The makings of an AH exists. The Rawl'kha heroes know and ZOS does too...AH=BAD

LuxLunae

Threat has been detected, action is required.

MM + TTC + Guild Traders = Auction House in this game...

1. MM lets you track prices that your guilds are selling
2. TTC lets you track prices from many guild traders
3. Guild Traders sell the goods
4. Unmoved locations for these guild traders creating a single hub if you will...

When these things combine, they make an auction house.

I want to first say that, this game was not created with an auction house for a reason. (same way how ZOS tacked on that champion system and caused lag in pvp) They destroy game economies. I say this with almost 20 years of playing MMOs...

Now how does a general auction houses kill the game?

I will try to explain it clearly. I might go scatterbrained so you have been warned before reading this.

Lets say a guy named Derrick At-Aswala (will be referred to as Dirk) joined a prominent traders guild.

The first thing Dirk will be bombarded with is

1. You must make the bare minimum in the guild to stay in the guild
2. You must download MM and/or TTC while selling your stuff
3. If you can't make the bare minimum you must either donate it to the guild bank or buy a raffle ticket

Then he is spammed with it throughout the week via email/guild chat by the guild lead/helpers...

Dirks first week was great he sold the right amount and also participated in the raffle... However after the second week of he was given a warning. He did not make the amount.

So Dirk asks how he can make money in the guild chat. Some one whispers to him " Do you have MM? you see those prices? well when you get those items sell them 5% higher. it's ok because of the location we are in people expect that. They won't want to move to a different location for such a small difference."

So Dirk does this for some months, almost a year, playing pve at his own pace and he's able to stay in the guild. Now dirk has reached CP 160. He has a good chuck of change but he knows that if he uses it to make his build he will be broke for a while. So he randomly shouts in zone chat " I have never actually held 1 M gold in this game in my lfie"

Someone whispers to him "That's easy to make, do you have like 150k to 200k? A new major patch is about to come out in 2-3 months. So buy as much tempering alloy as you can but don't use it on yourself just hold half of it. Then sell the other half at 15% higher this month. Look on TTC to find ones that you are selling lower than your own so you still make profit. Even if you don't sell it you can use it for your build later."

Now for the huge patch release they will have say 300 tempering alloys... lets just say they originally sold for 4k each...

They will break this into 8 tempering alloys and sell (5 sets of 8) in each of their guild shops for 50k.... Do this until it is all sold out... Lets face it, people are too lazy to go around to the other guild traders so they will bite the 1k loss. Now about 3 days to 7 days into the new event ... continue to keep the lower priced tempering alloys off the market... People are starting to see in their MM that it's selling higher recently...

Now raise the price to 60k. This time put (10 sets of 8 in each guild house if possible). The people with the abundant amount of money will buy it. It NEVER fails. Now after these top 1% finish buying the tempering alloy they will either usu it or resale it for higher. Either way TTC and MM will start to reflect these higher prices and they will slowly start to trickle into everybodies minds. Jack up the prices Don't get me wrong there will be a need for the tempering alloy...but there is also a pseudo supply and demand being created just for the PATCH event..

Now about in the 1.5 - 2 week mark lower your prices by 5%....You will get many resellers into a trap and they will buy it all up and try selling it...but you are trying to get out quick. The event hype is dying down.

Now for the next 6 months see how slowly the tempering alloy prices drop as new players get to cp 160 and want to buy it to gold their gear.


Dirk in vet trial/dungeon with his shiny new armors one month later..." WHY DO YOU ALL SUCK ...YOU ALL HAVE WEAK ARMORS... Hey healer? HEAL!!!....Tank? TANK!!!! PROBABLY BLUE GEARS FORGET THIS IM GOING TO PVP..."

Dirk walks warps into pvp with his golden gear he spent most of his wealth on he is a pve badass...He walks out of one keep and gets DIRKED by a NB.

Dirk to NB = "WTF meet me outside alone NO CLOAK WEAK $%$%$%$" So they go to the side and the NB doesn't cloak... Incap (well probably dawnbreaker of smiting since zos keeps streamlining that skill removing the identity of classes), surprise attack, reverse slice.

