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Trading: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
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JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭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.
If people want absolutely no contact whatsoever at any time with any other living player, well...that is what the single player games are for. I log in, play when I want, sell items if I want, and leave when I want; I have to chat with no one. I don't use Discord. I don't use Teamspeak. Over the span of time from early access to now I've encountered a few incidents of guild drama. A few times the troublemaker was kicked, a few times I dropped the guild. Why there are such strong objections to joining a guild to sell your stuff and then, if you truly can't stand being in a guild for personal reasons, dropping it until you pile up inventory you want to sell and then finding a new guild, I don't understand.1 -
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.
If people want absolutely no contact whatsoever at any time with any other living player, well...that is what the single player games are for. I log in, play when I want, sell items if I want, and leave when I want; I have to chat with no one. I don't use Discord. I don't use Teamspeak. Over the span of time from early access to now I've encountered a few incidents of guild drama. A few times the troublemaker was kicked, a few times I dropped the guild. Why there are such strong objections to joining a guild to sell your stuff and then, if you truly can't stand being in a guild for personal reasons, dropping it until you pile up inventory you want to sell and then finding a new guild, I don't understand.
I don't have a horse in this race any more as I left the game, but I participate in the discussions because I find this forum too one-sided and I would consider returning if ZOS ever address the issue.
But surely the answer to "I don't understand" is that, at the end of the day, you don't need to.
These players exist, they play the game, and if there is a solution that actually doesn't disrupt anything (indeed, it would advantage the guild member players because it would increase the number of players in a position to buy stuff from them, and you would have created a pauper class who earn less from the "pauper" traders than guild sellers can earn from their guild traders) AND enables them to sell in a sensible manner, what on earth is the problem? What is the rational objection to doing that?
That they like different things in the game than the people on this forum? Well, so what?Edited by Northwold on August 1, 2022 8:55PM0 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭
Depending on how you set up these automated traders, I wouldn't have a problem with the concept. Maybe have a higher tax rate to incentivize joining an actual guild, e.g., have a 1% listing fee and 11% tax, which deducts 1.5x as much as on a guild trader. You'd have to consider a few things though:These players exist, they play the game, and if there is a solution that actually doesn't disrupt anything (indeed, it would advantage the guild member players because it would increase the number of players in a position to buy stuff from them, and you would have created a pauper class who earn less from the "pauper" traders than guild sellers can earn from their guild traders) AND enables them to sell in a sensible manner, what on earth is the problem? What is the rational objection to doing that?- How many sellers do you allow per "pauper trader"? Since regular traders have a maximum of 500, I don't think the system can accommodate having 10'000 sellers on an automated one, which is still just a fraction of the whole player base.
- If size is restricted, how many "pauper traders" will you add to the game? Won't this fracture the market even more and make it more bothersome to buy stuff without add-ons?
- Since there is no active management like in a guild, managing the number of listings might be the way to limit the size. Each player can only list X items and the trader has a maximum of Y listings. This might cause some frustration for people who try to sell at a full trader, though.
The same could be said of the type of player you're arguing for. There are trading guilds today, where membership would not meaningfully differ from the "pauper trader" system you described, because you can just join, list stuff whenever you want to, and avoid all interactions to focus on the solo game you prefer. If someone refuses this viable option simply because there are still real players running the guild, isn't that dogmatic as well?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.
EDIT: Fixed typoEdited by Ph1p on August 2, 2022 5:21AM1 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.2 -
warlordangel✭✭warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.
you continously go in circles over and over and over again, much like a dog chasing its own tail. I have read the other threads and at the very least have attempted to address the various issues that people have raised about a central market. You can keep going on and on about how some guilds will cease to exist but I find it moot. Guilds have already collapsed under the current system so its a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every change is inferior to the old system because thats what people make it out to be when they are complacent and personally don't feel like having a change.
Edited by warlordangel on August 2, 2022 8:39AM2 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.
you continously go in circles over and over and over again, much like a dog chasing its own tail. I have read the other threads and at the very least have attempted to address the various issues that people have raised about a central market. You can keep going on and on about how some guilds will cease to exist but I find it moot. Guilds have already collapsed under the current system so its a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every change is inferior to the old system because thats what people make it out to be when they are complacent and personally don't feel like having a change.
