Billionaires in ESO? [Economy Question]

EliteWarrior

Hi all, firstly lemme say I've played ESO for 1000 hours (I know, nothing compared to you OGs) but this is still my first MMO so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the whole player economy and market system.

So I was reading around recently and saw many posts saying that ESO is kinda like real life where the 1% own 99% etc etc, all done through trading guilds, and there are even billionaires in ESO! I've never gotten into trading myself, but how wealthy are some of the top traders, or GMs of the top guilds. Little side question, anyone have any idea what the most amount of gold someone has had?

Would appreciate some insight, thanks!

Yoku

Dude, there are more people that are by far not so loaded. i know more people that don't even have 1mio then people that do. I don't even have 1 Mio because it mamkes no sence. Why would you wanna have so much money you can't spend?? Think about it maybe some illegal activities

EliteWarrior

Yoku wrote: »

Dude, there are more people that are by far not so loaded. i know more people that don't even have 1mio then people that do. I don't even have 1 Mio because it mamkes no sence. Why would you wanna have so much money you can't spend?? Think about it maybe some illegal activities

Yeah, I've never had close to that kinda money 😂

dan958

Yoku wrote: »

Dude, there are more people that are by far not so loaded. i know more people that don't even have 1mio then people that do. I don't even have 1 Mio because it mamkes no sence. Why would you wanna have so much money you can't spend?? Think about it maybe some illegal activities

To save for when you do want to spend it. Plenty of people save up money to buy things from the crown store via crown sellers.

BNOC

I have a little over 26M but there's players with much more. Most I've heard of on Xbox was 65+M.

I made my millions farming materials:

When Ancestor Silk first came out, stacks would go for 100-120k - I could farm 15k Telvar an hour back then (That was a lot) so was making great money on that.

I can farm anywhere from 1200-1500 ore per hour if I get my preferred loop - To this day that has been a good money maker - Especially now that ~50% are JC ores and you get grains. 100k+ p/h

Telvar farming and buying plants at 150k~ telvar an hour - 100k stones is roughly 200 of each plant and you can sell 5 stacks of the most popular plants for 150-200k combined.

Not sure how much people make exclusively trading but I am interested.

Lyserus

There are many of ppl that can throw their in game gold around like it's nothing. Now with gold-crown exchange, they can probably play free except only subscription fee.

Once you reach an amount of gold you can just “monopoly” a specific item by buying all of them in trader guilds and put them up with higher prices （preferably those that are hard to come by but somewhat essential, like tri-stat rune, summerset alchemy ingredient etc）to reap harvest and “make money with money”

But those are minority for sure

Siohwenoeht

I can confidently say I've made and spent into the 10's of millions and never traded anything. You can make gold very easily in ESO especially compared to some other MMOs that just about force you into the trading economy.

My characters have about 50,000g in their inventory and my bank is never under 100,000g in case the golden vendor has something I want each week.

The best part of ESO economy is that you can jump in to a trading guild or not and still have plenty of in game currency whether it's gold, AP or telvar.

ArchMikem

Took me over 3 years to finally get 1m+ in the bank. The only reason was pawning some valuable mats i had acquired to a friend who had a trading guild. I also just recently got enough Gladiator Proofs to get the Costume runebox, which i then sold for 900k. I'm now sitting at i think 1.6m.

Nestor

Some people play this game to get PvP Kills, or win Duels, or get Achievements, or Leaderboard Times or Role Play, or just pass time instead of watching TV. Some, play the economy.

None of these reasons for playing the game out weigh another reason to play. So everyone gets to do their thing.

Nice thing is, since the trade in this game is distributed, no one player can own a part or all of the market. Nor can just a few corner the market. They can try, for a while, but the cost of maintaining the grip on the market outweighs the profits, so they have to give up as others come along. This means anyone can become a Millionaire or a Billionaire if they focus on that aspect. Heck, I have 17 Million, and I was never focused on trade to begin with. I just shed excess inventory.

