Guild's and Auction Houses.

Utildai

I am not sure I am understanding why the developers are forcing people to get into a guild, or five, just for the use of an auction house. I understand they are trying to force social functions on everyone, but that is all it does, forces them.

While I sort of like the mechanic... partly, I don't agree there should have to be 50 unique players in a guild to allow a guild the use of it's own auction house. What are smaller guild's supposed to do? Give up to the larger ones?

I really think the guild auction houses, and the guild banks for that matter need to have the pre-requisite numbers severely lowered, perhaps eliminated all together.

"This isn't a play how you want to play" way of doing things. This is a you must do this to go shopping sort of thing.

Anyway, something to think about.

edwar368

I agree. In addition, not everyone in the world puts money first and wants to charge "guild mates" for items. To me not only is this "Guild Store" a bad idea for anyone who wants to sell things, but it actually "breaks" Guilds. It turns guild mates into customers. Having played since the 5 day early access, still loving the game, but this single feature (or lack of) spoils it for me

Jirki88

Yeah, as it stands guilds aren't about being guilds - guilds are just about being marketplaces. It doesn't add to the social aspect of the game - it eliminates one social aspect of the game. Instead of a guild being somewhere you're social, it becomes somewhere you just try to sell and buy stuff. It's pretty poor.

Then I would also like to add the RIDICULOUS charges for listing stuff. Overkill much?

Rosamond

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Utildai

I kinda like the EQ2 way of setting up an individual store...

LadyChaos

I love this new system tbh... you are a *** craft botter and everyone knows it.. you get booted form the big trade guilds... you have to compete to be part of the big trade guilds not just bot ..

Also this allows you to say put your major trades on your trade guild for sale for profit and still sell to favored raid/pvp adventure guilds at discounted price.. I kind of love this myself. No clogging up bank space with "free"potions for favored guidies where they are supposed to donate to the guild.. just sell the favored guild cheaper "guildy" prices and house already gets their cut.

It helps control a lot of the inflation issues farmers and botters cause on other game economies IMO.

Utildai

This can all be done with or without the current system though. There is no need to force it on smaller guilds.

LadyChaos

Utildai wrote: »

This can all be done with or without the current system though. There is no need to force it on smaller guilds.

no... you can join a large mega serverwide tarde guild and still be part of small guild. There is no restriction on the small guild only now you get a cut of the action your guildies chose to sell to only your guild whereas in every other game only the devs get the house cut.

Small guilds don't want to use trade house, they don't have to. There's no force.

Utildai

No, they don't have to use them if they don't want, but if they want to have the option, it isn't there unless you join another guild. Which, isn't a play how you want its a play how we tell you to when it comes to AH's... I just want one guild, with people I like and can get to know.

I don't want to have to deal with a whole set of other people just to sell stuff...or buy stuff... or browse even...

Jeremy

I agree with this thread. I just don't see any good reason not to implement a server-wide auction house.

I have joined several trade guilds and they add nothing of social value to the game. They are just basically less-effective mini auction houses I have to sort through and filter from my chat.

Economies both in video games and real life work far better when they are kept free and open to as many people as possible. That way more people can participate in it. Dividing this game's economy up into numerous and exclusive guild stores does the world of Elder Scrolls no favors IMHO.

I hope the developers reconsider this and implement a server-wide auction house. It would vitalize the economy a lot and spare people the nuisance of having to advertise.

Markuseb17_ESO15

You do not need a server wide auction house but "trade hubs" would do for a beginning. Trade hubs could have different prices than other trade hubs depending on the demand of certain items in this special area. You should be able to offer and buy items in these trade hubs without having to join a guild. I remember from Eve-Online that this type of system was/is like a huge market simulation. You can even make gold by studying prices in different trade hubs, buying items there and selling them in a different hub. I do not like the idea of being forced into guilds, and I do not like the idea that smaller guilds have no chance to open a public guild store. If this game wants to reflect some "real life experience" (such as that "provisioning" has to be done one soup after the other), it should also allow for small guilds (<10 members) to have a guild bank and (<50 members) to open a public store.

ArRashid

Well, that's one thing. The other thing that by selling an item via guild store, you charge a guildie FULL PRICE while you get about 70% of it only, while you could do exactly the same over a mail or in person, without "taxes" and stupidity of charging money off your friends.

