New Trading System ideas

volkeswagon

I wanted to start a discussion for people to offer their ideas for trading reform. I have two ideas I'd like to share. Please remember that these are just ideas so lets keep our responses limited to your own ideas and respectful feedback and suggestions to each others ideas. So here are mine.
1. Have one trading house in each zones capital city. Houses in Alliance Capitals would hold 20 guilds and ones in other places like Vivec, Alinor, Daggerfall, etc would hold 10-12. Single traders out in the country and in Outlaw refuges could be either eliminated or house 3 guilds. How traders would work is Zos would set trader value for each trader spot. For example Mournhold could be 10 million, Vivec 4-5 million, daggerfall 3 milion, etc. First come first serve. The only thing is there would be requirements to bid on certain traders. For example; to purchase a Mournhold and other top tier traders your guild must be 3 months old with 400 plus active members. To purchase the next tier trader you must have 300 active members with no guild age requirement. The next tier would require 150 active members and the third tier 50 active members. By having a system like this there would be twice the traders available and you would know how much gold you need to purchase various locations. ZOS would act as a landlord and can raise or lower trader costs as well as capacity depending on traffic and demand. This could mean different prices and trader capacities on each server. Traders would become available to purchase during the same time window as the Lux vendor and Golden are. So once you've bought a trader for your guild you know you have one and have till flip to get ready. When someone visits a trading house it would show a list of the traders there and you can search all of them at once or individually.
2. Have no trading guilds. Each individual would be required to purchase a trading license.. The listing fee and commission (formerly guild cut) would very depending on the traffic of the trader. So Mournhold traders would cost the most to list. There could be different licences with different requirements to prevent alt accounts from using the traders for their shady business. Three tiers of traders. Gold tier being Capital traders. Purple tier being Vivec Alinor, Belkarth, etc and a blue tier being the rest. To list at Purple traders and under you must be level 50. To list at gold tier you must he CP 160. Blue tier must be level 10. You can then list up to 10 items at each trader for a total of 150 listings at one time like you have now and 100 max per tier
So here you have my ideas. Obviously there could be some tweeks but you get the basics. Both ideas maintain the seperate traders model as I think one large auction house would create chaos and cut throat prices due to too much competition and market saturation. Let us hear your ideas.

Kurat

What's wrong with current system?

volkeswagon

Ask everyone who complains about it. So you are for the status quo which is fine.

Kurat

volkeswagon wrote: »

Ask everyone who complains about it. So you are for the status quo which is fine.

People who complain are the same types you see in dungeons spamming LAs and refusing to learn the game. People dont wanna put in any effort. It's not difficult to meet quotas/dues. Join guild and trade. Same goes for GMs. The ones who do the work, raffles, auctions etc have no trouble securing traders.

Taleof2Cities

Kurat wrote: »

volkeswagon wrote: »

Ask everyone who complains about it. So you are for the status quo which is fine.

People who complain are the same types you see in dungeons spamming LAs and refusing to learn the game. People dont wanna put in any effort. It's not difficult to meet quotas/dues. Join guild and trade. Same goes for GMs. The ones who do the work, raffles, auctions etc have no trouble securing traders.

Here’s another insightful for you ...

idk

Kurat wrote: »

volkeswagon wrote: »

Ask everyone who complains about it. So you are for the status quo which is fine.

People who complain are the same types you see in dungeons spamming LAs and refusing to learn the game. People dont wanna put in any effort. It's not difficult to meet quotas/dues. Join guild and trade. Same goes for GMs. The ones who do the work, raffles, auctions etc have no trouble securing traders.

A second insightful.

volkeswagon

It never fails

PizzaCat82

The man wanted helpful alternatives for the trading system and look what you people put in. Why don't you stop complaining about straw men not putting in effort and actually put in effort in the thread. Or, go find another thread to post in.

We currently have a guild trader system where the guilds bid on a few popular traders. In a sense of capitalism, its great for thsoe who've been in here since the beginning, able to afford the best traders and bid the most. New players and guilds still have options, but you never see new guilds in capital traders for more than a week. They simply can't afford to compete with the big established guilds who hold raffles, drawings, auctions, sell crowns, etc.

