A trader for people outside guilds

jedtb16_ESO

Tandor wrote: »

Tipsy wrote: »

Ref wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNIpwhR66o

Like this, could open up many RP opportunities and socializing.


i don't think interacting with an npc really counts as socializing

If there would be stalls like these,i'd prefer them to only be allowed in certain areas like the market place.
For socializing purposes,it might be better to extend the idea.
so that players can offer themselves as mercenary in the tavern for dungeons,..
the ablities for players to offer certain expertis to others ,linked to a specific area that hasthe right context for it.

I'm all in favour of restricting NPC traders or stalls to just the three starting cities, that way they would enable new players to use the trading system straightaway and they could get a quest that introduced them to the guild trader system, for example by requiring them to interact with a guild trader in a couple of different locations. Meanwhile they'd be able to sell just a few items at a high commission rate that would still constitute a gold sink and with the commission shared between the trading guilds in those cities. They wouldn't be required to move on to guild traders if they didn't want or need to, but the concept would be explained to them and the choice would be theirs to make. Members of unsuccessful guilds would also be able to continue using the feature. However, with the high commission rate and severe restrictions on the number of items that could be listed, the trading guilds would continue to offer great advantages over the feature.

The introduction of such a system would benefit those who don't want to join a trading guild for whatever reason, those who belong to a trading guild that has been unsuccessful in getting a trader slot, and those who haven't yet decided what they want to do about trading guilds and don't fully understand the system. It would strengthen the trading guilds by giving them a share of the additional commission and by introducing new players to the whole concept of trading guilds. Put simply, everyone would gain and nobody would lose.

I've yet to see a proper objection to such a system. Criticism of it is limited to things like "It's an MMO, join a guild" or "we don't need an AH", both of which are completely irrelevant to the issue.

there are already four methods of selling stuff

1. via zone chat
2. to an npc
3. in a non trade guild via guild store
4. in a trade guild via a guild trader

why is a fifth method necessary?

Daemons_Bane

But the thing is, if its less profitable than regular guild store, then where's the incentive to use it?

The incentive is that you can now have your stuff at a trader, instead of using the WTS shout

Daemons_Bane

there are already four methods of selling stuff

1. via zone chat
2. to an npc
3. in a non trade guild via guild store
4. in a trade guild via a guild trader

why is a fifth method necessary?

Becase to non-guild people, there are only 2 of those methods available and tbh method 2 is irrelevant

GreenhaloX

It sounds viable.. like a lonewolf pack mule. Lol! Just like trading between players, you could opt to see what each has to sell as well. Traveling merchants.. sure, I can go for that.

jedtb16_ESO

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

there are already four methods of selling stuff

1. via zone chat
2. to an npc
3. in a non trade guild via guild store
4. in a trade guild via a guild trader

why is a fifth method necessary?

Becase to non-guild people, there are only 2 of those methods available and tbh method 2 is irrelevant

i'm still trying to figure out what 'non-guild people' is supposed to mean

and how is selling to an npc irrelevant - that's how i get rid of trash items. all that stuff that you get as drops - and so does everybody else.

you are ducking the point. those four methods are available to everyone. pretending they aren't is just fudging the issue.

jedtb16_ESO

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

But the thing is, if its less profitable than regular guild store, then where's the incentive to use it?

The incentive is that you can now have your stuff at a trader, instead of using the WTS shout

/facepalm

so with your plan you can pay a tax to sell your stuff rather than just selling your stuff... and that's your idea of an incentive?

Daemons_Bane

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

there are already four methods of selling stuff

1. via zone chat
2. to an npc
3. in a non trade guild via guild store
4. in a trade guild via a guild trader

why is a fifth method necessary?

Becase to non-guild people, there are only 2 of those methods available and tbh method 2 is irrelevant

i'm still trying to figure out what 'non-guild people' is supposed to mean

and how is selling to an npc irrelevant - that's how i get rid of trash items. all that stuff that you get as drops - and so does everybody else.

you are ducking the point. those four methods are available to everyone. pretending they aren't is just fudging the issue.

