List for things you'd Pay/Not Pay for with Gcash in Guilds

[Furzball]

Here I'm just looking for listing stuff. Not an argument/discussion on Gaia's horrible practice about making everything for Gcash. As of this time (113,684) guilds are on gaia. Lets assume a third are dead or dying guilds so (75790) guilds are active. Web developers paid $35 an hour. 3 months development time means $26040 per web developer. (Can someone fill in how many would be in the dev team? For now I'll assume 10 people). So Gaia would be looking to profit over $260400/75790(guilds) meaning each guild should spend at least $3.5c on features. To make profit each guild would need to give about $5 at minimum (to which probably only half the guilds will do so make that $10)

So what I'm curious about is what features you'd be willing to pay for(optionally you can put a price on those features) and what features you think are necessary updates for guilds where no payment should be necessary.
Oh and the math above is part me having fun and part showing the possible costs of the situation. It'll help on you deciding prices for the guild features you want.

At first I was on the side of the consumer "Oh we should just get it for free". Well unfortunantly, this is no longer the gaia of old some dudes were doing part time to their job. This is now their job and their income. The math above is probably just a fraction of the cost to run the business as a whole. So no more complaining about Gcash for me.  

[Kane Solomon]

The only things i would pay for is guild advertising in other parts of the site and a second main forum( another forum under the one that is under the sub forums. I really had to think about that, because honestly i dont think we should have to pay for things we were promised for free. i honestly had to think about things i would pay for and they are the only two i could think of at the moment.

I think these things should be paid for because they are not things the guilds need, they are things that they COULD have but not need.

I would pay around 500 G-cash for each and that is the maximum i would pay, any more would just be an insult.  

[mamarita]

First let me correct you on one point. Derek Liu and his friends that started Gaia are no long the owners. They are still here, but have absolutely no power anymore. There is a completely new administration that runs Gaiaonline Interactive.

As for paying for anything and how the Dev Staff works on Gaia.

1- 1 Developer will be assigned to work the Guilds Project if and when the funding is available. If that 1 Developer needs help he/she MIGHT get a little help, but it's not going to be a team working it.

2. Any Cash that comes in goes FIRST to administrative costs, no to the poor slob that has to actually do any work. So take 50% at least off every dollar that comes in- Thank Narumi Misuhara for opening my eyes to that little tidbit!

here- in his own words again from the PM he sent me:
I did not lie to you, in fact I was quite honest. I said right from the beginning I didn't plan to start guilds until the later half of the year, when that time came I was given directives and mandates that kept me from doing it, which is what I posted. I asked for the communities help on ideas that if good enough could allow me to justify the project and move forward with it. I'm not looking for things that should go in now before the next update, but things that will help compensate the cost of production. These are things that I could say "Hey, look, if we add this feature we can expect X Gaian's to use it and pay X Gcash for it and that totally makes it worthwhile to update the system."

The alternative is what I had to do with Frontier Skies, which I'm not willing to do because A) I'm not willing to and B) A lot of people do still use guilds. THAT BY THE WAY IS SCRAP GUILDS ALTOGETHER!

Fixing glitches is a separate issue. I do not need to justify fixing a bug or glitch as long as it doesn't require more than a day or two to do. Only big changes to the system would count.  

[Psalm Grasshopper]

I can see guild users spending Gcash on items that only guild members would be able to buy. Say, if a guild has only a few members and/or low activity, their members would only be able to buy a few items, but then the items can get cooler and more expensive the larger and/or more active a guild is. This way it would be a purely optional feature; it isn't critical in running a guild, like, say, adding subforums would be. It's just 'hey, look, a shiny item that only I can buy.'

The second idea I had is having a guild house in towns. I'm not sure how hard it would be for developers to add this, but having an actual guild building for members to run around in would rake in so much Gcash. Guild owners could have the option of buying a Guild Hall (Guild House, whatever you'd like to call it), and then there could be a special shop that has items for that Hall, all only available with Gcash. This feature could work regardless of how large/small, active/inactive a guild is.  

