Bank Deposits

[Lisira]

I'd like to say that I've never had a problem with the bank taking a cut of my money, even from the first platinum I deposited. I hate carrying coin on me (OOC; IC, I just find it unnecessary), and the only real difference between a private economy and a public one (in the MUD sense, i.e. player-run vs. automated) is convenience. I would expect to pay a PC merchant/banker/whatever a small fee for holding onto my valuables, so I don't expect to pay less to have access to those valuables 24 hours a day, 10 days a week.

Some of the alternatives suggested are interesting, though. It could be fun to waive the deposit fee and instate a withdrawal fee, with interesting accruing in the interim. That said, banks (in real life) only offer interest to their account holders because they lend that money out to others, and earn interest of their own on repayment. While bank loans/lines of credit/etc. would be pretty cool, I'd personally file that under "Too Much Work" and/or "Let a PC Do It"

[Gwain]

I've been beating a dead horse here for four years trying to get accumulated interest into bank accounts Its never been taken, mostly because its been claimed to be too modern. Though interest rates are a very old idea in practice. I'd still like to see it, but even then, you'd probably only see one copper per platinum per month, meaning it would take you an ic year to generate three or four gold per five platinum. However, we do have a commodities market through the trade skill, meaning you can 'invest' your coin in commodities, trade them through cities and increase the outcome. This requires you to be a member of the merchant guild and be able to travel, but the yields re worth it.

[Lisira]

Its never been taken, mostly because its been claimed to be too modern. Though interest rates are a very old idea in practice.

It is an old idea, but again, banks have only ever offered interest when they in turn earn their own interest on outstanding loans. Loaning money is a far older practice than safekeeping money for others, which really only came about to facilitate more loaning (and thus more interest, i.e. profit, for the banker).

(It could be argued, then, that without a system of loans and credit, FK shouldn't have a banking system at all. )

[Trillarel]

If the cut is 5%, why does the revised tutorial claim it's 10%?

[Selveem]

If the cut is 5%, why does the revised tutorial claim it's 10%?

Prolly oversight. It's easy to miss.

[Lathlain]

If the cut is 5%, why does the revised tutorial claim it's 10%?

The staff are clearly inept and should be brutally flogged in a public display of humiliation!

[Athon]

I would expect to pay a PC merchant/banker/whatever a small fee for holding onto my valuables, so I don't expect to pay less to have access to those valuables 24 hours a day, 10 days a week.

I would agree with this statement if, and that's a big if, the valuables were more than coin. However, there are other means to store your valuables (beyond just coin) already at a reasonable price. I fully support the nominal fees associated with this multi-city storage system.

So, this comes back to the banking problem. Let's analyze the root path of this issue:
1) FK has a no-container theft policy and few people leave hundreds of platinum in their inventory.
- Thus, this policy does not lead to any additional RP benefits/interactions.
2) Coins in FK have weight whereas in D20, they do not.
- Players with large amounts of coin are forced into storing their coins, or else suffer DEX and movement penalties.
3) The money from the cut does not go to any other system in FK.
- This money is effectively lost forever and this is essentially a tax on the players.

I'm going to bring this up again: there is no point to this 'cut.' From a meta-game perspective, it serves no 'balancing' function (it would be more 'balancing' if it scaled as it increased). It's just a straight up removal of coin from the economy.

And it's not even the amount of coin I'm concerned about. The whole concept is mind-boggling to me and it strikes me at a personal, idealogical level.

Either do something with the 'cut' or get rid of it already. It's not doing ANYTHING.

[Selveem]

1) FK has a no-container theft policy and few people leave hundreds of platinum in their inventory.
- Thus, this policy does not lead to any additional RP benefits/interactions.
2) Coins in FK have weight whereas in D20, they do not.
- Players with large amounts of coin are forced into storing their coins, or else suffer DEX and movement penalties.

In the spirit of oneupsmanship, I'll see these two points and raise them:

Even if the person does leave the coin in their inventory, if it's over a certain amount (I think 99?) of coins, they can't be stolen no matter what.

[Mask]

So, this comes back to the banking problem. Let's analyze the root path of this issue:
1) FK has a no-container theft policy and few people leave hundreds of platinum in their inventory.

We don't.

2) Coins in FK have weight whereas in D20, they do not.

They do.

3) The money from the cut does not go to any other system in FK.

It does.

I'm going to bring this up again: there is no point to this 'cut.' From a meta-game perspective, it serves no 'balancing' function (it would be more 'balancing' if it scaled as it increased). It's just a straight up removal of coin from the economy.

And it's not even the amount of coin I'm concerned about. The whole concept is mind-boggling to me and it strikes me at a personal, idealogical level.

Either do something with the 'cut' or get rid of it already. It's not doing ANYTHING.

While I have some admiration for the depths you are plumbing to express your idealogical outrage, this is not the place for it. We are not playing 'Banks & Accountants' here nor are we providing a forum to discuss politics or socio-economics.

Banks on FK take 5% of your cash when you give it to them. They do not give you interest, but they do keep your money safe and withdrawable at any one of the many locations. This won't change going forward.

[Anguin]

You can steal containers?

I had to look it up.

* Do not steal more than one item from a mount or PC, and never keep entire
containers. You *can* (if ICly plausible) steal an entire container, look
through it, and then put it back save the one item you wish to keep.

Uh oh.

[Selveem]

You can steal containers?

I had to look it up.

* Do not steal more than one item from a mount or PC, and never keep entire
containers. You *can* (if ICly plausible) steal an entire container, look
through it, and then put it back save the one item you wish to keep.

Uh oh.

Good luck with that. There's a weight limit to what you can steal, regardless of what the rules say.

[Lirith]

Good luck with that. There's a weight limit to what you can steal, regardless of what the rules say.

Are you sure about that? If there is a weight limit, it's high (i.e. well over 50 pounds). I've picked entire containers full of junk and tasty loot from mounts to rifle through out of curiosity. It could be skill level related.

[Selveem]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my info is outdated, but I believe you can't steal past a certain weight.

[Lirith]

You have the ability to steal any weight that your character can carry. Of course, if your skill level in steal isn't very high then you're more likely to fail.

[Raona]

If the cut is 5%, why does the revised tutorial claim it's 10%?

Just to explain a rather common phenomenon in which we say something is fixed and it doesn't seem to be: changes are made on another copy of the game, called the Testport, and only copied over to the working copy of the game, the Gameport, periodically, after some time to check that they don't break anything and when the game isn't very busy (since the process is somewhat disruptive). Proper talk of the 5% rule is now on the Gameport, but it is possible that it had not yet been copied over at the time Trillarel tried it.

I think this can be put to bed now.