Guild Wars 2

Considering a lot of guilds have been making demands from members to donate an amount of gold a week towards guild halls I was thinking it would be a great idea to add an optional checkbox for guild members to allow a percentage of any money earned from bosses, mob kills, TP sales etc. to go directly into the guild bank, either a set amount like 5% or something guild leaders could set up themselves. This would allow even lower level players who aren’t swimming in hundreds of gold to contribute a little something to help towards building fees.

Wouldn’t work, with multiple guilds allowed like in GW2.

If you would make it so you’d have to pay tax for every guild you belong to, it would effectively trash the entire multi-guild system.

If on the other hand you’d only pay tax for the guild you’re representing everyone would join a “tax evasion” guild (perhaps made by themselves) and represent that everytime they thought they’re not feeling like paying the tax.

Tom Gore.4035:

Wouldn’t work, with multiple guilds allowed like in GW2.

If you would make it so you’d have to pay tax for every guild you belong to, it would effectively trash the entire multi-guild system.

If on the other hand you’d only pay tax for the guild you’re representing everyone would join a “tax evasion” guild (perhaps made by themselves) and represent that everytime they thought they’re not feeling like paying the tax.

Any member that makes or creates a tax evasion guild to literally avoid helping out and growing their main guild is not a member worth having in a guild to begin with. Guild Taxing would be a welcome addition to guild growth potential. However, I don’t think it’s a crucial and necessary addition anytime soon.

As long as it is optional and per-guild based, I think this can work. It would be simply another point to agree when you join a guild. IMO it would be better than 100% rep, because a little money is something you can spare and measure, while your playtime is not.

Sure, why not.
I’d be happy with a guild-wide option for 1% (or some other % we can control) automatic transfer of my character’s gold on kill into the guild they’re currently representing for example.

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

I’m not sure I like the idea at all, as i can see it as another way of promoting mega guilds to get things in game, where small guilds could not compete.

Notsoperky.2348:

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

You mean as in like a guild boon that transfers a small % of money you get from drops straight into the guild bank? Also sounds a good idea.

Triangulator.2867:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wouldn’t work, with multiple guilds allowed like in GW2.

If you would make it so you’d have to pay tax for every guild you belong to, it would effectively trash the entire multi-guild system.

If on the other hand you’d only pay tax for the guild you’re representing everyone would join a “tax evasion” guild (perhaps made by themselves) and represent that everytime they thought they’re not feeling like paying the tax.

Any member that makes or creates a tax evasion guild to literally avoid helping out and growing their main guild is not a member worth having in a guild to begin with. Guild Taxing would be a welcome addition to guild growth potential. However, I don’t think it’s a crucial and necessary addition anytime soon.

The OP want to include TP sales. In this scenario it would be hard to avoid.

My main income is from the TP. I have two personal storage guilds for mats and items. So I have to constantly swap between these guilds to access mats, craft, buy, sell etc.

When does the guild tax happens?
When I sale something?
When I took the gold from the TP?

It would become a nightmare to manage that the correct guild (my main guild and not one of my storage guilds) gets the taxes. :-(

I would be ok with something like this under a few conditions.

1: The player, and NOT the guild, determines what/if any they are donating any percentage of -raw gold- income.
2: You can donate to any number of guilds you currently are a member of
3: Guilds have no way of searching to see which members are donating.

-raw gold- includes

• direct drop gold from enemies
• gold earned in dungeons or events
• gold earned selling things to NPC merchants
  does NOT include
• any transactions with the trading post
• any mail transactions
• any guild stash deposits

I see where you’re at Shylock, and I guess that was a bad suggestion there to include TP sales.

Ummm No just no. Horrible idea. I will give what I want to give and not a copper more. I already put quite a bit into a guild bank for when we do get a guild hall just to be ready. I will not have stuff taken out just because someone wants people to give more.

No.

If you want to force people to give something to the guild, you’re not a guild.
You’re a taxing governement.

Notsoperky.2348:

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

I’m not sure I like the idea at all, as i can see it as another way of promoting mega guilds to get things in game, where small guilds could not compete.

My problem with this is that I have 2 active guilds, one mostly inactive guild from launch that mostly functions as a Guild Wars 1 friends list now, and 2 bank guilds. That means 3 of my guilds would be getting contrubutions that they can’t use.

It’s a good idea. If not taken too far. Something around 1-5 percent would be fine.

