To all of you upset for NA rawlkha guilds gone...

reoskit

Annomaander_Rake wrote: »

If and I do mean IF, RIOTS was a coordinated move collectively by the guilds usually located in Rawl, then it was a stupid move.

I cannot fathom why people keep speculating that the Rawl GMs orchestrated this.

Like them or not, you have to give the Rawl GMs more credit than that. These GMs are some of the (if not the) most experienced in the game; they've seen chapters and DLCs released and they know the sales those zones pull in. I promise, sales in DLC zones are never anything like what the established trade hubs pull in.

Our (trade guild GMs) job is to secure a kiosk and ensure it's as profitable as it can be for our guildies. That is our goal each and every week. Quite aside from the risk of not securing a Rimmen trader after the patch, no Rawl GM would ever think that moving from Rawl to Rimmen would be a profitable move for their guild.

(Sorry to speak on behalf of you guys, but I'm confident this is accurate.)

Shadowshire wrote: »

Yes, the Guild probably had one Guild Trader as a "fallback" second choice, insofar as it is better to have almost any Trader than none at all.

There is no such thing as a "fallback." You may only bid on one kiosk per week. You either get the kiosk you bid on or you do not. If you lose, best of luck finding and hiring an available kiosk before anyone else gets it. No GM (at this level, anyway) would actively put their guild in that sort of jeopardy.

ZOS_RogerJ

Just a friendly reminder that while it’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread.

ZonasArch

reoskit wrote: »

Annomaander_Rake wrote: »

If and I do mean IF, RIOTS was a coordinated move collectively by the guilds usually located in Rawl, then it was a stupid move.

I cannot fathom why people keep speculating that the Rawl GMs orchestrated this.

Like them or not, you have to give the Rawl GMs more credit than that. These GMs are some of the (if not the) most experienced in the game; they've seen chapters and DLCs released and they know the sales those zones pull in. I promise, sales in DLC zones are never anything like what the established trade hubs pull in.

Our (trade guild GMs) job is to secure a kiosk and ensure it's as profitable as it can be for our guildies. That is our goal each and every week. Quite aside from the risk of not securing a Rimmen trader after the patch, no Rawl GM would ever think that moving from Rawl to Rimmen would be a profitable move for their guild.

(Sorry to speak on behalf of you guys, but I'm confident this is accurate.)

Shadowshire wrote: »

Yes, the Guild probably had one Guild Trader as a "fallback" second choice, insofar as it is better to have almost any Trader than none at all.

There is no such thing as a "fallback." You may only bid on one kiosk per week. You either get the kiosk you bid on or you do not. If you lose, best of luck finding and hiring an available kiosk before anyone else gets it. No GM (at this level, anyway) would actively put their guild in that sort of jeopardy.

This "fall back" strat is so talked about is one I've never seen employed by any big guild, but supposedly they have a secondary guild that also bids somewhere, and if they lose their main spot, they dissolve the secondary one, and hire the trader with the main, for 10k. Tbh, it sounds pretty stupid, and that's because it probably is, and you'd need to have 50 accounts from people willing to help with that just to avoid one week of traderless deals. Pretty expensive too.

I know of only one guild that ever considered doing that, and only as a single time move as they wanted to dissolve the secondary guild anyway, but they weren't willing to build it back up for a second "fall back". And even then, this was for a smaller guild that used to be on Skywatch(8mi weekly), then alinor(25mi) and now they are in Rimmen, as I understand. Not at all a relevant trading guild, as that's not even their main focus.

What I did see once, and this is hearsay for all intents and purposes, even though I trust the sources, is one guild that snagged a mournhold trader from some lousy GM that got entitled and bid too low, and the guild only did this to profit, apparently, hoping the big entitled guild would buy their "dissolve" and get the spot back. Pretty smart move, but also kinda predatory. This was a while back. That's when I learned that dissolving guilds open the traders. Or used to open, don't if that changed.

JumpmanLane

I’ve been in my trade guild AUT for a while and will do what I can to support them through this griefing (that’s all it was).

I’ve made a lot of money in that guild. Stuff just sells. AUT has the most reasonable means of determining contributions to the guild by counting purchases along with sales.

The officers and leaders seem nice (particularly Sylvie) and actually interact with their guildies. It’s just a great guild. So, an attack on AUT is an attack on US (or on me) as AUT makes you feel like a part of it’s community. Great, great guild.

kargen27

CipherNine wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

ZonasArch wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

ZonasArch wrote: »

squinquargesimus wrote: »

Guys, it wasn't planned, it was really a situation of some dedicated troll (or group of) doing it to make some sort of statement about cartels and the GMs running to Rimmen asap to get a backup. It wouldn't have made sense to do that as some sort of publicity stunt, especially not when an xpac with tons of new stuff just dropped (and actually, early adopters do shop around this time and pay premium. idk why, but they do: source, me being able to sell new things for three times as much as they were worth two to three weeks earlier for both of the last chapters).