A great money sink but the rich stay rich and everyone else either joins a big guild or makes an honest wage in an off location.

1. Central Trader =
- Pros: Easy for new players to join and sell. Easy for casual players to join an sell
-Cons: Easy for bots to manipulate. Established guilds would lose all the hard work they did keeping their good spots.


2. Dual System of Traders and Global seller:
-Pros: Guild traders would still be able to compete with eachother, and maintain their good spots Less chance of manipulation by bots but still possible
- Cons: Loss of incentive to join guilds because trade guilds have no other social aspect other than trading
and getting money for their guild trader.

3,. Trader system but with a system that shows you average price, and lets you search for things over all the guild traders, as well as have more traders in capital cities so that more guilds can have decent spots. (get rid of out of the way traders and move them to the big cities, so cities can be big crowded social centers) Also reduce requirement for a GT to 25 people.

Pros: Keeps establish guilds hard work. Keeps reason for people to join guilds. Avoids a lot of bots but still allows easy buying and somewhat easy selling.
Cons: Still keeps out casuals and new players to an extent, and people who don't want trading tied to the guild system because it makes guilds not social and only lazy.

volkeswagon

Finally a response

wolfie1.0.

volkeswagon wrote: »

I wanted to start a discussion for people to offer their ideas for trading reform. I have two ideas I'd like to share. Please remember that these are just ideas so lets keep our responses limited to your own ideas and respectful feedback and suggestions to each others ideas. So here are mine.
1. Have one trading house in each zones capital city. Houses in Alliance Capitals would hold 20 guilds and ones in other places like Vivec, Alinor, Daggerfall, etc would hold 10-12. Single traders out in the country and in Outlaw refuges could be either eliminated or house 3 guilds. How traders would work is Zos would set trader value for each trader spot. For example Mournhold could be 10 million, Vivec 4-5 million, daggerfall 3 milion, etc. First come first serve. The only thing is there would be requirements to bid on certain traders. For example; to purchase a Mournhold and other top tier traders your guild must be 3 months old with 400 plus active members. To purchase the next tier trader you must have 300 active members with no guild age requirement. The next tier would require 150 active members and the third tier 50 active members. By having a system like this there would be twice the traders available and you would know how much gold you need to purchase various locations. ZOS would act as a landlord and can raise or lower trader costs as well as capacity depending on traffic and demand. This could mean different prices and trader capacities on each server. Traders would become available to purchase during the same time window as the Lux vendor and Golden are. So once you've bought a trader for your guild you know you have one and have till flip to get ready. When someone visits a trading house it would show a list of the traders there and you can search all of them at once or individually.
2. Have no trading guilds. Each individual would be required to purchase a trading license.. The listing fee and commission (formerly guild cut) would very depending on the traffic of the trader. So Mournhold traders would cost the most to list. There could be different licences with different requirements to prevent alt accounts from using the traders for their shady business. Three tiers of traders. Gold tier being Capital traders. Purple tier being Vivec Alinor, Belkarth, etc and a blue tier being the rest. To list at Purple traders and under you must be level 50. To list at gold tier you must he CP 160. Blue tier must be level 10. You can then list up to 10 items at each trader for a total of 150 listings at one time like you have now and 100 max per tier
So here you have my ideas. Obviously there could be some tweeks but you get the basics. Both ideas maintain the seperate traders model as I think one large auction house would create chaos and cut throat prices due to too much competition and market saturation. Let us hear your ideas.

Option 1: would require ZOS to essentially pay an employee to micro manage the economy and adjust prices according to what the economy has available. First come First Served is not a good method as it favors people that are most closely aligned to ZOS's server clocks and people that are off clock or on the other side of the planet will be at a disadvantage. Trader prices would need to be adjusted on a week to week basis in order to keep up with gold generation and inflation. Acitve members is Ill-defined even by how ZOS tracks it as one could have 500 active members but only 10 are active sellers, whereas another guild could have 300 active members but have 200 active sellers. its not a good metric to use. there are some VERY successful trade guilds out there where less than half of their members are active traders.

ZOS won't go for this option as it means they will have to pay someone to manage the economy and take responsibility for prices being too cheap or too expensive to use. This option also penalizes guilds that merge or new guilds that are formed that have strong resources and rewards older guilds that might actually be failing. Ultimately you will end up with a situation that is not dynamic enough to react to the economy.

