moved

KrishakPanettier

Yes

While you are updating the Selling function, a keyword search filter function would be great in all inventory, bank and purchase menus. Please.

Jayman1000

I cant vote any of those options. I don't want a one big single global auction house, there's something intriguing about a decentralized guild system. But, I don't find it fine that you have to be part of a guild simply to sell, this makes it an exclusive club for the at least semi hardcore to hardcore players. Casuals are not really welcome as it is now unfortunately and if you take some time off the game for just a few weeks you're also out. I am thinking that it should be possible to sell at any guild, and at those guilds that you were not a part of you'd have to pay an extra sales fee (a set % determined by ZOS + an optional % tax determined by guild leadership). Guilds would have an interest in attracting more sellers to their guild which should limit how high most guilds would want to set the extra tax (if at all). The 30 listings per guild should be either retained as it is or possibly lowered (to 20?). OR! perhaps the ZOS determined sales tax for a player should increase slightly for every extra posting above some set amount of total listings (or perhaps just have every single extra listing increase the sales tax a bit, which should set a natural limit on number of sales when the cost get too high? and yes then people could just use another account or have their friends help out, but hey fine by me, if they want to go through that extra hazzle of doing that why not)

And maybe this could be combined with a central game managed AH only available in ONE location with lower sales/listing fees. (Where exactly that would be then Im not sure though, but I think it would be cool if there was NOT a wayshrine close by and that you would have to travel a bit of road first and dodge stronger mobs on your way to it? Perhaps as strong as public dungeon mobs or perhaps even somewhat stronger to make it a challenge), and that each player would be limited to 10 sales per day (or whatever limit may be deemed appropriate) from this special auction house?

Wreuntzylla

Yes

weg0 wrote: »

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!

It's an overly technical way of approving of your comment.

kargen27 wrote: »

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.

Not hitting a zero enough times? You are on PC. I don't actually know any trader on PC that doesn't use Master Merchant. Adding zeroes isn't really a thing...

The same monopolization as in your perfect roe experiment happens in ESO every day... It's simply done by more people. It would be intellectually dishonest for anyone trading in a true trade guild to argue otherwise. Everyone knows the people that are the richest and that are the most successful at monopolizing the market. You don't make 80,000,000 gold by farming or random repricing....

So when you see people you know are major players in the market disingenuously argue that the ESO system is better, yeah, it is made up things to satiate greed.

Wreuntzylla

Yes

Im_MegaDeath wrote: »

no, but a new system would be nice. maybe a global area trader. for ex, stormhaven would have a single trader location for all of the guilds so the prices directly compete with each other. this would help the player find things faster (with a search bar cough cough) and would balance the market better imo. also I think some items should be controlled by ZOS kinda like how BDO does their economy. a item has a min and max price but the players and choose and where in the middle. the range is big enough to keep competition while making sure no item (like temps) can get extreme to lets say 20k on xbox

ZoS already makes changes to counteract market problems. For example, in areas I farm, the number of ancestor silk nodes increased, as well as the repop rate.

I guess it's all in how you want to approach it. One person suggested making certain things, like mats, bind on second pickup. In other words, they can only be sold once.

Jhalin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

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.

[Snip]. I'm not in a "main trading guild" and prices aren't even close to outrageous in any way shape or form. [Snip].

[Snip]. Do you never collect mats? Do you even play the game? Have you even attempted selling items in zone chat? You can make money that way, you know. People eat up alchemy mats if you bothered putting in even minimal effort. [Snip]

So you are saying you make 2 million gold in a week and a half from selling alchemy mats in chat that you harvested?

[Edited for quotes]

kargen27

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

weg0 wrote: »

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!

It's an overly technical way of approving of your comment.

kargen27 wrote: »

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.

Not hitting a zero enough times? You are on PC. I don't actually know any trader on PC that doesn't use Master Merchant. Adding zeroes isn't really a thing...

