Are Resellers Considered OK?

reoskit

I'm lost. Why would flipping (reselling) be against the rules?

To your other point: TTC values items based on list price and does not account for whether or not things actually sell at those prices. Always remember that. Lockpicks are not worth 1m gold, but nothing stops me from listing at that price.

Facefister

Mitrenga wrote: »

[...]Auction house would devastate ESO economy.[...]

It would not. It would free up the economy even further since everyone can sell their stuff. You fear that if that happens, that you can't "scam" people with overpriced tempers before a DLC/chapter hits since you're the only one who holds key traders.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

Facefister wrote: »

Mitrenga wrote: »

[...]Auction house would devastate ESO economy.[...]

It would not. It would free up the economy even further since everyone can sell their stuff. You fear that if that happens, that you can't "scam" people with overpriced tempers before a DLC/chapter hits since you're the only one who holds key traders.

Have you ever played any sports game with an “ultimate team” type feature? The best cards (items in ESO) get bought up by the same people who hold them hostage for insane prices. And then the good but not the best items get dropped in price to silly levels. This means you end up with 2 types of players, the people who spend thousands of dollars of real money to have “all diamond (or whatever)” teams and free to play people who can never get a good game anymore.

If you brought the auction to ESO things like Tempers would skyrocket in price and anything not deemed worth it would be now be only worth vendoring.

Asardes

With a single auction house botting would become ripe since you can just use an addon (ex. Awesome Guild Store), make a filter, re-scan often, and then buy whatever items as soon as they're listed. I've already heard of such players camping certain guild traders. Just imagine how easy it would be if they had access to the whole market. I'm sure the developers envisioned such a situation and thus they decided to fragment the market. The system works and I'm OK with it. I never had trouble finding what I needed or making lots of gold - as I mentioned above I do not resell.

therift

Asardes wrote: »

With a single auction house botting would become ripe since you can just use an addon (ex. Awesome Guild Store), make a filter, re-scan often, and then buy whatever items as soon as they're listed. I've already heard of such players camping certain guild traders. Just imagine how easy it would be if they had access to the whole market. I'm sure the developers envisioned such a situation and thus they decided to fragment the market. The system works and I'm OK with it. I never had trouble finding what I needed or making lots of gold - as I mentioned above I do not resell.

I wish I could locate the source material, but I recollect ZoS leadership mentioning such problems with central traders - which are well-documented in those games' forums - as a primary reason why ESO does not have a central trading system. The dev post was some time ago; I forget the exact wording, but it hinted that the devs were aware of the large number of guides available for those other games that taught ways to manipulate a central trader.

VaranisArano

Facefister wrote: »

Mitrenga wrote: »

[...]Auction house would devastate ESO economy.[...]

It would not. It would free up the economy even further since everyone can sell their stuff. You fear that if that happens, that you can't "scam" people with overpriced tempers before a DLC/chapter hits since you're the only one who holds key traders.

I don't really get this.

A. Is there really a need to "free up the economy" through an auction house? In my experience, trading guilds advertise pretty often in zone chat and with Elsweyr, it will get even easier to join trading guilds. The last time I went looking for a guild, about five months ago, I found one that fit my selling needs pretty quickly (I look for a sales requirement I can make, no raffle or other payment/participation required).

Maybe I just don't see a reason to refuse to participate in the trading guild economy out of principle. Practically speaking, I found it pretty easy to get into my trading guilds as a new player once I decided to trade, and I still found it easy the last time I wanted to switch. I'm sure that some players prefer other systems, but I think the current system works fine for anyone who tries to use it.

B. How are you distinguishing between "overpriced" tempers and meeting the increased demand that always happens when there's a new update?

I mean, the economics of it should be pretty obvious even without market manipulation. A new update drops, ZOS changes the meta, a bunch of players either start playing again or rush to re-gear themselves so they can be meta...and they want more gold improvement mats. I'm a seller, not an idiot, and I know those players will pay more because they want to improve their gear, so I price my mats higher to what I think the market will bear. If I'm right, they sell. Its not complicated.

For another example, I look at what happened to housing mats after Summerfall when everyone got the huge Psijic house and suddenly everyone wanted housing mats for furniture. My strategy was simple: I cleared out my Crafting Bag of high-priced stuff like Mundane Runes and Heartwood, knowing I was never going to get a better price for it than right then because demand spiked. I made a bunch of money off of that demand spike, because I farm mats and I had a supply sitting. Some people relisted those items...and usually got their price because demand was so high from people impatient to decorate their houses. Now that demand has dropped, I'm slowly furnishing my Psijic house in my own time, paying much lower prices because I wasn't impatient.

