Bank Changes Discussion Thread

[Asanadas]

I'm fully aware that Nenyuk runs the slumlord operations. It was a joke. Property management would naturally lend itself (heh) to loans.

I also understood the "store it in your compound" being offered as a solution, not as a short-term solution. Because of the iron curtain, staff are hesitant to inform the playerbase if they are going to resolve this in any timeframe.

[musashi]

Here's a quick and easy fix:
Put NPC shopkeepers at all Nenyuk banks, give them beads to sell and buy.  100 'sid for stone beads, 500 'sid for obsidian beads, 1,000 'sids for jade beads, and 5,000 'sids for crystal beads.  Set up the shopkeeper so they buy the beads back at 97% of their purchase value.  You could even have region-specific beads if you feel so inclined.  Presto, the currency weight problem is fixed overnight, and suddenly carrying your money becomes a viable alternative to Nenyuk and their steep fees.  Raiders and thieves rejoice!  I'll be happy to write up the NPCs and beads if you want.

For the record, I would vastly prefer this over the diku banking code.
I think the change we got is better than it was before ... but I hate the 100% safe zero chance of it ever being stolen nature of the banking code.
I also think it strains credulity for Nenyuk to be able to keep such accurate records of every nameless illiterate non-id keeping grebber who comes and goes in the city.

I think from both a playibility standpoint as well as a realism stand point it would be a lot better if Nenyuk only operated "accounts" for GMH's, Noble Familes, and the Templarate ... you know ... literate people ... and for everyone else it was a case of: I don't give a shit who you are or where you came from or how you got the beads ... but if you got the beads, I'll cash them out.

[BadSkeelz]

Coins will be blown on flavor minutiae that don't contribute a great deal to the game.

This is a statement I don't quite get. What else are we supposed to blow coins on? Statues? Wagons? I love seeing how fast I can spend coin on 'flavor minutiae,' which I assume covers everything from booze to spice to weapons, armor, and clothes. And whores, PC or otherwise. It's my feeling that if you "Don't have [i.e.: make] a lot of money" you're probably not going to be aspiring to anything super expensive anyhow.

Want that fancy 5K spear from Salarr but only make 200 a month on your clan salary? Hit up your boss for a loan, or work out some sort of deal with Salarr. Or don't buy something too fancy for your social class and instead get something more reasonable.

[musashi]

I also understood the "store it in your compound" being offered as a solution, not as a short-term solution. Because of the iron curtain, staff are hesitant to inform the playerbase if they are going to resolve this in any timeframe.

I was looking at this:

This is also only the first step of a larger set of comprehensive changes we'd like to make.  This was easier to accomplish more quickly, so it is first.  (Sorry, won't be speaking on the rest until it is in place!)

And assuming more changes are coming.

[Asanadas]

I am also fully aware that more changes are coming. I'm concerned whether this is going to be a "complete" cornerstone (with tinkerings of actual % changed through the month), or if this is unfinished in the sense that social status will be taken into account with some update in the future.

[Beethoven]

He said social status was going to be taken into consideration.

I know that won't belay the order for gathering the pitchforks, but maybe it is worth mentioning that we do plan to deal with social tiers and we also plan to make further changes to this.  You are seeing the guts/foundation of a new system.  These will be incremental changes enacted over time.

Kind of vague but...it's always vague. What I gather from this statement is that they plan to institute lower fees for the upper crust. So that makes me happy.

[musashi]

Thanks for the quote grab Beethoven. I knew I saw something that was more explicit in this thread about dealing with social status.

[Beethoven]

Thanks for the quote grab Beethoven. I knew I saw something that was more explicit in this thread about dealing with social status.

No problem!

[wizturbo]

Beethoven was right, Vladanyr Putin would've been way cooler.......

[Rokal]

LOL.  I wouldn't call staff not having a full time PR guy the equivalent to an iron curtain.    Although, it might not hurt to bring on a staff member whose job is communications.