The same monopolization as in your perfect roe experiment happens in ESO every day... It's simply done by more people. It would be intellectually dishonest for anyone trading in a true trade guild to argue otherwise. Everyone knows the people that are the richest and that are the most successful at monopolizing the market. You don't make 80,000,000 gold by farming or random repricing....

So when you see people you know are major players in the market disingenuously argue that the ESO system is better, yeah, it is made up things to satiate greed.

So you just won my argument for me. "It's simply done by more people". Exactly that is what we have been telling you this entire time. With a central market location it would take less people (quite a few less) and they would be able to monopolize more items. With the guild trader system it is rare that someone actually achieves a monopoly and it is always short lived. Usually happens when forward looking people see changes on the PTS and take advantage by purchasing goods that will soon be more desired when the changes hit the main server. Even then they don't get a true monopoly. Not like can be achieved with a central auction house as has happened in other games. You admitted above with an auction house it would be easier to do. Would also be more frequent.

And yes the not getting enough zeros thing is actually a thing. Not something that happens frequently but it does happen. People sometimes get in a hurry. Might also surprise/shock you to know sometimes people list the wrong item and price it like they would the item they intended to list.

We are not giving you a disingenuous argument nor are we making things up. We are telling you something you do not wish to believe but by your own statement you know to be true. Even though you know what we are saying is true you still try to rationalize it to fit what you want to be true.

Jhalin

No

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Im_MegaDeath wrote: »

no, but a new system would be nice. maybe a global area trader. for ex, stormhaven would have a single trader location for all of the guilds so the prices directly compete with each other. this would help the player find things faster (with a search bar cough cough) and would balance the market better imo. also I think some items should be controlled by ZOS kinda like how BDO does their economy. a item has a min and max price but the players and choose and where in the middle. the range is big enough to keep competition while making sure no item (like temps) can get extreme to lets say 20k on xbox

ZoS already makes changes to counteract market problems. For example, in areas I farm, the number of ancestor silk nodes increased, as well as the repop rate.

I guess it's all in how you want to approach it. One person suggested making certain things, like mats, bind on second pickup. In other words, they can only be sold once.

Jhalin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

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.

[Snip]. I'm not in a "main trading guild" and prices aren't even close to outrageous in any way shape or form. [Snip].

[Snip]. Do you never collect mats? Do you even play the game? Have you even attempted selling items in zone chat? You can make money that way, you know. People eat up alchemy mats if you bothered putting in even minimal effort. [Snip].

So you are saying you make 2 million gold in a week and a half from selling alchemy mats in chat that you harvested?

Can you not read? I made money by selling the things i got while playing the game, like motifs and weapons and furniture recipes but with just crafting mats, yeah, I probably could make upwards of 500k a week. Dunno about you, but I personally I don't have an allergy to patience and effort. 50-75k a day, completely doable.

[Edited for quotes]

Korah_Eaglecry

Nestor wrote: »

I am going to end this debate, because it does not matter whether you want a Global Auction House or not. It simply can't be done.

WOW has a Global Auction House because they have 200 plus servers in the US. Each one can have an auction house as there is one server for each Realm. So, it does not matter that WOW does this as far as this game goes. They use different technology.

ESO is on the Mega Server, so the entire NA, or Euro, population is on one server and can buy from any other guild in the server. So I bet it is technically impossible to provide a global auction house simply because it would add orders of magnitude more computing requirements to this game.

Megaservers have nothing to do with why we dont have a AH. Not sure how you connected those two but its patently false.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

Yes

Icy_Waffles wrote: »

Id be fine with it. Works well in other games.

If really like a search function... looking at you motifs

I would imagine this is the real reason you will never see it. They can’t even be bothered to make a working search function. Pretty clear indication they don’t give a crap about the crappy auction system they designed.

Korah_Eaglecry

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Icy_Waffles wrote: »

Id be fine with it. Works well in other games.

If really like a search function... looking at you motifs

I would imagine this is the real reason you will never see it. They can’t even be bothered to make a working search function. Pretty clear indication they don’t give a crap about the crappy auction system they designed.