Looked like a very creative buthurt individual to me. Talk about dedication... Blood pressure thru the roof!

Still funny though, considering they also failed miserably after having succeed for such a brief period.

How did they fail? They got the whole fourms including you to talk about it. And we all know those guilds ain't going to make ad mucj gold as they would in their normal spots. On top of that the members pay their stupid high premium to secure a top tier spot and they failed. I hope they don't charge their members for this week.

I also hope this RIOT squad does this again. Good on them.

These greasy GMs sit back and charge out the butt and pocket the gold like crazy. You don't need to charge 500 members 10k a week to get a spot in town. As if theu spend 5,000,000 a week on that trader. They get it every week so you know most guilds don't bother bidding which allows them to drop the bid prove slowly resulting in more $$$ for the pocket.

Yup, then you have the white knights come running to the defense of this stupid system and the defense of the GM's. Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

You've never managed a trading guild, have you? I know you haven't. Easy to tell :P

lol oh look there is an example. Nope I haven't and I don't need to. I led a guild in Final Fantasy 11, then WoW and Swtor.
i don't need to lead a trading guild to know exactly why any GM does it. It's a easy way to just use tons of people to pocket millions of gold. Wtf other reason would there be for anyone to want to create a trading guild?

You just outed yourself as a scammer in 3 other games...

wtf are you even talking about? outed myself as a scammer in 3 other games? That might be the most asinine accusation I have ever read.
How the hell is leading guilds in those other mmo's make me a scammer? wtf are you on?

You said it yourself. The only reason to make a guild is to make money from your members.

lol actually no that is not what I said. you are taking out a few words and changing what i said. which is pointless to do cause what i really said is right there. I said the point of making a "trade guild" is to make gold. but you know that. you was just twisting around what i said in an attempt to call me a scammer in 3 other games with absolutely no proof of that.

Might be what you meant but the way you worded it definitely came off as you making millions of gold off of others.

"They sit back and USE all these people TO just POCKET millions of gold." Hard to read that any way but you are profiting by using others.

jainiadral

ZonasArch wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

JumpmanLane wrote: »

No wonder my crap ain’t selling I’m SO pissed 😠

Them broke nerds in Rimmen ain’t buying NOTHING!

LOL, not broke but am in Rimmen buying nothing as always

This thread has bern really enlightening. I never pictured trading GMs as being fat cats. But I had no idea how much work this stupid system was or how many resources were wasted. Seems like a lot of time, gold, and effort for something that should be handled automatically by an in-game system-- like in practically every other MMO on the market.

I wasn't even a GM, just an officer, and in a medium sized guild, and I couldn't handle school and "officiant". Granted, it's engineering school, but still...

Hard work for sure, and solid guilds won't get hurt because if such hard work. Also why I don't feel bad about finding this whole riots thing funny.

I'm not surprised you couldn't keep up. I was in a small trading guild for a while, and the GM seemed like he was under constant stress. Half the time, we couldn't get a trader and he'd spend a lot of time in chat apologizing. He'd spend even more trying to recruit and was frequently available at weird hours to answer trading questions. Not to mention doing raffles-- whatever was involved in that-- probably lots of tedious sorting and organization.

Now after reading what's involved with getting a trader... ugh. What a stupid, wasteful system!

I agree-- these threads are good popcorn fodder So much better than the PvP/PvE player wars.

CipherNine

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

sionIV wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm probably a little more sophisticated than most people in thinking about this stuff, in that:

How to instantly lose any credibility to your argument.

That's a problem mainly with readers outside my target audience. I don't write for idiots.

Then you shouldn't bother with it here. Because some people here like to twist around what someone says and take out a few words then make wild accusations about you. Which the proof is right in this thread. like accusing others of being a scammer for absolutely no reason in other games when they obviously have no clue about those games.
This thread probably should of just been closed by now. it's hardly constructive.

reoskit

CipherNine wrote: »

Because some people here like to twist around what someone says and take out a few words then make wild accusations about you. [...} like accusing others of being a scammer for absolutely no reason in other games when they obviously have no clue about those games.

I know, riiiiight? Doesn't it just suck when people make wild accusations about you scamming people when they don't know you?!

CipherNine wrote: »

Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

CipherNine wrote: »

i don't need to lead a trading guild to know exactly why any GM does it. It's a easy way to just use tons of people to pocket millions of gold. Wtf other reason would there be for anyone to want to create a trading guild?

