Building a Warchest 2 – The Chestening

“Recently I made a post detailing some ideas to kick-start your guild’s finances, and after some feedback from various parties it became clear that the previous post just wasn’t enough. And so I’m back again, with even more ways to keep your guild’s Warchest going.”

Bank by Example
I got a lot of feedback on the original post, Larísa for instance had questions and as she put it “I think you have a nice beginning in this post but you could develop it a bit further“. And I agree. I think the easiest place to pick back up would be by using my own guild Face on Fire as an example. The guild is a 25 man progression guild, and we use the EPGP loot system.

We have 6 Guild Bank tabs, four are dedicated to general guild use – people can freely put items in and take items out. The last two tabs are only accessible by officers. With our system we allow up to 500g worth of donations per week, per raider in exchange for an equal amount of EP (DKP for those unfamiliar with EPGP). We raid twice per week Tues and Thurs, Friday morning when all EP and GP changes have been finalized for the week we start taking Donations for the coming week. Donations are not accepted during raid time, and must be given to an officer to receive credit.

Does it work? Well, Face on Fire’s Guild Bank hovers somewhere around 100K gold. Raiders are given 300g worth of repairs per day from the guild bank. All raiders have access to Flasks (at 5g each) from the guild bank. Fish Feasts are provided for each attempt. Enchanting materials and gems are provided upon request.

Why is this important? Well, this addresses one question that people tend to have about the guild bank how do you stimulate activity in the guild bank? You get members involved in a way that’s beneficial to both the members and the guild bank itself by giving them a meaningful return for the gold and/or items they put in. Essentially, this is what I covered in the previous post. But I wanted to give you a little more detail from the example given by my own guild. Now, for more guild bank goodness…

The Rules
This is not Nam, there are rules… Wait, wrong post. Anyhow, the Warchest is important – it fuels your raids, when things are running properly your raiders should not have to worry about anything but kicking ass and getting loot. The Warchest facilitates this by providing the enchants, gems, repairs, etc that the raid needs to keep moving. To do this, you have to establish early a clear, concise set of rules for your raiders and officers to go by. An example:

» Enchants and Gems will be provided by the guild bank for all items dropped during the course of a raid at the Raider’s request. Contact your Role Officer to request materials.

This rule outlines very clearly what raiders can expect, they get an item they can request materials from their role officer (we have one for tanks, melee dps, ranged, and heals). Each of the rules you make concerning the warchest needs to be like this – clear and concise.

Security
Given the example above, it’s obvious that the 2 last tabs in our guild bank are where the goods are – Flasks, Epic Gems, etc. It’s all there, that said it needs to be protected. The first layer of protection, as we’ve covered, is that only officers have access to those two tabs. But even officers get hacked, and when they do you can and will get hit hard. All of your officers should have an Authenticator. No excuses, get one.

If you have a Droid or iPhone you can get the free Authenticator app -OR- you can get the (in my opinion best option) Authenticator. They’re about $7 and give you that extra layer of security. Of course, there’s other things you can do too. I’ve written articles on securing your account here in the past, and you can find plenty of similar info with Google. In the end, it’s up to you to ensure your account is secure, but here’s a few quickies

If you’re an officer with access to all of the goodies, please PLEASE keep the following in mind:
» Don’t share your account with anyone, that person no matter how much you love them CAN get pissed at you and make you look like an asshole to your friends.
» Create an eMail address SOLELY for your wow account, check it as often as you like. But do NOT use this account for ANYTHING other than your wow account.
» Don’t click links in emails regarding World of Warcraft, if you need to check your account for a beta invite type battle.net into your browser and hit enter.
» If you believe you’ve been hacked make sure to contact someone from the guild (guild leader preferably) and let them know what’s going on so they can take steps to keep your errant avatar from draining the coffers.

Banking on the End of the World
Now that you have some ideas to get you started the big question is – what do you do in Cataclysm? Identify your talent pool, now’s a perfect time to figure out who you have available in the expansion. Who’s going to be doing what professions?

Your first target will be raw materials, these will be hard to come by initially. But as your members skill up, you’ll find them dumping materials in the bank regularly: Cloth, Dust, Gems, Herbs, Leather, and Ores.

Now you can work on your finished products, making Belt Buckles, Armor Kits, etc. It’s still a little early to tell you exactly what you’ll need, but at this point I think most people reading this should be able to form a rudimentary list early on. Additionally, communicate – your officers and members are there for a reason. My advice, start the dialog now – open communication now. And be sure to ask questions, I cannot stress that enough. What do you need, who’s going to need it, and who can provide it? These are going to be some of the most important questions you’ll have. Good luck!