Trading: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.

Alchemical

warlordangel wrote: »

bmnoble wrote: »

Just out of curiosity in this plan of your OP, what happens with the gold sink the weekly trader bid creates what replaces it?

what do you mean by gold sink? Do you mean the gold reserves in a guild bank from dues?

A gold 'sink' removes gold from the economy entirely, instead of it spreading between players. It helps to curb inflation because it decreases the total amount of gold in game, so gold has more valuable.

This game doesn't have many, and virtually none for 'normal' players outside of bag space or a few fancy houses. You have players with tens, sometimes hundreds of millions of gold and so they are virtually immune to high prices. 3 million for a stack of heartwood? Not a problem, they have 300m more. If you got rid of bids for traders, that millions (possibly billions) of gold that was previously being sent to oblivion now staying in the economy, further devaluing the value of gold.

warlordangel

Alchemical wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

bmnoble wrote: »

Just out of curiosity in this plan of your OP, what happens with the gold sink the weekly trader bid creates what replaces it?

what do you mean by gold sink? Do you mean the gold reserves in a guild bank from dues?

A gold 'sink' removes gold from the economy entirely, instead of it spreading between players. It helps to curb inflation because it decreases the total amount of gold in game, so gold has more valuable.

This game doesn't have many, and virtually none for 'normal' players outside of bag space or a few fancy houses. You have players with tens, sometimes hundreds of millions of gold and so they are virtually immune to high prices. 3 million for a stack of heartwood? Not a problem, they have 300m more. If you got rid of bids for traders, that millions (possibly billions) of gold that was previously being sent to oblivion now staying in the economy, further devaluing the value of gold.

oh. that is a good question. Hmmm, first is assuming that it is actually a problem in and of itself. I mean how games have we played where we end up with more money than god because we don't have a place to spend it? Earlier mentioned was about creating a set market price based on current market data, what if that were used and prices were marked up?

Hmmm unless we are talking about the gold already placed for bids...O_O What if it just went poof? I mean there would be an uproar over that.

Is this a problem experienced in other games? My best experience with other MMOs was runescape. There was/is a huge issue with market manipulation but in that game I don't recall too many reasons to spend gold outside of the Grand Exchange.

Did I understand the question? It's fine if I didn't I can try to address it again it I didn't understand properly.

Carcamongus

I know the current system can be a bit bothersome, but, to quote Todd Howard: "It just works". Erm, maybe not the best of quotes to use?

Some of the criticism posted here was directed more at how some guilds manage their business than the system per se. As already pointed out, there are many guilds with no dues or fairly low requirements, such as spending 1-2k on raffles. You can come across valuables just by playing the game, so you don't necessarily have to sacrifice your entertainment in order to sell. TTC is a great help to sell and, especially, to buy.

zaria

warlordangel wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

And i like current trading system. So thanks but no.

If u have to farm all time just to pay dues u dont need a "strong" guild with dues. Any guild with trader should do the job.

There will be many people along the spectrum of who likes what and that is fine and perfectly acceptable. But I ask, what would really change? What would inconvenience any player aside from removing the need to place bids and the efforts that go into procuring that amount? Do you really think dues are enough in most cases to cover the costs of bidding?

Problem is that ESO has just 6 servers, WOW and FF14 has hundreds.
For one it would be a lot of transactions, probably solvable with dedicated servers and databases.
But now you will have one huge list of items for hundreds of thousands of players.
You would get 3 effects:
1 a race to the bottom for cheaper items as player would underbid each other wanting to sell.
2 idiotic prices for rare items many people want as you save your sell slots for them.
3 much more price manipulation there players or guilds corner an marked and drive up prices.

warlordangel

zaria wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

And i like current trading system. So thanks but no.

If u have to farm all time just to pay dues u dont need a "strong" guild with dues. Any guild with trader should do the job.

There will be many people along the spectrum of who likes what and that is fine and perfectly acceptable. But I ask, what would really change? What would inconvenience any player aside from removing the need to place bids and the efforts that go into procuring that amount? Do you really think dues are enough in most cases to cover the costs of bidding?

Problem is that ESO has just 6 servers, WOW and FF14 has hundreds.
For one it would be a lot of transactions, probably solvable with dedicated servers and databases.
But now you will have one huge list of items for hundreds of thousands of players.
You would get 3 effects:
1 a race to the bottom for cheaper items as player would underbid each other wanting to sell.
2 idiotic prices for rare items many people want as you save your sell slots for them.
3 much more price manipulation there players or guilds corner an marked and drive up prices.

