My Merchant/Farming Guild Idea: Revised and Revisited

NOTE: this is not a sorry attempt to promote my guild (infact it died and i abandoned it). I will however take statements and information that i had used (and saved) on my currently dead guild's forum and on my computer. This post may be copied and distributed as long as credit is given where it is due. Ideas and thoughts are the author's (me).

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PART I
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I have posted my idea for a merchant/farming guild months ago (which i later created) but came across many difficulties. I will now attempt to revise my merchant/farming guild idea (taking into consideration GW:F).

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PART II
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Originally I had planned to incorperate an open market system and an auction house. However, since my initial plans, Guild Wars (Gaile Gray and The Frog) has announced that it has taken intrest in an auction house system for Guild Wars. Thus I will not persue that course of action. However, new ideas in Guild Wars:Factions may still allow my open market system to not only work but thrive.

In addition to my plans to have an open market system and an auction house, I had planned to also incorperate a "loan" system. I will still try to play on the idea of a "loan" system on Guild Wars but it may be too hard to regulate due to Guild War's "Supply and Demand" type of economy.

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PART III
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In any case, heres some info on how my merchant/farming guild ran:

First off, I would lay out the benefits of joining a merchant/farming guild..
(taken from my saved notes)

Then I would explain what is needed of members...

NOTE: Yes, for a sucessful merchant guild to work correctly, the guild must have a steady income. However, with some calculations, a sucessful merchant guild should be able to make money AND be able to reimburse its members on a regular basis (monthly, semesterly, etc). Proof should also be given through calculations to ensure that members ARE (if they are willing to abide to the merchant guild rules) benefiting in the long run by investing their money/items into the guild.

In addition to the Cost/Benefits of a Merchant Guild, possible recruitees should know what positions are open in the guild and what each position does.

Example:
NOTE: Yes, incase you are wondering, from my viewpoint it is important and key that the guild has a large number of members and an organized structure. However, a max number of members are not needed and a merchant/farming guild should be able to run on about 30 members (the more the better). Also if you were wondering, yes i know i made a mistake when i originally typed this a few months ago (the max is 100 members).

I would like to point out one last thing before I move on to explain in detail about my Open Market System, Revised Auction House System, and Loan System....Recruitment.

One of the first challenges that I found while creating my guild was finding enough dedicated people willing to spend time to build up the guild. I found that an effective way was to create a GUILD APPLICATION. A Guild Application would consist of basic information (Name, IGN, Location (key), Age, Etc) and some advanced information (why you want to join guild, what services can you provide, etc). At the moment I don't really want to post my old Guild Application (because I may use it in the future since I planned it well).

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PART IV
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Here I will explain the various Ideas that i came up with months ago for a merchant/farming guild (now revised).

-The Open Market System-

What It Is: An area designed specifically for selling specific items (high end, custom dyes, bulk materials) to customers. Think Sams Club or Costco.

How It Works: Guild members are stationed in various outposts and invite players to the designated area (guild hall) for a fee (my fee was designed to be 1k). Once the player is in the designated area, he/she could buy items from guild members (one per item type (ex. Custom dye trader, high end weapon trader, bulk supply trader, etc)) for lowered prices (lowered prices are available ONLY if the guild is getting enough players buying from them so that the entry fees make up for the lowered prices. However, if the guild cannot meet this condition then the items should be sold at current market prices). The player will then have approximately 24 hours to use their invite before it expires (the player will then have to buy another invite).

The Mechanics:
Entry Price (note that it costs money to invite people)= A
Market Price of Item = B
Number of Players Invited = C
Final Item Price = D
Final Income = E
Discount (only apply if guild can afford it) = F (ex. 25% off = 3/4)

To Calculate Final Price of an Item: D = B * F
To Calculate If Discount can be Afforded: E > A + (B * F)
(If discount cannot be afforded...use your brain and alter prices or entry fee)

How It Can Fail: You have 50000 people screaming "HURRY THE @*#$ UP" or not enough people.

-The Auction House System-

What It Is: An auction house. Think EBay.

