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 Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:42 am
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Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:55 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:24 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:22 pm
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I hadn't thought of that logistical point. The easiest thing, besides doing nothing, would be to give 20k to each guild captain. But there are a lot of issues that could come from that, like deactivated guilds, guild hoarders who acquired many guilds for far less than 20k, guilds with low IDs that may have been acquired for much more, and captains who 'inherited' their guilds from previous leaders.
Most people would not be worse off - every guild was acquired at some point, for an agreed price, usually 20k or below.
Maybe a greater issue is that there are currently over 51,000 guilds in the registry, which means this kind of action would inject over a billion gold into the economy.
Maybe doing nothing is the easiest thing: deny that current captains are entitled to any compensation because they all agreed to what they paid for their guilds at some point. For most of them today it was probably free. Besides, part of the rationale is that 20k isn't what it used to be. It's half the price of a Sealed Envelope ( crying ). Sealeds were worth barely 2-3k when the guild cost was established.
By that measurement, shouldn't guilds be worth around 400k?
They're one of the few Gaia assets to be exempt from inflation, insofar as you can still buy them for their original price. Unexpectedly, they are also one of the few assets on Gaia where each one can be distinguished by an ID number, which means those guilds that were purchased when 20k was 'more' are probably easily worth over 400k today.
What would be the effect of making guilds free on these older guilds? Would their value drop marginally, or completely, or not at all?
This whole idea might be far simpler to consider without unique guilds.
In fact, guild IDs owe part of their value to their supposed connection with higher registry placement.
No matter how good that old top secret formula for determining registry positioning is, there's no way it can be considered fair today for the tens of thousands of guilds who are not on the first page. Actually, on that note it's a good thing that registry adjustments are amongst the first things in the update.
If we move towards better searching, and guild IDs become less relevant, and therefore less valuable, all guilds might start to be worth roughly the same amount in terms of gold again.
That would be nice.
Then, we could feasibly abolish the cost. If captains feel they are being ripped off, at least they are all being ripped off equally, by 20 measly thousand gold.
Alternatively, we can jack the price up to 400k. Seriously!
I know there are thousands of store items that never need their prices adjusted, but the cost of a guild was always intended to be high to encourage collaboration. And whatever detriments came from the implementation of the Vice Captain feature, it was intended to cater for the spirit of teamwork in guilds that was alive at the time.
But we've long since entered the era where any one person can easily afford multiple new guilds on their own (but probably wouldn't need to bother, with such low prices in the second-hand guilds market - not to mention the paradox that second-hand guilds are inherently more valuable than new ones due to their lower IDs, as long as they aren't spoiled by undeleteable subforums).
Is it time to go back to almost enforcing teamwork in establishing guilds? There is an argument that it actually helped guilds start with firm foundations and partnerships, and this led to longer-lasting communities, in contrast to the bubble of questions about 'how can I get my members to post?' that arose in the CG at some point and never went away.
Or are we well past that time now, and we may as well go all the way by making guilds free? Free-market capitalism! Free guilds for anyone who wants one. Most may expectedly fail, but the top ones 'improve' from increased competition (do guilds really compete?) and the real winners are members and prospective ones.
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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:21 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:43 pm
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Sure, but we could easily find the good and busy guilds, like we do now. Even more easily once better searching and registry layout is introduced. ^^
You're right that there would be wastage, maybe even more than there already is.
It would be good if guilds could be legitimately shut down, when they're empty and unused, in a permanent way that frees up space.
That said, space hasn't been a problem on the internet for a while. It's probably natural that the GGN will continue to become superhuge, and the diversity of guilds will range from mega spam guilds like MPL to tiny, inactive and even abandoned ones.
Even though we'd all love the GGN to be full of big and active guilds, I don't think we can force it into that shape. I'm leaning towards the idea that people should be able to do whatever the hell they like with guilds - have as many or as few as they like, for free - as long as all the help and community support they could need is just as easily available. This would seem to improve the GGN 'from the ground up'.
I suppose the question is, how important a role does a (relatively shrinking) setup cost actually play?
Does 20k still do anything? Would making them free cause problems?
Would it be good for guilds if they were expensive again?
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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:02 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:44 am
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:06 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 7:07 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:15 pm
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Memory; that situation with this guild is definitely an example of some shaky ground in guild world. Sometimes the guild market seems quite unplanned. XP
Guilds started with a few solid underlying principles - users should moderate their own forums; older guilds, as indicated by ID, will be advantaged in the registry to help searchers find reliable guilds; etc. But it's hard to imagine that guilds with four- and even five-digit IDs were ever intended to explode in value to the millions, while new guilds immediately depreciate to around half their value upon purchase, like cars.
IDs have really become archaic and useless, if they ever helped anyone in the first place (except a tiny handful of guild traders). There are now so many guilds that showing any fifteen of them on a splash page due to their age is too simplistic by far.
The adjustments to the registry - including searching with tags, dynamic matching of results with profile interests, and more categories of guilds being fleshed out with a new splash page - will hopefully leave the value and relevance of ID numbers dead and buried.
One association my brain keeps making is that between guilds and Facebook groups - which are free to start and number in the tens of thousands. Sure, many of them are crap. In fact many resemble chain mail. But they are flexible, and easy enough to search that the diversity in every aspect, including 'quality', is seen as beneficial, too. True, Facebook doesn't have a virtual currency or economy. But imagine a GGN like that - where you really can start a guild on a whim, and it could become a runaway success or a pile of waste depending largely on two things: public demand; and how hard you work after you get it rather than how hard you had to work to get it.
That said, the startup cost - whether it's 20k, 60k or 200k - is no more elitist than it is encouraging to Gaians of any richness to pool funds and work together. Isn't this a worthwhile mechanism when the endeavour involved usually requires a community?
But should this be enforced with a startup cost, or merely suggested in writing somewhere during the startup process?
Is 20k now a low enough fee to be regarded as little more than a 'reminder' anyway?
And as Spaceman says, what about that sense of achievement for captains - who work together, or who just save up darn hard on their own - when they succeed in purchasing a guild? Maybe in that case you could argue the sense of achievement should really come after all the stickies, subforums, homepage etc are set up, but you could argue either way.
Regarding the role of guilds as a gold sink, more uses for guild account funds should help, regardless of whether or not guilds cost 20k, or more, or nothing at all. Donations would be relevant again! I continue to advocate that administrative features like subforums should remain free while attractive novelty features (like Halls in Gaia Towns, but also smaller things - perhaps themes for home pages if those are overhauled similarly to profiles) could be purchased/unlocked with account funds.
Spaceman; I used to moderate, but I stepped down when school took up more and more time and Gaia was compromising it. ^^ I might ask to go back one day, but I've just started uni so I'll see how it pans out. smile
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:11 am
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:11 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:00 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:32 pm
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