I don't see how the transaction point would be a problem, that exists already. Did you think that just because there are multiple NPCS acting as traders spreads the burden out?
As for the effect:
1.) What would be the problem with underbidding? Perhaps this could be solved by instituting a floor for pricing.
2.) This is true price gouging may occur, as it has already. The skooma bubbler plan for the ps console was selling for 3 million for ages, and don't get me started on the outrageous prices for any new plans or motifs. Perhaps instituting a ceiling would be advisable.
3.) redundant really.

Honestly these problems already exist. The claim is that it would get out of control. Perhaps there will be instances of just that, but the maybes shouldn't be an excuse to drop the subject entirely.

_Zathras_

warlordangel wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

So I am aware that many people are tired of hearing about the auction house debate, but I wanted to plead my case. I wanted to start off by describing my experience. I stopped playing Eso about a year ago and have been thinking of picking it back up, but every time I do I cringe at it. It is because of the trader system as it stands now. I played for years and for year it has been the same. I join a good strong guild like "Out-of-Conduct" on the playstation system. and I need to pay dues in order to stay. But, I have to continuously farm in order to pay my dues. It goes beyond that. I have to continuously farm to keep my slots full so I can make money to participate in the market place to buy goods. The cycle continuous as farm, pay dues, rinse and repeat. I felt like I had very little time to actually play the game itself and that I was paying to work. My old guild fell apart because of the record keeping involved with keeping track of sales, bids, and trying to forecast future bid prices and locations.

I don't really think anyone would lose out if the trader bids were taken out of the equation of gameplay. Current trader NPCs could be replaced in major locations or capitals cites, not just in Mournhold, with a central trading hub/ It could be spread out in major locations as to not have every player in the game converge on 1 location at any given time. Just think of a tent kinda bazaar style where trades could be dropped off. The NPCs could be races relevant to that region. Perhaps it could be overseen by imperials, the "Imperial Exchange". Wouldn't i be something if the event ticket trader woman ran this as a year-round career?

A couple of things:

I hate the guild trader system as well.

BUT.. they will never change it. There are entire guilds and social systems built around it. Outside of that, the root of the system came from DAoC, so I assume Matt loved the concept there enough to carry it over here.

Also, the forum vocal minority loves the system as well. You won't find much support here. Outside of the forums, on other gaming sites, you will absolutely see the lack of an AH as being a strong negative for this game. Here, people see it as unshakably foundational.

Whats DAoC?

Dark Age of Camelot. That's where Matt came from. They had player housing there in massive sprawling zones which took forever to navigate. You could sell from your house.

So, they brought that godawful system to ESO, with some tweaks. You still have to wander way in the middle of nowhere to find those deals, if you choose, but there are traders more conveniently located in city/town hubs which tend to fleece you because you are paying the price for their trader locations.

ESO was marketed to the DAoC vet crowd as DAoC 2 way back before launch. 3 factions, like DAoC, seige warfare, etc.. oh, and no Cash Shop. Cough. That went out the window rather quickly. Oh, marketing, what a lovely little thing you are.

At any rate, that's the origin of what ESO has now: DAoC.

LikiLoki

The problem can be solved if you prohibit the transfer of gold to the guild bank for everyone. Remove this possibility. The kiosks can be purchased only for the amount of income from weekly sales. This will put everyone on an equal footing.

warlordangel

_Zathras_ wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

So I am aware that many people are tired of hearing about the auction house debate, but I wanted to plead my case. I wanted to start off by describing my experience. I stopped playing Eso about a year ago and have been thinking of picking it back up, but every time I do I cringe at it. It is because of the trader system as it stands now. I played for years and for year it has been the same. I join a good strong guild like "Out-of-Conduct" on the playstation system. and I need to pay dues in order to stay. But, I have to continuously farm in order to pay my dues. It goes beyond that. I have to continuously farm to keep my slots full so I can make money to participate in the market place to buy goods. The cycle continuous as farm, pay dues, rinse and repeat. I felt like I had very little time to actually play the game itself and that I was paying to work. My old guild fell apart because of the record keeping involved with keeping track of sales, bids, and trying to forecast future bid prices and locations.

