Guild Bank Etiquette

agegarton

Hi all. I run the Lone Star Guild. We have about 80-90 active members at any one time, so we are not huge but we are growing bit by bit. I originally formed the Lone Stars for lone adventurers who wanted to be able to trade and to call upon the occasional bit of support in a tight spot. All members have access to the Guild Bank - they can deposit gold (which is used to help secure the services of a Guild Trader), but they can't withdraw gold. They can all deposit and withdraw items from the bank as I often think that having a few extra slots available is helpful.

I'm wondering how do most people interact with guild bank accounts? Do players generally see the bank as a free-for-all, taking whatever they want if someone else deposited it, or do most people respect ownership if another player left the item?

I was thinking about giving some guidance to my guild members, my fellow Lone Stars, about guild bank etiquette - so I'm interested in all views and opinions!

agegarton

BTW, inbox me for an invitation if you want to join.

AngryNord

Isn't that pretty much what guild banks are for? I.e. surplus stuff that I don't have use for, but others may need?

squidgod2000b14_ESO

If you give everyone access--especially if you invite to the guild anyone who asks--eventually somebody is just going to empty the guild bank and vendor everything. Happened to the reddit guild just a couple days ago.

SteveCampsOut

I run two guilds. On on EU servers and one on NA servers. Both called Pacrooti's Hirelings. The EU guild has been open the longest around 10 months and has always had an open bank policy and the rules are simple. Don't put anything in that you don't want taken out. It has never been robbed. The NA guild has been open now a little over two weeks and we've had a member who left take a bunch of items only to ask for an invite again a week later under a different character name and he robbed the bank again and left the guild in under 2 minutes. I have now locked the NA guild bank for new members.

Aett_Thorn

Personally, I tend to use it as such:

1) I need something, but can't find it reasonably priced anywhere

2) Check guild bank

3) If item is there, take what I need

4) Put equivalent item(s) into the guild bank for others to use

I don't expect everyone else in my guilds to put things back, it's just something that I do because I personally believe it to be a fair practice.

Enodoc

The way we run the UESP (EU) Guild Bank is with a guideline that you should, over time, make deposits of similar value to your withdrawals. Once deposited, nothing in the bank is "owned" by any player, and anyone can withdraw anything. However, your withdrawal should be matched by a deposit of similar value (eg, withdraw a Breton motif, deposit a Nord one; withdraw a green bow, deposit a green sword; withdraw alchemy ingredients, deposit enchanting runestones).

SteveCampsOut

Enodoc wrote: »

The way we run the UESP (EU) Guild Bank is with a guideline that you should, over time, make deposits of similar value to your withdrawals. Once deposited, nothing in the bank is "owned" by any player, and anyone can withdraw anything. However, your withdrawal should be matched by a deposit of similar value (eg, withdraw a Breton motif, deposit a Nord one; withdraw a green bow, deposit a green sword; withdraw alchemy ingredients, deposit enchanting runestones).

Unless you have some addon that can track these withdrawals and deposits, this is impossible to enforce. I prefer treating my guild mates like adults and for the most part it works. All it takes is one Fill-in-the-foul-language-blank though and it's ruined for everyone.

Rosveen

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The way we run the UESP (EU) Guild Bank is with a guideline that you should, over time, make deposits of similar value to your withdrawals. Once deposited, nothing in the bank is "owned" by any player, and anyone can withdraw anything. However, your withdrawal should be matched by a deposit of similar value (eg, withdraw a Breton motif, deposit a Nord one; withdraw a green bow, deposit a green sword; withdraw alchemy ingredients, deposit enchanting runestones).

Unless you have some addon that can track these withdrawals and deposits, this is impossible to enforce. I prefer treating my guild mates like adults and for the most part it works. All it takes is one Fill-in-the-foul-language-blank though and it's ruined for everyone.

I suspect it's an honor code for them. You can't enforce it, but you can trust your guildmates to be decent people and encourage them to give something back for what they took.

That's what I tend to do. I generally dislike withdrawing stuff from my guilds, I always feel like it isn't mine, but I occasionally take crafting mats I need asap and can't easily find elsewhere. Usually enchanting and provisioning.