Option 2: Im not convinced that this would prevent shady dealings. level requirements can be bypassed in less than two days. and trolls can shut out lower licensed area by creating artificial traffic by listing and buying form themselves using alternate accounts, thus inflating the costs of all areas. Also i will note that if you remove the ability for trade guilds to operate as trade guilds and stop them competing with each other, the players that love trading will focus their efforts on something else and people will try to corner markets, not to mention that there is a 30 item per trader limit for a reason, and you are lifting that limit by allowing players to list more than 30 items, instead your option will allow more than the max of 150 per account and get some higher than 2000 for items. Players will also mark up prices to account for the license costs. I just don't see it working as well as the current system without accepting abuses. with the trade guilds bad actors can be identified and removed, or isolated to known guilds.


To be honest, there is a simple solution to the problem, and its simply to add more traders to the game. By simply making it so that at even the most isolated locations there are at least 2 or more traders available then it gives people more options. There are only a few reasons why trader locations are more expensive and popular than others. 1) proximity to a wayshrine 2) proximity to other traders 3) the number of traders close by 4) activities that can be done in area 5) whether the area is Base Game or part of a DLC/Chapter. by changing the location of a few traders and adding a few more to the base game and dlc zones then we will have a better system that can include more people.

But one factor you always have to consider is just how many listings ZOS's servers can handle at a single moment. ZOS has stated that we are restricted on housing due to client and server loads, ZOS has limited Guild History (ie trade records) due to its impact on the server (we have documented instances of history queries crashing the system). ZOS has even gone as far as indicating that AOE spamming is causing issues as well. Until a major overhaul of how the servers operate occurs you wont be seeing any major changes to trading.

volkeswagon

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

volkeswagon wrote: »

I wanted to start a discussion for people to offer their ideas for trading reform. I have two ideas I'd like to share. Please remember that these are just ideas so lets keep our responses limited to your own ideas and respectful feedback and suggestions to each others ideas. So here are mine.
1. Have one trading house in each zones capital city. Houses in Alliance Capitals would hold 20 guilds and ones in other places like Vivec, Alinor, Daggerfall, etc would hold 10-12. Single traders out in the country and in Outlaw refuges could be either eliminated or house 3 guilds. How traders would work is Zos would set trader value for each trader spot. For example Mournhold could be 10 million, Vivec 4-5 million, daggerfall 3 milion, etc. First come first serve. The only thing is there would be requirements to bid on certain traders. For example; to purchase a Mournhold and other top tier traders your guild must be 3 months old with 400 plus active members. To purchase the next tier trader you must have 300 active members with no guild age requirement. The next tier would require 150 active members and the third tier 50 active members. By having a system like this there would be twice the traders available and you would know how much gold you need to purchase various locations. ZOS would act as a landlord and can raise or lower trader costs as well as capacity depending on traffic and demand. This could mean different prices and trader capacities on each server. Traders would become available to purchase during the same time window as the Lux vendor and Golden are. So once you've bought a trader for your guild you know you have one and have till flip to get ready. When someone visits a trading house it would show a list of the traders there and you can search all of them at once or individually.
2. Have no trading guilds. Each individual would be required to purchase a trading license.. The listing fee and commission (formerly guild cut) would very depending on the traffic of the trader. So Mournhold traders would cost the most to list. There could be different licences with different requirements to prevent alt accounts from using the traders for their shady business. Three tiers of traders. Gold tier being Capital traders. Purple tier being Vivec Alinor, Belkarth, etc and a blue tier being the rest. To list at Purple traders and under you must be level 50. To list at gold tier you must he CP 160. Blue tier must be level 10. You can then list up to 10 items at each trader for a total of 150 listings at one time like you have now and 100 max per tier
So here you have my ideas. Obviously there could be some tweeks but you get the basics. Both ideas maintain the seperate traders model as I think one large auction house would create chaos and cut throat prices due to too much competition and market saturation. Let us hear your ideas.

