Guild Wars 2

The purpose of this thread is to detail an idea that will potentially limit RMT by making readily available credit to players who wish to purchase something they do not have the funds to currently afford.

Here is the basic framework of the idea:

1. There exists a bank in game that can give out loans with interest.

2. Players must pay back their debt and interest (can be in installments) within a time frame determined by the size of the loan. Players who fail to pay back their loan will have any outstanding credit or items bought with credit (this includes dyes, armor, weapons, etc.) repossessed and held until the loan is paid back.

3. You cannot take out a loan until you have paid back your prior loan.

4. Credit effectively acts as a second currency on top of your gold. It cannot be traded, and items purchased with it cannot be traded, destroyed, or manipulated in any way to change their ownership until the loan is paid back (i.e you cannot put an item bought with unpaid credit in the mystic forge).

5. The amount of credit a character may take out is limited by their level + how many skillpoints they have. Thus, a level 1 character can only take out a loan for 1 gold. A level 80 with 200 spare skillpoints can take out a maximum loan of 280 gold.

6. Players can deposit money in their banks and generate money based on interest (the money must be in a bank for a long enough term).

7. Interest rates are determined by the state of the market, with input from ArenaNet’s resident economic adviser.

8. Failure to pay back loans within a certain time affects the user’s credit score and their ability to take out loans in the future.

I am open to other refinements and suggestions for this concept. It is not specific to Guild Wars 2, but more broadly a concept for future MMORPG’s. Please keep discussion polite.

This could decrease their online store gold sales so I can’t see a lending system being implemented.

Then they should also implement a debtor’s prison, and people will finally understand the joke of my “Ascalon Shark”.

It might affect their online gold store sales, but I do not think there are many people who would pay $500 for 100 gold in the first place.

i would log in an alt account, borrow maximum loan, mail to main account and never pay it back

Easy fix for that is making everything account based, like your bank and achievements and so on already are.

And what if said person quits and never logs in again…

hella ya, leveraging in an online game :S

I think you’d need to reposes more than just what was bought on credit. Have the borrower put up collateral when the loan is taken out. Maybe mystic coins, or otherwise soulbound items. If the borrower fails to pay back the loan the bank can sell the items purchased with credit and the collateral.

Of course we could have the entire market crash, so that the collateral is no longer worth enough to pay back the banks depositors. I’m sure ArenaNet will implement TIRP (Troubled Item Relief Program)

Please keep society’s imperfections out of our perfect little digital world :p

^This.

OP post can’t be serious

As for players quitting, if they haven’t paid back any loans the money or items bought with the credit would just be repo’d until they are paid back.

What if they laundered the money?

This suggestion is completely ridiculous. The basic TP still has periods of instability and has eaten a lot of gold and you want them to program multiple subsystems to track currency, items, income, debt and credit rating? Even if the idea were neat (it isn’t), implementing it is just unfeasible and far more trouble than it is worth.

Honestly?

This sounds like an unnecessary complex system to satisfy impatient people.

Yes, I too have been in spots where I needed just one more piece of gold or whatever to finish whatever I was doing. So I worked harder for it. The payoff was even sweeter for the extra effort.

Using up coder time for a mechanism that enables impatience seems like the definition of waste to me.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

As for the whole theory of people “going out in a bang,” I do not see why people who are going to quit would decide to take out a massive loan and just buy stuff if they are going to quit anyway.

Because it would be fun?

They could still buy and sell stuff on the auction house, but they wouldn’t be able to mail loaned money or items to other people to prevent abuse. I suppose an exception could be crafting. They could buy materials off the auction house to level up a craft, and they would be allowed to sell these items on the auction house.

So the system would have to keep track of the money loaned, the stuff bought with the money loaned, the stuff made from the stuff bought with the money loaned, and the money earned selling the stuff made from the stuff bought with the money loaned? If so, it’s a horribly complex system that serves no real purpose. If not, then you’ve just outlined a simple money laundering scheme.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

You CLEARLY did not read the thing in its entirety. Go back and reread it.

First, the money and items bought with it and anything else derived from them are untradeable until the loan has been paid back, completely nullifying points 3 and 4.

I guess I’m not getting this then. They are taking out a loan for gold that they can’t transfer to anyone else until the loan is paid back? What are they going to do with this gold then, build a house out of it? I would assume people would be getting these loans in order to buy stuff from the TP, not just vendor items.

Where do you think money spent on the TP goes anyway, and what stops me using the TP as a means to launder loaned money from a throwaway account? Do we flag each gold piece so that it gets nabbed no matter whose hands its in?

Also comparing the mentality of a player to how people behave in real life is laughable. It’s fairly common knowledge that people don’t behave the same online as in real life, by any stretch.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Nothing is preventing people from trading. They could still buy and sell stuff on the auction house, but they wouldn’t be able to mail loaned money or items to other people to prevent abuse. I suppose an exception could be crafting. They could buy materials off the auction house to level up a craft, and they would be allowed to sell these items on the auction house.

