moved

Beodamacsa

Yes please, this guild trader nonsense is a pain in the proverbial behind, a global auction house would be a vast improvement.

weg0

Yes

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Information asymmetry is a concept found in almost all theories of regulation, even those that do not favor it.

Not sure what you mean by saying this in response to my quote. Regulation theory recognizes information asymmetry as an inefficiency; I think my ideas are a reasonable method for reducing some of this information asymmetry... and get rid of most need for two resource hogging addons, MM and TTC at the same time!

KingYogi415

Pro tip: Don’t feed the trolls and they will wither and die.

weg0

Yes

kargen27 wrote: »

With a central auction house three or four people could always watch the listings and grab the perfect roe as soon as it is posted. A few might slip through if someone else happens to be on just at the right time and is quicker to respond but they are going to get enough to create a monopoly. One person at a time is all it takes watching an auction house to monopolize a rare item.

This would not be the day to day market situation.

First of all, they will ever only be able to charge what people will pay for it. The super rich will only need so much, and sure as hell won’t be stockpiling when the prices are through the roof. It will have to be affordable to attract buyers.

While they sit there all day watching perfect roe listings, how many others are gonna be working on their master angler achievement and PRODUCING perfect roe? When they corner the market, everyone that has been fileting out roe after roe will just list it for a little less and a little less and the price will normalize.

Your fears are overblown.

kargen27

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Kalfis wrote: »

Yes, so sick of guild stores.

But how would that even work in ESO? The playerbase is already heavily invested in guild stores as well......it wouldn't go over very well with most people.

You are correct - if by most people you mean most guild members trading at hubs.

weg0 wrote: »

@kargen27, sorry for my ignorance, but how do you “monopolize... by sitting in one spot”? Are you talking about grabbing all of a particular item from traders in one area and selling them for higher prices? If so, that sounds like what your bargain hunting friends are doing.

If anything, having access to more pricing information lessens the chance that anyone can have a monopoly. As long as you have the right (high enough) middleman fee, people looking for a bargain would still need to travel Tamriel and traders in good locations would still be more desirable. From an immersion standpoint it also makes sense there would be a guy (NPC) that says “I’m gonna make a living collecting and sharing the listings of what is being sold all over Tamriel.” My suggestion that you can pay an amount extra to buy directly from said NPC rather than travel to a specific trader would likely encourage more guilds to bid on even remote traders and both increase item availability and competition, further decreasing the likelihood of monopolies.

What I am proposing does nothing more than replace the alt+tab to Tamriel trade center (except allow you to buy right away). It is in game. And it makes sense.

Information asymmetry is a concept found in almost all theories of regulation, even those that do not favor it.

kargen27 wrote: »

weg0 wrote: »

@kargen27, sorry for my ignorance, but how do you “monopolize... by sit in one spot”? Are you talking about grabbing all of a particular item from traders in one area and selling them for higher prices? If so, that sounds like what your bargain hunting friends are doing.

If anything, having access to more pricing information lessens the chance that anyone can have a monopoly. As long as you have the right (high enough) middleman fee people looking for a bargain would still need to travel Tamriel and traders in good locations would still be more desirable. From an immersion standpoint it also makes sense there would be a guy (NPC) that says “I’m gonna make a living collecting and sharing the listings of what is being sold all over Tamriel.” My suggestion that you can pay an amount extra to buy directly from said NPC rather than travel to a specific trader would likely encourage more guilds to bid on even remote traders and both increase item availability and competition, further decreasing the likelihood of monopolies.

What I am proposing does nothing more than replace the alt+tab to Tamriel trade center (except allow you to buy right away). It is in game. And it makes sense.

