The Rent Is Too Damn High! (on guild traders) (PS4 NA)

Pallmor

The only trade guild I'm in that can actually manage to keep a trader has just upped its weekly dues from 3K to 5K just to keep up with the crazy guild trader costs these days. I can't afford it! I'm just a poor Nord who plays casually on weekends.

*THIS* is how you treat the vestige who defeated Molag Bal and has saved countless farms and rescued many brothers, wives, daughters, and sisters throughout Tamriel??

Zorrashi

Have you considered moving to a different kiosk?
If you can't keep up with costs or other wealthier guilds move in, you may want to consider different options.

Or, alternatively, you may want to up your game as far as looting/selling goes in order to accommodate the new price rate.

Endless-Shogun

SIXR_sCaR

Guild traders these days charging insane membership prices

PinoZino

There are a few hundred, maybe even thousand guilds on PS4/USA and only a few Guild Traders.

Most of the guilds will have no Guild Trader.

You can join more than 1 guild or farm items with a nice price and a high demand. Stuff like purple motifs.

SirAndy

Not sure about the console but on the PC you can still get traders fairly cheap. Obviously not the ones in the high traffic areas but the ones that are more remote can still produce decent sales.

I belong to 5 guilds and only one of them has a more prominent trader. The difference in sales volume between that guild and my own with a out of the way trader is noticeable but not huge.

The price difference in hiring those trader on the other hand is insane ...


PS: And i would never belong to a guild with weekly dues ...

Pallmor

Zorrashi wrote: »

Have you considered moving to a different kiosk?
If you can't keep up with costs or other wealthier guilds move in, you may want to consider different options.

Every trade guild I've been able to find either can't keep a trader anymore or has to charge crazy high dues. It used to be that you could find a guild that could support its trader with raffles and/or modest dues (1K a week or so). But trader bids (and, consequently, trader guild dues) have gotten higher and higher, to the point where this was the cheapest guild with a consistent trader I could find (was 3K a week, now 5K). And that would be fine if I were playing a lot and were a high volume trader. But only playing on weekends means that 3K a week was already pushing it for me.

Or, alternatively, you may want to up your game as far as looting/selling goes in order to accommodate the new price rate.

Yeah, I could play a lot more and go higher trade volume. But that would make the game a job, not a game, wouldn't it? If it's gotten to the point where the only way fro a casual player to trade is by paying 5K a week, then the game either needs a LOT more traders or it needs a global auction house.

RatedChaotic

The guilds that get traders and only have a few items in them are the worst guilds imo. Really why do that? I dont want your mob dropped potions or your 5 stack of jute. Just because you have the gold to get a trader doesnt mean you should get one.

Slurg

Sounds like the console guilds are making PC-level bids but do not have the PC-level incomes to sustain the bids so they're leaning on members to make up the shortfall. Probably it's made worse by the fact you have some guilds with PC transfer players with huge fortunes to go up against, and a crap search system so no one can find what they want to buy. It's not a good situation but if enough people leave the guilds making the more outrageous demands, things will settle down eventually. Console players should definitely keep pushing for better search tools and text chat though.

Mighty_oakk

Slurg wrote: »

Sounds like the console guilds are making PC-level bids but do not have the PC-level incomes to sustain the bids so they're leaning on members to make up the shortfall. Probably it's made worse by the fact you have some guilds with PC transfer players with huge fortunes to go up against, and a crap search system so no one can find what they want to buy. It's not a good situation but if enough people leave the guilds making the more outrageous demands, things will settle down eventually. Console players should definitely keep pushing for better search tools and text chat though.

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

Pallmor

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Slurg wrote: »

Sounds like the console guilds are making PC-level bids but do not have the PC-level incomes to sustain the bids so they're leaning on members to make up the shortfall. Probably it's made worse by the fact you have some guilds with PC transfer players with huge fortunes to go up against, and a crap search system so no one can find what they want to buy. It's not a good situation but if enough people leave the guilds making the more outrageous demands, things will settle down eventually. Console players should definitely keep pushing for better search tools and text chat though.

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

Wow, had no idea the system had become that skeevy.

MikeB

The thing is for most of the larger trade guilds they make more than it cost for the vendor in sell fee's but they still require donations. Why? Because they're greedy and make irl $ off your ingame gold. On XB1 NA AD there is a "guild" that used to own 10 different trade guilds but had to cut down to 5 "because 10 was to much to manage". Now they have upped their weekly dues from 2k to 5k a month after dropping the other 5 guilds. None of these trade guilds need donations. The leaders just like to keep your money in their pockets.

