Guild Wars 2

Excuse me for a moment, I think some dust got in my eyes.

Manly dust, mind you. Manly.

The master scribe warned us all.

Well written, Darkis. Sorry you had such a rotten Christmas.
You should post some screenshots. I want to see the frozen fountain, and the asura in his first chair.

I attached a few photos. This is not nearly all that I took. Its enough to paint a picture though. There were so many more things that were in the hall for all to enjoy. In the end it mattered only to me.

Darkis

That was an epic tale of scribing.

That’s scribing.

So, uhh… yeah.

Anet?

Do something? Scribing is pretty horrible.

Not even the most ardent of the blindly loyal can deny the sharpness of your truth sword! It’s double-edge cuts through the sinew and marrow of the matter!

Also, it breaks my heart.

Did it really cost you 27k gold to get to Scribe 340?? O.o

Thank you for that tale, and that warning.

Someone from ArenaNet ought to read this story, but of course they won’t.

Zaxares.5419:

Did it really cost you 27k gold to get to Scribe 340?? O.o

Took me about 2k to get to scribe 350 but that was after they added recipes to use and upgrade resonance. I did not go the path of making decoration I made consumables mostly.

If he tried to level scribe by crafting decoration he probably could have spent a great deal of cash. He was also crafting decorations simply to try and make decorations which requires allot of cash.

Scribes and guild halls really are a precarious investment.

I won’t rehash everything that can go wrong with scribes and guild halls but I will say this,

Choose wisely.

In your case, 500 man guild dying like that is so sad ;-(

It’s a strong line of thinking to make guildhalls and scribes a dedicated effort for guilds, but truth is that guilds come and go.

I’ve been in 1 small guild that died
3 medium guilds that have died
And right now I’m in another medium guild

I don’t think [strm] will go away anytime soon but nothing lasts forever ;-(

So, enjoy the good times for when the bad times come you will remember how to find the good times once again and move forward.

MFNTavlok.6802:

So since Heart of Thorns has come out, .

…. I know! .. I’m broke. 27853 gold is gone.

Life is ….

$3,450 USD can buy 138 Gem Cards for 276,000 gems which gives about 27,876 gold at current 100 gem 10.1 rate.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

You have to understand a few things about my story. Yes I did spend 27853 gold. It was not all on scribing, there are mats I funneled into the guild off the Trading Post in order to upgrade the guild. The actual amount I spent on scribing is probably closer to 18k. The idea of the red balloons brought much happiness to us. Of course we stopped at level 32. Even if we hit 34 now, I doubt we would have the mats to get the decoration merchant upgraded.

Our guild currently has 376 members. 360 that haven’t logged on in one month plus. I think one of the biggest problems that led to this, was the split off when HoT came out. We created a ‘sub guild’ in order to have both PvP and PvE missions every week. This created a rift of materials.

In the beginning everyone (500) helped to upgrade the hall. About midway it was 30 of us supplying the needed materials. In the end it was 5 of us supplying mats.

When I started scribing I had 1500 of almost every mat. Now I’m lucky if I have 30.

I started scribing before anyone knew the recipies, and there were very FEW materials in the Trading Post. I farmed crystalline ore for hours at a time doing pod runs so that I could buy the basic decorations to upgrade. Scribing was still broken at the start.

Very few donations were ever received by me from guild members, the most being one person who loved the garden, and donated 500 of each colored dye pigment. They gave me exactly what I needed at the time to make quite a few things. The standard was about 30-40 logs. For the non scribing record, a single item can take thousands of logs to make.

I was asked by the guild leader at one point if I needed gold out of the guild bank. I told her no, because I was quite wealthy. I eventually took 300 gold near the end to make a personal item (I did this with the guild leaders permission, and this was in no way related to scribing.)

I posted this not for sympathy. I regret nothing I have ever done for my guild.

We are still a guild. (Just a lot less active) I even had the few of us that are still around come and read this. I asked them not to post, for the same reason I did not mention our guild name. I mean all of this to ring into people’s minds. For this can happen to anyone. (And I’m sorry X… I didn’t mean to make you cry or feel sadness,)

I post this in the sincerest hopes that people will read it and take heed. It is a very true and saddening story, but in the end we were all happy.

For a time, all things end.