Yes that is what I am talking about. But no that isn't what my friends are doing. Let us take for example Perfect Roe. Right now there are approximately 220 guild traders scattered around all the different zones. To fully monopolize the market (not accounting for zone chat sales) you would need well over 100 players to monitor those traders because you gotta do it pretty much around the clock. To be fair though really you only need to watch the hot trading spots so somewhere between 30-45 high traffic traders. Most of these are located near others so let's say seven (that is figuring low) areas that need someone watching them all day every day. So minimum 21 players and being realistic more than thirty probably and they all need enough gold on them to buy any Perfect Roe that is offered. After they do this for a week, maybe two, they then list them at pretty much any price they want and continue to buy up any perfect roe that shows up under their price. Going to be very hard to do because each person is going to be monitoring five traders and ignoring all the out of high traffic area traders. People see the high prices at the popular spots and they are going to shop around.

A simple search function would make that shopping around much easier and would help offset this groups chance of a monopoly on Perfect Roe.

With a central auction house three or four people could always watch the listings and grab the perfect roe as soon as it is posted. A few might slip through if someone else happens to be on just at the right time and is quicker to respond but they are going to get enough to create a monopoly. One person at a time is all it takes watching an auction house to monopolize a rare item.

My friends don't look to monopolize a market. They look for the under priced items that they can immediately sell at market value. For a couple of them finding an item someone listed for 3,000 instead of the intended 30,000 is like others finally getting a no death speed run on a DLC trial.

And really it doesn't make sense that one NPC would have everything offered for sale be available in his wagon. And there is no lack of guilds bidding for traders in the game even the most remote ones. There happens to be a couple of conspiracy theories about that, but maybe for a different thread.

What your friends either fail to realize, or realize and simply don't care about, is that almost every 3k-30k pricing discrepancy is not because someone well versed in ESO made a mistake with zeros. It's because of information asymmetry.

In other words, some poor sucker lost 27k because they had no idea what the going price is.

The reasons people put forward for keeping the current system don't surprise me because they assume the current system works, they surprise me because they are based on selfish reasoning. People in these forums usually just make up things to cover their baseness, in this thread they are showing it off like it's worthy of a commendation.

There is no way you can possibly know if it was just a failure to add the extra 0 or "information asymmetry". It does seem one heck of a coincidence that they get everything right but the last zero. For instance you see an item that usually goes for 27500 but find it for 2750. That is them not hitting 0 quite enough times.

The reasons people are against a global auction house are not made up things so people can satiate their greed. It is because they have put some thought into the issue, have seen how a global system has been abused in other games and understand how it would work in the ESO game environment. People disagreeing with your idea of Utopia don't make them wrong. Look at my Perfect Roe example earlier in this thread and explain to me how you prevent three or four people from monopolizing Perfect Roe with a global one stop market. It has happened with rare items in other games and it would happen in ESO as well.

temjiu

No

I like it the way it is. Personally, I'd like it to go just a bit farther. Perhaps adding a heavier surtax on the easier to get places. Not on the person running the market, but the buyer. That way if you want your resources easy to get to, you pay a higher price. This would reward those who have markets in outlying and remote areas. They can price their stuff cheaper and make more. This would in many ways reflect "going to the source" for better prices. and those who are willing to travel to purchase and resell in more populated areas could even make money on it.

That's just an oddball idea, but I think what I'm getting at is they didn't go far enough with the current system, so it's really tilted towards those who can maintain the sweetest spots. In a regular market, there are rewards for those who go out to those remote areas to get the rare materials and sell them. Since there's no such thing as "rare" areas anymore (since it's all scaled), we would have to approach it differently to make those remote areas appealing, and the surtax is one idea.

But even if they don't change it, I'm not a fan of the central AH.

Jhalin

No

N00BxV1 wrote: »

Trading and earning shouldn't be limited to the already-wealthy who corner the market and run things. Everyone should have an equal chance to trade and earn even if they're not in the top 5 trading guilds. Let some Average Joes list their goods globally so the Fat Cats will have some competition and be forced to lower their prices.

They really don't even try to make this game of "spot the dude whose never touched trading" challenging.

