Syntro said: ... We should take solice in the fact that we are in good, capable, hands - arguably the best in the world. It's all going to work out.
And yet, I have never played, heard of nor seen a successful fantasy themed persistent multiplayer online game with local/non-global banks that has ever had more than 10k subs, or even 5k subs for over 6 months, or made it past 5 years of being popular & live. Sure, it's probably not THE reason, and correlation does not imply causation, yet.. the fact remains. :)
It's (local banks only) a niche feature for niche games, as far as I've seen.
So, the faith in VR is ok, there's just no historical evidence that I'm aware of not to be concerned about putting niche features into a mainstream game. And if the goal is to be niche, that's great, but niche doesn't pay the bills. Put another way, all the successfull MMO's to date have, as it were "magic banking". (that I'm aware of, I could be wrong)
Also, given the lack of detail surrounding related mechanics to local-only banking, I'm a bit concerned it hasn't really been thought through. Otherwise, we'd be seeing hints as to those surrounding related mechanics. The first question anyone is going to have is: "How much of a pain in the ass is it for me to move my bank?" Can I play while it's happening? If it's non-instant, what are the risks to me and my stuff? Can I afford to do it? How does it affect crafting/tradeskills? If all the surrounding related mechanics put your stuff at risk, how is that positive, popular or attractive to a larger demographic?
Just seems a bit off or out of place, compared to what's been shown in the videos, podcasts & interviews thus far.
vjek said:
And yet, I have never played, heard of nor seen a successful fantasy themed persistent multiplayer online game with local/non-global banks that has ever had more than 10k subs, or even 5k subs for over 6 months, or made it past 5 years of being popular & live. Sure, it's probably not THE reason, and correlation does not imply causation, yet.. the fact remains. :)
By all means, you might very well be able to make the statement that local banking hasn't been properly implemented yet. As you've said correlation != causation, but even on that level I'd be hard pressed to even begin to correlate the VR team to every other dev teams in existence. Sure they are related, but their I feel their uniqueness separates them. The fact that Brad and the team is attempting to find a correct way to implement local banking might be enough information to remove Pantheon from the pits of correlation. Admittedly, I might be fanboy'ing a little bit here, but I don't think so. Because VR can learn from past games' failures means the probability of them implementing local banking successfully is higher than ever. The fact that VR hasn't tried their implementation of local banking remains too.
vjek said:
It's (local banks only) a niche feature for niche games, as far as I've seen.So, the faith in VR is ok, there's just no historical evidence that I'm aware of not to be concerned about putting niche features into a mainstream game. And if the goal is to be niche, that's great, but niche doesn't pay the bills. Put another way, all the successfull MMO's to date have, as it were "magic banking". (that I'm aware of, I could be wrong)
vjek said:Also, given the lack of detail surrounding related mechanics to local-only banking, I'm a bit concerned it hasn't really been thought through. Otherwise, we'd be seeing hints as to those surrounding related mechanics. The first question anyone is going to have is: "How much of a pain in the ass is it for me to move my bank?" Can I play while it's happening? If it's non-instant, what are the risks to me and my stuff? Can I afford to do it? How does it affect crafting/tradeskills? If all the surrounding related mechanics put your stuff at risk, how is that positive, popular or attractive to a larger demographic?
Just seems a bit off or out of place, compared to what's been shown in the videos, podcasts & interviews thus far.
While I completely agree that non-global banking can be a complete PITA, especially for crafting addicts like me, I am curious to see how they plan on implementing a localized economy and if global banking is even necessary. Keep in mind that Brad has acknowledged on multiple occasions that he/VR realizes that the average playing session for people has dropped significantly for most players, so it would be silly if they implemented a system that required a majority of a playing session to do a simple bank transfer. I think it is way too early to make any blanket statements as to if or how this should work.
I think, if done right, there are some real advantages to not having global banking, or just mailing items anywhere in the world for 10 copper. Conversely, if everyone needs to have a second account with an alt Drood or Wizzy just to teleport around and make banking/exchanges bearable, then VR might want to reconsider that system as well. Maybe they have a happy medium planned for this?
coach said:Also, with 9 races, assuming half are evil, half are good, and the 3rd half are neutral (<--math joke), we're only talking about 6 banks at most. How often do you goto another city's bank? Not enough for their team to waste time coding in some sort of caravan system that would apparently anger as many people as it would provide immersion.
