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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Banking Guilds
Hey Gang, I was hoping some of you could help me out understanding something. I think it would be really cool to have different guilds throughout the server. Basically impartial guilds that focus more on economic or services. Can the nodes be used for this type of goal? Can land be set aside even if you do not technically own the node? I am relatively new, so please forgive me if this has been covered.
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I don't see any official post that limits guilds from being economically focussed, so I'd say this is a distinct possibility and would add an interesting flavor to the game. However, I think the transportation of money around the game will likely be limited by the caravan system, which I think is a good idea. So your guild will probably want to hire some pretty burly security folk to defend your money train.
Regarding land. I believe you can purchase land from a node starting at level 3. More info on this is available here:
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/node-series-part-one/
But then again, we'd probably start getting constant whispers about a 4.25% APR Mortgage on our freeholds...
In other MMO’s I’ve run two guilds, they were small, but were focused on markets. Essentially what we would do is identify what the higher end materials/items were at a particular time in the games life. We would buy these items where ever we could and record the purchase price on shared excel/google docs. Once we had accumulated a lot of the items we would begin to resell them at a very high mark up and monitor sales, adjusting pricing down as demand moved up or down.
This was more or less a “private” guild, we simply wanted to achieve the outcome of accumulating in game gold to fund other things. It evolved to, in some cases market manipulations. As an example, if you played (or play) LOTRO you know that in order to craft a 1st age weapon you need a “symbol of the elder king”. Now there are other materials but that’s the main one you need, it was at one time a rare item (I guess now you can buy them from skirmish camps). We would buy all of them on the servers we played and resell.
So this is more or less a cautionary tale, as we were not a trading guild, at least at that stage. We were essentially playing the market. This happens in a lot of MMO’s and it’s made easy in some cases by MMO companies who go the AH route. ESO has a decent Idea where each guild has an AH and they can buy kiosks to sell the wares. It makes market manipulation much harder to pull off but even in ESO there are add-ons that give you pricings and ranges.
So a banking guild is interesting. I can say absolutely that this is part of the game I will watch carefully and if I can do it, within the TOS and rules I will try to replicate what I did in prior games, I’m sure others will as well. Accumulating wealth as a sub game might not seem very interesting but in game currency has its perks. The loan lending system would be spectacular for me, a crafter, trader, money grubber (lol). Clear terms, consensual agreements, ya why not have it? If we can have open PVP, why can’t we have open loan sharking?
But trade market and stock domination? oh yeah!
80% of the guild focused on crafting, stock markets, trading of goods from one city to another
20% of the guild as "hired muscle" paid via dividends of profits in exchange for caravan protection, the guarding of guild members out gathering, and guild castle defense.
An additional 10% of guild population on retainer from outside the guild, called in for especially risky transport ventures or larger groups trying to attack their castle
That would suit hardcore raiding players just fine, too! It would literally be their paid job to go out and raid to gain more power.
No to mention that social and economic players wouldn't have to worry so much about being a super skilled fighter, while plying their trade out in the world, because they have friends to cover that for them.
I think it's possible to start with a coalition of like-minded individuals. Study the economies of the land, make commentaries about prevailing economics (e.g. rate for gold against lumber). Talk about the stock market that will be in the game.
We do not need to have a money-making focus. I think it would be success if the voice of the guild carries some weight in trading terms across the land. What would be cool if there guild is supra-regional, and we have representatives from different zones.
Another success indicator is if we can get an immunity from PvP (from the players, not the game, of course). By the game rules, it may be okay to kill a Banker/Merchant, but we will definitely put you on our guild bounty list so that players will have an incentive to have a go at you.