Possible for a Guild to take over a server?

[Rosskii]

I read a post about this on another site a while ago and I was wondering. Could a guild become so powerful that they could take over a serve. Like makieng other players pay taxes in such. I Imagine this could only be done in a PvP server but do you think it would be possible I justw nated to see what others thought

[JediMaster]

I think the only way this would be possible, was if they all tons of gold & started dominating the Auction House. Buying all low priced items & setting their own prices.

To dominate in the world & charge people taxes would take a huge guild & they would have to camp all spawn areas, thereby messing with peoples quests. But before that happened I would imagine Blizzrd would step in & start banning them as it would constitute griefing.

[kcma]

sure, AH tax. i do that. but not the entire AH. too much work and not worth it, but i do enjoy controlling the things that i'm interested in :)

[SLUGFly]

There are only two possible ways to do this. The first is by AH monopoly and the second is by a cross-faction guild (an external alliance via private forums). Both would take a crazy amount of organization and dedication to pull off though.

[kcma]

but what's more profitable? completely controlling a few resources? or over-extend yourself ;)

the thing is, to control a resource. you have to BUY everyone's stuff. anything anyone makes, farms, loots. can i buy EVERY single small radiant shard and resell it? yes. is it profitable? yes for a lil bit and to some point. is it the best thing to do? no way.

it doesnt matter how much gold you have, there is only so much in the market. and it's easier to farm 'stuff' than gold. you can never control the demand completely, so the only thing you can really control is supply. which means... you buy every single radiant shard, let's say... they average out to 4g. and you only sell limited amount back for 8g. now... let's say you buy 100 shards, that's 400g... but can you sell 100 shards? no. so that means you MUST sell at least 50 to turn profit. but can you sell 50 back? possibly, possibly not...

in the end, it's not the smartest thing to do, regardless of how big your guild is. if ppl don't have the gold they can't buy it, and it's meaningless how much 'stuff' you have.

it's much much smarter (and profitable) to push and supply and demand. flood the market to kill the price, buy them... and then drive the price back up again to sell them. buy 20 shards for 3g a piece, 60g, then successfully sell all 20 shards back for 6g, 120g. 100% profit. can you camp the instances? no. so in the end, completely dominating a realm is just a silly epeen thingy to do and not sustainable at all. and if you do that with me around, i'll make mad profit off you and destroy you :) it killed the romans, it killed napoleon, it killed the germans. play it smart, you can bend the any rules, you can push the supply and demand, but to break it will just end up hurting you in the end :)

[WatcherZero]

Ive seen individuals do it on rarer supplied items, notably pre-60 enchanting mats and JC mats. People buying out everything then putting it all back on and vastly inflated prices.

[milqueman]

I've seen this in the AH with all the leather level 18 and 19 stuff. for a while there was this guy that was selling all the level 18 and 19 leather items for a minimum of 4g. More if the item warrented it (ei. blues) Since he was the ONLY one offering leather at those levels, it stood to reason the he was camping the AH, buy stuff that people put in there, and re-selling it.

It seemd to me that his philosophy was, "there must be a lot of players that wear leather, 'Rogues' 'Hunters' 'Shamens' & 'Druid', that want to do a lot of BG's at level 19. And since Leather is the predominat armor at that level, I can make a lot of Gold if I control that market"

Not sure how well he did. I just refused to buy stuff at that level. As soon I leveled to 20, all the prices from level 20 and up were normal.

[xxlebox]

but what's more profitable? completely controlling a few resources? or over-extend yourself ;)

the thing is, to control a resource. you have to BUY everyone's stuff. anything anyone makes, farms, loots. can i buy EVERY single small radiant shard and resell it? yes. is it profitable? yes for a lil bit and to some point. is it the best thing to do? no way.

it doesnt matter how much gold you have, there is only so much in the market. and it's easier to farm 'stuff' than gold. you can never control the demand completely, so the only thing you can really control is supply. which means... you buy every single radiant shard, let's say... they average out to 4g. and you only sell limited amount back for 8g. now... let's say you buy 100 shards, that's 400g... but can you sell 100 shards? no. so that means you MUST sell at least 50 to turn profit. but can you sell 50 back? possibly, possibly not...

in the end, it's not the smartest thing to do, regardless of how big your guild is. if ppl don't have the gold they can't buy it, and it's meaningless how much 'stuff' you have.