In game money is easy to come by without needing a large trade guild, Im in a trade guild with a decent VR trader, and they ask for donations but they are not required. With just 1 point in trafficker in the Legerdemain skill you can sell 110 stolen items a day per character, even if you just sold green items worth 100g (you will get several blue 250g items and if you're lucky a purple 750g) thats 11k gold a day for 1-2 hours of thieving.

Prof_Bawbag

PinoZino wrote: »

There are a few hundred, maybe even thousand guilds on PS4/USA and only a few Guild Traders.

Most of the guilds will have no Guild Trader.

You can join more than 1 guild or farm items with a nice price and a high demand. Stuff like purple motifs.

If you only get to play at weekends I can't think of anything worse you could do than farm purple motifs. Even finding one can take hours or days of constant grinding. If I could only manage 4 hours or so two days-a-week, I certainly wouldn't be spending all those hours just hoping to find a purple motif to stay in some guild. Then rinse and repeat for every weekend thereafter. It's actually possible and more likely to still not find one of those things farming for an entire day.

Pallmor

MikeB wrote: »

The thing is for most of the larger trade guilds they make more than it cost for the vendor in sale's but they still require a fee. Why? Because they're greedy and make irl $ off your ingame gold. On XB1 NA AD there is a "guild" that used to own 10 different trade guilds but had to cut down to 5 "because 10 was to much to manage". Now they have upped their weekly dues from 2k to 5k a month after dropping the other 5 guilds. None of these trade guilds need donations. The leaders just like to keep your money in their pockets.

In game money is easy to come by without needing a large trade guilde, Im in a trade guild with a decent VR trader, and they ask for donations but they are not required. With just 1 point in trafficker in the Legerdemain skill you can sell 110 stolen items a day per character, even if you just sold green items thats 11k gold a day for 1-2 hours of thieving.

It's a shame there isn't some way for a casual player to sell stuff without having to participate in a trader guild system that has apparently become so corrupt. I used to oppose the idea of an auction house, and figured the guild trader system would work most of the problems out. But the more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that there needs to be an auction house, to give players who don't want to pay gold into some trader guild (that might be making RL money off of them) a place to go to sell their stuff.

I hate the idea that I could find a really nice purple motif and not have any way to sell it other than standing in the middle of town square yelling "Motif for sale!" This is especially problematic on the consoles, since there is no text chat. So you LITERALLY have to yell in town square. And I really don't want to be that guy.

PinoZino

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

I believe you, @Mighty_oakk but I don't believe your friend.

For several reasons.

a) What's 'in' for the buyer? How can he make a return? Certainly, if he paid a lot money, he wants to see a return. There's no return possible via the game. You could ask IRL money for a membership, but it’s unlikely that players are prepared to pay.

b) Creating a guild with 500 members is rather easy. I can do it in a half day if I want to. Really. Why should you pay a lot money for something that doesn't cost a lot effort?

You could make money with a guild, but in that case you need a professional website, invest a lot in design, SEO and last but not least content.

And if you're lucky and can attract 50K or 100K users a day then your website is worth something, but not your guild.

I just think your friend told you a strong story.

Slurg

If the major trade guild owners on console are actually gold sellers, which is what a couple of you are suggesting, you guys should be reporting them to ZOS. Gold sellers are violating TOS and their accounts can be closed for that.

Mighty_oakk

PinoZino wrote: »

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

I believe you, @Mighty_oakk but I don't believe your friend.

For several reasons.

a) What's 'in' for the buyer? How can he make a return? Certainly, if he paid a lot money, he wants to see a return. There's no return possible via the game. You could ask IRL money for a membership, but it’s unlikely that players are prepared to pay.

b) Creating a guild with 500 members is rather easy. I can do it in a half day if I want to. Really. Why should you pay a lot money for something that doesn't cost a lot effort?

You could make money with a guild, but in that case you need a professional website, invest a lot in design, SEO and last but not least content.

And if you're lucky and can attract 50K or 100K users a day then your website is worth something, but not your guild.

I just think your friend told you a strong story.

Uhh selling gold is huge on console. Not as crazy as a couple months ago but still very active

terrordactyl1971

Maybe an AH that allows you to sell 1 item per day - so it doesn't damage the trading guilds?