Okaaaay... a non-guildie is, surprise, a person not in a guild therefore, a guild trader is not available.. secondly, if you'd looted your 3rd ring of agility, would you sell it to the weaponsmith.?

so nope, I'm not really ducking anything

jedtb16_ESO

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

there are already four methods of selling stuff

1. via zone chat
2. to an npc
3. in a non trade guild via guild store
4. in a trade guild via a guild trader

why is a fifth method necessary?

Becase to non-guild people, there are only 2 of those methods available and tbh method 2 is irrelevant

i'm still trying to figure out what 'non-guild people' is supposed to mean

and how is selling to an npc irrelevant - that's how i get rid of trash items. all that stuff that you get as drops - and so does everybody else.

you are ducking the point. those four methods are available to everyone. pretending they aren't is just fudging the issue.

Okaaaay... a non-guildie is, surprise, a person not in a guild therefore, a guild trader is not available.. secondly, if you'd looted your 3rd ring of agility, would you sell it to the weaponsmith.?

so nope, I'm not really ducking anything

and that is where it goes round in a circle.....

Daemons_Bane

We seem to do that a lot in this thread though I am not really seeing any arguments against the suggestion.. a lot of useless "get in a guild" posts, but not really any arguments

Cryptical

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

It would make rich richer and poor poorer if said rich people could actually control all supplies. But that's not the case. Even if someone buys every item of specific kind, they're still unable to do anything with people farming those items or getting gold through different game activities.
On the other hand, sometimes guild traders offer items at very low price. Undercutting is a thing as well... Its not a real market, but the basic supply/demand concept applies to it as well.

There is control of supply, and then there is control of location.

Go check out the thread titled something close to "how much gold do you have". In that thread there are a handful of people that could group up and buy EVERY trader spot in rawl'ka for a month straight, from their own personal bank reserves.

The fundamental bottleneck in the person-to-person trading system built by Zos is the funneling of people into guilds for trader access. Without a guild, your ability to sell reaches as far as area voice chat or whichever text version of that you pc players have.

Bottlenecks in cash flow systems are where monopolies / duopolies / monopolistic consortiums etc arise. A few with positioning use that to strengthen against market competition, and gouge to 'maximize profit'.

A public merchant trader is THE most effective way to remove the bottleneck.

LadyNalcarya

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

We seem to do that a lot in this thread though I am not really seeing any arguments against the suggestion.. a lot of useless "get in a guild" posts, but not really any arguments

Ok, here's my arguments:
1)If it will be less profitable, like fence assistant, then where's an incentive to use this feature? Even the assistant has its advantage - she follows you around, but even then its not terribly popular. Just because you lose 35% of the profits.
2)If it will give the same (or comparable) profit as normal guild traders, then where's an incentive to be in guild, and support it?
3)Number of trades is limited - 30 trades in every guild. If you will be able to list 30 items at every trader, there wont be any need to prioritize sales and think about reasonable prices - you could just put over 9000 items to different traders and forget about them.
Also a guild cant have more than 500 members, and even than big guildstores are often cluttered and difficult to navigate without addons. What will happen if there will be listings from 5000 people at once? And how to manage your own items, scattered in different guildstores?
4)I honestly dont see how this feature would improve average player's experience. It will require a lot of changes to make it more or less fair and balanced, but will it be worth it? For people who dont wanna join any guilds, there is (or will be if were speaking about consoles) an option - /z chat. Yes, it requires some time, but you get 100% of profits this way, without guild fees.

Shadesofkin

I have never met anyone who's had a good reason to avoid being in at least one trading guild.

STEVIL

Not a major social player myself
Joined 3 guilds
One for a friend who needed members. Sales non-existent.
One for trading.
One for specific interaction in specific area with some trading.

All in all, a non-guild trader with a shorter time out of day 7 days and similar listing and house cut makes sense, would not bother me one bit.

Tandor

Shadesofkin wrote: »

I have never met anyone who's had a good reason to avoid being in at least one trading guild.