We should sell outside our guilds, not inside of them. That's why I prefer spamming zone chat.

luizterra23

The zone chat have been doomed to become a trade spam site, because there is no efficient (neither cheap) way to trade your own goods. The result of it is the huge amount of wasted items that we throw away because farming from mobs is largelly more efficient than trading goods for acquiring gold. The economy becomes staggered, and the fun of collecting and crafting goods is lost along with it's purpose.
Either way, If it's not supposed to have some serverwide Auction House in the game, at least the COD feature should be exempt of charges, and the Guild Store having it's posting fee cutted by half.

It becomes a paradigm that we should not be allowed to spam chat as while the game pushes us of doing so.

Chalybos

An auction/trade channel would certainly help clean up the zone chat. I hate having to miss out on a the closing shot in a flame war because somebody is selling a purple item.

Hellorush

Smaller guilds doesn't need a G-store because you can trade directly in such a small community. When you hit 50ppl Mark - it becomes more difficult to track all of your guildmates so Stores appears.. everything is correct

Gillysan

All I see is knee-jerk reactions to this system. Give it time to see how it evolves. I think in time some place(s) will become trade hubs. /say can be used for selling instead of zone at that point. It's inevitable that all the long term players will end up in the highest level city of their Alliance.

xJeallen3x

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

Jeremy

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

In realty the opposite is true though. Markets work better the greater its economic base. That is why large economies out-perform small economies.

Your theory assumes only supply will sky rocket but ignores demand will also rise because of greater access and availability.

In short, open and free markets are better than closed and private ones.

pat02468prerb18_ESO

Don't play an MMO with no auction house. It will drive you mad.

FGroebnerb16_ESO

I like the guild shop. I can ignore the trade guild I'm in while still being in my small guild with mates.

The good part with these guilds is the economy system. You don't want it to end like in D3, where great stuff costs so much cause you have to compete with the richest of the richest farm bots, while the not so rare stuff doen't give you any profit. Cause that is a problem with the mega servers. Trade hubs would also work, BUT ...

Everybody who knows TES games, also knows about the guilds and their stories. Guilds and groups are often people that don't know each other and there is even competition in each guild. It is a big flair part of TES and if they would have ignored that in ESO, it would not really be an TES game.

Brennan

pat02468prerb18_ESO wrote: »

Don't play an MMO with no auction house. It will drive you mad.

This.

You get a /thread, sir.

Cheatingdeath23

Jeremy wrote: »

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

In realty the opposite is true though. Markets work better the greater its economic base. That is why large economies out-perform small economies.

Your theory assumes only supply will sky rocket but ignores demand will also rise because of greater access and availability.

In short, open and free markets are better than closed and private ones.

The thing is, there are no barriers to entry and little cost to sell. Some people are just leveling up and will unload what they made.

The developers intentionally planned it so that there were hundreds (thousands?) of mini-economies, because of the issue with one giant economy.

I don't think you can apply normal (generalized) economic principles to the economy like you are (demand won't increase beyond supply, everyone can make items and only needs a finite amount). Instead, think of it like stock photography... now that amateur photographers have digital cameras and can take stock photographs, they can sell web-quality stock photography for much less than professionals, which further drives prices down.

It can be good for the consumer (cheap goods), but the developers want to make it more difficult (so the game isn't too easy).

Jeremy

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

In realty the opposite is true though. Markets work better the greater its economic base. That is why large economies out-perform small economies.

Your theory assumes only supply will sky rocket but ignores demand will also rise because of greater access and availability.

In short, open and free markets are better than closed and private ones.

The thing is, there are no barriers to entry and little cost to sell. Some people are just leveling up and will unload what they made.

The developers intentionally planned it so that there were hundreds (thousands?) of mini-economies, because of the issue with one giant economy.

I don't think you can apply normal (generalized) economic principles to the economy like you are (demand won't increase beyond supply, everyone can make items and only needs a finite amount). Instead, think of it like stock photography... now that amateur photographers have digital cameras and can take stock photographs, they can sell web-quality stock photography for much less than professionals, which further drives prices down.

It can be good for the consumer (cheap goods), but the developers want to make it more difficult (so the game isn't too easy).

What you describe though is a good thing. Giving people the technology to be competitive is what distinguishes a good economy from a bad. The worst thing for any economy - rather it be a video game one or a real one - is to make it exclusive and allow only a certain privileged few to dominate it.

