Section I

Background

Q) What is The Ska’vyn Exchange?

A) The Ska’vyn Exchange is a high-end trading community in The Elder Scrolls Online whose goal is to provide members with access to a top-tier Guild Trader Kiosk location while maintaining an incredibly supportive, friendly and helpful environment.

Q) How long has Ska’vyn been around?

A) Great question! You may notice that The Ska’vyn Exchange has a “Founded” date of 03/30/2014 – also known as “Day One” of the Early Access PC/Mac launch period. Our guild’s core has been around for a long time – but we weren’t always a Trade Guild! In fact, TSE started out as the official “Elder Scrolls Online” guild for a now-defunct cross-gaming community. After that community collapsed in mid-2015, a few of our remaining leaders stuck around and, after several months of low activity, we officially converted into a Trade-focused guild in January of 2016! We’ve quickly grown into one of the very best Trade Guilds in Tamriel, all thanks to the hard work, dedication and experience of our Guild Master & Officers, as well as all of our incredibly supportive and active members – we hope you’ll enjoy yourself as a part of our community!

Q) So, what’s the deal with the Guild Name?

A) Our guild is named for the city of Ska’vyn (sometimes spelled “Skaven”), located in Central Hammerfell, our original home. After recent events related to the ongoing Three Banners War, The Exchange has relocated to capitalize on greater business opportunities in other areas of Tamriel – but we continue to proudly display the name of our homeland.

Q) I see TSE is aligned with the Covenant – what’s up with that?

A) Our allegiance to the Daggerfall Covenant is a loose affiliation at best. While we do occasionally offer our wares for sale in the war-torn region of Cyrodiil under the protection of Emeric’s banner, we as a Guild never officially engage in open combat. You may occasionally see some familiar faces on the battlefield, as we allow our members to do what they please on their own time, but as a Trade Organization, our sole focus is coin – cold, hard gold. As such, we accept members from any of the three major Tamrielic alliances – be you of the Pact, Dominion, or Covenant.

Q) How do I communicate with my Ska’vyn friends when I’m not in Tamriel?

A) Our Guild Leadership Team has created an official Discord server for the free and open use of all of our members! Discord is an incredibly robust, lightweight Voice & Text Chat program available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, and it also has a browser-based web client! We regularly get together to chat, make crafting requests, share the dankest of memes, answer questions, organize PvE & PvP groups, and more, all through Discord!

Section III

Guild Ranks & xCoin Balances

Q) So, I see all of these different Guild Ranks – how do they work?

A) In Ska’vyn, our Guild Ranks are based on our xCoin Balance metric – a unique system developed to accurately measure the weekly and monthly contributions our members make to the Guild’s bottom line. xCoin Balances are calculated and posted at the end of each fiscal week, usually by midnight on Sunday evenings (Eastern Time). The higher your xCoin Balance is, the higher your Rank!

Q) Okay. . .so what are the thresholds I need to meet for each Rank?

A) Great question! See our Guild Rank Progression breakdown below:

—

Weekly Averages for the current Trade Month:

-Shareholder – Top 10 Monthly Average xCoin Balances
-Maverick – 200,000+
-Tycoon – 90,000-199,999
-Merchant – 30,000-89,999
-Peddler – 0-29,999 (your membership is in jeopardy)

Q) What happens if I’m demoted to the Peddler rank?

A) Initially? Nothing. Listen, we understand that everyone has an off-week here and there, so if you’re ever placed in the Peddler rank, you’ll always* have one full week to work your way back up out of it to the ranks of Merchant and above.

Only if you fail to work your way out of the Peddler rank for that consecutive week will your guild membership be placed in jeopardy. The Guild Master generally kicks members in the bottom 5% – 10% from the Peddler rank if they need to make space for new recruits – so be sure to grab yourself some raffle tickets and redouble your sales efforts to avoid this!

Q) Hang on, brochacho – what’s with that nasty little asterisk next to “always*”?

