Crown / Chapter / ESO+ Sub Trader idea

richo262

This is inspired by two things 1) my hatred of bot farmers and 2) improving the manner at which crown items are traded.

My idea involves an NPC in Cold Harbor that acts similar to a banker but instead of a guild store he has an auction house (no, not in game farmable items, not in competition with present guild traders, purely for crown items, chapters and subs). If a player has crowns they wish to sell they simply list them at the rate per crown they are prepared to sell them at. If a player wishes to purchase crown, they go to the NPC where they are presented with the crown store but instead of crowns, they can place a bid on an item at a rate per crown. If enough crown sellers exist to satisfy the crowns required for that item, then the purchase is made from various different sellers until the purchase is satisfied.

Sellers:
Player 1 - 1000 crowns at 140g
Player 2 - 2000 crowns at 160g
Player 3 - 2000 crowns at 180g

Buyer:
Player 4 - Wishes to buy 5000 crowns at a max of 200g per so puts up 1,000,000 gold, he clears out Player 1 (140,000), Player 2 (320,000) and Player 3 (360,000). Player 4 receives the item he requested and is refunded 180,000, Players 1,2 and 3 receive their gold. To prevent flipping and other such nonsense Player 4 does not receive crowns, he receives the item he placed a bid on.

In this situation it is simply Players 1, 2 and 3 converting crowns into gold, and Player 4 buying an item from the crown store with gold.

Now, why this should be extended to Chapters and ESO+ 6mo subs (not purchased with crowns, but with $$) is because it would be bot farmers out of business. There is presently a black market for gold and it only exists because people are willing to buy it. If the people willing to buy it were directed to a safe place in game where they can essentially purchase gold (off a player) and the player they purchase from does not receive $$, they instead receive a 6 month ESO+ sub or a Chapter, then those who are inspired to buy gold off of shadey websites would be drawn toward an in game system that instead of rewarding farming centers in a foreign country (we all know where) they are sending the benefits to other players within the community.

I see no difference for ZOS if 1 player buys 10 copies of the next chapter (selling 9 for gold), than 10 players buy 1 copy each. The books would look the same at the end of the day. The only person losing from that would be the bot farmers as their entire business model is undercut.

ZOS could ban bot farmers until the cows come home, if it costs them $10 to buy a new account and each account can make enough to cover the cost of banning before being banned then they will never get ahead. If ZOS allowed the purchasing of gold from REAL players, for in game benefits, then the cost of being a bot farmer just became infeasible. It seems silly that ZOS would allow bot farmers to cut into their market, instead of having players give money to farmers, they could buy chapters / subs from ZOS.

How it would work with Chapters / ESO+ 6mo sub is the seller would commit to purchasing the item with their credit card and list the item for the price they seek. If a buyer purchases the item then that is when the payment is processed, once the payment has gone through the buyer then receives the item.

*Edit, it doesn't need to be an NPC, it could just be a new feature in the crown store itself, no NPC required.