We completed out first Shadowmourne tonight. Fifty (the guy who we gave it to) literally leapt out of his chair and did a lap around his front lawn screaming. Everyone gathered up in front of Darion and watched the 30 seconds or so of RP. Then we took the first step of starting work on the second Shadowmourne with another shard.
And I fear the most difficult decision will come soon when we take down Arthas this week.
Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger
Muradin’s Favor
Jaina’s Locket
Tabard of the Lightbringer
Sylvanas’ Music Box
Several of these items will come from the Unsealed Chest when it is looted. There are two ways we can approach this:
Reward it
Randomly distribute them to our veteran players as a reward and as thanks for getting the group this far. These guys (and girls) have earned it. Everyone that’s contributed to our progression past or present helped make it possible.
Sell it
There is another option. It would be to sell some of these items and place the funds into the bank. On Ner’Zhul, it is not uncommon for the mount to go in excess of 100k. The trinkets will probably fetch 40k-50k gold if not higher. A couple hundred thousand here, a couple hundred thousand there, and pretty soon we’re talking real money.
What would the money be used for?
It would essentially bootstrap this guild into Cataclysm.
1: Professions leveling – Dedicated augments or crafters can utilize some of the gold to power their professions to maximum level so we can gain access to the gear and the enchants or gems quicker. Every item we craft means 1 less item we have to depend on RNG for when we begin raiding operations.
2: Consumables – We wouldn’t have to worry about flasks or consumables for a long time. We can simply purchase the necessary herbs and pump out our own without having to rely on donations of time or money as much.
3: Repairs – On progression nights, we can toggle this on to help cushion the blow of repairs. I’ve seen what a single night of repairs will cost the guild and I had to shut it off because we couldn’t sustain those kinds of costs.
Our current reserves are fair. We have a little over 70k gold from donations and selling of BoEs and other items in the books. No matter what happens, I anticipate there will be some disgruntling. Not everyone’s going to be happy and I’m going to have to prepare for the worse case scenario no matter what decision I make.
I may offer it to guildies first and give them a first crack at purchasing before opening it to the general public.
I had to field several concerns expressed by players on how this gold could help our guild in the present? I told them straight up that it wouldn’t be used immediately. It would be placed in our vaults until the expansion arrives. I’ve stated my commitment for Cataclysm. This guild, this blog and myself aren’t going anywhere.
Of course, things might change. I might meet some incredibly hot young woman at school or something.
But let’s get real.
Assuming you were in my position, what would you do?
Heya matt. When our guild got Shadowmourne, we did the first topic you presented.
We all gathered out in front of Orgrimmar on an off night, and the player with the box /roll auctioned all but the Deathcharger, and finally at the end, decided to award our GM the tabard.
Since we started ICC, the guilds turnover has been something around 150+ members coming and going. Our GM was the guy on the forums, 5 hours a day (and sometimes with the help of a few guildies) recruiting fresh blood. there were many times that he would go 2 -3 days without sleeping to get enough people. Whether it was for our bench reserves, casual players, or people to directly fil core positions, come tuesday, we always have had a full roster ready and rearing to go.
This event was one of the biggest highlights ive seen since i joined the guild in January, where the cumulation of teamwork and friendship payed big dividends to many of the people involved. I would suggest an event like this to anyone looking for a way to divvy up the box. Plus, you dont know just how cool those toys are til you use them. the music box is amazing, and one of my best friends in the guild happened to pick that up.
Since my guild always does raids with exactly 25 (meaning there is little to no wait list, sometimes less than 25) we decided to award our shadowmourne vanity items using the “reward” system you mentioned – that is, all active members gathered and we rolled on all of the items. From highest to lowest the top 5 winners got to choose what they wanted. If a person wasn’t interested in any of the items left they were allowed to pass to the next highest roller so that they could roll again on the next round of items.
This system has worked rather well I think; we have finished 3 shadowmournes so far and are working on our 4th. I have yet to win an item from any of the boxes (I myself would choose the tabard!) but it does give me something to work towards – aside from heroic 25 man Lich King there is nothing in the zone I actually need, so it’s nice to have a chance at something else, especially something I can treasure and use regardless of my level and gear.