I had a whole entire 200k to my name as of a week and a half ago, across all my toons. I joined a trade guild with 6k dues (chump change even to me when I was casually playing), and they aren't even required if you sell 170k a week, which I hit purely by selling off all the extra TG and DB motifs I had taking up space in my bank.

I now have 2.2 MILLION gold. I had never been part of a trade guild before that, hadn't sold stuff in zone chat beyond a few gold upgrade mats for people looking to buy them. I was the textbook definition of the average joe, and the current system worked wonders for me.

You just refuse to even try it out. And let me tell you, it is stupidly easy to succeed.

Runefang

No

I've never really understood the monopolization argument. If somebody really went and bought all the perfect roe and doubled the price the first thing I'd go do is fish en masse and then undercut them slightly. Id do this because they just made fishing the best investment of my time. Because everybody else would do the same it would cause the price to drop back to normal quite quickly.

Monopolization only works if there is no alternative. However in this game there is always the alternative of getting the item yourself. And the minute it becomes better value to farm it yourself over buying it you'll do that.

Also monopolization doesn't inject gold into the game, people won't suddenly be able to afford double priced roe.

The market almost always sets the price. The only real exceptions are truly rare items you can't get yourself.

FoulSnowpaw

No

ZOS needs to make a Trade Center or city where there are more guild traders than usual.

Many guild traders are entirely ignored in insignificant regions like Greenshade or Malabal Tor, and even worse for those guild traders on the road where no man travels... except the occasional NPC merchant. And these are only two of many deserted regions that have only a handful of players. Either these regions have a crappy environment or you have to walk very far to get to the guild traders.

Need more trade regions like Rwal'kah from Reaper's March or Deshaan from Mournhold where the guild traders are relatively close to the banks, crafting stations, and wayshrine.

agegarton

No

Personally I don’t think it’s necessary to have a central auction house. I’d prefer to simply add an additional guild slot or two, to add balance for those who wish to trade (most good trade guilds focus solely on that), and still participate with guilds who do PVP and PVE content.

Goshua

Yes

Too late. If anything ruins an open AH its people with all the gold already.

Uviryth

Yes

Of course. At the moment I only buy from the vendors in Mournhold, due to the loading screens.
I feel bad for all the other guilds that dont have a vendor in one of the major hubs.

/edit
I cant believe the vote swings against something as basic as an auction house. Are you guys all masochists?

swippy

No

Anotherone773 wrote: »

swippy wrote: »

i've read these threads over and over and i never see any reason why it's even called an auction house. when i google it, it just shows me tons of places where regular auctions are held, open and ascending (just like on tv with the people holding up paddles and trying not to cough).

this kind of auction is when an item (or lot) is up for bidding for a finite amount of time. someone (or an algorithm) would be assigned to take note of bids, and when the largest yet bid arrives, all previous bids are discarded. when time (or bidding) is up, it's awarded to the highest bidder.

i played a game with a different type of auctions, where it wasn't public knowledge what the current top bid is. this had a preset time limit on bidding. you decided what the item was worth to you, and if you fell short of the leading bid it was void. if your bid led, that amount was held until it was either exceeded or the item was won at the end. if the latter, you would probably be refunded some, as you were only charged 1 "gold piece" more than the guy who bid 2nd highest.

what we have now is kind of like a store. you go to the store and see if they have anything you want in stock. if it's not in stock, or you don't like their price, you can check a different store. this is at the risk of stock changing while you pursue.

it seems like the alternate system the vocal people would rather have is something else. maybe a searchable database of all listed items, probably in order of ascending price? (i played a game with that style before too.) is that correct? what elements am i missing?

because that system doesn't sound like an auction house at all. maybe the house part, but not the auction part. there's nothing auction-like about it that i can detect. why do we call it that?

Generally, in games with an auction house system you have an an auction setup where you can set a start price, buyout, etc. Most people dont use the auction system though, they bypass it by setting a buyout and min bid price the same. The auction system itself is kind of a dated system with out of touch devs who think its still 2003.