Let me introduce you to one. Me. I have 16 characters across a couple of accounts, and my characters are pretty much self-sufficient. In playing the game since PC launch I've had perhaps a dozen decent items dropped that I would have liked to have sold through a trading system. Everything else I've used, deconstructed, or sold to NPC merchants. Those few items I have just left in the bank in case I want to enable zone chat one day and advertise them (on the PC EU server, I only have Zone English enabled by default so as to cut out all the extraneous babble on the main zone channel). How many trading guilds do you know that would have kept me in them for well over two years while only listing a dozen items in that time?

I'd be perfectly happy with an NPC trader who restricted me to listing only a couple of items at a time (with two items listed all such NPC traders would be locked to me) at a high commission rate with the commission shared between trading guilds in that location. It would meet my very occasional trading needs while benefiting the trading guilds who would be even more strengthened if my earlier suggestion was adopted and the NPC traders were restricted to the starting cities only with a quest that introduced the guild trader concept so that new players were aware of how to trade in the game.

Cryptical

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

We seem to do that a lot in this thread though I am not really seeing any arguments against the suggestion.. a lot of useless "get in a guild" posts, but not really any arguments

Ok, here's my arguments:
1)If it will be less profitable, like fence assistant, then where's an incentive to use this feature? Even the assistant has its advantage - she follows you around, but even then its not terribly popular. Just because you lose 35% of the profits.
2)If it will give the same (or comparable) profit as normal guild traders, then where's an incentive to be in guild, and support it?
3)Number of trades is limited - 30 trades in every guild. If you will be able to list 30 items at every trader, there wont be any need to prioritize sales and think about reasonable prices - you could just put over 9000 items to different traders and forget about them.
Also a guild cant have more than 500 members, and even than big guildstores are often cluttered and difficult to navigate without addons. What will happen if there will be listings from 5000 people at once? And how to manage your own items, scattered in different guildstores?
4)I honestly dont see how this feature would improve average player's experience. It will require a lot of changes to make it more or less fair and balanced, but will it be worth it? For people who dont wanna join any guilds, there is (or will be if were speaking about consoles) an option - /z chat. Yes, it requires some time, but you get 100% of profits this way, without guild fees.

Your points...

1 - Merely having access to a wide customer base makes it profitable above the existing merchant rock bottom prices, even if it had a 35% tax taken. If I recall correctly, I could sell a purple C160 ring of willpower (healthy) to the npc for like 46 gold. If that sells for 100 - 35% tax it is still more than what the npc offers, AND someone gets to finish off their set with something, even if only as a placeholder until something better comes along.

2 - Guilds are also social groups. There's your incentive.

3a - We're talking about ONE public trader. So no 9000 listings stretching from the maormer infestation of auridon all the way to the giant infestation of eastmarch.

3b - To keep the merchandise in stock able to be managed well, perhaps instead of one universally accessible trader, make it multiples with specialties. Public trader A does alchemy and provisioning. B does clothing and 'other'. C does blacksmithing and woodworking. Etc.

4 - As mentioned earlier, the guild trader requirement is the bottleneck that cripples people's ability to sell beyond the reach of their area voice / text chat. Exclusion of people from being able to participate is what reduces normal free market competition. Reduction in competition allows the participants to gouge, because who is going to be able to have a real impact when they can't reach 95% of the possible customers?

Your points are thusly ALL refuted.

Lysette

DenMoria wrote: »

Is it wrong that I want to sell items at far below the prices that others are asking for them?

Example: Guild store (one of the ones I dropped) the other day selling Blessed Thistle @ 1500 each. I had about 50 of them in my inventory (I find them all over the place in Morrowind) so I considered putting out 40 of them at 50 each.

I suppose that would make the other folks mad, but, honestly, I have 29 regen rings or 240 + health items or paldrouns or weapons and staves that low level players could get some use out of rather than going and searching for them that I'm just going to break down for parts anyhow.

Maybe I'm just evil, or maybe I just want to annoy greedy people. Not sure which, but either will work for me.

Anybody need a green Night Mother's Pauldron that I haven't bothered to upgrade? I'll just give it to you. I have no use for it and I don't feel like searching for the whole set.