My guild didn’t consider selling the items because the bank is doing quite alright regardless of the fact that all active members have guild repairs on 24/7. We generally fund the bank by selling LK runs/titles, Shadow’s Edge bloods, BoEs, Abyss Crystals, the occasional ICC achievement , and on very rare occasion 10 man Frostbrood drakes.
Basically my opinion is… there is and will be many many many MANY ways to earn gold that have nothing to do with member donations. These items, however, could be used for enjoyment purposes many expansions to come, and since they are rare they will be great items faithful raiders can collect to reflect the commitment they have made to the guild.
🙂 Just my opinion. Best of luck deciding!
My boyfriend’s list used the same system as Poptart. Before the raid, everyone rolled. Highest roller got first dibs, next highest roller chose 1 out of the remaining items, and so on until there was nothing left.
I wouldn’t sell them. Gold is easy to get and no one should have any problem in regards to the in Cataclysm. Poptart said it much better than me anyway.
Boyfriend’s guild, that is…
I think it would be sad to sell these items. They are legendary in their own way…they will always be hard to get. It’s a way to give back to your guild for putting up with all the Shadowmourne quests or contributing to the mats (if they did). They’re all delightful items. There are a hundred ways to keep the guild bank happy…these are unique things to show status and accomplishment.
We’ve had a few Shadowmournes now, and I haven’t won a damn thing. But every time I hear the lament or see our healer in Dal with the tabard, I feel happy and full of pride that I was a part of that.
We let the person who got the shadowmourne decide what to do. We hoped he would make a decision beneficial to the guild. And he did. Here’s what we did:
– he kept the tabard – but who wouldn’t?
– He gave the music box to a non raiding player who does our recruitment just because she is awesome for doing so without benefit to herself
– we held a guild vote on who should get the other 2 trinkets – 2 long standing vets who adore lore got them
– he donated the mount to the guild bank for funds which on our server currently goes for about 65-75k gold
We’re going to allow our next person decide as well.
Tough decision, Matt. My own inclination is that this is an issue that should really be decided more by the heart than by the head. The gold from sales would obviously set you up for quite some time, but I think allowing guildies to have the items might be better, long-term. I say ‘reward it’.
Oh, and congratulations to you and your guild on this accomplishment.
Jesus sell the items no one gives a shit about vanity items except self absorbed morons
Money is boring. It’s actually worse than boring. If you use it to power-level professions or buy people swift flying, you’ll largely be preventing them from herbing, fishing, daily questing, and so on — things that are fun. Money is a boring reward whose payoff is to that you get to skip the fun parts.
Meanwhile, sharing the items with the guild is not boring in the least.
I would probably just hand them out with rolls. Those who were there for the kill and meaningfully participated in it deserve a shot at the items in my opinion.
My guild seems to be sitting pretty close to yours financially speaking and it has been my observation that having a large guild bank roll causes more problems than it solves. I am constantly getting tells from new guild members asking for “loans” (yeah right). Also, people frequently complain about the guild repair limits. For some reason, nobody seems to understand that the only reason we were able to build a bank of cash for repairs is because we keep the daily withdrawals relatively low. More guild bank money is the last thing we need in my opinion.
Also, to come to the defense of vanity items, they are one of the few possessions in the World of Warcraft experience that never dramatically decrease in value. Eventually, every single piece of armor I have pulled out of ICC will be outdated garbage. Likewise, the gold in my coffers is likely to decrease in value through WoW inflation (remember when 100g was a lot of cash?). Chilly the Penguin, on the other hand, will always be just as adorable; the tiger mount from ZG will always be cool; and the tabard from the Armory will always prompt “Where did you get that?!?!” after inspects. Sure, they may become less rare over time, but they still preserve that sense of owning something cool. In that sense, as far as I am concerned, vanity items are the most valuable loot in World of Warcraft. Affirm or Deny?
I’m an officer in a guild on PVE-RP server that has completed two Shadowmournes so far.
First, I recommend giving your group a venue to discuss their feelings about this publicly. Our initial thread on this got a lot of very heated responses but, after analyzing those response, we determined there was really only one *very* vocal person with a differing opinion than the rest of the raid. Knowing that made handing down a final decision much easier.
