Administering a Large Trading Guild

Galenus_of_Pergamon · March 2017

Greetings fellow Tamriel travelers,

I founded the "Affluent Traders" guild on the PS4 NA server on Friday. We currently have 170 members (recruiting hard to hit 500) and I feel I am almost ready to start requiring weekly fees to obtain and retain a guild trader.

How does one effectively keep track of promoting and demoting guild members with respect to fee dues? Do I view guild bank history every week and write down on a sheet of paper who has paid and who hasn't paid?

Is there a simpler way of which I am unaware?

Also, how many officers do most 500 person guilds typically have?

Given we're a social/trading guild, I am considering promoting dedicated members to at least the following positions:

Vice President of Veteran Trials- Leader who organizes and runs trials
Vice President of Veteran Dungeons- Leader who organizes and runs vet dungeons
Vice President of PvP- Leader who organizes and leads PvP campaigns
Vice President of Recruiting and Talent Management- Leader who kicks offensive, hostile players, and actively recruits friendly, dedicated players
Vice President of Commerce- Leader who helps me manage guild store access and collects fees.

Any advice on effective guild management tips would be appreciated!

yodased · March 2017

We have google spreadsheets that run off master merchant addons, also trying to combine a trials guild and a merchant guild will be insane for you. Those are not compatible

Galenus_of_Pergamon · March 2017

yodased wrote: »

We have google spreadsheets that run off master merchant addons, also trying to combine a trials guild and a merchant guild will be insane for you. Those are not compatible

Good advice, my friend. We won't be hardcore trials, but casual.

However, given what you said, I need to define my niche. I think we'll be primarily trade with the social aspect being secondary.

Galenus_of_Pergamon · March 2017

Too bad Sony won't allow add-ons on PS4 Pro. I love computer gaming, but I cannot afford a 4k machine right now.

Cryptical · March 2017

@yodased its a console guild - master merchant add ons need not bother applying.

I've seen a couple methods used to keep the record of who has paid, but because it's on console they all require a person going through the records by hand. Then the data is kept either off-game like in a spreadsheet on someone's computer or marked down in the player's note area on the roster.

One trade guild I was in put a 'paid until X' type of date in the note area, and I would just pay dues for a whole month at a time. Then they stopped bothering to get a trader and I left, leaving behind weeks of dues.

Another trade guild I'm in doesn't do advance payments, so there's that.

One thing that may have you fighting against yourself will be enforcing the standard of dues. Let it slide for one person, you will be undermining your position of dues entirely. If you're making a trade guild, you will need to be non-negotiable on that as having override authority over a secondary goal of the guild.

If it were me, I would have many ranks. From the bottom: entry, penalty box for those in danger of being kicked, store member, life member.... This group of ranks revolve entirely around just selling in the store. Carefully manage who can access the bank, hire the trader, keeping actually withdrawing raw funds to the highest levels. You want people to be able to claim a Cyro resource because that's another storefront, you want people to be able to invite others because then your membership does the recruiting work for you - I see people in zone chat looking for a trade guild and just invite them, and I'm just a dues paying member.

If you're going to have a raffle, make yourself another sign on for your console (if ps4 can do that) so you have a separate account to receive raffle entries by game mail. It keeps the accounting simple.

No time to go into it more, gotta go.

Galenus_of_Pergamon · March 2017

Cryptical wrote: »

@yodased its a console guild - master merchant add ons need not bother applying.

I've seen a couple methods used to keep the record of who has paid, but because it's on console they all require a person going through the records by hand. Then the data is kept either off-game like in a spreadsheet on someone's computer or marked down in the player's note area on the roster.

One trade guild I was in put a 'paid until X' type of date in the note area, and I would just pay dues for a whole month at a time. Then they stopped bothering to get a trader and I left, leaving behind weeks of dues.

Another trade guild I'm in doesn't do advance payments, so there's that.