In short, what you call "scamming", economists call "supply and demand". And I call "If you want to be impatient, be prepared to pay through the nose for it."


I get that not everyone likes playing the market game, or even bothering with simple things like watching how certain items sell throughout the year as new content drops...but I've been farming and then selling mats more or less since I started the game 3 and a half years ago, and I do find it pretty interesting.

VaranisArano

therift wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

With a single auction house botting would become ripe since you can just use an addon (ex. Awesome Guild Store), make a filter, re-scan often, and then buy whatever items as soon as they're listed. I've already heard of such players camping certain guild traders. Just imagine how easy it would be if they had access to the whole market. I'm sure the developers envisioned such a situation and thus they decided to fragment the market. The system works and I'm OK with it. I never had trouble finding what I needed or making lots of gold - as I mentioned above I do not resell.

I wish I could locate the source material, but I recollect ZoS leadership mentioning such problems with central traders - which are well-documented in those games' forums - as a primary reason why ESO does not have a central trading system. The dev post was some time ago; I forget the exact wording, but it hinted that the devs were aware of the large number of guides available for those other games that taught ways to manipulate a central trader.

I went looking, because I love having the sources on hand.

These are both old sources, but give some insight into why the Devs went with the guild trading system during development.

Here's an old source from 2013, an interview with Gameplay Designer Nick Konkle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llYBrAi95d8
The question at 14:15. "What led ZOS to the decision to use this Guild Store system instead of the standard Auction House system?"

The answer, paraphrased: "It was what fit with the theme and the technical makeup of our game. You don't necessarily want to do a single auction house for a game with one giant server because that leads to all of the best gear being available at very cheap prices and that can tend to trivialize the game. its hard to have a healthy economy when there's no restrictions on getting the best gear in the game - you can just walk on and buy it all. We definitely didn't want that.

What made a lot of sense to us was putting it in this territory-controlled game" (my note here, the previous question explains that guild traders were originally intended to be present only in Cyrodiil keeps, so that guilds had to control and defend PVP keeps in order to sell their wares. Guilds were intended to feel invested in defending their keeps. Obviously, this changed a lot).

"On top of that, it has a whole lot of economic benefits, like where we were describing (in the previous question), players can play the economy of going from one guild store to another in a different keep and taking advantage of different prices between the two."


From this old Ask Us Anything: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/947
What's your purpose in making guild stores for guild members only? Why not make them for everyone? – sliyerking

Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver. With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the “gear chase” portion of the game.


Here's an answer from the April 2015 Ask Us Anything: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1760019#Comment_1760019

Q: MercyKilling: Okay, no auction house. Ever. How about removing the guild membership requirement in order to sell at kiosks?

A: "Player guilds are an integral part of our world and trader access is a key benefit to guild membership. We have no plans to change this at this time."

therift

Many people are frightened by the fluidity of prices created by supply and demand in a changing game environment. They find comfort in a belief in immutable values for the items they wish to buy or sell, because the loss of virtual currency from paying too much or selling for too little is unsettling.

Policing market values by criticizing pricing they believe is incorrect, or criticizing a system that involves market risk and reward is the natural reaction to fear of loss. Calls for a central market would, in their minds, alleviate the stress of taking a risk when buying or selling. They believe such a central market would naturally, of its own accord, establish firm, unchanging values. I think it is as difficult to persuade them otherwise as it would be to hold back the tide, since any attempt to persuade is an attack of their defense mechanism resulting out of fear.

Asardes

Prices don't actually fluctuate that fast. In the case of gold upgrade materials they may jump 10-20% if the demand increases, as it does when new sets are introduced or setups change due to other factors but they're usually back to what they were in a month or so. I am part of 5 trading guilds and I tend to get a lot of data from MM, and I rarely see a huge spread or wild and unexpected fluctuations in those prices. And the other side of the coin is that other items decrease in price, for example motifs and blueprints during events that award them. I do stock on those when they drop - I don't buy to resell, just stock my own and hold them. For example 5-6 weeks before the Jester's Festival I sold 3 Dubious Camoran Throne recipes I had from last year for 110K gold each. During the event the price dropped to 30K since they were a relatively common drop. The price will increase again in time as supply dries up. Last year I sold the motifs gotten from the previous Anniversary event throughout the year as their prices increased, the cheaper ones first, starting in July-August. So it's important to know when to buy or sell stuff.