I wont go as far as saying they dont care, I think the Guild Trader/Guild Store setup up was probably an on high judgement call. It possibly does not reflect what other developers think or would like to see. Especially since its such an oddity within the MMO market. I still remember the "theyre not like every other MMO, theyre trying to be different!" argument that used to be thrown around so much in the beta days whenever this very topic was brought up. You dont hear it anymore because the "players cornering the market" is something so much more easily used and defended. Even more so because in recent years theyve reversed course on some things like Console VOIP/ No Text Chat, buff bars, combat text etc. All things that were defended by the playerbase as setting ESO apart from the others.

I think the real issue is that theyre now so far into Live and developing new methods of making more profit that something like an AH is just not feasible. Even if a large chunk of developers wanted to do it. It would certainly have to be at the bottom of the to-do list unless they thought that it could somehow save them money/make them more money. If we ever see a means of selling other players emotes, costumes and such. That would probably be when we saw a sudden shift to a system that was much more inclusive for the community as a whole. Otherwise its a forgotten system because its accepted by a large chunk of the verbal community and is generally accepted by the playerbase that actively takes part in the game day to day. If anyone is extremely upset with the system, theyre a minority here and unfortunately we will never know if they are a minority or majority when it comes to the silent majority that pop in and out during new DLC releases.

CapnPhoton

No

Tasear wrote: »

You sure aren't a people person. But answer is no. It does not fit eso.

This.

Having played 2 games in the past with a global system, I am happy that we have sort of a more localized system. It is more realistic given the technology level of Tamriel. As I have said before, there are no computerized inventory systems with point of sale for the good and no so good people of Tamriel, therefore we shouldn't have an Amazon/Ebay-like system of global commerce, as it is not realistic.

Not to mention, the games I have played with a global system were mostly a waste of time for the seller. When you have 1000 pages of an item with 50 on each page, you are left with having to sell for pennies to compete, if you can sell it at all. When things sell for just a bit over what it goes for just selling to a vendor, it turns into a waste of time.

jedtb16_ESO

No

lol.... return after a year out and this dead horse is still being flogged.

DoctorESO

Yes

.

preevious

No

No, the system of scatered guild houses all over the game world is absolutely brillant and should not be changed.
The only flaw that can infuriate a player, with it, is the fact that it's hard to find a specific item, having to peruse many shops before finding it. That problem is alleviated by tamriel trade center, so, use that.

The system as is is great for

1. immersion
2. giving guilds something to strive to .. having a good spot. This permit the rise and fall of Great Guilds.
3. It allows the crafty and patient player to seek good deals and to make a little gold reselling.

Motherball

Yes

It would be super convenient and im not convinced it would ruin the game or the economy for the vast majority of current players. It would actually stimulate more players to enjoy this aspect of the game, in my opinion.

Items that have value will sell no matter what.

My high value items sell even when others in my guild undercut me three or four times. In other games that have an AH I can list high value items at 2x the lowest current sale price and still get a sale. The one negative I can see is low value items becoming unsellable, but who cares? These are items guilds usually share for free because they are so plentiful and easy to obtain. Just because you can corner the market on bug parts in Mourhold doesnt make the guild trading system good or exciting to me.

Chadak

Yes

I'd rather have something else rather than this. At least a search option in the existing guild vendors would be an improvement.

Doesn't matter what I think though. Might as well think 'bazooka popplethorpe nuclear toast master'. It comes to the same end.

DoctorESO

Yes

.

DoctorESO

Yes

.

Tandor

Yes

DoctorESO wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Diablo 3 had a real-money auction house designed to legitimise RMT but which was massively exploited and destroyed the loot-based economy - that is why they closed it down.

Actually, Diablo 3 had both a real money auction house and an in-game money auction house. They were completely separate. Both got shut down.

I don't believe that the in-game money auction house element would have been closed without the controversy surrounding the whole auction house concept in that game arising from the real money element. In any event, Diablo 3 is not a MMORPG and it has no relevance to ESO and shouldn't be quoted on one side or the other when debating auction houses in MMORPGs.