Option 1: would require ZOS to essentially pay an employee to micro manage the economy and adjust prices according to what the economy has available. First come First Served is not a good method as it favors people that are most closely aligned to ZOS's server clocks and people that are off clock or on the other side of the planet will be at a disadvantage. Trader prices would need to be adjusted on a week to week basis in order to keep up with gold generation and inflation. Acitve members is Ill-defined even by how ZOS tracks it as one could have 500 active members but only 10 are active sellers, whereas another guild could have 300 active members but have 200 active sellers. its not a good metric to use. there are some VERY successful trade guilds out there where less than half of their members are active traders.

ZOS won't go for this option as it means they will have to pay someone to manage the economy and take responsibility for prices being too cheap or too expensive to use. This option also penalizes guilds that merge or new guilds that are formed that have strong resources and rewards older guilds that might actually be failing. Ultimately you will end up with a situation that is not dynamic enough to react to the economy.

Option 2: Im not convinced that this would prevent shady dealings. level requirements can be bypassed in less than two days. and trolls can shut out lower licensed area by creating artificial traffic by listing and buying form themselves using alternate accounts, thus inflating the costs of all areas. Also i will note that if you remove the ability for trade guilds to operate as trade guilds and stop them competing with each other, the players that love trading will focus their efforts on something else and people will try to corner markets, not to mention that there is a 30 item per trader limit for a reason, and you are lifting that limit by allowing players to list more than 30 items, instead your option will allow more than the max of 150 per account and get some higher than 2000 for items. Players will also mark up prices to account for the license costs. I just don't see it working as well as the current system without accepting abuses. with the trade guilds bad actors can be identified and removed, or isolated to known guilds.


To be honest, there is a simple solution to the problem, and its simply to add more traders to the game. By simply making it so that at even the most isolated locations there are at least 2 or more traders available then it gives people more options. There are only a few reasons why trader locations are more expensive and popular than others. 1) proximity to a wayshrine 2) proximity to other traders 3) the number of traders close by 4) activities that can be done in area 5) whether the area is Base Game or part of a DLC/Chapter. by changing the location of a few traders and adding a few more to the base game and dlc zones then we will have a better system that can include more people.

But one factor you always have to consider is just how many listings ZOS's servers can handle at a single moment. ZOS has stated that we are restricted on housing due to client and server loads, ZOS has limited Guild History (ie trade records) due to its impact on the server (we have documented instances of history queries crashing the system). ZOS has even gone as far as indicating that AOE spamming is causing issues as well. Until a major overhaul of how the servers operate occurs you wont be seeing any major changes to trading.

Actually I stated there would be 10 listing limit per trader and 150 total overall which is what we have now if you are in 5 guilds. But I would be fine with simply adding more traders. I don't think anyone would be against adding more high end traders as it may lower the costs

ForzaRammer

the current system is perfectly fine

Wolfpaw

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

ForzaRammer wrote: »

the current system is perfectly fine

That's not the discussion.

GW2, WoW, SWTOR, any of those models are good to me.

One global AH/trade system.

idk

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

New players and guilds still have options, but you never see new guilds in capital traders for more than a week. They simply can't afford to compete with the big established guilds who hold raffles, drawings, auctions, sell crowns, etc.

What is interesting is I used to be in this trade guild that in the early days of this game they were in one of the hottest locations. They happened to have a very solid leader who managed the guild well. Unfortunatly he left the game and those that took over leadership were not as wise at leading the guild.

Their biggest mistakes were not actively managing the roster. The other big mistake they made was not moving to the capital cities when they became the central locations. Instead of working to right the boat, one of their assistant leads would come to the forums complaining that they could not get into a good city and wanting more traders added to help them.

A couple of years ago new leadership took over and began to actively manage the guild. They were successful in improving the guilds situation and moving them to a capital city and have continued to maintain their location.

The success in the beginning and in recent years has been due to wise leadership and hard work. Interestingly, every good guild I have been in, regardless of its focus, had leaders who lead by action and actually manage the roster.

Success is something every guild leader can bring to their guild if they actually put in the effort.

Kurat

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

ForzaRammer wrote: »

the current system is perfectly fine

That's not the discussion.

GW2, WoW, SWTOR, any of those models are good to me.

One global AH/trade system.

Why every game has to be the same? People like eso because its different. Why turn it into like every other mmo? If you like others better why not play them. Same goes for combat. Tons of threads where people demand getting rid of weaving and animation cancelling so it can be like other games.