I don't really think anyone would lose out if the trader bids were taken out of the equation of gameplay. Current trader NPCs could be replaced in major locations or capitals cites, not just in Mournhold, with a central trading hub/ It could be spread out in major locations as to not have every player in the game converge on 1 location at any given time. Just think of a tent kinda bazaar style where trades could be dropped off. The NPCs could be races relevant to that region. Perhaps it could be overseen by imperials, the "Imperial Exchange". Wouldn't i be something if the event ticket trader woman ran this as a year-round career?

A couple of things:

I hate the guild trader system as well.

BUT.. they will never change it. There are entire guilds and social systems built around it. Outside of that, the root of the system came from DAoC, so I assume Matt loved the concept there enough to carry it over here.

Also, the forum vocal minority loves the system as well. You won't find much support here. Outside of the forums, on other gaming sites, you will absolutely see the lack of an AH as being a strong negative for this game. Here, people see it as unshakably foundational.

Whats DAoC?

Dark Age of Camelot. That's where Matt came from. They had player housing there in massive sprawling zones which took forever to navigate. You could sell from your house.

So, they brought that godawful system to ESO, with some tweaks. You still have to wander way in the middle of nowhere to find those deals, if you choose, but there are traders more conveniently located in city/town hubs which tend to fleece you because you are paying the price for their trader locations.

ESO was marketed to the DAoC vet crowd as DAoC 2 way back before launch. 3 factions, like DAoC, seige warfare, etc.. oh, and no Cash Shop. Cough. That went out the window rather quickly. Oh, marketing, what a lovely little thing you are.

At any rate, that's the origin of what ESO has now: DAoC.

Neat, thank you. The only MMO I ever played before this was Runescape. I remember how the Grand Exchange worked which is what formed the basis of my opinion. It seemed easy and srtaight-forward. You have something sell, travel to the Grand Exchange, sell at the given price, leave. The given price was never actually set, it more like a base price and you can alter it from there.

After I started this thread I had googled it real quick to see if there were instances of market manipulation or price gouging. There is. I remember certain things like vintage no longer offered items being sold at obscene prices or difficult to accumulate items. It is at this point that perhaps oversight and interference from ZOS, the governing party may need to step in. On the other hand it is why I mentioned the concept of floors and ceilings.

One option is to tweak the drop rate. If items are easier to get a hold of then their intrinsic value drops, or if the auction house concept was adopted and this ran rampant then the idea of guild partnership and community may become more attractive in order to enlist help farming.

warlordangel

LikiLoki wrote: »

The problem can be solved if you prohibit the transfer of gold to the guild bank for everyone. Remove this possibility. The kiosks can be purchased only for the amount of income from weekly sales. This will put everyone on an equal footing.

I don't follow. The proceeds from sales don't go to a single source or pool but are spread out over to the individual seller. Second, there is a huge discrepancy in sales. The laws of supply and demand may be either significantly more flexible or non-existent all together but the real-estate adage of "location, location, location" is very much a real thing.

LikiLoki

warlordangel wrote: »

LikiLoki wrote: »

The problem can be solved if you prohibit the transfer of gold to the guild bank for everyone. Remove this possibility. The kiosks can be purchased only for the amount of income from weekly sales. This will put everyone on an equal footing.

I don't follow. The proceeds from sales don't go to a single source or pool but are spread out over to the individual seller. Second, there is a huge discrepancy in sales. The laws of supply and demand may be either significantly more flexible or non-existent all together but the real-estate adage of "location, location, location" is very much a real thing.

3.5 percent of any sale replenishes the guild's bank. Now even a top seller like me, with sales of 10 million a week, can buy a good kiosk, allowing others to do nothing. Do you want to see a kiosk with the number of goods on the shelves equal to 30? I've seen these. If the guild works only on the money received from sales, then the guilds will fairly take their places.

BlueRaven

I am in four guilds that maintain traders and all they ask is that I log in once every two weeks.

If my housing guild with no dues can maintain a trader, anyone be can find a guild that has one without the need for dues.

warlordangel

LikiLoki wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

LikiLoki wrote: »

The problem can be solved if you prohibit the transfer of gold to the guild bank for everyone. Remove this possibility. The kiosks can be purchased only for the amount of income from weekly sales. This will put everyone on an equal footing.

I don't follow. The proceeds from sales don't go to a single source or pool but are spread out over to the individual seller. Second, there is a huge discrepancy in sales. The laws of supply and demand may be either significantly more flexible or non-existent all together but the real-estate adage of "location, location, location" is very much a real thing.

