Can You Buy Your Way into Successful PVE Raiding?

…And is your guild interested in an additional 5,000 gold every week?

Our friend Gevlon, of Greedy Goblin fame, has recently reached the in-game gold cap. With this goal satisfied, he asks, “What’s left for me to do?” It’s a valid question in that the fulfillment one gets from making gold in WoW can only go so far… there are only so many mammoths, motorcycles and other PVE gold-sinks out there. So, what does a Goblin do in this situation? He’d like to join a raiding guild. And not just join, mind you- He’d like to fund a raiding guild and join as a member with a few specific conditions on his membership.

He Requests the Following:

• PVE raiding guild.
• Horde side.
• EU server- English or Hungarian Language guild.
• Inclusion in early boss kills. Not necessarily firsts but must be included prior to farm/alt-run state of content runs.
• Crafting services (within reasonable time frame) of guild members as needed by The Goblin.
• Raids that include him end prior to 11:00PM (in his local time presumably).
• Freedom to blog about the experience, as pertains specifically to profit and profiteering.
• No drama (at a minimum that he be excluded from all drama).

We infer from his post that he also wants/needs the following. Note- we wouldn’t ever attempt to speak on The Goblin’s behalf but (based on having followed his blog closely for a very long time and the content of his post) we think these additional considerations are worth mentioning:

• Raiding guild with proven capability and skill.
• No idiots- at a bare minimum a respectful and professional guild atmosphere.
• Understanding from members and leadership that he has limited play time and, therefore, may not be able or otherwise interested in providing direct assistance with quests and/or non-raiding content.

What he Offers

• 5,000 gold/week donated to the guild bank.
• Personalized gold making tips and advice to all members of said guild.
• A transfer to the host guild’s server at his expense.
• Payment to the guild for any items he attains through guild raids.
• Management of guild acquired item sales.
• Assistance to the guild in management of raid materials and consumables.
• Playing to the best of his ability as a dual-spec healer.
• Willingness to step out of a run if it becomes obvious that his skills are not up to par.

Is This a Good Trade For the Guild?

Absolutely. Provided you are a premium, low-drama/high success guild. Also, by his own admittance, he is not necessarily the “server first kill” type of player. So, at least initially, your guild may have to be able compensate for any skills that you feel he lacks. Of course, as any good raid leader knows, the most valuable skill one can often bring to a raid is the ability to listen and follow orders. For our own raiding purposes we will always take a player with the right attitude but lacking skills over the opposite. Gevlon strikes us as a player that is more than capable in this department and, further, we believe that he would have the discipline to show up to every raid on time and prepared for the encounters. He doesn’t strike us as the slacker type in the least. In these aspects he may already make a better addition for some guilds then some of their existing members (you know who you are). Finally, the guild also gains the benefit of a certain amount of notoriety as Gevlon has a large following and will likely sing their praises (so long as the relationship is working as expected).

Is it a good trade for Gevlon?

We don’t think so. To be absolutely frank, what he asks and requests is kind of the same thing that every decent player wants from a prospective (decent) guild. Only, he’s paying (and perhaps over paying) for the right to join. In short, we think he’s getting the same or similar benefits of any member of a premium guild but paying for it. The guild gets a massive influx of gold, a skilled manager of guild assets, and an additional healer while Gevlon gets only membership to the guild. It is not our place, however, to tell anyone how to spend his or her money so have at it. We completely understand the ‘what else am I going to do with it?’ mentality and encourage everyone with massive amounts of WoW gold to have fun with it in whatever way they see fit. It is, as they say, just a game. Again, being absolutely honest here, it would absolutely be worth it if we could pay for someone else to read and remember the fight strats and tell us what to do provided that success was guaranteed. Put another way, to many of us it is easier to make gold than it is to raid (successfully). If we could pay our way we would do it. We don’t, however, because we haven’t found a model that works. Perhaps Gevlon has found one? If nothing else it is an interesting WoW social experiment.

Will This Work?

Sadly, we don’t think so. There are just too many factors, beyond financing, that contribute to a successful raiding guild. More to the point, there is the human factor. And, as we’ve learned in both real world and WoW finance, no amount of money can solve for the whims, moods and attitudes of people. That said, we wish Gevlon continued success in both raiding and blogging. We seriously hope that he proves us wrong and this works out. If, however, the question is would we bet our own gold that this will work 3, 6 or even 9 months down the road the answer, from all of the WoWenomics team members, is a resounding ‘No’.

A Few Final Notes

• We don’t think it would benefit either the target guild or Gevlon to find a guild that ‘is working on’ becoming great. We think that if this trade is to work at all it will have to be with a guild that is already making significant progress through Ulduar 10 (and possibly even 25). Sarth+3D should be a given. If you have no idea what we’re talking about here then you’re probably not the guild for The Goblin.
• We advise the parties on both sides of the trade to come up with some way to protect the investment from disgruntled officers and/or hackers. There could be a huge potential fall out if someone ‘takes the money and runs’.
• Gevlon has stated that if this doesn’t work out he will probably quit blogging. Regardless how this works out, we sure hope that’s not the case.

Interested guilds should contact Gevlon directly.

Best of luck Gevlon. Let us know how it goes.