PizzaCat82

idk wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

New players and guilds still have options, but you never see new guilds in capital traders for more than a week. They simply can't afford to compete with the big established guilds who hold raffles, drawings, auctions, sell crowns, etc.

What is interesting is I used to be in this trade guild that in the early days of this game they were in one of the hottest locations. They happened to have a very solid leader who managed the guild well. Unfortunatly he left the game and those that took over leadership were not as wise at leading the guild.

Their biggest mistakes were not actively managing the roster. The other big mistake they made was not moving to the capital cities when they became the central locations. Instead of working to right the boat, one of their assistant leads would come to the forums complaining that they could not get into a good city and wanting more traders added to help them.

A couple of years ago new leadership took over and began to actively manage the guild. They were successful in improving the guilds situation and moving them to a capital city and have continued to maintain their location.

The success in the beginning and in recent years has been due to wise leadership and hard work. Interestingly, every good guild I have been in, regardless of its focus, had leaders who lead by action and actually manage the roster.

Success is something every guild leader can bring to their guild if they actually put in the effort.

This story right here is one of the reasons I don't like trading being tied to guilds. You could give me a million stories of jesus himself coming down and saving a guild and making it the best it can be, with cheap dues, giveaways and the most social aspects where everyone sings Kumbaya and gets along.

And I'll tell you of just as many where the guild leaders completely ignore the guild, and the people who pay guild dues each week (20K!) have to worry about not getting a spot to sell. You know how *** it is to go without a trader for a week? Imagine it every other week.

And then come to find out it was because they were feuding with several other big trading guilds who would purposely outbid them in ghost guilds to blacklist them from capital cities. Imagine being happy to get Alanor after being shut out for 2 weeks straight.

The best part of this game is always going to be the worst thing about the game. People can, and WILL be a-holes to one another when resources are limited.

Wolfpaw

Kurat wrote: »

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

ForzaRammer wrote: »

the current system is perfectly fine

That's not the discussion.

GW2, WoW, SWTOR, any of those models are good to me.

One global AH/trade system.

Why every game has to be the same? People like eso because its different. Why turn it into like every other mmo? If you like others better why not play them. Same goes for combat. Tons of threads where people demand getting rid of weaving and animation cancelling so it can be like other games.

You should start a new post with that question so we can stay on topic here.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

ForzaRammer wrote: »

the current system is perfectly fine

That's not the discussion.

GW2, WoW, SWTOR, any of those models are good to me.

One global AH/trade system.

To you perhaps. But a lot of people, myself included, actually likes ESO's system. Could it perhaps be improved a little? Yes, but there's nothing wrong with it.

It's not hard find and join a guild with a trader, and as a bonus, they come in a variety of types to fit you. Can't keep up with a certain quota and/or fee? Then join a guild with a smaller one or even without.

Hotdog_23

Doubt they change the current system as they seem to be committed to it. By that I mean they keep adding new trading spots twice a year, (DLC and chapter). While I would like a Public trading house personally you should never underestimate other people ability to bot and cheat such a system. ZOS would have to actively manage it which translates into increased cost for them. It all comes down to real world dollars and cents.

Be safe and have fun

Raideen

The issue with the current Guild Trade system has less to do with the system itself and everything to do with addons.

Addons for all intents and purposes allow the Guild Trader system to function at the bottom line like a central auction house, which everyone seems to be against but I rarely see anyone complain about the addons (because in truth those addons help make them lots of money). Its hypocrisy.

There is a lot of flipping going on, in a fairly large scale. The people with money are buying out cheaper items and relisting. This would be much less possible without addons.

The original vision of the guild trader system is undone by addons that allow everyone to see all the prices across the entire game, just like a central auction house. The only difference is that people have to race to buy up those items.

bmnoble

Only real things I want changed at the moment are:

Fix the trader UI bug that has been going on for well over a month now, hitting smaller and medium guilds hard due to players thinking they don't have a trader so they don't bother applying to join, they specifically look for guilds in the big cities that have a trader and try to join those getting stuck in waiting lists, which have been made worse by this ongoing UI bug.

