Maintenance for the week of July 1:
• NA megaservers for maintenance – July 1, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• EU megaservers for maintenance – July 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
• ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – July 1, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• NA megaservers for maintenance – July 1, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• EU megaservers for maintenance – July 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
• ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – July 1, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
Trading: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
-
LalMirchi✭✭✭✭✭
✭Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO1 -
warlordangel✭✭Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.2 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."3 -
warlordangel✭✭warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.2 -
endgamesmug✭✭✭✭I have alot of excess that i dont particularly need and i sold for a time at a cheaper rate give someone a deal that sought of thing. But then I realised pretty quickly all I was doing was feeding the flippers, so I dont do that anymore.I sell at the current rate or not at all since I dont really need the gold anyway. If people wanna drive the price of everything skyward well goodluck with that I guess.Gonna be interesting to see what happens.0
-
LalMirchi✭✭✭✭✭
✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
Strawman arguments? or valid discussion points? Out of proportion? Please enlighten us.1 -
warlordangel✭✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
Strawman arguments? or valid discussion points? Out of proportion? Please enlighten us.
Did that. Did that through the whole thread. The "valid discussion points" are nothing more than no I like the current system. he last post was some inane rambling about how trading will suddenly go poof. How? Where? Who is saying that we should get rid of trading? All I did was suggest another system. I listened to the concerns of others and tried to work out solutions that could be up for consideration. But what do you have? Nothing. Just fear mongering. I was watching this thread rolling my eyes saying "oh how original, I like the system as is" or "Oh lookie here a real critical thinker all right, changing the system will be so much worse!"
I tried to actually come up with something concrete. Maybe I did a good job of it, maybe not. But it was a whole lot better than these weak arguments of forcibly disbanding guilds, or its not broken, or oooh trading is considered end game content as if trading would just disappear.1 -
Lannharr✭✭✭As a result of playing without guild or by having their inventory full some players are spamming local chat with WTB and WTS orders.
Is there any better solution that can be implemented on how to trade without being in a guild in the future?
1 -
warlordangel✭✭As a result of playing without guild or by having their inventory full some players are spamming local chat with WTB and WTS orders.
Is there any better solution that can be implemented on how to trade without being in a guild in the future?
Too all those commenting with either generalities or sincere questions like this one, or really anyone, would you like me to repost previous conversations? Alchemical has also had a lot of useful input that never actually agreed with me.0 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Zzwarlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
That is not a straw man argument in any way. There are large and well run trading guilds with happy active membership. What you are proposing would eliminate the reason for their existence. Just as the elimination of trials would destroy trial based guilds.
And yes, there are people who play this game only for the monetary system. It’s a lot more dynamic then a static auction house, which to be honest feels like a dated concept in mmos.5 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
The problem with what you say is that you consistently define change as "needless" throughout this thread simply because you don't personally want it, and you then, in summary, say that the very people who want this change (a sizable number of players, regardless of your unsubstantiated insinuations to the contrary) just aren't playing the game right. That's really not up to you in isolation to determine.
In your latest message, you claim people want "change for the sake of change" while completely ignoring, and therefore discounting, everything that anyone has said about why they think that change is actually necessary because you're all right Jack.
And you will no doubt deny that that is what your arguments amount to, but I'm sorry you have proposed very little of substance to support your views. And, yes, you do raise strawmen about how all guilds will cease to exist if the trading system is changed in any way, when the tenor of this discussion throughout has been about exploring alternative trading mechanics, rather than removing the existing systems entirely. And if the effect of adding alternative routes for trading *would* be that all people lost interest in the trading guild game, well, that rather blows out of the water the claim that it is a gameplay mechanic a lot of people enjoy, anyway, doesn't it? If they like it so much, what is the threat.
And you blithely assert that illogical comparisons "support" your views, for example that trading is the same kind of gameplay mechanic as trials because, well, I don't know what the because is since as a comparison -- between an underlying system that supports multiple features of the rest of the game and thus borders on mandatory to be able to play the game in an entertaining way (trading) and an isolated and specific gameplay experience that has no effect on anything else and is entirely optional (trials) -- it's preposterous, as if repeating such non sequiturs enough will eventually make them logical and convincing.