One thing that may have you fighting against yourself will be enforcing the standard of dues. Let it slide for one person, you will be undermining your position of dues entirely. If you're making a trade guild, you will need to be non-negotiable on that as having override authority over a secondary goal of the guild.

If it were me, I would have many ranks. From the bottom: entry, penalty box for those in danger of being kicked, store member, life member.... This group of ranks revolve entirely around just selling in the store. Carefully manage who can access the bank, hire the trader, keeping actually withdrawing raw funds to the highest levels. You want people to be able to claim a Cyro resource because that's another storefront, you want people to be able to invite others because then your membership does the recruiting work for you - I see people in zone chat looking for a trade guild and just invite them, and I'm just a dues paying member.

If you're going to have a raffle, make yourself another sign on for your console (if ps4 can do that) so you have a separate account to receive raffle entries by game mail. It keeps the accounting simple.

No time to go into it more, gotta go.

I wish there were an "Incredibly Insightful" button for posts. I would have clicked it for yours. Thank you, Cryptical!

ComboBreaker88 · March 2017

The best advice I can offer you on running a large trading guild (as someone who runs a major trading guild) is dont.

You will get ZERO support from ZOS.

Any issues at all in the guild and you will receive a message and it (usually more than one.) Which adds up fast at 500 members.

If you are successful people will genuinely hate you.

Other guilds will send people into your guild cause problems and spy on you.

People will call you greedy for requiring dues so you can keep providing them with a trader.

You will actually have to enforce those dues EVERY SINGLE WEEK. Or you will loose the trader.

Keeping track of members on console is a freaking joke.

Running a successful Guild will take up all of your time. (Even if you have 20 people helping you.) I have about 25 including Guild council, officers, other GMS and helpful players.

Most GMs of trading guild get banned because we do so many large transactions through the mail. And ZOS has an auto ban mechanism in place for large transactions done through the mail. (Seriously what the heck.)

In short it's an incredible amount of headache and very little reward.

It's masochism in its purest form.

Galenus_of_Pergamon · March 2017

@ComboBreaker88

Thank you- your insight is causing me to reevaluate the input value versus the output value of running such a guild. I have promoted 3 Vice Presidents out of 180 members so far. I may promote 10-15 people to Vice President and then 6-8 to Senior Vice Presidents.

I may hand the guild off to someone else. Who knows. I just want to have fun. Warding off freeloaders, angry condescending people, and spies sounds tedious at best.

ComboBreaker88 · March 2017

Galenus_of_Pergamon wrote: »

@ComboBreaker88

Thank you- your insight is causing me to reevaluate the input value versus the output value of running such a guild. I have promoted 3 Vice Presidents out of 180 members so far. I may promote 10-15 people to Vice President and then 6-8 to Senior Vice Presidents.

I may hand the guild off to someone else. Who knows. I just want to have fun. Warding off freeloaders, angry condescending people, and spies sounds tedious at best.

Don't get me wrong. Running a guild is very appealing to some. It has its moments. But until @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JasonI @ZOS_GaryA @ZOS_TristanK can confirm the ZOS will be actually giving us the tools we desperately NEED to run a guild.. It's going to be an uphill battle. Because right now on console (without access to addons) guild management is a joke and causes too many people to just quit playing. That's why so many guilds fail. It's not because they are poorly ran. It's because the amount of effort required to run them is so tremendous that it's all you end up doing and it becomes too stressful.

Myself and others have made dozens of threads on features that guilds desperately need. But all ZOS keeps pushing out are reskinned mounts and gamble boxes. I mean I get it, they need to make money. But you can't make money if people keep quitting the game. And yes, many people have been quitting. You can't keep pusing the same crap loaded with bugs and load screen and expect people to keep taking it. Look at the forums.

At this point most people aren't even playing for the game. They keep coming back because of the guilds they are in and the people who run them to organize events and fun things in the game. If ZOS doesn't start giving us the ability to better manage Guilds and offer more to our members this game will NEVER live up to its potential.