There have been criticisms of the distributed market mostly from the console side, I think because the stock UI is so bad for trade. The changes coming to the UI will make trade so much better for the console players. Now, if they could just add a Known/Unknown filter to the Search.

Skwor

PC NA and I easily have spent 50+ million over the years. ATM I have ~30 mill and honestly that is chump change in the top trading guilds circuit.

Mr_Walker

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

NoTimeToWait

EliteWarrior wrote: »

Hi all, firstly lemme say I've played ESO for 1000 hours (I know, nothing compared to you OGs) but this is still my first MMO so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the whole player economy and market system.

So I was reading around recently and saw many posts saying that ESO is kinda like real life where the 1% own 99% etc etc, all done through trading guilds, and there are even billionaires in ESO! I've never gotten into trading myself, but how wealthy are some of the top traders, or GMs of the top guilds. Little side question, anyone have any idea what the most amount of gold someone has had?

Would appreciate some insight, thanks!

Can't say for anyone else, but without too much effort I got to around 25 mil (in both hard gold and assets) across my chars in around 6 month last year. Though it is a bit harder to get spectacular returns using all that money, I would say that a dedicated person can get around 5 million a month given starting funds and knowledge. A very dedicated person might max out at 10 mil per month of stable income (of course certain in-game events present opportunities of getting 10-20 mil in a week or two, if initial funds applied properly). Though I doubt we have more than 10 traders like these on PC EU. So, assuming that the market was not as hot 4 years ago as today and that the game exists for almost 5 years, one might extrapolate a sum of 500 million in coffers of some very dedicated traders, achieved through in game means.

I think, we might have billionaires in this game, but I really doubt that such a sum was acquired through any means but selling crowns.
Anyway, there are plenty of opportunities to get rich in this game, and basically anyone with a mind set on this task can get at least 1 million per month, assuming they are able to get the best trading spots for their purposes (this part matters a lot). And, well, that is a generous assumption, because if you have your mind set, you can get around 100k gold per hour after some preparations, so, basically, you need 10 very busy hours a month to reach 1 mil mark, which is not that much. Though, most of these schemes have a level of saturation at which the returns start to diminish, so you can't quite brute force it to 5 mil a month that easily

therift

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

1) Buy anything you want in the game at any time.

2) Points, my man, points.

A similar question might be 'Why spend all that time and effort collecting achievements/titles/skins?' The answer is the same... it's fun

RobDaCool

I have around 6K gold, so I guess you're not talking about me? lol

commdt

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

I think, we might have billionaires in this game, but I really doubt that such a sum was acquired through any means but selling crowns.

It is possible for botters, but they usually transfer their gold in real money, so accumulating of such sum is unlikely too

Raammzzaa

I have been playing ESO for a little over a year and I have about 1.5 million in gold. I only got into trading recently. Most of the regular players in the guild that I play with have many millions more. I have seen screen shots on our Band page of one guys craft bag where he has nearly 1000 temps.

Now AP on the other hand, I have a little over 50,000,000 AP saved up, which I’m slowly trying to launder with the help of the golden! Lol

StormChaser3000

I make 1 million gold a week. It's a bit tedious tho.

I guess it's possible to become a billionaire, you just have to grind IC 24/7 with a solid group.

Prof_Bawbag

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

Probably for the very reason some people run the same dungeons ad nauseam or that some people do the same thing as they have done in game for the last 4 or 5 years. Or the people who run around collecting fake gear to run fake dungeons. Nothing in game extends to real life. Nothing. Just because you don't see a point to a certain aspect of the game, doesn't mean it's utterly pointless to others. Like my gaming habits in game, your habits will be utterly pointless too.

OlumoGarbag

I knew some friends of a friend of mine that had a weekly market exchange of 40mio gold or more. But there is no reason at all to hoard more then that. You dont have any benefits of it. So the only people that have more money then that are people that are selling gold for IRL money

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

I make 1 million gold a week. It's a bit tedious tho.

