I credit this sighting to Leiandra’s post from Zanderfin’s Casual Raiding blog. I haven’t tried it out yet myself either but it’s something I’ll check out myself when I can. It looks extremely intriguing especially for raiding guilds who are trying to supply a steady stream of income into their banks. This addon is the brainchild of addon developer walking_fishy.
Premise
Players install this addon. Any amount of gold earned from looting mobs and/or completing quests will then automatically be deposited the next time you visit your guild bank. The guild message of the day automatically sets the collection percentage. If the MOTD contains the word TAX or GUILDTAX followed by the amount, the Guild Tax will automatically make the necessary deductions.
The option is there to completely disable taxation if you’re saving up some precious gold for something (like a mount).
All in all, as a GM, I have to say that this looks like an extremely promising addon. I was thinking about instituting a tithe of sorts but it’s often difficult to ask players to calculate the amount of gold that should be deposited.
Header image courtesy of woodsy
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A good idea, but I wonder why the addon requires the use of the GMotD for shared data. Storing the information in the guild panel would be much less of a hassle. GMotD is a limited and precious space!
Interesting in theory.
From my own perspective I can tell you I would either /gquit or do all my farming and banking on an unguilded alt. I play the game to have fun, not to have a second job.
I donate what I can when I can, if that is not enough then I am not a good fit for that guild.
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@Dechion: I wouldn’t suggest imposing it. There’s different ways to handle finances. Actually, there’s two:
1 method involves a player farming and grinding for their own mats. That’s the most common.
The 2nd method is for players who unfortunately don’t have the time, or the necessary trade skills to get into that. However, they’re excellent raiders and would rather purchase the items from the guild. It’s like a “tithe” of sorts. You pay 50 gold a week to the bank, you get 6 flasks, a few potions and whatever else you need. This addon could help with that.
I’m very much in the #1 camp, I finance my own stuff. But I’m certainly not above donating crafted mats or gold to the guild bank if I know it will be put to good use. I don’t like paying for other people’s repairs though, I think that’s something everyone can easily cover on their own. But if we have someone that needs enchants or mats for a crafted piece and they can’t afford it, I’m all for helping them. I’d much rather help directly though, not via cash deposits to the guild bank.
I’m more than happy to “buy” items from the guild bank though, and I pay the going market rate for them, not some “oh you’re a guildie” discounted rate.
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@Tekkub: I’ve had players offer to pay the market rate and I’ve had players request a slightly discounted rate. Some players have finances well in the upper 5 digits, others only have a couple of hundred gold to their name. It does vary a lot, sadly.
I’m one of the 5-digiters :) In the end, I think that even with a few hundred gold the player can cover their own repairs on a normal basis… I know, I live with one of those few-hundred-gold people. The only things I’ve bought him are epic flying, some consumables and equipment, he’s covered all his other mounts, reagents, and repairs.
Now of course, learning a new raid is a different situation if there’s massive wipes, but that’s the point where I would just offer to help anyone that needed repairs rather than donate to the guild bank. Then again, is “progression” as painful as it used to be anymore? Do people spend all night wiping and *maybe* get past one boss anymore?
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@Tekkub: I can’t speak much for everyone else but hard mode is whippin’ my ass. :(
I’ll leave hard mode to the hard-cores, I just want to see the content, not conquer it. Maybe if I was a loot whore I would… but thanks to my everyday battle against turning into a packrat, I don’t place much value in loot :)
Hey Matty, your comment system needs an option to turn off graphical smilies for your post… some of us “old school” nerds that grew up on IRC hate them ^^
Tekkub’s last blog post..Equipment Manager Fun
Yeah, sorry, but this would be gquit territory for me. (or honestly, I just wouldn’t install the addon)
Gold is easy to come by these days, for guild and for players. There is no reason to pay to be in a guild, and the guild has plenty of other ways to raise money (willing donations, disenchanting, etc etc etc)
I have other problems with it, but most of them are expressed above.
One thing I do wish were implementable is no gold splitting in raids, but that’s neither here nor there.
I think the idea is not to force players to use this, but to encourage it from the ones that want to make donations. Any guild *requiring* an addon from me is an almost guaranteed way to get me to NOT use it… unless of course it’s my own addon ^^
No-gold-splitting would be a wonderful idea really. A simple setting, “all gold drops deposit to the guild bank” is all they need. That would likely solve the entire problem of raising money from guild members. They contribute by doing what they already do, help the raid. In turn, the raid pays for their repair costs.