Sigh.
This whole thread is pointless as eso system cannot support what you are proposing.
With what money does zos have to buy high powered servers and to rewrite the base game code to accommodate the gigantic communication load a centralized AH would make?
Go to ANY large guilds store and search for something. That delay, that wait for search results. That is there for a guild with only at most 500 members who may or may not have maxed out their allotment of selling slots. That’s 30*500 items at most.
Now multiply that by a further 10,000(?) is that even a realistically large enough number? If the delay was that long before what will it be now? And remember, everyone using it will be searching and posting and buying, AT THE SAME TIME!!! From the same constantly updating list of items!!!
Eso does not have servers like wow. Everyone gets put in the same mega server. So think of all of wows servers, now crush them all into a single mega auction house and you can start to comprehend the issue.
Wow does NOT have a centralized auction house. They don’t have a server that could accommodate it. They have many smaller auction houses divided up into smaller segments. These segments are called servers. Guilds provide that separation here in eso.
Do you see? Even without guilds. A centralized AH cannot exist in eso because a centralized AH does not exist in ANY game. You just have the illusion of a centralized AH in wow, but you already chose your “store” when you chose what server to play on.Edited by BlueRaven on August 2, 2022 11:33AM5 -
Dawnblade✭✭✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.
you continously go in circles over and over and over again, much like a dog chasing its own tail. I have read the other threads and at the very least have attempted to address the various issues that people have raised about a central market. You can keep going on and on about how some guilds will cease to exist but I find it moot. Guilds have already collapsed under the current system so its a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every change is inferior to the old system because thats what people make it out to be when they are complacent and personally don't feel like having a change.
Sigh.
This whole thread is pointless as eso system cannot support what you are proposing.
With what money does zos have to buy high powered servers and to rewrite the base game code to accommodate the gigantic communication load a centralized AH would make?
Go to ANY large guilds store and search for something. That delay, that wait for search results. That is there for a guild with only at most 500 members who may or may not have maxed out their allotment of selling slots. That’s 30*500 items at most.
Now multiply that by a further 10,000(?) is that even a realistically large enough number? If the delay was that long before what will it be now? And remember, everyone using it will be searching and posting and buying, AT THE SAME TIME!!! From the same constantly updating list of items!!!
Eso does not have servers like wow. Everyone gets put in the same mega server. So think of all of wows servers, now crush them all into a single mega auction house and you can start to comprehend the issue.
Wow does NOT have a centralized auction house. They don’t have a server that could accommodate it. They have many smaller auction houses divided up into smaller segments. These segments are called servers. Guilds provide that separation here in eso.
Do you see? Even without guilds. A centralized AH cannot exist in eso because a centralized AH does not exist in ANY game. You just have the illusion of a centralized AH in wow, but you already chose your “store” when you chose what server to play on.
WoW does have some very large servers (A52, Stormrage) while not imposing listing caps (volume sellers may have 1000s of items posted), though not sure how population/item counts compare from a WoW large server to say PC NA, though we can assume they have some very high volume AH markets. They also make all the AH data available via an API, so players can use any number of third-party sites on the web and mobile as well as in-game add-ons to see all kinds of price / volume data that is just totally missing in ESO even with things like TTC.
Oh and they have also announced they will have region-wide (e.g. NA / EU / Asia) AH in place for commodities/consumables in the next expansion - so they will have a true 'megaserver' AH for most items.
Of course, they have had to rebuild their AH system several times, most recently they did a complete rebuild an expansion or so ago when the AH was nearly unusable on the larger servers.
Anyways, I have no idea how much time and money it cost them to build the systems they have, nor whether ZOS will ever be granted similar levels of resources for ESO.
I'm just putting this out here to say the idea of a central marketplace being technically impossible is nonsense, even though I agree it would probably require a miracle for ZOS to pull it off, doubly so given what we know of their current infrastructure.1 -
LalMirchi✭✭✭✭✭
✭Looking at the dev comment from May 2014 I think that an Auction House is highly unlikely in ESO.
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/947
"What's your purpose in making guild stores for guild members only? Why not make them for everyone?"" – sliyerking
"Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver. With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the “gear chase” portion of the game."