3.5 percent of any sale replenishes the guild's bank. Now even a top seller like me, with sales of 10 million a week, can buy a good kiosk, allowing others to do nothing. Do you want to see a kiosk with the number of goods on the shelves equal to 30? I've seen these. If the guild works only on the money received from sales, then the guilds will fairly take their places.

Huh. Neat. I did not known that. I've helped in setting up events and raffles but I never actually ran a guild. There is much to think about.

warlordangel

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am in four guilds that maintain traders and all they ask is that I log in once every two weeks.

If my housing guild with no dues can maintain a trader, anyone be can find a guild that has one without the need for dues.

That is most fortunate. But in all honesty, would you consider this a consistent fact or is it outlying information? Where does the guild master recieve the money to retain a trader and where is this trader located? I know of plenty of guilds that institute no dues and their traders are in outlaw refugees or in no mans land.

BlueRaven

warlordangel wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am in four guilds that maintain traders and all they ask is that I log in once every two weeks.

If my housing guild with no dues can maintain a trader, anyone be can find a guild that has one without the need for dues.

That is most fortunate. But in all honesty, would you consider this a consistent fact or is it outlying information? Where does the guild master recieve the money to retain a trader and where is this trader located? I know of plenty of guilds that institute no dues and their traders are in outlaw refugees or in no mans land.

All guilds are different. Each has their own ways of raising money for traders (if they wish to have a trader). My housing guild, in the above example, has two auctions per week and one discord auction per week. (They also have guild donation drives).

NONE of which are mandatory to participate in.

Meanwhile, my friends and family social guild maintains a trader without anything really. But the gm is involved in a high end trader guild and bankrolls a trader in an out of the way spot for the guild out of their own pocket.
The only requirement in that guild is to just be nice to other guildies. No politics, no religious talk, no sports, etc just be “chill”.

I would hit up some people you know and ask about the guilds they are in Someone, somewhere has to be in a no dues guild you can join.

RhinoDemise

Not all trading guilds require you to sell thousands or hundreds of thousands a week to stay in that guild. I’m in Ancient traders on PC and we broke a billion in sales about a month ago and they only require you to either sell 200k per week or buy 30k worth of raffle tickets a week. If I don’t feel like finding things to sell one week I just put the gold in the guild bank.

I made over 2 mil last night selling crafting materials. Dreugh wax, tempering alloy, zircon grains, chromium grains etc. I don’t see the problem with trading guilds like others do.

warlordangel

BlueRaven wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am in four guilds that maintain traders and all they ask is that I log in once every two weeks.

If my housing guild with no dues can maintain a trader, anyone be can find a guild that has one without the need for dues.

That is most fortunate. But in all honesty, would you consider this a consistent fact or is it outlying information? Where does the guild master recieve the money to retain a trader and where is this trader located? I know of plenty of guilds that institute no dues and their traders are in outlaw refugees or in no mans land.

All guilds are different. Each has their own ways of raising money for traders (if they wish to have a trader). My housing guild, in the above example, has two auctions per week and one discord auction per week. (They also have guild donation drives).

NONE of which are mandatory to participate in.

Meanwhile, my friends and family social guild maintains a trader without anything really. But the gm is involved in a high end trader guild and bankrolls a trader in an out of the way spot for the guild out of their own pocket.
The only requirement in that guild is to just be nice to other guildies. No politics, no religious talk, no sports, etc just be “chill”.

I would hit up some people you know and ask about the guilds they are in Someone, somewhere has to be in a no dues guild you can join.

I could defiantly reach out to some people, but I think a fundamental point is getting garbled up. My complaint has nothing to do with dues, not on its own anyways. My concern has more to do with the time it takes to maintain traders, filling slots, the time it takes to run a guild. Maintaining a constantly full roster is one thing. But contributing members that have a large hand in maintaining traders as part of the market system spend most of their time in event organization and record keeping much like maintaining a job.

My small time guild spent time farming materials to showcase a raffle on a weekly basis. We also ran a furniture store. That required material farming and time to craft furniture, arrange the furniture, advertise the sale, and then man the day(s) of sale. My guild master had told me that she spend hours to keep track of daily sales and guild bank storage as a point of business.

Also feel that the discussion is spiraling into a personal issue, as if I'm only complaining because I haven't been able to sell properly or I feel muscled out. That isn't the issue at all. I have been successful in the market place, I just feel it had become such a large portion of the game that there wasn't much time for much else. I was reaching out as generally to garner opinions on the system as is and opinions on what could be changed.

