The most I have seen so far was on the EU server, someone emailed me an invitation and the weekly dues were 30k gold a week. They also pointed out that if I knew what to sell then I shouldn't have a problem coming up with the 30k weekly dues. I did join a guild on the EU server that has no weekly dues but I am required to sell at least 10k each week. That guild has been awesome so far.

I do have a trading guild on the NA server ( currently 140 members ) and I never run raffles or require people to pay dues, but most the time we don't have a trader hired. I never keep secrets from the guild, If I bid on a trader I let everyone know how much I bid, how much the trader normally goes for, and how much we are short. The trader we normally bid on goes for around 400k gold; for my guild that would cost each member less than 3k gold each week. I personally don't think that is much gold at all, because the potential sells are high. The first week we had a trader I had something like 400k in sales.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

What if that Guild that you pay 15K/week loses the trader in the best city? Because you could be right saying you pay for that service. Once that service (top spot) is not provided anymore... refund? I don't think so.

Has anyone here ever been refund by a Guild for losing their trader in the best spot?

I don't like the attitude of charging me for a service:

• You can't guarantee.
• I already pay for with the cut of each thing I sell.

If you want gold do some smart fund raising.

All youre doing is listing out reasons why the trader system is a failure which I agree with. An Auction house would solve the problems of paying for something the guild cant guarantee The system is awful.
And it's not that the GM wants gold so they need to fundraise; the GM needs gold to get the trader that you WANT.
If you want a trader and are too cheap to pay the very much needed dues, why dont you do the smart fundraising and donate the proceeds. Or better yet, make your own trade guild and see for yorself jusy how much it costs. The GM doesnt owe you a trader if you dont want to pay dues outside of the sales tax that covers nothing.
If you arent paying weekly dues, SOMEONE is paying them for you and you are just blind, PERIOD. Top donors, the GM, the 2nd in command, SOMEONE is paying the cost for you to have that trader in a great location each week. Make no mistake about it.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

I don't like the attitude of charging me for a service:

• You can't guarantee.
• I already pay for with the cut of each thing I sell.
  

If you want gold do some smart fund raising.

A top trader will run over 5m gold. If each and every guild member is selling items, each would have to sell in excess of 330k worth of items to make enough to pay for the trader. If you're not selling that, then you are not paying your portion of the trader. Having done roster management and worked with the numbers, I find that the people who complain the most about paying for the trader via the tax are doing less than 100k. That may not be you specifically, but for those that are griping about requirements and selling less than 330k in a premier trading guild, you're not pulling your weight.

It's very easy for someone to demand smart fund raising if they aren't contributing to the efforts. Smart fundraising takes alot of work and coordination. If you're demanding this, are you also prepared to be part of the solution?

medusasfolly wrote: »

It's very easy for someone to demand smart fund raising if they aren't contributing to the efforts. Smart fundraising takes alot of work and coordination. If you're demanding this, are you also prepared to be part of the solution?

This, so much this! It is (understandably) incredibly hard to find people who want a job in a video game.

Volunteer to host a farming run or fishing derby to help the guild...or donate a few hours of "slave time" to the auction if your guild does them, or come up with something new and offer to help with it!

Running a successful trade guild is a team effort. If just a few people are doing all the work, they will burn out sooner or later.

Fallen_Ray wrote: »

WldKarde wrote: »

GD!

What is this a Wall St. simulator???

So VERY thankful I'm in the guilds that I am


Hello? There is MUCH more to do in ESO than making gold....

Try playing the GAME ffs

Couldn't have said it any better myself

Who's putting a gun to your head forcing you to join a trading guild in an expensive location? Or a trade guild with a kiosk? Or a trade guild at all?

Everyone has their favorite things to do in an MMO. If some like building wealth, why do you feel the need to insult that? They *are* "playing the game".

both of the trading guilds im in charge 6k a week, and im fine with that we get our spot and i sell X00k per week, if we didnt have the guild dues, there is no way we would be able to hold our spot in Mornhold, and Belkarth

The only thing i pay are taxes from sales.

