Bidding day - A Trade GMs worst Nightmare

Montayva

So as someone who runs a pretty small and casual Trade guild, bidding Day has become an absolute nightmare! 6 months ago we could secure a great spot in one of the starter zones, now we're struggling to win bids of ridiculous amounts in all of the far less desirable, out-of-the-way places.

What's going on? Has there been a huge influx of Trading guilds competing for locations?

Thoughts?

Shadzilla

ZOS was told to L2Market their game properly. The real shocker, is that they actually listened to what they were told for once.

idk

New guild form. Other guilds choose to change location so pressure is increased in one local and decreased in another. It is always in flux.

SoLooney

As more guilds build capita and grow in size, they are more likely to start bidding in higher traffic areas, yes ive noticed our GM saying he had pay more to secure the same spot and its only increasing per week

Montayva

just wondering why there seems to be such a sudden influx lately. For eg, we used to have a secured position in Skywatch for a few months, costing us 200-300k each week. Now it's difficult to win a bid on Bleakrock for 300k! Even with 480 members, a fully stocked store, paying that much for Bleakrock just doesn't seem viable for the meek 5-10 sales per hour we get, if that!

RavenSworn

We should have a crown based guild trader npc that we can put up in a house. That should alleviate some of the problems smaller trading guilds have with regards to the main trading areas. This would then allow people to not only visit a guild hall but also use their guild trader.

doggie

I don't think the devs behind this trade model still understands just how much work it is to get the funds, and maintain a playerlist of 500 active accounts, kicking, and recruiting more people etc. Keeping track of who on vacation.

Lots of work, just so you can sell some stuff. I'll never get involved with running a guild in ESO, it's simply too much work.

Montayva

It is a huge amount of work. I think a lot of the community that use trade guilds also arent aware of just how much goes into it. Or the stress involved. To be a competitive trade guild is almost like a RL job tbh

DisgracefulMind

Yeah, we do trading in ZDM as well, and we're having to bid a lot to secure our spot weekly. Our members help keep the trader and most weeks we make decent sales, but we've tried numerous locations over the past couple of months and we've just sort of accepted our fate that we'll be spending a lot more than what we had to before to keep a trader /:

Betsararie

This is actually a good thing. The higher the price traders go for the better.

The more competitive trader spots get, the better the guild stores that inevitably make it in. The guilds will be put under increasing pressure to sell more (good for the economy).

fastolfv_ESO

tamriel trade center probly has a huge impact on this, you no longer need the high traffic areas when ppl pull up the entire games listen items and then go to your location, so larger guilds pick crummy spots to save money and overbid which puts the pressure on the smaller guilds in the locations nobody wanted before

Cpt_Teemo

Shadzilla wrote: »

ZOS was told to L2Market their game properly. The real shocker, is that they actually listened to what they were told for once.

If they learned how to add a market in the game they would include the rest of the entire game along with it.

IE: Auction House, as does any other MMO on the current market has.

DRXHarbinger

+1m bids in Rawlka or Mournhold or gtfo. Bid big or go home. Try maintaining these huge bids for over a year. L2collude.

drakhan2002_ESO

Since there are only a fixed number of slots and it seems like there are new guilds being formed every day, it's more a problem of supply and demand.

Speculation on my part, but I'd bet that the larger trade guilds probably collude together to get the best slots.

As a player and not a GM, I hear even my larger trade guilds having to pay millions of gold each week to get their spot. Insane to me!

Balsagna

Blanco wrote: »

This is actually a good thing. The higher the price traders go for the better.

The more competitive trader spots get, the better the guild stores that inevitably make it in. The guilds will be put under increasing pressure to sell more (good for the economy).

You know what else is good for the economy? A centralized auction house. This current system, while we can all agree isn't going anywhere, is about as stupid a system as there can be.

Kurkikohtaus

This is not the result of competition but of manipulation. There are "conglomerates" in the game, multiple trade guilds that are assembled under one umbrella. The various subsidiaries of the conglomerate push out smaller guilds from seemingly less interesting areas as part of a strategy to control the market and prices.

Another way in which the current mess of a trading system screws the little guy, in this case a smaller / newer guild who cannot compete with the big established ones for trader spots.

Way to promote community and social interaction ZoS.

lordhakai

1 million in rawl that is wishful thinking

Cpt_Teemo

Kurkikohtaus wrote: »

This is not the result of competition but of manipulation. There are "conglomerates" in the game, multiple trade guilds that are assembled under one umbrella. The various subsidiaries of the conglomerate push out smaller guilds from seemingly less interesting areas as part of a strategy to control the market and prices.

Another way in which the current mess of a trading system screws the little guy, in this case a smaller / newer guild who cannot compete with the big established ones for trader spots.

Way to promote community and social interaction ZoS.

More like anti socialism and pro elitism.

lordhakai

This has been the arguement about guild traders for a long time and nothing has changes despite many threads identical to this one that pops up every week. It is an open market don't blame people for taking advatage of what it takes to succeed and now thanks to tcc as long as you can obtain any trader you have a chance to compete so start small and work your way up.

Cpt_Teemo

lordhakai wrote: »

This has been the arguement about guild traders for a long time and nothing has changes despite many threads identical to this one that pops up every week. It is an open market don't blame people for taking advatage of what it takes to succeed and now thanks to tcc as long as you can obtain any trader you have a chance to compete so start small and work your way up.

You don't have any chance to compete if you don't own a trader, because the only way to sell to the public is having a guild trader doh.