[Furzball]

mamarita

First let me correct you on one point. Derek Liu and his friends that started Gaia are no long the owners. They are still here, but have absolutely no power anymore. There is a completely new administration that runs Gaiaonline Interactive.

As for paying for anything and how the Dev Staff works on Gaia.

1- 1 Developer will be assigned to work the Guilds Project if and when the funding is available. If that 1 Developer needs help he/she MIGHT get a little help, but it's not going to be a team working it.

2. Any Cash that comes in goes FIRST to administrative costs, no to the poor slob that has to actually do any work. So take 50% at least off every dollar that comes in- Thank Narumi Misuhara for opening my eyes to that little tidbit!

here- in his own words again from the PM he sent me:
I did not lie to you, in fact I was quite honest. I said right from the beginning I didn't plan to start guilds until the later half of the year, when that time came I was given directives and mandates that kept me from doing it, which is what I posted. I asked for the communities help on ideas that if good enough could allow me to justify the project and move forward with it. I'm not looking for things that should go in now before the next update, but things that will help compensate the cost of production. These are things that I could say "Hey, look, if we add this feature we can expect X Gaian's to use it and pay X Gcash for it and that totally makes it worthwhile to update the system."

The alternative is what I had to do with Frontier Skies, which I'm not willing to do because A) I'm not willing to and B) A lot of people do still use guilds. THAT BY THE WAY IS SCRAP GUILDS ALTOGETHER!

Fixing glitches is a separate issue. I do not need to justify fixing a bug or glitch as long as it doesn't require more than a day or two to do. Only big changes to the system would count.

So thats why there's been a major change in style for gaia... At least if it was Derek Liu/friends just running business, trying to get the most money out of it possible, I could accept that. But with them just being faces of gaia and some other company running it, I don't really want to give my money to gaia anymore.... I'd have a few harsher things to say but I'm trying to practice more peaceful means of getting my ideas across. Something I fail at quite often.
However I will state, I don't care about flash games and such when it comes to gaiaonline. Avatars, Forums, and Guilds. That's all that should be concentrated on. Alas we have another company running something good into the ground to get all the money its worth out of it before it sinks.  

[The one and only MAMARITA]

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?  

[Furzball]

Suzareigna

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?

Some guilds have a "Guild Mule Account". Members will likely be able to donate gcash at the guild mules.  

[The one and only MAMARITA]

Furzball

Suzareigna

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?

Some guilds have a "Guild Mule Account". Members will likely be able to donate gcash at the guild mules.

GCash cannot be donated or traded. That means Gaia has to change their hard and fast rule about that. And then the question arises, who in the guild will have the authority to use the guild mule's GCash? These questions must be answered before anyone would ever agree to something like this.  

[Kane Solomon]

Suzareigna

Furzball

Suzareigna

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?

Some guilds have a "Guild Mule Account". Members will likely be able to donate gcash at the guild mules.

GCash cannot be donated or traded. That means Gaia has to change their hard and fast rule about that. And then the question arises, who in the guild will have the authority to use the guild mule's GCash? These questions must be answered before anyone would ever agree to something like this.

i think the intention was that the guild owner would be responsible for all of this and would therefore have to get hold of such funds himself. At least this is how it comes across as to me.  

[Shanna66]

with how much guilds have been ignored, I wouldn't pay a cent honestly.  

[Furzball]

Suzareigna

Furzball

Suzareigna

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?

Some guilds have a "Guild Mule Account". Members will likely be able to donate gcash at the guild mules.

GCash cannot be donated or traded. That means Gaia has to change their hard and fast rule about that. And then the question arises, who in the guild will have the authority to use the guild mule's GCash? These questions must be answered before anyone would ever agree to something like this.

Doh! For some reason I thought there was a give gcash to a friend option... Shows how long since I last used Gcash. I agree with Kane it would be up to guild leaders but then again, you'd get a few that use gcash on themselves rather then the guild.... Perhaps make an item guild members can purchase that will act as their donation ticket towards guild purchases. Ex. Guild cookies, members buy 1000 and the Captain will be able to purchase the sort subforums upgrade.  