Chances are, that the moment you list those blessed Thistle, the one selling them for 1500 will just buy your stack and relist them for 1500 each - over time - because he is the one, who has an interest to monitor the market.

jedtb16_ESO

Cryptical wrote: »

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

We seem to do that a lot in this thread though I am not really seeing any arguments against the suggestion.. a lot of useless "get in a guild" posts, but not really any arguments

Ok, here's my arguments:
1)If it will be less profitable, like fence assistant, then where's an incentive to use this feature? Even the assistant has its advantage - she follows you around, but even then its not terribly popular. Just because you lose 35% of the profits.
2)If it will give the same (or comparable) profit as normal guild traders, then where's an incentive to be in guild, and support it?
3)Number of trades is limited - 30 trades in every guild. If you will be able to list 30 items at every trader, there wont be any need to prioritize sales and think about reasonable prices - you could just put over 9000 items to different traders and forget about them.
Also a guild cant have more than 500 members, and even than big guildstores are often cluttered and difficult to navigate without addons. What will happen if there will be listings from 5000 people at once? And how to manage your own items, scattered in different guildstores?
4)I honestly dont see how this feature would improve average player's experience. It will require a lot of changes to make it more or less fair and balanced, but will it be worth it? For people who dont wanna join any guilds, there is (or will be if were speaking about consoles) an option - /z chat. Yes, it requires some time, but you get 100% of profits this way, without guild fees.

Your points...

1 - Merely having access to a wide customer base makes it profitable above the existing merchant rock bottom prices, even if it had a 35% tax taken. If I recall correctly, I could sell a purple C160 ring of willpower (healthy) to the npc for like 46 gold. If that sells for 100 - 35% tax it is still more than what the npc offers, AND someone gets to finish off their set with something, even if only as a placeholder until something better comes along.

2 - Guilds are also social groups. There's your incentive.

3a - We're talking about ONE public trader. So no 9000 listings stretching from the maormer infestation of auridon all the way to the giant infestation of eastmarch.

3b - To keep the merchandise in stock able to be managed well, perhaps instead of one universally accessible trader, make it multiples with specialties. Public trader A does alchemy and provisioning. B does clothing and 'other'. C does blacksmithing and woodworking. Etc.

4 - As mentioned earlier, the guild trader requirement is the bottleneck that cripples people's ability to sell beyond the reach of their area voice / text chat. Exclusion of people from being able to participate is what reduces normal free market competition. Reduction in competition allows the participants to gouge, because who is going to be able to have a real impact when they can't reach 95% of the possible customers?

Your points are thusly ALL refuted.

1. sell it via /z...... all profit

2. non-sequitur

3a. the op was about an npc in every trade area. not one trader - that is a different argument.

3b.another non-sequitur

4. cripples? using pejorative language does nothing to persuade me to your point of view. i have made a lot of gold from /z and, a year or so back, made plenty from being in a trade guild (not the case currently) it's hardly crippling. no one is excluded from trading by any of the four methods i listed above (ok, consoles for the time being). gouge? again pejorative language to hide a flaccid argument...its simple if you don't like the price don't buy it.

the points still stand.

add to that the fact that trading in the game is built on the idea of guilds - remember the loading screens that say 'if you want to trade with other players join a guild'???

so that has to be dismantled to suit a few malcontents rather than the devs spend time on some of the real issues that (i'm told) affect other players enjoyment of the game and on introducing more great content.

Daemons_Bane

Ok, here's my arguments:
1)If it will be less profitable, like fence assistant, then where's an incentive to use this feature? Even the assistant has its advantage - she follows you around, but even then its not terribly popular. Just because you lose 35% of the profits.
2)If it will give the same (or comparable) profit as normal guild traders, then where's an incentive to be in guild, and support it?
3)Number of trades is limited - 30 trades in every guild. If you will be able to list 30 items at every trader, there wont be any need to prioritize sales and think about reasonable prices - you could just put over 9000 items to different traders and forget about them.
Also a guild cant have more than 500 members, and even than big guildstores are often cluttered and difficult to navigate without addons. What will happen if there will be listings from 5000 people at once? And how to manage your own items, scattered in different guildstores?
4)I honestly dont see how this feature would improve average player's experience. It will require a lot of changes to make it more or less fair and balanced, but will it be worth it? For people who dont wanna join any guilds, there is (or will be if were speaking about consoles) an option - /z chat. Yes, it requires some time, but you get 100% of profits this way, without guild fees.