Tekkub’s last blog post..Equipment Manager Fun
We’ll try a no smiley NSUI for now. I’ll give it a week. But it’s so… bland. Smiley 2.0 is the way to go!
Love this blog, but strongly disagree with this addon. I’ll contribute to my guild if necessary, but dislike the idea of a “tax”
Hello Matticus, the addon sounds very interesting, I wonder if this addon could function as a method of personal savings, for example, use a character engaged in farming and grinding, that has its own guild, being your own GM and donating a percentage of gold as savings. This way you keep an amount of gold specifically for this purpose in de bank and feel free to use the rest in other transactions freely. Although it sounds complicated and unnecessary I think it is a good alternative for people who have doubts about the addon, I certainly would use it this way because I always wanted something like this.
Sorry for the English, I am using a translator and I thank you in advance for your answer.
I wonder how many people that disagree with this mod don’t actually run a guild? As an Officer and Raid Leader of a guild, I wish this facility was built in to the UI way back at the beginning. Perhaps if we get guild housing they could add it then.
I had a good friend who was once in a guild that basically required a “pay to raid” tax, he did it only because he was seeing content at the time, and it was a way the guild used to separate people when constructing the raid. However with recruitment it wasn’t enough anymore to pay the tax, but also had to continuously be tops, use umpteen potions, etc. While in any game its expected it just got too much and he felt like he was working a 2nd job.
Not to mention the guild officership was corrupt and stole the guild funds to buy themselves stuff.
Guild taxes is a risky subject. In my guild we reward people who donate with DKP and it seems to help with keeping that steady flow without making anyone do anything.
There’s lots of people out there who say they are perfectly happy to contribute to the guild, but (usually honestly) forget to. I say I’d be perfectly happy donating to the guild … but don’t usually bother (though it’s not like it needs money right now). As a way to automate my giving – just from my perspective as a guild member – it sounds useful.
I’ve used this in the past. It’s because I want to contribute to my guild’s bank, but like the reminder. Setting a small percentage is an easy way to do this. And, while my GM recommended it for those of us who are interested, it’s in no way required. And the money gets used for guild crafters to pick up rare patterns on the AH or to spot people for their first epic flyer, that sort of thing.
In Fury Untold we handle gbank money simply by AH’ing most BOE’s that drop, and 90% of abyss crystals that we get. We run farm content on off nights to keep the abyss crystals flowing. Sometimes I have to throttle the amount of daily repair money the average raider can withdraw if we have bad luck on BOE’s or shards for the week, but generall our gbank hovers between 3,000 and 8,000 in liquid deposits with another 5,000 or so in mats and other items that I could unload if times got tough.
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I actually was thinking about the concept of Guild Taxes recently, it was something I really liked about Warhammer when I gave that a shot.
Issue is really that people arent used to it so you will get a mass qq about it.
Fact is that despite a GM and the officers doing a lot of good work the gbank is generally going to be added to by those doing the most work to help the guild anyways.
If this concept was to be successful I think the change must come from bliz, a trivial 2-3% tax will not break YOUR budget, especially with the ease that gold can be gathered
:)
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Hmmm… Why not?
If I’m getting (almost) everything from my guild, such as visits (weekly) into “discontinued” Outland’s dungeons from BC and other things which increase amount of “playing fun” then why not to pay some amount to be a member of such a perfect guild? I’m totally agree pay for such membership.
It all really boils down to the word “tax”. No one, anywhere, ever, likes taxes. Had this addon been named “Guild Donation Helper”, no one would be bitching at all.
Quick, someone go make a better version and use that name. No, I’m not volunteering myself.
Tekkub’s last blog post..Equipment Manager Fun
The concept of the addon made me laugh, in a positive way. I think this is a funny thing to do. I would probably find this awesome on an RP server, but terrible on my main (non RP).
I doubt I would ever use it, or put faith in such a system though. My guild uses the gbank for mats and items that we don’t need or mats that we gathered during a raid. Items can be bought at a very reduced price from the gbank by anyone. That has proven sufficient as cash inflow compared to our limited outflow.
@Matt: if people need help gathering and getting their things together, well… there are dozens of guildies available with farming and gathering skills. They tend to offer things as cheap as they can make it. This interaction of help and favors (and returning them) builds stronger social ties than a neutral intermediary tax system imo :)
@Zusterke: There’s different ways to handle the delicate economic policies of guilds. This is but one option. Not every guild has farmers or gatherers at their disposal.