It would be easier to give your views weight if you were more straightforward in what you mean, rather than trying to bolster your views with spurious "arguments". You personally like the trading system just the way it is and you don't want it to change.Edited by Northwold on July 31, 2022 2:28PM2 -
skayl✭✭And you will no doubt deny that that is what your arguments amount to, but I'm sorry you have proposed very little of substance to support your views. And, yes, you do raise strawmen about how all guilds will cease to exist if the trading system is changed in any way, when the tenor of this discussion throughout has been about exploring alternative trading mechanics, rather than removing the existing systems entirely. And if the effect of adding alternative routes for trading *would* be that all people lost interest in the trading guild game, well, that rather blows out of the water the claim that it is a gameplay mechanic a lot of people enjoy, anyway, doesn't it? If they like it so much, what is the threat.
And you blithely assert that illogical comparisons "support" your views, for example that trading is the same kind of gameplay mechanic as trials because, well, I don't know what the because is since as a comparison -- between an underlying system that supports multiple features of the rest of the game and thus borders on mandatory to be able to play the game in an entertaining way (trading) and an isolated and specific gameplay experience that has no effect on anything else and is entirely optional (trials) -- it's preposterous, as if repeating such non sequiturs enough will eventually make them logical and convincing.
I think it's possible that you're blowing Kargen's comments a bit out of proportion. At no point did I see them claim that all guilds will disband if an auction house is implemented, that seems to have been a question that warlordangel had asked them in order to get clarification on their post. What Kargen is pointing out is that high-level trading *is* an endgame activity for many players and that they participate in guilds to facilitate that gameplay: flipping items, farming for valuable style pages and recipes, purchasing limited-time items to hold and sell at a better price in the future. If the game transitioned to having an auction house instead of local traders, then many of the aspects of this gameplay style cannot be fulfilled by a trading guild--or any guild at all. It would absolutely hurt people who treat trading as a serious game in itself. The social culture of a trading guild can revolve hugely around talking about movements in the prices of goods, how upcoming events and patches might impact hot selling items, and more; auction houses dilute many of these market-like behaviors... and yeah, trading would get a bit boring unless you're one of the people sitting on hundreds of millions of gold, in which cause an auction house would give you exciting new opportunities to corner the market. You can even see this in ESO, albeit in a limited manner, usually for furnishing plans or motifs that are rare and have few listings, where someone buys all of the "Blueprint: Cool Furniture Item" and posts a handful for five times the price. (I definitely don't speak from the experience of trying to hunt down a furnishing plan that had been routinely selling for 50k for a few weeks while some guy is hoovering them up all day, every day and trying to hike prices to 300k).
And to the validity of a comparison between trials and trading as essential features of ESO, I would point out that trials are also a pretty big deal--for people who want map completion, achievement completion (or something approaching that), titles, dyes, furnishings, etc, trials are a "can't-skip" element of play. Trading, on the other hand, has no achievements associated with it. The 'essential' aspect of trading isn't trading itself, but rather its value as a means to earn gold. I wouldn't say that trading & trials are a bad comparison, though perhaps some hyperbole was involved.
That said, your 'pooled trader'/'pauper's guild' idea from a few pages back is a super, super good one, and one I've thought would be worthwhile in the past as well. The taxes would need to be higher, and perhaps item posting limits lower, but having access to some form of kiosk would make a huge difference for players who don't participate in guilds. The points made about how out of proportion NPC merchant prices are to the guild-trader value of items in-game are also great. Why are reasonably valuable items only selling for a few hundred gold to NPCs? And the lack of any kind of base-game price checking tool is one of the most frustrating elements of the ESO economy. I have really good data on NA from my guilds, but on EU I have practically no idea what things are selling for, and though TTC is wonderful, it's hard to comb through that many pages of listings to see what prices look like in different hubs and the 'price check' summary often leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you to warlordangel for putting together a thread on the ESO economy that has generated such constructive discourse. Looking forward to seeing if any more ideas emerge!PC/NA - cp2000+0 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?Edited by wolfie1.0. on August 1, 2022 5:01AM2 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭And you will no doubt deny that that is what your arguments amount to, but I'm sorry you have proposed very little of substance to support your views. And, yes, you do raise strawmen about how all guilds will cease to exist if the trading system is changed in any way, when the tenor of this discussion throughout has been about exploring alternative trading mechanics, rather than removing the existing systems entirely. And if the effect of adding alternative routes for trading *would* be that all people lost interest in the trading guild game, well, that rather blows out of the water the claim that it is a gameplay mechanic a lot of people enjoy, anyway, doesn't it? If they like it so much, what is the threat.