*Wizturbo begins daydreaming*.......






[Edit] Vladanyr Putin says, "Tell the players all their fucking sid belongs to Nenyuk.  Those indie merchants are screwed, we're calling their number!   They're going to cry bitter tears.  In fact, make sure our tears collectors are operating at 100% efficiency...I don't want a repeat of the spillage incident of 2012.  And I don't care if the nobles don't like it!  If they want to complain, they can pound sand or move to Red Storm where there is no bank!    

.....



"Fellow players!  Wonderful news!  We've listened to your feedback and decided to begin a campaign to revise the Zalanthian economy to better reflect the harsh setting!   Rejoice!   The first step of this ambitious plan is ready to go, and it involves banking.  Code has been created to allow us to add fees for using House Nenyuk's service!  It's going live today!  We've tuned things based on internal debate, but we'll keep an eye on the effects of these changes and make tweaks if necessary.  Please keep in mind this is just one step of many, so don't be surprised if some of the rough edges on this get smoothed out as we continue to iterate.   Vladanyr Putin loves you, and Commodore Nessalin will be signing autographs in Red's Retreat later this week."

.......





"Vladanyr Putin is the best!  Commodore Nessalin lets make babies!"


......

This made my day.

[Nyr]

I have a question! In the DEPOSIT helpfile, I'd like a little clarification. It seems pretty straightforward, but I just want to be sure:

Deposit
(Banks)

This command will put money into your bank account. The command can only be used at the House Nenyuk Banks. Money in accounts can be taxed, but in event of a character's death, the money is lost to House Nenyuk. When Templars observe unusual activity, they may levy taxes against House Nenyuk--at which time Nenyuk may choose to pass on those taxes to its depositors.

So.. if a templar sees you makin' it rain and poppin' bottles and such, they can roll up on Nenyuk and walk away with coin? And then Nenyuk will say, "Well, hrm.." And then take the coin from your account to make up for it?

Is that an old policy or new? And it says depositors plural, so will just the offender be fined or will some other system be implemented that bops lots of folk at once? If this happens, do you get a notification? Does the banker mention it? Or is this a GM handled and role played thing?

This isn't really a change in policy so much as a change in wording.  The old wording said that money in accounts can't be taxed, and then said a bit about templars and seeing a lot of activity with Nenyuk and then taxing Nenyuk.  The old wording probably had not been changed since it was written.  It was updated to match up with actuality:  money in accounts can be taxed (we have the code to do that).

The rest of the wording is the usual "things that affect the business will affect the consumer" text.  If it's confusing, it can be removed or changed.  The old wording was pretty weird, too.

[Old Kank]

Coins will be blown on flavor minutiae that don't contribute a great deal to the game.

This is a statement I don't quite get.

The question of "what else are we supposed to blow coins on" is the heart of the problem.  Money has no value - not because there's too much, but because there's nothing to buy once you reach a certain point (which most people reach very early on).  So, in my opinion, banking fees is a weak solution that doesn't even approach the problem. 

Flavor is just fine.  Booze, spice, armor, whores, whatever. They aren't bad things by ANY stretch, and I wasn't trying to imply that they were.  My point was just that banking fees creates a gap:  People who want to make money will simply work harder to overcome the Nenyuk fees, and those who don't care about money will burn it rather than carry it (and possibly save it to use on bets/bribes/contracts/whatever later down the line).

[wizturbo]

In my experiences, money has a ton of uses for sponsored roles.  It's true of noble or non-noble roles too.

A Byn Sergeant could save up to buy the T'zai Byn unit a mul (role-call anyone?).  A Kuraci could save up to build a new wagon, or make a new spice-blend cigarette.  It's just Joe Grebber who doesn't have much use for their extra coin, which is why the world is designed to steal that extra coin from Joe Grebber!!!  

Of course, these sponsored roles can't buy these more unique things without staff support...but...the whole point of a sponsored role is you have staff support!  They're probably going to make you jump through some political/social/other hurdles depending on what you want to buy though...

