A general discussion about clan banks without complaining

[BigManOnCampus]

Originally Posted by Greyman_tle

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.

Originally Posted by Greyman_tle

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.

Originally Posted by Greyman_tle

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.

Originally Posted by Greyman_tle

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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by BigManOnCampus

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by Malik2

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...

Originally Posted by BigManOnCampus

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.

Originally Posted by Gideon_Slack

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...

Originally Posted by GENERAL TERMS OF USE

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]

Originally Posted by Mr_Egg

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]

Originally Posted by eerO

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

[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