Simply have whatever guild you’re currently representing receive a certain percentage of raw cash drops and general merchant sales. Including a TP tax won’t go over well. From what I’ve seen, even in big guilds, it’s a tiny minority of the members paying for a majority of the upgrades.

geekgirlonezeroone.1793:

Notsoperky.2348:

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

You mean as in like a guild boon that transfers a small % of money you get from drops straight into the guild bank? Also sounds a good idea.

This is perfect, I think.

I would think that the better scenario would be, instead of ‘taxing’ members (really people, we don’t have enough of this kitten irl?), reward the guild for the members’ representation. As members play the game, events/monster skills/pvp matches won/towers taken/ etc generate funds for the guild. These fund cannot be ‘withdrawn’ by any means than through applying them to the upgrade system, or perhaps an additional system when we could purchase (for an exorbitant fee) some of the more rare materials needed for upgrades (like sw shovels for example). More players playing together on the same thing equates to more funds generated. Sounds eerily like influence, now does it not?

“But won’t this lead back to people requiring 100% rep!?” We have that issue now, what’s your point? People that are confident in their guild, and their guildies, don’t need to force 100% rep. Besides, this would not remove the ability to donate, nor would it necessarily ‘speed up’ guild upgrading extensively given that favor and aetherium remain hard capped time gates. However, it might help a bit with reducing the feeling that we need to badger members into donating, just by playing, they are once again contributing.

Shylock.4653:

Triangulator.2867:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wouldn’t work, with multiple guilds allowed like in GW2.

If you would make it so you’d have to pay tax for every guild you belong to, it would effectively trash the entire multi-guild system.

If on the other hand you’d only pay tax for the guild you’re representing everyone would join a “tax evasion” guild (perhaps made by themselves) and represent that everytime they thought they’re not feeling like paying the tax.

Any member that makes or creates a tax evasion guild to literally avoid helping out and growing their main guild is not a member worth having in a guild to begin with. Guild Taxing would be a welcome addition to guild growth potential. However, I don’t think it’s a crucial and necessary addition anytime soon.

The OP want to include TP sales. In this scenario it would be hard to avoid.

My main income is from the TP. I have two personal storage guilds for mats and items. So I have to constantly swap between these guilds to access mats, craft, buy, sell etc.

When does the guild tax happens?
When I sale something?
When I took the gold from the TP?

It would become a nightmare to manage that the correct guild (my main guild and not one of my storage guilds) gets the taxes. :-(

Any tax outside of gold from monster drop, dungeon/fractal/raid reward is grossly unecessary and unfair. Why that would be a suggestable “addition” to the game is beyond me. Personal profits from bltc is already taxed, and thus does not need to be any further.

Taxing is not necessary right now. A well organized guild is able to achieve most in game goals and upgrades through effective communication and leadership. Mass inviting newbies in Queensdale all day, every day, and letting them build up your guilds bank unknowingly, is not going to solve the problem of guild hall costs and achieveability by the poorly lead/organized.

Notsoperky.2348:

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

I’m not sure I like the idea at all, as i can see it as another way of promoting mega guilds to get things in game, where small guilds could not compete.

This, and what Lanfear said.

People shouldn’t be essentially punished for being in a guild.

Also, you can’t force people to donate- if your guild is struggling to get the materials for the next upgrade fast, that’s just how it is. The guild halls are meant to take a while.

If anything, there should be incentive to donate (or remove obstacles). Here are some ideas:

-“Donater of the Day/Week/Month”- crown and praise the person donating the most in a time period, in guild chat, with their own rank, a reward or in the Message of the Day.

-“Donater Lottery”- For those who donate, they get automatically entered in a guild-run lottery. For example, lottery drawings are held every week. You get 1 “ticket” if you donate on a day, meaning a total of 7 tickets can be held be each persion.

-Do a poll in guild chat or external media sites to work out which upgrade your guild values most to start focusing on next. By aiming your sites to one spot together, you’ll complete each upgrade sooner.

-If you need a particular material, organise a guild farm for it. For example, need PvP potions? Run a guild PvP session/offer groups for PvP until you reach the amount needed. Same applies for farming materials.

-Are there expensive crafted items that are required but aren’t being donated? Put a message in the MotD to get your guildies to send the necessary materials to a trustworthy officer/leader so they can accumulate materials and craft.

-Material count down: “Just 39 ectos until we can unlock X!” in guild chat, MotD.