Second, we pre-set options for the discussion. Our three options were 1) selling for gold for the guild bank, 2) distributing via a weighted roll based on attendance, 3) allowing the Shadowmourne wielder to decide where the objects should go with the provision that they stay with a main raiding character (no alts, etc). We found our group was not at all interested in the gold option, our one vocal dissenter was for the weighted roll, and everyone else was for the wielder assigning.
The reasoning went that we selected the people who were getting Shadowmourne for being top contributors and people that were already working for the good of the group to start with. We had no doubt these people would try to make fair decisions about distribution. The other factor that was hard for us to ignore is that the wielder is the one that actually has to hand the objects over in the first place. The box goes in their inventory and it’s literally in their hands what happens to the objects.
Being on an RP server, we had people in our raid with RP reasons for being interested in particular items. For example, our prot pally has had a vanity guild since vanilla called Will of the Lightbringer. He got our first Tabard of the Lightbringer because, really, how could it not go to him. Our raid decided as a group that randomly distributing the items would actually lessen their value, whereas allowing them to be distributed as gifts by the wielder increased their significance dramatically. So that’s what we went with.
Selling them is the practical way to go, yes, but there are times when practicality isn’t the best option, and I think this is one of them. We’ve left the decision of vanity item distribution to each of the Shadowmourne recipients we’ve had (we’re finishing up #6 currently), and overwhelmingly they’ve chosen to distribute the loot within the guild. It’s a unique and enduring way of thanking players for sticking with it for the past 8+ months.
In the end, I may be a self-absorbed moron. But my glowing tabard makes me smile more than g-bank repairs or enchanting mats ever did.
The closest example of my own I have right now is how my past guild dealt with the Twilight Drake from OS3D, but this is how I think it should be handled.
Some people (including me, heh) really really care about vanity items. It’s what motivates me in games when progression is slow, or when other things would get me down. I understand that some people don’t care, and that’s fine. But they should still respect the fact that it’s important to others like me.
That having been said, I think an initial /roll between guild members is the best way to start the distribution. Since there are so many possible items and not everyone might want every item, the rolls for each vanity item can be individual – but each person can only choose to roll on one item per raid. (My bets are going onto the mount, obviously, but that means that someone who really cares about one of the other items will have a higher chance of getting it, at the cost of rolling for the mount later when there’s less people to roll against.)
I think it would also be prudent to have them soulbind the item on the spot and use it in front of the raid, to reduce the possibility of people rolling on an item and then surreptitiously going off and selling it for thousands of gold.
If/after everyone’s gotten the items they want, then selling the extras to fund the guild in Cataclysm is a great idea. Just make sure that the raiders have gotten their share–or, if the guild is really hurting for money, offer a sharp discount and priority for raiders (ie 10-20k gold instead of 100k for the mount?)
Bear in mind that I just woke up 20 minutes ago to check my email, though, so half of this probably doesn’t make any sense.
Practicality is always the best option ESPECIALLLY nearing the end of the current expansion. I have been in enough top 100 guilds to realize they way to stay ahead of the curve it to have a huge supply of funds at your guilds disposal to get people geared up as quickly as possible.
The options are
1. Give everyone in the guild 2 crafted epics purchased by funds from the guild bank as soon as they get to 85
or
2. Have some self absorbed moron stand in Ironforge on the bridge wearing his tabard of the lightbringer
If you choose 1 you are a sensible resonable person who understands the need to make practical chose’s for the guild in order to progress
If you choose 2 then you are an idiot
Maybe our guild is backwards, or maybe our realm. But I come from the belief that this is the decision of the person holding Shadowmourne, He/She did the work to obtain the weapon and it is their reward to distribute how they see fit. Some might argue that the guild did the work, but this simply isn’t the case. Let me tell you why…
1) 25 Saronites… When people were first getting their saronites together, bosses were not farm content and guilds were using saronites to craft boots and legs for people as well. This means that the person usually bought a good amount of them. And Saronite wasn’t cheap then either.
2) Infusions…. This might seem trivial, but we are working on our 3rd Shadowmourne and the poor guy never did anything but dps in this game. So he had to farm a few pieces of tank gear, so our healers could keep him up for a few things (BQ, Sindy)
3) The earning of the shards is not something that changed how the guild operated. The bosses would still be dying there is just an extra piece of loot on them that goes to the person collecting. We would still be progressing with or without the desire to earn these.