@Anotherone773 thanks! great explanation. (i'm gonna "in other words" it) sounds like when people say "auction house" here they're pretty much talking like an eBay system where everybody uses the Buy It Now function.

kargen27

Runefang wrote: »

I've never really understood the monopolization argument. If somebody really went and bought all the perfect roe and doubled the price the first thing I'd go do is fish en masse and then undercut them slightly. Id do this because they just made fishing the best investment of my time. Because everybody else would do the same it would cause the price to drop back to normal quite quickly.

Monopolization only works if there is no alternative. However in this game there is always the alternative of getting the item yourself. And the minute it becomes better value to farm it yourself over buying it you'll do that.

Also monopolization doesn't inject gold into the game, people won't suddenly be able to afford double priced roe.

The market almost always sets the price. The only real exceptions are truly rare items you can't get yourself.

Do you realize how long it takes to get a Perfect Roe? If you average one per every hour to hour and a half of fishing you are doing good. Many people can't be bothered with fishing they simply want the potion you make with Perfect Roe. And here is the thing. If you undercut them chances are they are getting your Perfect Roe. Even if they fail to get all the Perfect Roe undercutting them they can still control the price.

Monopolization doesn't need to inject gold into the game. Almost every activity in the game produces gold and really not a lot of sinks out there removing the gold. I believe you are underestimating the amount of gold floating around out there and the desire to have the best potions/foods available.

Tandor

Yes

JobooAGS wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Demion wrote: »

No it makes for a more unique setting and a feeling that there is actually traders and guilds that do trades, then one NPC action house which its just outright a lazy simplistic system.

The UI and system for needs improvement as with guild UI and system

Not lazy if everyone agrees with it, people that can't play 2+ hours a day love the Global Auction house

Every poll on the subject has shown to not be in favor of an AH

Not strictly true, and at this precise moment while there isn't a majority in favour of an auction house there isn't a clear majority against it either. Like most polls before it, opinion here is pretty well divided on the issue.

What does change the outcome of a poll, however, is when the support for the existing system is split between two options, improving the system or keeping it as it is. There is then only ever a very small number of players voting to keep the system as it is, with an overwhelming majority backing some form of change whether by overhauling the present system or changing it entirely. Moreover, most of those supporting the present system are PC players who would switch their vote instantly if they were playing on console without trading add-ons.

Tandor

Yes

Jhalin wrote: »

N00BxV1 wrote: »

Trading and earning shouldn't be limited to the already-wealthy who corner the market and run things. Everyone should have an equal chance to trade and earn even if they're not in the top 5 trading guilds. Let some Average Joes list their goods globally so the Fat Cats will have some competition and be forced to lower their prices.

They really don't even try to make this game of "spot the dude whose never touched trading" challenging.

I had a whole entire 200k to my name as of a week and a half ago, across all my toons. I joined a trade guild with 6k dues (chump change even to me when I was casually playing), and they aren't even required if you sell 170k a week, which I hit purely by selling off all the extra TG and DB motifs I had taking up space in my bank.

I now have 2.2 MILLION gold. I had never been part of a trade guild before that, hadn't sold stuff in zone chat beyond a few gold upgrade mats for people looking to buy them. I was the textbook definition of the average joe, and the current system worked wonders for me.

You just refuse to even try it out. And let me tell you, it is stupidly easy to succeed.

Your experience is a perfect illustration of what's wrong with the trading system. The fact that you have made 2 million gold in a week and a half demonstrates that prices are totally out of whack. The system pours gold into the banks of those who belong to the main trading guilds and they're the only ones making enough money to buy the stuff they want so it's a self-serving system that caters for a small minority of players and excludes everyone.

kip_silverwolf

No

Flying mounts... capes... Auction House... none of these are ever going to happen

Please, let the poor horse rest in peace.

xbobx

Yes

I might be missing something.

but i think its stupid that you have to have a guild to be able to sell things, and that guild has to let you have access.

