Crafting Hubs with Auction House

Mojano · April 2014

So, After spending a good few hours hunting around for an Auction House, I now realise that there isn't one in game, and instead I have to try and find a Guild to join to buy and sell mats.

It just seems a little too over complicated as a newcomer, I would rather not have to join a guild at all and I am already missing the ability of seeing 'ooo, how much is that worth?' by viewing items on a central auction house.

Anyone else agree? Most forum entries seem to be praising the lack of an AH - I just know that I'm missing part of my usual MMO fun and games by frequenting one :-(

I just cant get my head around having to journey to a guilds 'keep' to trade, then having to journey to the various crafting zones in order to get my crafting done, it just seems like a bit of a drag to get into crafting this way.

Ram_Blackhorn · April 2014

I think it could me more inconvenient and different from what most are used to in a normal mmo. However, I do enjoy how it throws everyone together to become more social. MMO's are supposed to be social but they can be one of the most impersonal games out there. Actually having to barter and trade with each other face to face could make things more fun ^.^

Tralix · April 2014

Hey hey, as someone who loves the auction house systems in other games I was bothered by this at first too. But now I've joined 3 "trading" guilds and its not too shabby.
The nice thing is that you're able to do all of the trading from the bank interface so its actually a bit easier for me that running back and forth between mailboxes, the bank and an auction interface.

Mojano · April 2014

I haven't managed to find a trading guild yet, but if you are able to trade directly to and from your bank without having to visit one of the keeps, I guess it doesn't sound quite as bad.

michael.fielderrwb17_ESO · April 2014

I don't mind not having a AH, and I guess it's really the only reason you'd want to be able to join up to 5 guilds (otherwise you'd really only need 2, 1 for a PvE guild and 1 for a PvP guild). The thing that really frustrates me though is the search options. I've found a couple of things I'd like to filter but have been unable to (e.g. recipes).

Gusion · April 2014

You do not have to travel to a guilds keep to trade. You just have to join the guild and access the guild at any bank. Each character can join up to 5 guilds. Guild members then post what they are buying and selling and all the transaction are done through a bank. Hope that helps and I am correct in everything I am telling you

iJackyLegz · April 2014

I enjoy there being no auction house. Have to go out to players, NPC stores or go out and hunt for the materials you need. Auction houses make the game too easy.

melunkale · April 2014

I agree with Mojano, I sorely miss the AH! I am not an overly social person and I resent having to be forced to be one just to sell and buy stuff, it also makes getting enough money together for a horse and bag expansions extremely difficult.

Jaburra · April 2014

Gusion wrote: »

You do not have to travel to a guilds keep to trade. You just have to join the guild and access the guild at any bank. Each character can join up to 5 guilds. Guild members then post what they are buying and selling and all the transaction are done through a bank. Hope that helps and I am correct in everything I am telling you

Actually there is an option to trade via a guild's keep from Cyrodiil. But all that allows you to do is utilize the AH without having to be in that particular guild (if i understood what I read correctly) Either that or you can access said guild's store via a keep. Basically having a keep in your guild just allows the guild to have a more widespread buyer base.

michael.fielderrwb17_ESO · April 2014

You can still be anti social and join trading guilds.

Join 4 trade guilds, set up a separate chat tab with these 4 guilds chat in it, disable those 4 guild chat options from your main chat tab and viola, you never have to socialize with them ever again. Just go to the bank, click guild store, browse the 4 trade guild stores, buy/sell and it's like you have an AH again, without the guild chat spamming you... easy

hounddawg1953_ESO · April 2014

I find the current method an extremely clunky way of providing the auction service. Not sure what the Devs were thinking when they implemented this method but in my opinion they need to revise it

michael.fielderrwb17_ESO · April 2014

I agree it is nowhere near as easy or efficient as a global AH, but I don't think it's completely broken either. They really need to work on the search interface but I think once this is a bit more detailed and user friendly it won't be a bad system.

One benefit IMO is that you'll probably see a more varied price market. With a global market everyone can see every other price items are put up for, and it can sometimes be daunting for new crafters/sellers to break into a market when there's already 30 people selling the same item. At least this way the markets are smaller and will run somewhat independent of each other. Sure word will get around and the prices will probably stay within a range but some trading guild may get a name for themselves of being cheaper than others.

I started playing MMO's way back in Ultima Online. In UO you could buy a house then purchase a merchant to stand out the front and sell stuff. You'd give them items, list a price and people could run along the player housing community and check each vendor to see what they were selling. It was sometimes extremely frustrating having to run around checking each individual vendor to find a specific item but eventually certain people got reputations for putting up certain items or for being reasonably priced etc, which made them popular (which may happen with the trading guilds in ESO, some will make a name for themselves and more people will want to join which will then mean a bigger market for them). It was also fun to check vendors for extremely cheap items, buy them and then resell on your vendor at a higher price (which again may happen in ESO, people may join guilds where the prices of certain items are cheaper and then sell to other guilds where the price for those items are higher)

kaleka · April 2014

Well TESOElite.com has found a way to help people out, check out there new marketplace. LOTS of cool features.
It's a great community with lots of active people. Signing up is free. If you are interested here's my referral link or you can go to the main page and sign up.

http://www.tesoelite.com/forums/rf/?c=AB6E5F3C

Jadeviper1974 · April 2014

The problem I have with not having an AH or an enforced Trade channel (easy way to enforce the trade channel is to only make items "linkable" in Trade and PM's) is that eventually General/Zone chat will be overwhelmed with people trying to sell stuff, they will rival the gold spammers, lol.

Now I believe a way that they have compensated for this is allowing you to join more than one guild? Is that correct?

michael.fielderrwb17_ESO · April 2014

Yes Jadeviper, you can join up to 5 player guilds (does not count NPC guilds - Mages, Fighters, Undaunted)

Thete · April 2014

I'd also prefer a proper auction house. Not sure if the reasons for the guild store instead are technical or philosophical but it is as it is and I'll just try and adapt.

Dancing_Shoes · April 2014

Okay think about it this way:

Join multiple trading guilds, buy item/material low from one trading guild store, sell item/material high in other trading guild store, make profit.

Having multiple economies allow for more diverse markets.

You might have one trading guild that has an over abundance of a certain material or item type where another one might be lacking in that same item type.

If it was one giant world auction house the market would be flooded and too many people would be under cutting each other driving down prices, which would be good for the buyer, but not for the sellers.

They only other way I could see them doing it is separate markets based on location (i.e. each city) problem with this is that then the markets would be too grouped by level ranges.

Cherryblossom · April 2014

I'm going to reserve judgement on how the Stores will work in the long run.

But the interface is currently useless, for these to be useable they need to be better search and viewing capabilities.

This seems to of been designed as an after thought, I'm amazed it managed to get into the game in this format.....

Dancing_Shoes · April 2014

Definitely one of the biggest problems with the stores is the lack of a simple "search" feature.

Even the sorting doesn't seem to work right, placing weapons in when selecting the materials tab.

marlenadavisb16_ESO · April 2014

So let me see if I understand this correctly, there is no 'global' store? You need to enlist in one 'mega' guild to even sale items, which in turn cost not one tax but two taxes per item basically 25% of your income? So why would anyone want to use it? It seems that the people using the zone chat will become more frequent. Wasn't a lack of the AH one of the many reasons FF14 1.0 died a miserable death?

I like the idea behind it, but it should be a global store, and it shouldn't require people. If they would like to make it something a guild obtains then have them do a quest or level the guild.