So, first SM we got, guy kept his Tabard and Mount, and gave the 3 fun use items away to people he saw fit. 2nd SM sold his tabard and mount and gave the 3 items away to people who had helped him with Loremaster quest that were raids (BWL, LBRS, etc) I was lucky enough to have been one of the nice people that helped him and I was rewarded with Jaina’s Locket. Which is fun becauase I can now make “Priest Portals” for my guild.
Good luck with what you decide, but keep in mind that the guy/gal that earned SM should have a little bit of say into it. They worked hard for that.
I really hope that the person you chose to give the Shadowmourne to knew that the guild was going to be taking the items from the chest and that you didn’t just spring that on them.
My last guild and my current guild both let the person with the Shadowmoune do what they want with the items. Yes the rest of the raid was required to get the shards, but the person could transfer without completing the weapon and the guild still wouldn’t have the items in the chest. It wasn’t worth the drama to try to be greedy assholes about it.
@Imalinata: Yes actually, I didn’t just “spring” it on him. This was discussed beforehand. Like come on. I’m not the kind of person that would just randomly do that :P.
How the hell has the guy who got shadowmourne worked any harder than anyone else? Did he he farm 11 hardmodes and LK for Shards himself?
I am a GM and I’m in your situation – in fact, we made our first Shadowmourne last week.
We are in a slightly better financial position than you sound to be – about 200k in the guild bank.
Having been through two previous expansions with my guild, I know full well that the raid team I have today will not be the same folks as raided in the previous expansion or Cataclysm. Things change, people move on or change characters… any number of things alter the makeup.
With that in mind, I am keen to have these items reward the people who helped us make the Shadowmourne, rather than get turned into cash (which then has its own problem with distribution).
We have agreed with the Shadowmourne holder that he can have his pick of the box (one item) to start with. He contributed some of the Primordial Saronite, but obviously we’re the ones who boosted him through the quests, etc. so its seen as a fair ‘deal’.
For the other four items, what we’re doing is to hold a lottery. Every raid member gains 1 ‘ticket’ for every raid they were present in where a Shadowfrost Shard dropped. It adds up to just under 1200 tickets. We’ll /random four lucky people and they’ll get their choice in turn (one item each).
Items are not allowed to hit the AH and those who don’t really want a vanity item are encouraged to pass to the next in line.
I hope that helps focus your thoughts.
Ask them what they would like to sell and what they would to keep. Even if you sell 2 items, then your doing fine.
Regarding the mount, I think someone in the guild should get it. Leave it up to the raiders to decide it – secret ballot or something. The guild leader might get it, the avid mount collector that has all the mounts in the game BUT this one might get it.
Regarding the gbank in the future, dont forget that as long as your guild is active, you will have a steady source of income coming in via the guild perks (I think 15% is the most you will get from any looting)
My opinion is that all active raiders when the Lich King dies…should have the opportunity to /roll on the items. Perhaps the tabard and the mount should be secret balloted by the raid to a raid member in honor of their contributions to the raid.
Everyone worked too hard to accomplish this feat…it’s a shame to not allow someone involved in reaching this in game goal to flaunt their stuff.
Our guild acquired two Shadowmournes. The officers have always been very clear that the final decision was up to the weapon’s wielder, although it was implied that benefitting the raiders would be nice.
The first went to our main tank, who promptly “decided to cut back on playing” by transferring off server, then trying to sell the mount for some ungodly sum (I wanna say 50,000 gold but I don’t recall). Let’s just say that was full of fail, and we don’t really talk about that episode.
The second, which we just acquired last week, had a better outcome. The guildie posted in our forums for suggestions, and after a lot of discussion (level 1 gnome race? contest? straight auction?), this is what we wound up doing:
On a specified day after a raid, all of the guild members with a raiding rank would be invited to a raid group, and the guy would auction off each item. The ONLY people who could bid were those who participated in the raids–this was important, because he felt the benefit should only go to those helped him get his shards. There was no ceiling on gold prices.