Everyone should be able to sell. Some of us are casual players and have no interest in guilds but still want money to buy gear and supplies

RobbieRocket

Indifferent

I would say add a global search function ("I heard it on the trading grapevine that..."). This way people would travel to a variety of zones to cut a deal with the respective Trader for specific items.

The global pricing of common items which already occurs would still occur but with less research required and common or popular items (including expensive and slightly rarer ones) will simply be picked up from the best-placed Traders in the populated areas - as they are now.

It was also bridge the gap between top Traders and all the tiers trickling down to single "middle-of-nowhere" Traders.

Biro123

Yes

Absolutely.

There are 2 tiers of player in this game -

#1 Those with a trade guild and spend time regularly selling to pay their fees (and get rich in general)

#2 And those without (either because the don't have the contacts or don't want being a regular trader to be part of their game) - who have full inventories and vendor decent stuff to make space - but are permanantly poor and cannot afford to buy stuff that the first group are selling

A global AH would let number #2 have the odd clear-out to make some money when needed and not have to spend time/money/effort on being part of the first group.

I'm sick of being poor, but don't want to be consistently selling so I can be part of #1.

Either that or have PVP give decent cash or gear rewards so I don't need to spend money

idk

No

Besides the poll lacking any value since it does not even begin to get the opinions of the player base. Besides the misguided thought that somehow OP has started the debate to end all debates. Especially since he did not offer anything to the debate.

We will not be getting a stale old global auction house, fortunately. And no one has yet to offer any worthy reason for a global auction house. A small group of players wanting it really is not sufficient for replacing a system that is vibrant and has been working here for years.

Long live the guild traders.

Varana

No

I'm a bit baffled about this whole "fat cats in trading guilds" stuff.
How hard is it, on some servers (err... there aren't really many to begin with) to find a trading guild?
I'm playing really quite casually these days (a few dailies, a bit of questing, not even running dungeons regularly) but had no problem finding several trading guilds, with traders ranging from really good to ... someplace in most weeks, and no guild dues (some with a selling requirement of 5-15k/week or so). And I see trading guilds regularly advertising in zone chat, even the Mournhold and Rawl'kha guilds. If I drop out of the game for a month, or just don't want to sell stuff, I'm quite sure I'd find another one when I come back, quickly.
That's on PC/EU.

magictucktuck

Indifferent

I do well with the traders, its not hard, just get in a guild with one of the main city traders. i would use the global auction house just the same

Orticia

Yes

Biro123 wrote: »

Absolutely.

There are 2 tiers of player in this game -

#1 Those with a trade guild and spend time regularly selling to pay their fees (and get rich in general)

#2 And those without (either because the don't have the contacts or don't want being a regular trader to be part of their game) - who have full inventories and vendor decent stuff to make space - but are permanantly poor and cannot afford to buy stuff that the first group are selling

A global AH would let number #2 have the odd clear-out to make some money when needed and not have to spend time/money/effort on being part of the first group.

I'm sick of being poor, but don't want to be consistently selling so I can be part of #1.

Either that or have PVP give decent cash or gear rewards so I don't need to spend money

Yes because I definitely belong to above mentioned group 2. I don't feel like making eso trading an obligation stealing away to much of my limited ESO time to be worth it. I been in 2 free trading guilds but they hardly ever had a trader and I didn't really sell worth my time when we did. So I left those guilds and just vendor. Putting in time to set prices and all and pay fees isn't really worthwhile if noone even seems to visit those out of the way vendors. And the big vendors in well traveled places seem to all belong to big guilds with demands for fees and sale minimum. I can understand that. Keeping the vendors there is expensive. But it feels it would alter and demand to much to how i play and spend my time.

If it was a global easy accessible Auction house for everyone I could simply unload surplus every now and then and make some money without having to focus on it if i don't wish to.