OK, something to work with

1: The incentive is, as previously mentioned, that you have access to a dedicated trader/tradestation, instead of relying on WTS shouts Personally, I'd rather have it in a store
2: It should not be as profitable, as you are right in the point that it would remove the temptation of a guild
3: I suggested that you should have access to 1-3 merchants, aka 30-90 sale slots
4: The only improvement to the solo players is that they now have store for their wares further advantages would then be that other players have more options when they need to buy things, since that there is now more stores to choose from

The trader is meant to work like a guild trader, but with a higher expense to use.. When you put something in the guild store, the "guild salesman" takes a percentage.. The merchant will do the same, though taking a higher percentage.. That way, if you really wanna be a seller, you are encouraged to join a guild.. And to keep going back to the same topic again, yes you can shout it out in the region chat, but a lot of people would rather spend their time playing the game

Tandor

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

We seem to do that a lot in this thread though I am not really seeing any arguments against the suggestion.. a lot of useless "get in a guild" posts, but not really any arguments

Ok, here's my arguments:
1)If it will be less profitable, like fence assistant, then where's an incentive to use this feature? Even the assistant has its advantage - she follows you around, but even then its not terribly popular. Just because you lose 35% of the profits.
2)If it will give the same (or comparable) profit as normal guild traders, then where's an incentive to be in guild, and support it?
3)Number of trades is limited - 30 trades in every guild. If you will be able to list 30 items at every trader, there wont be any need to prioritize sales and think about reasonable prices - you could just put over 9000 items to different traders and forget about them.
Also a guild cant have more than 500 members, and even than big guildstores are often cluttered and difficult to navigate without addons. What will happen if there will be listings from 5000 people at once? And how to manage your own items, scattered in different guildstores?
4)I honestly dont see how this feature would improve average player's experience. It will require a lot of changes to make it more or less fair and balanced, but will it be worth it? For people who dont wanna join any guilds, there is (or will be if were speaking about consoles) an option - /z chat. Yes, it requires some time, but you get 100% of profits this way, without guild fees.

Your points...

1 - Merely having access to a wide customer base makes it profitable above the existing merchant rock bottom prices, even if it had a 35% tax taken. If I recall correctly, I could sell a purple C160 ring of willpower (healthy) to the npc for like 46 gold. If that sells for 100 - 35% tax it is still more than what the npc offers, AND someone gets to finish off their set with something, even if only as a placeholder until something better comes along.

2 - Guilds are also social groups. There's your incentive.

3a - We're talking about ONE public trader. So no 9000 listings stretching from the maormer infestation of auridon all the way to the giant infestation of eastmarch.

3b - To keep the merchandise in stock able to be managed well, perhaps instead of one universally accessible trader, make it multiples with specialties. Public trader A does alchemy and provisioning. B does clothing and 'other'. C does blacksmithing and woodworking. Etc.

4 - As mentioned earlier, the guild trader requirement is the bottleneck that cripples people's ability to sell beyond the reach of their area voice / text chat. Exclusion of people from being able to participate is what reduces normal free market competition. Reduction in competition allows the participants to gouge, because who is going to be able to have a real impact when they can't reach 95% of the possible customers?

Your points are thusly ALL refuted.

1. sell it via /z...... all profit

2. non-sequitur

3a. the op was about an npc in every trade area. not one trader - that is a different argument.

3b.another non-sequitur

4. cripples? using pejorative language does nothing to persuade me to your point of view. i have made a lot of gold from /z and, a year or so back, made plenty from being in a trade guild (not the case currently) it's hardly crippling. no one is excluded from trading by any of the four methods i listed above (ok, consoles for the time being). gouge? again pejorative language to hide a flaccid argument...its simple if you don't like the price don't buy it.

the points still stand.

add to that the fact that trading in the game is built on the idea of guilds - remember the loading screens that say 'if you want to trade with other players join a guild'???

so that has to be dismantled to suit a few malcontents rather than the devs spend time on some of the real issues that (i'm told) affect other players enjoyment of the game and on introducing more great content.

