Malik2]

Again I agree and disagree with Artec in two basic ways.

From lvl 30 to lvl 35, as I ground I got all manner of dropped items, problem was none of the items dropped were of my class, or if they were they were either common or flawed in some way. At the same time I did manage to get a few stat bonued items for Knights and mages. I put them in the bank.

At the same time I was using almost exclusivly a magical lvl 29 short bow that I got from the bank from lvl 29 until almost lvl 40. And when I was done with it I put it bank in the bank, and I think another clan member has in now. But whne they are done with it, there is no place to put it, sadly.

It is rough through the lvl 20s as advancing in levels quickly make clan banks really kind of worthless for those people because less than a week after they get the weapon or armor they don't need it anymore.

To answer a question, we actually do not have any magna items in the bank right now, but we do keep the ingots in there, and on occasion if someone gets a weapon they like better they have made a brief appearance there before, and are again picked up by someone else in the clan.

And the second disagreement is the assumption that there is an economy. We have plenty of mid quality items we could sell, for what? Another mid quality item, magna, gold? The items were placed in there to benefit the clan, I don't see a barter method to similarly benefit the clan.

[Malevolence]

my 2 cents is this. I dont like clan banks period. Way to much nice stuff that could be given or sold to fellow realmers stays rotting in the bank for the most part. Creates inflation and a non spread the wealth environment. I like the new system. more individual and more chance of it getting spread around.

[Malik2]

So I guess the discussion has ended.

Since the clan bank system doen't seem to work anymore, somone should take it out of the wiki page.