I guess it's possible to become a billionaire, you just have to grind IC 24/7 with a solid group.

If you farm solo you could make like 80mio per week

anitajoneb17_ESO

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

It's fun to play the market, to have expectations when farming, every node becoming something like a lottery ticket. It's nice to read patch notes and anticipate market niches according to upcoming changes.
As to the gold itself, it's nice to be able to buy what you cannot farm yourself (DLC dungeon motifs, for instance) without blinking an eye. I bought my aetheric cipher, too. And now that it's possible to buy crown store stuff with gold, well, it's nice to have plenty of gold to spend on stuff I'd never ever spend real life money on.

Michae

Tell me your secrets. I need to get 2 million fast.

code65536

The difference is that, in real life, that kind of money can buy you some real power and influence.

In this game, after a certain point, more gold is just bragging rights. There really aren't many useful things that you can do with gold in this game. I'm fairly well off on PC/NA with 55 million gold, and I'm relatively poor on PC/EU with only 2 million gold. And I don't feel the difference: never did I ever say to myself, "Gee, I wish I had that much gold on EU so I could do X."

FrancisCrawford

BNOC wrote: »

I can farm anywhere from 1200-1500 ore per hour if I get my preferred loop -

20-25 ore/minute? Really? How much are you running past in terms of other kinds of nodes while you do that?

FrancisCrawford

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

I make 1 million gold a week. It's a bit tedious tho.

I guess it's possible to become a billionaire, you just have to grind IC 24/7 with a solid group.

I assume the big Telvar stone farming numbers coming from killing mobs than other players? What range of group sizes is optimal?

VaranisArano

As of August 2017, here were some stats.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

He's unlikely to respond, but I'll try anyway to summon @ZOS_RichLambert so he can provide stats on how much gold the top 1% have.

Seeing as I was looking at this stuff just now anyways (total gold for an account with at least 1 level 50)...

• XB1 - 90th percentile - 412k gold
• PS4 - 90th percentile - 459k gold
• PC - 90th percentile - 890k gold

It's not the top 1%, but it gives you an idea.

I have around 6 million gold now, with my total fluctuating between 2 to 8 million depending on whether I'm in a hoarding mood or spending on housing/motifs, etc.

I trade raw mats, perfect roe, nirncrux, and alchemy reagents primarily.

commdt

right now 80 million in currency and resources and 160 mil total wealth (counting recipes learned and homes bought). I dont count how much Im doing in a week, nor do I farm anything (though I did some time ago). Just doing dailies on my 15 chars and thats it

Saucy_Jack

Right now I'm back at just over 1mil, but the amount of gold I've spent over time in order to learn all the furniture plans is...significant. Also factor in gold spent buying various houses, most of the motifs, and crowns, and you can see why having a lot of gold is a nice thing.

BNOC

Michae wrote: »

Tell me your secrets. I need to get 2 million fast.

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

I make 1 million gold a week. It's a bit tedious tho.

I guess it's possible to become a billionaire, you just have to grind IC 24/7 with a solid group.

If you farm solo you could make like 80mio per week

If you can average at 150k telvar an hour, solo (10 boss kills, 1 every 6 minutes) then in 8 hours (~working day), you could make 1.2M telvar.

I'd take 200k just for the chance of occasional loss / rookie death to the harvester etc; So 1M stones.

Every 100k telvar, you get roughly 200 of each plant. So you're looking at 10 stacks of all plants a day.

You just need to check your platform trader prices to see what kind of money you make from that but Xbox EU for example, Cornflower alone is 50-70k a stack. You can make 150-200k an hour just from a few types of plants. If you sell them all and bother with the 10-25k stacks then you can be making 300k+ an hour.

I average at about 150-200k gold an hour when I'm doing this and I do it in my PVP gear because I'm lazy.

