Business And Economy Archive
Thread: PLAYER run banks: this is an MMO right
There's no real way to get someone in real life to pay a laon. If they go bankrupted, the bank is screwed. So why doesn't everyone do that in real life? Because they will never be able to borrow again. The bank can look at a players credit history, and decide not to loan a player. So in most cases if I were a bank owner I would be very cautious in making a loan of 1 mil. The bank is taking a risk. Banks are not risk free. If the banks want to maintain a precedent that they won't put up with players defaulting on loans they can hire BH's. Being a bank owner would not be a simple task. There's A LOT of risk, but I would sure like to do it.
CharPrime wrote:
there is no way to make a player pay back their loan. BH's don't hunt for free. you end up playing a bh to grief them until they pay. it don't add up.
oscabegra wrote:
What happens when I use an alt to take out a loan and then tip that money to my main character, delete the alt and do it all over again?
Eerif wrote:
Perhaps regarding to the Bounty Hunter argument, if the player feels that the other player has taken too long in paying, in other words, has late fees, instead of waiting longer for it, the player could take out a mission in which if the player is successfully killed, the amount loaned goes back to the banker, and the bounty hunter gets the overdue fees.
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Sure makes sense but in the case that the person that loaned doesnt have any money the banks gets nothing (the banks would set a BH fee though). I really like the aspect of BH's collecting debts.
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With this respect, a player must be at least 3 months old on a server in order to take out a loan, and the loan amount depends on how long the player has been with the specific bank.
I like the idea, just tryin to help out
I agree, andDevs don't have to make a restriction, just allow the banker to look up how long someone's been a char.
Thanks you made the most sense so far.
AliesterCr wrote:
Ok I really, really, really like this idea. I would love to be a bank owner with financial partners and such.
As far as the alt exploit possibilities handle it like a real bank would. If you have little to no financial history you either don't get a loan or get a really controlled loan (secured loan backed by some piece of property that gets repossessed if you default.). With this in mind a player could put up a really good piece of loot, property, etc.. that would be not be able to be deeded to moved or in the case of the loot would be held in a saftey deposit box until the loan is paid in full (with all applicable interest and late fees that may apply).
Now about enforcement. The BH idea is really cool but in addition to this why not garnish wages? If you buy a travel ticket in a city some of that money goes to the city right? Why not tack on extra travel charges, vehicle repair charges, vendor garnishments, maintanence garnishments, etc. Basically whenever the server gets paid money to upkeep structures, go some where, do something the bank could get a cut of the money if the customer is in default of said loan. Since the server is collecting money as a money sink would not be too hard to add in a % surcharge to their transaction to pay for fees (their bounty) and interest.
Just an idea. Oh and a way for newer players to raise their credit rating might be to award customers for depositing money into the banks CD's and keeping it there. Basically the bank takes in money and gives you interest for keeping it there since they in turn loan out that money to other people for a much higher interest rate. So if a customer has had a player run bank account for an extended period of time and has kept a decent minimum balance then their credit rating should reflect this as the likely hood of them running off with your money is low.
Also a detailed financial statement of the prospective customer should be available to the bank owners as players would be more likely to spot fraudulent records.
Awesome.
Collateral: DAMN good idea
Basically what you allude to is have an actuall economy. Right now money goes in with the above you said and comes out through missions. But the inputs and outputs of the server bank certainly have nothing to do with one another. This is almost getting into a federal reserve. A lot of people would love this, however I don't know how many customer service sony can take from 13 year olds asking 20 questions about economics. A solution to this is: make banking other than those basic CD"s you mentioned unavailible unless you are 18 (whoever pays with credit card must check a box in the launchpad). This is probably legally necessary because SWG although no legally has an actual currency. I have no idea what it is, but thereare exchange rates between USD and SWG credits.
When you talk about the BHing the Server-bank pays the BH's to collect player bank debts. This works like the FBI. I like this, but at the same time I would like it to come out of the players banks.
C-Bone_RE wrote:
There's no real way to get someone in real life to pay a laon. If they go bankrupted, the bank is screwed. So why doesn't everyone do that in real life? Because they will never be able to borrow again. The bank can look at a players credit history, and decide not to loan a player. So in most cases if I were a bank owner I would be very cautious in making a loan of 1 mil. The bank is taking a risk. Banks are not risk free. If the banks want to maintain a precedent that they won't put up with players defaulting on loans they can hire BH's. Being a bank owner would not be a simple task. There's A LOT of risk, but I would sure like to do it.
CharPrime wrote:
there is no way to make a player pay back their loan. BH's don't hunt for free. you end up playing a bh to grief them until they pay. it don't add up.
If you are truly broke in RL, then you can file for bankruptcy and get court protection. But if you aren't broke, the bank WILL come after you. They will sue your ass off. And if you take out a loan intending to never pay it back, that's a crime. And the cops will come for you and throw you in a jail cell where you can be gang raped by your fellow convicts. Those are REAL consequences to your actions.
In SWG there's is little to discourage cheating and fraud in a player banking system. A player BH? Big deal. Many characters will have powerful combat templates that candefeat a BH. In fact, some peoplewill intentionally default on their loans because they want to be hunted by player BH. Even if you can't fight off a BH, there are still plenty of ways to avoid the consequences to fraud. Or, if the griefing gets bad enough, you can just quit the game. And then there's the people who just get bored with the game and quit playing one day...never bothering to pay back their loans.
Even if we throw caution and reason to the wind and implement a player banking system, it will never take off. And that's because there will be no trust or faith in the system. I would never deposit any significant amount of money with a player bank, because I know how flaky and dishonest many of my fellow players can be. And I think too few players would be willing to take the risk of being a banker...and those that do will probably get burnt out fast as their loses mount from loan defaults and paying BHs to grief people.