The last thing any economy needs is more barriers. And that is precisely why the economy on this game sucks so bad. It's why I can't trade for or find hardly anything for sale that I am after. Because all of these barriers make it near impossible.

But I will give you one thing. If it was the developers intent to make this game more difficult by creating a horrible economy... they certainly succeeded.

Cheatingdeath23

Jeremy wrote: »

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

In realty the opposite is true though. Markets work better the greater its economic base. That is why large economies out-perform small economies.

Your theory assumes only supply will sky rocket but ignores demand will also rise because of greater access and availability.

In short, open and free markets are better than closed and private ones.

The thing is, there are no barriers to entry and little cost to sell. Some people are just leveling up and will unload what they made.

The developers intentionally planned it so that there were hundreds (thousands?) of mini-economies, because of the issue with one giant economy.

I don't think you can apply normal (generalized) economic principles to the economy like you are (demand won't increase beyond supply, everyone can make items and only needs a finite amount). Instead, think of it like stock photography... now that amateur photographers have digital cameras and can take stock photographs, they can sell web-quality stock photography for much less than professionals, which further drives prices down.

It can be good for the consumer (cheap goods), but the developers want to make it more difficult (so the game isn't too easy).

What you describe though is a good thing. Giving people the technology to be competitive is what distinguishes a good economy from a bad. The worst thing for any economy - rather it be a video game one or a real one - is to make it exclusive and allow only a certain privileged few to dominate it.

The last thing any economy needs is more barriers. And that is precisely why the economy on this game sucks so bad. It's why I can't trade for or find hardly anything for sale that I am after. Because all of these barriers make it near impossible.

But I will give you one thing. If it was the developers intent to make this game more difficult by creating a horrible economy... they certainly succeeded.

It makes crafting more important-- you don't just buy your goods, you make them.

It gives crafters money for their work-- they can sell them for actual money. I'm level 10 blacksmithing but hoard my dwarven oil for myself. If someone wants to buy a piece of armor, I expect to be paid for it.

I think it really depends on what you define a "good thing" to be. Is it a good thing that Americans (I'm American) can buy cheap goods to satisfy every whim? Sure, if you want to buy things for cheap. However, Mom and Pop stores and craftsmanship have been left behind, not many people want to pay extra for quality goods.

So sure, if you look at it from the consumer perspective, ESO needs a Walmart that can dump low prices on them. But that isn't what the developers want. They want more people to be investing in crafting (instead of a few elite crafters) and more people to be invested in buying/selling in smaller groups (instead of going to a giant walmart).

It is the same principle as to why you go to the blacksmithing store and buy from a separate "weaponsmith" and "armorsmith." They could combine them, they could combine light/medium/heavy/weapons and maybe even enchanting/alchemy/provisioning, but that isn't what they are after.

(BTW, what do you need for gear? What are you finding hard to get? I'm curious as I need to focus my blacksmithing)

Jeremy

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

I keep seeing this argument. But it's incorrect.

For example; Guild Wars 2 had a similar type of auction house and it worked great. Your theory assumes just the supply with sky rocket and everything will become worthless. It ignores the fact that demand will also increase - and people will be able to sell their wares to many more people as a result.

Besides, there are vendors in place that player's can resort to if prices drop to unreasonable values. Which is what I am doing now anyway. So your concerns are already addressed.

Cheatingdeath23

Jeremy wrote: »

xJeallen3x wrote: »

Rosamond wrote: »

I could not agree more. I posted a long discussion a few days ago about this issue. What we need is a broker/store system for players independent of guilds. Selling your crafted items (or whatever) to guildees is not only a bad idea but it limits your customer base. Thus we need a broker system where any player can go post some items for sale and sell to eveyone on the server. Everyone benefits from such a system. And it should not go through the banker. Banks are ridiculously over crowded now. They should have some additional bank branches preferrably more or less open air so that customers can get access to the banker. And the bankers --especially that one in Daggerfall are too mouthy and delay the transactions. Help us out, kindly devs!

