So.. what is with trader stores showing up no sale items??

GreenhaloX

I'm just curious. Maybe someone can clarify it for me. I'm doing my rounds after each Sunday's flip, and for I don't know how long, have been seeing some guild stores up, but then there is literally no item for sale in any section of these certain guild stores, whatsoever. I mean, even the names of these guild stores are kind of fishy. Other times, you come back the following day on Monday evening and another guild store name has popped up at a location which was not there the previous Sunday evening after flip. This has occurred quite a few time as well. I don't get it. Is it a bug? I thought a guild would need to have the minimum of 50 members in order to have its guild store unlocked. How can there not be any items listed on sale in these seemingly empty guilds? Also, as far as bidding goes, I thought, once you place a bid (one time bid per guild, per location, as what I understand), and you win, that is that. So, how can another guild store show up at a location where there was another named guild store at that same spot the night or day before? Am I missing something here?

KingMagaw

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

GreenhaloX

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

subtlezeroub17_ESO

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

Basically.

That's why these guilds are so strongly against a centralized AH. They know that would dismantle their sales and bully tactics.

Kali_Despoine

Yeah @zenimax tried to stop AH price fixing by introducing the bid on trader.
Now people are making ghost guilds to bid on traders to sell them.
Talk about price fixing.

Draqone

Those small proxy bids would still need to outbid all other guilds for that spot. It's not like they magically just get that trader because they lowballed a bid on a few traders.

I don't own a trade guild but his behaviour is less because many guilds try to monopolise the market and more because of how unforgiving losing a trader spot actually is.

Prof_Bawbag

Draqone wrote: »

Those small proxy bids would still need to outbid all other guilds for that spot. It's not like they magically just get that trader because they lowballed a bid on a few traders.

I don't own a trade guild but his behaviour is less because many guilds try to monopolise the market and more because of how unforgiving losing a trader spot actually is.

Missing the point. No one knows which guild is gonna bid on which trader. You get a single bid and it stops guilds getting a 2nd bite at the cherry should their 1 and only bid on another trader fail.

Lets simplify it, 10 guilds, 5 traders. No one knows who's bidding for what so 1 guild creates a number of dummies and places low bids on say all 5 of them. No one other than the dummy creating guild places a bid on trader 3, dummy creating guild loses it's original bid along with 4 other guilds. Dummy guild is fine because it will just flip the other trader for peanuts, but the remaining 4 losers can't do squat, not even given a 2nd bite.

How is that fair? Not only that, it bugs out every other guilds message of the day other than the guild that created the dummy guild. When recruiting new members you're telling potential members your guild has a mournhold trader, yet they look at your motd and think you're talking *** so they leave.

Prof_Bawbag

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

The large guilds can easily create a 50+ dummy guild. whether it be from fellow members or a host of alt accounts, it's not actually too difficult. Doing it legitimately is a pain as you yourself found out.

victoriana-blue

You might also be running into a bug, which occasionally shows no items for sale even when the guild has things listed. Relogging or /reloadui usually fixes that, if it's the bug (and not a shell guild).

Erasure

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

The large guilds can easily create a 50+ dummy guild. whether it be from fellow members or a host of alt accounts, it's not actually too difficult. Doing it legitimately is a pain as you yourself found out.

Man, you know that the way to 'drop' the trader is to disband the guild, right? There's no option to do it manually. Zeni rather would let the kiosk be hired if a guild dies than let it sit broken for the rest of the week. The strat you've mentioned works with that mechanic, but man, how much free time would you have to have? Multiple accounts with bid permissions on dead guilds that you get one shot with? I can't imagine very many people actually have that set up. The situation you've described is possible, but it almost never happens. Not on PC-NA, at any rate. It's far more common that a big guild bumps another out, and their previous spot is open to be hired for pennies.

Prof_Bawbag

Erasure wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

The large guilds can easily create a 50+ dummy guild. whether it be from fellow members or a host of alt accounts, it's not actually too difficult. Doing it legitimately is a pain as you yourself found out.

Man, you know that the way to 'drop' the trader is to disband the guild, right? There's no option to do it manually. Zeni rather would let the kiosk be hired if a guild dies than let it sit broken for the rest of the week. The strat you've mentioned works with that mechanic, but man, how much free time would you have to have? Multiple accounts with bid permissions on dead guilds that you get one shot with? I can't imagine very many people actually have that set up. The situation you've described is possible, but it almost never happens. Not on PC-NA, at any rate. It's far more common that a big guild bumps another out, and their previous spot is open to be hired for pennies.

You're underestimating the time these people have on their hands. It happens every week on the PS4 EU server and I find it hard to believe it's only rife on this server. They can do it quickly. All alts and a close knit group of friends also with alts. 5mins and you have a dummy guild. Multiple dummy guilds all bidding in the prime locations.

nine9six

Guild Traders suck.

Erasure

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

The large guilds can easily create a 50+ dummy guild. whether it be from fellow members or a host of alt accounts, it's not actually too difficult. Doing it legitimately is a pain as you yourself found out.