A) Remember Section II of the FAQ? That whole “Don’t be a jerk” clause?

Yeah, nobody’s exempt from that. So if you decide to rain down some hellfire and brimstone, being placed in the “Peddler” rank isn’t some weird loophole to make you exempt from the rules.

Q) WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! I’m going on vacation for a few weeks, and I won’t be able to be online to make sure I’m selling things or donating. Am I going to get kicked?

A) Not necessarily. We actually have a lot of members who go on vacation between weeks, so we totally understand if you’re going to have a slightly extended hiatus. Just let a Guild Officer or the Guild Master know that you’re leaving, and be sure to list the dates that you’ll be away on your Note next to your name on the Guild Roster, and we’ll consider your case.

That being said – in most situations, it isn’t too difficult to make sure you’re stocking up your Listings before you leave. Oftentimes, items you list will continue to sell while you’re away, and you can maintain your membership status without being online! Just be smart, and communicate with the Leadership Team.

Q) You mentioned this ‘xCoin Balance’ system. That’s cool and all, but how are xCoin Balances actually calculated?

A) Oh, you want some math? We’ll give you some math. Brace yourself, you naive fool, it’s time to get nerdy.

xCoin Balances are calculated as an aggregate running total of your actual contributions to the Guild. Think of one ‘xCoin’ as being roughly equivalent to one ‘Gold’ of in-game currency. So, a Weekly xCoin Balance of 35,000 is roughly equivalent to 35,000g contributed to the Guild’s bottom line during that fiscal week.

There are several elements that are calculated together to create your xCoin Balance:

Sales: 3.5%
Purchases: 3.5%
Raffle Tickets: 75%
Gold Donations: 100%
Item Donations: 100%
Auction Listings: 100%, less Seller Cut
Auction Purchases: 100%, assuming positive spread.
Farmageddon Donations: 100%

Sales are calculated at 3.5% of their gross value, since the Guild collects a 3.5% tax rate on all Guild Store sales.

Purchases of items from the Guild Store are also calculated at 3.5% of their gross value, since the Guild collects a 3.5% tax rate on all Guild Store purchases.

Raffle Ticket Purchases are calculated at 75% of their gross value, as that is loosely accurate to the margin we can make after factoring Prizes.

Gold Donations are calculated at 100% of their gross value.

Item Donations are calculated at 100% of their gross MM value, at the discretion of the Leadership Team. Please note that the Guild will happily accept donations from its members, but we may not credit you for throwaway items or items worth little or no value. We’re looking for items that we can do something with – Ska’vyn is not your trash dump.

Auction Sales are calculated at 100% of their gross MM value, less any pre-determined or requested Sellers’ Cut. For example, if you sell an item in the TSE Weekly Auction that is worth 50,000g, but you request a 25% cut of the final sale price, you will only be credited for 75% of the item value towards your xCoin Balance, or 37,500g.

Please note that the xCoin Balance calculation is conducted with the Estimated Listing Value, and not the Final Listing Sale Price.

Auction Purchases are calculated at 100% of the positive spread between the Final Auction Listing Sale Price and the Estimated Listing Value. For example, if you purchase an item at Auction for 20,000g, but our Estimated Value pegs the item at only 18,000g, you will be credited for that 2,000g difference for a boost of 2,000 xCoins.

Please note that if you purchase an item for less than its Estimated Listing Value, you nor the seller are penalized in any way.

Q) Holy wall of text, man! But I thought you were going to show me some math?

