Private cartels have bothered me for a while. They cost a very large pile of gold to create, but then on top of it they require 5k gold for every design you want to make cartel-private. It doesn't seem like creating and owning a cartel comes anywhere close to making money (or even generates income); how can they be changed to maybe at least recoup the cost of the privatizing fee?

For a while I was entertaining the idea of running a cartel where there was both a small annual fee for members and a fee that they could charge when they design using a cartel-specific design. The fees would be deposited into the cartel's bank account and would then be used to offset the privatizing fee. How feasible does this sound?

What other changes would people like to see to cartels?

You can already do the fees to be in the cartel, or clan for that matter.

I've pondered something similar, but the problem is that the designs in the cartel would need to be plentiful (and good) enough to be worth the annual dues for the crafters. Sure, it's possible, but it'd likely require quite a bit of work (which, as you said, costs money).

Yes, I know. But Ssaliss's point is a good one: nobody would pay dues for a cartel that doesn't have many designs, but in order to have many private designs, the cartel needs to invest a lot of money into privatizing them. Plus, what's a reasonable level of dues to pay? With the number of people in certain trade skills so low (e.g. artisan, bookbinding), is it even fathomable to sustain such a cartel? Is it possible to just declare a cartel to be absolutely non-political, so that you can recruit people from all orgs, and limit the number of org-themed private designs?

That's not quite true.. If you know a person is a good designer and you know they will do well, you normally try to join their cartel to see what shinies they decide to make. Even if they charge a bit of gold now and then.

Well, yes. There's still a considerable amount of work involved though (which almost always includes a considerable amount of money). Just them being creative and good as designers doesn't mean they're known for it, they also have to actually get their goods out there and get a good reputation.

EDIT: This might not apply for good friends that know the person well enough, but for the common masses.

Aren't there in most worthwhile things?

Of course. But by that time, they're generally not bothered by the cost of creating new designs (or at least I'd imagine they weren't, but not having been a tailor due to extreme lack of imaginative powers I can't say fur sure).

I don't think the point of private cartels is to be profitable, I think the point is that you buy one because you really want your own private designs, and the 5,000 gold cost is to facilitate that private designs cost money. If it was free, no one would ever get their designs approved by the Charites/Review Panel unless half the game was mortal reviewers. I don't really think anything is wrong with private cartels as they are now except that most of us don't charge that annual dues fee (I think Richter's cartels do, though). Really, I think that if its a new cartel and there are no or few designs, make it free and just pay out of pocket for the first few designs. Raise the dues incrementally as the number of designs/reputation of the cartel increases.

I agree that private cartels are not meaned to be profiteable. They are so you can keep designs behind as bragging rights. If you really want to design but can't afford a cartel you will have absolutely no problem finding a cartel owner who will let you use their cartel. And some cartel owners (like me) will even fund the submission out of their earnings from other activities.

I don't think the 5k thing is meaned as a preventive for mass submissions, every cartel has 3 cartel and 3 public designs for possible review. 15000 gold a month is really not that hard to obtain (3 times an easy quest like stewartsville, 2 imbued items and some begging, etc)

I got my private cartel just cause I wanted to have private designs that no one else had access to.