Man, you know that the way to 'drop' the trader is to disband the guild, right? There's no option to do it manually. Zeni rather would let the kiosk be hired if a guild dies than let it sit broken for the rest of the week. The strat you've mentioned works with that mechanic, but man, how much free time would you have to have? Multiple accounts with bid permissions on dead guilds that you get one shot with? I can't imagine very many people actually have that set up. The situation you've described is possible, but it almost never happens. Not on PC-NA, at any rate. It's far more common that a big guild bumps another out, and their previous spot is open to be hired for pennies.

You're underestimating the time these people have on their hands. It happens every week on the PS4 EU server and I find it hard to believe it's only rife on this server. They can do it quickly. All alts and a close knit group of friends also with alts. 5mins and you have a dummy guild. Multiple dummy guilds all bidding in the prime locations.

Is it easy to spam accounts on console? I don't know a thing about Sony's setup.

abigfishy

I am not 100% on this but I am guessing that if you need 50 members to have a guild trader all you need to do is get 50 people in your guild to join the "spare" guilds, put in the backup bid each week and then when your guild misses its main spot one week kick one person from the "spare" guild so it has 49 people and now the trader is free.

On the other hand even if you do have to disband the entire "spare" guild think how much better that is than having a trading guild with no guild trader for an entire week. You would likely lose lots of your top traders who won't want to forego millions in trade and will just join a "better" run guild.

abigfishy

PS: if you win the bid with the dummy guild I bet you could sell it for a lot to another guild that missed out.

Tan9oSuccka

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

Basically.

That's why these guilds are so strongly against a centralized AH. They know that would dismantle their sales and bully tactics.

It's getting rediculous. 15K weekly dues. Shady guild deposits.

Dummy guilds everywhere with nothing to sell.

I absolutely loathe this system.

GreenhaloX

Yeah, more of the empty guilds are showing from yesterday's flip. From what I gather, a lot are saying about dummy guilds and guild store/location bumping (however that is done), sounds iffy, but doesn't seem to be against ToS or Code of Conducts.. I guess. It may just seem unfair to other smaller guilds, at the least. However, yeah, with bidding pricing spiking up for bigger capital cities and practically a new guild popping up every other seconds, I can't blame some GM/guilds to enact something to ensure his/her guilds get a good capital city spot weekly.

For a guild that is able to maintain/sustain a weekly spot, lets say in Mournhold, Elden Root or Reaper's March, it's definitely 10k weekly dues across the board. Well, those guilds I know of. I also heard certain ones have already increased to 15k. If true, other guilds of similar calibre will surely follow suit. I remember, it was 5k prior to the start of this year, then it went to 10k at the start of the year. Seems 15k might be the new standard soon, and at this rate, it may be 20-30k weekly fees by the end of this year. Ha ha. I see how rough it can be to maintain/acquire winning weekly bids, which with all the competition pouring in, it's causing certain Guilds/GM to think outside of the box.

The bidding price, however, I think it is a monster that GM/guilds created on their own accord. It's a blind bidding, and you don't really know what the hell other guilds have placed. You then have no choice but to drop an outrageously amount in hopes it is bigger than others have. Thus, the bidding price just increases week per week, and in affect, guilds' weekly dues to its members are being increased. Now, I'm talking about those guilds vying for bigger capital city spots and not smaller city spots.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Erasure wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Erasure wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

The large guilds can easily create a 50+ dummy guild. whether it be from fellow members or a host of alt accounts, it's not actually too difficult. Doing it legitimately is a pain as you yourself found out.

Man, you know that the way to 'drop' the trader is to disband the guild, right? There's no option to do it manually. Zeni rather would let the kiosk be hired if a guild dies than let it sit broken for the rest of the week. The strat you've mentioned works with that mechanic, but man, how much free time would you have to have? Multiple accounts with bid permissions on dead guilds that you get one shot with? I can't imagine very many people actually have that set up. The situation you've described is possible, but it almost never happens. Not on PC-NA, at any rate. It's far more common that a big guild bumps another out, and their previous spot is open to be hired for pennies.

You're underestimating the time these people have on their hands. It happens every week on the PS4 EU server and I find it hard to believe it's only rife on this server. They can do it quickly. All alts and a close knit group of friends also with alts. 5mins and you have a dummy guild. Multiple dummy guilds all bidding in the prime locations.

Is it easy to spam accounts on console? I don't know a thing about Sony's setup.

If you have multiple email adress, yes
Click on create new user
Enter your personal information (name, email adress etc)
Go check the confrmation email
Then done
+you dont need to hve multiple copy of the game since you can redownload the game from the first accont or reinsert the cd

Galenus_of_Pergamon

On PS4 NA, there are five notorious guilds that have formed a cabal (i.e. a secret political clique or faction). Collectively, they are known as the Mournhold Mafia. I'll refrain from naming names for now.