TheDarkAardvark

I just love the RP social guilds bidding > 750k on remote locations and then never having more than a few pages of complete crap in their store. I'm guessing such a thing is sustainable simply because the members are also in trading guilds. Why block guilds with stuff to sell from being able to sell?

lordhakai

SO next time read my post not just glance at it. I was just advising to start small and work you way up if you have to start in an outlaw refuge do so and with some great guildies and some semi-decent sales you can start to move up over time. It is not easy to run trade guilds and I know this however since zos is not going to change the trading system you need to find ways to master the system as it is.

failkiwib16_ESO

Many larger trading guilds already have build up chains, and some of the guilds are smaller in size. Due to funding from the main guilds, they can afford to secure a location for their smaller guild by overbidding.

There have also been a whole line of new-commer trading guilds and social trading guilds, so that also drove the competition up a little. The social and new-commer trading guilds are now moving into refuges, driving those bidding prices up by 200k-300k+ which is pretty much insane. These guilds don't even get half of their expenses covered by taxes, so the bidding gold either comes from donations from the members or the leaders' own pockets.
-woohooo pay 3k donation weekly to a guild, when your income is 30k at best. While players pay 3k donation at in better located trading guilds, and can easily earn 300k a week.

Many of these small guilds who have 0 items for sale in their store, but they pay 300k bids a week to secure a location are owned by larger trading guilds, and just secures a location for the main guild in case it looses bid. So basically when the major guild looses bid, they disband the small guild so the trader gets available and the major guild will just hire that trader.
-this problem can easily be fixed, if ZOS didn't allow a trader to be available if the guild that owns it disbands.

Cpt_Teemo

TheDarkAardvark wrote: »

I just love the RP social guilds bidding > 750k on remote locations and then never having more than a few pages of complete crap in their store. I'm guessing such a thing is sustainable simply because the members are also in trading guilds. Why block guilds with stuff to sell from being able to sell?

Because they can and that's how this system works, promotes elitism as I said before.

lordhakai

TheDarkAardvark wrote: »

I just love the RP social guilds bidding > 750k on remote locations and then never having more than a few pages of complete crap in their store. I'm guessing such a thing is sustainable simply because the members are also in trading guilds. Why block guilds with stuff to sell from being able to sell?

yeah having that occur does suck. there is nothing worse that going to a trader with nothing to buy.

Betsararie

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

TheDarkAardvark wrote: »

I just love the RP social guilds bidding > 750k on remote locations and then never having more than a few pages of complete crap in their store. I'm guessing such a thing is sustainable simply because the members are also in trading guilds. Why block guilds with stuff to sell from being able to sell?

Because they can and that's how this system works, promotes elitism as I said before.

I see no issue here you make hundreds of thousands more per week in prime locations.

Small / startup guilds are not worth anything anyway, nor are out of the way traders from a seller's POV.

lordhakai

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

Many larger trading guilds already have build up chains, and some of the guilds are smaller in size. Due to funding from the main guilds, they can afford to secure a location for their smaller guild by overbidding.

There have also been a whole line of new-commer trading guilds and social trading guilds, so that also drove the competition up a little. The social and new-commer trading guilds are now moving into refuges, driving those bidding prices up by 200k-300k+ which is pretty much insane. These guilds don't even get half of their expenses covered by taxes, so the bidding gold either comes from donations from the members or the leaders' own pockets.
-woohooo pay 3k donation weekly to a guild, when your income is 30k at best. While players pay 3k donation at in better located trading guilds, and can easily earn 300k a week.

Many of these small guilds who have 0 items for sale in their store, but they pay 300k bids a week to secure a location are owned by larger trading guilds, and just secures a location for the main guild in case it looses bid. So basically when the major guild looses bid, they disband the small guild so the trader gets available and the major guild will just hire that trader.
-this problem can easily be fixed, if ZOS didn't allow a trader to be available if the guild that owns it disbands.

i am very against guild just taking spots if they dont have the membership to list items and it is a waste of both income the guild trader stall. I also agree that the practice of disbanding guild to free up a slot needs to stop it is an huge exploit of the trading systemy the needs fixed

morrowjen

Shortly after Morrowind launched the guild that I trade most with lost it's trader, regained it, then lost it again before regaining it. Before then there'd been no problems with maintaining a guild trader. I've no clue what's going on but since it was the best guild I have to sell things with it was a pretty big pain. Hopefully, it continues to keep the trader.

lordhakai

morrowjen wrote: »

Shortly after Morrowind launched the guild that I trade most with lost it's trader, regained it, then lost it again before regaining it. Before then there'd been no problems with maintaining a guild trader. I've no clue what's going on but since it was the best guild I have to sell things with it was a pretty big pain. Hopefully, it continues to keep the trader.

This will always be a constant risk with this system of blind bidding.

Shad0wfire99

Montayva wrote: »

just wondering why there seems to be such a sudden influx lately. For eg, we used to have a secured position in Skywatch for a few months, costing us 200-300k each week. Now it's difficult to win a bid on Bleakrock for 300k! Even with 480 members, a fully stocked store, paying that much for Bleakrock just doesn't seem viable for the meek 5-10 sales per hour we get, if that!

300k for Bleakrock? Do you even make that money back, there?

lordhakai

Shad0wfire99 wrote: »

Montayva wrote: »

just wondering why there seems to be such a sudden influx lately. For eg, we used to have a secured position in Skywatch for a few months, costing us 200-300k each week. Now it's difficult to win a bid on Bleakrock for 300k! Even with 480 members, a fully stocked store, paying that much for Bleakrock just doesn't seem viable for the meek 5-10 sales per hour we get, if that!

300k for Bleakrock? Do you even make that money back, there?

no