-If you want a sort of “guild tax” system, make it some sort of “premium membership” deal. Opt-in, Xg a week and you’ll have a different tag in the roster, perhaps extra perks too. Similar to a previous idea, you could run a guild lottery where half of proceeds will be put towards the guild hall.

But this all being said, I don’t think A-net should add a feature that caters for this. The kind of non-inclusive mentality and elitism that it could nurture isn’t healthy for the game. In a lot of respects, it is similar for people asking for an AP filter in the LFG. Yeah, people will do it anyway, but A-net supporting this idea isn’t positive.

In World of Warcraft they have it set that when you loot things and you are in a guild a small percentage of the gold, silver and copper gets donated to the guild bank.

Should not be hard to do the same in Guild Wars 2. This would resolve the issue of asking guild members to donate.

Kulvar.1239:

No.

If you want to force people to give something to the guild, you’re not a guild.
You’re a taxing governement.

That’s why I said an “optional checkbox”. You don’t read well do you?

@Crimson Clouds I like some of those ideas! I may have to steal them as suggestions for my guild.

Teleniel.1809:

I would be ok with something like this under a few conditions.

1: The player, and NOT the guild, determines what/if any they are donating any percentage of -raw gold- income.

Definitely would need things like this. Otherwise, many guilds would tax 50% or more of income, punish members they think aren’t doing enough or giving enough by setting their percentage at 100% until they deem enough punishment has been meted out, guilds would arbitrarily or silently change the amounts while people are playing or distracted and thus leech more gold from them than they realize, etc.

The list of abuses is endless, so all control should belong to the player not the guild.

I think it is a bad idea to present this concept as a tax. Its rather an “automatic donation”.

Basically I’m very pleased to donate a share of my daily income to my guild(s), but I don’t want to visit the guild bank every single time.

Give me a chekbox I activate for every guild, plus a field where I put how much I’m donating from my gold to said guild. Lets say It allow me to donate between 1 silver and 5 gold every day. DONT TIE IT TO REPRESENTATION. This way I can donate more to my little family guild, and still contribute to my mega big guild with that daily silver, no matter which one I’m representing.

The donation is automatically taken from my wallet at server reset time, every day, but ONLY IF I HAVE PLAYED THAT DAY. I can interrupt the payment whenever I want.

Guilds have the right to ask for a fixed amount, but that is all. The guild members must agree on the amount of the donation and whoever doesn’t comply, could be amonested in some previously agreed way.

I’m choosing the option to never check the box now.

When I donate to my guild I send my donations to an officer so that it is known I am a contributing member who supports the guild and their current direction of leadership.

Would you allow a check box along side of your paycheck to send a percentage of your earnings to your Bowling Team or Softball Team?

Same thing.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Teleniel.1809:

I would be ok with something like this under a few conditions.

1: The player, and NOT the guild, determines what/if any they are donating any percentage of -raw gold- income.

Definitely would need things like this. Otherwise, many guilds would tax 50% or more of income, punish members they think aren’t doing enough or giving enough by setting their percentage at 100% until they deem enough punishment has been meted out, guilds would arbitrarily or silently change the amounts while people are playing or distracted and thus leech more gold from them than they realize, etc.

The list of abuses is endless, so all control should belong to the player not the guild.

That’s not at all a problem with the system. That’s a problem with the guild. We used a tax system for years in EVE, everyone did, and when you started trying to shady shenanigans all over it you lost your members pretty darn fast.

As long as it notifies people of changes, it should be fine. We have a system in place that already does that with big giant letters when the guild levels up. Just have it print tax changes. If members are offline, have it send a system mail.

If some guild jacks up your taxes, leave. If you don’t want to pay taxes, join a guild that doesn’t use them.

Seems like a pretty simple and optional system.

This is an absolutely terrible idea.

Having a guild generate money from it’s members will only lead to more guild spamming in map chat, and eventually guild selling. Remember folks, a guild is ultimately owned by one person, and they can do what ever they chose with it.

It happened in WoW with the “Cashflow” perk, and it was such a fiasco that they completely removed all guild perks in the last XP.

kurfu.5623:

This is an absolutely terrible idea.

Having a guild generate money from it’s members will only lead to more guild spamming in map chat, and eventually guild selling. Remember folks, a guild is ultimately owned by one person, and they can do what ever they chose with it.

It happened in WoW with the “Cashflow” perk, and it was such a fiasco that they completely removed guild all guild perks in the last XP.

The guild doesn’t generate money in such a system. It automatically debits a portion of each member’s income, and those members are fully aware of how much, and fully notified when that amount is adjusted.