/em rolls eyes

If you can trade on the market you can transfer money. (if you cant figure this out you should be ashamed to even post here.)
This is a rather common way to launder money in game in fact.

Banks already dominate everything irl… I’d not like to see this in a game, ever.

There’s no way this would NOT be exploitable. Take out massive loans on a mule account and use the loaned money to buy stuff from my main account.

Also, considering how irresponsible certain people are with REAL money, it’s quite possible that a bunch of people will loan so much money that the in-game debt eventually discourages them from playing the game / forcing them to get a new account.

In some sort of utopian world it could be considered a decent feature, mostly just because “it’s possible in real life”. In reality, it’s a horrible idea. Impressionable youngsters don’t need to be introduced to concepts of debt any earlier than they otherwise would (unless the specific purpose of this feature is teach people to borrow money responsibly).

Only way you could get a loan, is when you some friends or RL life acquaintances, or you renown enough by community|guild that they trust you will return that loan.

Unnless you guarantee the loan with Gems!!! then Anet can actually become a RL loan shark.

People have set up banking in EvE, and it’s easily taken advantage of over there. That’s all within the framework of how EvE is supposed to work, but GW2 isn’t meant to be the same sort of game.

Cancer.9065:

Unnless you guarantee the loan with Gems!!! then Anet can actually become a RL loan shark.

And how that differs from selling gems for gold?

Hippocampus.8470:

People have set up banking in EvE, and it’s easily taken advantage of over there. That’s all within the framework of how EvE is supposed to work, but GW2 isn’t meant to be the same sort of game.

And how exactly they enforce return of a loan?

Maxster.4521:

Cancer.9065:

Unnless you guarantee the loan with Gems!!! then Anet can actually become a RL loan shark.

And how that differs from selling gems for gold?

1. Not a serious post hence the quip to Anet becoming a Loan Shark.

2. But if you want to argue it would be a tad different since you would get a gold loan that comes with interests and guarantee you ability to pay it with Gems (not unlike getting a loan in dollars and guaranteeing said loan with a CD in Euros) If you repay your gold loan then the gems guarantee ins’t exercised (read you don’t pay real money for the loan).

Maxster.4521:

And how exactly they enforce return of a loan?

It’s my understanding that you can attack and kill characters and take all of their stuff, so maybe something like that?

But in any case, as I said it is possible to abuse pretty horribly.

Player “Cally” won at EVE Online despite it being a massively multiplayer game with no victory condition. Other players earn ISK (game currency) by mining, completing quests or killing each other. Cally, on the other hand, simply asked for it. And it worked, and there was nothing they could do about it. Because while the other losers went into the economy as honest workers, or corporations, he realized he could go in as a bank.

He spent months running the “EVE Intergalactic Bank (EIB).” This offered loans for start-up EVE corporations and miners who wanted to buy tools, with interest rates and repayment plans and yes, we’re still talking about a game people apparently play for fun.

Cally certainly had fun: He fulfilled the secret fantasy of every bank manager in history, when one day, he walked in and just took all the money. All the money was 790 billion ISK, about $170,000 in real dollars, which he used to become the greatest video game villain of all time. He spent a huge chunk of the money to buy a ridiculously powerful warship, another chunk posting a huge bounty on his own head, then sailed off into space just daring people to kill him.

No thanks. Adding a loan system to the game will not add anything substantial to the game.

Hippocampus.8470:

Maxster.4521:

And how exactly they enforce return of a loan?

It’s my understanding that you can attack and kill characters and take all of their stuff, so maybe something like that?

Nah, it will never work. Create character, pay with isk for plex, then take a loan a lot greater than cost of plex – transfer to your real character, and delete temporary charater(or|and just abandon the temporary account).

But in any case, as I said it is possible to abuse pretty horribly.

Player “Cally” won at EVE Online despite it being a massively multiplayer game with no victory condition. Other players earn ISK (game currency) by mining, completing quests or killing each other. Cally, on the other hand, simply asked for it. And it worked, and there was nothing they could do about it. Because while the other losers went into the economy as honest workers, or corporations, he realized he could go in as a bank.

He spent months running the “EVE Intergalactic Bank (EIB).” This offered loans for start-up EVE corporations and miners who wanted to buy tools, with interest rates and repayment plans and yes, we’re still talking about a game people apparently play for fun.

Cally certainly had fun: He fulfilled the secret fantasy of every bank manager in history, when one day, he walked in and just took all the money. All the money was 790 billion ISK, about $170,000 in real dollars, which he used to become the greatest video game villain of all time. He spent a huge chunk of the money to buy a ridiculously powerful warship, another chunk posting a huge bounty on his own head, then sailed off into space just daring people to kill him.

Yeah, that’s why banks will never work in any mmo. And random loans.