I apologize if I am not articulating my opinions well. This...this was a lot harder than I thought and I'm seeing that I have a lot to learn about the issue at hand.

_Zathras_

warlordangel wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

So I am aware that many people are tired of hearing about the auction house debate, but I wanted to plead my case. I wanted to start off by describing my experience. I stopped playing Eso about a year ago and have been thinking of picking it back up, but every time I do I cringe at it. It is because of the trader system as it stands now. I played for years and for year it has been the same. I join a good strong guild like "Out-of-Conduct" on the playstation system. and I need to pay dues in order to stay. But, I have to continuously farm in order to pay my dues. It goes beyond that. I have to continuously farm to keep my slots full so I can make money to participate in the market place to buy goods. The cycle continuous as farm, pay dues, rinse and repeat. I felt like I had very little time to actually play the game itself and that I was paying to work. My old guild fell apart because of the record keeping involved with keeping track of sales, bids, and trying to forecast future bid prices and locations.

I don't really think anyone would lose out if the trader bids were taken out of the equation of gameplay. Current trader NPCs could be replaced in major locations or capitals cites, not just in Mournhold, with a central trading hub/ It could be spread out in major locations as to not have every player in the game converge on 1 location at any given time. Just think of a tent kinda bazaar style where trades could be dropped off. The NPCs could be races relevant to that region. Perhaps it could be overseen by imperials, the "Imperial Exchange". Wouldn't i be something if the event ticket trader woman ran this as a year-round career?

A couple of things:

I hate the guild trader system as well.

BUT.. they will never change it. There are entire guilds and social systems built around it. Outside of that, the root of the system came from DAoC, so I assume Matt loved the concept there enough to carry it over here.

Also, the forum vocal minority loves the system as well. You won't find much support here. Outside of the forums, on other gaming sites, you will absolutely see the lack of an AH as being a strong negative for this game. Here, people see it as unshakably foundational.

Whats DAoC?

Dark Age of Camelot. That's where Matt came from. They had player housing there in massive sprawling zones which took forever to navigate. You could sell from your house.

So, they brought that godawful system to ESO, with some tweaks. You still have to wander way in the middle of nowhere to find those deals, if you choose, but there are traders more conveniently located in city/town hubs which tend to fleece you because you are paying the price for their trader locations.

ESO was marketed to the DAoC vet crowd as DAoC 2 way back before launch. 3 factions, like DAoC, seige warfare, etc.. oh, and no Cash Shop. Cough. That went out the window rather quickly. Oh, marketing, what a lovely little thing you are.

At any rate, that's the origin of what ESO has now: DAoC.

After I started this thread I had googled it real quick to see if there were instances of market manipulation or price gouging. There is.

There is, but the pro-guild trader people will rail against that truth. Any economy in any game gets worked by people who benefit from that manipulation: either pure enjoyment, financial gain, or some combination. Pretending that the guild trader system is somehow immune/resilient and the better of all the options is just self deception, and a mantra repeated by those that benefit the most from the system.

BlueRaven

warlordangel wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

warlordangel wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am in four guilds that maintain traders and all they ask is that I log in once every two weeks.

If my housing guild with no dues can maintain a trader, anyone be can find a guild that has one without the need for dues.

That is most fortunate. But in all honesty, would you consider this a consistent fact or is it outlying information? Where does the guild master recieve the money to retain a trader and where is this trader located? I know of plenty of guilds that institute no dues and their traders are in outlaw refugees or in no mans land.

All guilds are different. Each has their own ways of raising money for traders (if they wish to have a trader). My housing guild, in the above example, has two auctions per week and one discord auction per week. (They also have guild donation drives).

NONE of which are mandatory to participate in.

Meanwhile, my friends and family social guild maintains a trader without anything really. But the gm is involved in a high end trader guild and bankrolls a trader in an out of the way spot for the guild out of their own pocket.
The only requirement in that guild is to just be nice to other guildies. No politics, no religious talk, no sports, etc just be “chill”.

I would hit up some people you know and ask about the guilds they are in Someone, somewhere has to be in a no dues guild you can join.

I could defiantly reach out to some people, but I think a fundamental point is getting garbled up. My complaint has nothing to do with dues, not on its own anyways. My concern has more to do with the time it takes to maintain traders, filling slots, the time it takes to run a guild. Maintaining a constantly full roster is one thing. But contributing members that have a large hand in maintaining traders as part of the market system spend most of their time in event organization and record keeping much like maintaining a job.