Or 2 items per day for ESO+ members?

Pallmor

PinoZino wrote: »

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

I believe you, @Mighty_oakk but I don't believe your friend.

For several reasons.

a) What's 'in' for the buyer? How can he make a return? Certainly, if he paid a lot money, he wants to see a return. There's no return possible via the game. You could ask IRL money for a membership, but it’s unlikely that players are prepared to pay.

From the way I'm understanding it, I think the implication is that a handful of people are buying up a lot of trade guilds with RL money, then jacking up the gold dues for the guilds, then selling the excess gold (above what the trader actually costs) for RL money. So the allegation is that, basically, the larger (consolidated) trade guilds are funneling money to gold sellers. And that's what makes these guilds worth RL money.

Prof_Bawbag

PinoZino wrote: »

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

I believe you, @Mighty_oakk but I don't believe your friend.

For several reasons.

a) What's 'in' for the buyer? How can he make a return? Certainly, if he paid a lot money, he wants to see a return. There's no return possible via the game. You could ask IRL money for a membership, but it’s unlikely that players are prepared to pay.

b) Creating a guild with 500 members is rather easy. I can do it in a half day if I want to. Really. Why should you pay a lot money for something that doesn't cost a lot effort?

You could make money with a guild, but in that case you need a professional website, invest a lot in design, SEO and last but not least content.

And if you're lucky and can attract 50K or 100K users a day then your website is worth something, but not your guild.

I just think your friend told you a strong story.

That's the thing, though. there are a lot of suckers out there that make the guy's story plausible. Hell, people sell 10k gold on Ebay for around £4 (just look for yourself, they're easy to find) and when you look at the tallies sold, they must make a pretty penny from it. We're just talking 10k gold here (something I can make in under an hour if I tried to), so there would be suckers out there that would buy something such as a successful guild for real money.

Pallmor

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

Maybe an AH that allows you to sell 1 item per day - so it doesn't damage the trading guilds?

Or 2 items per day for ESO+ members?

At this point I'm not sure we should even have the trading guilds anymore. It sounds like the whole system has become corrupt. A global auction house would be better.

PinoZino

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Most of the ps4 prime guild vendors are owned by a few transfers who own many trade guilds.

A rl friend of mine who was a transfer started one of the strongest trade guilds. After a couple months one of the multi guild owners bought it for alot of rl money. The new owner started a fee even though the guild made alot more then the vendor cost.

If your in the multi guild monopoly draw your own conclusions on what is being done with your guild fees knowing rl money is involved.

I believe you, @Mighty_oakk but I don't believe your friend.

For several reasons.

a) What's 'in' for the buyer? How can he make a return? Certainly, if he paid a lot money, he wants to see a return. There's no return possible via the game. You could ask IRL money for a membership, but it’s unlikely that players are prepared to pay.

b) Creating a guild with 500 members is rather easy. I can do it in a half day if I want to. Really. Why should you pay a lot money for something that doesn't cost a lot effort?

You could make money with a guild, but in that case you need a professional website, invest a lot in design, SEO and last but not least content.

And if you're lucky and can attract 50K or 100K users a day then your website is worth something, but not your guild.

I just think your friend told you a strong story.

Uhh selling gold is huge on console. Not as crazy as a couple months ago but still very active

But there's almost no profit for the Guild.

The bigger Guilds often demand a contribution from their members. But these Guilds pay ridiculous prices for a Guild Trader.

I know it, because I was a member of several such Guilds. For one Guild, I did the calculations. The turnover (which is not the profit for the Guild) of all the Guild Members together was lower than the expenses of the Guild.

The Guilds that don't ask a membership fee, can make some profit, but not much.

Slurg

Pallmor wrote: »

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

Maybe an AH that allows you to sell 1 item per day - so it doesn't damage the trading guilds?

Or 2 items per day for ESO+ members?

At this point I'm not sure we should even have the trading guilds anymore. It sounds like the whole system has become corrupt. A global auction house would be better.

You want to throw the whole system out the window because console players refuse to report the gold sellers to ZOS and instead keep giving away their gold to them to sell for real money?

PinoZino

Pallmor wrote: »

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

Maybe an AH that allows you to sell 1 item per day - so it doesn't damage the trading guilds?

Or 2 items per day for ESO+ members?