Enodoc

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The way we run the UESP (EU) Guild Bank is with a guideline that you should, over time, make deposits of similar value to your withdrawals. Once deposited, nothing in the bank is "owned" by any player, and anyone can withdraw anything. However, your withdrawal should be matched by a deposit of similar value (eg, withdraw a Breton motif, deposit a Nord one; withdraw a green bow, deposit a green sword; withdraw alchemy ingredients, deposit enchanting runestones).

Unless you have some addon that can track these withdrawals and deposits, this is impossible to enforce. I prefer treating my guild mates like adults and for the most part it works. All it takes is one Fill-in-the-foul-language-blank though and it's ruined for everyone.

We don't try to enforce it, it's all good faith and works fine. Besides, the UI's built-in withdrawal/deposit tracker is enough to see what's happening anyway.

AlnilamE

We treat the guild bank as a donation box. Put in stuff you don't need but others might. Take out stuff you need (like set items if you are trying out a new set.)

Never had a problem. We do have a "new member" rank for new people for their first week, but after that, everybody has full access.

Cuyler

Well it depends on two things, one (1) your guild's player makeup and two (2) the types of items deposited in your guild bank.

If your recruiting randoms from zone to your guild without ever speaking to them then obviously it wouldn't be recommended to let everyone have access and simply be a gatekeeper for those looking for guild bank items. If you only recruit players you've done dungeons/groups with and have built rapport with them this should be a non-issue.

If your guild has a policy of don't deposit anything that you wouldn't want to give away then go ahead and give everyone the ability to withdraw. But if your depositing items of high value or stockpiling potions/food for the future then it wouldn't be advised, unless you really know your members (see point 1 above)

failkiwib16_ESO

I recently got leadership over an old guild, and I have already been asked multible times to open up the guildbank, or let new members access it. I won't do it, since the old officers use it privately, and I see no reason for that to change.

I have been member of several guilds, where some new recruit joined, saw an open guildbank and deconstructed half of what there was in there, just to lvl up crafting - we're talking dominion sets, warlock, trial sets etc. whatever that could be in a guildbank at it's time, and was deconstructable. - the new recruits were never kicked, leadership just had a talk with them about it - but the rest of the guild kept that in mind and never trusted those members again.

One more annoying issue was, I was officer in some guilds where members constantly would donate normal veteran recipes, such as Sweetroll and Honey Pudding .... and it ended up taking 50-200 slots alone till I picked them out, sold them to a vendor and put the earned gold into guildbank instead. -.-

I just try to avoid all those issues in my guild. GB belongs to my officers. I will promote new officers of course, when I either get someone with potential to be groomed for it, or a very loyal player to the guild itself.

Artemiisia

there have been cases here on the forums in the last year, where guild leaders has come on to let people know that there are individuals that had cleaned out the whole guild bank.

so really be aware of this, maybe build up some kind of trust system first before opening the candy store

Flaminir

My guild works on the honor system, as most seem to.

It works well, but we don't just open it straight up to people the moment they join the guild... we have a couple of ranks, and once somebody has joined in / maybe got involved in a few events / been around TS so we could get to know them a bit (Any of the above) then we promote them up the next rank and give them guild bank access.

Its really just about minimizing the risk.... there will always be a risk when you're working on an honor system with the limited guild bank tools ZoS has given us, but I would rather give the good players better guild facilities rather than letting the potential of the odd bad egg get in the way of the decent people.

Your decision is really whether to have an easy life & just have it switched off (& have a few unhappy that they don't have access) or open it up but take the risk of having the odd bad apple, but 99.9% of people seem to respect it pretty well.

Troneon

Don't trust random strangers or people you barely know with your guild bank, period.

Play EVE Online for a few years and you will have chronic paranoid syndrome forever, I know people who trusted someone for years and lost their entire assets and even the corporation / guild itself was stolen....that was someone they knew for years.

Best way to do it is have a few small very selective trusted officers, the officers and yourself take requests via in game mail and personal forums for requests of certain items from guild members and are handed out one by one between you and the handful of officers.

It's more work but much better security wall and less chance of guild thefts. You don't even have to stop playing to fill a player request just make it guild policy stuff is only handed out once or twice a week to make it less of a job for you and your officers.