Tan9oSuccka

therift wrote: »

Many people are frightened by the fluidity of prices created by supply and demand in a changing game environment. They find comfort in a belief in immutable values for the items they wish to buy or sell, because the loss of virtual currency from paying too much or selling for too little is unsettling.

Policing market values by criticizing pricing they believe is incorrect, or criticizing a system that involves market risk and reward is the natural reaction to fear of loss. Calls for a central market would, in their minds, alleviate the stress of taking a risk when buying or selling. They believe such a central market would naturally, of its own accord, establish firm, unchanging values. I think it is as difficult to persuade them otherwise as it would be to hold back the tide, since any attempt to persuade is an attack of their defense mechanism resulting out of fear.

While I agree with a lot of this, the current system is manipulated (especially on PS4) in a different way.

A centralized auction house will introduce its own problems.

I understand why they aren’t changing anything. So much work and no matter what you do, someone will be mad.

therift

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

therift wrote: »

Many people are frightened by the fluidity of prices created by supply and demand in a changing game environment. They find comfort in a belief in immutable values for the items they wish to buy or sell, because the loss of virtual currency from paying too much or selling for too little is unsettling.

Policing market values by criticizing pricing they believe is incorrect, or criticizing a system that involves market risk and reward is the natural reaction to fear of loss. Calls for a central market would, in their minds, alleviate the stress of taking a risk when buying or selling. They believe such a central market would naturally, of its own accord, establish firm, unchanging values. I think it is as difficult to persuade them otherwise as it would be to hold back the tide, since any attempt to persuade is an attack of their defense mechanism resulting out of fear.

While I agree with a lot of this, the current system is manipulated (especially on PS4) in a different way.

A centralized auction house will introduce its own problems.

I understand why they aren’t changing anything. So much work and no matter what you do, someone will be mad.

I agree there is no best system. Best to master the one that's familiar.

Runkorko

All craftable materials are EASY to farm.
Advice for the new players- DONT BE LAZY and bring your asses to Craglorn.
Dont come here start asking for changes, only because you are too lazy to move out of Cyrodil.
As leveling player you dont even need crafting materials. Plenty of decent gear drop.
You can just deconstruct and save for the time you hit 160 cp and need it for upgrade.

Mitrenga

Facefister wrote: »

Mitrenga wrote: »

[...]Auction house would devastate ESO economy.[...]

It would not. It would free up the economy even further since everyone can sell their stuff. You fear that if that happens, that you can't "scam" people with overpriced tempers before a DLC/chapter hits since you're the only one who holds key traders.

There is no such thing as key traders. In fact, what you call "key traders" are the ones that are selling items on avg. or above avg prices due to their easy accessibility. I know, because I'm selling in top guilds since the launch but most of the time buying from the out of town/hideout spots. In addition, if you believe that an item is overpriced; do not buy it from that store. Dozens of other stores around or you can ask in zone chat WTB x amount y for xxk gold.

My argument is AH would be nice if it's implemented from the launch, now it is not for the points that I have mentioned on my previous post.

jaws343

The thing is, anyone can flip items. You just have to know what it is your are buying. And you have to know what the value of return is going to be. Once you start working at it, it becomes pretty easy to earn a ton of gold.

I once spent 1M going around to every trader and buying every single necro Flame and Shock staff that was priced under 40K. Turned around and sold them all, ended up making around 3M off of them. I had around 1.2M when I started buying the staves, and ended up with 3.2M when I finished selling them.

MLGProPlayer

Of course it's fine.

The only thing I don't like about reselling is that it enables botting. A lot of the "bulk sellers" who sell stuff for cheap are botters.

xxthir13enxx

I rely on resellers to buy the stuff I list cheap trying to clear inventory quickly...if there weren’t resellers that are actively looking for bargains than stuff I listed would sit for days before someone found the bargain

ZonasArch

Lake wrote: »

ZonasArch wrote: »

You know all those motifs you sold during the event? A good portion of them are in the banks of some long term investors, waiting for prices to go up by controlling supply.

Learn from them, get rich too

This is also risky.
Like what happened with some previous "motif drop" events, where prices didn't go up - since demand also went down.

Sure thing. Such is the nature of investing in the future market. It may not be favorable. I've lost and made money like that over the years. Mostly positive overall, but I've misread temper market once and I lost almost a million over a few a weeks. Would lose more if I had not dumped my stock. It happens.

ZonasArch

mague wrote: »

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Trading is a legit way to make money in ESO and using your economical power to take influence on prices is a common behaviour in a free market. So unless ZOS calls out socialism for tamriel there's nothing wrong with it.

