Think Sales Booths Are The Answer? Think Again. Auction Houses FTW

ers101284b14_ESO · May 2014

Fleymark wrote: »

The devs have already stated that they didn't put in an auction house intentionally because they feel that it would glut the economy on a mega server setup like this.

As I recall they explained it like this...Key items get farmed once they are known to be key, the market gets flooded and then it loses value in proportion to its actual practical value or merchant type players artificially keep the prices high by always buying them when they see them priced lower and put them back up for sale at the artificially high price. And the source of the items in the game gets farmed like mad, often creating CS problems.

What they did not say, but I took from what they said reading between the lines, is that this plays right into the interests of the RMT gold sellers. They farm the items, work the markets to keep the prices up, price the items to make buying gold appealing, then get their gold back to RMT sell again when the items get bought. And the average player who just wants or needs the item as a part of normal progression thru the game either gets pinched out, forced to farm unusuallly excessive amounts of gold for the item (helping supply the gold sellers), or becomes a gold seller's customer. None of which are good.

So they gave us 5 guild slots instead so that we can join trading guilds. This gives you access to up to 5 guild stores, 5 guild chats, and 2500 guildies to trade with. Plus there are always open /zone channels to arrange trades in.

Not necessarily ideal, I agree, but I think they gave sound reasoning behind doing it the way they did since we are on megaservers. But for that reason, I highly doubt you will ever see anything involving automated selling beyond what we have now with the guild stores.

I don't think asking them to increase the size of guilds, size of guild banks and stores, and improve the guild store search functionality (because not everyone uses add-ons and hindering that by default is arguably bad for commerce) would be unreasonable, though.

Mostly this.

You beg for an auction house but with Zenimax already proving they have a hard time with botters it would crash the economy. Could you imagine how upset people would be when their legendary items that used to go for $5,000 now go for $5 because of over saturation. Or how many people would quit because a RMT sold someone some gold, then that person bought your item with RMT gold and you got banned for it.

iuki · May 2014

Can't be bothered to use 'trade guilds' no more; to small of a pool of players so only way to sell is to spam zone chat. Imo, something needs to be done either an actual AH or some the suggestions here.

My dream would be....pre-CU SWG style: player housing with player vendors and a global AH that has a price limit to allow trading of not so expensive items. ie. consumables, crafting mats, etc.

To me, guilds stores are worthless and far to limited; 500 players max...good luck finding active/decent ones, they don't seem to exist.

p.s. people like to argue that AH will bring in lots of bots/hackers/gold farmers...well, they have already taken over the game so why punish the actual real players for things Zeni is utterly incapable of stopping?

ers101284b14_ESO · May 2014

iuki wrote: »

Can't be bothered to use 'trade guilds' no more; to small of a pool of players so only way to sell is to spam zone chat. Imo, something needs to be done either an actual AH or some the suggestions here.

My dream would be....pre-CU SWG style: player housing with player vendors and a global AH that has a price limit to allow trading of not so expensive items. ie. consumables, crafting mats, etc.

To me, guilds stores are worthless and far to limited; 500 players max...good luck finding active/decent ones, they don't seem to exist.

p.s. people like to argue that AH will bring in lots of bots/hackers/gold farmers...well, they have already taken over the game so why punish the actual real players for things Zeni is utterly incapable of stopping?

There are tons of trading guilds out there just to buy and sell. And if they put in an AH it probably would punish honest players. Right now using zone chat and guild stores is annoying but workable. I have to reference FF14 because that was the game I played before this one. Ff14 Had an auction board and it made the economy just terrible. Highest top tier gear was selling for under $100 on most servers. Mass amounts of people where getting banned because their items got bought with RMT money and when their character came back a lot of their gold was gone. Several people I knew quit because they had $100,000 sold a sword for $20 got banned for 3 days and came back to only having $10,000 in their bank. All because Square couldn't control RMT and my friends couldn't control who they sold to.

Thulsola · May 2014

AinGeal wrote: »

There's your slight bonus. Crafted items of the same level would sell for more than their looted counter part simply because they offer slightly better stats.

That's not what I mean by a slight bonus. I mean a slight bonus that is specific to the crafter. So that a set of armour made by me has the potential to have a small bonus that is different than a set made by someone else. It should be hard to get. Like maybe having to re-research a trait 5 times at the highest time interval to get a slight bonus for that trait. Or maybe be a combination of research and the number of times you craft items. Hell - make it random with a really small probability based on how many of an item you craft, with re-researching a trait giving you just the slightest amount of increase in the probability. Force me to sink skill points into it if I really want to get a special perk.

Make it so that amour I create be different from the armour you create in some meaningful, yet small, way.

And lets shift repairs to the crafters - and give a slight reduction in repair cost to the crafter who originally made the armor. The game should help me establish a customer base that has reason to be loyal to me - but it shouldn't be so great an advantage that i can take advantage of that customer base.