And you blithely assert that illogical comparisons "support" your views, for example that trading is the same kind of gameplay mechanic as trials because, well, I don't know what the because is since as a comparison -- between an underlying system that supports multiple features of the rest of the game and thus borders on mandatory to be able to play the game in an entertaining way (trading) and an isolated and specific gameplay experience that has no effect on anything else and is entirely optional (trials) -- it's preposterous, as if repeating such non sequiturs enough will eventually make them logical and convincing.
I think it's possible that you're blowing Kargen's comments a bit out of proportion. At no point did I see them claim that all guilds will disband if an auction house is implemented, that seems to have been a question that warlordangel had asked them in order to get clarification on their post. What Kargen is pointing out is that high-level trading *is* an endgame activity for many players and that they participate in guilds to facilitate that gameplay: flipping items, farming for valuable style pages and recipes, purchasing limited-time items to hold and sell at a better price in the future. If the game transitioned to having an auction house instead of local traders, then many of the aspects of this gameplay style cannot be fulfilled by a trading guild--or any guild at all. It would absolutely hurt people who treat trading as a serious game in itself. The social culture of a trading guild can revolve hugely around talking about movements in the prices of goods, how upcoming events and patches might impact hot selling items, and more; auction houses dilute many of these market-like behaviors... and yeah, trading would get a bit boring unless you're one of the people sitting on hundreds of millions of gold, in which cause an auction house would give you exciting new opportunities to corner the market. You can even see this in ESO, albeit in a limited manner, usually for furnishing plans or motifs that are rare and have few listings, where someone buys all of the "Blueprint: Cool Furniture Item" and posts a handful for five times the price. (I definitely don't speak from the experience of trying to hunt down a furnishing plan that had been routinely selling for 50k for a few weeks while some guy is hoovering them up all day, every day and trying to hike prices to 300k).
And to the validity of a comparison between trials and trading as essential features of ESO, I would point out that trials are also a pretty big deal--for people who want map completion, achievement completion (or something approaching that), titles, dyes, furnishings, etc, trials are a "can't-skip" element of play. Trading, on the other hand, has no achievements associated with it. The 'essential' aspect of trading isn't trading itself, but rather its value as a means to earn gold. I wouldn't say that trading & trials are a bad comparison, though perhaps some hyperbole was involved.
That said, your 'pooled trader'/'pauper's guild' idea from a few pages back is a super, super good one, and one I've thought would be worthwhile in the past as well. The taxes would need to be higher, and perhaps item posting limits lower, but having access to some form of kiosk would make a huge difference for players who don't participate in guilds. The points made about how out of proportion NPC merchant prices are to the guild-trader value of items in-game are also great. Why are reasonably valuable items only selling for a few hundred gold to NPCs? And the lack of any kind of base-game price checking tool is one of the most frustrating elements of the ESO economy. I have really good data on NA from my guilds, but on EU I have practically no idea what things are selling for, and though TTC is wonderful, it's hard to comb through that many pages of listings to see what prices look like in different hubs and the 'price check' summary often leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you to warlordangel for putting together a thread on the ESO economy that has generated such constructive discourse. Looking forward to seeing if any more ideas emerge!
I used to vehemently fight against GAH. I have since stepped back and changed my perspective. At this point in my gameplay I am impartial. I have reached self sufficiency long ago. Zos could turn the GAH on tomorrow and I would dive right in. I'm some aspects it would make things a lot easier for me in others more difficult.
I do have concerns I think are valid though and they are items that no one really has addressed and people don't want to think about.
Transitional impactsany swap to the core of the trading model is messy on the economy. We will know 6 weeks in advance of the change. During which time players will react. It will be a very rough time for the economy.
All Things Have a Cost- In game traders, servers, farming... everything costs something. Right now guilds bid on traders and fight for chosen top notch locations in order to compete. Drawing large chunks of gold out of the economy voluntarily. It is a choice that players do this. Swapping fully or even partially to a GAH will require all gold sinks and gold costs to be reevaluated and rebalanced accordingly. Failure to do so can ruin any semblance of an economy.
Along with that imagine this. You go to an auction house portal you search for worms because you are out and you want to go ocean fishing. The search attempts to retrieve 200k results and you get booted because the search results were too big. Or you have an addon that auto searches and you get booted. Or it takes 10 to 30 minutes to load the search results? Would such conditions be acceptable to the player base? What happens if more players login at the same time and all conduct trades and the system goes down for several days ( this happened with guild history addons remember) What in game features would the player base as a whole be willing to give up to support the change? Both permanent and temporary?