Either increase the number of guild traders to accommodate the large number of guilds competing for them or increase the guild membership limit from 500 - 750 or even 1000, so there is more space for people looking to join a guild in a good spot.

Make the full amount of tax go to the guilds, the trader bid itself is a big enough gold sink, most of those taxes will end up going there any way, so I see no harm in that gold going into the guild banks to be spent on the trader bids.

The current trader system is by no means perfect but for me a mostly solo player it got me to join a number of guilds and be more active in the group aspect of the game.

If they had a global auction house, when I started playing I probably would have only bothered joining one guild for the fully decked out guild house or more likely making one for myself.

bmnoble

Raideen wrote: »

The issue with the current Guild Trade system has less to do with the system itself and everything to do with addons.

Addons for all intents and purposes allow the Guild Trader system to function at the bottom line like a central auction house, which everyone seems to be against but I rarely see anyone complain about the addons (because in truth those addons help make them lots of money). Its hypocrisy.

There is a lot of flipping going on, in a fairly large scale. The people with money are buying out cheaper items and relisting. This would be much less possible without addons.

The original vision of the guild trader system is undone by addons that allow everyone to see all the prices across the entire game, just like a central auction house. The only difference is that people have to race to buy up those items.

I much prefer needing to race to the individual traders, its gives people a fighting chance of getting the items they are after instead of a central auction house where a few rich players can check the list of items a few times a day and buy up every single cheap thing, or every one of a rare item and relist it for a massive price hike.

The fact those looking to re list items have to spend a few hours instead of a few minutes to get their hands on the cheaper items gives players the chance to snap up a good deal for themselves.

JKorr

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

ForzaRammer wrote: »

the current system is perfectly fine

That's not the discussion.

GW2, WoW, SWTOR, any of those models are good to me.

One global AH/trade system.

Yes, that would be simply stupendous. Hundreds of pages of the same item, with the prices constantly going lower until someone buys most or all of it, and relists it at their price. Marvelous idea. No one would mind sifting throught dozens of pages to find what they want to buy, right? No one complains about doing that in the current system? People who don't want to make trading their full time job will be just fine spending thousands on mats because the botters will be farming like crazy. Sounds like a perfect system. /sarcasm

Kiralyn2000

New Trading System ideas

...aren't going to happen. The Guild Trader system is deeply ingrained in ESO, and is not going to change.

Kurat wrote: »

What's wrong with current system?

Well, outside of Dedicated Traders™, it's terrible (and absolutely awful for buyers, trying to find particular things, spread across dozens of traders in dozens of zones). But like I said - it's entrenched in the game. It is what it is.

Of course, it's awesome for the people who can make the system work for them, so they'll defend it to the end of time. And bidding for traders is a good gold sink (the only positive aspect of the system).



(I prefer global AH systems, but that's because I'm not a "trader". I'm the guy who doesn't care at all about economies or markets, and just wants to sell one or two items every few weeks, searching the AH for the low price and posting for a good undercut below that, so my item sells in 15 seconds and I never have to think about it again. I don't care if I get 75% of the 'ideal' price for something, as long as I'm getting more than the vendor price, and it didn't take more than a few seconds to deal with. And yes, hawking wares in chat is too much work, so in this game I've just opted out of the economy entirely - I sell everything I don't keep to NPC vendors, and I barely buy anything from other players. I just wish people would stop posting "we need a global AH!" threads, because they're pointless.)

Wolfpaw

Raideen wrote: »

The issue with the current Guild Trade system has less to do with the system itself and everything to do with addons.

Addons for all intents and purposes allow the Guild Trader system to function at the bottom line like a central auction house, which everyone seems to be against but I rarely see anyone complain about the addons (because in truth those addons help make them lots of money). Its hypocrisy.

There is a lot of flipping going on, in a fairly large scale. The people with money are buying out cheaper items and relisting. This would be much less possible without addons.

The original vision of the guild trader system is undone by addons that allow everyone to see all the prices across the entire game, just like a central auction house. The only difference is that people have to race to buy up those items.

ZOS should remove/block all pc addons for the trader system. PC crowd can play the game as intended.