Boooo! There are 3 kinds of people in this world: those who are good at math, and those who aren't!
Seriously though, Brad has stated on a number of occasions that we're going to have VERY long alpha/beta phases to test all this stuff out before the game goes live. I for one hope that our testing phases remain as 'true to vision' as possible. If features like 'local banking only' cause a real issue, we'll see it then and it will get changed during testing. It's better to start with as much of a minimalist approach as possible. It's possible to throw global banking in (or some other mechanism that provides the same result) at any time in the future whereas it's all but impossible to remove it from the game once it already exists.
NoobieDoo said:Ok so it seems a few for and a few against. I'm with Dullahan and if they created content that really pushed the idea of localized banking and made it very involving then I'd like to see it. I enjoyed Syntro's explanation of the 'home cities' and a player making a city their home for a time being. Some people express the annoyance that would entail having to move all your items from one bank to another once you decide to move to a different city which is understandable. But there are ways to accomodate for this such as designing ways for player to easily move their belonging from one bank/city to another without having to make multiple trips.
I think if the devs just made localized banking for the sake of localized banking then that may not be something I want to 'endure'. But there are many different things that could be done to make it engaging. Where not only the game could create situations to involve it but also players as well like someone said with the summoners who could possibly summon a players' belongings.
At the very least, they could offer something similar to Black Desert where you can pay to have goods moved from one bank to another. Ideally they would create something like player-run caravans or transportation quests by wagon or boat offered by a city's bank, but if nothing else you could pay the city and within a few days (few hours in game), your stuff could be moved over.
Oldtimer said:"Having a "home" city, anchored by a detached bank, would be a wonderful shared experience for us players."
@syntro, I dont know if I would want to have to run around to different banks to access my belongings. PathFinder Online uses this model and it is time consuming having to run from bank to bank wondering where I left what belongings. I want a game that I can enjoy, not have to endure.
Oldtimer said:"Having a "home" city, anchored by a detached bank, would be a wonderful shared experience for us players."
@syntro, I dont know if I would want to have to run around to different banks to access my belongings. PathFinder Online uses this model and it is time consuming having to run from bank to bank wondering where I left what belongings. I want a game that I can enjoy, not have to endure.
Agreed. Local banking is horrid. A huge time waster that adds nothing to the game.
No thanks.
Renathras said:
There was another quote also saying local banking doesn't work in any games, just didn't want this to be a post of quotes. :)
.
EVE Online.
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Seriously, Eve has localized banking. For those that don't know, Eve is a sci-fi space ship game. You can have your belongings spread all across the cluster in different space stations. (It also has a ridiculously complex economy, which is also based on localized shortages of things and complete with a large subset of the player base being transport/freighter pilots just hauling stuff between different markets to make a profit.)
It can be annoying here and there, but mostly it's not too bad. The trick is that the game keeps a ledger for you of which things you own in which places, making it relatively easy to remember where you left this cruiser or where you put that one mining barge or where you have your secret stockpile of torpedoes and space bombs. It's also RELATIVELY easy - though sometimes time consuming - to get from place to place in Eve...
...although part of it is also that Eve is a really complex and "hardcore" game, so people that play it tend not to mind some level of hardship. (It is a game with a rule of "don't fly anything more expensive than you can afford to replace" - because if you get blown up in a ship, you lose the ship and essentially everything on it.)
But other than people complaining about how some areas of space seem to have a shortage of the things they want on the markets or how difficult it can be to find a wormhole to high sec if/when you need one, people don't really mind too much. It's just a part of the game and people are used to it.
.
EDIT: I should note, this makes "moving day" pretty exciting, too. Whenever you move (or have to move) in a hurry, in particular, and melt down/sell everything you can't fit into your cargo hold and move out, and knowing the risk of getting blown up along the way and losing some or all of it.
I also think that it'd be nice to have pack animals or sattle bags that can be used to move things. Like maybe I'm just a closet RP-er, but I like the idea of using mounts that have pockets/cargo bags on them when I travel, even in WoW, just because there's something to me about things actually having a "physical presense" that makes more immersion to me.