CipherNine

reoskit wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

Because some people here like to twist around what someone says and take out a few words then make wild accusations about you. [...} like accusing others of being a scammer for absolutely no reason in other games when they obviously have no clue about those games.

I know, riiiiight? Doesn't it just suck when people make wild accusations about you scamming people when they don't know you?!

CipherNine wrote: »

Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

CipherNine wrote: »

i don't need to lead a trading guild to know exactly why any GM does it. It's a easy way to just use tons of people to pocket millions of gold. Wtf other reason would there be for anyone to want to create a trading guild?

Sure, I mostly exaggerated with that cause of my hatred for the guild trade system. I hate it. I'm hardly the only one. What I mostly meant was the point of a Trade guild is to make gold and the guild members play a big role in that.. its to not run trials and dungeons.

dragonz868

As for people saying it was a plot to move to Rimmen, Why would any big guild WANT to limit their sales to ONLY people that bought the expansion?? Talk about cutting your own throat. In Rawl, EVERYONE has access. Traders in DLC areas would actually limit your customer base.

Jayman1000

JumpmanLane wrote: »

No wonder my crap ain’t selling I’m SO pissed 😠
Them broke nerds in Rimmen ain’t buying NOTHING!

Funny story those broke nerds are still buying all muh junk, at increased prices even (but that may just be Elsweyr talking).

EllieBlue

CipherNine wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

Because some people here like to twist around what someone says and take out a few words then make wild accusations about you. [...} like accusing others of being a scammer for absolutely no reason in other games when they obviously have no clue about those games.

I know, riiiiight? Doesn't it just suck when people make wild accusations about you scamming people when they don't know you?!

CipherNine wrote: »

Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

CipherNine wrote: »

i don't need to lead a trading guild to know exactly why any GM does it. It's a easy way to just use tons of people to pocket millions of gold. Wtf other reason would there be for anyone to want to create a trading guild?

Sure, I mostly exaggerated with that cause of my hatred for the guild trade system. I hate it. I'm hardly the only one. What I mostly meant was the point of a Trade guild is to make gold and the guild members play a big role in that.. its to not run trials and dungeons.

So you hate the trading system provided by ZOS. And that hatred entitled you to slander, vilify and crucify without a single proof, the trading guild GMs that have to work with the only system that is available in the game? Even though you know nothing about running a guild, leave alone running a large trading guild. Even though you don't know any of these individuals? Even though you have zero understanding of the subject you are talking about? Maybe you should take a minute and do a little self-reflection... you seem to need it.. for a little perspective.

PS: Are you also, like, 12 years old? Because [/quote]Sure, I mostly exaggerated with that cause of my hatred for the guild trade system. I hate it. I'm hardly the only one. What I mostly meant was the point of a Trade guild is to make gold and the guild members play a big role in that.. its to not run trials and dungeons. [/quote] sounds like something that some bratty 12 yrs old kids would say in a tantrum. Just saying.

reoskit

CipherNine wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

CipherNine wrote: »

Because some people here like to twist around what someone says and take out a few words then make wild accusations about you. [...} like accusing others of being a scammer for absolutely no reason in other games when they obviously have no clue about those games.

I know, riiiiight? Doesn't it just suck when people make wild accusations about you scamming people when they don't know you?!

CipherNine wrote: »

Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

CipherNine wrote: »

i don't need to lead a trading guild to know exactly why any GM does it. It's a easy way to just use tons of people to pocket millions of gold. Wtf other reason would there be for anyone to want to create a trading guild?

Sure, I mostly exaggerated with that cause of my hatred for the guild trade system. I hate it. I'm hardly the only one. What I mostly meant was the point of a Trade guild is to make gold and the guild members play a big role in that.. its to not run trials and dungeons.

Like a moth to flame, I cannot help myself.

You cannot rewrite history to make yourself look better. That is absolutely not what you said, not what you implied, and not what most/anyone would infer from the noxious things you said.

If that is what you think you meant, I strongly recommend you pause and pick your words more carefully next time.

In the meanwhile, do not ever presume you know (never mind state that you know) the ethics, morals, or motivations anyone else.

squinquargesimus

h o n e s t l y

"all these people aren't actually working hard! they're just scamming!!! ....someone accused me of scamming over an awkwardly worded post, it feels bad :C what do you mean i accused others of scamming for no good reason too i was just venting about the trader system!" dude, uh, you didn't, you're the last person in this thread who can complain that others accused you of being scammer.


Personally, I still wanna know why the top spots are too expensive for smaller guilds when they don't actually cost that much and saying they do is just the GMs scamming, and why we are acting entitled for pointing out that this wasted 5 slots for this week, but saying guilds that don't have the resources to land a Rawl spot should get one anyway and we're, like, evil for buying them every week isn't entitled, somehow.