What an answer. LOL

Fair pricing is socialism and the capitalism has no anti trust laws ? Just as there are no laws against inside business or price rigging. Right, it is not about politics, but about criminal actions hiding behind good laws.

As theories go, a free market regulates itself off the barrier to entry is low or non existent. As it happens, that's exactly the case for most items in the game, so fair pricing is a function of supply and demand only, and if you control supply too much, soon enough you'll have company taking advantage of your high prices for their profit, forcing you to step down. Again, this only happens because of the low barrier to entry, making it easy for anyone to compete in any market. Prices on this game as surprisingly stable, with big changes taking months or years to happen (or updates nerfing stuff to a baby food state). Gotta love the trading system.

Starlock

jaws343 wrote: »

The thing is, anyone can flip items. You just have to know what it is your are buying.

There's more to it than that, because it really isn't something anyone can easily pick up and do. You say you went around spending 1 million to flip items. That's A LOT of gold. You have to have capital first, and a lot of players do not have that capital... much less in sufficient quantity to want to take risks with it trying to play the reselling game (a game that is inherently more risky on console given we don't have cheats).

ZonasArch

Starlock wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

The thing is, anyone can flip items. You just have to know what it is your are buying.

There's more to it than that, because it really isn't something anyone can easily pick up and do. You say you went around spending 1 million to flip items. That's A LOT of gold. You have to have capital first, and a lot of players do not have that capital... much less in sufficient quantity to want to take risks with it trying to play the reselling game (a game that is inherently more risky on console given we don't have cheats).

Cheats? Never used any on PC, unless you think add-ons are cheating, then I use a lot of them

Also, you can make a million in a month with 1h of farming mats per day. Simple enough after that, and a month isn't really a lot in the realm of any MMO, and 1h per day isn't a lot either. Even if you take two months... Making the first million isn't all that hard in ESO.

alanmatillab16_ESO

lbattros_ESO wrote: »

Some of the mega-rich old-timers have been buying up those craft items necessary for advancement, (such as zircon, things to rersearch and make speed and triad jewelry, Hakeijo, dreugh wax, zircon, chromium, etc) and reselling at inflated prices. Tamriel trade then Centre automatically increases it's suggested price and permanant inflation happens as normal players set their prices by that. Are the devs OK with that?

Me, I've been here a year now so I have enough to buy the stuff at those prices but I hate it and this makes it impossible for some newer players to progress so they go play a game where the economy works for everybody..... and maybe even have an auction house so guilds can be guilds and not be obsessed with raising money for their selling spots.

Just strikes me as hurting the fun.

Newsflash for you...

Devs don't give a flying fish about addons like MM or 3rd party websites.

Jayne_Doe

Nothing is overpriced unless it sits on the trader for 30 days and no one buys it. If players are buying items at a certain price, then the items aren't overpriced. They may be more than you're willing to pay, but it doesn't mean they are overpriced.

If you go to every single trader in the game and find tempers in roughly the same price range, then that's the current selling price. If it's still too high for you, then you need to farm your own or farm gold to buy them at the current price.

Or, you can shop around and find those same low prices and buy them before the resellers do.

Kingslayer513

lbattros_ESO wrote: »

Some of the mega-rich old-timers have been buying up those craft items necessary for advancement, (such as zircon, things to rersearch and make speed and triad jewelry, Hakeijo, dreugh wax, zircon, chromium, etc) and reselling at inflated prices. Tamriel trade then Centre automatically increases it's suggested price and permanant inflation happens as normal players set their prices by that. Are the devs OK with that?

BREAKING NEWS: A player-driven economy is player-driven. One local man is outraged. More news at 11.

Androconium

There are two universal standards in the current Tamriel trader market:

1. There is a buyer somewhere for anything that can be sold.
2. If they really want it, they will pay what you ask to have it.

Furthermore:

• A fundamental premise of the guild structure as it is; and this is stated in the 'Creating Guilds' notes, is the idea of selling your unwanted items to other guild members.
• Most items have a default price set in-game.
• The rest is just capitalism in action.

Just as in all wars throughout history if you want to fight and win, you have to have the resources to pay to do that.

Sylosi

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Trading is a legit way to make money in ESO and using your economical power to take influence on prices is a common behaviour in a free market. So unless ZOS calls out socialism for tamriel there's nothing wrong with it.

A market where a single entity (Zenimax) has vast control over both demand and supply is so far away from being a free market it is laughable.

