I realize it’s been a few days. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure I qualified as a “missing person” for a little while so permit me while I get myself back together. Hmm? What was I doing? Nothing too important, just one of the items on my March checklist. Namely, cleaning out the guild bank. The next time I say I want to do that you are well within your rights to have me strung up by a lamplight and thoroughly flogged.
It couldn’t have been that bad? This is clearly from someone who has never done it, or takes meticulous care of their own vault (which I do admit I should be making more of an effort to do). Of course, as I was away for nine months it isn’t as though I can start pointing figures. I can wonder just the same about some of the things that were in there. Four copies of the Giant Growth Alchemy recipe? I know we have a lot of alts, but oh my.
I do not know how other folks/guilds do their thing, but several years ago myself and another officer made the effort to put the entire bank in order. We did our six tabs by materials/contents/professions, so to speak. Cloth and Leather was one, Elements and Enchant Materials was another. The first tab was for bags and other goodies for new toons, as well as where members could donate goods (so as to allow us to filter out stuff that need not actually make it to the other tabs). It was a great system that did the OCD of ourselves, and anyone else, quite proud.
Well flash forward these years and you know, it really hasn’t changed all that much. Many of the items that were placed in there, remain there. In a lovely way, some useful items were added to it, while a few things like Netherweave (bags) did disappear. Nothing else moved really. Plus, tab one was packed with stuff to the point nothing could be added. On top of cleanup, it was time for a change as well. I wasn’t sure what that change was going to be when I started out. When I got going, it was just go through the first tab and see where that leads. It quickly lead to trips to the Auction House and the nearest vendor. After that, I realized what I wanted to do with the six tabs and that was sort them by Vanilla and subsequent expansions. The first tab was incredibly easy to sort and fill. Anything that didn’t fit went onto the Auction House. If it’s been there that long, nobody’s missing it and it likely wasn’t going to be hard to get more.
Originally, Burning Crusade and Wrath were going to get individual tabs but quite frankly there wasn’t nearly enough materials to make it worthwhile. Instead, I put them together and had a much nicer looking tab that is about two-thirds full. Not that the next two are anything special in terms of vastness. Sure, Pandaria has six columns just for various food ingredients (I’m kidding…somewhat) so it looks a little more filled, but it and Cataclysm don’t have a whole lot going for them. I think in due time it will fill up some. Mostly just crafting materials or a buff food, but everything has to start with something correct?
So that’s four of the six, what did I do with the last two? For starters they both sit empty. I mean not a single item in either one. The first? Set up for Warlords of Draenor. It never hurts to be prepared. That’s the old OCD planning ahead so that anything that shows up when we go back in time has a home. The last one somehow got dubbed “Mystery Egg.” It’s empty now, but will hold goodies that any of us come across that don’t quite fit into the Expansion tabs. Pets, epics, mounts…just some really rare stuff that we can pass on to other guildmates. Sure, at the moment, there’s really only three active members but we’re ready for it!
Which brings me to the final thought on the matter and that is the big question of what do you (or your guild) do with your bank tabs? Obviously bank alts have an entirely different setting all together (at least mine certainly d0) so it isn’t those settings that intrigue me most. It’s more the guilds, whether you hardcore raid or are a group of alt lovers such as Claws is. How do you keep your goodie bag sorted?
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I was never high up enough in a regular guild to have any say over bank tabs. Now I just have my personal guilds. Dawnstrider Tribe has all six standard tabs, organized as gems, enchanting & elemental materials, miscellany (Outland rep items and other random stuff), cloth, leather & herbs, and metals. Dawnstrider Midden has two tabs for my collection of shirts and common quality RP wear, a tab for cloth & leather transmog gear, a tab for mail & plate transmog gear and weapons, and a “museum” tab for readable books and non-soulbound objects with fun flavor text. House Dawnstrider just has three tabs, again two for shirts and common quality RP wear and a third for crafting mats. One of these days, I’ll get those of my alts on Argent Dawn who aren’t in Single Abstract Noun organized into a Dawnstrider Clan guild….
Ok, for a personal bank, I absolutely love the museum idea! Sounds like otherwise your tabs are set up the same as I tend to do mine.
What is this “organize” you speak of? Once in a while I think I should clean up the bank, I take one look, throw up my hands and wander off.
Our bank tabs are chaos. They are loosely divided but it’s still messy. Donations are the worst tabs because they are higglety pigglety but supplies tab at least has supplies in it and gems has gems etc. But it’s a bit like the Bermuda triangle sometimes – things go in, but they don’t come out and there are things that have been there for years…
Henceforth it is my goal to try to use higglety pigglety in context. That’s awesome.
Guild Banks are very much the Bermuda Triangle. I think half the problem is that people forget to check it when they need something.