Even without changing the mechanics of the game, simply introducing a trading house could change that problem (is it a problem) you are having about selling embroidery to make more money than the completed product. I sense artificial inflation due to the current economic restrictions.

I don't think an AH solves the real problem. The real problem is that there are simply too many different variations of play style and too many variations of armour/weapons to spec build armour and have it reliably sell. There needs to be a way for you to order exactly what armour you want from me and for me to provide it for you without trust having to enter the relationship.

Give us proper searching in our guild stores. Allow me or my guild to open my own store in cities, hire an NPC to manage it. Have a search tool across all stores in that city. Allow for the ability to order and pre-pay for crafted items.

It also doesn't help the way upgrading works. Mats are easy to get but upgrade components are not so easy. Well, not as easy. Until you invest points, you need 5 to get a 100% success rate to upgrade and despite using 5 to upgrade, you only get a chance of getting one back when you deconstruct. On top of that, people who demand them are those crafting. If the majority of the player base is crafting, then your demand for inputs will be high while your demand for crafted gear won't be.

I agree. there should be a significant hit to your ability to be a PvE or PvP player if you also try to level crafting all the way. A crafting character should have to be focused on crafting to make it a viable character.

Personally I would love a game that included crafting professions in with classes. If done with ESO (just an example calm down) you could choose to be a Templar, NB, DK, Sorc, Tailor, Enchanter, Alchemist, Carpenter, and Chef.

One of the things I have always liked bout ES games is that you don't have to pre-determine your destiny at the beginning of the game - it is built on what you decide to train in/use. I would rather just make it harder to be a crafter, require more skill points, and make it so that no successful PvE/PvP player can get very far in the game without building a relationship with one or more crafters.

Ser Lobo · May 2014

Thulsola wrote: »

One of the things I have always liked bout ES games is that you don't have to pre-determine your destiny at the beginning of the game - it is built on what you decide to train in/use. I would rather just make it harder to be a crafter, require more skill points, and make it so that no successful PvE/PvP player can get very far in the game without building a relationship with one or more crafters.

My only beef with this, is knowing what I've seen in other games that did this: you just make a crafting alt.

And how does that alt achieve skillpoints without being a competent PvE/PvP player?

iuki · May 2014

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

iuki wrote: »

Can't be bothered to use 'trade guilds' no more; to small of a pool of players so only way to sell is to spam zone chat. Imo, something needs to be done either an actual AH or some the suggestions here.

My dream would be....pre-CU SWG style: player housing with player vendors and a global AH that has a price limit to allow trading of not so expensive items. ie. consumables, crafting mats, etc.

To me, guilds stores are worthless and far to limited; 500 players max...good luck finding active/decent ones, they don't seem to exist.

p.s. people like to argue that AH will bring in lots of bots/hackers/gold farmers...well, they have already taken over the game so why punish the actual real players for things Zeni is utterly incapable of stopping?

There are tons of trading guilds out there just to buy and sell. And if they put in an AH it probably would punish honest players. Right now using zone chat and guild stores is annoying but workable. I have to reference FF14 because that was the game I played before this one. Ff14 Had an auction board and it made the economy just terrible. Highest top tier gear was selling for under $100 on most servers. Mass amounts of people where getting banned because their items got bought with RMT money and when their character came back a lot of their gold was gone. Several people I knew quit because they had $100,000 sold a sword for $20 got banned for 3 days and came back to only having $10,000 in their bank. All because Square couldn't control RMT and my friends couldn't control who they sold to.

Name a few, every single DC one I have tried and left sold garbage items for stupid prices. Good deals are immedietly bought out and then flipped in other guilds (or zone chat). Also activity in most these guilds were spotty as heck where only a small amount of players actually log on (and post items) consitantly. Besides, most items in this game other than maybe motifs are not worth much.

Right now, I have to sell in zone chat and that's about it. I have not seen a decent high VR guild store as of yet but you claim they exist so maybe the do. I personally not seen a single AH guild worth joining.

Anyways, I just go direct to crafters if I need gear so that part is alright to me but I really think they need a better way to advert merchandise than having to spam zone chat like right now.

Singular · June 2014

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

I would probably support auction houses if they were: limited by allaince; and prevented the sell of loot (i.e. only crafted items and raw mats sold in AH).

I think such a system would work great to give crafters in ESO a special boost.

I openly oppose any system that allows the sell of looted gear and dropped food.

I personally hate bind-on-loot mechanics, but I would support them and seriously push for them if an auction house was ever added to the game.

This would be interesting.

ers101284b14_ESO · June 2014

iuki wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

iuki wrote: »

Can't be bothered to use 'trade guilds' no more; to small of a pool of players so only way to sell is to spam zone chat. Imo, something needs to be done either an actual AH or some the suggestions here.