In Eve, there is some serious "physical presence" going on when you have items that WILL get blown up with you, that take up cargo space on your ships, and so on. Not like just an inventory slot - different items take up different cubic meters (m^3 or m3) in Eve in your cargo hold, meaning you have volume limits to how much you can cram into your ship to move around. And if that ship gets blown up - so do the goods. And if you don't move those goods - they stay in the space station you left them. You can't just fly across the galaxy/star cluster and then open your bank there and pull them out.
Eve is MUCH more immersive, in this respect, than many other MMOs.
"Physical presence".
Remember that term.
Enjoyed reading this thread.
I will probably become infamous for my liking of a more realistic, immersive world, before the game goes live. lol
Thanks for this post about Eve. "Real world" details of how you have to THINK about what yer doing BEFORE you do it.
I LIKE IT!
I also understand the concerns about banking becoming over tedious.
I remember many, many years ago... I played D&D with a school friend. There was a "bag of holding" as I recall... Bags and Inventory space has definitely been a problem in EQ over the years. SoE, in my opinion, really never did much of anything to address it. I suppose that in their thinking, unfriendly banking acted as a speed bump to mudflation.
I don't want global banking. I also don't want to put HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of tradeskill items in my bank. There should be a trading post of sorts out in vastly remote areas just for such needs. Trade guilds to gain membership into. Not Player run guilds (although they could be as well I suppose) that gives you a tag under your name but a Trade-specific professional guild and related guildhouse or post. Limited storage. Upkeep must be payed of course.
I guess I'm also HOPING for some ability to bury things in the ground. Or in a cave. Some may laugh but I don't think it's silly and I don't think it would be that hard to do. It's no different than dropping a bag in EQ, only the bag doesn't poof if someone doesn't pick it up in 5 minutes.
AND... I guess I'm hoping that VR takes Crafting a little more realistic as well. In EQ, every expansion introduces an entirely NEW LINE OF RECIPES. Not all, but many. And once again, we've rendered all the old items/recipes obsolete. This is NOT realistic. Swords are made of bronze and steel. Bows are made of wood. Elves might perhaps make one special one with ivory and silver, but not everyone can make that bow. MOST bowyers still need just 3 or 4 kinds of wood. Smiths only need 3 or 4 types of metal.
I think crafting is what makes banking a HUGE PAIN. I have 3 toons/alts with stacks of tradeskill bags filled with crap I can't even remember. I didn't used to do that. Used to vendor anything I didn't need. Over time I've ran into too many people who need this old stuff. It's really nice to be able to help em out and sometimes even make some plat pulling that old, useless stuff out of the dusty bank vault. I'm actually hoping that Pantheon Crafting is much more user-friendly than this. I thought Vanguard had a really sweet crafting machine. I didn't play it long enough to get to the banking issues I have in EQ. Perhaps they were the same, I don't know.
Just thought of something else... that trade guild post I was talking about... it would by nature BUY tradeskill items from people that don't need them. If the devs use their heads the way I would... those items don't just go POOF in 3 days when nobody buys them. They should be persistent. Someone else should be able to stop into the Deep Metals Mining Guild Trading Post and have access to any ores that have been harvested and sold by players. Post is going to make a profit of course, but that's just LIFE :)
I'm guessing I'm not the first person to think of that. THAT would have made a HUGE difference in crafting in EQ. Banking would NOT be a huge dilemma if that was in EQ.
I'm gonna stop there and see if I can find this concept in other posts somewhere. This alone, I think, would fix 75 to 90 percent of the banking issues. It would in my game anyway.
Historically, I've carried almost everything I NEED on a daily basis with me. It's always been tradeskill items that have made a HUGE mess of my bank bags.
And don't forget your guild house will have storage in it as well. Or it SHOULD HAVE!
I'm too windy. Wish these threads were live discussions via Vent or something. Half of us can be hotheads tho I'm guessing. Would have to be moderated 24/7 LOL!
Great discussion :)
Detached banking wouldnt really effect local economy unless it is a real hassle to go back and forth. It has to be a massive time sink. EVE is the lerfect example of how different local economies can differ. But the difference is it can take an hour to go from one system to another and buy what you need. Not to mention RISK you run the risk of losing everything. I dont feel Pantheon has that level of risk and no matter what you will be able to get to a central location fairly easy. If not what you have is players making a home in one city and only going there instead of any place they can which can make certain cities look empty.