MissBizz

Troneon wrote: »

Don't trust random strangers or people you barely know with your guild bank, period.

^This.

We used to have an open bank policy. It was completely robbed once, and the second time only the "high quality" items were robbed. We now have our regular "join" rank, and once you have been around awhile (as well active in the guild so we have gotten to know you) you can apply for the higher rank. The open bank policy worked when we were smaller, but as you grow it proved to become troublesome.

Psychobunni

We only give access to bank after signing up with our guildsite. Its a small step really to commit on some small level to the guild because ZOS isn't likely to do anything if a player empties your bank.

Otherwise, we run the bank give a penny, take a penny, just don't abuse....ofc there has been a few times a new player has pulled items they couldn't possibly need, and like a parent we have to send a "hey, what are you doing?" pm but ingeneral this system has worked well for us thus far. I'd like to think most of the community are pretty decent people, it also helps our guild seems to appeal more to couples, parents, older players....not much of the 18 year old "the world owes me everything" entitlement syndrome

Nestor

agegarton wrote: »

I'm wondering how do most people interact with guild bank accounts?

What is in the bank is not mine, it is the Guild's.

I put more things in the Guild Bank than I take out. It's a great way to reduce my inventory of things I don't need but have value to someone, but are not worth the time to sell. However, if I can't find something I need at a Guild Store or nearby kiosk, then I will use the Guild Bank if they have what I need. But I always check the stores first, including the guild store, as I would rather support people that way.

I never take anything out of the bank unless I am putting something in. Green Recipe for Green Recipe, Blue for Blue, take a stack of mats, I put another stack of mats in, take a researchable, put a researchable back in, that kind of thing. Also, if I take a stack that is more than I need, I split off what I need, then put back the rest into the bank. This is on top of what I tend to put in there as time goes on.

Divinius

Fun story:

I tend to frequently get blind guild invites, especially on my low-level mule alts. I'll log in to transfer some inventory, and get a "XxSomePersonxX" invites you to join his guild "RaNdOm PeOpLe". There was no whisper, no request, nothing, just a random guild invite. It started to get mildly irritating.

At about 3 to 4 of these a week, I stopped assuming these invites were all just accidents, and finally decided to start accepting these random blind invites. I'd then check to see if they allow me to withdraw from the guild bank, and if so, I'd take out everything that I could vendor for gold, and then quit the guild.

Sure, that's probably a jerk move, but hey, they are bringing it upon themselves. Of all the guilds I joined this way, I've actually only ever had two guilds that allowed bank withdrawals and had banks that weren't already empty. In one of those cases, I get an angry whisper some time afterward, in the other, no one ever said anything.

tl;dr:

If everyone in your guild has bank access, you should assume anything in the bank can disappear at any time. Especially if you don't have any invite restrictions. And I can guarantee it will if you invite me completely unsolicited.

Flaminir

Divinius wrote: »

Fun story:

I tend to frequently get blind guild invites, especially on my low-level mule alts. I'll log in to transfer some inventory, and get a "XxSomePersonxX" invites you to join his guild "RaNdOm PeOpLe". There was no whisper, no request, nothing, just a random guild invite. It started to get mildly irritating.

At about 3 to 4 of these a week, I stopped assuming these invites were all just accidents, and finally decided to start accepting these random blind invites. I'd then check to see if they allow me to withdraw from the guild bank, and if so, I'd take out everything that I could vendor for gold, and then quit the guild.

Sure, that's probably a jerk move, but hey, they are bringing it upon themselves. Of all the guilds I joined this way, I've actually only ever had two guilds that allowed bank withdrawals and had banks that weren't already empty. In one of those cases, I get an angry whisper some time afterward, in the other, no one ever said anything.

tl;dr:

If everyone in your guild has bank access, you should assume anything in the bank can disappear at any time. Especially if you don't have any invite restrictions. And I can guarantee it will if you invite me completely unsolicited.

No probably about it I'm afraid.

Its no different to real life, just because you can abuse a system doesn't make it right in any way shape or form.

An unsolicited guild invite is no excuse to go in there and deliberately swipe all their stuff without giving anything back to their guild.

If you don't like the invite then there is a 'spam' option to report it when you get rid of the notification.