There are plenty of MMORPGs that do have auction houses and they function very well and in many cases have done so for very many years. Even if your interpretation of the Diablo 3 situation were correct, it would be telling that the only game to form part of the argument against an auction house in a MMORPG through having been closed down was in a game that wasn't a MMORPG.

Personally, I'd still prefer an improved version of the present guild trader system but an auction house would certainly be better than the guild trader system in its present form in that it would be open to all and would not be dependent on add-ons that were only available to a third of the players.

Ostacia

No

When I first started playing, I wanted one, but now...Guild Stores are actually pretty cool. I like looking up items and zooming off to the city/town and guild store that has said item. I also like just browsing sometimes for housing items. It adds a certain character or flavor to the game that I haven't seen in other games.

Tetrafy

Yes

Jhalin wrote: »

Demycilian wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Maybe people would rather play the game than constantly spam trade chat and use a source of listing to the public instead of worrying about selling something every hour or so in chat while trying to play. Also the fact that alot of people turn chat off in game as well so that leaves those buyers out of play as well.

It's almost like...using chat...doesn't stop you from playing the game. You guys really just don't want to put in any effort, do you?

Oh, sweet irony, given the context of ZOS being too sloppy and neglectful to finally fix one of the most basic game systems in an mmo.

Except there's nothing to fix in regards to ESO's economy. There is zero argument to be made for a gutting of the current system for a global market, definitely not for the PC crowd.

The populations are too high, the competition even higher. You think the game server could even handle a consolidated location of ALL transactions in the game? You think you're ever gonna get the cheap items when EVERYONE is buying from the same place at the same time? What a joke.

I made 20 million in ffxiv and guess what its an auction house. pc and ps4.

Wreuntzylla

Yes

Jhalin wrote: »

Demycilian wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Maybe people would rather play the game than constantly spam trade chat and use a source of listing to the public instead of worrying about selling something every hour or so in chat while trying to play. Also the fact that alot of people turn chat off in game as well so that leaves those buyers out of play as well.

It's almost like...using chat...doesn't stop you from playing the game. You guys really just don't want to put in any effort, do you?

Oh, sweet irony, given the context of ZOS being too sloppy and neglectful to finally fix one of the most basic game systems in an mmo.

Except there's nothing to fix in regards to ESO's economy. There is zero argument to be made for a gutting of the current system for a global market, definitely not for the PC crowd.

The populations are too high, the competition even higher. You think the game server could even handle a consolidated location of ALL transactions in the game? You think you're ever gonna get the cheap items when EVERYONE is buying from the same place at the same time? What a joke.

I am wealthy off the system. I was poor event though I was in a guild with a guild trader. Then I joined a hub trader. Now I can't complain.

Also,

kargen27 wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

weg0 wrote: »

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!

It's an overly technical way of approving of your comment.

kargen27 wrote: »

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.

Not hitting a zero enough times? You are on PC. I don't actually know any trader on PC that doesn't use Master Merchant. Adding zeroes isn't really a thing...

The same monopolization as in your perfect roe experiment happens in ESO every day... It's simply done by more people. It would be intellectually dishonest for anyone trading in a true trade guild to argue otherwise. Everyone knows the people that are the richest and that are the most successful at monopolizing the market. You don't make 80,000,000 gold by farming or random repricing....

So when you see people you know are major players in the market disingenuously argue that the ESO system is better, yeah, it is made up things to satiate greed.

So you just won my argument for me. "It's simply done by more people". Exactly that is what we have been telling you this entire time. With a central market location it would take less people (quite a few less) and they would be able to monopolize more items. With the guild trader system it is rare that someone actually achieves a monopoly and it is always short lived. Usually happens when forward looking people see changes on the PTS and take advantage by purchasing goods that will soon be more desired when the changes hit the main server. Even then they don't get a true monopoly. Not like can be achieved with a central auction house as has happened in other games. You admitted above with an auction house it would be easier to do. Would also be more frequent.