A) Yeesh, relax, we’re getting there! Here’s a mockup of a weekly xCoin Balance for fictitious Guild Member, @BillyBobThornton:

Sales: 150,000g * 3.5% = 5,250 xCoins
Purchases: 70,000g * 3.5% = 2,450 xCoins
Raffle Tickets: 10,000g * 75% = 7,500 xCoins
Gold Donations: 1,368g * 100% = 1,368 xCoins
Item Donations: 21,950g * 100% = 21,950 xCoins
Auction Listings: 20,000g * (100% – 25% Seller Cut = 75% Final xCoin Modifier) = 15,000 xCoins
Auction Purchases: 40,000g Final Sale Price – 28,000g Estimated Listing Value * 100% = 12,000 xCoins
Farmageddon Donation: 84,568g * 100% = 84,568 xCoins

Final Weekly xCoin Balance: 148,086 xCoins

Guild Rank: Tycoon

Q) Man, I really don’t like math. Do I really have to read all of that?

A) Yes.

Q) Seriously? Can’t you just give me a TL;DR?

A) No. That was the TL;DR. Read it.

Q) Really?

A) Yes.

Q) . . . Really?

A) YES!

Q) Okay, fine. One last question – how do you differentiate what’s a Raffle Ticket and what’s a Donation?

A) Great question! We see a lot of members make this mistake, so be sure to pay attention to this one. In short, any Guild Bank deposit that ends with three zeros is considered a ticket. A deposit that ends in anything other than that is a donation.

For example, if I want to buy 15 Raffle Tickets, I’d deposit 15,000g into the Guild Bank. But if I wanted to donate that gold, I’d deposit 15,001g into the Bank.

Section V

Raffles

Q) Raffles, huh? What’s up with that?

A) Remember what we said about fundraising back in Section IV? Our raffles aren’t only one of our fundraisers – they’re our biggest one, and without them being successful we simply wouldn’t be able to afford our weekly upkeep costs. They’re also one of the easier ways for our members to contribute to the guild, maintain high xCoin Balances, and win some awesome prizes!

Q) Splendiferous! Swagtastic even! So how do these “Raffluffles” work, mi amigo?

A) LOVE THAT ENTHUSIASM!

But let’s get right down to it and answer that question, since they’re really quite simple:

1) You buy tickets
2) We draw prizes.

That’s it!

Q) Okay…well, how much do tickets cost? And how can I buy them?

A) Tickets cost 1,000g each, and you can buy them by depositing gold into the Guild Bank!

Oh, and don’t worry – you can buy in bulk. Want to buy 50 tickets? Just toss in 50,000g once – there’s no need to do 50 separate deposits of 1,000g. We’ll figure it out! 😉

Q) So, how do you know what I deposit in the bank is a ticket?

A) Simple! Anything you deposit that ends in three zeros is a ticket deposit. If it doesn’t end in three zeros, we consider that a donation. So if you’re buying 10 tickets, you’d deposit 10,000g, but if you were donating 10,000g, you’d drop in 10,001g.

Or 10,002g.
Or 10,286g.
Or 9,999g.
Or 10,878g.
Or 10,034g.
Or –

Q) OKAY, I GET IT. That’s pretty simple. So what kind of prizes are we talking about?

A) Only the best kind! We give away a whole slew of unique prizes every single week. But rather than bore you by trying to explain it long-hand, let’s just show you a real example, shall we?

Here’s a mock-up of a real raffle we hosted back in 2016:

1) 1,000 Rubedite Ore
2) 100 DIY CP150 Tri-Stat Potions
3) 1,000 Raw Ancestor Silk
4) 25 Kuta
5) Dro-m’Athra Armor Motif Pack
6) 1,000 TICKETS: 5 Perfect Roe
7) 1,500 TICKETS: 5 Nirnhoned Research Armor Pieces
8) 2,000 TICKETS: Legendary Crafted Item of Choice
9) 2,500 TICKETS: 10,000 Ta

In every week’s raffle, we give away at least 5 prizes – all subsequent prizes are unlocked when we’ve reached specific ticket-sales thresholds. So in the above example, if we were to have sold 2,500+ tickets that week, we’d give away nine prizes – but if we only sold 1,200 tickets, there would be six prizes.

Make sense?

Q) Well, sure, I’m not stupid. But what’s the deal with the 10,000 Tas?

A) What’ve you got against Tas?