NB to Dirk= "dude you fall so fast are you even wearing inpen?"
Dirk=" Whats inpen?"
NB to Dirk=" you know you have divines, reinforced, and inpen. Without inpen in pvp you are dead. Also you are probably still wearing medium armor...nobody wears medium in pvp nowadays..."
Dirk="This is stupid I just spent money building my build it worked great in pve. Now you say I gotta farm some new gears and play differently in pvp?"
NB to Dirk="People hit hard in pvp if you cant defend against it you are dead...you are just cp 301 CP makes a huge difference trust me"
Dirk= "ok I see"

Dirk goes to look at the prices of the items he used to make his initial wealth still at those high prices and that's when he realized this was all his doing...Not only did he lock himself out of the equation, he has moved the possibility of newer players getting stronger anytime soon out of reach. None of them can afford the materials to advance themselves. They must slowly do it piece by piece if possible. They must wait for the dead time of the year to do so. When prices are not at their peak.

However, every time those prices go up...the miminum amount rises....for example instead of being that initial 4k...they will never fall below 5k anymore. As the iterations of each major patch occurs the price goes up. Extending the reach the newer players have to overcome to get to the endgame. At some point the newer players will play for 2-3 weeks (well since eso has a rich story i will say 3-5 months) and then quit as they can't seem to find help in the CP 160 mark. To get into the pockets of that 1% who will throw the money down fast destroy the markets with their wealth....(wait wasn't this the story of Mansa Musa)... and then people use the TTC and MM to jack up their prices

So he never went back to pvp for 2 years...He used the rest of his wealth to become 9 trait everything...if someone asks for something to be made he can at least make it for them free of charge if they have the mats. He slowly but surely was kicked out off all of his merchant guilds and now he lives the life using builds that are not the meta for others but are the meta for him so that he avoids those prices.

It was once said a noob asked Dirk to help him lvl up quickly to the endgame. Dirk responded saying " No, trust me, I've done that and it was the worst decision I made...i didn't know my class well and had no way how to use it. I still only hve 60 skill points I still have to go around getting them do you really want that?" The noob replied "yes" Dirk then said " if I go into skyreach one more time there ill be brain matter sprinkled all over my keyboard and screen... I can't help you."

Anyways back to what I was saying ....

Auction houses make it easy for resellers to continue to rise the prices and control the markets. This in turn destroys the possibility for newer players to get into the game. Then all you are left with is a shell of a game with no new players and the elite few enjoying the end game content...


Let what the Rawl'Kha heroes do be a wake up call. That this Auction House was slowly starting to creep up. These guilds know that they can sell you a premium because they think they are guaranteed money at that location..a system that was NOT INTENDED BY THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF ESO BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT CAUSES THE FALL OF THE GAME!!!! Yet ZOS and Players keep trying to ruin the ground work of those who probably been left the company. When they rendered a hub usueless, a auction house hub of guild traders that was homogenized in all of their item prices...This was not a joke.

ZOS take this seriously and if you reset their posts I will quit this game on the spot.

My solution is simple. Do not let guilds bid on ANY GUILD TRADER in the SAME CITY of where they were originally at for a month. This way they chose 4 locations to rotate.

Either that or

Ban both TTC and MM

Stagnation = Death

Let's not stagnate.

I met Angry Joe at a community event it was fun btw...
We need a huge overhaul of classes...

Oh and you can tell me this won't happen and you disagree...but like i said i'd rather trust my almost 20 years of playing mmo than your hunches...Let this be placed on the record so all can come and laugh that this is exactly what happened to the game in later years because of their shortsightedness. It's proven...countless of times...

SirAndy

TL:DR
The OP met with Angry Joe ...

Bam_Bam

They don't destroy games. Stop being dramatic

jircris11

All the idiot in rawl did was make it so these guilds got venders in the new area for 15k lol. He is no hero simply a little kid looking for his 15

Bam_Bam

MM and TTC are going nowhere. Get over it and stop drunk-posting.

