This game DESPERATELY needs an Auction House of sort!

Moonfish

To put it bluntly: Guild Vendor suck and they dont work. Not only because its hard to find a guild with the items you want - forcing to go all around Tamriel looking for that extra Jazbay Grape. It sucks if you are part of a guild with no Guild Merchant. I have several legendary and useful items in my bank. No way to share with the world. Plus all those crazy taxes and guilding asking money. Like many console players I can spend a lot of time without playing the game, wich means guilds will kick me off.

Why not simply have Auction Houses where every one in Tamriel can freely exchange stuff. If one is too much, you can have one for each faction.
Right now if I cant find what I need from the GV near Elder Wood, [snip] it. I wont go around like an old lady in a giant shopping mall.

[Edit for censor bypassing]

Rohamad_Ali

Action Horse !

Erasure

Edit: Missed that C word

Yea, the default trader UI is in need of vast improvement. I don't think it was designed with console players in mind.

Mojmir

Well,it's Has been awhile for this thread to reappear.

Pallmor

Moonfish wrote: »

Why not simply have Auction Houses where every one in Tamriel can freely exchange stuff.

Most other MMO's have them, but every time someone brings it up here, they get shouted down by the traders in the trade guilds who have a vested interest in keeping prices high and restricting access of others to the market. It really makes me angry that a handful of traders are the only ones who are allowed to sell anything in this game, with no way for anyone else to sell.

And before anyone pipes in with "Well, you could sell stuff in chat" that's like telling someone "Well, you can't vote, but you're free to stand outside a polling place begging for someone to vote *for* you." Standing on a street corner in Riften hawking goods in zone chat is not what I consider fair access to the market.

This game has needed an auction house for a long time. The traders claim that auction houses don't work, yet they sure seem to work just fine in every other MMO out there.

Sadly, ZOS tends to listen to a vocal minority on this and many other issues. I guarantee you that if you polled regular, average players and explained how an auction house works that most of them would be for it.

Beardimus

Sounds like you are in the wrong guilds.

Honestly, alot of us are very happy with the system as it is. Effort = rewards. Old ladies get the deals by looking round and finding deals. AH is way too open to market manipulation too.

join 5 good guilds with no fee, and you can search all their goods from one bank, sell your gear and profit. All problems fixed. Inform the GM you have breaks from the game, it list high value gold items when you do and they will be fine.

Why on earth would you trawl for day to day items like grapes?

Adapt and overcome. I, any many others I know, who like the effort / reward of current system, 100% do not want a AH. It would break a system that works well if you work it right. And put some effort in.

Danikat

I agree.

I can cope with the system we have, but only because I don't use it unless I have to. I don't buy from other players because it's just not worth the hassle. If I'm lucky my guild will have what I want, but chances are if I'm buying anything stackable they'll be selling 200 at a time and there's no way for me to say I only want 50, or whatever. If my guild doesn't have it the only option is to waste my time trawling through dozens of guild traders dotted around the world hoping I happen to stumble across the one who has what I want, and that it's being sold for a reasonable price.

In the vast majority of cases it's just not worth it. I'll go without whatever I don't have, or wait until I can find it myself.

Selling isn't quite as bad, but even then I only sell recipes my crafter already knows. Unless you have a huge addon installed and someone else in your guild has sold the item recently there's no way to know what stuff is worth.

Compared to other games where any time I'm in a town I can check the demand and prices for anything I have with me and sell them instantly to anyone else in the game, or buy anything that's currently on sale by anyone else for the best price currently offered, in amounts I choose (even across servers in some cases) ESO's system just seems absurdly complicated.

makeumrage

We need a search function or some sort of better uinfor the traders or something that lets us search all the traders at once. We dont need an auction house where anyone and everyone can list things like grapes.

Betheny

A way for multiple guilds to stack on kiosks all at same time would be acceptable to me. Dropdown menu to choose guild to search at, flat fee that reflects the area and perhaps a max on that kiosk for how many guilds can be listed there.

This one trader per kiosk run around the whole game thing has to go.

Erasure

Pallmor wrote: »

Moonfish wrote: »

Why not simply have Auction Houses where every one in Tamriel can freely exchange stuff.

Most other MMO's have them, but every time someone brings it up here, they get shouted down by the traders in the trade guilds who have a vested interest in keeping prices high and restricting access of others to the market. It really makes me angry that a handful of traders are the only ones who are allowed to sell anything in this game, with no way for anyone else to sell.

And before anyone pipes in with "Well, you could sell stuff in chat" that's like telling someone "Well, you can't vote, but you're free to stand outside a polling place begging for someone to vote *for* you." Standing on a street corner in Riften hawking goods in zone chat is not what I consider fair access to the market.

This game has needed an auction house for a long time. The traders claim that auction houses don't work, yet they sure seem to work just fine in every other MMO out there.

Sadly, ZOS tends to listen to a vocal minority on this and many other issues. I guarantee you that if you polled regular, average players and explained how an auction house works that most of them would be for it.