My dream would be....pre-CU SWG style: player housing with player vendors and a global AH that has a price limit to allow trading of not so expensive items. ie. consumables, crafting mats, etc.

To me, guilds stores are worthless and far to limited; 500 players max...good luck finding active/decent ones, they don't seem to exist.

p.s. people like to argue that AH will bring in lots of bots/hackers/gold farmers...well, they have already taken over the game so why punish the actual real players for things Zeni is utterly incapable of stopping?

There are tons of trading guilds out there just to buy and sell. And if they put in an AH it probably would punish honest players. Right now using zone chat and guild stores is annoying but workable. I have to reference FF14 because that was the game I played before this one. Ff14 Had an auction board and it made the economy just terrible. Highest top tier gear was selling for under $100 on most servers. Mass amounts of people where getting banned because their items got bought with RMT money and when their character came back a lot of their gold was gone. Several people I knew quit because they had $100,000 sold a sword for $20 got banned for 3 days and came back to only having $10,000 in their bank. All because Square couldn't control RMT and my friends couldn't control who they sold to.

Name a few, every single DC one I have tried and left sold garbage items for stupid prices. Good deals are immedietly bought out and then flipped in other guilds (or zone chat). Also activity in most these guilds were spotty as heck where only a small amount of players actually log on (and post items) consitantly. Besides, most items in this game other than maybe motifs are not worth much.

Right now, I have to sell in zone chat and that's about it. I have not seen a decent high VR guild store as of yet but you claim they exist so maybe the do. I personally not seen a single AH guild worth joining.

Anyways, I just go direct to crafters if I need gear so that part is alright to me but I really think they need a better way to advert merchandise than having to spam zone chat like right now.

Can't name them since I don't join them. I do see them spamming the zone chat all the time as trading guilds. Even if you think they aren't worth joining doesn't mean they aren't there.

Tr1cksh0t · June 2014

Guild stores suck... get an AH for gods sake

Zorrashi · June 2014

I, personally, am still against the auction house. It seems so impersonal, and seems largely benefit only a certain amount of people who are willing to stand around a certain NPC all day. I much prefer the current system over any AH, though I concur that some improvements are needed.

If they do stalls, they should have the option to have a hireling stand at the stand. But the one thing I totally agree with in the OP is the potential/eminent lag. But I am totally willing to deal with it if it means some sort of improvement to the economy system.

Thorntongue · June 2014

I couldn't be bothered to read past the OP's first sentence. I am interested to see if this thread goes away though as you called out the mods.

Oh, and an AH is great for the botters/gold sellers so keep on asking for something to help them. Maybe you're one OP?

Grumwulf · June 2014

I was against AH but I really want one now. I don't care if it ruins the economy. The current system is just a huge waste of my time. AH are ideal for players who want to buy and for farmers who want to farm. Or they should improve the UI so all guild stores are merged under one interface and with better categories etc. And more players per guild.

I sometimes wonder if VR ranks, Trials, and no AH is really a price worth paying to support the crafting system. After all without the crafting system we could have an AH as it couldnt ruin anything, could have real raids with real rewards and not run against the clock because you dont have to worry about undermining crafters, and you wouldnt need VR ranks to continually give crafters another tier of gear to craft that was almost exactly like the last tier. Crafting has ruined this game, just like it ruins all ES games. It isn't even fun to do.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

Grumwulf wrote: »

I was against AH but I really want one now. I don't care if it ruins the economy. The current system is just a huge waste of my time. AH are ideal for players who want to buy and for farmers who want to farm. Or they should improve the UI so all guild stores are merged under one interface and with better categories etc. And more players per guild.

I sometimes wonder if VR ranks, Trials, and no AH is really a price worth paying to support the crafting system. After all without the crafting system we could have an AH as it couldnt ruin anything, could have real raids with real rewards and not run against the clock because you dont have to worry about undermining crafters, and you wouldnt need VR ranks to continually give crafters another tier of gear to craft that was almost exactly like the last tier. Crafting has ruined this game, just like it ruins all ES games. It isn't even fun to do.

Sadly, this is one of the first games where I actually enjoy the crafting, because it's both useful and fun for me.

I wouldn't have even picked up ESO if they had all the things you request. There are so many of those games out there. Why would anybody want a developer to make yet another raid focused, gear driven, AH crutched MMO?

I thought Wildstar was doing that?

Farham · June 2014

Fleymark wrote: »

What they did not say, but I took from what they said reading between the lines, is that this plays right into the interests of the RMT gold sellers. They farm the items, work the markets to keep the prices up, price the items to make buying gold appealing, then get their gold back to RMT sell again when the items get bought. And the average player who just wants or needs the item as a part of normal progression thru the game either gets pinched out, forced to farm unusuallly excessive amounts of gold for the item (helping supply the gold sellers), or becomes a gold seller's customer. None of which are good.