One day, I will have the 99 red balloons in our hall. (But not for the forseable future.)

Darkis

I think a large part of the reason why everybody was happy to chip in at first was because it hadn’t yet sunk in that (just about) everything in HoT requires either massive amounts of cash, or massive amounts of grind. There’s perhaps a handful of guildies in my own guild who I know pour in quite a lot of money and materials and have funded the vast majority of our guild upgrades. I donate what I can, but since I’m going for a lot of the shinies from HoT, donations mean that my own goals would need to be put back. And so I only end up donating stuff that I have a lot of excess of (namely, stuff like Tomes of Knowledge, Mystic Crystals, some of the HoT map currencies that I don’t need anymore), because I need to hoard everything else.

This is perhaps the single biggest flaw with the way HoT’s cost structure was designed. Players are forced to choose between their own personal goals and the goals of their guild. The unfortunate truth is that for many, many players (myself included), the guild must come second. And for the people who choose the other way around, they naturally feel quite resentful over time that “I’m doing all the work for the guild! The others are just reaping the rewards of my contributions!” And that causes strife and friction in otherwise harmonious guilds.

If the guild hall was designed as the main money and item sink, but players could acquire the stuff fairly easily (and didn’t need a lot of it personally), they’d no doubt be quite happy to put their excess towards the guild. ANet has obviously designed everything with the long-term goal of keeping players occupied for a LONG time, and perhaps 3 years down the line, this decision may prove to be the right one. But in the interim I think it’s causing a lot of player unhappiness because it feels like “everything is locked behind grind!”, and ANet should perhaps take a second look at rebalancing stuff before this discontent reaches levels where people start leaving.

MFNTavlok.6802:

I post this in the sincerest hopes that people will read it and take heed.
..

Most posted are buried in this forum in just a few days. People will read what is accessible and usually it is on the first couple pages of the forum.

Zaxares.5419:

..
ANet should perhaps take a second look at rebalancing stuff before this discontent reaches levels where people start leaving.
..

Anet probably made a lot of money with the pre-sale of the expansion and gems afterwards.

It also planned for a declining player base and made the game Free to Play to counter.

With the way this form designed, it can control its messages where new players would not know these stories and relive them.

It is designed to get players’ time and gold with an addiction usually characterized by short happiness and long term pain.

Well of course noone will donate because everyone needs stuff for themselves. I find myself in that same loophole and do almost everything by myself in our guild although I am not even officer
I will probably regret all this effort for the guild one day

Lord of Rings.5371:

MFNTavlok.6802:

I post this in the sincerest hopes that people will read it and take heed.
..

Most posted are buried in this forum in just a few days. People will read what is accessible and usually it is on the first couple pages of the forum.

Zaxares.5419:

..
ANet should perhaps take a second look at rebalancing stuff before this discontent reaches levels where people start leaving.
..

Anet probably made a lot of money with the pre-sale of the expansion and gems afterwards.

It also planned for a declining player base and made the game Free to Play to counter.

With the way this form designed, it can control its messages where new players would not know these stories and relive them.

It is designed to get players’ time and gold with an addiction usually characterized by short happiness and long term pain.

Then, as veterans, we should heed this tale and make sure it isn’t forgotten to time.

This post rang so true in my ears as I’m the Scribe/Guild Hall upgrader for our guild. Take what this post says and consider what a 10 person guild goes through. We started out very excited about our new Guild Hall until reality set in. We have several dedicated people who have donated a lot to the guild and we have made it to level 28. Unfortunately, upgrades have come to a halt because the cost is too astronomical for a small guild (and I guess for a 500 people guild also). Several of our members have migrated to larger guilds where they don’t have to give up their personal goals to support the guild.

We now realize that we will not make our goal of getting to guild level 37 and upgrading to War Room “Supply Capacity” to be able to +5 WvW supply camps. As a small guild that specializes in Havoc parties, we live and die on the ability to carry 20 supply. The new WvW maps have made the ability to run supply even harder.

I have given up on leveling Scribe to 200 (costs thousand of gold) so that we can craft catapults. Yes, we can buy catas on the TP but can’t afford to spend over 1g each (and the price is raising).

I don’t know what Anet’s grand plan is, but apparently it doesn’t include small guilds that like to run havoc in WvW.

Zerg on.

