Minimum Bank Storage Capacity [Multi-Select POLL]

First off - it was 10 thousand shirts - in the New Yorker article.

Second - All three citations you made were in reference to the same single solitary example. So let's not pretend that you presented a trio of separate, disparate examples of this "hoarding" crisis.

Third - The hoarding issue wasn't solved by creating limits - it was solved by introducing more resources into the world while creating incentive to throw random stuff out. The only "storage limit" that was ever put into place in UO was when secure storage was introduced to player housing - limiting the amount of lockdowns and secures were permitted in each style/size of home.

Fourth - The example you're clinging to dealt exclusively with players hoarding items in their homes. Nowhere, in any article you cited, was any mention made of the 125 items each player was allowed in their bankbox. On a related note, neither I nor anyone I ever knew hoarded random stuff in their bank. We hoarded and collected items in out homes, where others could see it. My bank box, like most players I've known over the years, consisted of the necessities - ammo, regs, gold, backup arms and armor, a few emergency scrolls, pots, and the occasional stacks of ore/logs/leather/fish that hadn't been moved to my house yet.

Fifth - I acknowledge Starr's opinion on the matter. I just happen to disagree with him, much like I disagree with you. He knows, better than any of us, that this player base is inclined to hoarding. He's seen it, first hand. He's had to deal with it and create workarounds. So, if the devs already know their players will hoard items, and they've already solved the issue in the past, there's no reason the same solution can't be put in place proactively, rather than reactively. Just because other games treat a bank as a gold sink doesn't mean SotA has to. Don't follow suit, just for the sake of following suit. That's just silly, especially when we're talking about devs who're known to be innovators - not followers.

NO ONE has presented a viable argument for why limiting bank storage is a good idea. Gold sink? There'll be plenty more of those. Opportunity for more funding/cash from players? Again, there's plenty of those. Because other games do it. So? This isn't "other games", this is UO's spiritual successor. UO had a limit of 125 items in the bank since day one, and it was never restricted/limited/lessened thereafter. The same needs to hold true here. Bank space is a necessity, not a luxury - especially to low-mid level players, the retail players who will be the ones keeping this game alive beyond launch.

Making banking anything other than a static 125 items for all players will end up being a mistake, and will cause part of the playerbase to turn away in frustration. This decision needs to be rethought.

EDIT: PS: All the articles you cited were in reference to the first 3ish years of UO's life. A time where many mistakes were made, both by players and devs, in design, implementation, and a failure to foresee how something on paper would turn out in practice. I'd hope that we all learned from those mistakes.

EDIT 2: Please pay special attention to the third item above. You don't solve hoarding by making it so people can't hoard. You solve it by giving them something to do with the stuff they're hoarding. That, right there, is the answer. That's about as concise as it gets.

 

Ouch, I expected a different response.

I think hoarding being a bad things is fairly well represented in my post above.

 

But the hoarding scenario you're referring to had nothing to do with players bankboxes. It had to do with their homes. So how are you using it as an excuse to justify limiting bank storage?

PS: What response were you expecting, just out of curiousity?

 

No, what I'm saying is that people are using the phrase Pay to Win in order to give weight to an argument that is not really there. In other words its being used out of context.

Make the argument that you feel things being sold in stores is unbalancing the game thereby giving advantage to others, but dont say that its "pay to win" just to give an argument more weight by using intentionally inflammatory words. "Pay to Win" automatically gives rise to inflammatory arguments, and is overused and misused way too often, especially as it pertains to MMO's which dont technically have an end.

 

Here's a question what defines hoarding and what defines abundant stuff to sell?
A) Who knows (but you will figure it out by the end of this post)?

Now here is another question does abundant stuff to sell cause inflation?
A) NO - this I do know the answer to, I have played over 100 different MMO games easily, pretty much every western hemispehere MMO and a few of the more obscure Asian market ones as well. They all have one thing in common abundance of CURRENCY causes inflation, and it gets worse when there is a LACK of stuff being sold.

Why is this the case?
A) Take these 3 examples:

1) 10 players have 100,000 gold and want to buy an item normally worth 10,000g gold, only one is on the market, the seller settles at 50,000g as he is the only option and a desperate bidding war starts among the 10 players.

2) 10 players have 100,000 gold and want to buy an item normally worth 10,000g and 15 people are selling the item, 6 of the sellers charge 8,000g to get rid of the item and farm another, the remaining 4 players wanting to buy do so from the sellers at the normal price of 10,000g.

3) 10 players have 5,000 gold and want to buy an item normally worth 10,000g and 100 people have them, they shop around and find 10 people willing to sell for 5,000g as those sellers are sick of hanging onto something they deem useless and need the gold for another purchase and know there is no shortage.

This is how the economy plays out in almost every MMO released to date, its simple supply and demand. Having tons of stuff in storage on all players ONLY causes inflation if nobody is willing to sell an item but once its a common object chances are sales will soon follow, only truly rare items get properly hoarded. You can also have too little money in there, its about flow of goods.