RMT (the bots) rule this game like no MMO I have ever seen (ok, the Asian MMOs have it bad too but I am talking Mainstream US/Euro based MMO). This Guild Store system has zero effect on RMT.

It has in fact pushed ESO to have one of the most active real cash for items problems I have also ever seen. The gold farmers have picked up on the lack of an AH and now sell harvested materials for real life cash. They literally have figured out gold is actually not where the money is...it is in selling raw crafting materials in bulk (or the tannery items gained from them).

Have you noticed their "gold" spam now almost always includes material spam?

Want to know why this is? First it is because Zenimax can't stop them from using hack programs that allow them to move from node to node nearly instantly. And secondly it is because there is no AH for people so once they figure out their guild stores are empty and WTB gets you no where....

Want to know the irony of people who say ESO will never go with a cash store? It already has a thriving one...the difference is Zenimax isn't making a dime from it.

Or maybe they are...it would explain some things.

Laura · June 2014

it doesn't work like you are saying it does. its not a million people with little booths

Phantax · June 2014

I said this from early Beta, this game needs a faction/global auction house !

AinGeal · June 2014

Thulsola wrote: »

AinGeal wrote: »

There's your slight bonus. Crafted items of the same level would sell for more than their looted counter part simply because they offer slightly better stats.

That's not what I mean by a slight bonus. I mean a slight bonus that is specific to the crafter. So that a set of armour made by me has the potential to have a small bonus that is different than a set made by someone else. It should be hard to get. Like maybe having to re-research a trait 5 times at the highest time interval to get a slight bonus for that trait. Or maybe be a combination of research and the number of times you craft items. Hell - make it random with a really small probability based on how many of an item you craft, with re-researching a trait giving you just the slightest amount of increase in the probability. Force me to sink skill points into it if I really want to get a special perk.

Make it so that amour I create be different from the armour you create in some meaningful, yet small, way.

And lets shift repairs to the crafters - and give a slight reduction in repair cost to the crafter who originally made the armor. The game should help me establish a customer base that has reason to be loyal to me - but it shouldn't be so great an advantage that i can take advantage of that customer base.

LOL... That's not what you mean? You mean a slight bonus that is specific to the crafter? Again, crafted gear offers slightly better stats. Or are you saying that you and only you want to be able to do something with crafting that no other player can? Too bad. Make it so that the armor you create is different from the armor I create? How about no. This isn't Crafting Online. Crafting is a side activity within the game. It offers an alternative to getting the armor you want than the usual going out and getting it as a drop or reward. It's not even a fair alternative. If it were a fair alternative, the crafted gear would not have slightly better stats. Also, no MMO has allowed just one player be able to do something that another player couldn't do with regards to crafting.

Even without changing the mechanics of the game, simply introducing a trading house could change that problem (is it a problem) you are having about selling embroidery to make more money than the completed product. I sense artificial inflation due to the current economic restrictions.

I don't think an AH solves the real problem. The real problem is that there are simply too many different variations of play style and too many variations of armour/weapons to spec build armour and have it reliably sell. There needs to be a way for you to order exactly what armour you want from me and for me to provide it for you without trust having to enter the relationship.

Give us proper searching in our guild stores. Allow me or my guild to open my own store in cities, hire an NPC to manage it. Have a search tool across all stores in that city. Allow for the ability to order and pre-pay for crafted items.

No it's quite clear what you want. You want to be able to monopolize. Too bad.

Thorntongue wrote: »

I couldn't be bothered to read past the OP's first sentence. I am interested to see if this thread goes away though as you called out the mods.

Oh, and an AH is great for the botters/gold sellers so keep on asking for something to help them. Maybe you're one OP?

You and those that think the same clearly don't know anything about economics. A trading house more closely represents a competitive market than any other in-game economy style. In a competitive market, individual suppliers are price takers, not price makers and an individual's influence over market prices is non existent in a perfectly competitive market. This means, the more people there are involved in a market, the less of an influence any single person has.

Trading houses will have no impact on bots/gold sellers. Thinking otherwise clearly shows a lack of knowledge with regards to economies. Last I heard, ZoS didn't bother to hire an economist for this game. If this is true, it comes as no surprise. Games like GW2 and EVE did. GW2 has virtually no bot/gold seller issues and even in Lion's Arch, you rarely see WTS/WTB in chat. You occasionally get someone advertising something they have put up for sale in the trading house. As for EVE, they have one of the best in-game economies I've seen.

So anything ZoS has to say about economic decisions I wouldn't even take seriously, never mind taking it as a subject matter expert.

Kaskako · June 2014

Guild stores need to be improved and they need to be accessible to everyone in cyrodiil like they were supposed to be.

Auction houses with the "mega servers" will just cause prices to plumet, and bots could simply make the market crash.