Crafts_Many_Boxes

TL DR, but what's the alternative? Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM, especially if they're new. Without TTC you could spend hours looking for an item, for those of us with actual lives and jobs that's a problem lol.

ZOS treats ESO as a grand experiment of how to "go their own way" when it comes to MMO design. The fact of the matter is, their crazy free market utopia idea they presented with the trader system is only barely functional BECAUSE of tools like MM and TTC, without those 90% of the population wouldn't bother with trading period. PERIOD. PERIOD.

Banana

Would have taken me all day to write all that

Cpt_Teemo

Auction houses save games tbh lol

Minno

Stop buying overpriced crap lol.
I always undercut too but not enough for some neck-beard to try to make a huge profit.

I sell my dreugh wax at 6k when people want it to be 6400, etc.

Only buy low; it's the only way to crash the market people!

kathandira

I'll buy small things from time to time, and go around to find the cheapest prices. But the majority of the time, my guildies and friends just give each other what we need for free. It's a pay-it-forward system. Some asks for something, if i have it, I give it to them. When the time comes that I ask for something, they will usually respond and give it to me.

Down with the economy! Just help each other.

Runkorko

Sorry, cant agree with you
MM is the only reason ppl use trade houses....
Remove it and see what happens.

Conduit0

Someone needs to send a screenshot of the OP's post to Merriam-Webster so they can update the definition of "drivel" to include a picture of this rant.

LiquidPony

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

TL DR, but what's the alternative? Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM, especially if they're new. Without TTC you could spend hours looking for an item, for those of us with actual lives and jobs that's a problem lol.

ZOS treats ESO as a grand experiment of how to "go their own way" when it comes to MMO design. The fact of the matter is, their crazy free market utopia idea they presented with the trader system is only barely functional BECAUSE of tools like MM and TTC, without those 90% of the population wouldn't bother with trading period. PERIOD. PERIOD.

runkorkoeb17_ESO wrote: »

Sorry, cant agree with you
MM is the only reason ppl use trade houses....
Remove it and see what happens.

Y'all don't think players use Guild Traders on XB1 and PS4? 🤔

Saucy_Jack

Let's say there's a character named LuxLunae. Let's say they come on the forums and write the dryest, most conspiracy-soaked fanfic in history.

Let's say there's another character named Everybody-Else. They read this fanfic.

And then roll their eyes.

Skwor

OP's post is the very definition of "Drama Queen."

Such diatribes never get read nor should they.

To make my point succinctly, it's a freakin game laugh and get over it. This whole event is epic, your post not so much.

Agenericname

Are you saying that after 15 years of dominating the market that it was the auction house that finally brought WoW down?

BuddyAces

I just want you to know I read about 3 sentences and stopped. I don't even want a tldr since I feel dumber enough already.

therift

Thank Stendarr consoles don't have MM and TTC.

It appears we don't need our hands held to figure out how to buy and sell.

Lol.

mustangnut001

No auction house is why I left the game. I didn't want to pay the weekly fee to be in each of the 5 trading guilds.

I just want to play the game, and not be concerned if I would be able to make the money to pay the fees.

kargen27

LuxLunae wrote: »

Threat has been detected, action is required.

MM + TTC + Guild Traders = Auction House in this game...

1. MM lets you track prices that your guilds are selling
2. TTC lets you track prices from many guild traders
3. Guild Traders sell the goods
4. Unmoved locations for these guild traders creating a single hub if you will...

When these things combine, they make an auction house.

I want to first say that, this game was not created with an auction house for a reason. (same way how ZOS tacked on that champion system and caused lag in pvp) They destroy game economies. I say this with almost 20 years of playing MMOs...

Now how does a general auction houses kill the game?

I will try to explain it clearly. I might go scatterbrained so you have been warned before reading this.

Lets say a guy named Derrick At-Aswala (will be referred to as Dirk) joined a prominent traders guild.