I think if the localized banking process was well thought out and implemented there won't be much of an issue with people forgetting/having to retrieve stuff. It will be part of the game and thus the player base will react accordingly. Most of the negative thoughts come from a mindset of global banking and a lack of localized thought processes. People wonder how we ever survived without our smartphones yet the world's population worked just fine for several thousands of years before they were invented.
chenzeme said:Dunkmeister said: I think the idea is fun but if it adds a ton of programming time to the game it's not worth it to me. Shared banking is not a game breaker concept to me.The problem with shared banking is that you can harvest an area. Then when you get to an area where that resource is not available, the market becomes flooded, immediately. This kills any local trade. Thats my real concern with it. As for the programming time, I think pre-alpha is the exact time to code this kind of mechanic. You cannot introduce this after go-live for numerous reasons. Personally, I think any time invested in this would be very worth while for a refreshing local based economy as apposed to a world economy.
@MazeEQ It's easy to abuse any banking system you can just add a futher account and that over comes that issue and I always have two accounts due to the lack of bag/bank/keyring space so there is no perfect way to address this at all. As a crafter I have always needed more bank space than any game has ever provided so I will continue to do as I have always done to get the most from any game which I am paying to play. There is no need to restrict anything in a modern game these days and the dervs have played them all I bet and for any developer to try restraining a much needed overhauled banking system is not a good idea imo.
NoobieDoo said:Hello fellow Pantsers!
I was reading another discussion and came upon something I wanted to sniff out. In most MMOs the items you store in a bank can be accessed from any bank across the world. I was wondering how everyone felt about this. Should the items we store in banks be accessible from strictly the bank we put those items in? Or do you prefer having access to your items from any bank across the world?
I am hoping for some minimal shared bank slots...so that I don't have to drop my stuff on the ground, log an alt on to go get it. Either that or an ability to use ingame mail to mail something to a crafting alt, that either I can't use on my main, or for whatever reason. If there is a minimal charge to do so...then so be it. I think however, that mailing ingame money should have some sort of system check on it to make sure its not humoungous amounts of plat being sent from one plat farmer to another...that should raise a flag of some sort. Anyway keeping my fingers crossed for possibly one or two shared bank slots for an account.
I'm kind of hoping they put in an option to pay to have items moved between banks. A lot depends on other game mechanics as usual, but if they make travel more meaniningful and they said they are bringing back encumberance, then moving items between banks can be very hard indeed. I've never been a big broker player so I'm not personally concerned about regional market balance like others. Perhaps moving from city to city will not be as meaningful as I thought but this does quickly bring back memories of moving like a snail because of carying to many items around.
NoobieDoo said:Ok so it seems a few for and a few against. I'm with Dullahan and if they created content that really pushed the idea of localized banking and made it very involving then I'd like to see it. I enjoyed Syntro's explanation of the 'home cities' and a player making a city their home for a time being. Some people express the annoyance that would entail having to move all your items from one bank to another once you decide to move to a different city which is understandable. But there are ways to accomodate for this such as designing ways for player to easily move their belonging from one bank/city to another without having to make multiple trips.
I think if the devs just made localized banking for the sake of localized banking then that may not be something I want to 'endure'. But there are many different things that could be done to make it engaging. Where not only the game could create situations to involve it but also players as well like someone said with the summoners who could possibly summon a players' belongings.
I have to say I really like the idea as well. But I wonder if guild bnaking will be different? Or offer members access to their own guild items from various locations?
It's reminiscent of EVE online (a game I thouroughly enjoyed) and traveling from one system across dozens of star systems to get to your other stuff was a pain sometimes but it encouraged you to critically think what to bring with you and what to leave. It really wasn't that bad anyway, traveling those long distances could be interesting, tense, and fun as well. A real journey sometimes.
Dhampir said:I love the local-banking idea.
I just hope there is a way to view what I have in my bank and which bank it is in from anywhere, so I don't waste my time going to the wrong bank.
Thats my only hope!
I can't even remember what I store on each alt, let alone which of the 5 banks each alt has.
World Banks
I recently devoured the lore bit on the Spriggans (excellent and exciting storyline if you haven’t read it btw). Having been labelled as a “daydreamer” by 6, I was thinking about Pantheon while I was supposed to be putting together a spreadsheet for work (that’s normal, right?), and I had a thought about the problem of world banking and immersion.