Q) They’re worthless!

A) No they aren’t! They’re delicious!

Q) Wait, you can eat Tas?

A) Technically, you can eat anything if you try hard enough.

Q) …Okay then. Are there any other ways I can get tickets?

Yes, actually! We offer Raffle Tickets as prizes during some of our Fundraising Events, like Farmageddon (which you can read about below).

Q) Awesome! So, one more question – is there any limit to how many tickets I can buy?

A) Nope! Buy as many as you like! Just keep in mind – you can only win one prize per week. So if you have multiple tickets pulled as “winners”, we’ll only let you claim the first prize, and any subsequent tickets will be re-drawn.

Q) Even if I buy 1,000,000 tickets?

A) Yup. We’re happy to have you contributing to the Guild, but it’s important to us to make sure that all of our participants have a fair chance to get something. If one person buys half of the tickets, they could potentially win everything! And that’s not fun for anybody.

Section VII

Auctions

Q) Auctions, huh? Those seem cool. How do they work?

A) They are cool! It’s really quite simple – every week, Guild Leadership takes a look at all of the items we have available, be it personally, within the Guild Bank, or items that have been sent in by our members – and we create a short list of “Item Lots” to sell. And then we sell them, in Guild Chat, on Saturday nights! There’s usually a few hundred people online, and our members have the opportunity to input their bids live, in chat, in real time, and come away with some really cool listings when all is said and done.

Q) What sorts of things do you sell?

A) Oh, gosh. Everything! We’ve sold a huge variety of items during our Auctions, including recipes, motifs, potions, raw materials, tempers, research items, furniture packages, rare companion pet codes, slaves, legendary crafted ite-

Q) WHOA, HOLD UP. Did you just say you sell slaves???

A) Yeah.

Q) …

A) …

Q) Do you want to explain that a little further, please?

A) Okay, so…maybe “slaves” wasn’t the best choice in terminology. Think of it more as “voluntary indentured servitude” or, more accurately, paying for a service. There are a lot of members in Ska’vyn who have specific talents or skills that other players may really be in need of, so we sometimes let those players sell their time in exchange for gold (and the Guild takes a percentage of the sale).

For instance, we have a few members who are capable of consistently farming 100,000g or more per hour. Maybe they offer to sell three hours of farming time – and you might be able to buy it for only 150,000g. The farmer gets a cut, the guild gets paid, and the buyer is probably going to make a pretty fat profit on the entire transaction. And it’s not just for farming materials – maybe you need some help with farming a specific dungeon for some gear, or desperately want to get one of those fancy skins bound to “Hard Mode” Dungeon & Trial achievements – maybe you just want someone to carry you through a particular zone or delve to grind some experience – whatever it is, Ska’vyn simply acts as the marketplace in which the transaction can be made.

Q) Wait, so you’re not actually selling slaves?

A) Nah, that’s just what we call it. 🙂

Q) Hmm…okay then. So, what if I want to sell something in the Auction? How does that work?

A) If you’d like to sell something at Auction, contact the Guild Master with the specific details of what you’re looking to sell. Keep in mind that Ska’vyn will always take at least 25% of the final sale price as a commission, but if you have something that the Leadership thinks will sell well, we can certainly work something out!

Q) When I sell something at Auction, do I get anything special for it?

A) Well, you obviously get your cut of the gold from the sale, if you elected to take a percentage of the final transaction price. But yes, you do! We always give auction sellers a credit to their xCoin Balance based on the value of the listing they sold, minus any percentage cut that they take from the sale. For more details, you can read about our xCoin Balance system above, in Section III.

Q) What about as a buyer? What’s in it for me if I buy something?

A) Again, the answer is xCoin! If you pay above whatever the posted value of a listing is, we’ll credit your xCoin Balance with the spread above the market value. For instance, if you buy a listing with a market value of 50,000g, but you pay 60,000g, your xCoin Balance would increase by 10,000.