Tandor

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

<snip> But one factor you always have to consider is just how many listings ZOS's servers can handle at a single moment. ZOS has stated that we are restricted on housing due to client and server loads, ZOS has limited Guild History (ie trade records) due to its impact on the server (we have documented instances of history queries crashing the system). ZOS has even gone as far as indicating that AOE spamming is causing issues as well. Until a major overhaul of how the servers operate occurs you wont be seeing any major changes to trading. <snip>

Maybe it's precisely because of the contribution that guild traders and PC marketing add-ons, together with the data held and constantly re-loaded in respect of players belonging to 5 guilds, most of them purely for trading, are likely to make to performance issues that now really is the time to see some major changes to trading.

I share concerns expressed by some posters over the plight of casual traders and new players with the present system. It's fine and dandy for endgame players who spend half their playing time farming high-value dungeons etc to say that guild quotas and dues are easy to make and everyone who can't do so doesn't want to make the effort, but not all players want to trade in that way, they just want to sell on a few mats or drops that they have no use for, and they don't want to be told that they need to be in 5 trading guilds, have PC add-ons, and wait until they are high level in order to be able to do so effectively.

They could easily be accommodated within the existing system by the addition of a NPC trader in the starter cities with whom a small number of items could be listed at a higher commission rate and with the commission shared between the guilds with traders in those cities. That would also assist those guild members who haven't got a trader in any particular week, or at all, but who still want to sell a few specific items.

While I applaud the effort put into the OP's suggestions, I think they would create enormously complicated changes without really addressing the basic problems at the heart of the present system.

JKorr

Tandor wrote: »

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

<snip> But one factor you always have to consider is just how many listings ZOS's servers can handle at a single moment. ZOS has stated that we are restricted on housing due to client and server loads, ZOS has limited Guild History (ie trade records) due to its impact on the server (we have documented instances of history queries crashing the system). ZOS has even gone as far as indicating that AOE spamming is causing issues as well. Until a major overhaul of how the servers operate occurs you wont be seeing any major changes to trading. <snip>

Maybe it's precisely because of the contribution that guild traders and PC marketing add-ons, together with the data held and constantly re-loaded in respect of players belonging to 5 guilds, most of them purely for trading, are likely to make to performance issues that now really is the time to see some major changes to trading.

I share concerns expressed by some posters over the plight of casual traders and new players with the present system. It's fine and dandy for endgame players who spend half their playing time farming high-value dungeons etc to say that guild quotas and dues are easy to make and everyone who can't do so doesn't want to make the effort, but not all players want to trade in that way, they just want to sell on a few mats or drops that they have no use for, and they don't want to be told that they need to be in 5 trading guilds, have PC add-ons, and wait until they are high level in order to be able to do so effectively.

They could easily be accommodated within the existing system by the addition of a NPC trader in the starter cities with whom a small number of items could be listed at a higher commission rate and with the commission shared between the guilds with traders in those cities. That would also assist those guild members who haven't got a trader in any particular week, or at all, but who still want to sell a few specific items.

While I applaud the effort put into the OP's suggestions, I think they would create enormously complicated changes without really addressing the basic problems at the heart of the present system.

Tandor, the situation might be different on consoles, I'm going only by personal experience on pc. I am a casual trader. I do not go out and farm mats or motifs with the intention of selling them. I have managed to conquer my packratitis and sell mats when I hit above a certain amount. Since I offer to make low level gear for guildies for free, I do keep a lot of mats on hand, but when no one has asked for gear for a time, I sell some, basically being the player in your comment. My "trading guild" has no dues and no required sales amounts. I filled 15 slots this morning, and within 30 minutes [wasn't really paying attention to the exact time] everything sold. One chromium grain, 100 mundane runes, 100 nightshade, 100 columbine....not exactly a high volume major trader transaction. The other guilds I'm in are casual/social guilds. None of them require dues. One doesn't bother to try for a trader. The others do, and we usually get one. No one is demanding that I, as a casual once in a while seller, use any addons for anything. No one demands I sell my items for a specific price. If someone is looking for a guild, even if its a brand new just started playing player, I'll offer to send an invite to my guild or guilds. I'm not seeing how the current system is stopping anyone from finding a guild that suits they way they play. My guilds would truly suck for the "end game is TRADING" people, but for casuals who don't want to make zillions of gold in a week, they work pretty well.