Really good money and when you think about how much you can gain, the occasional PVP death that puts so many off is actually very minor - In fact, as a PVPer, you spend more time looking for people with stones than it would take to farm them yourself.


There's also ore loops to run which can be 100k+ p/h, safe - This is one of the better loops, far from the best but I don't really want to disclose those!
https://imgur.com/a/4KUPXHs - Rough loop, when you get there you'll soon learn the spawns and the exact path. You can even just do the top or bottom circle individually.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

BNOC wrote: »

I can farm anywhere from 1200-1500 ore per hour if I get my preferred loop -

20-25 ore/minute? Really? How much are you running past in terms of other kinds of nodes while you do that?

I rarely pick up other nodes whilst I'm doing ores as that's where the money is for me - I do pick up some runestones and cornflower etc, but not often. Hew's bane might be ~1000-1200 ore an hour but it's still high.

@FrancisCrawford Edit: iirc, Hew's Bane can be 18 ores in 3-4 minutes, so about 4.5-6 harvests a minute - If you average it at 4 ore per node then you get about 24 a minute at max speed, before the 10% double collect chance.

Also - I use Fjords Legacy and Darkstride with Rapids to node farm.

GilgorlumDarkhorn

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

Because people playing this game attach a perceived value to something that is entirely worthless LMAO outside this game.

Let them have their thrills amassing imaginary fortunes. I am just going through latest Forbes wealthiest listings and none of these names are on it haha

commdt

BNOC wrote: »

Michae wrote: »

Tell me your secrets. I need to get 2 million fast.

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

I make 1 million gold a week. It's a bit tedious tho.

I guess it's possible to become a billionaire, you just have to grind IC 24/7 with a solid group.

If you farm solo you could make like 80mio per week

If you can average at 150k telvar an hour, solo (10 boss kills, 1 every 6 minutes) then in 8 hours (~working day), you could make 1.2M telvar.

I'd take 200k just for the chance of occasional loss / rookie death to the harvester etc; So 1M stones.

Every 100k telvar, you get roughly 200 of each plant. So you're looking at 10 stacks of all plants a day.

You just need to check your platform trader prices to see what kind of money you make from that but Xbox EU for example, Cornflower alone is 50-70k a stack. You can make 150-200k an hour just from a few types of plants. If you sell them all and bother with the 10-25k stacks then you can be making 300k+ an hour.

I average at about 150-200k gold an hour when I'm doing this and I do it in my PVP gear because I'm lazy.

Really good money and when you think about how much you can gain, the occasional PVP death that puts so many off is actually very minor - In fact, as a PVPer, you spend more time looking for people with stones than it would take to farm them yourself.


There's also ore loops to run which can be 100k+ p/h, safe - This is one of the better loops, far from the best but I don't really want to disclose those!
https://imgur.com/a/4KUPXHs - Rough loop, when you get there you'll soon learn the spawns and the exact path. You can even just do the top or bottom circle individually.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

BNOC wrote: »

I can farm anywhere from 1200-1500 ore per hour if I get my preferred loop -

20-25 ore/minute? Really? How much are you running past in terms of other kinds of nodes while you do that?

I rarely pick up other nodes whilst I'm doing ores as that's where the money is for me - I do pick up some runestones and cornflower etc, but not often. Hew's bane might be ~1000-1200k an hour but it's still high.

In the new patch this farm will be done with Separate campaign for IC means flooding IC with players

therift

H

HighEndDesktopGamer wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would I bother spending all that time and effort to collect fake money?

Because people playing this game attach a perceived value to something that is entirely worthless LMAO outside this game.

Let them have their thrills amassing imaginary fortunes. I am just going through latest Forbes wealthiest listings and none of these names are on it haha

Forbes doesn't list gamer tags.

You might be surprised, however, to discover that a number of players in ESO have substantial real world fortunes.

Keep reading and dreaming, kid, you'll get there some day, maybe.

'haha' right back at ya