And yes the not getting enough zeros thing is actually a thing. Not something that happens frequently but it does happen. People sometimes get in a hurry. Might also surprise/shock you to know sometimes people list the wrong item and price it like they would the item they intended to list.

We are not giving you a disingenuous argument nor are we making things up. We are telling you something you do not wish to believe but by your own statement you know to be true. Even though you know what we are saying is true you still try to rationalize it to fit what you want to be true.

I said more people, not more items.... You can't monopolize more than everything that can be monopolized. Try monopolizing celestial motifs. It's not going to happen. The supply has to be less than the resources available to buy.

In this context, when people have been using the term monopoly, they mean oligopoly or price fixing. Very few people know the various legal definitions, in large part because the media itself doesn't understand the difference. To the extent I may have contributed to any confusion, let me be clear. My main argument is over tacit, horizontal price fixing. My secondary argument is surrounding monopoly/oligopoly.

The price fixing is very easy to spot. The majority of items are priced within a small spread at the hubs. You can find the same thing listed 20 times at the same, high price. The few "deals" at the hubs are immaterial due to the amount of goods and gold flowing through the hubs every minute. The hubs themselves differ in pricing hub to hub, but not so dramatically as to be catch much notice. Some guilds eventually displace others at hubs by severe undercutting, but it is passingly rare because it's very hard to keep 500 people on the same page when they know they could make more. Mainly, the non-hubbers' price roughly the same as the hubs but the prices lag the hubs by some amount of time, usually on the order of a week or two (ostensibly because they have less access to real time data).

The hubs are able to fix pricing because of the decentralized market and lack of information. I don't have to explain that, the amount of gold spent to sell at a hub speaks for itself. Some people have said its a function of location and not market creation, due to there being centers of normal activity, but its incorrect. The locations don't create the traffic, the hubs do. That's why the hubs differ from server to server. On PC NA, only one guild of any note moved to Vvardenfell, and it has been and clearly is the highest traffic location since Morrowind released.

A subset issue is repricers - oligopolists which control very rare items by buying up the entire low priced supply. This is the primary complaint in an auction house system. It is actively happening in ESO but to a lesser extent than in an auction house due to the decentralization. Some people/groups nevertheless have done a good job of controlling certain items as well as on any auction house. These are the super rich, which probably also includes the officer core of the major hub traders.

So, for the most part, the only difference people see is the number of rich. Prices are about what they would be on a well thought out auction house. Instead of 100 people controlling a market, the pool is expanded to include members of hub trader guilds. Not everybody at a hub guild is rich, but it's certainly not for a lack of available tools.

As a side note, people have actually been kicked from some hub guilds for actively undercutting and flooding the market... The hub guild leadership clearly knows what is keeping them rich. Most of the members do as well. I have been a member of different hub guilds, and still am in some. I left those that are essentially draconian in their maintenance of the status quo. Not only do high weekly quotas bring in gold, they force high volumes of goods and rare items to pass through their location.

The quotas translate to gold per the cut. I offered to pay double the yearly quota in gold to stay off the bad boy list because I travel sometimes and am not able to maintain my inventory on the trader, which would be on top of the revenue I would bring in (I was top 100 in my first week). They discussed and decided to decline.

The torrent of goods flowing through the hub is more important, and if you relax the rule for one person...

kargen27

I know you said more people. That has been the point all along. To get anything close to a monopoly now it takes a lot of people coordinating over a multitude of places and even then they can't control even one item completely.

With a central auction house three people in one place can control the prices on any rare item they wish.

Your own words show you know this to be true.

Glurin

No

kargen27 wrote: »

I know you said more people. That has been the point all along. To get anything close to a monopoly now it takes a lot of people coordinating over a multitude of places and even then they can't control even one item completely.

With a central auction house three people in one place can control the prices on any rare item they wish.

Your own words show you know this to be true.

