Forum Post of the Day: To each according to his need
by Amanda Dean 
Jun 11th 2008 at 2:00AM
It seems the vast majority of drama we've heard regarding guild banks comes from ninja schemes and disgruntled members. Vaela of Hyjal expressed her exasperation with guild banks in the Guild Relations forum. She feels that there is an imbalance between players who donate resources to the guild bank and those who make the most withdrawals. The original poster asked for suggestions on systems to fairly distribute guild bank resources.
The responses focused on cooperation and reciprocity with the guild bank. The purpose of the guild bank is to fun the guild's activities and exchange objects of value. In the end, the system comes off as a communist type of public ownership arrangement, as opposed to the free trade system that rules the auction house. To quote Karl Marx, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Communism as we've known it has largely failed, most likely because people don't fully buy into the system.
Since there are limitations to the cooperative natures of players, guild banks transactions often become the subject of regulation. Mandimuerto of Rexxar suggested the following strategy for distributing guild loot:
Tab 1: Potions for distribution by officers in raids.
Tab2: Guild charity donations, can be taken from the bank in exchange from a donation to the guild.
Tab 3: Raid necessities and niceties such as food, drums, repair bots, etc.
Tab 4: Trade skill necessities.
Tab 5: General junk for grabs within a daily limit.
It doesn't make sense for a handful of players to carry the entire guild. It's fascinating to watch how economics and human nature replicate the larger society in the in-game environment. What is the loot distribution system from your guild?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Economy, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Skyrei Jun 16th 2008 11:49PM
My guild just operates simply out of trust for its members. Altho to gain access to more of the bank you must rank up, you intially cannot even access the guild bank for a few weeks, and only the first tab then. After that we expect a fairly even exchange (A mark for a signet, etc) Or, if u have nothing to offer, just ask an officer.
Xonate Jun 11th 2008 10:09AM
Sounds a lot like my guild. Oh wait, it might be! Hi Sky!
Anyway, as Skyrei pointed out, the higher rank you have, the more access and withdrawals you get per day. The idea is since it takes participation and time with the guild in order to rank up, that everyone who can withdrawal things has put in something, even if indirectly, such as helping in instance runs, or being moral support as we go in and kill things. ^^
For the Guild! Jun 11th 2008 2:27AM
We are very close knit group in my guild, and so we tend to be a bit generous. A bit too generous even!
We tend to stick in the bank whatever we dont need, and any extras of everything, from tradeskill mats we dont need anymore, to potions, to tons of cut jems!
Unfortunately, more people donate than take out, so we have to have someone almost daily go through the stuf and sell whatever has been there too long, or is not useful to anyone.
Even then its usually filled to the brim. And all the gold made in the AH goes to buying more tabs, repairs, and other usefull stuff.
We seem to be definetly more in tune with Communisum when it comes to our guild bank.
Cailleach Jun 11th 2008 10:11AM
I'm so glad to see another guild with the same 'problem'! We should all be so lucky to be in guilds that give more than they take, huh!
Speaking of which, I should go clean out the gbank again - last time I looked we were either full on each tab, or only had one or two slots open.
You're not in Saints of Elune, Eonar-A, are you?
Daniel Whitcomb Jun 11th 2008 2:28AM
My guild was forced to scale back access to the guild bank because of problems with hackers stealing our members' accounts and coming in and cleaning out the bank. So now we do have limits on daily withdrawals.
That said, I think that because guilds are a "smaller collective," assuming you all trust each other well enough, you can work well.
Our guild doesn't make any major rules besides "put stuff in the proper bank tab," and we seem to do just fine.
Rastas Jun 11th 2008 3:07AM
My guild started out as a friend-based guild and even now we are very strict on who gets to join. Therefore also our guild bank is open for everyone (except the less-than-a-week-old who are still on trial) on four tabs and the fifth is only for officers, who may distribute things it contains for people who need them for major upgrades. We have there mats for couple mongooses, some rare gems, primals, rare recipes etc. Since most of our officers are no longer in need of much money we have steady influx of even valuable stuff. We also have some big donators in our guild, who put in stuff almost every day. There is, ofcourse, people who give less, but usually they are lower level characters with less to give.
We usually have a little spring cleaning every now and then, and I as "guild bank officer" try to keep it well organized. Every tab has a theme after which people should place their donations - mostly just to save my time. Tab 2 for example contains alchemy and cooking related material and recipes, tab 3 instead JC, BS and engineering stuff.