It’s a working and perfectly reasonable system that has been featured in several games. Guild leaders that try to abuse it quickly find themselves with no more guild members because they all quit and find a better managed guild.

Happened to me in EVE. Someone passed a corp I was in to new management, who jacked up the ratting tax to 80% from 5%. The next day the new CEO was the only guy left in the corp.

Triangulator.2867:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wouldn’t work, with multiple guilds allowed like in GW2.

If you would make it so you’d have to pay tax for every guild you belong to, it would effectively trash the entire multi-guild system.

If on the other hand you’d only pay tax for the guild you’re representing everyone would join a “tax evasion” guild (perhaps made by themselves) and represent that everytime they thought they’re not feeling like paying the tax.

Any member that makes or creates a tax evasion guild to literally avoid helping out and growing their main guild is not a member worth having in a guild to begin with. Guild Taxing would be a welcome addition to guild growth potential. However, I don’t think it’s a crucial and necessary addition anytime soon.

This is why I think it’d be a bad idea. I can see this accusation being made against any member who chooses to represent a different guild while their main one (or any that they’re part of) is charging this tax.

It’s all the negatives of the representation system without any real benefits.

geekgirlonezeroone.1793:

This would allow even lower level players who aren’t swimming in hundreds of gold to contribute a little something to help towards building fees.

If this is the intent then I think a far simpler and better system would be for the guild leader to let members know that they appreciate all donations, no matter how small it is and maybe suggest some things like lower tier materials they need which low level players could be particularly helpful with. (Or suggest lower tier materials that sell for more than the high tier ones they need.)

There’s really simple things they can do too just in the wording of requests, like breaking down big targets into smaller chunks: “We need 200g for our next upgrade – that’s just 8g each and anything you can donate would help us reach it!” Or simply omit the numbers: “We need elder wood and mithril for our next upgrade, if you have any you can spare it would be helpful!”

That way it seems less daunting for the members. They can send over 2g or 25 elder wood logs and feel like they’ve made a contribution, which in turn makes them feel more invested in the guild and guild hall and so more enthusiastic about donating in future.

And whilst it may not be much on it’s own it’s more than the leader would have gotten otherwise. Plus it adds up fast: if all 25 members of my hypothetical guild donate 2g and 25 logs that’s 50g and 208 Elder Wood Planks towards upgrades. (And some members are likely to give more than that.)

PopeUrban.2578:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Teleniel.1809:

I would be ok with something like this under a few conditions.

1: The player, and NOT the guild, determines what/if any they are donating any percentage of -raw gold- income.

Definitely would need things like this. Otherwise, many guilds would tax 50% or more of income, punish members they think aren’t doing enough or giving enough by setting their percentage at 100% until they deem enough punishment has been meted out, guilds would arbitrarily or silently change the amounts while people are playing or distracted and thus leech more gold from them than they realize, etc.

The list of abuses is endless, so all control should belong to the player not the guild.

That’s not at all a problem with the system. That’s a problem with the guild. We used a tax system for years in EVE, everyone did, and when you started trying to shady shenanigans all over it you lost your members pretty darn fast.

As long as it notifies people of changes, it should be fine. We have a system in place that already does that with big giant letters when the guild levels up. Just have it print tax changes. If members are offline, have it send a system mail.

If some guild jacks up your taxes, leave. If you don’t want to pay taxes, join a guild that doesn’t use them.

Seems like a pretty simple and optional system.

Personally, I think the player having control is simpler.

Celtic Lady.3729:

PopeUrban.2578:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Teleniel.1809:

I would be ok with something like this under a few conditions.

1: The player, and NOT the guild, determines what/if any they are donating any percentage of -raw gold- income.

Definitely would need things like this. Otherwise, many guilds would tax 50% or more of income, punish members they think aren’t doing enough or giving enough by setting their percentage at 100% until they deem enough punishment has been meted out, guilds would arbitrarily or silently change the amounts while people are playing or distracted and thus leech more gold from them than they realize, etc.

The list of abuses is endless, so all control should belong to the player not the guild.

That’s not at all a problem with the system. That’s a problem with the guild. We used a tax system for years in EVE, everyone did, and when you started trying to shady shenanigans all over it you lost your members pretty darn fast.

As long as it notifies people of changes, it should be fine. We have a system in place that already does that with big giant letters when the guild levels up. Just have it print tax changes. If members are offline, have it send a system mail.

