Greedy Goblin

Thursday, September 15, 2011

I own your guild!

Literally:


For 50000 gold I bought the infamous Tractor inc farmin noobs.

There isn't any Blizzard restriction about selling and buying guilds for in-game gold. Anyone can buy any guild that the guild master is willing to sell. The new guild master is then able to invite or kick anyone or even disband the guild. I guess only ninjaing the bank contents are forbidden.

Why did I buy this guild? It's part of a scheme I figured out about cleaning up the dead non-guilds. It seems like a selfless service to the people of the server. However I believe that the owner of the guild has significant control where the people are transferred. Of course they can go wherever they want, but they are in the dead guild because of lack of ideas in the first place, and the guild master can direct them to one guild (his own).

While the Tractor Inc is definitely not the best deposit of good players, so the amount of useful players to get is quite limited, but even a few can make the difference between 1500 and 1700 rating, from where we could lure even more players. Also, for the sake of experiment, any guild will do. Of course I keep on seeking and buying guilds, as I put on an advertisement post on the forums.

The positive in this scheme is that it mobilizes the power of gold-hungry goblins to provide services to the community: by mass inviting they collect players, they sort them and sell them to good guilds. Everyone is happy, as the guild and the player found each other. Also, owners of mass-guilds ran for the gold influx can buy out leaving or less successful competition, importing the playerbase of that guild to their own, increasing revenues and guild leveling speed.

The negative is that it opens the way to EVE style corporate takeovers: a key raider quitting for a higher guild is bad enough? Imagine if the GM selling the guild during progression season to a competitor guild (for fixed spot or a legendary), or simply a griefer buying your guild, sending you an "i own u" message and kick everyone (high level guilds cannot be disbanded)! The possibilities on the evil side - as always - are limitless.

23 comments:

Sum said...

"Imagine if the GM selling the guild during progression season to a competitor guild (for fixed spot or a legendary)"

This is just not how guilds work. People are free to come and go as they please, buying a guild does not mean they'll do whatever you want.

Sinshroud said...

50,000g is definitely a decent price for a level 21 guild.

Now that I hit 1 million gold yesterday I'm going to start guild shopping and invest in a more passive form of income.

Alleji said...

Gevlon probably meant the amount of damage that could be done that way. The guild could be bought and disbanded, or players would find out what happened and leave. Or some of them would, anyway. All of the above results in destroying the raid.

Anonymous said...

Nicely done. Great use of the gold you've acquired.

Dzonatan said...

So basicly your trying to buy out as many lvl 25 guilds and monopolize their perks in order to create a gigantic army?

If this will work out then I cant help but imagine blizzard taking drastic measures to put a stop to it.

Anonymous said...

I think the point is If I were the GM of "topraidguildlol" and we were competing with "dabestrofl" for the race to realm first hc, If I were to suggest to "dabestrofl" gm that in return for 100k gold, officer status and first dibs on the new legendry I would join his guild, bring my tank and ranged class leader with me and disband "topguildraidlol" so the guys I left behind would be crippled in the race (ensuring victory for the realm first...)

Well I suspect "dabestrofl" Gm will be agreeable to debate the point and due to the issue of guild level 1 < Guild level 25 its unlikely the old guild would reform, its members would likely to be cherrypicked over by "dabestrofl" and the rejects will find homes and raidspots in the lesser guilds of the server.

Buy out enough top raid guilds and you would probably force most/all the middle ranking raiders into the sea of M@S filth that infest the giant max member reached lev 25 gold farms for each GM.

Anonymous said...

A recent hotfix: guilds above level 5 cannot be disbanded if I am not mistaken.

Anonymous said...

I congratulate you on your epic level of devious thinking.

chewy said...

Guilds of level 3 or above may no longer be disbanded. Guild leaders wishing to leave a guild will need to promote another member to Guild Master first.

Patch 4.2.0

Riptor said...

how do you plan to "sell good players" to other Guilds? It is not like they are bound to a Guild by Contract or there is is a Transfer Market..

KhasDylar said...