The proceeds of the auction were split 50/50, with the guild member keeping half, and the other half being split among all of the raiders. This way even if we didn’t bid or win an item, we used a GDKP system where everyone walked away with some gold.
We had 29 raiders, and we all walked away with around 2k gold, if i recall.
The mount only went for a measly 25,000 gold. We were surprised (and it went to our resident mount collector) but then, it’s not a flying mount and it looks a lot like a DK mount.
The Dalaran portal item went for a fair bit. I wanna say around 8k?
But the biggest, most expensive and crazy priced item was the tabard! We had a couple of people who absolutely had to have it (I think they were big Lord of the Ring fans or something). In the end, I believe the tabard went for something like 80,000 gold. Crazy!
We held the auction in Ledegermain in the middle of Dalaran, and the RL ran a GDKP addon that handled the announcement of spiraling prices in raid chat automatically.
Whatever you decide to do, have fun!
My guild is working on our 3rd Shadowmourne. We also had the same decisions to make. In the end it was agreed that since our other 24 members did just as much as the person obtaining Shadowmourne, that we should take the items and give them up for a DKP silent auction. Giving them a chance to use raid points, instead of real money, and boost moral at the same time. The auction was a huge hit and with our 3rd shadowmourne almost completed people are already starting to talk about the next set of items. It is a big moral boost to see people use the trinkets, tabards, and mounts during our many many wipes. It helps remind our new recruits that you will be rewarded for your loyalty, and in the end isn’t what every guild leader wants overall? Happy and loyal raiders are priceless.
“How the hell has the guy who got shadowmourne worked any harder than anyone else? Did he he farm 11 hardmodes and LK for Shards himself?”
We had two people ready to make a Shadow’s Edge the week the Blood drops were available. They farmed and bought 25 Saronites when the average price was ~2500g (or 23 EoF.. which is a Raid Weekly, VoA 10/25 and ~a week of Daily Heroics each). So they farmed north of 60k gold.
Did your guild give them them the 25 Primordials?
All I did was show up to kill bosses that we needed to kill anyway (and I have loot from all of them). 124 Shards and counting.. I have put in zero effort related to Shadowmourne.
Not a problem I’m ever likely to have, but I can share the gist of what my sister did for her guild.
1. The player that got Shadowmourne had the choice of what to do with the items (and chose to share them with the raid)
2. Raiders were told to choose *one* item that they wanted out of the set (so they got to balance their choice between “which items do I really want?” and “which items are other people more likely to roll for?”)
3. My sister (as GL) collected choices and /rolls privately from the raiders over the course of a week or so
4. Their guild got together after the items had been collected and handed them all out
It sounded like they had quite a lot of fun with the process.
But, it depends what you all want out of the game. As others have pointed out, the cosmetic items are the ones that don’t lose their value as new expansions roll around. Noone is likely to still be using Shadowmourne by the time the first Cataclysm raid content patch rolls around, but plenty of people will still be getting enjoyment out of the vanity items.
Is the game *just* about progression for you and your guild (as it seems to be for Kimboslice)? Or do you occasionally sit back and go “Hey, ya know, the non-competitive parts of this game are actually quite fun, too!”?
I agree with Nimizar: At the end of the day, what kind of guild are you?
Are you a guild that is going to see these items as guild badges of honour and wear them proudly?
Are you more progression focussed?
Do your guildies work for immediate gains?
Are they going to stick around for longer term return on investments?
The type of guild culture you have created (which, in part is going to be generated from the guild leader’s personality) will dictate what you should do with the items. For example, to get to kimboTrolls desires you would have to answer like this:
No, Yes, No, Yes
That said, if you think you are going to get 2 Shadowmournes (not impossible, my old guild was working on their third when 25s collapsed 4 weeks ago) you could go somewhere between prestige and practicality, One for me, one for the GBank… one for me, one for the GBank.
I totally disagree with this whole person getting Shadowmourne having some sort of special treatment, the reason is… I mean.. come on. They got a legendary. They were chosen to have an item that took a group of people over 50 boss kills and some irritating raid quests that had nothing to do with them to get.