All Things Have a cost - IRL this is an extention of the previous point. Because one of the biggest investments and players you would have to get on board is ZOS. They would have to be convinced that it will be worth the time and IRL funds it would take to make the switch and pay for it. They would have to set up the trading system to handle enough traffic so that during a peak session the system could handle it without crashing. That's a real world investment that ZOS would need to pay. And time spent making the change.
The Craft Bag and the problem that no one wants to admit. let's face one thing here. The craft bag is an OP advantage that is the most in your face pay to win mechanic in eso. It was released as a solution to ESOs crafting storage problems and a way to keep people subbed to the game. This is my opinion but with a GAH it is completely broken. Currently the craft bag allows you to bypass the trading of all crafting materials. You do not have to trade to get them. The craft bag with a GAH would are price manipulation way easier than it should. The craft bag would need to change.
Participation by its nature a GAH will require a significant portion of the population to participate so that its function as a trading hub and natural gold sink would work. For that to happen players would need to have a strong incentive to participate. Whether it's by placing restrictions on storage, increasing craft costs, or another function as many players as can would need to participate to compete.
Trading Guilds and Trading Czars I posed the question earlier. But what do these people do with all of their accumulated gold? Do they dispers3 it? Destroy it? Or do they try to influence the market as a guild? It's hard for 1 player to corner the market on an item for very long (they have to sleep and eat etc) but a collection of 100 to 200 could make a dent. 500 could possibly corner a market.2 -
warlordangel✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
Answer: something else. Buy gear for new builds, run trials, buy furniture or plans, maybe play the game, dabble in in the new card game.1 -
Roztlin45✭✭✭✭✭Without really changing the current system ,I would like a broker exchange. That maybe list all items and what guild.trader has them. For an amount of extra gold a npc can fetch the item for you and be delivered in your mail. This without the add on and I dislike running all over just to find the item sold. Maybe even set up option trading for raw goods.lol0 -
Zodiarkslayer✭✭✭✭✭
✭warlordangel wrote: »wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
Answer: something else. Buy gear for new builds, run trials, buy furniture or plans, maybe play the game, dabble in in the new card game.
I'd like to chime in here. Trade guilds have formed in ESO, because the system has transformed into a minigame itself. For a lot of trade enthusiast it is the only reason to stay in game and keep playing ESO.
Don't take that away from them!
Price building and their fluctuations are generally following the META and desirability of new releases. In conjunction with a lot of in game events, that creates a volatile and reactive environment. The markets in ESO are constantly accelerated, so to say.
The system itself is not the problem, because it is just a transmission. The source of the problem is the almost constant influx of new items.
As long as release schedules are not changed, the markets won't decelerate.
During the Zeal of Zenithar event with the free ESO+ trial access in week two all crafting mats have gone skyhigh in price. Almost everything is twice as highly priced, compared to before.
That is the source of the problem. And is what has to change.
A global Auction House will have little to no effect, if the source remains untouched.
I hope that sinks in.read, think and write.In that order.2 -
FantasticFreddie✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭People who assert that the system "isn't broken" do need to bear in mind that not every player plays the game the same way they do.
One particular problem that the current trading system brings up is that it cuts solo players off from any sensible mechanism to sell stuff (no, spamming zone chat is not a sensible selling mechanism).
These people do not want to join guilds and will not join guilds. They want to play solo, they want to play casually. It's completely irrelevant that you don't understand why they won't join guilds; they won't.
No, this does not mean they are "lazy". They may spend a lot of time in the game. They may grind resources. They may spend ridiculous amounts of time stealing to make gold.
This is not a negligible proportion of players, although solo players are very underrepresented on this forum. As you might well expect, given that this forum is full of people who are very hardcore ESO players indeed.
Three problems, really, arise with how the system is set up.
1) Guilds must bid for trading spots. There are no general trading spots for guilds that don't pay rent, such as pooled traders for "pauper" guilds, at which sellers are charged a high tax so that they're not in competition with sales by the "hardcore" guilds (although at that point the only reason for linking the pooled traders to guilds at all would be to appease fanatical players who simply refuse all change -- guild membership would become even more of an artificial and completely unnecessary gate).
Because guilds must bid, guilds often have to charge dues to their members to be able to afford the bids. That necessitates an active membership and means guilds need to kick people who dip in and out. Even if a solo player were willing to join a guild in principle if it were a mere formality, that need for activity effectively makes guilds a non-starter for them.
2) The very low guild member limit, again, necessitates guilds weeding out players who are relatively inactive. Again, that alienates more casual solo players who will find themselves spending all their time applying to guilds. And they won't, because that is not how they want to play.