Does the guild trader system suck for people that would want to trade but are going "Oh god no, social interaction"? Sure. (Feeling it! That was me for whole 3 days until I talked myself into it by going "Well, I don't have to actually talk to people, I just have to pay my reqs and sell stuff." (spoilers alert: I talk to people in guild chat after all, so that was a lot of fuss about nothing.)) Does it suck for people who only want to trade very occasionally, when they have found something big or are broke or wanna unload accumulated drops? Yeah. But that's ZOS's fault for making this particular system, not the trade GMs' and not the trade guild members.

Shadowshire

reoskit wrote: »

....

Shadowshire wrote: »

Yes, the Guild probably had one Guild Trader as a "fallback" second choice, insofar as it is better to have almost any Trader than none at all.

There is no such thing as a "fallback." You may only bid on one kiosk per week. You either get the kiosk you bid on or you do not. If you lose, best of luck finding and hiring an available kiosk before anyone else gets it. No GM (at this level, anyway) would actively put their guild in that sort of jeopardy.

My apologies for the misleading statement which you quoted. In discussions among guild officers of a guild in which I was once a member (the guild disbanded over two years ago) the term "fallback" was used.

But what it meant was that the officer who sumbitted the bid for the chosen Guild Trader also had another Guild Trader(s) in mind perchance (1) the bid for the chosen Guild Trader failed, and (2) another Guild Trader remained available after all of the bids had been submitted, because none had been submitted for that Guild Trader. That is, the bidder had a priority list of "fallback" Guild Traders to check for availablity if the bid for the chosen kiosk failed.

According to other comments which I read in this discussion, that is what happened at Rawlkh'a. Namely, that most of the bidders remained online until all the winners of the initial bids for Guild Traders were announced for this week. When they discovered that the so-called "R.I.O.T.S." guildmaster(s) had outbid them for their usual Guild Trader, they scrambled to bid for another Guild Trader which was available. That is why The Angry Unicorn has Alisewen (sp?) at Windhelm as their Guild Trader for this week instead of Ronuril at Rawlkh'a.

However, I do not know how ZOS currently resolves any competing bids for any remaining Guild Traders (for which no bid was submitted before the bidding deadline). If I recall correctly, then the past -- whether current -- practice was for ZOS to accept the first bid submitted for any remaining available Guild Trader (i.e., the first bid submitted for a "kiosk" that remained available after the announcement of the winning bids for the other "kiosks").

Occasionally, I've read Chat or heard on Discord, that some Guildmaster or guild officer failed to submit a bid for their intended Guild Trader before the deadline. As a result, another clever guildmaster or officer who was monitoring the ZOS announcements quickly submitted a bid for that Guild Trader and their small "unknown" guild had that kiosk for (at least) the next week.

That said, insofar as I do not yet have Elsweyr installed (whether I ever will remains to be seen), I don't know how many of the five guilds who where outbid at Rawlkh'a submitted a bid for a Guild Trader at Rimmen in Elsweyr and succeeded.

For what it is worth, I also had assumed that ZOS allowed bids for the Guild Traders at Rimmen to be submitted before the deadline for this week. However, since then, from remarks posted in this discussion, I have been apprised that ZOS did not allow bids to be submitted for them, because the Elsweyr Chapter was not yet installed on the megaserver and the Guild Traders there had not been added to the bidding system.

So, all Rimmen Guild Traders were "up for grabs" as soon as the release went "live". Oh well, I can imagine the enusing "riot" ... indeed.

By the way, the central point of my remarks about this event is that ZOS is responsible for it, because they designed the Guild Trader system and the system of bidding for them. The R.I.O.T.S. team simply chose to plan and organize an attempt -- and to acquire and expend the Gold Pieces necessary (!!!) -- to exploit a vulnerability which is inherent in the system design, and their exploit succeeded. In sum, short, and fine, they hacked it. (Duh!)

Their rationale was, allegedly, a mistaken belief that the respective Guilds who have ordinarily succeeded in bidding for the Guild Traders at Rawlkh'a act as a "cartel" to control who wins. Granted, those Guilds may or may not have some sort of "gentlemen's agreement" -- whether an explicit one, or just a customary understanding -- to not bid on any other Guild Trader at Rawlkh'a other than the one which they have customarily chosen. Regardless, any such "agreement" does not in any way stop any Guild from bidding for any Guild Trader whom they choose, no matter the location. As the R.I.O.T.S. team clearly demonstrated, the highest bidder always wins.