The first thing Dirk will be bombarded with is

1. You must make the bare minimum in the guild to stay in the guild
2. You must download MM and/or TTC while selling your stuff
3. If you can't make the bare minimum you must either donate it to the guild bank or buy a raffle ticket

Then he is spammed with it throughout the week via email/guild chat by the guild lead/helpers...

Dirks first week was great he sold the right amount and also participated in the raffle... However after the second week of he was given a warning. He did not make the amount.

So Dirk asks how he can make money in the guild chat. Some one whispers to him " Do you have MM? you see those prices? well when you get those items sell them 5% higher. it's ok because of the location we are in people expect that. They won't want to move to a different location for such a small difference."

So Dirk does this for some months, almost a year, playing pve at his own pace and he's able to stay in the guild. Now dirk has reached CP 160. He has a good chuck of change but he knows that if he uses it to make his build he will be broke for a while. So he randomly shouts in zone chat " I have never actually held 1 M gold in this game in my lfie"

Someone whispers to him "That's easy to make, do you have like 150k to 200k? A new major patch is about to come out in 2-3 months. So buy as much tempering alloy as you can but don't use it on yourself just hold half of it. Then sell the other half at 15% higher this month. Look on TTC to find ones that you are selling lower than your own so you still make profit. Even if you don't sell it you can use it for your build later."

Now for the huge patch release they will have say 300 tempering alloys... lets just say they originally sold for 4k each...

They will break this into 8 tempering alloys and sell (5 sets of 8) in each of their guild shops for 50k.... Do this until it is all sold out... Lets face it, people are too lazy to go around to the other guild traders so they will bite the 1k loss. Now about 3 days to 7 days into the new event ... continue to keep the lower priced tempering alloys off the market... People are starting to see in their MM that it's selling higher recently...

Now raise the price to 60k. This time put (10 sets of 8 in each guild house if possible). The people with the abundant amount of money will buy it. It NEVER fails. Now after these top 1% finish buying the tempering alloy they will either usu it or resale it for higher. Either way TTC and MM will start to reflect these higher prices and they will slowly start to trickle into everybodies minds. Jack up the prices Don't get me wrong there will be a need for the tempering alloy...but there is also a pseudo supply and demand being created just for the PATCH event..

Now about in the 1.5 - 2 week mark lower your prices by 5%....You will get many resellers into a trap and they will buy it all up and try selling it...but you are trying to get out quick. The event hype is dying down.

Now for the next 6 months see how slowly the tempering alloy prices drop as new players get to cp 160 and want to buy it to gold their gear.


Dirk in vet trial/dungeon with his shiny new armors one month later..." WHY DO YOU ALL SUCK ...YOU ALL HAVE WEAK ARMORS... Hey healer? HEAL!!!....Tank? TANK!!!! PROBABLY BLUE GEARS FORGET THIS IM GOING TO PVP..."

Dirk walks warps into pvp with his golden gear he spent most of his wealth on he is a pve badass...He walks out of one keep and gets DIRKED by a NB.

Dirk to NB = "WTF meet me outside alone NO CLOAK WEAK $%$%$%$" So they go to the side and the NB doesn't cloak... Incap (well probably dawnbreaker of smiting since zos keeps streamlining that skill removing the identity of classes), surprise attack, reverse slice.

NB to Dirk= "dude you fall so fast are you even wearing inpen?"
Dirk=" Whats inpen?"
NB to Dirk=" you know you have divines, reinforced, and inpen. Without inpen in pvp you are dead. Also you are probably still wearing medium armor...nobody wears medium in pvp nowadays..."
Dirk="This is stupid I just spent money building my build it worked great in pve. Now you say I gotta farm some new gears and play differently in pvp?"
NB to Dirk="People hit hard in pvp if you cant defend against it you are dead...you are just cp 301 CP makes a huge difference trust me"
Dirk= "ok I see"

Dirk goes to look at the prices of the items he used to make his initial wealth still at those high prices and that's when he realized this was all his doing...Not only did he lock himself out of the equation, he has moved the possibility of newer players getting stronger anytime soon out of reach. None of them can afford the materials to advance themselves. They must slowly do it piece by piece if possible. They must wait for the dead time of the year to do so. When prices are not at their peak.