it's much much smarter (and profitable) to push and supply and demand. flood the market to kill the price, buy them... and then drive the price back up again to sell them. buy 20 shards for 3g a piece, 60g, then successfully sell all 20 shards back for 6g, 120g. 100% profit. can you camp the instances? no. so in the end, completely dominating a realm is just a silly epeen thingy to do and not sustainable at all. and if you do that with me around, i'll make mad profit off you and destroy you :) it killed the romans, it killed napoleon, it killed the germans. play it smart, you can bend the any rules, you can push the supply and demand, but to break it will just end up hurting you in the end :)

it's super cool though ;)

[Krollin]

I can just imagine how Blizzard would react that that too.
Well maybe not on an RP PvP Server but otherwise?

It would be interesting to see how players outside of such an alliance would react, I guess there would be too many to control effectively and it could result in some epic "battles" for control.
Besides, the rest of the players could simply set up their own market similar to how it was done in Diablo II and leave the alliance looking rather silly having wasted the efforts.

Any griefing on the part of the this "Alliance" to force people to take part would be met with some grief from Blizzard too :)

[Altaris]

Considering that you cannot attack your own faction, even on a PvP server, you could never truly dominate a server except through the AH.

Well, I suppose is enough max population guilds formed an external alliance it could be possible. But chances are it would be extremely unlikely, would require an extremem amount of time and organization skill, and most of: the dedication of the vast majority of members in those guilds.

Since a guild membership is limited to 500 people, I believe this scenario would never come to pass.

[mesonm]

I read a post about this on another site a while ago and I was wondering. Could a guild become so powerful that they could take over a serve. Like makieng other players pay taxes in such. I Imagine this could only be done in a PvP server but do you think it would be possible I justw nated to see what others thought

not possible, IMO....

--------------------------

As for the AH monopoly, that only works if the guild is willing to buy ANYONE out that lowers the price, thus giving all sellers what their price is....or by keeping the prices so low that nobody can sell, thus providing everyone with REALLY good prices...

Not sure how either of these benefits the guild 'taking over' the server.

[rgirty]

but what's more profitable? completely controlling a few resources? or over-extend yourself ;)

the thing is, to control a resource. you have to BUY everyone's stuff. anything anyone makes, farms, loots. can i buy EVERY single small radiant shard and resell it? yes. is it profitable? yes for a lil bit and to some point. is it the best thing to do? no way.

it doesnt matter how much gold you have, there is only so much in the market. and it's easier to farm 'stuff' than gold. you can never control the demand completely, so the only thing you can really control is supply. which means... you buy every single radiant shard, let's say... they average out to 4g. and you only sell limited amount back for 8g. now... let's say you buy 100 shards, that's 400g... but can you sell 100 shards? no. so that means you MUST sell at least 50 to turn profit. but can you sell 50 back? possibly, possibly not...

in the end, it's not the smartest thing to do, regardless of how big your guild is. if ppl don't have the gold they can't buy it, and it's meaningless how much 'stuff' you have.

it's much much smarter (and profitable) to push and supply and demand. flood the market to kill the price, buy them... and then drive the price back up again to sell them. buy 20 shards for 3g a piece, 60g, then successfully sell all 20 shards back for 6g, 120g. 100% profit. can you camp the instances? no. so in the end, completely dominating a realm is just a silly epeen thingy to do and not sustainable at all. and if you do that with me around, i'll make mad profit off you and destroy you :) it killed the romans, it killed napoleon, it killed the germans. play it smart, you can bend the any rules, you can push the supply and demand, but to break it will just end up hurting you in the end :)

This can be done, but you almost have to find a fairly rare item that is in constant demand. You can almost do this with large prismatics on my server. But I haven't bothered.

I'll just keep buying 20 stacks of arcane dust for 30g then selling them for 1.75g each making 4g or such a stack..very easy and works 100%

[kcma]

This can be done, but you almost have to find a fairly rare item that is in constant demand. You can almost do this with large prismatics on my server. But I haven't bothered.

I'll just keep buying 20 stacks of arcane dust for 30g then selling them for 1.75g each making 4g or such a stack..very easy and works 100%

yeh, things in limited supply is easier kindda like nexus crystal before BC. but it just wont work for most things over a long time. and what the OP is talking about is not sustainable.

but outside of AH it'd be fun tho :p camping quest boss/escort, etc and make ppl pay up tax so they can quest :D

[mesonm]

but outside of AH it'd be fun tho :p camping quest boss/escort, etc and make ppl pay up tax so they can quest :D

Basically, the only way to enforce is to have someone constantly tag the mob....