If some guild jacks up your taxes, leave. If you don’t want to pay taxes, join a guild that doesn’t use them.

Seems like a pretty simple and optional system.

Personally, I think the player having control is simpler.

Simpler, yes, but consider the overall problem that’s being addressed here. In the current system you have people in guilds of variant sizes meticulously tracking contributions. It’s an administrative nightmare. A self administrated system has that same exact problem. Your guild leaders or officers are still sifting through logs and auditing who contributes what on top of figuring out how and what to buy with all that money, talking with guild members to determine what upgrades are most important for their membership, etc.

A tax system removes a lot of administrative red tape while making those in leadership roles accountable to the guild rather than the other way around. You take in a member and explain “we have a 5% tax here to help us pay for upgrades.” and that’s that. You’re not constantly telling people “hey it would be great if you could donate X” or having uncomfortable conversations like “I noticed you haven’t really been sending our scribe any shards” etc.

It tends to cut favoritism and leeching in the guilds most likely to opt in to such a system, and it seriously cuts down on headaches that result from the financial cost of running a guild. In a way it’s rather transparent like the influence system was, but retains an element of control and economic balance that the new system revolves around.

In guilds where that kind of thing isn’t a problem, or the culture is different, there’s not really a reason to use it, and people should obviously feel free to establish and join guilds that don’t tax at all, and just rely on treasury and guild bank donations.

This was how the whole thing worked in EVE and it was really easy to get used to. Like in GW2, the majority of your money came from trade in materials/loot/crafting rather than raw currency from killing mobs. The tax applied to mob kills, and thus was a fractional part of a minor part of income. The corp then used that revnue to buy materials, ships, or whatever the corp needed. Some corps set higher tax rates and provided more services. Some set very low tax rates just to cover basic costs. This created an environment where people had a ton of options and it was really asy to gauge the expected contribution level before joining.

PopeUrban.2578:

In the current system you have people in guilds of variant sizes meticulously tracking contributions. It’s an administrative nightmare.

You’re not constantly telling people “hey it would be great if you could donate X” or having uncomfortable conversations like “I noticed you haven’t really been sending our scribe any shards” etc.

First of all, why would any guild keep track of every little thing or amount of money members are donating? That’s a nightmare people are imposing on themselves and doesn’t really seem necessary.

Second, why would a guild want to harass its members for not “sending our scribe any shards?” That’s just a jerk thing to do.

Player have the control over payment, guild have the monitoring tool required to track compliance. Done.

smiling.9028:

I’m choosing the option to never check the box now.

When I donate to my guild I send my donations to an officer so that it is known I am a contributing member who supports the guild and their current direction of leadership.

Would you allow a check box along side of your paycheck to send a percentage of your earnings to your Bowling Team or Softball Team?

Same thing.

I do, every month. We call it “Bienestar” and they are a very common and usefull collective fund that allow people to access different benefits, from participation in sport teams to free vacational trips, courses, medical discounts, etc.

There IS a tracking of my contribution: the only difference is the payment is done automatically, as long as I allow it to continue.

Celtic Lady.3729:

PopeUrban.2578:

In the current system you have people in guilds of variant sizes meticulously tracking contributions. It’s an administrative nightmare.

You’re not constantly telling people “hey it would be great if you could donate X” or having uncomfortable conversations like “I noticed you haven’t really been sending our scribe any shards” etc.

First of all, why would any guild keep track of every little thing or amount of money members are donating? That’s a nightmare people are imposing on themselves and doesn’t really seem necessary.

Second, why would a guild want to harass its members for not “sending our scribe any shards?” That’s just a jerk thing to do.

Different guilds have different cultures. Some guilds expect a more uniform level of contribution than others. This is why such systems are usually optional. Some guilds have only a handful of people that regularly donate and simply support everyone else. Some guild view services as a quid pro quo thing. Some guilds are somewhere in between.

None of those approaches are wrong or particularly jerky, they’re just different style of guilds. Tax systems aren’t really built for guilds in the mindset of “just donate whatever whenever and the handful or rich people will pay for everything” and generally exist to limit administrative headaches in more socialist structures.

What you see as a “jerk move” is business as usual for a lot of guilds, and the members of those guilds understand the reasons why and are fine with it, which is why they remain members. Everyone agrees to a baseline contribution and expects a baseline level of reward for it. People generally hop on board because they’re generally guaranteed higher levels of buffs, services, other guild perks, or simply believe in the ideal that the happiness of the whole guild is more important than their personal ingame goals.