However, every time those prices go up...the miminum amount rises....for example instead of being that initial 4k...they will never fall below 5k anymore. As the iterations of each major patch occurs the price goes up. Extending the reach the newer players have to overcome to get to the endgame. At some point the newer players will play for 2-3 weeks (well since eso has a rich story i will say 3-5 months) and then quit as they can't seem to find help in the CP 160 mark. To get into the pockets of that 1% who will throw the money down fast destroy the markets with their wealth....(wait wasn't this the story of Mansa Musa)... and then people use the TTC and MM to jack up their prices

So he never went back to pvp for 2 years...He used the rest of his wealth to become 9 trait everything...if someone asks for something to be made he can at least make it for them free of charge if they have the mats. He slowly but surely was kicked out off all of his merchant guilds and now he lives the life using builds that are not the meta for others but are the meta for him so that he avoids those prices.

It was once said a noob asked Dirk to help him lvl up quickly to the endgame. Dirk responded saying " No, trust me, I've done that and it was the worst decision I made...i didn't know my class well and had no way how to use it. I still only hve 60 skill points I still have to go around getting them do you really want that?" The noob replied "yes" Dirk then said " if I go into skyreach one more time there ill be brain matter sprinkled all over my keyboard and screen... I can't help you."

Anyways back to what I was saying ....

Auction houses make it easy for resellers to continue to rise the prices and control the markets. This in turn destroys the possibility for newer players to get into the game. Then all you are left with is a shell of a game with no new players and the elite few enjoying the end game content...


Let what the Rawl'Kha heroes do be a wake up call. That this Auction House was slowly starting to creep up. These guilds know that they can sell you a premium because they think they are guaranteed money at that location..a system that was NOT INTENDED BY THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF ESO BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT CAUSES THE FALL OF THE GAME!!!! Yet ZOS and Players keep trying to ruin the ground work of those who probably been left the company. When they rendered a hub usueless, a auction house hub of guild traders that was homogenized in all of their item prices...This was not a joke.

ZOS take this seriously and if you reset their posts I will quit this game on the spot.

My solution is simple. Do not let guilds bid on ANY GUILD TRADER in the SAME CITY of where they were originally at for a month. This way they chose 4 locations to rotate.

Either that or

Ban both TTC and MM

Stagnation = Death

Let's not stagnate.

I met Angry Joe at a community event it was fun btw...
We need a huge overhaul of classes...

Oh and you can tell me this won't happen and you disagree...but like i said i'd rather trust my almost 20 years of playing mmo than your hunches...Let this be placed on the record so all can come and laugh that this is exactly what happened to the game in later years because of their shortsightedness. It's proven...countless of times...

This was a bad idea in the other threads and is a bad idea here for the reasons stated in all those other threads. I'll give you credit you wrapped a whole lot more words around your bad idea in this thread but it is still a bad idea. A bad idea hidden in an improbable scenario.
What happened in Rawl'Kha isn't a wake-up call. It was a troll who did nothing but get lots of attention in the forums and cost five smaller guilds a chance at a vendor this week. Nothing else happened in game other than those five smaller guilds get no trader.

And I would venture a guess that as many players use MM and TTC to undercut prices as do to raise prices. I am in a large trading guild and we have players that work it both ways. The guild doesn't dictate prices and undercutting inside the guild does happen. Some members want a quick turn around and some don't mind sitting on an item for more gold per item. Both strategies can make a lot of gold.
Prices only seem higher because the foot traffic at those locations means the bargains do not last long.

Kalik_Gold

Most fun buying and selling in an MMO was EC tunnels in EQ, wasn’t a fan of WoW auction house monopolies. I don’t mind the shopping around aspect of ESO.

I do enjoy the 4 guilds I am in. (5th is my solo guild for bank space). All are donation based, with raffles tickets not fees. All do PVE content, social and have traders.

Shop around for a good guild and fit.

Chillic

Lame

Androconium

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

TL DR, but what's the alternative? Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM, especially if they're new. Without TTC you could spend hours looking for an item, for those of us with actual lives and jobs that's a problem lol.