My small time guild spent time farming materials to showcase a raffle on a weekly basis. We also ran a furniture store. That required material farming and time to craft furniture, arrange the furniture, advertise the sale, and then man the day(s) of sale. My guild master had told me that she spend hours to keep track of daily sales and guild bank storage as a point of business.

Also feel that the discussion is spiraling into a personal issue, as if I'm only complaining because I haven't been able to sell properly or I feel muscled out. That isn't the issue at all. I have been successful in the market place, I just feel it had become such a large portion of the game that there wasn't much time for much else. I was reaching out as generally to garner opinions on the system as is and opinions on what could be changed.

I apologize if I am not articulating my opinions well. This...this was a lot harder than I thought and I'm seeing that I have a lot to learn about the issue at hand.

But the same thing could be said for any in game activity. Trial progression guilds take effort to run. RP guilds take effort to run successfully. Housing guilds (even without a trader) take effort.

Officers need to continually look for new members, maintain interest in the guild itself, and also police it. They need to resolve conflicts, cover for other officers who are on vacation, etc.

No they don’t (necessarily) require the gm to raise gold or anything, but if you want a successful guild it takes effort. I get that you want an easier way, but even in games like wow, guilds don’t run themselves.

And just as aside this includes clubs in real life as well. I was the president of a Warhammer 40k gaming club for about a decade. I had to deal with dues, complaints over what the dues were for, people leaving the club and coming back, t-shirt designs and cost, contacting stores to where we could meet, hiring busses so we could all go to regional conventions together, hotel room bookings, actually running the meetings themselves, etc.

Towards the end there was two people who kept complaining that they could run things better and they just kept giving me a hard time. I eventually resigned and let them have the club. I walked away from it completely. It took less then a year for a club with well over 40 active members to collapse.
I was contacted by some former members to start a new one, but all that work I put in to it, just for a couple of people to make my life even more stressful, I did not want to run anything anymore. I actually stopped playing 40k all together (still have my armies though).

•••

The TLDR point is that guilds (and clubs) take work. You can try to find some people to help, but in the end, the gm has to be able to put the hours in. It has to be something YOU want to do and it’s not for everybody.

warlordangel

So here is an idea i tried coming up when I was re-reading the thread, I hope I am getting a few things in order.
1.) Market Manipulation.
a. The point made was a single player could corner a market. Buying out competitors.
i. How?
b. What is TTC? What is meant by price index, is that what I proposed?
i. I think this was explained
2.) The “Gold Sink”- When gold is spent on guild traders it disappears from the game, keeping gold finite and scarce. If it were gone then there would be a crazy surplus of gold.
3.) The risk of increase transactions
4.) Underbidding
5.) Price gouging

The above were issues with instituting an auction house that I had put onto a word document and then copied and pasted.

The first thing I noticed is that the laws of supply and demand are not as inelastic as they are real life. The reason being is that the difficulty in refinement and production are not as prevalent in a game as they are in real life. This is due to the fact that resources are pretty much infinite. So essentially, I figure the consequences of floors and ceiling may not be as applicable in game as they are in real life. For those of you who do not know what I mean, floors and ceilings are a means of artificial price control by instituting caps on max or minimum prices.

So here I go:

1.) The first idea to limit player congregation I had mentioned in my OP was to replace current traders in their respective locations with a trading hub not unlike already existing NPC market places. A tent area with NPCS that handle buying and selling.

2.) Standard prices based on market values could be placed. If we wanted to reexamine a price for certain goods then in the test server could institute a number of auction theories to determine fair market value if the average price for current goods sold is unacceptable.
A.) The English Auction style is a style more familiar to most people to which people bid on a commodity and the bid goes higher and higher until no other bids are offered thus revealing the max value of an item .
B.) The Dutch Auction style is a method where the price starts high and gradually lessons until a bidder places an offer. This would work for newly released items.
Just examples.
3.) After a fair market value is determined then a floor and ceiling of say 20% price discrepancy could be in place. If the prices of a commodity had very little flex room then just how much profit could market makers actually make? If the prices were relatively similar then the gold sink problem shouldn't have much sway since prices couldn't go above or below a certain point.