Some people prefer the opposite “I should only give when I feel it’s appropriate and only proportional to my desires and goals” approach, and people gravitate to these kinds of guild when they don’t necessarily care so much about the upgrades, services, or what the guild provides to its members. These are guilds filled with a different sort of player.

Both are valid leadership styles, and simply different types of group mindsets. I simply wouldn’t expect the second type of guild to ever use or have any interest in a tax system. It’s not the intended sort of guild.

My own guild sits somewhere in the middle, and we’ve used tax systems in the past because they’re quick and simple and squash drama among members on the whole “well I gave X so I deserve Y” front when we have a simple way to just make sure there’s a fair contribution and expection for everyone.

Ardid.7203:

I think it is a bad idea to present this concept as a tax. Its rather an “automatic donation”.

Basically I’m very pleased to donate a share of my daily income to my guild(s), but I don’t want to visit the guild bank every single time.

Give me a chekbox I activate for every guild, plus a field where I put how much I’m donating from my gold to said guild. Lets say It allow me to donate between 1 silver and 5 gold every day. DONT TIE IT TO REPRESENTATION. This way I can donate more to my little family guild, and still contribute to my mega big guild with that daily silver, no matter which one I’m representing.

The donation is automatically taken from my wallet at server reset time, every day, but ONLY IF I HAVE PLAYED THAT DAY. I can interrupt the payment whenever I want.

Guilds have the right to ask for a fixed amount, but that is all. The guild members must agree on the amount of the donation and whoever doesn’t comply, could be amonested in some previously agreed way.

An automatic donation is a tax. Let’s not sugar coat what it would really be.

Kulvar.1239:

No.

If you want to force people to give something to the guild, you’re not a guild.
You’re a taxing governement.

Agree with this,

If guild members are not contributing to the guilds on there own free will kick them and find ones that will.

make it a voluntary thing that can be publically seen in the roster

JediYoda.1275:

Kulvar.1239:

No.

If you want to force people to give something to the guild, you’re not a guild.
You’re a taxing governement.

Agree with this,

If guild members are not contributing to the guilds on there own free will kick them and find ones that will.

Or, you know, have a completely optional system that makes it easier for prospective members to understand expected contribution levels from the jump that you’re completely free not to use.

I may not be how you personally run your guild, but some guilds do actually prefer to function like a taxing government because it lets leaders and officers sped less time double checking contributions or mediating drama over “Well I donated 50 shovels last week and he hasn’t given anything at all” and it makes leadership more accountable to its members as public servants.

Optional is the key word here. Of course some people would prefer not to use it, which is why nobody’s suggesting it be mandatory to use.

Different guilds have different social structures and methods of organization.

Not a tax. Just make it so you get a bit extra coin when looting (say 5%) and that extra bit is distributed evenly among any guilds you’re a member of. If you are a member of no guilds, you don’t receive the extra bit at all.

As in, you don’t lose money. Your guild gains money.

Seera.5916:

Ardid.7203:

I think it is a bad idea to present this concept as a tax. Its rather an “automatic donation”.

Basically I’m very pleased to donate a share of my daily income to my guild(s), but I don’t want to visit the guild bank every single time.

Give me a chekbox I activate for every guild, plus a field where I put how much I’m donating from my gold to said guild. Lets say It allow me to donate between 1 silver and 5 gold every day. DONT TIE IT TO REPRESENTATION. This way I can donate more to my little family guild, and still contribute to my mega big guild with that daily silver, no matter which one I’m representing.

The donation is automatically taken from my wallet at server reset time, every day, but ONLY IF I HAVE PLAYED THAT DAY. I can interrupt the payment whenever I want.

Guilds have the right to ask for a fixed amount, but that is all. The guild members must agree on the amount of the donation and whoever doesn’t comply, could be amonested in some previously agreed way.

An automatic donation is a tax. Let’s not sugar coat what it would really be.

Sorry, you are wrong.

A tax is a long term, mandatory payment determined by law which no one can avoid, negotiate, reject or choose, wich benefits the country you live on without consulting you its final application.

A voluntary system that we can choose, negotiate and dismiss at any time, and whose concrete benefit can be directly chosen by us within a person-to-person talk is not a tax.

Labjax.2465:

Not a tax. Just make it so you get a bit extra coin when looting (say 5%) and that extra bit is distributed evenly among any guilds you’re a member of. If you are a member of no guilds, you don’t receive the extra bit at all.

