There’s this thing called “memory” which doesn’t necessarily translate well to successful web search inquiries 12+ years after the fact, particularly when such searches would involve the content of internet forums that were poorly indexed by Google, or anyone else for that matter.
MMO-Champion’s Blue Tracker doesn’t go very far into 2006 for that matter. Just because MMO-Champion doesn’t have record of it doesn’t mean the Blue Posters weren’t saying things on the forums prior to that.
Edit: Looks like the earliest Blue Post they have is August-ish 2006
i kinda have to say , as a player who played from dec 22 2004 onward , i dont remember any talk about guild banks until like the pre patch for tbc coming out.
and i was on the forums griping about my own fair share of things.
even if they were meant to be in , so were alot of things . they never did make it into vanilla and were even pushed back a year + into tbcs lifespan.
Add-ons are not a base function of the game. They can cause a security risk sure. Any 3rd party software can. But the lack of guild banks caused security risk from the base game files by design without being a part of core gameplay.
The add-on comment being a security risk was when you suggested every player rely on an add-on to fix the guild bank alt issues. Making a mandatory add-on can cause a security risk for those who don’t know how to safely find and use said add-ons and could end up loading on a file that is bad without even knowing.
There’s a difference between an add-on being potentially unsafe and being able to chose to get it and an add-on being potentially unsafe and it being virtually mandated to get it. If an add-on would be virtually mandatory to be social with your guild it should be a base game feature.
If every guild we’re to require their guild members to use the add-on “guild bank tracker” how easy would it be for someone to take that add-on, put a keylogger into it, then try to make it look like the official add-on when Google searching? Pretty dang easy. But hay, that’s a 3rd party concern and I’m more worried about the base game files itself causing security issues.
But hay you want to ignore facts and just scream QoL convenience, QoL convenience, like it’s some sort of sinful buzword. Maybe you view it as such, but that doesn’t make it true.
Because one of them change a fundamental system inside of the game (honor) and one of them addresses a lack of a system in game that caused a multitude of security breaches on accounts (guild banks)
The key difference you want to ignore is one of those changes has a direct impact on what is considered core gameplay (pvp) and the other does not (guild banks)
Do guild banks change how you kill things? Do they change how fast it dies? Do they change what you chose to kill? Do they change how you build your character? Do they change a core gameplay mechanic? And before you go “hurp derp inventory management” that’s already been shown why it doesn’t effect that, because players already made a work around called bank alts and guild bank alts that made IN TOWN inventory management a non factor. And guild banks only effect in town inventory management, not open world.
I wouldn’t mind not having logs. If people want to be serious about it, let the guild leader or an officer write down all (worth while) withdrawls/deposits on a post-it note and stick it to the side of their monitor like mine did way back when.
Here’s the problem with that. RMT’ers like not having that log as well. To them it’s just another gold stream to make real world dollars. Classic gold right out the gate will hold a higher real world value than retail(which is still a 3rd party business. Don’t believe me. Google it) or pservers. Yes a single server with a 10k pop is lucrative. In fact it’s so lucrative they even sell gold on lesser known servers with smaller pops. That’s with competition and farm spots being nerfed. Lol. Don’t believe me? Google it.
Some people willfully and deliberately CHOOSE to violate the TOS/EULA by sharing accounts. Those that do also CHOOSE to risk their accounts being hacked and/or banned.
The guild in which I was a member went even further.
Our guild website had a list of all the “guild bank alts” and every deposit or withdrawal was shown on that website. If Johnny wanted to ensure that those 20 devilsaurs leather he sent to Bob had actually made it to the “guild bank alts” all he had to do was check the website.
Having played ESO for the past month and a half with a pretty awesome guild, they had a google docs spreadsheet that was read only to all but the officers. If you donated anything you could see it on their spreadsheet that kept a running total along with withdrawals and what the withdrawal was used to purchase.
They could probably still skim a little but even if they did, the amount of work involved with maintaining everything I wouldn’t mind.
“Everyone is an unscrupulous thief and gold seller waiting to happen”.
If only Johnny could store his own items if he truly felt that every other player was an unscrupulous thief and gold seller waiting to happen.
I cannot help but wonder how many of these claims that guild banks alts will be robbed blind by every Tom, Dick and Harry are in reality driven by “I know that I cannot be trusted so everyone else also must be untrustworthy”.