Are we all happy now? .......

hmsdragonfly

CipherNine wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

ZonasArch wrote: »

squinquargesimus wrote: »

Guys, it wasn't planned, it was really a situation of some dedicated troll (or group of) doing it to make some sort of statement about cartels and the GMs running to Rimmen asap to get a backup. It wouldn't have made sense to do that as some sort of publicity stunt, especially not when an xpac with tons of new stuff just dropped (and actually, early adopters do shop around this time and pay premium. idk why, but they do: source, me being able to sell new things for three times as much as they were worth two to three weeks earlier for both of the last chapters).

Looked like a very creative buthurt individual to me. Talk about dedication... Blood pressure thru the roof!

Still funny though, considering they also failed miserably after having succeed for such a brief period.

How did they fail? They got the whole fourms including you to talk about it. And we all know those guilds ain't going to make ad mucj gold as they would in their normal spots. On top of that the members pay their stupid high premium to secure a top tier spot and they failed. I hope they don't charge their members for this week.

I also hope this RIOT squad does this again. Good on them.

These greasy GMs sit back and charge out the butt and pocket the gold like crazy. You don't need to charge 500 members 10k a week to get a spot in town. As if theu spend 5,000,000 a week on that trader. They get it every week so you know most guilds don't bother bidding which allows them to drop the bid prove slowly resulting in more $$$ for the pocket.

Yup, then you have the white knights come running to the defense of this stupid system and the defense of the GM's. Acting like the GM's work sooooo hard for them. LOL total bs. They sit back and use all these people to just pocket millions of gold. working hard my ass. lol.

You lose money by running a guild. You don't make any. Let's say your guild gets 4k by tax for each member a week (that means a member sells 50k by average), then your guild only gets 2 million of tax money, that's usually only half the price of a mediocre spot.
You need pocket money from yourself and from officers, and donation from guildies to secure a good spot.

Ri_Khan

So is anyone else interested to see if these poor, victimized guilds will be moving back to their hijacked kiosks in Rawl'kha tonight?

StabbityDoom

Ri_Khan wrote: »

So is anyone else interested to see if these poor, victimized guilds will be moving back to their hijacked kiosks in Rawl'kha tonight?

Why yes, yes I am.

And you know, i think i'm going to donate some more money right now because you posted this.

Pevey

Shadowshire wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

....

Shadowshire wrote: »

Yes, the Guild probably had one Guild Trader as a "fallback" second choice, insofar as it is better to have almost any Trader than none at all.

There is no such thing as a "fallback." You may only bid on one kiosk per week. You either get the kiosk you bid on or you do not. If you lose, best of luck finding and hiring an available kiosk before anyone else gets it. No GM (at this level, anyway) would actively put their guild in that sort of jeopardy.

My apologies for the misleading statement which you quoted. In discussions among guild officers of a guild in which I was once a member (the guild disbanded over two years ago) the term "fallback" was used.

But what it meant was that the officer who sumbitted the bid for the chosen Guild Trader also had another Guild Trader(s) in mind perchance (1) the bid for the chosen Guild Trader failed, and (2) another Guild Trader remained available after all of the bids had been submitted, because none had been submitted for that Guild Trader. That is, the bidder had a priority list of "fallback" Guild Traders to check for availablity if the bid for the chosen kiosk failed.

According to other comments which I read in this discussion, that is what happened at Rawlkh'a. Namely, that most of the bidders remained online until all the winners of the initial bids for Guild Traders were announced for this week. When they discovered that the so-called "R.I.O.T.S." guildmaster(s) had outbid them for their usual Guild Trader, they scrambled to bid for another Guild Trader which was available. That is why The Angry Unicorn has Alisewen (sp?) at Windhelm as their Guild Trader for this week instead of Ronuril at Rawlkh'a.

However, I do not know how ZOS currently resolves any competing bids for any remaining Guild Traders (for which no bid was submitted before the bidding deadline). If I recall correctly, then the past -- whether current -- practice was for ZOS to accept the first bid submitted for any remaining available Guild Trader (i.e., the first bid submitted for a "kiosk" that remained available after the announcement of the winning bids for the other "kiosks").

Occasionally, I've read Chat or heard on Discord, that some Guildmaster or guild officer failed to submit a bid for their intended Guild Trader before the deadline. As a result, another clever guildmaster or officer who was monitoring the ZOS announcements quickly submitted a bid for that Guild Trader and their small "unknown" guild had that kiosk for (at least) the next week.

That said, insofar as I do not yet have Elsweyr installed (whether I ever will remains to be seen), I don't know how many of the five guilds who where outbid at Rawlkh'a submitted a bid for a Guild Trader at Rimmen in Elsweyr and succeeded.

For what it is worth, I also had assumed that ZOS allowed bids for the Guild Traders at Rimmen to be submitted before the deadline for this week. However, since then, from remarks posted in this discussion, I have been apprised that ZOS did not allow bids to be submitted for them, because the Elsweyr Chapter was not yet installed on the megaserver and the Guild Traders there had not been added to the bidding system.