At this point I'm not sure we should even have the trading guilds anymore. It sounds like the whole system has become corrupt. A global auction house would be better.

Some people drive crazy with their cars.

Solution of Pallmor:

Forbid all cars!

Ok. lol

PinoZino

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

That's the thing, though. there are a lot of suckers out there that make the guy's story plausible. Hell, people sell 10k gold on Ebay for around £4 (just look for yourself, they're easy to find) and when you look at the tallies sold, they must make a pretty penny from it. We're just talking 10k gold here (something I can make in under an hour if I tried to), so there would be suckers out there that would buy something such as a successful guild for real money.

I believe you. But I don't understand how you can get a lot money for something that's

a) generating almost no profit in gold.

b) created rather easy and fast. Really, it only takes a half day, maybe 1 day, to have 500 active members.

Cillion3117

Dump that guild and find another one. You shouldn't have to pay rent to be in a guild.

Pallmor

PinoZino wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

That's the thing, though. there are a lot of suckers out there that make the guy's story plausible. Hell, people sell 10k gold on Ebay for around £4 (just look for yourself, they're easy to find) and when you look at the tallies sold, they must make a pretty penny from it. We're just talking 10k gold here (something I can make in under an hour if I tried to), so there would be suckers out there that would buy something such as a successful guild for real money.

I believe you. But I don't understand how you can get a lot money for something that's

a) generating almost no profit in gold.

If every member of a 450 person guild is paying 5K a week in membership dues, that's 2.25 million GP a week. If they're only paying 700K for a trader, then....that's a LOT of profit.

b) created rather easy and fast. Really, it only takes a half day, maybe 1 day, to have 500 active members.

Not that easy to create a high *dues'paying* guild of that size.

PinoZino

Pallmor wrote: »

If every member of a 450 person guild is paying 5K a week in membership dues, that's 2.25 million GP a week. If they're only paying 700K for a trader, then....that's a LOT of profit.

There's no guild where all the members pay their weekly fee. If you're lucky maybe 50 or 100 members are doing it.

Pallmor wrote: »

Not that easy to create a high *dues'paying* guild of that size.

A guild where all the members pay their contribution every week, that's indeed hard.

Question is: do they exist? I doubt. And if they do, they are more rare than flying unicorns.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

Why would you pay to be in a trade guild? Your sales should be the only thing that matters.

Mighty_oakk

PinoZino wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

That's the thing, though. there are a lot of suckers out there that make the guy's story plausible. Hell, people sell 10k gold on Ebay for around £4 (just look for yourself, they're easy to find) and when you look at the tallies sold, they must make a pretty penny from it. We're just talking 10k gold here (something I can make in under an hour if I tried to), so there would be suckers out there that would buy something such as a successful guild for real money.

I believe you. But I don't understand how you can get a lot money for something that's

a) generating almost no profit in gold.

b) created rather easy and fast. Really, it only takes a half day, maybe 1 day, to have 500 active members.

Well when my friend had the guild after the trader fee the profit was over a million from guild cut per week. If a guild doesn't suck its profit was huge in the new console market.

code65536

Well, here's a simple question for you: How much is it taking in fees per week (member count and fee price), and how much is it bidding on the spot per week? There's also the tax intake, but without an addon like Master Merchant, it's hard to tell. I usually hate that the bid cost is shown to all guild members who look in the guild history, but in this case, it could be useful in seeing if there really is merit to the fees.

Now, I don't know how things are on consoles, but as a member of multiple trading guilds on PC/NA (and GM of one of them), you simply cannot hold a kiosk in a city (not even in a subprime city) with just sales taxes. This is why we have raffles or other forms of fundraisers, and even so, most guilds still require subsidies or donations to stay afloat. In my case, for example, we take in enough from taxes and the raffle gross to sustain the weekly bid (no fees), but I subsidize the guild in the form of providing the weekly raffle prizes out of my own pocket. And I see this same sort of thing in many of the other guilds that I'm in. In general, I see guild taxes make up anywhere from 25-50% of a guild's weekly bid--guilds really don't take in that much in taxes, relative to what their weekly expenses are (also, one dirty fact is that of the "House Cut" that you see when you list an item, only half of that goes to the guild; the other half is a "commission" that essentially goes to ZoS, which is why a guild's tax intake is much lower than what you'd expect from just looking at that House Cut number).