Raideen

bmnoble wrote: »

Raideen wrote: »

The issue with the current Guild Trade system has less to do with the system itself and everything to do with addons.

Addons for all intents and purposes allow the Guild Trader system to function at the bottom line like a central auction house, which everyone seems to be against but I rarely see anyone complain about the addons (because in truth those addons help make them lots of money). Its hypocrisy.

There is a lot of flipping going on, in a fairly large scale. The people with money are buying out cheaper items and relisting. This would be much less possible without addons.

The original vision of the guild trader system is undone by addons that allow everyone to see all the prices across the entire game, just like a central auction house. The only difference is that people have to race to buy up those items.

I much prefer needing to race to the individual traders, its gives people a fighting chance of getting the items they are after instead of a central auction house where a few rich players can check the list of items a few times a day and buy up every single cheap thing, or every one of a rare item and relist it for a massive price hike.

The fact those looking to re list items have to spend a few hours instead of a few minutes to get their hands on the cheaper items gives players the chance to snap up a good deal for themselves.

The point is, we should not be racing at all. Addons enable this. The only way someone would know to race is because their addons tell them "there is a better deal at this vendor". None of that should be automated.

The Guild Trade system does not work as the developers intended due to addons.

idk

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

New players and guilds still have options, but you never see new guilds in capital traders for more than a week. They simply can't afford to compete with the big established guilds who hold raffles, drawings, auctions, sell crowns, etc.

What is interesting is I used to be in this trade guild that in the early days of this game they were in one of the hottest locations. They happened to have a very solid leader who managed the guild well. Unfortunatly he left the game and those that took over leadership were not as wise at leading the guild.

Their biggest mistakes were not actively managing the roster. The other big mistake they made was not moving to the capital cities when they became the central locations. Instead of working to right the boat, one of their assistant leads would come to the forums complaining that they could not get into a good city and wanting more traders added to help them.

A couple of years ago new leadership took over and began to actively manage the guild. They were successful in improving the guilds situation and moving them to a capital city and have continued to maintain their location.

The success in the beginning and in recent years has been due to wise leadership and hard work. Interestingly, every good guild I have been in, regardless of its focus, had leaders who lead by action and actually manage the roster.

Success is something every guild leader can bring to their guild if they actually put in the effort.

This story right here is one of the reasons I don't like trading being tied to guilds. You could give me a million stories of jesus himself coming down and saving a guild and making it the best it can be, with cheap dues, giveaways and the most social aspects where everyone sings Kumbaya and gets along.

And I'll tell you of just as many where the guild leaders completely ignore the guild, and the people who pay guild dues each week (20K!) have to worry about not getting a spot to sell. You know how *** it is to go without a trader for a week? Imagine it every other week.

And then come to find out it was because they were feuding with several other big trading guilds who would purposely outbid them in ghost guilds to blacklist them from capital cities. Imagine being happy to get Alanor after being shut out for 2 weeks straight.

The best part of this game is always going to be the worst thing about the game. People can, and WILL be a-holes to one another when resources are limited.

When in a guild with lame leaders leave the guild and find a decent one. It really is that simple. Whatever you want to do is your choice but trading is going to be linked to guilds for a long time to come. This system is what Zos wanted and it works.

idk

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Raideen wrote: »

The issue with the current Guild Trade system has less to do with the system itself and everything to do with addons.

Addons for all intents and purposes allow the Guild Trader system to function at the bottom line like a central auction house, which everyone seems to be against but I rarely see anyone complain about the addons (because in truth those addons help make them lots of money). Its hypocrisy.

There is a lot of flipping going on, in a fairly large scale. The people with money are buying out cheaper items and relisting. This would be much less possible without addons.

The original vision of the guild trader system is undone by addons that allow everyone to see all the prices across the entire game, just like a central auction house. The only difference is that people have to race to buy up those items.

ZOS should remove/block all pc addons for the trader system. PC crowd can play the game as intended.

Zos determines what is intended. Zos controls what can be accessed via the API which is part of their control on what is intended.

Katahdin

Its already been discussed 100s of times by 100s of other threads.
[snip]
The guild trader system is not going away.
We are not getting a global auction house.
[snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]