not to add fuel to the fire, but there was / is a "trade conglomerate" I was part of it

Wing

as someone who was part of it for a few years, and the contact officer for one of the guilds on the doc, I figured I would pipe up.

**dsclaimer**
there are many guilds who did not participate in it, and some very large guilds that thought it was dumb and tried to undermine it. not every large guild is "evil" and not every small guild is "good" so please don't lump everyone together.

how / why it started:
-when the trade kiosks first became a thing it was logical for a lot of the top guilds to work together and communicate where they planned on bidding. it kept bids low so they were not needlessly sinking guild money for no reason. prices got very low because of this communication. eventually some guilds thought it was BS and started outbidding (spying was much bigger back in the day, to try to figure out bids) then prices kind of normalized at a higher price because there was still some trust but also distrust of outside guilds or snipes, so what I would call a balance point happened.

other benefits:
trade guilds were free to join the "conglomerate" there was outside tools and documents listing guild leaders, and each was allowed to add one officer as a backup and secondary (that was me!) everyone received weekly / bi weekly reports.

these reports were:
-sum ups of communications with ZOS, a lot of these leaders were in direct contact with ZOS about improvements or things they wanted to see updated within the guild / guild trader system, kind of like class reps only for the trade system.
-black list updates, a document was created containing the universal blacklist of players that were to be banned or not allowed in trade guilds, as well as a list of all possible alternate accounts, this was updated pretty regularly and even suspected alt accounts were banned.
-guild drama, similar to the blacklist any guilds causing trouble or guilds of troublemakers had tabs kept on them, mostly worrying about outbidding and the like, or where banned people ended up, what they were saying, etc. even things like what add ons people used caused drama at times. (master merchant had a competitor back in they day, it caused drama)

guilds would (and do) lend each other money to secure bids or drive out competition, one guild may only be able to defend there spot so well, but ask two others to lend em a couple million for a few weeks to make sure some upstart does not take their place, as well as make it known that its THEIR kiosk, yup. and yes this gets to the point of "we have been here for years, everyone knows it, don't try it."


other:
PRICE FIXING: this is not really a thing and is more paranoia, it was attempted by a few people for a while: go buy all the tempers and sell that at a set price, and for specific rare items it does / did work a bit. however this is really not a thing. ESO's guild trader system specifically makes this hard. as far as high and low prices at various locations, that's just a result of the system, and "flipping" items is a game all unto itself for some players (finding a cheap item at some obscure store and selling it for more at a large one) this is just the result of the free market economy, some people love playing that game. (it would be a million times worse with global AH)

the same people wining raffles. . .and their OFFICERS!: officers dump a lot of money into raffles, I knew one that would dump over 100k into every raffle, and when she won, she didn't want it, she would dump any winning into the next raffle, etc. some can be scams, and lead to drama, but most big trade guilds both don't scam anyone and cannot afford that kind of scandal. I know quite a few that live stream the drawing and post google docs of all purchases etc. etc. chance is chance and people that drop millions have a better chance then people that drop 1k. and most don't even want to win, there just supporting the guild.


final personal notes:
anyway, that's all I really have to say atm, running a large trade guild becomes the game for you if that's what you want to do, its like a job, and a lot of people get burnt out. the large ones that have been going for a while don't do this for their own money, they don't play the game the same way, I knew a few that didn't even have good gear. it takes a lot of physical and mental fortitude (and good officers / support) to run a guild, let alone the people that try to run more then one.

and to try and mess with their hard work and their game because of some misguided notion that their "bad" is silly. guess what, trade guilds get big by being good guilds, run by good people, just like any other. if your guild sucks. . .its probably not some other guilds fault. (I recall when Angry Unicorn Traders formed, they specifically set out and told everyone they were going to rawl, they were the little trade guild that could, and they did it!)

btw, this kind of act does not make people sympathetic to you, it makes them hate you, and now nobody will listen to any reason or misguided justification you have, they just hate you, and your "cause" now.

zaria

As I suspected and its an good thing, nobody want an long time bidding war over kiosks, that would fast increase the sale requirements or weekly fee a lot.

Auros

I use TTC, whenever anything is ~1000 gold - I sell and never cared about price fixing and such advanced stuff.
Never missed this aspect of the game.

Wing

zaria wrote: »

As I suspected and its an good thing, nobody want an long time bidding war over kiosks, that would fast increase the sale requirements or weekly fee a lot.

it was a good thing, everyone that joined in did it to save money and make things easy, it was never some mustache twirling evil group that set out to keep everyone else down.

VanyelMohr

I'm in 5 different trading guilds in 4 different zones including (or formerly) Rawl'kha. I price things the same everywhere. Price fixing is not a thing.

Can't speak to the rest except to say that all of the GMs in the guilds I'm in seem on the up and up.

Tommy_The_Gun

^ If you are not familiar with this then watch Monthy Python Secret Service Dentist Sketch

mairwen85

https://www.k12reader.com/term/there-vs-their-vs-theyre/

Wing

mairwen85 wrote: »

https://www.k12reader.com/term/there-vs-their-vs-theyre/

omg yeah I know and I go back and I try to look it all over and fix it but at a certain point I cannot be bothered, life is too short, and slang will be the future until at some point were all just making noises.

Solid_Metal

while i do suspect this kind of thing long time ago since i'm avid trader myself and filled my guild spot mostly to trading guild, but man, i never thought that it goes quite deep, i never suspect this kind of corprorate scheme can leech out to game especially like ESO....on the other hand if its on EvE i somewhat can understand lol

mairwen85

Wing wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

https://www.k12reader.com/term/there-vs-their-vs-theyre/

omg yeah I know and I go back and I try to look it all over and fix it but at a certain point I cannot be bothered, life is too short, and slang will be the future until at some point were all just making noises.

we're already doing that.

DoonerSeraph

Wing wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

https://www.k12reader.com/term/there-vs-their-vs-theyre/

omg yeah I know and I go back and I try to look it all over and fix it but at a certain point I cannot be bothered, life is too short, and slang will be the future until at some point were all just making noises.

Language of the future: grunts and emoji

therift

Solid_Metal wrote: »

while i do suspect this kind of thing long time ago since i'm avid trader myself and filled my guild spot mostly to trading guild, but man, i never thought that it goes quite deep, i never suspect this kind of corprorate scheme can leech out to game especially like ESO....on the other hand if its on EvE i somewhat can understand lol

It is less of a 'corporate scheme' than normal human behavior. Humans band together for mutual benefit. To non-members, some of the actions of a group may seem nefarious, since the benefiting the group is more important than the concerns of non-members.

Every human organization can be shown to be 'schemers' from a certain point if view.