Hoist by your own petard !

Daemons_Bane

so that has to be dismantled to suit a few malcontents

No one talked about dismantling anything we're talking about adding stuff.. That's quite the opposite

Wollust

why do people play MMOs if they just want to play alone and all that?

I'll never get behind that logic.

nine9six

Guild Traders suck. Worst thing about ESO.

Nothing else to add.

Tandor

Wollust wrote: »

why do people play MMOs if they just want to play alone and all that?

I'll never get behind that logic.

Where do you get the idea that people posting here in favour of an addition to the guild trader system "just want to play alone and all that"? Honestly, the standard of criticism of the suggestions being put forward in this topic (or the insults aimed at those making the suggestions) could scarcely be more irrelevant or weak.

Daemons_Bane

Wollust wrote: »

why do people play MMOs if they just want to play alone and all that?

I'll never get behind that logic.

A few reasons could be that as a TES fan they love the game, or maybe that just because it's an mmo it's not a law to socialize people could simply be seeing other players as another kind of npcs..

Rastoide

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

Wollust wrote: »

why do people play MMOs if they just want to play alone and all that?

I'll never get behind that logic.

A few reasons could be that as a TES fan they love the game, or maybe that just because it's an mmo it's not a law to socialize people could simply be seeing other players as another kind of npcs..

Lol! I'll give you 2 more reasons:
I fear other players may ruin my game experience. And thats exactly what I usually feel when I activate zone chat -.-
I know for a fact that "trolls" roam zone chat. MMO's tend to turn people into ***, no offence people :P
@Daemons_Bane - Immersion might be the logic you're looking for. I want to get immersed in my TES game, and "other players" tend to break my involvement with the amazing stories..

Anyways, I haven't read all coments but as I said I support the idea of an extra merchant. If nothing I'll manage trading, for now at least.

Rayya_Blackheart

Ok. But why would I, as a player, want to continue to be in my trade guilds if I have a guaranteed spot any time I want to sell something? What limitations are you posing for people who opt out of a trader? How would this effect the current trade market?

Tandor

Rayya_Blackheart wrote: »

Ok. But why would I, as a player, want to continue to be in my trade guilds if I have a guaranteed spot any time I want to sell something? What limitations are you posing for people who opt out of a trader? How would this effect the current trade market?

Because you'd be restricted to just a few items listed, at a high commission rate, and at a single trader only (there would be a separate NPC trader in each starting city but once you'd listed the maximum number of items on one of them they'd all be locked to you). On that basis I don't see it having any significant effect on prices.

Trading guilds would benefit firstly from sharing the commission between those guilds trading in those locations and secondly from the NPC traders giving new players a quest that would involve learning about the guild trading system thereby opening up additional recruitment opportunities.

Daemons_Bane

Rayya_Blackheart wrote: »

Ok. But why would I, as a player, want to continue to be in my trade guilds if I have a guaranteed spot any time I want to sell something? What limitations are you posing for people who opt out of a trader? How would this effect the current trade market?

Because your being in max guilds allows you the chance for up to 5 trades and lower taxes.. The non guild player will have fewer slots, fewer traders and higher taxes.. I think this can have a positive effect on the market since we will see more wares in general, if this were to be a thing

Glyntt

This sounds an awful lot like asking for an Auction House without using those words. My answer is still 'No.'

Join a trade guild if you want to trade.

Rayya_Blackheart

Sorry, posting on a phone so quoting is rough.

I more so mean the bidding wars on stalls as they are now for marketing. That possibly would change, no idea which way,

Also, I'm not sure who brought up putting this in starter zones and the first few after that, do you mean only in tthe major trade areas? The idea of having a commission that goes to the trade guilds from sales of this NPC would potentially drive the bidding war up. (It's insane now).

I also see the cost of things going up as well. People put things up and increase cost to make up for the listing fee, people in a trade guild see listing price and match that.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, mind you, I'm a devil's advocate.

I also see a potential for gold sellers to take advantage of this. At least right now, a guild who checks regularly on their listers can keep them at bay.