Tamriel Rebuilt - Bank of Morrowind

[IanHall]

Now that TR/NoM is finished, I want to work on another mod for TR. So this morning, I sat down and wondered what major mods people use in Morrowind... NoM (done), MCA (being worked on), Morrowind Crafting (MC) and IndyBank...

MC would be the natural choice, but I found out this morning that there is a new version on the way, and there is a lot of work involved too. So maybe I will have a closer look at creating TR/MC when the new version of MC is released.

That leaves a bank mod. I've always used IndyBank, as I hate walking around with 500k gold in my pocket, and not getting attacked by half of Morrowind!

My first thought was to create new branches of the "Bank of Vvardenfell" from IndyBank. This would create a dependence of my bank mod on IndyBank, and create some "lore" issues (i.e. would Dunmer be happy with an "Imperial" institution having branches in its territory?)

So I have decided to create the "Bank of Morrowind". A bank run by Dunmer, with branches staffed by members from the local Great House. It will be able to interact with IndyBank, so you will be able to transfer money between the "Bank of Vvardenfell" and "Bank of Morrowind", just as you can between the BoV and the "Bank of Havish" (from the Havish mod).

Or, maybe have a seperate bank for each Great House? "Bank of Telvanni", "Bank of Hlaalu" etc...

And I know its outside of "vanilla lore", but I would certainly welcome any discussion on how an institution would go about operating in Morrowind, based on lore

[theviking]

A native bank is a great idea because it blends well with the rest of the towns. The offices should be in Firewatch and Port Telvannis, the major cities of the map. I can't imagine an imperial bank in Port Telvannis, so it should be a Telvanni building. Because of this, I also think the bank should be serving the whole of Morrowind. By the way, I already created a branch of the bank of Tamriel (or morrowind) in Almalexia, the biggest city in Morrowind.

[Nanu]

Hlaalu, I'd say. The Telvanni seem like the type that wouldn't enjoy being in any way affiliated with the Imperials at the least.

Redoran don't have that much of a presence in Map 1 IIRC, but I'm more focused on Literature than anything, so I could be entirely wrong.

[theviking]

there are no hlaalu or redoran settlements on map1. These will appear when map4 is finished. Lets make the bank just dunmer.

[Kovacius]

Banking was initially done as a series of private institutions, which operated at first solely under their own reputation, and which came increasingly under national control or regulation over time. After the American Revolution, there were hundreds of private banks scattered across the country, many of them with their own currency. The Federal Reserve system increasingly took over the minting of a common currency, but independent bank activity took a long time to die out completely. The last "private" bank here in Berks County, PA, USA, was involuntarily merged with another bank by the state less than a decade ago.

I see Morrowind as being even farther behind than the American Colonial period, where there is an "official currency" being minted by the King, which guaranteed the gold or other precious metal's purity and weight as used in the coin, but all other banking operations would be independent and with virtually no state interference. This makes for some "creative" banking, such as having notes redeemable at some "branch office" (using real branches?) on the remote frontier, only to be informed that the office has "moved suddenly", when you actually go there to collect.

I can definitely picture a disjointed and piecemeal banking picture, with money transfers "possible" between banks, but a bewildering assortment of fees, problems, and corruption preventing it from operating as smoothly as the customer would like. It offers plenty of opportunities for quests and unexpected turns of events (getting your money back, walking in on a robbery in progress, locating a missing creditor or potential investor, pulling off your own robbery, etc.) suitable for different types of characters.

[IanHall]

So the idea seems to be for a "Bank of Morrowind", staffed by dunmer, presumably by members of the local Great House.

I agree that the branches should blend in with the local architecture - as was suggested by theviking.

For map 1, I was thinking of 4 branches in total. The large branches would be in Firewatch and Port Telvannis, with small branches in Bal Oyra and Ranyon-ruhn. If there are any particular lore reasons why any of these are not a good choice, then please let me know, and why.

I also liked the ideas put forward by Kovacius, about having related quests based on the idea that banking is yet to be heavily state influenced. But for a first release, I will concentrate on getting the bank system in place, before introducing quests

[Kovacius]

Actually, my suggestion would be to have several "local" banks, rather than one Bank of Morrowind with many branches. These might include a Telvanni Bank in Port Telvannis, an Imperial Bank (or a local "Imperial Affiliated" private bank) at Firewatch, etc. Any connection between them would be "shaky" at best, and getting your money from one via another might take a few days, for instance, with "service charges" added. Having one central Morrowind bank (except possibly an overall "Official" Imperial Bank imposed throughout Tamriel by edict) would be highly unlikely, as the various Great Houses would all have different approaches to finance.