An interesting idea, but ultimately not workable.
Message Edited by EdOWar on 06-06-2005 12:35 PM
Like I suggested a few posts above you put up collateral.
Quick Senario:
The bank owner, partner, or bank employee will give you a cash value for the item that will enable you to take out the loan for that value the bank will also give you a value at which if your (loan+interest+late fees) reaches then your item will be sold off to pay for the loan and you will get a negative mark on your credit report. Until the loan is paid in full with interest you don't get item back it is held in trust by the bank. Notice it is not held in trust by the bank employees this is where the game mech comes into play. The Bank assigns the value to the item the customer clicks his/her agreement. Then a screen could pop up listing total loan value, interest rate, the appreciation on the loan, and any late fees that may apply. These would be custimizable by the bank owners on a person by person basis. The items that are being put up for hock could go into a saftey deposit box not accessable by either party unless the loan accrues so many charges and or interest fees that it reaches the predetermined value.
Now to illustrate this a little better here is a play by play:
Customer wants a loan for 3 million dollars to buy a uber weapon. Customer has little, none, or suspect credit history. Bank owner asks for collateral. Customer has a Tie Holo, resource crate deed, and harvester power deed. The Bank owner agrees that these 3 items will serve as collateral for the loan. The Bank owner informs the customer that if his/her debt increases to a value of 5 million then all of his/her items will be put up for sale to clear the debt.
Now in this scenario the total market value for this merchandise is probably around 5-7 million. So if the bank is shrewd enough they could actually profit from people running off with their money. A bank owner would be unlikely to float any large loan with limited capital unless they were a very established member of the community.
Also I think to prevent exploitation of the system a player bank would only function as a loan office. The owner and partners would buy stock certificates in the company so that their liquid cash (that they want to loan out) is frozen. They are then able to use this mechanism to loan out money. The exploitation potential when you start playing around with other peoples money is too great (ie. bank owner floats 3 billion credit loan to their alt with a survival knife as capital, transfers money to main then disolves bank). But if the banks could only play around with their own funds and if I wanted to float a loan using some of my partners funds then I would need his/her approval. As long as there is a mechanism for other players to buy in as partners then this would work kind of like CD's but the people would need to know that it is an extremely risky investment but, if the bank needed to use their money they would need their approval, maybe in the form of an e-mail request detailing contract (ie. amount, items being placed as collateral, how much of your funds are going to be used, etc.).
The ingame mechanic is needed as the saftey deposit box system provides incentive for people to pay back loan and keeps the bank owners from running off with the item unless the player defaults on loan.
Player bounties for people that default while interesting would not be well recieved by the general pubic. I would leave this out if they ever did code this in. But again I am just dreaming.
Just my ideas.
nothing is stopping someone from starting a pawn shop now. but a bank will never work. too easy for ppl to delete the character and start over.
oscabegra wrote:What happens when I use an alt to take out a loan and then tip that money to my main character, delete the alt and do it all over again?
SOE cancels your account and all other accounts associated with your credit card number, becase they don't need you or players like you anywhere near this game.
(obviously i know you were speaking hypothetically, and so am i. so don't take this as a personal attack
)that's how they'd run things in a perfect world anyway... /sigh.
For instance if a well established crafter wants to buy a couple million units of a best resource that just spawned on the server but it is going for 40 per or so. They may have just invested most of their funds in other ventures a bank that has built up a relationship with that merchant prolly would have no trouble lending that crafter 40 million credits on an agreement.
Basically those that have a proven income (long term crafter with built up customer base) will benefit most from banks without having to put as much up for hock. I just like the dynamic. I would love to review an up and comming crafters buisness plan and hold a couple of vet rewards to bankroll them for their first couple of months till they get rolling.
It doesn't seem like something like this would be too hard to code in. At least the basic idea. I would however like other penalties for deliquent accounts like surcharges tacked on to tickets, garnishment of a % of mission payouts, and vendor sales. Maybe even increased maintence fees on houses, factories and harvesters. That may be a bit harder to code in but this idea has a lot of merit I feel.
I have decided that once I get to 300-500million in liquid funds (waaaayyy down the road 8mo-year if all goes well) then I am going to start a bank with or without the coding in place. It will function much more like a pawn shop but it will still be fun. Right now I am busy enough with my baby armorsmithy but I expect things to get easier as I get more established and as soon as they finish the factory bug that forces me to handcraft everything.
Message Edited by AliesterCr on 06-07-2005 08:56 AM
but mine was more criminally oriented...
basically players could take out loans from Jabba, or from a generic Hutt loan-sharking operation.
if you default on your loan you'd get powerful NPC Bounty Hunters coming after you repeatedly.
i guess it's the same concept. either way you'd have BHs harrasing you till you paid the loan back with interest, whether they're Players or NPCs.
the only difference would be that an NPC loan-sharking system would eliminate the problems of predatory loaners, griefing BHs, and other common Player-made problems that come with a more open game system like this.
also about the guy who said what happens when players tip the credits to an alt and then delete the debtor character, and repeat. well they've proven they can track credits with the whole credit duping fiasco.
so one solution to that exploit would be to have SOE keep an eye out for this behavior and punish those who exploit this possibly fun and useful game system.
it's a GREAT idea for an MMORPG to have a system like this. although it will most likely never happen (even if it were completely NPC) because it's just too fun.
C-Bone_RE wrote:
It's just on my wishlist for this game, butdown the road I hope its in SWG2!
why do people keep talking about SWG2?
i don't think there are any plans in the works for a sequal already. SWG isn't in that bad of shape.
Hya , i like your idea and in fact i already presented a new profession related to banking , this is the thread :
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=economy&message.id=7523
Or search for : A new profession : THE BANKER.
Hope this gives you more ideas. I like to help.
Cheers.