This is the problem with the entire scribing guild hall thing. There’s always going to be a tiny percentage of people that drive it forward. 500 people in a guild and maybe 15 or 20 will end up contributing.

We have a couple of hundred people in my guild. We’re level 34. Didn’t bother with much scribing yet, because the materials you need for scribing, in part are the same materials you need for the guild hall itself.

So instead of splitting stuff up, we’re just working on the guild hall as a long term project and when we have it higher, I’ll work on scribing.

The problem is the pressure it puts on the people who are carrying everyone else. It’s not a good design from that point of view.

We have a number of people in our guild who put stuff into the guild regularly but there are as many who don’t. Actually far more who don’t. That’s why I’m taking my time and telling everyone this is a long, long term goal. Just do a little. Don’t put yourself out there too far.

Some people listen, some give more than they can afford…despite my warnings.

That said, I still love having the guild hall. I’m just not going to rush building the guild hall.

Nilkemia.8507:

Thank you for that tale, and that warning.

Someone from ArenaNet ought to read this story, but of course they won’t.

Because it’s not on Reddit…

My heart shattered

Very well written OP. Touching.

Touching story OP and nicely written. I feel you as i notice a decline of members contributing to the guildhall treasury overtime as well.

On a side note… If you just want to level a scribe up, you can do it for arround 1000 gold (from 0 to 400) assuming you order everything you need on the tradingpost. (buy ordering makes it 1200 gold) arround 60% of the costs are the resonating slivers that you need though…. You need guild unlocks though to be able to craft the things that help you level up for a lot less gold (read WvW upgrades mainly and balloons). Also be sure to include 5 backpacks to get past lv 280-300, and be sure to use a crafting booster.

Crafting decorations makes things a LOT more expensive…..

So i’m at 400 scribe now but i hardly craft anything besides the wintersday ice sculpure, tree and snowmakes since its so terrible expensive for each item…(and we still have more guild upgrades to finish)

Well written and worth the read.

Scribing is not cheap. I don’t think anyone disagrees. I think it will be adjusted over time.

But…..this reminds me a tale from the history books about a city that focused on beatification versus spending anything for defense.

There is a lot of things wrong or potentially outside of your story that is disturbing.

First off in a smaller guild with less than a dozen of us working on the guild hall. We are at level 37. I know how much gold I have put into the process by my own choice and an idea on some others. That said it would have been cheaper if items were not rushed. A lot of people are building guilds fast, but outside of WvW is that needed? If you don’t rush build a lot of the materials needed are items you are already going to acquire over time.

With the amount of gold that you spent on scribing your guild could have potentially been maxed out. How much of the resources were spent on scribing that could have been spent to build out features for the guild.

A key to the halls is engaging your members and making sure that the guild is returning value for the resources that your members donated. Making a lovely garden is nice in the long term, but did you do it at the price of boosts for your guild, vendors that could save them laurels for recipes? What benefit did that provide to the members that funded those items. I hear you when you said you paid for it yourself, but that was choice. I am sorry but just because one can doesn’t mean one should. Leveling scribing follows the same path as any craft in GW2 at its base and that’s what’s the best bang for the buck(coin). People are still figuring that out. Did all of the items you craft add to your crafting level or were things made that were because you could?

As I said I am not advocating that scribing doesn’t need adjusting, but I am also left with the feeling that some poor decisions were made here as well, which could be a mistake on my part. But I do know that you don’t have to craft to raise your guild level and acquire boons for your guild. The more a guild can aid its members the more the members will aid the guild.

Hoping better times for you and appreciate you sharing your experience. Good hunting!

Edit: spelling

I feel for you man. What was supposed to be a glorious and fun aspect of the game (guild halls and guild hall decorating) has turned into an expensive, contentious, guild killing debacle.

I would love to get the meeting minutes for the discussions on guild hall upgrade and scribing requirements. It looks like it was put together by the same guy who initially set the WvW achievement levels (original Yakslapper AP would have taken 10 years straight of killing a yak every 5 minutes (no breaks, no sleeping.))

Excellent story, OP.

This was really interesting to read, and of course really sad… definitely turns me off to the scribe thing. Sounds like something that would be completely out of reach for your average small group guild. I hope this system gets looked at.

How on earth did you manage to grind that much gold without going completely insane in the first place?