[Proposal] Localized Consigment Vendors

Nazon_Katts

I believe the current lack of an accessible and public market facilitates the gold sellers' business. The average player is at a significant disadvantage in regards of acquiring gold and items compared to professional farmers, even more so due to high cost of money sinks. From this arises the felt need of acquiring gold and goods via the RMT market.

While RMT cannot be prevented entirely, taking measures to decrease demand for such goods and service does help to keep it at bay. I am convinced that a broader, accessible and public market would make it less likely for players to consider utilizing RMT, since they can acquire sought after gold and items in-game more conveniently.

It seems the game's designers may have come to a similar conclusion as they have planned to install so called kiosks to facilitate public trade. However, their current implementation seems to be rather detrimental to their efforts of battling RMT, since the bidding on kiosks favours guilds with deep pockets and organized, professional farmers will have an undeniable advantage.

So instead of further playing into the hands of gold sellers and giving just a select few a considerable economical advantage over the rest of the player base, I'd like to suggest implementing a consignment system open to the public, accessible by every single player.

One conceivable way of implementing such a system, which stays true to the original design choice of not wanting a 'stock-exchange' economy, is lore-, as well as immersion friendly and offers - if need be - options for developer interference could be:

• adding consignment sale options to all or select NPC merchants
• NPCs only accept wares of the same type they are selling
• NPCs only accept a certain total amount of a given item (full stock)
• furthermore the amount of items a player can consign per NPC and per type would be limited, as well as the over all item count one can put up for sale
• all tiers of wares are accepted, regardless of the zone the NPC is in
• the consignment sales are accessible from any phase of the zone
• the consignment sales are tied to the NPC merchant
• listings are fully searchable and sortable
• prices are set by the players, but could be replaced by automated supply/demand pricing
• fees (slightly decreased) similar to the current guild store system would apply

The tierless approach is not only needed to offer enough consignment slots for all players without creating an oversupply in high end zones, but would lead to a couple of meta game opportunities, as it would encourage high levels to visit all of the lower level zones. Additionally localized markets are created, which offer a more immersive buy low/sell high experience and at the same time make tracking of people playing the markets and distinguishing them from bots easier, thanks to movement patterns.

While this will make it easier to buy and sell, the limits will make sure that not all versions of a certain item will be available on just one vendor. And even though this would offer a more convenient option to just drop off loot or replace one's gear, it'll still be worthwhile searching for the right market and thus would tie in nicely with the exploration concept of ESO.

You'd still have many pocket economies, which could be taken down separately in case of an emergency, but there would be much more interaction between them, ultimately leading to vibrant trade without the downsides a global AH might bring.

Well, at least that's my thoughts on the matter and I'd love to hear about yours!

LadyLothi

This is hands down the most creative suggestion regarding an immersive, localized approach to broaden selling venues I've read here on the forums.

I have no idea how much problems it would cause to implement it, but I would love to see it realized.

I, personally, am dead set against an AH, because it has nothing to do at all with immersive gameplay. This, on the other hand, feels real in a way, because I think this is exactly how sales would be dealt with in a world like TES.

Nazon_Katts

@LadyLothi Well, thank you!

It's certainly not something done overnight, but not all too tough to implement, methinks. At least from my admittedly very limited experience I presume that many smaller data bases are easier to handle than a giant and bloated one.

Oh, and l love to keep guild stores, actually. But with more focus on mutual benefiting guild internal trade, rather than making profit off of guildies. Currently guild stores are very detrimental to the community building aspect.

dannward

While I'd rather see a global consignment house, this would be a great compromise. Personally, I loved the CH model of City of Heroes. Sellers list at the price they want, but the prices of these listings are not visible to the buyers. Instead, the prices of the last five/ten transactions are listed. The buyers then offer whatever they're willing to pay for the item.

Crafted items might need to show list prices from the seller, however, as the sales volume of any one item would be split by motif, trait, enchant, etc.