ZOS treats ESO as a grand experiment of how to "go their own way" when it comes to MMO design. The fact of the matter is, their crazy free market utopia idea they presented with the trader system is only barely functional BECAUSE of tools like MM and TTC, without those 90% of the population wouldn't bother with trading period. PERIOD. PERIOD.

Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM

All items come with a default value, except most provisioning (and traits?) which are apparently worthless.

there are many, many things that have no history in MY MM. I just make a guess. If one sells for more and it forms part of my MM data later, then my lower price will bring the average down.

I got the Shivering Cheese shortly after it was introduced. No MM data on it, I'd never heard of it. So I sold it for 5000 Someone else sold theirs for 500 000. That immediately brought the average down to 250 000.

It didn't cost me anything. so I made 5000.

See how MM doesn't work?

SteveCampsOut

If you know where to look to buy low you can beat these over priced a$$hats. Just go to TTC's website and only buy items appropriately priced! Gotta be quick though! They get snatched up quick by resellers.

therift

Androconium wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

TL DR, but what's the alternative? Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM, especially if they're new. Without TTC you could spend hours looking for an item, for those of us with actual lives and jobs that's a problem lol.

ZOS treats ESO as a grand experiment of how to "go their own way" when it comes to MMO design. The fact of the matter is, their crazy free market utopia idea they presented with the trader system is only barely functional BECAUSE of tools like MM and TTC, without those 90% of the population wouldn't bother with trading period. PERIOD. PERIOD.

Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM

All items come with a default value, except most provisioning (and traits?) which are apparently worthless.

there are many, many things that have no history in MY MM. I just make a guess. If one sells for more and it forms part of my MM data later, then my lower price will bring the average down.

I got the Shivering Cheese shortly after it was introduced. No MM data on it, I'd never heard of it. So I sold it for 5000 Someone else sold theirs for 500 000. That immediately brought the average down to 250 000.

It didn't cost me anything. so I made 5000.

See how MM doesn't work?

Console does not have Master Merchant, and we have no problem establishing consensus values for most of the items traded in the game.

We don't have TTC, so the market is not easily manipulated. Rely on these add-ons, and you deserve to get screwed.

You make an excellent point.

Jayman1000

Well, you wrote a long post based on quite a skewed premise: that MM + TTC + Guild Traders = Auction House....

It's not. It really isn't. I often take a stroll round to all the guild hubs and search for cheap items. It's amazing how many good deals you can find here and there when you go on a shopping spree. I dont think you really know what you are talking about here, you just jumped to conclusions based on assumptions.

1. MM lets you track prices that your guilds are selling <- yes, only YOUR guilds (a maximum of 5), not all the other guilds so this is far from being a complete picture of all prices in the game.
2. TTC lets you track prices from many guild traders. <- You use the word "prices" interchangeably here for TTC as you do for MM, but there's a world of difference which you very deceptively have left out (knowingly or not). MM is actual sales, TTC is merely listings that players have scanned and uploaded to the TTC website.
3. Guild Traders sell the goods. <- yes guild traders sell the goods.... so? (what is the point here?)
4. Unmoved locations for these guild traders creating a single hub if you will... <- yes, specific trader locations will develop as the central preferred high volume trading hub for people to get their goods. This is because on one hand some locations are very conveniently placed near wayshrine and bank but also because those very dedicated trader guilds and their very dedicated members make sure to stock an incredible amount of goods at affordable competitive prices (not cheap discount nor overly high prices), so players that need stuff knows they can usually get what they want easily and for a relatively fair price. This does not make it into an AH. You can still travel the world to visit many other traders that may hold some very nice deals now and then.

I am a member of two very high "prominent trading guilds". I do not get bombarded with anything. When I joined I was told the requirements for either minimum weekly sales or minimum donation. I have simply always complied with one of the other. Of course members are required to supply gold to the guild, trader bid prices being what they are, if people don't donate gold who should pay for the trader?
I was never required to install MM or TTC. Though I would never play this game as a trader without MM, that would be really foolish, knowing actual sales data is key to making educated guesses at best future sales prices and thus maximizing profit. I dont use TTC, I dont really see it helping me buy/sell things enough to care.