Now, if they pugged their shadowmourne, then more power to them and it’s really not any one group of people helping. My guild personally kills every boss possible on heroic regardless of whether anyone else needs it or not just because it has a higher drop % on shards.
Keep in mind, 25 primordials gets you a Shadow’s Edge, not a Shadowmourne. The difference between that person wielding a Shadow’s Edge and a Shadowmourne is a dedicated guild (or being insane enough to pug 50 shards, in which case I think they can do whatever the hell they want with the chest items). The fact of the matter is, a raid can easily find another person to fill that DPS spot. That DPS wanting the Shadowmourne, though, will have a significantly more difficult time finding 24 other people who want to give all the legendary shards to them and not someone else. I think handing that person the legendary item and automatically assuming the next 50 shards that drop go to them is a sort of gesture of faith in their dedication and care for the guild. What person who cares for their guild wouldn’t just let the members who worked hard to help have a chance at some nice items that are non-class specific anyway?
Oh, and once again, I can’t ever see a use for selling this. Gold is like freakin’ toilet paper nowadays. I mean there are people with full time jobs, families, are fulltime raiders, and with hobbies other than WoW that walk around with over 200k gold earned through the AH at any given moment… if that’s one person a guild can easily earn obscene amounts of gold through other equally as easy means.
We let the dude who got Shadowmourne decide what to do with the items. He sent them out privately after the raid. He kept the tabard, but gave the other items to long time guildies who were either very helpful in the SM quest process or who are particularly into the lore.
I think it worked out pretty well, but I might be biased as I got the mount. 😉
my guild pissed me and a lot of other members off by letting the people who got frostmourne keep all the times. could understand keeping one — legendary weapon eventually gets replaced vanity items are always as cool as they are — but all?
Give it to your guild, it’s theirs.
Sell them, especially the charger.
If you hold on to them they will not be as valuable in cataclysm since everyone will be on flying mounts except in bgs and arenas.
100k now could be invested to make another 200-300k by the time cataclysm hits.
Well that’s just my two copper on the issue!
Here’s how Unpossible does it.
The carrier of Shadowmourne picks and keeps one item. Any of the item in the chest but just one.
The carrier of Shandowmourne then picks one person in the raid at the time of the kill and awards one item to that person. We added a caveat for our guild that the awarded person couldn’t be an officer, but that is because the first two people to get Shadowmourne are officers and we wanted to make sure it went back into the guild as a whole.
The last three items are /rolled 1-100 by all members in the raid at the time of the kill, one roll per item. Once a person wins an item they can no longer roll on the remaining items, or future sealed chest drops.
All recipients are asked to equip the item in the raid at the time of getting the item.
We did this for a couple reasons. First it gives something visible back to the guild to show thanks for the dedication and hard work they put into raiding. It wasn’t just the shadowmourne person who did all the work. The raid helped farm shards and kill bosses. It was a team effort. The reason we asked people to equip it? Well we supply the “cost of raiding” stuff, so to come to a raid and get loot costs the raiders, well, nothing but their time. This is something they can wear for flavor or fun and pride to say they were there when it happened. The shadowmourne person keeping one is because, in most cases, they fronted the cash or badges for the primordial saronite off the bat. Awarding it to someone is to make sure someone who gives their all every raid and contributes to the guild in a positive manner is awarded outside of the influence of RNG.
My guild treats all legendary items as guild events, because they kind of are.
So far it’s worked quite well and with zero drama.
I’d meet that beautiful girl at school and she would join my guild 😉 Then you can play AND have a girlfriend 😀
Ours the recipient gave all the items to very veteran Guild members,
Personally i am fine with the quester doing whatever they want EXCEPT selling them outside the guild for his own personal enrichment.
Kimboslice Gold and epics are meaningless in the long term. Our gbank is pushing 500k and we have individual players with more then that.
Matt,
As noted above, the best thing is to have it planned out and well in advance, and from your reply, there seems to have already been a discussion. I say, plan in advance, because you can have happen with us. We are working on SM #3 currently. Here is how the other’s played out. (Please understand that our guild has taken the position that despite the bad programming (as in the items are not on the corpse, can be ML’d, etc) the items are in fact part of a quest as a quest reward, so mechanically, the quest holder always got final say).