Exactly. What some people fail to realize is that all the same features that add convenience to an AH are the exact same features that make it easier to abuse an AH.

Navarr

Yes

I didn't read a single convincing argument yet why a global ah would support bots ??
Please enlighten me.

A global ah is definetly needed imho cause trading in this game is boring and takes too much time. And doesn't work properly. A trade chat would also help a lot.
I don't know what other games you played that makes you feel it's totally fine to take 5-6 way too long loading screens to find a guild trader that has the items of your needs.. in such a broken and just bad programmed shop.

Even though I've always enjoyed being a trader across many different games, here in ESO it's really depressing and NOT fun. And takes WAY too much time while not even functioning as intended. Sad.

zergbase_ESO

Yes

Already using TTC. So I have the ghetto AH at the moment. Would love a real ingame one...

ArcVelarian

Indifferent

There needs to be an in-game search tool for all traders within whatever zones you are currently in.

Olupajmibanan

No

DoctorESO wrote: »

ARGUMENT FOR A GLOBAL AUCTION HOUSE:

The two main arguments in opposition of a global auction house are:

1. Undercutting the competition, leading to a race to the bottom in terms of pricing

2. Cornering the market, leading to price gouging

These two arguments lack merit.

A global auction house allows supply and demand to take their natural course and lead to an equilibrium of price.

Cornering the market is tough, even with add-ons. This is because the volume of items is so high and every single person in the game has the ability to sell items, resulting in a very large and constant supply - one that can easily outweigh the demand, making it unprofitable to buy every single quantity available. Even with low-volume items and attempts to price gouge, there will come a point where people decide the higher price is not worth it and either forgo the item or farm it on their own, or they will get it off-market. Either way, the price gouging sellers do not make the sale, and no profit results, forcing them to lower the price to the point where it sells at the desired volume (in a way that maximizes total sales dollars).

And then there is undercutting the competition, leading to a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. So this means that within a month of the global auction house going live, every item will be selling for one gold? Of course not. Just as there is a price ceiling set by the buyers, there is a price floor set by the sellers - at some point, they will decide it's not worth selling an item for a lower price. If this were not the case, then every item would be available for one gold.

Natural suply and demand can never take place in MMORPGS because economy in these games lacks core aspect present in real economy. Every economic theory is based on condition that resources are LIMITED. In these games, resources are unlimited leading to natural unbalance in suply and demand so argument about natural balance isn't in place.

Glurin

No

Navarr wrote: »

I didn't read a single convincing argument yet why a global ah would support bots ??
Please enlighten me.

A global ah is definetly needed imho cause trading in this game is boring and takes too much time. And doesn't work properly. A trade chat would also help a lot.
I don't know what other games you played that makes you feel it's totally fine to take 5-6 way too long loading screens to find a guild trader that has the items of your needs.. in such a broken and just bad programmed shop.

Even though I've always enjoyed being a trader across many different games, here in ESO it's really depressing and NOT fun. And takes WAY too much time while not even functioning as intended. Sad.

You weren't much of a trader in those other games. Not in the medieval merchant sense anyway. What you were was the guy that stands on the stock market floor and yells "BUY! BUY! BUY! SELL! SELL! SELL!" and then jumps out a window when someone floods the market with trillium bars or whatever.

ESO guild traders are what the world was like before Walmart dominated the retail market. If you want the absolute best deal possible, you gotta put in some actual effort instead of just refreshing your search page every few minutes. Otherwise, you just go find what you're looking for at a price you're willing to pay.

Integral1900

Yes

You either need a global one or you throw the current mess in the bin and start from scratch, a lot of stuff like master writs aren’t in any blasted category! You have to search the whole sodding inventory!

Gargath

No

No no and no. Global House means competition like in the SWTOR and that is an order and also a mess, since you need to place your items in the lowest prices on market in order to sell fast. In eso you just need the lowest price in your particular trader, not entire community. That means you can sell in higher prices, regulated by addons like MM. With Global House addons like MM would have no use.