Wednesday, May 11, 2011

5. Epic Gems and Mega Gold from Mega Guilds

Anybody hear that? It's an... It's an impact tremor, that's what it is... I'm fairly alarmed here
Dr. Ian Malcolm at the approach of an as yet unseen T-rex (Jurassic Park)

If you listen you can hear it – a distant booming sound, it’s getting closer and it’s getting stronger… it’s as inevitable as the seasons and has the slow and residing power of the deepest of ocean currents. It is the rise of the Mega Guilds. These strange artificial structures have changed the social landscape of the game with many now stating that they are harbingers of WoW’s ultimate doom. Rewards and achievements come quicker the more guildies you have – by the time Blizz capped these monsters many already had over 1000 members.
 
The effect of this odd imperative to ‘require’ players to become socially cohesive seems to have been the direct opposite to Blizzard’s intentions with many members of these behemoths reporting a greater degree of dislocation and “numberfication” with the current guild mechanic than previously experienced.
 
Yes, these guilds do not appear to be player-friendly…
 
… but are they GOLD friendly?
 
Oh most certainly!

Would you build a cabal of JCs from your allotted 10 toons on server? No, of course you wouldn’t, but what if your Mega Guild had already done the work for you?

There are some GMs who are already farming these guilds for the passive income they provide but these guys are thinking waaay too small. In order to make massive amount of gold from your mega guild you need to engage in an more socialistic business model. You must provide for your peons and appropriately reward your farmers and crafters.

Let’s get specific. You have a 1000 member guild with a large core of raiders. There’s almost certainly a sufficient number of min/maxers to have JC maxed on at least 10 toons. At peon level you have your rank and file – these guys have joined for the 10% levelling / PVP bonuses but they also provide passive income to the guild’s coffers. This income either purchases directly, or is leveraged to purchase, ore. Next are your farmers who are paid a hefty percentage under AH listing price, but guaranteed sales. No matter how much pyrite ore is offered you buy everything (and have been doing so for months). Finally comes your crafters. These members need only build about 25 tokens each in their stockpile and suddenly you’ve got a multitude of cuts to place where you will.

Wealth will have to be distributed but a wise GM will not let any one member know the master plan.  Ore will be procured, prospected for gems and cut.  A percentage of profits to the guild coffers, a percentage to crafters, the rest into the pockets of the GM and maybe his/her captains.

And why can Mega Guilds now utilise this strategy where normal guilds could not before?

Coverage. A mega guild will have sufficient toons, when correctly marshalled, to let them entirely cover the JC profession for epic gem cuts. Only the most careful and forward thinking of jewelcrafters will have started stockpiling tokens early enough to match them.

JC is one of the most profitable professions. Mega guilds, and more pertinently their GMs can have the coverage come release of epic gems to take huge profits from the market and establish a hold on the jewelcrafting market on their server that will last weeks if not months into the patch.

RAAAWR!

How about you guys - suspect any Mega Guild action incoming to your server?

: )


Mogul.

1 comment:

  1. It's been 6 weeks since this post, anyone have any evidence one of these actually exists? I'd bet money none exists on my server/faction.

    ReplyDelete