As in, you don’t lose money. Your guild gains money.

That’s kind of problematic because it’s literally generating money from nowhere. It has the same problem as the old influence system. It grants reward simply for having more members and requires no corresponding cost. With an optional taxation system a small guild can easily opt in to a higher tax rate if their members want to remain small but speed up upgrade process and still progress economically at the same rate as a larger guild, the same way they can with donations.

When you generate that gold from nowhere, it doesn’t really change the cost of anything. It simply causes the value of gold to lower, causing inflation where everything on the market simply costs more. This results in expenditures that arre about the same as they are now for guilds, but for players without guilds everything becomes more expensive.

You should want to join a guild because it goes you something extra, not because not joining a guild actively makes the game worse for you. Generating free money would do exactly that, and lead to the same massive imbalance in cost and ease of use the influence system had, essentially killing the system for small guilds.

The way upgrades work now, they’re subject to the general economy of the game. In a tax system, you’re effectively having people “auto-donate” a certain amount. That doesn’t change the amount of gold in the economy, nor does it change the real cost of upgrades.

It’s also completely optional, meaning that if your guild has a culture where you simply rely on donations or have a few rich people that don’t mind supporting everyone you can still do that without any adverse effects on the game’s economy.

Generating more gold is never the answer. A taxation system simply makes auditing and collection more streamlined for people that choose to use it.

people would still complain about the 5% being too small…

Me and my guild had no problem with donating, in fact we do it weekly right after we finish our guild missions .

also we are free to donate however we want, from 1,2,5,10,15,30 gold whatever and it works just fine. Some donate 1, others a “fixed” 10 gold per week and some even donated a flat amount of 100 gold right off the bat the first week

Ardid.7203:

Seera.5916:

Ardid.7203:

I think it is a bad idea to present this concept as a tax. Its rather an “automatic donation”.

Basically I’m very pleased to donate a share of my daily income to my guild(s), but I don’t want to visit the guild bank every single time.

Give me a chekbox I activate for every guild, plus a field where I put how much I’m donating from my gold to said guild. Lets say It allow me to donate between 1 silver and 5 gold every day. DONT TIE IT TO REPRESENTATION. This way I can donate more to my little family guild, and still contribute to my mega big guild with that daily silver, no matter which one I’m representing.

The donation is automatically taken from my wallet at server reset time, every day, but ONLY IF I HAVE PLAYED THAT DAY. I can interrupt the payment whenever I want.

Guilds have the right to ask for a fixed amount, but that is all. The guild members must agree on the amount of the donation and whoever doesn’t comply, could be amonested in some previously agreed way.

An automatic donation is a tax. Let’s not sugar coat what it would really be.

Sorry, you are wrong.

A tax is a long term, mandatory payment determined by law which no one can avoid, negotiate, reject or choose, wich benefits the country you live on without consulting you its final application.

A voluntary system that we can choose, negotiate and dismiss at any time, and whose concrete benefit can be directly chosen by us within a person-to-person talk is not a tax.

The tax would be a law of the guild which if I wanted to stay a member of it I wouldn’t be able to avoid it without risking getting kicked from the guild should I be discovered (ala jail time and fines for tax evasion). Any gold given to the guild would be used for guild upgrades and events (the benefits). And the guild would not consult me on how it used my gold, just like the government doesn’t consult me on how to use the money I give to them.

Therefore, it is a tax.

Vukorep.3081:

people would still complain about the 5% being too small…

Me and my guild had no problem with donating, in fact we do it weekly right after we finish our guild missions .

also we are free to donate however we want, from 1,2,5,10,15,30 gold whatever and it works just fine. Some donate 1, others a “fixed” 10 gold per week and some even donated a flat amount of 100 gold right off the bat the first week

True, though for some it would be fine.

I support this kind of system, but in order for it to work it has to be both customizable and optional. People who don’t like the idea of taxing guild members shouldn’t have to. People who want to go full marxist and have 100% taxes should have that option as well. people who want to go somewhere in between should also have that option.

Heck, there are a lot of good points for user-set “donation rates” and while I don’t see how that would be any different from the current donation system, why the heck not.

Just some checkboxes at the treasurer:

• Guild tax rate (type in percentage, uniform for all members)
• Voluntary tax rate (members can use NPC to set their own)
• No taxes (tax functions disabled, will not accept member tax settings)

That should give everyone an option for automating (or not) however they like.

