Latrinsorm
03-15-2015, 08:27 PM
So you're on an F2P account, and you hit the 100,000 bank cap. What are your options?
1. Buy stuff in game - but what if you don't want anything at that particular moment?
2. Buy a bank account cap increase - but what if you don't want to give Simu any money?
3. Leave all silver/treasure behind - but what if you would rather not?
4. Sell your silvers - but who is going to buy 100,000 silvers for 80 cents? Paypal fees will take 32 cents, or 40%.
Enter the Players' Bank!
The most direct solution is to have a Banker account. This requires the Banker to be online and do nothing but bank during banking hours or by appointment. It only makes sense with a branch (character) in every town, so you're looking at about $20 a month. If you charge for example 50k per 100k deposit, you'd need 50 deposits a month at $8/m to break even, so it might not be feasible. On the other hand, some people are comfortable paying for a Premium account for its own sake, and one of them could have enough character space to create (or re-purpose existing characters into) banking characters at no direct cost, leaving only opportunity cost.
An alternative is to not have a Banker at all, but Collectors. Each Collector has a schedule just like banking hours, but the depositor can never get those silvers back. Instead, the Collectors aggregate all deposits in a Central account that sells the silvers, splitting the proceeds three ways (e.g. 50% depositor, 25% collector, 25% central). The depositor only withdraws those proceeds in $$$ form, so if they eventually deposit 1,000,000 they can withdraw $4 of which Paypal will only take 65 cents, or 11%. They would still make more money selling 100,000 chunks, but that requires finding buyers interested in only that much. This arrangement offers several advantages over option A. The Collector account doesn't need dedicated characters in every town, and if all or enough of them are Premium the Central account can do the aggregating in FWI.
A somewhat less elegant solution is for F2P players to simply keep making F2P accounts as mules, either one that holds coins on their person or multiple that hold coins in a series of 100,000 bank accounts.
.
To help prevent fraud any Bank would need to have a highly recognizable and nominally trustworthy player at the top, preferably one already well versed in marketing. I've never really followed the player markets in GS so your guess is as good as mine there. In the case of option B they would also need a public and regularly updated list of licensed Collectors. Everyone logging everything, both in game and via posts to a message board (or Facebook group or whatever), would also be very highly recommended.
Just my thoughts on the subject. :)
1. Buy stuff in game - but what if you don't want anything at that particular moment?
2. Buy a bank account cap increase - but what if you don't want to give Simu any money?
3. Leave all silver/treasure behind - but what if you would rather not?
4. Sell your silvers - but who is going to buy 100,000 silvers for 80 cents? Paypal fees will take 32 cents, or 40%.
Enter the Players' Bank!
The most direct solution is to have a Banker account. This requires the Banker to be online and do nothing but bank during banking hours or by appointment. It only makes sense with a branch (character) in every town, so you're looking at about $20 a month. If you charge for example 50k per 100k deposit, you'd need 50 deposits a month at $8/m to break even, so it might not be feasible. On the other hand, some people are comfortable paying for a Premium account for its own sake, and one of them could have enough character space to create (or re-purpose existing characters into) banking characters at no direct cost, leaving only opportunity cost.
An alternative is to not have a Banker at all, but Collectors. Each Collector has a schedule just like banking hours, but the depositor can never get those silvers back. Instead, the Collectors aggregate all deposits in a Central account that sells the silvers, splitting the proceeds three ways (e.g. 50% depositor, 25% collector, 25% central). The depositor only withdraws those proceeds in $$$ form, so if they eventually deposit 1,000,000 they can withdraw $4 of which Paypal will only take 65 cents, or 11%. They would still make more money selling 100,000 chunks, but that requires finding buyers interested in only that much. This arrangement offers several advantages over option A. The Collector account doesn't need dedicated characters in every town, and if all or enough of them are Premium the Central account can do the aggregating in FWI.
A somewhat less elegant solution is for F2P players to simply keep making F2P accounts as mules, either one that holds coins on their person or multiple that hold coins in a series of 100,000 bank accounts.
.
To help prevent fraud any Bank would need to have a highly recognizable and nominally trustworthy player at the top, preferably one already well versed in marketing. I've never really followed the player markets in GS so your guess is as good as mine there. In the case of option B they would also need a public and regularly updated list of licensed Collectors. Everyone logging everything, both in game and via posts to a message board (or Facebook group or whatever), would also be very highly recommended.
Just my thoughts on the subject. :)