Each of these 5 guilds bid on a main trader and then 2-3 other traders with their shell guilds, respectively. They rotate through all of the capital cities in a confusing, yet premeditated, manner to avoid the appearance of any pattern. This is 5 guilds owning 10-15 traders and selling the traders they don't need.

I am the guildmaster of a social guild that consistently held a trader in Daggerfall until the Mafia started making hits on my block.

The Vice President of my guild contacted Zenimax about this matter. While forming a coalition with other guilds is not against the terms and conditions, creating (and subsequently dissolving or downsizing) shell guilds to allow one guild to have access to multiple traders each week is a direct violation of the terms and conditions.

I will be starting a petition soon asking Zenimax to make a guild trader inaccessible until the following sunday evening if a guild dissolves or downsizes and loses that trader.

This would make this massive monopolization by the Mournhold Mafia less realistic and attainable while giving more guilds a chance to enter the market and hopefully even bring prices down.

CromulentForumID

abigfishy wrote: »

PS: if you win the bid with the dummy guild I bet you could sell it for a lot to another guild that missed out.

And this is a thing that happens. I know of a guild that has purchased one of these spots for several weeks in a row. Talk to person, give gold, they disband, you get spot.

Feanor

It's ultimately on the players. If people wouldn't just flock to the capital cities traders and instead went to the more remote places too a lot of this wouldn't happen. But as IRL being comfortable always comes with paying a premium.

reiverx

Feanor wrote: »

It's ultimately on the players. If people wouldn't just flock to the capital cities traders and instead went to the more remote places too a lot of this wouldn't happen. But as IRL being comfortable always comes with paying a premium.

There's the convenience factor though. Having traders next to a bank and wayshrine counts for a lot.

gard

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Oh.. so, it seems like another way or ingenuity of people doing something to get one up in this game. Ha ha.. damn. Ok, so if you say these are somewhat empty guilds.. that is what I don't get. When I had a guild, I couldn't bid for a spot until my store was unlocked with the minimum 50 members. Even then, we had lots of items already listed on sale. Hey, if it works, and nobody complains.. good for them guilds. Not a complaint here, I'm just curious. It was boggling the heck out of my mind.

Basically.

That's why these guilds are so strongly against a centralized AH. They know that would dismantle their sales and bully tactics.

AH would only allow manipulation of the market on a larger scale.

Galenus_of_Pergamon

@gard, how would this work?

People would just continuously undercut each other? Would bots (real life prisoners) be forced to farm all day to sell gold and mats super low?

It sounds like it would bring prices down. PC prices are a lot lower than console and it has the addon website.

gard

Galenus_of_Pergamon wrote: »

@gard, how would this work?

People would just continuously undercut each other? Would bots (real life prisoners) be forced to farm all day to sell gold and mats super low?

It sounds like it would bring prices down. PC prices are a lot lower than console and it has the addon website.

If I wanted to buy up all of a specific material and re-list it higher, it would be a trivial to do that from an interface that gives me global access like an AH.

AH would also make it trivial for me to monitor for people trying to undercut me. As much of a pain as it is to have to travel around shopping for things, under the current system players can actually find a bargain now and again.

Hempyre

It's a bug relog and then Stuff shows up

IronCrystal

I've seen this complaint several times and it's always on the PS4 servers.

Never seen this happen or at least is prominent on PC NA server. It also seems to occur because there aren't enough trading guilds on PS4 to cover all the good traders every week. PC has like every decent trader being bid on every week by different guilds.

I do know of a few "sister" guilds but they aren't dummy guilds at all they are simply guilds helping each other.

rudimentxb14_ESO

this happens to me once in a while. A quick UI reset fixes it.

rootimus

subtlezeroub17_ESO wrote: »

That's why these guilds are so strongly against a centralized AH. They know that would dismantle their sales and bully tactics.

While I completely disagree with their tactics can we please, for the love of Sheogorath, not compare something silly in a video game to bullying, which is a very serious thing.

Prof_Bawbag

It's not bullying. Simply a few try hards struggling to differentiate between some kiddy on store in a game and real life.

You see some of these people continuously having spats in-game with other guild leaders like their in-game guild is an extension of their real life worth. OMFG, you have a large guild? Really? You have made it in life. You wonder how these people will function once the servers get switched off because some of them breathe, eat and sleep their guild. They have nothing else going for them.

Fallen_Ray

KingMagaw wrote: »

Bigger guilds use smaller empty guilds to spam low bids on traders. Once they win and the big trading guild loses place, the smaller guild 'drops' the trader with the main guild master right in front of NPC to buy again for main guild.


Stupid system where a few guilds actually try to monopolise the market.

Exactly as you said. It's all controlled by a few guilds. I do know some in the platform I play on. I refuse to use such a rotten system. I rather break up and sell to in game merchants items I don't need even if im missing out on 500k gold. I'm doing more by not contributing to this rotten economy model ZOS has created and refuses to take down.

If only more of us would rather sink items into the game merchants or break em rather than put em in market circulation. This model would crumble in itself. Without the need of implementing an Auction House. Gold is worthless if you can't use it and the current system complicates & restricts its use too much