Now, I have no idea what VR’s intentions are with “world banking”, but I have gotten the feeling that banks are meant to stand alone in capital cities (maybe a few major outposts), so the item that you have in Thronefast is not going to be available in Faerthale. That’s very realistic, but WOW what a pain in the kiester. Particularly in light of slow travel (of which I am a fan).
So how do you strike the balance between “quality of life” convenience and immersive “realistic” world play? Why, with LORE… obviously The Spriggan story TLDR is essentially that these are tiny ent relatives that spread nature and life throughout Terminus, travelling through the root network spread by the Face In The Dark/Seed of Life… so if we have treefolk, why not other nature spirits associated with the Seed of Life? After all, it spent an awfully long time buried in the depths of Terminus.
My thought is that there could be a faction of nature spirits who are associated with minerals/metals/gems. These little guys also use the root network left by their creator (the Seed of Life) and have taken up their niche to “spread life throughout Terminus” in a modern sense… investment banking. Being their own faction, they’d always be neutral, at least to the residents of the bank where the player is located. Of course, the player would need the required city faction to be able to make it to the bank (unscathed).
It could end there – bankers are neutral HUZZAH WORLD BANK! or, you could further enhance this by having the PC do quests to build faction that will allow access to their home bank spreading out in a radius from their starting city eventually allowing banking over all of Terminus. I would think this would need to be a fairly effortless faction grind as this breed of nature spirit would already be pre-disposed to helping you guard and have access to your “shinies”.
*Shrugs* could be a non-issue.. “one bank access” could’ve already been deemed a quality of life issue that was too important to leave out, but we don’t know so I thought I’d share my random spreadsheet epiphany.
I am going to trust VR on this one. I've played games with localized banking and I get why it is hated by many. But they have stated on many occasions that all mechanics go through the realistic vs fun filter. Meaning things that would be cool and realistic but are just a giant pain for all involved would likely not be kept in game. Since they've stated they will have localized banks, I trust they have a system in place that won't make it the nightmare most seem to think it will be.
Localised banking can be done well and I do trust VR to ensure the fun factor is given prominance. Someone mentioned Eve online earlier, which does an ok job and the benefits to the economy and to free trade are great.
If I had a concern it would be concerning exploits. Players usually find a way of circumnavigating game mechanics using alts, second accounts, to give their primary account an advantage.
Blood
Saoirse said:Syntro said:Brad just made this post in another thread which is very related to our discussion. I'll repost it here for us.
Aradune said:
Yes, the intent is that banks are local, so no putting your item in bank A, crossing the ocean, going to bank B and zippy wippy your item is somehow there... doing that I think would interfere with the regional player driven economy we're intent on getting to work.
Horrible idea. I mean, sure it sounds great, more immersive, etc. Reality is this world will require time to cross. Having to keep ten banks might get to be a bit tedious. And if we only get ONE bank then we're super screwed. Items better not be a big deal if you don't have more easily accesible banking or at least super magical bags that carry hundreds of stacks of X and Y.
I can see it now, it takes 2 hours to get to home city to bank. You put that item in, head out on a 3 hour trip to where you plan to hunt only to find you put the wrong item in the bank and can't join the xp group. That's almost as bad as losing items on corpse decay. The time involved is frightening. I want to explore and game with people, not spend my time AND MONEY doing tedious crud like bank runs. Blah!
I think that is part of the point as well. One of the things I noticed about modern games is that they took away all the things that take time and so naturally players have no impediments and end up at the end of content so fast that developers can not keep up.
It is the small things that slow play down that I think are important. Also, playing a game does not have to be "fun" all the time. In fact, a game that is designed to be "fun" 24/7 (ie has no frustrations or various obstacles that are not desireable) tends to be boring for many. I know for myself, playing a game without any frustration or obstacles that are difficult and undersirable, I have no real interest in playing.
Its human nature to find the path of least resistance. All you do with this kind of crap is annoy people. Someone should make an economy sim for all these players that want to be traders and "build an economy".
Taking into account there will be limited fast travel and we will be relying on wizards/druids, localised banking sounds horrible to me. IMO this will eventually get reversed if it goes live or there will be a server with all the QOL changes to make things easier and it will be the most populated server by far.