The whole Dirk story is .. ah, man it's so long, weird and irrelevant for the topic. It's difficult to see what point you are trying to get across?

Anyway, yes resellers can definitely make profit but they cant really control much, they can make some short influence counting on others using their influenced data to do things that they can then quickly profit from, but that's it. I've bought items for reselling plenty of times, simply because I could foresee with some certainty what would happen and then immediately understand I could make an easy fast buck. What did you want me to do then? Should I not have bought those items for cheap and instead mailed the seller suggesting he should raise his prices? Because that is the only real conclusion I can draw from it, and the notion is ridiculous; this is not communist utopia, it really is a capitalist system with many location based markets spread over different locations, so like it or not, but there's an interesting and fun skillbased trading game to be played from all of this.

VaranisArano

mustangnut001 wrote: »

No auction house is why I left the game. I didn't want to pay the weekly fee to be in each of the 5 trading guilds.

I just want to play the game, and not be concerned if I would be able to make the money to pay the fees.

Pick different trading guilds?

I've been in 3 at one time, some of them in good locations, and just chose guilds that only had sales requirements I knew I could meet with how I played.

Jayman1000

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

If you know where to look to buy low you can beat these over priced a$$hats. Just go to TTC's website and only buy items appropriately priced! Gotta be quick though! They get snatched up quick by resellers.

yes, you got to be quick to get the cheap deals. This should hardly come as a surprise. So of course it's going to be bought fast by resellers who may not mind taking longer to sell the goods or who may take a bigger chance by expecting prices to rise. Or perhaps they have a guild with better prices, so they buy up super cheap deals from far away less popular traders and resell them in their central main guild.

Jayman1000

therift wrote: »

Androconium wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

TL DR, but what's the alternative? Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM, especially if they're new. Without TTC you could spend hours looking for an item, for those of us with actual lives and jobs that's a problem lol.

ZOS treats ESO as a grand experiment of how to "go their own way" when it comes to MMO design. The fact of the matter is, their crazy free market utopia idea they presented with the trader system is only barely functional BECAUSE of tools like MM and TTC, without those 90% of the population wouldn't bother with trading period. PERIOD. PERIOD.

Players have no way of knowing an item's worth without MM

All items come with a default value, except most provisioning (and traits?) which are apparently worthless.

there are many, many things that have no history in MY MM. I just make a guess. If one sells for more and it forms part of my MM data later, then my lower price will bring the average down.

I got the Shivering Cheese shortly after it was introduced. No MM data on it, I'd never heard of it. So I sold it for 5000 Someone else sold theirs for 500 000. That immediately brought the average down to 250 000.

It didn't cost me anything. so I made 5000.

See how MM doesn't work?

Console does not have Master Merchant, and we have no problem establishing consensus values for most of the items traded in the game.

We don't have TTC, so the market is not easily manipulated. Rely on these add-ons, and you deserve to get screwed.

You make an excellent point.

We agree comrade in communist sovjet people dont have problem, all stores fully stocked, best price + value for all honest citizens. only capitalist pig dogs get screwed. sorry, I couldnt help myself here... I really mean no offense, but the gist of your post is really like that, painting the glorious image of that amazing console experience without addons..... The fact is that relying on MM will actually help you NOT get screwed. I do not believe you when you say there is no price manipulation on consoles. I think you may just think that because you have no way of knowing when you get screwed, because you have no access to actual sales price information.

Reverb

Holy rambling wall of text!

Synnastix

TL:DR dude

Also - not a problem on console

Also also - trade guilds are probably the biggest guilds of the game, they are part of the community now and going to a central AH takes that away. Depends on if you prefer to empower communities or individuals and the devs made their choice.

That said, I wouldn’t be opposed to a central Trader option that would be in addition to the current system. Let anyone use it, but increase the listing fee 2-3x the guild traders. Gives solo players an option while still emphasizing the benefits of communities.