2025 Running Costs and what it means for 2026

Hi everyone As we approach the end of 2025, it's time for the first analysis of guild running costs. Some of these I know exactly, others are good estimates, but are close enough to get a feel for the running costs of SRS this last year. Outgoings: Total Prizes for 2025 This includes achievement prizes, competitions, the mount race, duelling prizes, and a few one-off prizes: Total Prizes (not including Paladin 10% bonus): 150 million gold Cost of trader, on average 2 million per week : 105 million gold Total Outgoings: 255 million gold Income: Paladins: 45 million Taxes raised from guild trader: 25 million Donations approx: 10 million Raffle approx: 25 million Real Money donations through our PayPal donations button: £0 Total in: 105 million Shortfall of 150 million gold Crown equivalent at 2000 gold per Crown is 150,000,000/2000 = 75,000 Crowns Cost of Crowns during a 40% sale at £65 per 21500 crown pack £230 The real cost of running the guild is therefore £230. There are also other costs, such as the website, which is a similar amount but not included here. What this means for prizes in 2026 I've been looking at how much gold ZOS gives away in Golden Pursuits and daily logins. Occasionally, they will give away 100K in a daily login, more often in Golden Pursuits, it's 15K-25K. To me, this seems incredibly stingy, but they are giving it away to tens of thousands of people, so I think they are trying to limit the damage to the economy by not giving away too much. If they gave away a million gold coins each month, this would flood the economy with gold, driving prices on guild traders through the roof. Still, it does show that SRS is incredibly generous with its gold prizes; if we gave away half of what we do now, it would still be extremely generous. So there will be a few changes. Guild Points: Remain the same YAY Mount race and Duelling also Werewolf Duelling, halved to 100K for the winner, 50K 2nd, 25K 3rd and so on. Trader:

Most of you don't use the trader at all, so I am going to be looking at placing a maximum bid of 1.5 million per week. This may get us Ebonheart, but more likely an out-of-town trader spot. Even these last two weeks, where I managed to source a top spot in Belkarth, we only had 14 pages of items (100 items per page), trading guilds would have 100 pages of items typically. As we are not primarily a trading guild, this shouldn't matter too much, provided that when you list items, you scan the store so the data refreshes on the Tamriel Trade Centre website. This means if someone is looking for the Skull of Rahoul, they can see it's on our trader, which just happens to be in the backwaters of Shadowfen or some such place. They won't care where it is, just that they can now find the item they want. Also, please, please, please do not just guess at a price. What is the point of listing something at 10 times what everyone else is paying for it? You are charged to list it, it won't sell, and you'll just get it back in 14 days unsold, earning nothing for the guild and actually costing you money. If you're not sure what something costs, then use the TTC addon or ask for a price in chat. If 1.5 million doesn't get us a trader, then so be it, save your items for the next week when I will bid 2 million to ensure a trader for that week. I still expect to be able to get one each week. I've been recording how much I've spent on different locations and have a good idea of what they cost, and that price has dropped enormously as guilds run out of cash due to declining player numbers. These measures will save around 50 million gold a year, and this will be used for other one-off special events and to reduce the total financial burden on me somewhat. I am not a rich person who can throw money willy-nilly, and I have to do this smarter in the future. The most important thing for me was to keep the amazingly successful and popular Guild Points and Achievement systems the same, and I have managed to do this. The Guild Points System encourages far more group play than most guilds could ever dream of, with over 6000 events this year, and I expect the same in 2026. Ok, there it is, still lots to play for in 2026, let's go!