Not worth the time....IMO

[Altaris]

Basically, the only way to enforce is to have someone constantly tag the mob....

Not worth the time....IMO

I think the majority of people would agree with you.

[Fursphere]

Basically, the only way to enforce is to have someone constantly tag the mob....

Not worth the time....IMO

This is also known as "griefing / harrassment", and is subject to Blizzard thumping you.

[kcma]

griefing? lame... whatever.

[bxlane]

what about shutting down an town/city? If you could somehow get all 500 of your guild online at once and coordinated, you could potentially surround a town/city.
I dont know if bliz would do anything, because you arent really griefing a player per se, youre just limiting access to something. No one complains when someone corpse camps or constantly mines an area.

[Torik]

This is definetly not feasible in a gme like World of Warcraft. WoW was pretty much designed to avoid stuff like that from occuring.

The only game I saw stuff like that work is EVE Online. It is a Free-for-all PvP game focused heavily on resource gathering and manufacturing. In that game a large dedicated corporation (guild) could close off all access points to a resource rich area by shooting to pieces anyone entering the area. Then only their own miners and builders would be able to get the resources needed to keep their fleet in top shape for PvP. Those not as dedicated and/or organized would have to settle for the much more resource poor areas or reach an accomodation with the big corporations. However, even the biggest alliances of dozens of corporations could only control a fraction of the EVE galaxy so their power was very localized.

[Kerosene]

you could do it, but it would take a lot of effort for sure.

you'd basically have to have a large portion of players on both horde & alliance to move over to a brand new server. then what you do is set up a tiered system - you need to have different guilds on both alliance & horde for sure, so those GM's would have to be part of the wave of old players you had move to the new server. each GM would effectively "own" his guild, however he'd trickle down the info he received, of course with out ever telling the true source of this information.

this would also allow you to create casual and hard core (raiding) sections of your cartel so people would naturally move to whatever guild they "wanted" to. then you just have each guild have strict AH guidelines that are based off of "auctioneer" info - which would be self generated to begin with.

you would need PR to constantly talk to newbies about joining a guild and basically grab them up before they ever get the chance to even think about starting their own.

but it could work :P

[JaedxRapture]

Realistically, there's basically no way for a guild to control. You cannot force anyone to do anything, and if you tried to, you'd be laughed at. And as for controlling the AH completely, well, I doubt it's possible. Just too much **** in there and not really worth it (plus, they'd be banned at some point for exploitation of the economy if they somehow got close enough to control).

[Torik]

Even if you could control the AH, it would not really give that much power in WoW. Plenty of players never really use the AH and obtain items either themselves or through their guild. There is nothing in the game that would 'starve out' another player if you could gain control of it. If a single guild managed to control the AH on my server I would probably never even notice it since my AH usage is so minimal.

[kcma]

of course, you can build a hut out in the mountain and be a hermit. but AH is as important to wow as ships/airplane and railroad are IRL. even if you dont use them you'll feel the impact if they're gone. unless you build a hut out in the mountain and grow your own food.

[maladroit2000]

but AH is as important to wow as ships/airplane and railroad are IRL. even if you dont use them you'll feel the impact if they're gone.

Unlikely, people would trade in the trade channel similar to D2 to get what they want - nasty to look at but it would work. And many people don't use the AH; I never used it until I was level 60 and it is similar to many people. All I really use it for now it to make money reselling and for some rarer materials I could also obtain through the trade channel. In my opinion the auction house is a small (but very nice) part of the game.

[Wayne K]

what about shutting down an town/city? If you could somehow get all 500 of your guild online at once and coordinated, you could potentially surround a town/city.
I dont know if bliz would do anything, because you arent really griefing a player per se, youre just limiting access to something. No one complains when someone corpse camps or constantly mines an area.

That wouldnt work either, because if there horde(the side I play) then I will just run through them, if there alliance, I will just keep resurrecting closer to the city till I get in.