If you want to combat inflation in an MMO it needs:

1) A decent amount of resources, but not too many otherwise collection is a thankless task with no money in it. Consumables need to be a fair price and cheap to manufacture. There needs to be a good long progression of craftable items with prices rising at a reasonable rate. Collection of resources needs a good risk v reward balance. Consumables and degrading equipment mean replacements and upgrades will be needed. Rather than making repairs expensive maybe limit number of times an item can be repaired to keep crafted goods flowing.

2) Gold sinks - the number 1 item to reduce inflation, you can't have inflation if there is not the money in the economy to cause it, gold sinks need to be top-heavy, i.e. they need to appeal to the richest players to stop someone having huge outbidding potential in the market. Most gold-sinks should not be tradeable but should have a very large pricetag. Too many gold sinks at the bottom end of the market stifle the player driven economy, goods and services should flow. New gold sinks should be introduced regularly.

3) A handful of rare items - these will be sought after and replace large stacks of gold, as a player becomes super rich he will probably seek these out, their price will inflate but in turn keep the super rich money within that group of players rather than it being used to inflate the more commonly used items for everyone else, the gold sinks in step 2 will help to remove some of this gold - the rares create another in-game trading focus to supplement the way gold sinks work, the two things are very closely linked.

You will never get all players on an equal footing money-wise, some players will just out-trade, out-hunt and out-craft anyone pouring many hours into the game and making lots of gold. The key is not to stopping them doing so as it is their playstyle but to stop them using that money to make the prices higher for everyone else.

There you have it, what I see as the ideal MMO marketplace, very few games get close to this, player economies vary wildly and its a hard balancing act. Just don't put it all down to hoarding and pray that stopping that fixes things, chances are it won't. Bank storage is a pretty low concern on the ladder to a broken economy - money flow and removal is key.

Feel free to pick this apart as you see fit

 

When I saw fishing as one of the options I voted for that immediately. Forgive me for not finishing reading the list before voting.

 

Finally, another comrade in poles.

 

Er... You may wanna rephrase that, Tahru. Ahem.

(FWIW, I was quite the fishing enthusiast in UO as well, and am looking forward to seeing how it's implemented here)

 

Lol... and I was making a pun. Oh well... can't win them all.

 

I'm aware. And as with all puns, it was painful. Groan-worthy. Happy to help.

 

In UO people who just wanted a large storage container were a big reason for the housing shortage and ugly customized houses. Instead of learning from that by making bank storage plentiful and easy to use when crafting we now even have local banks and no recall to the spot but minute-long loading screens and moongates that cycle for many seconds just to get where you need to be.

I predict a lot of ugly houses mainly used as storage and crafting sheds =)

 

Bank space in the game will be expandable, though. I'm not sure what the upper limit will be. Location-wise, I'm not sure that housing will be better than bank storage. There's some suggestion that there's a possibility of bank-to-bank transfers at some cost, but its not clear you can get a home-to-bank transfer.

So I don't necessarily agree with you on the harm of their decisions.

 

In my opinion it was a mistake to introduce those high value properties to start and I see them as detrimental for the games long term prospects.
Now they are locked into it by promises made to high level backers like you. However, if the game is essentially empty, what use is a player owned town?

 

Well one thing I know for sure: UO would have had a lot less ugly houses if they did not offer the benefit of storage not obtainable otherwise ;-)

 

Maybe But I don't think they're making bank storage that inaccessible.

Besides, you're also talking about vendors. Most of the ugly UO houses I've seen were not just for storage but also vendors standing on the roofs. I wouldn't even doubt that sometimes the ugliness of the house was a strategy to attract attention.

 

What about selling a game?

 

No, they simply have a different opinion. I would define "pay to win" in a way that would include many of the items sold. You can find my definition in many other threads, so I will not repeat it here.
By the way: "It looks like pay to win to me" was the most common statement I got from old UO friends and new acquaintances why they will not back or buy the game. Maybe that is the reason home owners account for the most pledge money: People not wanting pay to win simply never even considered pledging.

 

When a game is free to play, Portalarium will be dependent entirely on selling items in the add-on store. What use will people have to buy items if they only store them in their bank? Store items tend to be decorative, not functional.

They've boxed themselves in if you asked me. I mean, they've said housing will be limited. At some point, they won't be selling pledges or tiers or houses. There won't be the plots to support it. So that leaves only bank space. Back to square 1. Why would someone want to buy decorative items only to store in a bank?

It's something they will have to think about much more than we're aware of at this point.

 

No, we just take the liberty of calling that pay to win. Get used to disappointment =)

 

They've discussed allowing lot owners to pay their taxes with real cash, and POT owners to pay whatever taxes they have with real cash. Some of the add-on store items will not be decorative, like pets or clothing. People will want bank space for their items. There'll always be stretch goals and new episodes. Plus new players.

Not sure how much of a problem it'll be.