So, all Rimmen Guild Traders were "up for grabs" as soon as the release went "live". Oh well, I can imagine the enusing "riot" ... indeed.

By the way, the central point of my remarks about this event is that ZOS is responsible for it, because they designed the Guild Trader system and the system of bidding for them. The R.I.O.T.S. team simply chose to plan and organize an attempt -- and to acquire and expend the Gold Pieces necessary (!!!) -- to exploit a vulnerability which is inherent in the system design, and their exploit succeeded. In sum, short, and fine, they hacked it. (Duh!)

Their rationale was, allegedly, a mistaken belief that the respective Guilds who have ordinarily succeeded in bidding for the Guild Traders at Rawlkh'a act as a "cartel" to control who wins. Granted, those Guilds may or may not have some sort of "gentlemen's agreement" -- whether an explicit one, or just a customary understanding -- to not bid on any other Guild Trader at Rawlkh'a other than the one which they have customarily chosen. Regardless, any such "agreement" does not in any way stop any Guild from bidding for any Guild Trader whom they choose, no matter the location. As the R.I.O.T.S. team clearly demonstrated, the highest bidder always wins.

Are we all happy now? .......

It’s pretty clear that you still don’t really understand how the trader bid system works.

squinquargesimus

@Shadowshire, you don't bid on traders that are still free after rollover at the start of the week -- you just buy it for 10K, first come first serve.

Which makes this whole riots thing even sillier -- we ended up saving the money for the bid this week and still made a good amount of money in Rimmen 😂

Cloudtrader

This thread has bern really enlightening. I never pictured trading GMs as being fat cats. But I had no idea how much work this stupid system was or how many resources were wasted. Seems like a lot of time, gold, and effort for something that should be handled automatically by an in-game system-- like in practically every other MMO on the market.[/quote]

You're right, the trader system DOES "waste" a lot of time, gold, and effort. And, in my opinion, that is why the economy in ESO doesn't suffer from the hyperinflation that a lot of other MMO economies suffer from. Gold in any game like this is infinitely-generating, which means that if there is no sufficient gold-sink then inflation would keep seeing prices for EVERYTHING going up up up, which bars new players with very little gold from participating in the economy. If new players can't participate, the economy stagnates.

The guild trader system sucks. But it is also the best system I've seen in any game to keep inflation down.

ZonasArch

Cloudtrader wrote: »

This thread has bern really enlightening. I never pictured trading GMs as being fat cats. But I had no idea how much work this stupid system was or how many resources were wasted. Seems like a lot of time, gold, and effort for something that should be handled automatically by an in-game system-- like in practically every other MMO on the market.

You're right, the trader system DOES "waste" a lot of time, gold, and effort. And, in my opinion, that is why the economy in ESO doesn't suffer from the hyperinflation that a lot of other MMO economies suffer from. Gold in any game like this is infinitely-generating, which means that if there is no sufficient gold-sink then inflation would keep seeing prices for EVERYTHING going up up up, which bars new players with very little gold from participating in the economy. If new players can't participate, the economy stagnates.

The guild trader system sucks. But it is also the best system I've seen in any game to keep inflation down.[/quote]

Yet, people complain about gold sinks like this or outfits, but don't realize how important it is.

Shadowshire

squinquargesimus wrote: »

@Shadowshire, you don't bid on traders that are still free after rollover at the start of the week -- you just buy it for 10K, first come first serve.

Which makes this whole riots thing even sillier -- we ended up saving the money for the bid this week and still made a good amount of money in Rimmen 😂

Thank-you for the information. I could not recall the minimum amount that a guildmaster or officer must pay for a Guild Trader who remains available after "rollover". So, ZOS has not changed the system much, if at all, since I was last apprised of it.

The recovery for the guild(s) which obtained a Guild Trader in Rimmen may have been reasonable. But the AUT Guild Trader in Windhelm (Eastmarch) has apparently been a dud. Even daily advertising via Tamriel Trade Center does not seem to have had much effect -- at least not upon my sales for the past week.

But the game goes on. I am also a member of two other "trading guilds" who have Guild Traders in good locations. Both of the two others of which I am also a member are not explicitly "trading guilds". However, they do have a reasonable amount of support from their members. Nonetheless, whether one of them, in particular, has a Guild Trader is always unknown until after the "rollover".

On the face of it the, R.I.O.T.S. hack did no good for anyone. But it has been an opportunity for communication between the Guildmasters and other players about why the in-game economy functions as it does, and for all of us to learn more about the Guild Trader system in TESO.

jainiadral

Cloudtrader wrote: »

This thread has bern really enlightening. I never pictured trading GMs as being fat cats. But I had no idea how much work this stupid system was or how many resources were wasted. Seems like a lot of time, gold, and effort for something that should be handled automatically by an in-game system-- like in practically every other MMO on the market.

