Our guild hid a Mist Well with 500 CE inside and placed it in a publicly accessible area. We want to find out how people use it. Here are our findings so far:

• 1 guy used the well and left the guild;
• 1 guy used the well and pretended he didn't use the well;

UPDATE: this guy ended up confessed he used the Well and deposited 500 CE, after finding out the person he was stealing from is the same guy who ran out of mist when helping him with missions;

• 1 guy we thought he would use the well, turns out didn't use it at all. When asked why, he said he knew someone deposited CE inside and it wasn't him.

Moral of the story to Devs: learn about human nature before designing gaming mechanism for sharing resources.

In that same breath, why are we allowed to put a sharing resources in a publicly accessible space?

I can understand in reality, yes you can lay your wallet wide open in the middle of a street. It's stupid but doable.

But this is a game and the Devs are responsible for their own creation. So why is this broken mechanism being left in the game before release?

Before people jump into this discussion and suggest the gazillion number of ways to fix it (which would make this thread a suggestion thread and ends up in graveyard 2). Let's keep this thread to a "problem" thread so the Devs can see.

I think your designated CE purchaser is the way to go. Make it your own alt, i assume that you log in regularly if you are in the guild. Be willing to front the initial lump sum of CE (or you and your officers pull together for the initial investment and you pay them back a percentage of the fee as it comes in).

So, if you have an alt that is accruing the fee's you can afford to proactively update the Mist well, and then recoup your fees when you log on with the purchasing alt. So long as you don't let the mail set there for 30 days and it defaults.

On one hand, you won't be able to proactively deposit a huge amount of CE at once, but this is good too. It will give you a chance to monitor the situation day to day or week to week to see how its going to work. To make sure that your guildmates are going to be honorable. If you can't be on often enough, and if you really trust your officers greatly, then the CE purchasing alt could be: [insertgildname]purchaser. Login: shared long in. And you and the officers could manage the CE purchaser as a committee.

Also,
You could implement a system by where the mistwell is blocked off by "furniture." And then have organized runs where you pair 1 officer/vet with 3 lower skilled players. Edit the guildhall to open the mist well. Let the members collect there mist. Edit to close the mist well. Then at the end of the run the 3 people who took mist give all of the runs profits too the Party Leader. (ideally they'd come out ahead, as it shouldn't take a full 100 mist for any run).

Err on the side of caution and over management to begin with. As you become more comfortable with how it works, and how many people will or will not abuse the system, you can make the GM/Officer control more lax as applicable.

My guild decided to adopt a few policies, since we actually announced it today we'll have to wait for feedback, but I have good hope it will be a success :
- no ragecrafting with the mist well (unless you are going to put your CE in it, but I guess no one is willing. Just no ragecrafting is easy to understand)
- mist well and treasury are 2 different things. Just because you put a lot of crowns doesn't mean it pays for your mist usage, since we can't put crowns from the treasury to the mist well. It simplifies a lot tracking and avoid the CE <=> Cr conversion ratio problem.
- as 500 CE is a bit steep for some guildies, lower amounts should be send to a trusted GM (we keep track of mist well usage) who will refill the well once donations exceed 500CE
- call out in private anyone who goes under -500 balance while being able to run FSC (we want to keep it cool for newcomers, unless they go overboard too). From the few cases, people just don't notice they went overboard or didn't thought about others putting energy in. Just talking it out may resolve the problem. If it doesn't, show the way out, you probably don't want that person in the guild. Be quick about those steps, before it degenerates.

Putting furnitures to block the well or removing it is in my opinion punishing the whole guild for the acts of a few people.

After an incident of new members taking from our Wells after being told not to, as an experiment to see player morality; I decided to do a few things:

1. Block off the mist wells. No one can have access to them unless someone who can enter design mode opens them up.
2. Heavier evaluation of a player before recruiting. This also includes promotions. Don't just promote anyone. Make people earn it.
3. All deposits to the mist well go through me. CE is given to me to put into the well, this is to prevent possible swiping and exploitations.

Guild storage is also something that should be considered. Someone can easily nab everything once they hit 'Member' and leave, and you can't even stop e'em. Be sure to evaluate players before recruiting. This ALSO can include purchasing furniture using Treasury money. Make sure you know who you're recruiting and promoting.

My plan as a first week officer was to just tell people to stop putting CE in it and let it run dry, but it just wasn't happening. People would put in CE, and some people would draw upwards of 900 mist a day, and everyone else would be unhappy.

I just removed the wells, and it's saved us a lot of headache once i managed to get enough people to forget they exist.

Well we had 2 minimum deposits in the well so far

What happened, in each of this deposits, some lower ranking guy took 200 of mist energy, and of course, with no ability to pay back, we were left to no choice but to stop the mist energy. I hope the wait for doors is worth not increasing 500 ce into 600 mist.

On a semi-related note...I has idea.

~Sev

I'm dealing with it by...

not getting one.