[ferofax]

...i thought the OP was thinking about world PVP of sorts, like guilds of one faction facing off other guilds of the opposite faction and pushing the battle from one territory to the other... i didnt know it was all about the economy. lol. XD

[Torik]

...i thought the OP was thinking about world PVP of sorts, like guilds of one faction facing off other guilds of the opposite faction and pushing the battle from one territory to the other... i didnt know it was all about the economy. lol. XD


"Power struggles" in a MMORPG are going to be primarily about economic issues. It is very hard to impose your dominance over other players in a game like this through purely military actions (ie PvP). If you threaten the virtual life of a character, the other player might be perfectly willing to just take a death penalty and move on. They could also simply choose to wait you out by logging out and playing another character, making dinner or going out to see a movie.

As such your only way to 'bend others to your will' is to posses something they want/need and deny them the option of getting it themselves. This works best if the item is a necessity needed to progress further in the game. If it is just a luxury item most players will just make do without till an alternate source arrives.

In WoW pretty much all items are luxuries so you can't truly have economic dominance (although you can still make a fortune if you play it smart).

In EVE minerals are necessary to expand a corporations industrial and military capacity so denying access to the resources effectively stops the 'have-nots' from progressing further. As such the 'have' corporation can exert a significant amoount of pressure on the 'have-not' corporations and thus have real power over them.

Of course if a guild/corp/clan ever truly gained control over a server in a MMORPG the other players could simply exercise their 'opt out claue' and quit the game. Therefore most MMORPG developers will structure the game in such a way that no single group of players can amass that kind of power.

[SlyHilgen]

The unfortunate thing for anyone who would try this is that global domination relies specifically on a resource only being available in one way. If the Horde were to surround SW, there is the tram to get in (not to mention FPs). If a guild were to try to dominate the AH, valuable items can be obtained by hunting and questing. The only other thing would be to campinstance entrances, but what's the point?

Blizzard programmed WoW in such a way that there are always several ways to get where you want to go (whether it be economically or physically), so domination is nigh impossible. And if there ever were a situation that is exploitable, I am sure Blizzard would flex their all powerful ban muscle.

[LunarSolaris]

As kcma initially suggested, it is "possible" to gain economic control over AH goods and materials, but it would not be sustainable for the reasons he mentioned.

I suppose one could say it's conceptually "possible" to gain control of a server, but in practicality, I'd say it's virtually impossible. Even if it could physically be done, Blizzard is the "hand of god" and would likely step in and put an end to it quickly.

So in concept, yes... it's possible. In practice, no... it's not feasible.

[Your Average WoW Player]

Here's my two cents:

The part about "pushing taxes" on other players is impossible. How are you going to enforce it? On a PvP server if you managed to wrangle another guild into your charade to dominate the server, and if someone isn't paying up, you can grief/corpse camp them to death, but even on a PvP server, excessive griefing/corpse camping will raise Blizzard's eye. On a PvE server, you can't grief nearly as easily as you coul on a PvP server, but if you do find away, IE: always shutting down quest hubs, tagging every mob before a player can tag it, etc. It takes a lot less of that for Blizzard to get angry with PvE servers.

So imposing a tax on players is impossible, without getting Blizzard mad.

As for controlling the AH, that's a lot more feasable, but still quite difficult, and there are ways around it. If I found that one guild was controlling the AH, and buying everything off, and then selling it at a higher price, then I'd just start using the trade channel for whatever I wanted to sell, and I'd always hand the item to the person face-to-face. No CODing. That way I could see who I am giving it to, and if they wanted to equip it right away, I could tell. (Thus binding the item to said person).

I don't think it would ever happen, mainly because of the 500 man limit per guild, but even then who would want to try and organize three-500 man guilds to try and hold sway over the server in whatever way.

Also, dominating the AH in terms of equip for example, would be really pointless, because eventually guilds are going to get into their cliques be it BGing alot, arean-ing, or raiding. Eventually they're going to be able to rely on their own means and not have to use the AH. On that note, tieing back in the "tax", I'd love to see you make my guild pay their "dues" by griefing us when we spend 90% of our time in raid instances. And what are you going to steal in terms of mobs for me? Well if that's the case I'll just come back when I raid.

So in conclusion, the a mandatory tax on other players would result in probably Blizzard intervention, especially if forcing people to pay meant that people got griefed. Monopolizing the AH would be very difficult, and I wouldn't be surprised that if that got out of hand that Blizzard intervened on that as well.

Just my two cents.