You're right, the trader system DOES "waste" a lot of time, gold, and effort. And, in my opinion, that is why the economy in ESO doesn't suffer from the hyperinflation that a lot of other MMO economies suffer from. Gold in any game like this is infinitely-generating, which means that if there is no sufficient gold-sink then inflation would keep seeing prices for EVERYTHING going up up up, which bars new players with very little gold from participating in the economy. If new players can't participate, the economy stagnates.

The guild trader system sucks. But it is also the best system I've seen in any game to keep inflation down.

It also keeps a lot of people out. <---points to self

And it wastes tons of player time when trying to shop-- in addition to selling. I'll personally take a hyper-inflted system over a time-wasting kludge like this. I'm sitting on piles of gold I've made by questing. I'll never spend it because the whole system is a massive time sink when you just want to buy something. I like spending my pretend money in games that let me do it seamlessly. Here, my bank account grows and Joe Player-Merchant gets none of it.

Hyperinflation doesn't necessarily reduce fun and participation, but this system does. On that count, I'd call this the biggest failure of a trading system in any game.

Shadowshire

ZonasArch wrote: »

You're right, the trader system DOES "waste" a lot of time, gold, and effort. And, in my opinion, that is why the economy in ESO doesn't suffer from the hyperinflation that a lot of other MMO economies suffer from. Gold in any game like this is infinitely-generating, which means that if there is no sufficient gold-sink then inflation would keep seeing prices for EVERYTHING going up up up, which bars new players with very little gold from participating in the economy. If new players can't participate, the economy stagnates.

The guild trader system sucks. But it is also the best system I've seen in any game to keep inflation down.

Yet, people complain about gold sinks like this or outfits, but don't realize how important it is.

Although ZOS has tilted Homestead and crafted furnishing costs to favor buying Homesteads furnished via the Crown Store, that feature of the game is also another gold sink. It has not proven to be quite so reliable, though, as the Guild Trader system.

Frankly, the Guild Trader system has not, in my observation and experience, curbed price inflation. Prices tend to rise and fall according to the Laws of Supply and Demand. Which is to note that the decline in players after the flood from Tamriel One crested has reduced demand, thus tended to reduce prices.

But, so far, it has not deflated the cost for materials used to craft Furnishings. Jewelry Crafting has been a sad disappointment because of the ultra-low drop rate for Zircon grains and Chromium grains, from refining Patinum Dust. IMHO, the ZOS designer(s) also made a mistake by making all of the Master Writs for Jewelry Crafting require making either an Epic or a Legendary piece.

The only thing more amazing than the number of Zircon and Chromium platings which are for sale, respectively, are the 5-digit prices for them. So I suppose that you could say that Jewelry is definitely another "gold sink", whether that was intended.

For what it may be worth, my only other experience with a large-scale MMORPG economy has been "playing the Auction House" in World of Warcraft. The Law of Supply and Demand is quite evident there, and prices rise and fall accordingly as long as there are enough suppliers to meet or surpass the demand for the goods they sell.

Sometimes a small group of crafters can "corner" the market and implicitly fix prices, whether they actively create a "cartel". But all it takes is one determined competitor who is willing to invest the time and effort to break a monopolistic stranglehold. Not that the other players who have the monopoly cannot adopt various tactics to attempt to stop the new arrival from spoiling their party. Let's just say that the trade war can become "interesting".

So, it seems that I have become a veteran merchant.

vierne

jainiadral wrote: »

And it wastes tons of player time when trying to shop-- in addition to selling. I'll personally take a hyper-inflted system over a time-wasting kludge like this. I'm sitting on piles of gold I've made by questing. I'll never spend it because the whole system is a massive time sink when you just want to buy something. I like spending my pretend money in games that let me do it seamlessly. Here, my bank account grows and Joe Player-Merchant gets none of it.

Hyperinflation doesn't necessarily reduce fun and participation, but this system does. On that count, I'd call this the biggest failure of a trading system in any game.

Maybe it wastes time, but it creates arbitrage opportunities in the market. I'm often willing to pay for a reasonably marked up item (ie close to MM price) when I don't have to rifle through TTC and hoof it to the middle of nowhere, and in my experience as a trader, other people also are. The bigger trading guilds also have very well-stocked storefronts.

Want to see real inflation? Try SWTOR. 200,000 credits, the credit cap for a free-to-play player, is worth peanuts. An armour set typically listed for 1 million on the galactic trade network is considered cheap. There's no substantial credit sink like bidding on guild traders. Couple that with several exploits over the years that introduced billions of credits into the economy (and no attempt by the devs to remove them) and buying credits with real money and you get a hyper-inflated economy. Your very first story mission reward? 10 credits.