The flat daily rate is problematic just from a software design standpoint. If you’ve told the system to donate 1g a day when you play, what constitues ‘play’ ? logging in? being online for a certain amount of time? Do we turn it off if you’re too broke? Do we need to make exceptions for days you spent lots of money? There are too many variables and special cases here that ultimately lead to a more obtuse system that has those members spend more time fiddling with donation setting than if they just turned it all off and manually donated.

The automated options being directly deducted from earnings is far simpler and automatically scales. Having it deduct from sources of income equal to everyone also makes it more fair, and thus less likely that you’re requiring people to tweak it all the time. If you use the personal option to set, say, 10% of your earned gold to donate, you’re not really likely to feel a need to change that if it doesn’t have the potential to eat a large chunk of the precursor you just sold on the TP. Earned gold (from mobs and events) is an equal income for all players, so its pretty easy to "set and forget’ a rate either at a guild wide level or a personal level.

And that’s really the point of such a system. It’s supposed to make it easier to donate/collect donations. if it’s something you feel the need to fiddle with daily as a guild officer or member then it’s a pointless system more complicated than just manually donating to the bank or treasury.

kurfu.5623:

This is an absolutely terrible idea.

Having a guild generate money from it’s members will only lead to more guild spamming in map chat, and eventually guild selling. Remember folks, a guild is ultimately owned by one person, and they can do what ever they chose with it.

It happened in WoW with the “Cashflow” perk, and it was such a fiasco that they completely removed all guild perks in the last XP.

We all ready have guild selling…have you not seen LFG lately? I’ve seen a few “Selling guild for 2000 gold, PM for details!” or something to that effect

geekgirlonezeroone.1793:

Considering a lot of guilds have been making demands from members to donate an amount of gold a week towards guild halls I was thinking it would be a great idea to add an optional checkbox for guild members to allow a percentage of any money earned from bosses, mob kills, TP sales etc. to go directly into the guild bank, either a set amount like 5% or something guild leaders could set up themselves. This would allow even lower level players who aren’t swimming in hundreds of gold to contribute a little something to help towards building fees.

Can you imagine the support requests about this?

• Our GL suddenly decided to double the tax without consulting
• We dropped the tax, but our guildies claimed they lost the same amount.
• I suddenly lost gold, can anyone tell me why? I’m in 5 guilds — does that matter?

And so on.

I can see reasons why guilds would want to get money from their members, but not any reason why ANet should enable a one-size-fits-all feature that won’t serve any one that well.

Instead, guilds have many ways to raise funds:

• Hold lotteries.
• Ask for donations.
• Tax officers only — easier to track (and often, tho not always, they have more gold than the rest)
• Asking during g-mish, when the people who most benefit from being the guild are present.

All of those things can be done today, without help from ANet.

Well I’m seeing a lot of agreeing and disagreeing and some alternative and more creative ideas here as well as concerns over how my original ideas could be abused or faltered by the multi-guild feature. I’m happy to see people putting their thinking caps on and coming up with pros and cons on how to help a growing guild progress, so I’d like to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and feedback. Please keep the concerns and suggestions coming, but please also keep it clean and friendly and respectful.

Really it’s not hard to:

1) Note how much gold you have on Monday (like in a note on your desktop)
2) Play the game
3) Note how much gold you have Sunday
4) Subtract the difference between Monday and Sunday
5) multiply by x%
6) Then deposit in the guild vault.

Total time spent: 2-3 mins per week (unless you’re really bad at math)

I use the guild hall so often now. One trip a week to the guild vault isn’t hard plus some simple math. Would rather see dev time into something better or bug fixes. Something that takes maybe 2 mins extra out of your week would take a substantial amount of time to develop if it was automatic. Plus that also makes things more complicated and opens it up to bugs such as the tax being implemented and it poofs into thin air.

So no thanks. Not that I think Anet would ever consider something like this in the first place. If you really think about this it makes no sense.

As long as it is optional then I totally love this idea!

Notsoperky.2348:

Rather than make it a tax, make it something the guild gets automatically as a result of you being a member and doing things in game. If you are a member in 5 guilds then it’s split 5 ways.

I’m not sure I like the idea at all, as i can see it as another way of promoting mega guilds to get things in game, where small guilds could not compete.

Gold gains would just end up being rebalanced around that new number, and reduced in order to prevent inflation. All that does over a tax is penalise people for not being in a guild, it just sounds nicer from a PR standpoint, but in practice it’s way worse.

Only if there is a Tax Refund at the end of the year.