Bax

Indifferent

I don't want auction house, but I want something like tamriel trade centre website implemented directly into the game. Meaning that I could check and search for exact item I need and I would get list of guild sellers currently offering it. Then I could run to the store I found in that list. I would like this purely as quality of life improvement. I get it that irl I would run from store to store to get the best deal, but this is game, not irl so QoL improvement which takes away boring running would be great and give me more free time which I can use to actually play and enjoy the game. And as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, there is already site and addon which tries to do exactly this (with only one disadvantage of delayed posting of sales, so sometimes the item found there might be sold already or item searched for might not be posted yet).

Cpt_Teemo

Yes

Uviryth wrote: »

Of course. At the moment I only buy from the vendors in Mournhold, due to the loading screens.
I feel bad for all the other guilds that dont have a vendor in one of the major hubs.

/edit
I cant believe the vote swings against something as basic as an auction house. Are you guys all masochists?

I feel bad for the rest of the 80% of the game with no traders

Biro123

Yes

Varana wrote: »

I'm a bit baffled about this whole "fat cats in trading guilds" stuff.
How hard is it, on some servers (err... there aren't really many to begin with) to find a trading guild?
I'm playing really quite casually these days (a few dailies, a bit of questing, not even running dungeons regularly) but had no problem finding several trading guilds, with traders ranging from really good to ... someplace in most weeks, and no guild dues (some with a selling requirement of 5-15k/week or so). And I see trading guilds regularly advertising in zone chat, even the Mournhold and Rawl'kha guilds. If I drop out of the game for a month, or just don't want to sell stuff, I'm quite sure I'd find another one when I come back, quickly.
That's on PC/EU.

It's not about how hard it is - its about what you want to do with your time. To be fair, it's been a long while since I looked - but i found that trading guilds either didn't have their seller in a good spot and nothing sold - or they charged a fair bit and had weekly sales targets...

I mean if I wanted weekly sales targets I'd become a salesman in real life - but I don't.. I don't want to have to sell stuff every week in game just to stay a member. I just don't find that fun. And I'm a big believer that playing games (even MMO's) should be fun.

I'd rather just sell stuff when I need the cash - which is generally only when new patches come out and there are new builds to try...

Bax

Indifferent

Biro123 wrote: »

I mean if I wanted weekly sales targets I'd become a salesman in real life - but I don't.. I don't want to have to sell stuff every week in game just to stay a member. I just don't find that fun. And I'm a big believer that playing games (even MMO's) should be fun.

If you don't want to sell regularly, you don't need trading guild. Or well, you don't need trading guilds with a good spot. All you need is casual trading guild with no requirements and no fees which gets trader once in a while (there are even guilds like that which get trader every week in less popular places).

I really don't get why you want to be in a great located trading guild AND keep your casual play style. Even further, I play quite casually and I have no problem to meet weekly requirements. All it takes is to go fishing for like an hour and sell 2-4 perfect roes I get from it and then I have money for fees for several weeks even in more expensive trading guilds.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

No

@Stonden well I made 1 of those veteran guilds on pc/eu and I am proud of it...this was the main reason and honestly it is to be expected since they exsist since early access, what you are implying is like saying a new company that started today should be able to challenge and dethrone Microsoft for example which obviously it is impossible...if u want ur spot to become much more frequented u can do zone chats advertising promoting ur guild or ur spot etc...nobody said the road to power and prosperity is paved with golden bricks and khajiit chicks hold ur hand while you walk on argonian carpets.

Jamini

No

To be frank. Anyone not in a single trade guild, of which there are plenty looking for new members, likely either had not tried to get into a trade guild or does not have anything worth buying.

Also, any guild over fifty members has a store, even without a kiosk. You can sell things internally. (I do this if my one trade guild doesn't get a trader).

Minimum sale quotas are generally a stack or two of mats, or a few cheap motif pages, or 25 flowers a week. Chump change.

Folks that want a centralized AH are just simply lazy.