People tend to do very little withdrawing, so we've had to sell a lot of stuff and I put extra stuff often to AH. Ofc, the money goes to the bank. I think our system works relatively well and we've only had slight misusage that we've managed to talk people out of. And we wouldn't manage without the bank anymore, no one would have the space for that stuff anymore xD
Freston Jun 11th 2008 3:17AM
It is interesting - But I think the problem could be the fact that a fairly pure capitalist economy permeates the rest of the game - supply is limitless, limited only by the amount of labor put into the game, while demand is ever growing. People buy things that they want, but no one really needs to buy anything - your character isn't going to die if they don't win that auction. Most of all, there's no way to steal in this game - if you ninja something, everyone can see that you did it. This game works the way that classical capitalist theorists wish the real world worked. The guild bank is the first exchange system that both seems anonymous and doesn't work off classical capitalist principles. I'm going to enjoy watching how it plays out.
Daniel Jun 11th 2008 5:14AM
We first started out as a guild of friends with tons of alts but recently we let quite a lot random lowbies and new players join our guild which has led to some problems with the guild bank structure we have.
One day I checked the guild bank log and I found out that a level 19 warrior had withdrawn some Thorium Brotherhood reputation items and a few high class enchanting items. So i decided to have a chat with him about it.
We discovered he had put them on the auction house with the same toon he used for the withdrawal. When i confronted him with the information he said that a friend of him had played on his account that day.
The major problem was that he got promoted to a rank where he could withdraw 5 stacks per day which obviously was high enough to get some valueable stuff in good amount. He asked for a promotion to withdraw some deviate scales which we tought was fine.
No matter how you set up the guildbank it all comes down to trust in the end. Unfortunately you never know what the other player is really like. He could just be playing with you to get access to the stuff you have in the bank.
Greenman Jun 11th 2008 2:43PM
I look forward to the day when "oh someone else was sharing my account" is no longer an acceptable excuse for bad behavior. Perhaps reporting that conversation to Blizzard for action on the EULA violation is an appropriate answer?
Ikarus Jun 12th 2008 12:12PM
Just need to make it clear to everyone in the guild and all new recruits : You will be held accountable for anything that happens on your toon.
Vinna Jun 11th 2008 6:56AM
in our guild we only let officers withdraw from the bank, and because of the guildbank and it's security in mind when selecting people to be officers. Sometimes people do share accounts with friends and family members, we won't choose someone as an officer if they account share. That eliminates that excuse (oh I didn't do that, my friend did)
Also on the last tab only officers can even see whats there, thats usually where we keep boe epics and higly valuable items. We generally offer these things up for rolling after a raid, and don't want people asking for them before we offer them to the guild. This mostly stemed from the very first day of the guild banks coming out and soon as we started putting stuff in and people could see it, it was a frenzy of people (mostly newer people to the guild) asking for expensive items. LoL like we are gonna hand a 1000g+ pattern to someone who joined the guild 3 days ago, I was shocked at some of the people who even asked..
Gimmlette Jun 11th 2008 8:39AM
Newcomers can't access our bank tab until they have made it through the "probation" period. Then, members in good standing can access half of the tabs. We're currently saving for that 2500g tab. Everyone knows what that tab costs and we've had a lot of good suggestions for how to use it. Officers access the other half of the tabs where high end stuff is placed. I have a bank officer who announces the bank culls and AH's or vendors anything deemed not usable or on the tab too long. Members are very generous with donations and we have to frequently cull materials.
We have had no problems with people taking stuff to sell, but that is probably due to our restrictions on what tabs are open to all and frequent bank maintenance. Officers are encouraged to be familiar with what's in the bank, even if you don't do anything other than stick stuff in. We also encourage a "like for like" removal/donation policy which seems to work well.
The one thing we'd like to see is a date stamp on items. When you moused over an item it would read, "Sunfury Signets, 5-24, 5-29, 6-5". That would help us know whether that axe we see was donated yesterday or back in March.
brittwilson Jun 11th 2008 11:10AM
Not that a in game display of this would not be nice, but you can already do this on the armory. Just log in with your account name and password, then go to the bank tab, and you can find out all kinds of interesting goings ons about your guild bank, with a history that goes quite far back.
Borrik Jun 11th 2008 8:57AM
@Gimmlette
I think a better suggestion would be either an Addon or Blizz implimenting a graphical way to see withdrawls vs. donations per guild member.
I understand there is a log on what is going in and out of the bank, but a better way to quantify and display that would be invaluable and help solve most current problems with bank usage. I know it would help out the GM and officers when cracking down on misusage.
Verses Jun 11th 2008 8:59AM
Good article Amanda, loved how you pushed the enveloppe with philosophy.
Anyway, in my guild, only the Guild master and the officers have access to the guild bank, they say: "If you need extra storage either buy more bank slots or make a mule" though to compensate, they actually pay for everyone's repairs and craft the raiding necessities.
Bored Jun 11th 2008 9:02AM
I ninjad my own guild bank because my guild had grown incompetent and I was sick of no progression. Moved servers, started over and finished the game.