I don't really get what you want with that.
Of course this is good for trolling and showing the M&S army of TRACTOR INC that you can even buy their guild. Okay and what now? What keeps them from doing the same as they did before? The maximum you can do is to demote all former officers, so they can't invite anymore idiots, nothing else.
You say, you want to redirect the good people, possible RGBers and raiders to The PuG - how do you plan this, I ask? Talk to them to go to your guild? If they would have wanted, they would already switch guilds. You plan to threat them with guild disband by kicking everyone? You plan to pay them to go to your guild? How do you ensure, they will keep the rules and how do you know, who's the good player and who's the M&S? Of course The PuG has almost 800 spot, so there's plenty of place to invite people.
If you want to proove anything, you should have bought some more progressed guild - and I can assure you, you couldn't do this. Not Pescorus maybe, but pick any from this list on the first page: http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/eu/agamaggan.

Squishalot said...

What stops people from setting up a guild, selling you active members, then quitting The PuG?

Gevlon said...

@Squishalot: nothing. Every system can be abused. From there it's an arms race between the participants.

Anonymous said...

Dont get me wrong, but what is the point of this move?
You cant force anyone to move to your guild and even if you could, then you cant force them to participate in any guild activities, and if they are in a guild with that name then they must be happy with leveling/achiev runs and whatnot that by your latest post you have zero need of.

And buying and selling guilds is not new, I have bought a couple, of course this was before cataclysm but I think the point stands.

And WTFOMFGBBQQ, I though that my realm had a extremely crappy progression, until I checked the link provided by KhasDylar and I must say that after all it's in a quite good spot in terms of guilds doing raid content.
http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/eu/bladefist

Anonymous said...

I am surprised. Pleasantly surprised with the last 2 posts.

First off, you managed to write a well written complicated strategy in an area I considered your weakness (non casual PvP).

Now this idea. This is something I have not even considered myself. I like the potential of this, your previous 'there are so many social guilds' makes so much more sense.
You can even use multiple guilds for trying different theories in a scientific way. It never crossed my mind to buy different testgroups in game.

You increased the value of gold to me with todays post. I finally have an incentive to get past my 300k gold :) I got some theories to test while using WoW as my platform!

Bobbins said...

In a game where gold is practically worthless it is worth 50k for the amusement value.

How much is the guild worth on a pure asset based? Guild charter signed, bank slots paid, income generated etc?

Backthief said...

Would you call this a slow, steady investment, like saving bonds?

The guild is there, the income from Cash Flow (10%) will slowly pile up. As long as theres minimal activity, you will get your 50k + interest.

Anonymous said...

Why all these "you can't force them" objetions? If you work for a company which gets taken over by another company you are not forced to move either. But if the new company finds your profle interesting and you find the new company's environment interesting things will follow without the need of coercing anyone.

Anonymous said...

50k is a bargain price for such a guild. They get 2k a week from dungeons and tons via cash flow (say 4k for a big guild). This is 6k a week. Only takes 2 months till you play quite.

Except that Gevlon isn't even going to use it for profit in this way.

Anonymous said...

Great idea but one drawback.

For the contents of the bank sure, they are yours if you buy the guild
but the players it isnt so easy.

I sell you a guild whatever the price, and you buy it for the bank and pool of pvp players.

Everybody leaves the guild and go join a new one the owner had just set up.

Icing on the cake though is tho-ugh that if it is a dead end guild then it will have nothing worth anything (M&S aren't normally team players, they horde pointless crap but never seem to know what the best flask to use is, or if what a flask is at all?)

Your solution with what you proposed?

Adrekan

Anonymous said...

I dont know how you went about buying the guild but I have been trying to buy a 20+ ranked guild for two months now. Especially for a cheap 50k gold. Any tips on aquiring them without being burned by the other end taking your dough?

Anonymous said...

I bought a level 24 guild for 75k. It's quite easy... do a /who for low levels (I did mage 1-60). Check which guilds they are in. Check the guilds on the armory. Check the high level guilds in more detail. I found this guild within 5 minutes, it had a GM who didn't login for 2 months and only 1 active officer. I got myself an invite, made a GM ticket, got that 1 officer promoted to GM and bought the guild from him. He didn't even know why he suddenly was the GM ;)

I can tell you though, that even with 500+ members, our weekly income is about 1k gold. Most members are inactive or PvP, so don't think a lot of members automatically means a lot of gold :)

Anonymous said...

I just managed to purchase a lvl 22 which is a butt hair from 23 for 60k, didn't know the gm from adam but he didn't rob me blind, thankfully, and I got the guild and the members and we're rebuilding the guild...gm said he was tired of running it. Guild was slowly dieing the last few months...