3) The prices in the player economy, particularly on PC, are ludicrously out of line with the prices you get for selling things in the game world itself. That 100 gold sword that you could sell for 20,000 at a trader. That crafting material that sells for 5 gold in the game but 2,000 gold at a trader.
So solo players have no way to keep track with the kinds of prices that are a feature of the player economy. They are effectively cut off from buying from other players with any degree of regularity because they cannot make enough gold. (And to those who say "well make 18 characters and do crafting writs", go have a look at reddit or steam and see how many people actually do that. When account wide achievements came out, the reaction there to people running multiple characters was overwhelmingly "why would anyone be so ridiculous", *not* "oh yes I run crafting writs on all my 18 characters every single day, don't we all?" Much as these forums might make you feel otherwise, you are in a minority and honestly it is pretty strange to take such a mechanical and repetitious approach to a computer game.)
And fine, you might think. It doesn't matter that they can't keep track with player economy pricing because they play solo and so don't really need anything that they could get from the player economy, anyway.
Well, no, actually. Because various parts of the game that are very obviously solo nonetheless depend on being able to access the player economy -- to buy stuff -- to be playable. Stuff that is ridiculously, ridiculously expensive to solo players because player economy pricing is so out of whack.
Nowhere is that more obvious than with housing, the ne plus ultra of ESO solo activities. You are not going to get very far with housing, unless you want to spend literally two years furnishing every house or spend hundreds or thousands of pounds / euros / dollars in the crown store, if you cannot buy furnishing plans, crafting materials, and so on.
There is a real problem with the way trading is set up that makes playing parts of the game actively unpleasant for solo players who will not join guilds. These players exist, whether you like it or not -- and your judgment on their personal virtues is neither here nor there (indeed, if you derive a sense of pride for being more hardcore than anyone else in a video game it might be better to keep that to yourself) -- and represent a significant proportion of the player base.
It really needs to be addressed.
And at the end of the day, anyway, who actually likes this system in the real world beyond the people on this forum and the tiny minority of players who have made guild trading their in game life? The purported premise for guild trading of having to shop around is plain silly in the first place -- why would anyone consider running around the entire continent one painful loading screen at a time looking for a rare item fun -- and plain doesn't work on PC since Tamriel Trade Centre arrived.
So what on earth is the point of it? To force the bulk of your player base to go through a pointless hoop so they spend more time in the game? Is that really desirable when the reason they're spending more time in the game isn't that they're *having fun* but because they are having needless mechanics that are actively irritating thrown in their faces? "How do i fancy spending my Sunday? Hmm, I know, why don't I spend three hours visiting every trader in Tamriel and running the same database search over and over again. That sounds like fantastic fun."
Look around, Google it. When people talk about which MMO to play, ESO's guild trader system is regularly cited. As an annoying negative of ESO compared to everyone else.
Your argument is that a SOLO player in an massive MULTIPLAYER online game, one that is REFUSING to join any guilds, is who we should be catering to?
Well then. Why don't we just make all trials so they can be completed by a solo player too?
I am COMPLETELY ok with some things in an MMO being out of reach to an unreasonably stubborn solo player.
PVP is a way to make gold. Grind AP. Rewards from the worthy come with gold, buying stacks of potions and selling them in zone. Or, you can farm your own mats.
It's unreasonable to think that a huge chunk of a multi-player game would be totally accessible to a player that doesn't want to work with other people ever.3 -
JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
Answer: something else. Buy gear for new builds, run trials, buy furniture or plans, maybe play the game, dabble in in the new card game.
Or, if you are one of the players who believe that TRADING IS THE ENDGAME, and want to play ELDER TRADERS ONLINE, you drop the game and walk because no trading with your guild killed any interest you have in the game. Please note; that gold is GUILD gold, not personal GM gold hoard. How much of that is the gm's personal income to spend? Something else to consider; the players who want to do trials do trials. The ones that don't, don't. If you take out a piece of the game players actually want to do and try to force them into activities they have no interest in, they won't do it. Why would anyone who focused on trading bother to buy furniture plans? They may have no plans to level a crafter to build them. If they can't flip them for a profit, there's no point in buying them. As far as the card game goes, it is definitely not the same as doing trading. Getting decent cards to allow a win once in a while is a lot more grinding than trading.1 -
JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I get it, change is scary. At the same time though, a little trust would be much appreciated.
