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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPaying your dues with guild taxes
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 17th 2007 at 10:30AM
Now that guild banks are incoming to the game, what's missing from our little virtual economy system? Taxes! That's what Noplat suggests, anyway-- he says that now that guilds have a place to store up their own central banks, the next step is to require payments from guild members for various guild running costs.I'm not quite sure I agree-- most guilds don't require anything like this. The biggest costs I can think of simply involve raiding repairs, and not only is not every member of every guild involved with raiding, but repair costs aren't that big a deal anyway, especially with daily quests throwing out money for just a few minutes' work. There may be costs coming in the game (guild housing would obviously require a lot of money, and we still haven't been told how siege weapons might work in guild battlegrounds-- will we have to buy those?), but at this point, we don't really need guild taxes or membership fees.
The closest thing my guild ever did to a membership tax is that they ask everyone to pay a few g to any engineer that drops a repair bot during a raid (to cover those costs), but considering how the new instances are set up, I haven't seen a repair bot need to be dropped for a long time anyway. Does your guild need enough money to require membership fees or taxes? And if so, for what? Potions?
Filed under: Guilds, Odds and ends, Raiding, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Bart Oct 17th 2007 12:24PM
@ 20
With all the fees payed for AH transactions, all the money spent on vendor repairs and consumables/trade goods, I see plenty of sources from which the interest in money in banks could come from.
simeon Oct 17th 2007 12:32PM
Sure, finding gold for raid repairs is never a problem, unless you've got guild members who are too lazy to do dailies because they're too busy complaining about how they never even have enough gold to repair their gear.
Pandemona Oct 17th 2007 12:49PM
My guild "taxes" work pretty easily - we master loot our Kara runs and 25 man raids completely, and all green items are sent to the bank for DE or AH. Funds are then used to support the guild.
No one uses the greens from those runs anyway - it's almost all fodder, so no one even misses it.
Brian Carnell Oct 17th 2007 2:07PM
Some people hate it. Some people like it. So just give guilds the option to have it or not. Personally, I love the idea.
rick gregory Oct 17th 2007 2:23PM
Not really needed. Once you have an instance on farm you can send the BoE items to the bank which can stash them or, if not needed, sell them for gold. REcipes from SSC and beyond are selling for several hundred gold per on my server.
And if you help newer 70s run thru normal 5 mans you'll usually make money since most of the loot will be sharded and, on my server, Large Prismatics are 25g per.
For things like Primals, we've started making this a fun Farm for Guild event where we invade an area, kill every thing, send the motes/primals/whatever to the bank. Have 10-20 people do that for an hour or 2 and you get a LOT of mats.
As for respecs... um, no. One of our tank/healer combos is a couple. They needed stuff, so he respecced to Fury, she to Shadow. The farmed 1000g a day. The respec fees both ways were trivial. No, that wouldn't work for a 5 day per week raiding guild... but see above for how those folks can make money.
Chad Oct 17th 2007 3:06PM
I'm sorry mike. Bad morning and was grumpy, I really like most of your posts anyway. I read this site everyday. Didn't mean to come off as an asshole.
Amanda Rivera Oct 17th 2007 3:09PM
I do foresee a time when guild taxes will be necessary part of guild life when the guild housing system is introduced into the game. At that point maintenance costs for the guild HQ will require everyone to chip in to make sure they still have a roof over their heads.
Mike Schramm Oct 17th 2007 3:11PM
Nono, if you think the site is boring, that's your prerogative. Just wanted you to know that I'm not *trying* to make them boring. :)
jaxson Oct 17th 2007 4:36PM
After reading all the comments about a “Tax” I find this to be a wonderful idea.
I am currently the banker for my guild in Absent-Element, we have 5-6 people who donate to the bank on a regular basis. The ones who donate the most are the officers of the guild. This is the problem I have run into while I do agree that people are usually generous they are just as greedy. We have the ones who donate a mote of this and a mote of that then a week later request 4 primal airs. Or they ask for an epic plan and when you say um but you have never given anything to the bank and you have been with us for a total of three days. They get out raged and say I just gave 3 flasks of mojo the other day.
This makes me laugh I then tell them if it cost more to send then I don’t think the bank wants it. Then they /g quit.
I think the Tax would be a wonderful idea for this fact. I love to help everyone in the game and that is why I love to be the bank. I do think it should work like this, when you receive an item from the bank a tax should be added to the item received. Don’t tax all in the guild just the ones who take and take. Make them pay a portion of what the going rate is in the AH.
How I work the bank now is this, if you ask for the 200 cloth that are in the bank you send half the items you make to the bank. It is not fair to have some one make money on everyone else’s hard work. If you ask for a plan I say make me 2 or three items for the bank.
For some this works for others they take it as a personal attack but in this way I have more gems than I can count and by just as many epic flyers.
Jaxdragon
aisenfaire Oct 18th 2007 1:39AM
I think it will be necessary to add a small tax when 2.3 hits and this comes out (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34113). The mats aren't cheap, and it would be unfair to have one person shoulder the cost over and over for all the raids.
Brian Carnell Oct 18th 2007 9:03AM
"The ones who donate the most are the officers of the guild. This is the problem I have run into while I do agree that people are usually generous they are just as greedy."
Either with or without the ability to autotax, what would be nice would be in game stats to see how much each guild member has added to the bank over say, last year, last month, last week.
Paw Oct 18th 2007 9:37AM
Guild taxes. Another reason for me to never join another guild again.
Why not Guild 50/50 Raffles?
Guild bake sales?
Guild telethons?
I live in a state with some of the most ridiculous and obnoxiously elevated tax rates. Why the hell would I want to bring that part of reality onto a world I go to in order to escape from such mind-numbing bureaucratic stupidity?
Juliah Oct 19th 2007 8:42PM
I think this would only be meaningful if Blizzard does something as idiotic and benighted as charging rent for guild housing in the future, which is, of course, an artificial way of getting money out of the economy.