[Saellyn]

Joe Grebber also has loads of use for that extra coin. If he doesn't, he's just not ambitious enough.

[Nyr]

You could spend a tidy sum of coin on creating your own business.  Those money sinks exist and can provide a numerous amount of things to spend money on.  Yearly taxes, check.  Warehouse fees, check.  Clan compound fees, check.  Pay for your guard(s), check.  Pay for your hawker(s), check.  Pay for your shopkeeper(s), check.  Bribes, check. 

I don't want to say we engineered the MMH progression model to be a money sink for people that wanted to play independents that had a lot of money and needed something to spend it on and possibly fail at, but it was definitely a major factor.

[path]

Awesome change. Good work, staff. Thank you, coders.

[Fathi]

While people pointing out that there are other issues with the economy are correct, I still think this change is a big step in the right direction.

Also, rather than thinking this change will hurt criminals, I am salivating at the potential opportunities for criminal PCs. Especially in the organized crime sector.

(As a side note, I can't wait to see changes to Nenyuk that do take social class into account too. When I played my last rinth leader it drove me crazy how many rinth PCs used the banks and would calmly totter off southside to go deposit/withdraw money. "Sure, I'll get ya sids for this spice in just a sec," says the Jaxa Pah elf, slinking off southside to make a withdrawal from a bank run by humans. I understand players used the banks because of their OOC convenience, but any changes that penalise this and steer people gently away from using bank accounts as a catchall safe money storage solution are A+ to me.)

[path]

By the way, coders...there's a code IG for trading items to merchants, it would be really cool if the values on that could be tweaked to make it more playable.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Here's a quick and easy fix:
Put NPC shopkeepers at all Nenyuk banks, give them beads to sell and buy.  100 'sid for stone beads, 500 'sid for obsidian beads, 1,000 'sids for jade beads, and 5,000 'sids for crystal beads.  Set up the shopkeeper so they buy the beads back at 97% of their purchase value.  You could even have region-specific beads if you feel so inclined.  Presto, the currency weight problem is fixed overnight, and suddenly carrying your money becomes a viable alternative to Nenyuk and their steep fees.  Raiders and thieves rejoice!  I'll be happy to write up the NPCs and beads if you want.

I have to say, yes. Yes, a lot of yes. Though I still say gems, but ... yeh, this would be great.

[valeria]

As with most changes, I feel that if a lot of the information that came out in the thread -- first of several planned changes, will take social status into account later, these are the breakdowns, we are pretending this has always been there so talk to your clan staff if you have a specific problem -- was put into the initial post, there would have been a lot less confusion and negative reaction.  At least on my part.  This isn't a complaint, just an observation.  Obligatory friendly smiley 

[Majikal]

Hmmm.. singular coins or gems that are worth stacks of obsidian coins....

Pickpocket griefing begin!

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

More than anything else, I'd just like to see the gem or bead system when transporting coin from locale to locale. I have never ever liked the idea of the bank across the Known knowing what your account holds. Yes, Tuluk is closed atm. But there's still Luir's, and Morin's probably ought to have a stall for players based out of there.

[Suhuy]

In a world where people can communicate mind to mind from just about anywhere, I don't think it's too big of a leap that different Nenyuk offices will know your balance and be able to allow for a withdraw or deposit.

How they know you're you is of course the bigger question, but I think most of us are happy to overlook some lack of reality for the sake of OOC convenience. But who knows, maybe people have a certain psionic signature or imprint which makes them identifiable somehow. Maybe it's better not specified in the end.

[QuillDipper]

Time to make PC non-Nenyuk bankers to get around them charges.

Leave your five large with me. It'll be fine.

[KankWhisperer]

By the way, coders...there's a code IG for trading items to merchants, it would be really cool if the values on that could be tweaked to make it more playable.

If it would take haggle skill into account that'd be super.