If an auction house were to be implemented, have faith the the dev team will do it right
Ever consider that, just like the 2nd part of the justice system, they didn't implement it because there was no iron-clad absolute way to make sure there were no loopholes and exploits?0 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭FantasticFreddie wrote: »People who assert that the system "isn't broken" do need to bear in mind that not every player plays the game the same way they do.
One particular problem that the current trading system brings up is that it cuts solo players off from any sensible mechanism to sell stuff (no, spamming zone chat is not a sensible selling mechanism).
These people do not want to join guilds and will not join guilds. They want to play solo, they want to play casually. It's completely irrelevant that you don't understand why they won't join guilds; they won't.
No, this does not mean they are "lazy". They may spend a lot of time in the game. They may grind resources. They may spend ridiculous amounts of time stealing to make gold.
This is not a negligible proportion of players, although solo players are very underrepresented on this forum. As you might well expect, given that this forum is full of people who are very hardcore ESO players indeed.
Three problems, really, arise with how the system is set up.
1) Guilds must bid for trading spots. There are no general trading spots for guilds that don't pay rent, such as pooled traders for "pauper" guilds, at which sellers are charged a high tax so that they're not in competition with sales by the "hardcore" guilds (although at that point the only reason for linking the pooled traders to guilds at all would be to appease fanatical players who simply refuse all change -- guild membership would become even more of an artificial and completely unnecessary gate).
Because guilds must bid, guilds often have to charge dues to their members to be able to afford the bids. That necessitates an active membership and means guilds need to kick people who dip in and out. Even if a solo player were willing to join a guild in principle if it were a mere formality, that need for activity effectively makes guilds a non-starter for them.
2) The very low guild member limit, again, necessitates guilds weeding out players who are relatively inactive. Again, that alienates more casual solo players who will find themselves spending all their time applying to guilds. And they won't, because that is not how they want to play.
3) The prices in the player economy, particularly on PC, are ludicrously out of line with the prices you get for selling things in the game world itself. That 100 gold sword that you could sell for 20,000 at a trader. That crafting material that sells for 5 gold in the game but 2,000 gold at a trader.
So solo players have no way to keep track with the kinds of prices that are a feature of the player economy. They are effectively cut off from buying from other players with any degree of regularity because they cannot make enough gold. (And to those who say "well make 18 characters and do crafting writs", go have a look at reddit or steam and see how many people actually do that. When account wide achievements came out, the reaction there to people running multiple characters was overwhelmingly "why would anyone be so ridiculous", *not* "oh yes I run crafting writs on all my 18 characters every single day, don't we all?" Much as these forums might make you feel otherwise, you are in a minority and honestly it is pretty strange to take such a mechanical and repetitious approach to a computer game.)
And fine, you might think. It doesn't matter that they can't keep track with player economy pricing because they play solo and so don't really need anything that they could get from the player economy, anyway.
Well, no, actually. Because various parts of the game that are very obviously solo nonetheless depend on being able to access the player economy -- to buy stuff -- to be playable. Stuff that is ridiculously, ridiculously expensive to solo players because player economy pricing is so out of whack.
Nowhere is that more obvious than with housing, the ne plus ultra of ESO solo activities. You are not going to get very far with housing, unless you want to spend literally two years furnishing every house or spend hundreds or thousands of pounds / euros / dollars in the crown store, if you cannot buy furnishing plans, crafting materials, and so on.
There is a real problem with the way trading is set up that makes playing parts of the game actively unpleasant for solo players who will not join guilds. These players exist, whether you like it or not -- and your judgment on their personal virtues is neither here nor there (indeed, if you derive a sense of pride for being more hardcore than anyone else in a video game it might be better to keep that to yourself) -- and represent a significant proportion of the player base.
It really needs to be addressed.
And at the end of the day, anyway, who actually likes this system in the real world beyond the people on this forum and the tiny minority of players who have made guild trading their in game life? The purported premise for guild trading of having to shop around is plain silly in the first place -- why would anyone consider running around the entire continent one painful loading screen at a time looking for a rare item fun -- and plain doesn't work on PC since Tamriel Trade Centre arrived.
So what on earth is the point of it? To force the bulk of your player base to go through a pointless hoop so they spend more time in the game? Is that really desirable when the reason they're spending more time in the game isn't that they're *having fun* but because they are having needless mechanics that are actively irritating thrown in their faces? "How do i fancy spending my Sunday? Hmm, I know, why don't I spend three hours visiting every trader in Tamriel and running the same database search over and over again. That sounds like fantastic fun."
Look around, Google it. When people talk about which MMO to play, ESO's guild trader system is regularly cited. As an annoying negative of ESO compared to everyone else.