And that's without going into all the other things like fixed number of spots to sell (and most of those are basically worthless), that markets in the real world get regulated against things like cartels, price fixing, etc to try and keep the market functioning well, and so on.

Anyone who thinks ESO is a free market needs to go get lessons on economics from Smith, Friedman, Keynes, etc.

Androconium

Sylosi wrote: »

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Trading is a legit way to make money in ESO and using your economical power to take influence on prices is a common behaviour in a free market. So unless ZOS calls out socialism for tamriel there's nothing wrong with it.

A market where a single entity (Zenimax) has vast control over both demand and supply is so far away from being a free market it is laughable.

And that's without going into all the other things like fixed number of spots to sell (and most of those are basically worthless), that markets in the real world regulate against things like cartels, price fixing, etc, because they break the free market and so on.

Anyone who thinks ESO is a free market needs to go get lessons on economics from Smith, Friedman, Keynes, etc.

What I see is that players decide, by their behaviour, what the prime trading locations are; what guilds they support; and support cartel activity by actively donating gold to retain a prime location. ZOS have set some basic parameters for the market operation and players have adapted to it.

I don't have any background in economics, but that suggest 'free market' to me...

yRaven

Welcome to capitalism, become a mega-rich person or farm everyday to buy what you want, either way most people here don't care, no matter what group they're in

Sylosi

Androconium wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Trading is a legit way to make money in ESO and using your economical power to take influence on prices is a common behaviour in a free market. So unless ZOS calls out socialism for tamriel there's nothing wrong with it.

A market where a single entity (Zenimax) has vast control over both demand and supply is so far away from being a free market it is laughable.

And that's without going into all the other things like fixed number of spots to sell (and most of those are basically worthless), that markets in the real world regulate against things like cartels, price fixing, etc, because they break the free market and so on.

Anyone who thinks ESO is a free market needs to go get lessons on economics from Smith, Friedman, Keynes, etc.

What I see is that players decide, by their behaviour, what the prime trading locations are; what guilds they support; and support cartel activity by actively donating gold to retain a prime location. ZOS have set some basic parameters for the market operation and players have adapted to it.

I don't have any background in economics, but that suggest 'free market' to me...

You think an economy where Zenimax have more control over supply, demand, innovation, behaviour, etc than the government of some communist state has over their economy, is the "free" market rather than a highly controlled one, interesting...

therift

Sylosi wrote: »

Androconium wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Trading is a legit way to make money in ESO and using your economical power to take influence on prices is a common behaviour in a free market. So unless ZOS calls out socialism for tamriel there's nothing wrong with it.

A market where a single entity (Zenimax) has vast control over both demand and supply is so far away from being a free market it is laughable.

And that's without going into all the other things like fixed number of spots to sell (and most of those are basically worthless), that markets in the real world regulate against things like cartels, price fixing, etc, because they break the free market and so on.

Anyone who thinks ESO is a free market needs to go get lessons on economics from Smith, Friedman, Keynes, etc.

What I see is that players decide, by their behaviour, what the prime trading locations are; what guilds they support; and support cartel activity by actively donating gold to retain a prime location. ZOS have set some basic parameters for the market operation and players have adapted to it.

I don't have any background in economics, but that suggest 'free market' to me...

You think an economy where Zenimax have more control over supply, demand, innovation, etc than the government of some communist state has over their economy, is the 'free market' rather than a highly controlled one, interesting...

In an artificial economy, comparisons to real world economics don't apply very well. The parameters of resource supply, item supply, and money supply are set at initial values by the game designer; those values are then extrapolated by player activity. Artificial economies are better measured by game theory rather than economic theory.

A key factor is the complete absence of government expenditures on public goods and services. Another key factor is the absence of financial markets and government central banks; these together greatly expand the money supply and the speed of money through an economy. Without them, an artificial economy is a poor mirror of a real world economy; artificial currencies (gold, AP, Tel Var) are little more than an expeditor of a barter system.

Riejael

yRaven wrote: »

Welcome to capitalism, become a mega-rich person or farm everyday to buy what you want, either way most people here don't care, no matter what group they're in

It isn't even capitalism. ESO like most MMORPGs run in a post-scarcity world setting using an unlimited currency. To put it simply, gold never runs out and can be generated by anyone. Resources are also unlimited.

To even go simpler, you earn points (gold) by playing the game. You use those points for enhancements that you could get by playing the game even more.

With that said, everyone who is complaining about prices really ought to reconsider the reasons they even play these sorts of games. They're getting bent over the fact they can't afford something they want, that they could get by playing. If the intent is not to play, isn't simply logging off winning in that case?