Remember, this isn't the 20th or 21st century we're dealing with, or even a completely "pacified" area, and smooth transfers of funds weren't a simple matter even in mainland Europe only 150 years ago. Being able to walk into a bank in Port Telvannis to withdraw funds deposited in Balmora on a mere day's notice would be somewhere between highly unlikely and lore-breaking. Transfers would require a courier to go between the various branches with some form of "voucher" or legal note to insure that the funds were actually there, and to freeze them until the transaction was completed, before the money was actually paid out. Otherwise, there would be a rash of scams where someone would deposit money, and a couple of days after that withdraw the funds and race around to every other branch (via Recall or Guild Guide, for instance) to withdraw the same money before news of the first withdrawl reached them.

[Idiotbatllemage]

how about cash machines....

nice idea. more gameplay is the best.

[theviking]

I don't think that that idea would be succesfull, Kovacius. People download banking mods because they want to put their money somewhere and maybe make some more money doing that. They want something simple, at least I want when I download a banking mod. There is enough bureaucracy in real life already to let it be enjoyable in a game. A banking mod should have the good thing of being realistic and being simple. In my opinion it should be the bank of morrowind based on local houses. That is simple and somewhat realistic.

[Gnomey]

I agree that you should easily be able to withdraw money from a bank, but I suggest that you make the non Imperial banks a lot more primitive, if you can and feel like it. For those branches I would prefer one of the earlier methods: Each bank has a large store of money. The player can open an account in any bank, and then put in the money. Either a certain amount of money has to be kept in the bank until the player closes his account, or the player can only withdraw a certain amount of money.

The account will technically only be for that bank, but as the banks are branches and can distribute the customer's money between the branches in whatever way they like as long as the customer will be able to withdraw his money in the end it doesn't matter who's money you end up withdrawing in the other banks.

Anyway, when you open your account the clerk will give you a scroll which will list some information about the player, how much money he has in his account, etc. The player can then go to any bank, and they will give him the required amount of money, and "update" the player's scroll. However, making this script will (or rather making these scripts would) probably be too much trouble. Ah well.

[Argonaught]

That script doesn't sound too hard...

actually wouldn't even require a script as such. I think you'd probs do it in dialogue.

do you you wish to create a bank account. Yes, no

yes:

here are the details of your bank account

player->additem bank_details

then you can have a global for the amount of money put away

and the scroll (bank_details) will contain this global in it along with some other stuffs to make it look proper. change the global and the scroll should automatically update. no script required

[IanHall]

I've not yet started work on TR1_BoM, as I have been working on TR1_NoM again I found a very small bug with the mod reporting rented rooms on reload, which has been fixed. But I wanted to put some more features in it, to make it worth a new release.

Added to which, I move to Germany on Tuesday, so I'll start work on the BoM mod sometime after settling in

[Hand of Sotha]

I don't think that that idea would be succesfull, Kovacius. People download banking mods because they want to put their money somewhere and maybe make some more money doing that. They want something simple, at least I want when I download a banking mod.

I don't know, I like Kovacius' ideas! Agreed, that would make matters complicated, but interesting as well. And such a way of introducing banking would offer a nice number of quest hooks! (As Ian already said.)

Agreed, if it becomes too realistic, it also becomes too complicated - and therefore probably be used by preciously few people. But maybe a middle way would be a solution? Maybe a uncomplicated "base" and a more realistic/believable "expanded" version of such a mod, leaving it up to each player which one he or she wants?

Or maybe one could have the local banks, with all the trouble connected to them, and one more advanced "central" Bank of Cyrodiil/Imperial Bank. The latter one would offer the "uncomplicated" services, the former the "adventurous" ones. Of course, there needs to be some advantage to using the local ones, else about everyone would use the easier bank. Maybe the Imperial bank is less accepted by local (esp. Dunmer) merchants? And there are far fewer offices of it to be found?

Just my two drakes.

Oh, before I forget: If you're creating a new banking system/mod instead of an expansion of IndyBank, will you (at some point) cover Vvardenfell (And Tribunal's Mournhold) as well?


Hand of Sotha



P.S.: You're moving to Niedersachsen on Tuesday, Ian? Heh, then have a "Welcome in advance"!

[Kovacius]

I don't know how far you want to take a Banking mod: just having deposits and withdrawls to accounts with interest, or building a whole monetary system with quests. I'm just relating how banking "might" work in such a situation, based on real examples, and giving possible tie-ins for quests and expansions.

As for the TR updates to NoM, I'd really like to see the one little NoM hunger script "bug" fixed where you can't use MC or other food to remove the last level of hunger penalties. There was a fix posted on the official Forum, which required editing the NoM script.

I was never happy with the "alarm clock" method of eating and drinking, which made them an involuntary process. Rather than having the one-time choice about whether to eat or drink this category before that type, I'd like to be able to decide specifically what items to consume each "dinner" session. Even better, if the "auto-eat" feature can be made optional, instead of mandatory, I'd use NoM with no hesitation. As it is, I can't stand it, but really miss it if I don't include it.