Just to define "A Handful" for people, There are over 130 traders spread throughout the game before you even get to Thieves Dens and Cyrodiil, which I don't count. That's 65,000 potential guild members selling to the public, or allowing for moderate overlap, 40,000 interested and active merchants. Is that room for every single person interested in selling to the public, while offline, that plays the game? No. Is it a small, exclusionary sect? No. Anyone interested in joining a trade guild need only pay attention to zone chat for 5 minutes to see one recruiting.

Danikat

makeumrage wrote: »

We need a search function or some sort of better uinfor the traders or something that lets us search all the traders at once. We dont need an auction house where anyone and everyone can list things like grapes.

A way to search (and buy from) all guild traders from one location would be a nice first step.

That would bring ESO up to the absolute basic functionality that games like EQ2 had at release.

Yuukir_MapleBeaver

I completely agree with you except for the "freely exchange/sell". There needs to be an item placement fee of 5-10% in order to prevent people from using the auction house as an extra inventory.

Things like a lack of auction house, not being able to see your group's stam/magika, buff durations/exact effects, group dps distribution, etc really leaves me with a feeling that the people managing this game are oblivious to the most essential basics of how a MMORPG should be.

Turelus

Would you be happy with the current system if ZOS reworked the UI to be more user friendly (like AwesomeGuildstore/Master Merchant) or is it that you really dislike the separate markets?

FloppyTouch

Would love an AH I'm in top traders 3 of them on xb NA and I would still love an AH only people against this are the leaders of trade guilds and there officers.

Hammy01

I have grown so tired of the current system and it drastically takes away the enjoyment of playing when i have to spend hours traveling around Tamriel (lots of load screens) just to find one Necropotence ring that i need at a price i can afford. I for one would scream with joy if we had an actual auction house type system or at the very least had a more robust Guild Trader UI that could save searches or allow us to search by name / set pieces.

However i don't think this will ever happen because either the servers can't handle it or the Devs can't or won't change the Guild Trader system.

Qbiken

Imagine the lag/latency that would occur with a auctionhouse. 300+ people in the same spot. Good luck with that.

Hammy01

Something else i was thinking... The current system punishes those who do not have ESO plus or have not bought the DLCs as they cannot access the Guild Traders in the DLC zones.

Riejael

I actually prefer there not being a centralized auction house system. It encourages localized trends, and peer to peer trading. This is a MMO and anything that encourages players to work together and interact should be encouraged. Anything that acts as a filter should be discarded.

RavenSworn

I'm against this actually. There is better control on prices than most people think. Trade monopolies happen because either a) a player controls the prices b) the guild as a whole control the market. You can't control the market with this, no matter what trade guild you are in. You go on the outskirts and you might find some gems of a price.

The hassle of finding that right trader with the right price is what really hooked me in with this system. Why try and go for the big cities traders when you can travel all over tamriel via guild mates, wayshrines and such with ease. And it's free. Loading screens are just part and parcel of it really, no different than going into a dungeon or doing some zone grinding.

Yuukir_MapleBeaver

Qbiken wrote: »

Imagine the lag/latency that would occur with a auctionhouse. 300+ people in the same spot. Good luck with that.

In most (all) games where there are AHs, there's a NPC for it in every big town. If it wasn't for what happened with the New Life Festival, I'd think you were smoking something really good for thinking only one place would have the AH npc.

Jim_Pipp

Please an auction house! I only go to traders when it is absolutely necessary.

When going to guild traders there are two equally bad options.
1) way shrine around tamriel hunting in rinky-*** micro guild traders, most of whom have almost nothing for sale and rareky what you want. But if they have it, it is reasonably priced.

2) go to the trader hubs and buy items that are being resold by people who role play Mr. Burns (the simpsons). These Prices are high because of a sociopathic mark-up by people who "know the market" (and feel making profit justifies making the game harder for average players). The convenience of trader hubs almost justifies getting fleeced.

An auction house only hurts people who weren't making the game bether. It means all sellers can sell on an equal platform, and buyers can buy and get back to playing the game. Please an auction house.

Jeremy

Moonfish wrote: »

To put it bluntly: Guild Vendor suck and they dont work. Not only because its hard to find a guild with the items you want - forcing to go all around Tamriel looking for that extra Jazbay Grape. It sucks if you are part of a guild with no Guild Merchant. I have several legendary and useful items in my bank. No way to share with the world. Plus all those crazy taxes and guilding asking money. Like many console players I can spend a lot of time without playing the game, wich means guilds will kick me off.

Why not simply have Auction Houses where every one in Tamriel can freely exchange stuff. If one is too much, you can have one for each faction.
Right now if I cant find what I need from the GV near Elder Wood, f**k it. I wont go around like an old lady in a giant shopping mall.

An Auction House would be nice.

I've been posting threads about this since beta when it became evident to me early on that this game's default trade tools were woefully inadequate. They have since made alterations which have improved the situation. But the game's economy is still in pretty poor shape with cumbersome ineffective search tools and scattered isolated markets. This isn't to mention the players constantly spamming guild and zone chats for price checks. It's a sloppy mess and if the developers aren't embarrassed at the system they have created then they should be - especially for a modern MMORPG with a healthy budget.