Your argument is that a SOLO player in an massive MULTIPLAYER online game, one that is REFUSING to join any guilds, is who we should be catering to?
Well then. Why don't we just make all trials so they can be completed by a solo player too?
I am COMPLETELY ok with some things in an MMO being out of reach to an unreasonably stubborn solo player.
PVP is a way to make gold. Grind AP. Rewards from the worthy come with gold, buying stacks of potions and selling them in zone. Or, you can farm your own mats.
It's unreasonable to think that a huge chunk of a multi-player game would be totally accessible to a player that doesn't want to work with other people ever.
The points you've made are already addressed in multiple other posts. And frankly whether you, with your playstyle, are personally OK with them is not material to the debate. What is material is whether these grievances are shared by enough players of the game across all users to make them matter. And you will not find a representative cross section on this forum, which is for the most part populated by a hardcore with totally different interests from more casual players.
And I have no idea why people keep raising trials as a comparison. Trading is the link to the player economy. Without it you can't properly keep track with item pricing, despite multiple types of gameplay (you have literally quoted a post explaining about housing, for example) being effectively dependent on access to the player economy to work properly. Those types of gameplay have literally nothing to do with trading as an actual gameplay experience and, given their dependence on trading, trading was about the stupidest system conceivable to tie to a gated multiplayer guild system.
Contrast trials. Do you want to do custom bits of gameplay that require a group. Yes? Great. No? Also great. Because it affects nothing else in the game.
In case you haven't noticed, ESO may sell itself as an MMO, but actually large chunks of it are not multiplayer at all and have been designed to court solo players. Including the majority of content in literally every chapter. Is it possible that they realised that their target market included solo players from the main Elder Scrolls games and designed the game actively to court people who want that kind of play? Hmm, I wonder...Edited by Northwold on August 1, 2022 2:43PM0 -
danno8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭An in-game version of Tamriel Trade Center would be great, but I doubt it will ever happen.
To the OP, the current system has plenty of flaws and everyone knows it, but it is unlikely to change due to how deeply entwined it is with Guilds, gold, time and effort that currently exists.
All I have to say is thank god for TTC as it allows me to find what I am looking for relatively quickly, even though the item is gone 50% of the time when I get to the Guild kiosk. An in-game version would simply make the listings more accurate and up-to-date.
TTC is the only reason you can find some Guilds offering very low or even no weekly requirements for sales, because without TTC those out-of-the-way kiosks would never see any traffic at all.0 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »Did that. Did that through the whole thread. The "valid discussion points" are nothing more than no I like the current system. he last post was some inane rambling about how trading will suddenly go poof. How? Where? Who is saying that we should get rid of trading? All I did was suggest another system. I listened to the concerns of others and tried to work out solutions that could be up for consideration. But what do you have? Nothing. Just fear mongering. I was watching this thread rolling my eyes saying "oh how original, I like the system as is" or "Oh lookie here a real critical thinker all right, changing the system will be so much worse!"
I tried to actually come up with something concrete. Maybe I did a good job of it, maybe not. But it was a whole lot better than these weak arguments of forcibly disbanding guilds, or its not broken, or oooh trading is considered end game content as if trading would just disappear.
No one said "trading will suddenly go poof" - how did you arrive at that conclusion? The argument was: If you move to a central auction house and eliminate the NPC traders, then many trading guilds will struggle with membership and likely disband because they have no purpose any more. Think of it: There is no bidding for guild traders any more, so why join a trading guild? It doesn't matter which guild you belong to, because all trading is centralized.
Basically, you harm lots of communities that guild leaders and officers have put a lot of work in. Now, you might believe that those are sunk costs and that the benefits of central trading outweigh this problem. But this argument is not "inane rambling". In an earlier post, you asked everyone to be civil. Please stick to that yourself.3 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »Along with that imagine this. You go to an auction house portal you search for worms because you are out and you want to go ocean fishing. The search attempts to retrieve 200k results and you get booted because the search results were too big. Or you have an addon that auto searches and you get booted. Or it takes 10 to 30 minutes to load the search results? Would such conditions be acceptable to the player base? What happens if more players login at the same time and all conduct trades and the system goes down for several days ( this happened with guild history addons remember) What in game features would the player base as a whole be willing to give up to support the change? Both permanent and temporary?
This is the crux that no supporter of a central trading system has been able to address so far:
First of all, central trading in other MMOs is not necessarily fully centralized. World of Warcraft has hundreds of servers and their auction houses only serve a handful of connected servers each. Final Fantasy 14 has about a hundred and again, their market boards are set up per server. None of those come close to the model people are advocating for.