Ok, this is a bad idea as well. Let me explain why this is a bad idea and why ESO developers did it the way that they did. ESO uses a mega server meaning that everyone in the US is on one server, that's hundreds of thousands of players all on the same server. Do you have any idea what that kind of player base would do to economy if there was an open auction house that everyone on the server could use? Prices would be driven down to near nothing making it pointless to sell anything at said auction house. Anyone that's Played WoW knows what I'm talking about, especially on some of their full servers and that's only a few thousand players. Imagine 50-100 thousand players all posting their stuff onto the same auction house. Yeah, I think you get the point.

I keep seeing this argument. But it's incorrect.

For example; Guild Wars 2 had a similar type of auction house and it worked great. Your theory assumes just the supply with sky rocket and everything will become worthless. It ignores the fact that demand will also increase - and people will be able to sell their wares to many more people as a result.

Besides, there are vendors in place that player's can resort to if prices drop to unreasonable values. Which is what I am doing now anyway. So your concerns are already addressed.

You like selling items to vendors for barely more than the crafting (racial?) stone used to create the items?

Maybe it changes, but my experience is that I am barely rewarded for the true value of the item I can create when you take into account the labor of finding iron and paying 15G for the starmetal (or whatever your race is). I don't get enough drops for the two styles that I can craft to rely exclusively on drops/extracting, so I have to buy from the vendor.

N0madS0uL

I think the guilds need a serious revamp, maybe if they combine the guilds markets you are in automatically it would help but honestly having a regional auction house may be a better option or faction based and then a neutral one maybe exclusive to end gamers.

Trading with guildees is not really ideal, having 5 guilds is far from ideal because ultimately you just use the trading guilds and kill any social because I for one can not have m8s in every guild, it just becomes illogical and a juggle act, one guild is good enough, make the limit more and if you want cross faction members in there then fine, let them drop stuff in the bank but remove trading and have that done in an neutral auction house.

Also whats the the guild tax anyway for posting items on the market...its crazy expensive and 30 days ? come on...let me be able to set it, remove guild tax completely, what does the guild do with the money? Do they even get it?

There are so many good ideas out there Zenimax, start using those, dont try and reinvent the wheel, use what works well (mechanics and systems at least)

This game will never be wow so why not use some ideas of mmos out there than have this shoddy excuse of a guild or auction house, oh and while we on this, personal bank space needs to be tripled at least, i mean FFS we carry just as much on our characters back as what we have in a bank...this is unrealistic and stupid, we already pay a lot for space on each toon, make the personal bank stores more please!

theshark666

just a fast thought....I for one am not impressed with the guild store set up, we all know weather its a guild store or auction house that bots and gold spam hacks will infiltrate either one just as easy to sell and make gold. i would prefer to see a wider available coverage an auction house would allow.
I can see where it could cause issues in game if it was a mega server wide set up but an option could be a zone specific auction house for gear unique or specific for that zones level of play.
but its still a 2 edged sword no matter how we look at it auction house opens it up for larger group to trade with but also makes it a larger group for those gold hack so damned if you do and damned if you don't.

martinhpb16_ESO

I dont like the trade guild system and would prefer an AH.

I also think that the system we have at the moment seriously impacts on selling crafted gear. With an open market I think we would see far more people selling crafted items.

As it stands the trade-guilds are far too much of a micro-economy and do very little for encouraging social interaction.

There are far better ways to improve social interaction such as improving grouping, guild and chat functionality. An AH would actually make you feel part of a wider world rather than the tiny microcosm we currently have exasperated by lack of name-plates.

qwertyburnsb16_ESO

I don't like the current system as it is too far restrictive and yes you join guilds knowing that you will never be socially interacting with them. Not fair to you or them.

I have suggested an alternative in another thread though:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/86831/how-about-a-shop-or-stall-mod-instead-of-an-ah#latest

Gwarok

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game. As of now the people that are using zone chat as a trade tool to advertise their wares are insanely overpriced compared to even my current highest priced guild's market. (Sorry, but just like the players that are still trying to sell Vamp/WW bites through zone chat for 50+ THOUSAND gold, you lose trying to corner the market.) If the Devs do decide to go a one world AH, mark my words, watch prices skyrocket even further. It's going to flip the economy uʍop ǝpısdn on us. Also, while they're at it, they might as well as break the mega server down into realms/shards do away with the being able to belong to 5 different "clans"/guilds, double up the NPC's vendor's prices and all the other money sinks yet again, and go with a copper, silver, gold, platinum monetary system. It's the only way it will work. Sorry, but I like things the way they sit right now, affordable yet competitive.