How It Works (origional, without the Guild Wars auction house plan): Set a time and date on your guild's forum for when an auction shall occur. In addition, list what items are up for auction (I sugest high end items or bulk materials such as Ectos, Shards, Parchment, etc) and be sure to list the starting prices of the items (should be low since it is, infact, an auction) and the reserve price (AKA CURRENT MARKET PRICE OF THE DAY OF THE AUCTION). Be sure to have those that are interested in joining the auction post on your thread.
When the day of the auction arrives, You will need someone to collect a fee from the people interested to get into the auction (ex. 500g, 1k, etc). This way your guild benefits from the auction even more! After that, just follow standard proceedures.

The Mechanics:
Starting Bid - Should be low since you plan on AUCTIONING it.
Reserve Price - The price to meet (usually market price)
The Goods - Should be enticing and should be aimed at the high end buyers.
Price Incrament - Should match the item(s) you are selling (ex. 10k item, Incrament should be about 500g or 1k)

How It Can Fail: Auctioners Don't Show Up Or Lack of Intrest.

The 10 Second Wait - When there is a pause in the auctioning of an item when no-one is out for buying the item at a higher price, Count 10 Seconds Then say, "SOLD TO _______ @ ____K) If however the top bidder can't pay for his item, the item is then sold to the person with the highest bid below him.

How It Works (GW:F Auction House Way): Follow standard proceedures for the auction house (since we have no details on this yet we have to wait and see, but im guessing its going to be like GWG's auction or EBay's auction). Item goes to highest bidder. Simple.

How It Can Fail: [More Info Is Needed On The GW:F Auction House System]

-Loans-
What It Is: Your guild gives a player gold in exchange for an Item of Equal or Greater Value. Think Bank Loans Meet Pawn Shop.

How It Works: The player that wants a loan should be trusted (known by either you or one of your trusted guildmates). A time and date should be schedualed for a meeting with the player. During this meeting the player should specify how much gold he/she will require and how long it should take to pay the loan back. Also, a timeframe should be decided on to decide when the loan becomes void. The way this loan system works is that the player will give the guild an item/items greater than the loan (the guild should take into account the constant fluctuation in prices due to the supply/demand style economy in Guild Wars) and the guild will then give the player his desired loan (yes this basicly means its not a "true loan" but its more like a pawn shop). The player will then have a specified amount of days to pay back the loan before intrest goes into play (this is called a grace period). After a specified date (decided upon by the guild and the player), the loan will become "void" meaning that the item then belongs to the guild (intrest must still be payed by the player if he/she wishes to take out another loan in the future). If the loan becomes "void" and the intrest on the loan is not payed off, that player will be blacklisted (he/she will not be able to take out another loan).

The Mechanics:
Loan - money lent out to the player in enchange for an item/items of greater value (with price fluctuation taken into account)
Grace Period - Timeframe given to player to pay back the loan before intrest kicks in
Void Date - Date agreed upon by the guild and player when the item/items given to the guild in exchange for the loan will become the property of the guild. Intrest must still be payed (for wasting the guild's time) and if it isn't payed within 7 days, the player will then be blacklisted.
Blacklisted - player can no longer associate with the guild.

How It Can Fail: The item/items the player loaned droped its price BEYOND what was estimated therefore losing your guild money.

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PART V
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In conclusion, I would like to restate that quoted statements are MY actual statements that I myself have written in the past for my guild (in which I was guild leader...to clear up sone issues). This post may be reprinted and/or distributed as long as credit is given to me, the author. I would also like to go on to say that I have written this to the best of my 18 year old brain's ability (ill probably update this sometime or another). For all of you planning on creating a Merchant/Farming guild, Best Wishes

-Tsunami Rain

Questions? Comments? Drop me a PM or post.

--edit--
On second thought maybe this should go in the Community Works section *not sure*.

Err..right now I'm kinda dazed..I think I got all of the information that i wanted to get across out. I'll re-read it for errors and incomplete thoughts in a bit. Questions and Comments are appreciated (harsh is ok with me. no flaming though).

