Guild Wars 2

Back in that “other game”, I had a bank/trader alt whose sole purpose was to buy and sell and trade with other players. He was also souped up with a tuxedo and a monocle to look the part, and I played along when other players RPed with me.

Anyone out there use their extra character slot for a bank/trader alt? Any tips? Or is a banker/trader alt a waste of character space?

You can buy more bank slots by converting gold to gems and such, up to a maximum of 7 slots for a total of 240 bank space. As for trading, right now there aren’t really any town clothes that fit the fancy gentlemen stereotype, not to mention so long as you stand near the a TP merchant all day you can buy and sell to your heart’s content.

Not to mention bank space is shared so sorta defeats the purpose.

Drintar.1246:

Not to mention bank space is shared so sorta defeats the purpose.

QFT. Since all your players have access to your banks, and since the banks can store items as well as money, there’s no reason for a dedicated character for this.

I was thinking that while my main wanders in Orr or Frostgorge, any crafting materials he picks up will be deposited to collectibles. Once I’m done adventuring, I’ll switch to my trader alt, withdraw the deposited materials and sell it off.

Also, any deals that might come up, the trader will buy it off and retain it on his own bag, not the account bank space.

Does that make sense?

I do have an alt parked near a TP so I can pick up money and items and mail them or put them in the bank, but since you can buy and sell from anywhere, the benefit isn’t nearly as big as in that other game.

nastyjman.8207:

I was thinking that while my main wanders in Orr or Frostgorge, any crafting materials he picks up will be deposited to collectibles. Once I’m done adventuring, I’ll switch to my trader alt, withdraw the deposited materials and sell it off.

Also, any deals that might come up, the trader will buy it off and retain it on his own bag, not the account bank space.

Does that make sense?

There’s actually a TP to use in Frostgorge Sound, not sure about Orr though.

Bank pick-up is shared too, so you can sell on one toon and pick up on another.

A trader alt like that makes sense, insofar as you can keep him in LA, close to the Trading Post and bank, and never need to worry about travel costs. If you have a character slot that you’re not using for anything else, I don’t see why not. All of my eights slots are being used by playable characters though, so I wouldn’t do it. Maybe one will retire eventually and take up the life of a merchant…

I was thinking that while my main wanders in Orr or Frostgorge, any crafting materials he picks up will be deposited to collectibles. Once I’m done adventuring, I’ll switch to my trader alt, withdraw the deposited materials and sell it off.

Also, any deals that might come up, the trader will buy it off and retain it on his own bag, not the account bank space.

Does that make sense?

That makes some sense yeah. One thing is on the travel cost Blacklight mentioned the only cost is really heading out the next day because you can alway get to Lion’s Arch free. And there are several other locations I’ve noticed around the world with a TP npc so sometimes it wouldn’t be much travel.

But having one to store things in their bags yeah that makes sense especially if you are like me and keep getting so much iron ore that you can’t put more in the collectibles tab.

If you’re not using your five free character spots, then yeah, you’d be an idiot to do as my roommate did and pay real money for a extra bank tab before creating four additional characters to use their backpacks as four extra bank tabs for free.

I have a bank alt for stuff I want to hold onto just in case. I must have about 15 or so different stacks of the blue transformation potions alone.

I do have one of my alts set up with some iron boxes so he has decent space to hoard items, I dont trade much yet hes just storing a load of stuff atm

You can sell the items from anywhere without traveling which is one thing to keep in mind.
You can purchase from anywhere as well, and pick up at your leisure, which is another.
As others mentioned, you can use the character, fill him up with 10-12 slot bags, and have an extra bank slot…and if/when you need that character for playing you can buy an extra character slot, or bank slot, whichever seems less inconvenient. I personally would go the bank slot route, but that’s just my 2 cents..

I use my alts as crafting alts as well as “handbags” (extra slots).
My two huner gatherers collect, my alts make me armour/jewellery, weapons/huntsman and artifacer/tailor.
After playing through a few races/occupations to see what I’d like I left my lvl 10-20s by crafting stations and have pushed on with my fav chars.

As has been mentioned already the game lets you get around all of this in one way or another so any alt chars you have (if you’r the type of player to leave ANY behind) then it’s up to you to use them in the way it suits best.

The only “real” way to create a bank alt is to have a second copy of the game. With that, you can then mail items to the bank alt for storage. Be aware, though, that some gear (not sure about crafting materials) may not be retrievable after being mailed to the bank alt. I created a second account for this purpose and found out that the light armor I sent to the elementalist banker for storage until my “real” elementalist levelled a bit could not be mailed back as the banker could potentially use it one day (was the right armor class, therefore useable someday).

Ashlar.2519:

The only “real” way to create a bank alt is to have a second copy of the game. With that, you can then mail items to the bank alt for storage. Be aware, though, that some gear (not sure about crafting materials) may not be retrievable after being mailed to the bank alt. I created a second account for this purpose and found out that the light armor I sent to the elementalist banker for storage until my “real” elementalist levelled a bit could not be mailed back as the banker could potentially use it one day (was the right armor class, therefore useable someday).

In this case though, It would make more sense to probably just buy more character / bank slots vs spending the $60 on a seperate game. *Especially with all the “account bound” items these days. *

You can create a bank alt to have extra bank space by equipping it with large bags, but wouldn’t make much sense for any other uses (at least unless you use a second account), IMHO. Buying and selling on the TP can be done from anywhere, you only need to go to the actual TP to pick up the money/items, but since you can’t mail yourself (as far as I know) you’d need to put in the shared bank and then go pick it up in the character you need the items/money in… but so far I haven’t seen a bank that doesn’t have a TP nearby, so it defeats that purpose.