SirLeeMinion

Having played both this and GW2 for years, I see pros and cons of the existing system vs. an auction house. That said, I agree with your thoughts, OP, on the complexity and time demands involved in being an officer or major supporter of a trade guild. In the end, I've largely decided to opt out. I'm in a few no fee guilds that maintain a trader, and during events I sometimes sell a few items to make a million or two. But, for the most part, the time it takes to properly price and list an item just isn't worth it.

You won't change any major system in the game. But, you personally, can step off the farming, trading, pricing treadmill, and still have plenty of gold to buy what you want-- spend those hours doing whatever you most enjoy in game.

DragonRacer

Carcamongus wrote: »

I know the current system can be a bit bothersome, but, to quote Todd Howard: "It just works". Erm, maybe not the best of quotes to use?

Some of the criticism posted here was directed more at how some guilds manage their business than the system per se. As already pointed out, there are many guilds with no dues or fairly low requirements, such as spending 1-2k on raffles. You can come across valuables just by playing the game, so you don't necessarily have to sacrifice your entertainment in order to sell. TTC is a great help to sell and, especially, to buy.

This ^^^

I run one of the few truly donation-based large guilds left on PS4/5 NA (most either charge dues or claim to be donation-based, but you'll be kicked the moment you don't make a donation/contribution of some type so, in that case, you're really still just charging weekly dues but claiming not to). There are no sales requirements as that is a PC-guild only thing (we can't track that here like y'all can) and we do not charge dues. We also do not guilt trip folks who don't or can't contribute nor threaten their membership status in the guild if they can't/don't contribute. Guild removal is based on 1) someone being a giant butthole or 2) inactivity period of over 21 days can put you in jeopardy because all guilds need active blood to survive.

Because of that, I do not have the extra work/stress of tracking member dues to rank up/down or things of that matter. We do ask for folks to donate when or as they can because bidding on traders is expensive, more so the better city you want to be in. We're in a pretty good spot of usually keeping either Alinor or Rimmen regularly and that works for us without the stress of trying to compete with the mega-dues capital city guilds.

I have the extra work of tracking raffles for fundraisers, running housing contests for the guild to have fun, and running a weekly auction as a fundraiser, but these are all work I took on willingly as the guild GM. If I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't. I would think most trading guild GMs and officers have that mindset.

Acquiring items to sell in the trader can happen during normal gameplay. Gold mats and master writs can drop from crafting dailies. Running chapter dailies can drop style mats needed for the furnishing community, motifs, or weapons/armor to sell. Things that all take relatively little time to do. If someone is stressing out trying to get items to sell in a trader to pay weekly dues, then the most logical choice is to join a guild that is donation-based or not in a capital or sub-capital and what sells sells and what doesn't doesn't.

Weekly trader bids are the biggest game gold sink, with next largest probably being houses bought for in-game gold and luxury furnishing vendor. The winning bid money - in the millions for any capital and sub-capital city and bordering that even at the mid-level cities - vanishes into the ZOS black hole. Every week. It isn't about making it go "poof" one time and your goldsink is resolved for an 8+ year ongoing game. It's something ZOS needs ongoing, therefore, weekly trader bids, where money from players either taken via dues or willingly donated are shucked out into the cornfield.

etchedpixels

Make the travelling NPC merchants randomly pick a guild that has opted into trading every hour and trade their stuff as well. Kills some of the giant search engine stuff and lets everyone participate a bit and find cool stuff as well as leaving the big trading guilds relevant and pouring money out of the game.

Kind of how it works in Cyrodiil but with less blood.

warlordangel

I just had an idea. What if a function for bidding was added? It would function a lot like any auction where a price is named. I think its something like a Dutch Auction where the bid prices descend from the named price.

Hmmmm say we keep the time limit, items can stay listed for how long is it 30 days? During this time if players do not like the price listed they propose a bid something like "Price is 100k or best offer". We don't have to make it mandatory to accept the bid. If it works out like an actual auction the price could in theory rise above the original asking price. The option to buy the item outright for the listed price could always be the option kind of like paying for convenience instead of haggling.

Let me see if I can clarify what I mean. Simply put someone places a spinner's inferno staff for 100k. Someone proposes 85k instead as a bid. The outcomes afterwards could be someone else bidding 86k, then another bids 88k. There is no reason that the final offer couldn't be at 101k.

I mentioned using floors and ceilings to limit price action but what if this is an alternative to that concept? I remember being annoyed when my stuff isn't selling. I have to either relist or wait in order to off load my crap. How many players would hold out until their asking price is met everytime, and I think it would still fit nicely with Zos's idea of a player based economy.