Second, ESO has just 6 megaservers. Centralizing trade at such a scale would lead to the issues wolfie mentioned. Already today, searching a guild trader can take a few seconds. How will it look like if millions of people can all list items that millions of people can search for simultaneously? And if you break it into smaller parts to improve performance, then this goes against the centralization principle.
Third, maybe this can be resolved from a technical point of view. But I would argue that there are many more important technical issues that plague the game and should take precedence. Many people still have regular crashes to desktop, PVP performance is terrible, dungeon instances become slideshows after too many wipes, and so on... Even if we all decide that central trading is the way to go - and I agree to some of the benefits - I don't see a path to implementation.2 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps, at least to tell players which traders in a zone have the item they want and for how much. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame, and such a fundamental system should not be a gated, clunky and generally annoying mess.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.Edited by Northwold on August 1, 2022 6:55PM2 -
jaws343✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.2 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
No it's not an assumption. It's that some people do not want to join guilds. Full stop. Clearly a lot of people round here have a problem with that. Too bad. Because those players do exist, their tastes are not yours, and they have a problem with being required to join a player administered guild: they won't. This is not unique to ESO, although it is a section of the playerbase that ESO has courted more than any other MMO.
And yes, people can suggest that those people just go elsewhere because reasons. But I really think people in this forum don't wholly appreciate how many people do not want to join a guild. It's pretty common.
And quite frankly, there is no sensible reason why the game should not accomodate them since, as I've pointed out above, there are ways of doing so that would have minimal to absolutely no effect on the people who do want to trade via guilds anyway (except to make them richer), and would preserve the system's uncentralised nature. Faced with compromise solutions like that, objections to changing the system start to feel purely dogmatic and reactionary rather than being grounded in any recognisable reality or logic.Edited by Northwold on August 1, 2022 7:23PM0 -
jaws343✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
No it's not an assumption. It's that some people do not want to join guilds. Full stop. Clearly a lot of people round here have a problem with that. Too bad. Because those players do exist, their tastes are not yours, and they have a problem with being required to join a player administered guild: they won't. This is not unique to ESO, although it is a section of the playerbase that ESO has courted more than any other MMO.
And yes, people can glibly state that those people should just go elsewhere. But I really think people in this forum don't wholly appreciate how many people do not want to join a guild. It's pretty common.
And quite frankly, there is no sensible reason why the game should not accomodate them since, as I've pointed out above, there are ways of doing so that would have minimal to absolutely no effect on the people who do want to trade via guilds anyway (except to make them richer), and would preserve the system's uncentralised nature. Faced with compromise solutions like that, objections to changing the system start to feel more dogmatic and reactionary than grounded in any recognisable reality or logic.
A player not wanting to join a guild is not a problem with the system. That is a problem with the player. Yeah, players do have problems with that, because those players want to torpedo the whole system because they refuse to participate in it for nonsense reasons.
4 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
No it's not an assumption. It's that some people do not want to join guilds. Full stop. Clearly a lot of people round here have a problem with that. Too bad. Because those players do exist, their tastes are not yours, and they have a problem with being required to join a player administered guild: they won't. This is not unique to ESO, although it is a section of the playerbase that ESO has courted more than any other MMO.
And yes, people can glibly state that those people should just go elsewhere. But I really think people in this forum don't wholly appreciate how many people do not want to join a guild. It's pretty common.
And quite frankly, there is no sensible reason why the game should not accomodate them since, as I've pointed out above, there are ways of doing so that would have minimal to absolutely no effect on the people who do want to trade via guilds anyway (except to make them richer), and would preserve the system's uncentralised nature. Faced with compromise solutions like that, objections to changing the system start to feel more dogmatic and reactionary than grounded in any recognisable reality or logic.
A player not wanting to join a guild is not a problem with the system. That is a problem with the player. Yeah, players do have problems with that, because those players want to torpedo the whole system because they refuse to participate in it for nonsense reasons.
QED.Edited by Northwold on August 1, 2022 7:24PM0 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I have to state it again. My housing and friends & family guilds have traders. All they ask is that you log on at least once every two weeks. That’s it.
You can turn off the guild chat if you wish. You do not need to interact with anyone at all!
There are plenty of “no dues” guilds geared toward basically any taste (that have traders) out there that you can join.
You DON’T have to join a trader guild that may have selling quotas or dues at all if you don’t wish to.2