SM #1. – Was our MT, officer, and the player with the highest EP (of the EPGP system, which is what we used to decide priority on quests/shards) at the start of our journey. He took all the items, and then ninja transferred and attempted to sell his account. We trolled him, and he probably got about 1000.00 for the toon, but it was not the best experience for the guild.
SM #2 – Just happenned a few weeks ago. This player decided to hold a GDKP with the items, in guild. One night, after raid, all interested holed up in the Ledgermain Lounge (a popular hangout for us) and auctioned off the items to guild members. We have some high rollers, and from what I remember: Tabard = 90k, Mount = 70k, Dwarf trinket = 20k, cant remember the others. The player split the pot several ways. Kept some for himself, deposited some in the GBank, and then split the remainder of the gold to the raid (inGDKP fashion). I think the payout was about 3200g.
I always thought it would be nead to hold an “awards ceremony with the items”. I mean, you guys do loot council anyways, so it shouldn’t be hard, considering your members are used to things being decided by a small group in regards to loot. But just setting up an opportunity to reminisce about the earning of the weapon …. the lament to the silly warlock that never learned to watch aggro and kept dying …. the tabard for the pally healer that blasted Holy LIghts for so long that he seemed to glow himself …. muradin’s favor to the silly Belf Paladin that keeps calling for “Heroism” in a Horde Guild (this was me, and I have the macro for my use of the item to say: “Bloodlust?!?! What is this Bloodlust you speak of??”
Anyways, for me, and others, I think these items are more than gold peices waiting to happen. Maybe I’m a naive shmuck, but I think of these items (for the first time in WoW history) a real opportunity to share the gaining of a legendary with the guild. It’s almost like they’re the first ever rewards for the first ever “guild acheivement”. You can have remnants of the accomplishment around even after the legendary owner leaves the game and such. You have mementos all around … and honestly, to me, that’s worth more than a few hundred thousand gold.
@ Teni –
WTH, I should have read up before replying. You’re always so much more elegant. 🙂
LOL, and apparently some of my information was wrong. It was late … I was tired.
So, Matt — what did you choose?
We had a lottery within the guild. The mount had a 1000g per ticket price and all others had a 100g ticket price. We made 200,000g and will be able to keep the guild in free repairs pretty much forever.
There was a bit of crying because one person bought 15 tickets for the tabard, which people thought was unfair because it hurt their chances of winning. But really – it would be no different to us auctioning the item off and it going to that guy for 1500g.
And no matter how many times I explained it, there was still confusion at the end regarding the money – no, you don’t get a refund if you don’t win – have you never entered a lottery before? No, if we get a second cache, you can’t “re-use” your tickets from last time… -_-
I think for the next one we may just /roll off between the long-standing raiders. Although I see that creating dramas, since a number of people left to go play elsewhere when we stopped doing 25s – some of them may still believe they are entitled to a roll… we’ll see, I guess.
I should add that the reason we did an in-guild lottery was that we needed money, BUT, we really wanted to keep the items in the guild, because they are rare and trophies in themselves – we didn’t want to thrown them up on the AH add have them disappear. So a lottery ticked both of those boxes – funds for the gbank, and the items staying with guildies.
What we did with our Shadowmournes (we have 2 now), was have everybody post on the forums which item(s) they’d like from the sealed chest. One of the officers assigns numbers to the items and then rolls 1-5. Whoever had mentioned they’d like the corresponding item on the forums would then roll 1-100 to see who the lucky winner is.
The rules to entering were:
You must be of raider status. (guild rank)
You must have been in one of our Lich King kills.
You must use the item on your main. Upon receiving the item, we will watch you use it. NO SELLING.
Only 1 item per person.
If you got one last time, you don’t get something this time.
Blah, I called it.
We get a new box of goodies.
Nothing is done with the goodies, they just sit for a while.
Our 25man team folds and some people leave for other guilds.
We go to hand out the items, and several ex-members complain.
The concept of “you’re not a guild member anymore, so you don’t get a roll” seems to be no match for “I was a long-standing member at the time that we got the loot, so I earned a roll……. even if I quit the guild”
:/
Jeffo,
After much consideration, reflection, and comments reading, the decision was made to sell off the items to help spring board our guild into the next expansion.