Sounds intresting, the only real problem I would see would be regulating it...However I like my Guild so I don't think I'll be switching ships anytime soon.

regulating a guild of that size is considered hard (but hey, a lot of top guilds have OVER 100 people). The way i kept track of the flow of items and gold in my guild was through a spreadsheets (even though it didn't last very long). Co-operation and a good thinking ability helps.

I also checked over my work and I think I got everything right. If someone spots a flaw please correct me

Well I've got to say this would be an amazing achievement if you could pull this off. It definitely would take a lot of effort. The main issue would be getting non-guildies interested in your market/auction things in your guild hall. So basically since you're turning a guild into a large-scale business you'd have to get your name out there and also have a constant stream of merchandise, which means you'd have to study and learn the best ways to farm. Things like how you can't just farm the same thing over and over again without doing anything else. The drop rate will eventually decrease and get crappy. You'd have to find a way to optimize farming and a bunch of other stuff like that. I think if you're dedicated to this you should go for it. If you can pull this off you'll become quite the infamous guild. This would definitely be something with an extremely slow start, but I can see this working out quite well after the long hard road of building a foundation.

Well after my initial trial about a month and a half ago...It seems that its impossible to just slap all of these preposals down at once. I believe the best solution would be to just start a "normal" farming guild. Once the guild becomes sizeable, the guild leader can add on things little by little. This might also work if just one of these three ideas are incorperated into an already large functioning PvE guild. Then again, I'm not too sure since I haven't fully tested everything yet.

Also, yes I'm quite aware of the "anti-farming string" on Guild Wars. It could be delt with like how most people deal with it now. UW still takes a while to farm meaning that it wont get "over farmed" as easily as say, Griffon farming. Although, UW farming is more high end than say material farming. Material farming usually requires rezoning which triggers the anti-farming string. In anycase, I would think it would be best to switch between similar farming runs (ex. UW and FoW or Griffon and Hydra). I don't know you make my brain hurt

The loans idea seems pretty forgetable to me, too big a headache.
And auction would die not only beacuse anet have one in the works but also if your main business plays out well enough, auction would become obsolete.
The guildhall used as a private merchant row that undercuts typical player and npc prices is definately an attractive feature, building up enough trust in potential customers however sounds like a long road to travel, 1k entry seems excessive, 100gold to cover invite is enough, if your prices are good then profits will come from that and the farmers will get enough in gold drops alone to cover their own expenses easily.

By your own admission it's already gone wrong once but what if it goes right?
What is the ultimate goal of this guild? If it turns into a runaway success and you end up with more money than you can hold. Do you make it your mission to price items ever lower to find that perfect balance where you break even.
(obviously not as low as to allow people to buy from you and sell to npc for their own profit)

Such a utopian idea is perfect, source of cheap everything, market crashed to the point where nobody needs to farm anymore, ebay sellers are frozen out of the game, imagine paying the ID price for that "godly" equipment

The single biggest problem you face is trust in your own people. This whole concept is open to a lot of scamming. It is a noble end goal imo, certainly a boring way to play GW but I know there are poeple crazy enough to want to roleplay as a merchant etc. I wish you the best of luck finding them.

Yeah the trust factor would become a large factor in making the market idea work out. My main mistake was trying to build up all three of these ideas at the same time. I believe that some of these ideas COULD work if a guild were to focus primarally on only one of these three aspects (over time that is...slowly forming a farming guild into a merchant/farming guild).

it's been quite a while. I've decided that now that I have a lot of time on my hands (being done with highschool and all), I'm going to revisit this idea.

Changes: smaller scale, less people
Droped: Auction house, loan system

wish me luck. If it works out good I'll write up another report.

....i have a feeling this failed terribly.

*cough*

i dont much like your system at all to be honest with you, many reasons and flaws. Instead of the laonds if you just keep the money you put in you wouldnt need loans. I myself a runner always feel jipped giving out free runs, even to guildies because its a waste of time. People could go to your auction house and make bids high like in the guru auction house and but a hale staff head +30 to a billion gold, you should only be allowed to bid if you have the money and if while in a bid you go below what you bid it automatically withdraws you.

Idea needs revising.