ESO should implement an Auction Horse. That's right... Horse.
This horse would wander around Tamriel and there would only be one. Players who find the horse can look at what it's carrying, bid on it. Once the auction ends, the Auction Horse sends you your items via mail (or Courier of they ever implement a realistic courier service...). Again, the ONLY way to access the Auction Horse is to FIND the one Auction Horse as it wanders Tamriel.
However, this isn't just any old horse... The Auction Horse is the horse of Clavicus Vile! Every day at dawn the horse just "appears" in a different zone and stays there until the next dawn. This way the horse can be in Stormhaven one day and Bal-Foyen the next! He would change location according to the Tamriel day, not our day. It might even be a good idea to have the horse not appear every Tamrielic day. Perhaps the horse only shows up once in a 3 Tamrielic day period and which day within each 3 day period is random. This way it wouldn't be guaranteed that the horse would be available all the time.
To accommodate the Auction Horse, each item placed in any guild store should have bartering enabled, for a separate bartering fee. This should be as simple as having a check box "Allow Bartering?". A player will then set the asking price for their item. Shoppers can choose to either pay the asking price or barter. A player who chooses to barter risks not winning the item because another player may choose to outright buy the item. No player can see another player's offer. Each player must pay the amount of their offer at the time of their offer.
Once the listing has expired, if no player outright bought the item for the selling price, the seller receives the highest offer in their mail. The seller can choose to accept or decline the offer. If the seller declines the offer, all those who made offers receive their gold back with the notification that the item did not sell. If the offer is accepted then everyone who made offers lower will receive their offer in the mail with a report of the final selling price. All correspondences should from the Auction Horse itself!
All bartered items will be viewable in their respective Guild Stores. If a Guild Store wins a bid to be represented by a Guild Trader (or just outright hires one), that guild trader will give that guild the option to make a tribute to Clavicus Vile. If a tribute is made, all items in that guild store that have bartering enabled will ALSO appear on the Auction Horse. In this way, players can view MANY items that are up for bartering when browsing the Auction Horse's inventory.
The Auction Horse should begin its day at dawn and make it's way toward one of the zones towns or cities. The horse should mosey along the road and any player that accesses the horse should disappear from the game while they are accessing the Auction Horse. Unlike other wandering merchants, the Auction Horse should NOT stop when accessed. When a player leaves the Auction Horse they will need to catch up to the horse if they wish to access it again. The Auction Horse should move at a snails pace, perhaps even slower than walking.
When the horse reaches the town or city, no other players will be allowed to access the Auction Horse and all players currently accessing the Auction Horse will be given a 60 second timer. At the end of those 60 seconds, all players are booted from the Auction Horse and the horse relaxes, eats grass, and sleeps until dusk. Players can speak to the horse who will tell them stories, jokes, and rumors. At dusk, the Auction Horse gets back on the road out of town and players can once again access the Auction Horse. Once the horse reaches the end of the road at the edge of the zone, it disappears. Players will be given the same 60 second warning they are given when the horse reaches towns and cities.
At dawn, the horse reappears at the edge of a different zone, walking toward the next town.
This symbiotic relationship should help the guild stores and guild traders retain their usefulness while ALSO enabling an Auction House mechanic in ESO that could fit into the lore quite snugly.
Will YOU be lucky enough to find the Auction Horse? heheh
NOTE: This idea started out as a joke... but now I actually think it would kind of fun to have an Auction Horse.
What ESO really needs is an Auction Horse.
That's right...
Horse.
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