[Pilotslover]

Shanna66

with how much guilds have been ignored, I wouldn't pay a cent honestly.

This is where I lie too.

Why would I pay for anything when Gaia's done jack with the guilds?  

[The one and only MAMARITA]

Kane Solomon

Suzareigna

Furzball

Suzareigna

My question for the other thread still stands, how can Guilds buy Gaia Cash?

Some guilds have a "Guild Mule Account". Members will likely be able to donate gcash at the guild mules.

GCash cannot be donated or traded. That means Gaia has to change their hard and fast rule about that. And then the question arises, who in the guild will have the authority to use the guild mule's GCash? These questions must be answered before anyone would ever agree to something like this.

i think the intention was that the guild owner would be responsible for all of this and would therefore have to get hold of such funds himself. At least this is how it comes across as to me.

The problem is, getting the GC to upgrade guilds to Guilds 2.0 first. Then once that is done, fine, each guild Captain can pay to delete subforums or do whatever we ALL agree upon as pay as you go. But it has to be something that the GUILDS have some say in. The Guilds have been passed over for so long, the least the projects team can do is give us a heads up or ask us what kinds of things we would or would not pay for in the future. I know there is a SF thread about that, but we really need to know ahead of time what we are getting ourselves into.  

[gearfreak]

Well, I think 2/3 of guilds being active is a massive overestimation. Looking through my guild list I'd say only 25% of them are still really alive. I personally own one and VC 2 others that are all dead. I think, however, your total cost estimation is probably way off. I doubt gaia pays their web developers $104k/yr. I also would doubt Guilds 2.0 would be a 10-person project either. Let's say 1 with another dev helping about the half the time. Say $35,000 between them for a 3-month project. Plus the above-mentioned administrative costs, let's say $50,000 for simplicity's sake. At a generous 50,000 active guilds each one would have to pay 1$ for Gaia to be in the green. But, take a much more reasonable 25,000 active guilds. Say only about half are willing to pay money. Looking at around 4$. Not a whole lot, but still rather insulting considering how well they've been ignoring. But, if you split that 4$ between an entire guild, assuming they'd add some way to collect g-cash donations, accounting for minimum purchase levels, and they could easily be in the green.  

[sdkfsdlkfsjfseo]

I see the monetization part of guilds as purely fun but optional things. They could add cash options to prices we already pay for free (or in gold) such as buying a guild, buying a subforum, etc.

Some cool things I wouldn't mind to have as cash options:

1. Within the guild hall flash space that Psalm Grasshopper mentioned, I would love to see a decorative guild banner that could be customized. You could choose different sigils, patterns, colors, and banner shapes. Here is a video that shows pretty much what I'm talking about. This banner could also show up in other places around the guild like on the homepage (optional) or somewhere around the forums.

2. Improved homepages: This would be a completely optional thing, but being able to change extra things about your homepage beyond the coding and text you can enter would be great. This would be in a similar manner that you customize a v2 profile. The panels on the side that show the recent topics, crew, and announcements could be customized to an extent and perhaps extra panels could be purchased/added for a small GCash fee. Think of the way you can customize a DeviantArt page or a blog. If they wanted people to try out the idea, they could have a few basic new widgets for free like a sticky widget (to be separate from the topic widget), a rules widget (to show your guild's rules right on the homepage if you wanted), and a crew notice widget (this could be a way for crew to have their own announcements efficiently). Some premium widgets they could use could be a featured members widget (shows the top members in the guild via posts or something), an affiliates widget (You could input the link of each guild as an affiliate and link would be displayed neatly with their guild's banner) and a guild mule widget (you choose an account on the guild's crew list to be chosen as the guild mule, and this widget would show them and a link to start a trade directly with the mule.)

3. Customizing forums....plus!
You could pay for the option to customize (within limits) the color of the links to stickies, announcement threads, and other things around the forums. I would actually really love this to completely change the color of sticky links to stand out more within the guild forums so members are more likely to see them.

4. I'll think of more eventually.