Most of the arguments against having an auction house are ridiculous - such as those that fear market manipulation as if smaller markets controlled by a single guild master aren't a million times more susceptible to market manipulation (which, of course, they are). So these are mostly just smokescreens to hide what was their true objective - which was to avoid the competition of having to sell on an open market so they could keep their prices high. Though at this point their attempts to create a cartel have been significantly undermined by numerous addons and guild traders. So even that is no longer a suitable motive - not even from their perspective. So it basically makes no sense what-so-ever not to have an auction house on this game at this point. It's absence serves no beneficial purpose and does nothing but aggravate and exclude many players from being able to freely participate in the economy.

MLGProPlayer

Beardimus wrote: »

Sounds like you are in the wrong guilds.

Honestly, alot of us are very happy with the system as it is. Effort = rewards. Old ladies get the deals by looking round and finding deals. AH is way too open to market manipulation too.

join 5 good guilds with no fee, and you can search all their goods from one bank, sell your gear and profit. All problems fixed. Inform the GM you have breaks from the game, it list high value gold items when you do and they will be fine.

Why on earth would you trawl for day to day items like grapes?

Adapt and overcome. I, any many others I know, who like the effort / reward of current system, 100% do not want a AH. It would break a system that works well if you work it right. And put some effort in.

Trade guilds with no fees have traders in *** locations, meaning you won't be selling a lot of anything.

Joining 5 trade guilds also leaves you no room to join actual PvE or PvP guilds.

Overall, the system is completely broken and needs an overhaul. This is coming from someone who does quite well in the current system.

Vipstaakki

This thread again?!

We have already gone over this many many times and the answer always is

NO AUCTION HOUSE

Qbiken

Yuukir_MapleBeaver wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Imagine the lag/latency that would occur with a auctionhouse. 300+ people in the same spot. Good luck with that.

In most (all) games where there are AHs, there's a NPC for it in every big town. If it wasn't for what happened with the New Life Festival, I'd think you were smoking something really good for thinking only one place would have the AH npc.

Even if there´s was one for each faction it would still be overcrowded. I´m generally against AH since I like the way it is atm.

ScooberSteve

Get awesomeguildstore addon. Your welcome. If your on console u get what u deserve.

Gargath

I also like the way it is atm, the need of searching entire Tamriel for a single item is so immersive .

Turelus

ScooberSteve wrote: »

Get awesomeguildstore addon. Your welcome. If your on console u get what u deserve.

At this point I honestly don't know why ZOS don't just take Awesome Guild Store and MasterMerchant, build on them and make them core game UI. They've done it for other add-ons (lootdrop).

I think if more people had access to user friendly UI they might be happier with the system.

GaldorP

Yep, the number of new furnishing items in Homestead will make apparent to many players again how annoying and needlessly time-consuming it is to browse through guild stores when you're searching a somewhat rare item. Even with the help of addons you spend 45 minutes just checking all guild traders in the largest cities for 1 item (and that's with the help of an addon on PC, without that addon it takes even longer).

For sellers, the guild stores are great (the fact that the guild store system is so annoying and time-consuming for buyers lets them sell for higher prices; the few people who do not mind checking lots of guild stores every day will immediately buy things that are under market value and resell them again for the expensive prices; this keeps prices high).

So, to sum up, the current system is horribly inconvenient for buyers (especially when they need a rare item) and as a consequence of that keeps prices for many items much higher than they would be in a more convenient server-wide trading platform. If ZOS really thought that having so many mechanics that obstruct trading would stop gold farmers or pro-traders from manipulating prices I believe they were wrong. The opposite is the case 'cause most player will not bother checking dozens of guild stores (which consumes a lot of their play-time) to buy a single item.

Edit: Even with addons like Awesome Guildstore, you only ever see a list of 100 items at a time, then you need to wait 5 seconds until you can see the next 100 items. This does not harm botters or RMT gold sellers, but it's really really inconvenient for legit players browsing these stores manually in search for an item and it's the result of a poorly designed guild trader system.

Docmandu

For all the things they've made "casual friendly", the guild trading system sure isn't one of them.

The trade system in itself is fine.. problem is that you indeed need to remain quite active or else that precious 1/500 slot you're using up will be cleared to make room for somebody else. I can see this poses a problem for people that only get 1-2 days a week to play for a bit.
Maybe a "default trade guild" where everybody is put in if they don't have a trade guild could be an option.. with a random merchant somewhere out in the world to sell the goods. (with a hefty tax, so as to keep player driven trade guilds the "better" option)


The travel time and loading screens are indeed annoying, but it also gives value to your items, since people with loads of gold tend to become lazy, so you have a chance of selling something for more than it's worth. Problem is that usually these rich people only check the prime trader spots, so unless you're in one of the prime guilds, ...

Tabbycat

Qbiken wrote: »

Imagine the lag/latency that would occur with a auctionhouse. 300+ people in the same spot. Good luck with that.

It would be super easy to just convert all the Traders into Auctioneers thus keeping people spread out all over. The only difference is the Auctioneers would have access to everything put up for sale as opposed to just items from one guild.

With potential guild cartels running the trader system by using backup disposable guilds to make multiple bids for trade spots, something needs to be done to change how the current system works.