The one thing I really liked about ESO when I first started playing was that I was actually able to afford some cool things from guild traders very quickly.

jainiadral

vierne wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

And it wastes tons of player time when trying to shop-- in addition to selling. I'll personally take a hyper-inflted system over a time-wasting kludge like this. I'm sitting on piles of gold I've made by questing. I'll never spend it because the whole system is a massive time sink when you just want to buy something. I like spending my pretend money in games that let me do it seamlessly. Here, my bank account grows and Joe Player-Merchant gets none of it.

Hyperinflation doesn't necessarily reduce fun and participation, but this system does. On that count, I'd call this the biggest failure of a trading system in any game.

Maybe it wastes time, but it creates arbitrage opportunities in the market. I'm often willing to pay for a reasonably marked up item (ie close to MM price) when I don't have to rifle through TTC and hoof it to the middle of nowhere, and in my experience as a trader, other people also are. The bigger trading guilds also have very well-stocked storefronts.

Want to see real inflation? Try SWTOR. 200,000 credits, the credit cap for a free-to-play player, is worth peanuts. An armour set typically listed for 1 million on the galactic trade network is considered cheap. There's no substantial credit sink like bidding on guild traders. Couple that with several exploits over the years that introduced billions of credits into the economy (and no attempt by the devs to remove them) and buying credits with real money and you get a hyper-inflated economy. Your very first story mission reward? 10 credits.

The one thing I really liked about ESO when I first started playing was that I was actually able to afford some cool things from guild traders very quickly.

I played SWTOR for more time than I'd like to admit; I'd take that inflation over this any day. Because I could list what I wanted on the GTN when I wanted. I could find things in one search when I wanted without spending days chasing outdated info on the TTC site.

Pricing beyond the F2P limit has always been a problem in SWTOR far before the exploit that kicked off hyperinflation ever occurred. It was an issue back in 2014 when I first started playing, and it's a dev-engineered issue. Without punitive credit limits to force players to sub, inflation would be less of an issue.

Edit, TL;DR: The SWTOR issues are related to a crappy business model and an exploit that the devs never properly punished offenders for, not the AH.

squinquargesimus

Honestly I can't understand having seen the way swtor's economy went between the removal of gold sinks (farewell, sweet trading costs...) and the exploits and high level quest rewards and then wanting that in another game.

Like, when I semi-quit swtor I was still rich -- still am, whenever I go back for new story updates, though my wallet has gotten emptier between buying new sets but not playing enough to make the credits back -- because playing the market was one of my main pastimes in the game, so I could always afford what I wanted. But I'll take the additional time required by walking over to a guild trader any day over seeing an inflation from say, additional character slots being ~400K when I started playing to 3+ million the last time I looked for any. And if you're a new player who doesn't have the market game quite figured out yet or doesn't have the time to sink into crew skills or just plain doesn't enjoy the babysitting involved with them... you're essentially screwed cause you'll never make enough gold to actually participate in the player economy otherwise (unless you want to grind yourself to death via dailies I guess ).

jainiadral

squinquargesimus wrote: »

Honestly I can't understand having seen the way swtor's economy went between the removal of gold sinks (farewell, sweet trading costs...) and the exploits and high level quest rewards and then wanting that in another game.

Like, when I semi-quit swtor I was still rich -- still am, whenever I go back for new story updates, though my wallet has gotten emptier between buying new sets but not playing enough to make the credits back -- because playing the market was one of my main pastimes in the game, so I could always afford what I wanted. But I'll take the additional time required by walking over to a guild trader any day over seeing an inflation from say, additional character slots being ~400K when I started playing to 3+ million the last time I looked for any. And if you're a new player who doesn't have the market game quite figured out yet or doesn't have the time to sink into crew skills or just plain doesn't enjoy the babysitting involved with them... you're essentially screwed cause you'll never make enough gold to actually participate in the player economy otherwise (unless you want to grind yourself to death via dailies I guess ).

I was never a tycoon, but I always did reasonably well in the market. I started totally fresh in 2016(7?) after quitting and nuking my account a couple of years earlier. Load yourself up with gathering skills and you'll do fine. Scavenging/archaeology/slicing were always good bets. Price each of your pieces between 500-1500 credits, depending on the price of the day, and you'd do ok. That price range never changed much over the years. Trying to sell anything crafted, OTOH, could be a gamble and time sink so I never bothered. I'd spend 5-10 minutes a day, and I was never short on credits to buy essentials, let alone the occasional extravagance.

Jayman1000

EDIT: nvm, I was in another thread but after posting a reply I was suddenly in this thread, so this is non related post.....