Now I'm not fool enough to say this will be void of any issues, but it was a thought.

barney2525

To your point - Yes. An Auction house would be better. I play multiple other MMOs that all have AH and there are No 'horrible issues' that the Pro-traders who camp this topic will leap in and claim.

However, until a change happens, we got what we got.

If you are in a Guild that requires harsh quotas and dues ... LEAVE IT

You can - I Know this for a Fact because I Do it - watch for Guilds advertising in Chat, click the link and see if they Have a trader. If not, skip them. When you find one with a trader, see the requirements. You will know if they are Hard or not.

I am in such a Guild, I do Not EVER have 30 slots filled. I generally have about 10. I sell the odd things that pop up - motifs I dont care about, furnishings, maps of DLCs, mundane enchant runes or hardwood, sometimes some other mats, depending on what the going price is. I also make gold doing antiquities. Best thing about antiquities, the Treasure items are a set value to sell to a vendor. blues are 1k. purples are 5k.

You are definitely in the wrong Guild for your style of play. I recommend you find a couple different Guilds who do have Traders, but dont have high dues/requirements.

FrancisCrawford

warlordangel wrote: »

mavfin wrote: »

Don't join the exploitative trade guilds that drain you dry, but won't help you out. Problem solved.
Dues in my trade guild are 5K a month or 100K sales a month, which is absolute child's play.
Just in the course of my play, and what I just happen to pick up, I average about 750K a week. I don't push hard to sell, I just pick up what's lying around, or lands in my bags to decon or sell.

that may very well be true as a single player who is a part of a guild, but what of players who have a hand in running it? Raffles, guild furniture store, player run auctions, these are all things that require time and effort to set up, record, and run. These efforts are put in with the sole-purpose of raising money to bid on a trader which is done on a weekly basis.

Yep. That's only fun if you don't have a chance to run a business in real life.

FrancisCrawford

LikiLoki wrote: »

The problem can be solved if you prohibit the transfer of gold to the guild bank for everyone. Remove this possibility. The kiosks can be purchased only for the amount of income from weekly sales. This will put everyone on an equal footing.

That wouldn't actually stop a guild from collecting gold from its members. The gold would just have to be laundered via sales.

FluffWit

I'm in the most expensive trader in Playstation NA- 20k a week. Its peanuts. There are plenty of others in capitals charging half that. And plenty in second tier cities with no fees.

woufff

I absolutely love the current system, please do not change it. It's one of the reasons I love this game so much for so many years already

By the way, I'm in four trading guilds with almost no dues on both servers and all of them are always full with 500 guildies and a trader every week.

And no, I do not need to farm the whole day, just normal gameplay, daily writs & random dungeons
.

warlordangel

woufff wrote: »

I absolutely love the current system, please do not change it. It's one of the reasons I love this game so much for so many years already

By the way, I'm in four trading guilds with almost no dues on both servers and all of them are always full with 500 guildies and a trader every week.

And no, I do not need to farm the whole day, just normal gameplay, daily writs & random dungeons
.

I have been seeing these comments an awfully lot but they add very little to the conversation or they simply do not clarify anything. What about it do you like? Why do you like it so much? If the need to keep up with quotas or there are soooo many guild who do not need to even institute dues and getting high end places is not an issue then what is the argument against auction houses.

You said yourself along with many other players that you just sell things as a normal course of game play. This is more of an argument for a neutral stand point if nothing else. In fact you sound as if you don't actually engage in trading all that much at all. So what is your argument? How are you against a change when it seems it would have very little impact on you. Would you really find it difficult to sell? To Buy?

Brrrofski

I honestly don't see the issue.

I've played the game since day one release on Xbox. Outside of a couple of things (like days swapping etc), it's worked pretty well.

I've easily made 50m on EU, while spending most of that time in PvP.

I started on NA about 9 months ago, and I've comfortably made 6m in that time.

All of this is with minimal time invested in trading.

Xbox EU has no fees at all. No guild charges them. NA has 10k usually. Which is peanuts. And that's mainly in Mournhold and Elden Root. Most others are free.

There are plenty of people that enjoy the role of running these guilds too. Some I know play the game FOR that.

Yes, buying was really annoying at one time. With the new filters and recent searches being saved, it's nowhere near as bad anymore.

Ultimately, it's not going to change. Auction houses have their own problem too. Price fixing on 6 megaservers would be rife. You can still do it now, but it takes a lot more effort, which is good.