I didn't /gdisband though, I /gleader and even left quite a bit of stuff for the fools.
evankimori Jun 11th 2008 9:29AM
The better system I've seen so far with a friend's guild is that there are specified personnel on a team, all specialized in what they do (e.g Potion, Elixir and Flask masters) in the guild. For the guild bank: every member who has been initiated into the Raiders core pays 25g a week into the coffers, in exchange for being granted a set supply of consumables per raid. They raid only 3 times a week due to scheduling so each member is granted a flask or 3xGuardian 3xBattle Elixirs, one stack of each potion and food consumables according to class/spec/raid purpose respectively.
Even though you are granted these as rule once your payment is made each week (you can also pay in advance for the month-which is advised as well), you are required to still supplement these supplies with your own. The golden rule is no begging for consumables, especially if advance notice of the raid was given and you saw it, was on at the time and STILL didn't go out and farm/buy/exchange for your supplies.
All materials contirubted tothe bank are on a DKP/discount rate and are applied as necessary. I.e. you farm mats for the pots/elixirs/flasks - your payment for X amount of weeks is waived according to how much you contribute.
In terms of resist gear, marks, armaments and whatnot: it's up to players to contribute. If someone wishes to have any of these...er...'junk' items as such - you're offered it at a discounted guild price (which is usually substantially lower than AH anyway) and all proceeds go straight to the guild coffers once again.
In terms of enchanting/crafting: once you supply your own mats or are a KEY raider E.g. the Krosh Mage Tank, the guild MT and OT or as it applies to you whatever class and rank you are: no fees are charged but you are required to supply your own mats if you're NOT a raider but if you are a raider and have a good standing with the loot council, it's mostly free with respect to the circumstances. I.e. if the gear/enchant is a definite upgrade and is NEEDED.
If you don't have it: do without it and if you fail your role in the raid - you are penalized as necessary. So far the system has worked for him very well since everything is recorded by the loot council via spreadsheet and seems to be well organized.
slunk Jun 11th 2008 9:33AM
The following does not answer the question put forth by the blogger, but it does address the communist references in the article. These rules are not my wishes for a guild system, but what I believe Blizzard must do, if they wanted to make the guild bank system a complete success.
Blizzard must, start all players off in a guild. They would be called Newbie Guild A, Newbie Guild B, etc...
Characters can transfer guilds, but you can never be guildless.
All items, when looted, go to the guild inventory. The guild inventory, would be the size of all current player inventory/banks.
Players would have no individualized inventory slots. They would only have their gear slots, which only allows them to keep items until replaced, then those old items would go to the guild bank.
To clear the guild inventory, players would move items they felt should be sold, to either an NPC vendor section or an AH vendor section.
When more than 50% of players have put an item into the NPC vendor section, that item is automatically vendored.
When more than 25% of players put an item into the AH vendor section, that item is automatically put on the AH, using the average price the members of the guild decided upon, when they moved those items to the AH section of the guild inventory.
There are many, many more rules to put in place, such as how to handle crafting items, guild hoppers, special events such as opening AQ gates, etc.
This is a radical departure from the way the game currently handles player inventories. I don't think many players from Western societies would be happy with a communal inventory section.
Kaizen Jun 11th 2008 9:52AM
This commy stuff doesn't work because inevitably, a guild roster will be bloated with leeches, kind of like welfare recipients. These people are content to do nothing and still get what they "need". There is no incentive for people who are willing to work hard to do so, as the fruit of their labor would be only what someone else has decided they "need." So, as history has shown, communism is the prefered economic system for worthless slacker-leeches, and the bane of those who are willing to achieve. A society will not prosper under this in the real world and a guild will fail with this attitude in WoW.
Those who contribute should be able to take from the bank. Those who do not should have no access to it and preferably should be removed from the guild.
Just my opinion.
Terrë Jun 11th 2008 10:06AM
We have two tabs for consumable, trade, and gear items, one for lower lv players, one for higher, that allows up to 5 withdrawals per day (depending on rank). We also have one tab for raids with potions and such that only officers and the highest non-officer rank can withdraw from (all are on the raiding team) and one tab for high lv, epic or expensive items that only officers and above can withdraw from. All guild members can see these tabs and may ask for an item if needed.
We ask all guildies who withdraw an item to make a donation, and also loans are available for higher ranked members if two officers agree. Lowest rank (trial rank) may not withdraw at all.
We also keep an eye on withdrawals and the AH to make sure people do not withdraw and sell. This happened alot at first, but once everyone realised that we wouldn't tolerate being cheated (we had to kick one or two people) this has stopped.
Many of the members also donate money frequently of their own accord.
This method works well for us. Everyone gets what they need for their own use and the bank has a steady supply of money.