We run the epgp loot system but this could apply to any dkp system: we make a small amount of ep available per week in exchange for guild bank contributions. Flasks, fish feasts, enchant mats or cold hard cash in specified amounts. The points award is capped so no-one is buying their way to the top of the priority list – it’s about 10% of the points you’d earn from a full weeks raiding. No one HAS to contribute, but if you do your efforts are rewarded.
Most of our cash comes from the sale of unwanted BOE epics though.
@Malkie:
My guild is about to implement a system very similar to yours. We’re offering DKP for donations as well as a bartering system, and just need to work out some kinks to make sure the mechanics are worthwhile while not being easily gamed. Capping the reward weekly is a great way to start.
This is a neat addon but it is solely on a volunteer basis for the player to actually have it installed.
Warhammer has something like this built into the guild game. Guilds can tax their players a percentage of what they get looting corpses. The biggest difference is that if want to join a guild its up to you to decide whether or not to accept the fact that it has a taxing policy. In this WoW case, you have to volunteer and be willing to use an addon to do it for you. Its a neat system, but like most people said I would rather farm my own materials then pay into the GBank.
Bruennor
I’m the GM of a guild on US server Eonar-A. We’re not hard core raiders, but we don’t do too badly, either, raiding roughly 3-4 nights a week.
What kind of folks do you people HAVE in your guilds??! My big guild bank problem is to get people to withdraw, dammit! We have all the tabs jam packed full just as soon as I can clear them out a bit, and about 6K in cash. Our tanks and healers have access to the gbank to repair, and most of them refuse to do so, preferring to pay it out of their own pocket. Dorks. I love ‘em, but.. USE IT.
If you have to impose a guild tax, maybe you have other issues.
@Curtana I run a guild, and I disagree with this addon in any sort of “required” capacity. I want people to give willingly and freely, or not at all. Its a game, not a job. :)
@elfennau I think you are the first guild leader I have EVER heard utter those words. Everyone seems to think DBM is *required* to do *anything*
Tekkub’s last blog post..Equipment Manager Fun
@BlackTiger You DO pay for that. $15/mo to Blizzard Entertainment.
elfennau’s last blog post..elfennau: @Kreeoni :(
@Tekkub: Are you kidding? I use DBM to microwave my food. It even does my taxes for me.
If this was a game feature that was established from the outset or early days, then I don’t think people would have a problem with accepting the idea of a guild tax. People would use “No tax!” as a recruitment ploy but a lot would embrace the idea. Guild tithes are integral parts of many MMO’s and I’ve seen many a MUD with such a system.
However, this is not the case. The addon is coming in at a quite late stage and due to the very nature of addons, requires a download from each member to get it going. I think these factors will make most guildmembers shun the idea. I think there may be a guild or two that use it but I can’t see it taking off.
That being said, kudos to the developer as it is rare to find a new* concept in a sea of rehashed ideas.
@Matt: good point. Various solutions to handle guild economy can only be seen as healthy. Still, I wonder how such an addon would be welcomed and used.
But.. like I said.. would love it in an RP guild.
Great addon with an extremely unfortunate choice of name.
Hey, though I would leave a comment to this.
Firstly I would like to thank Matticus for covering this on the site.
Secondly thanks to everyone who commented on it, positive or negative, it’s always been such a controversial issue, with some great feedback.
Even more impressive, everyone here has given proper feedback about the add-on. Instead of just saying you don’t like it and insulting me, you have explained why you don’t like it. This is superb.
It has since been updated quite a bit since that screen shot above. There are now options to turn only collect with guild on for each source of income.
So a few explanations to some questions that popped up.
Necrosia: I decided to use MOTD and guild info pages to set the amounts, as it would keep the rate in plain sight of everyone. Also it means that the guild leader can just add a line to the MOTD of info page and forget it. If the add-on was to pass settings between users, it would mean that the guild leader would have to be on at the same time as every member in the guild. This doesn’t always happen in larger guilds.
Samcen: Is it really an extremely unfortunate choice of name, everyone knows exactly what it is, and what it should do. Although, I have now changed it to something a little more pleasant, Guild Tax, Tithe and Donation Helper.
elfennau: I agree, I never meant for the add-on to be enforced, it should be optional. I wouldn’t join a guild if this was strictly enforced. But there is the option to enforce it if a guild leader does so wish.
Culture: thanks very much, I was very surprised this hadn’t been done before. One of the main reasons why I chose to develop it. As well as using it to learn the LUA and XML language.
Malkie: yea I have been thinking about adding an optional weekly cap. I’m just not sure how it should work yet. Whether the guild leader should set the cap amount or the player.
Tekkub: too late I already re-named it. Plus as I said before, ‘tax’ gets a greater response.