See alot of people complaining about the traders. The design philosophy. I think zeni should give us a spreadsheet for the most populated server in how much gold is removed from the game via traders.

It would seem to me that there is not any form of gold removal in game that is as effective. We have gold mats that have fluctuated in price, but have not INFLATED astronomically in price...seems great to me

Vipstaakki wrote: »

A good trading guild never beggars their members. If they ask you to pay a membership fee LEAVE.

Disagree. It makes complete sense to require a fee if your sales are not up to the threshold that the guild doesn't receive a minimum amount. If you can't do it, give up your spot for someone who can.

I am in a trade guild that is equitably managed. It has a Craglorn spot on PC/NA and requires that everyone average 1k a week in contribution. Contributions can be through the guild's cut in your sales (which I always manage through motif pages, drop glyphs, intricate gear, and housing recipes despite never farming), raffle tickets, or, I believe, purchases at the guild store. If you have a bad week, not problem, so long as you are maintaining an average.

A good trading guild cuts loose people who don't contribute much so that the cost of bidding is spread among everyone.

Why do you people say farming isn't considered playing the game?

Farming mats is BY DEFINITION playing the game, it just may not be your preferred activity.

This has been a really great thread to read. Thanks, OP, for starting the discussion!

Like @hiyde, I ONLY have experience with PC/NA. I lead a trade guild that has consistently maintained a kick-ass spot in Rawl'kha for well over a year. My guild does not have traditional sales minimums or raffle requirements; instead, we created a system by which we convert sales/purchase activity in the guild store, raffle participation, item donations and auction purchases to be representative of the amount of gold those support activities ACTUALLY generate for the guild. Our minimum requirement is that each member engages in activities that generate 500 gold per week for the guild. I'm proud to manage a guild that has just about the lowest minimum participation requirement of ANY major Trading Guild on PC/NA.

Were it not for the ability to write and use addons, I would not be able to have such a robust reporting system. Addons allow me to call and print a member's sales and purchase activity in the guild store, to call and print a member's deposit history in our guild bank (for raffles), and also to quickly export and log mail attachments as well (for logging and tracking member's item donations to use in our auctions). I can completely understand why the console environment has moved to a mandatory dues system. I would not want to spend the time that would be required to manually calculate that data by digging through the guild history UI. Even with the tools we have at our disposal on PC, most trade guild GM's and officer teams are spending significant time managing their guilds. Most of us do it for no other reason than the desire to provide a great environment and location for their members to sell their goods.

I can't speak for other guilds on PC/NA, but for mine, the 2.5 million we receive from sales taxes barely make a dent in the gold we spend to secure our trading location on a weekly basis. A year ago, we were able to sustain that for ~8k per member per week. Now, that amount has doubled or tripled, depending on whether or not there are extenuating circumstances, such as a content drop. In order for a member to generate their "share" of the trader bid through sales alone, they'd need to be selling 430K - 715K EVERY WEEK.

I don't doubt that there are some bad apples in the bunch, but most of the trade guild leaders I come into contact with (on PC/NA) frequently are stand up people that donate a lot of their personal time, personal wealth (in the form of purchasing multiple accounts to help manage a guild and subsequent ESO+ memberships for those accounts), and in game wealth to sustain their guilds, and I hate to see people that work really hard to support the communities they've built labeled as "money-grubbing shady GM's".

That all said, ZOS has made changes that make it MUCH more difficult to maintain transparency to your members. Last year, they removed the ability for any member to see the amount that a guild won their trader bid for from the guild history in a mistaken effort to curtail bid spying. Not only did this NOT solve that issue, it removes a member's ability to see how their contributions are being spent. In addition, the changes coming in Update 15 that will remove the ability for most members to even see the bank balance further destroy transparency. Though I do applaud the fact that ZOS has finally addressed the issue of bid spying, the fact that they have done it in a way that involves hiding the bank balance entirely from all but a select few guild members will only make it more difficult to maintain transparency.

There should be minimum sales figures. 50-100K per week minimum is decent.