Edited by LalMirchi on August 2, 2022 1:38PM1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.
you continously go in circles over and over and over again, much like a dog chasing its own tail. I have read the other threads and at the very least have attempted to address the various issues that people have raised about a central market. You can keep going on and on about how some guilds will cease to exist but I find it moot. Guilds have already collapsed under the current system so its a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every change is inferior to the old system because thats what people make it out to be when they are complacent and personally don't feel like having a change.
Sigh.
This whole thread is pointless as eso system cannot support what you are proposing.
With what money does zos have to buy high powered servers and to rewrite the base game code to accommodate the gigantic communication load a centralized AH would make?
Go to ANY large guilds store and search for something. That delay, that wait for search results. That is there for a guild with only at most 500 members who may or may not have maxed out their allotment of selling slots. That’s 30*500 items at most.
Now multiply that by a further 10,000(?) is that even a realistically large enough number? If the delay was that long before what will it be now? And remember, everyone using it will be searching and posting and buying, AT THE SAME TIME!!! From the same constantly updating list of items!!!
Eso does not have servers like wow. Everyone gets put in the same mega server. So think of all of wows servers, now crush them all into a single mega auction house and you can start to comprehend the issue.
Wow does NOT have a centralized auction house. They don’t have a server that could accommodate it. They have many smaller auction houses divided up into smaller segments. These segments are called servers. Guilds provide that separation here in eso.
Do you see? Even without guilds. A centralized AH cannot exist in eso because a centralized AH does not exist in ANY game. You just have the illusion of a centralized AH in wow, but you already chose your “store” when you chose what server to play on.
WoW does have some very large servers (A52, Stormrage) while not imposing listing caps (volume sellers may have 1000s of items posted), though not sure how population/item counts compare from a WoW large server to say PC NA, though we can assume they have some very high volume AH markets. They also make all the AH data available via an API, so players can use any number of third-party sites on the web and mobile as well as in-game add-ons to see all kinds of price / volume data that is just totally missing in ESO even with things like TTC.
Oh and they have also announced they will have region-wide (e.g. NA / EU / Asia) AH in place for commodities/consumables in the next expansion - so they will have a true 'megaserver' AH for most items.
Of course, they have had to rebuild their AH system several times, most recently they did a complete rebuild an expansion or so ago when the AH was nearly unusable on the larger servers.
Anyways, I have no idea how much time and money it cost them to build the systems they have, nor whether ZOS will ever be granted similar levels of resources for ESO.
I'm just putting this out here to say the idea of a central marketplace being technically impossible is nonsense, even though I agree it would probably require a miracle for ZOS to pull it off, doubly so given what we know of their current infrastructure.
You are correct in that it is entirely possible that ZOS can make it work, But it would be a major investment.
It is also one of the very key factors that players disregard or ignore whenever this topic comes up.
This is one of the reasons I keep mentioning it. ZOS simply can't flip a switch and change how the system works. There are a lot of factors and trade offs involved. Most of which are 100% out of the player bases control.
All of which make the likelihood of asking for a GAH or even a native server or zone search function very unlikely.
Personally I would prefer that zos fix and reinforce all of the other server issues before making an investment like this.
3 -
Dawnblade✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel 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.
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.
No I said the current system would be gone. If you replace a system you by definition are removing that system. If you start a central auction house or a central buying/selling location there is zero reason to have traders as they now exist. So that system would be gone. If the system is gone then why would the guilds that were created for the purpose of having a trader feel the need to stay together?
Are you somehow unaware that there are entire guilds of over 400 people that exist only because of their mutual desire to own a trader? Not just a few but many guilds. I'm not saying all the players in those guilds would quit if the trading system were changed in the drastic way proposed. I know some would and probably not an insignificant number. I am saying there would be no point to those guilds and those guilds represent a large part of the player population.
Why would you want/need a trade guild if every individual can post items for sale in a central location? What you want is an end to trading as it is known in this game. That means you are asking for a system in the game to be completely removed and replaced. My opinion you want to replace it with something far inferior and much more easy to manipulate. I could give you the reasons again or you can go back and look at other threads where I and others have listed how and why a global/central market would be a bad idea.
You can find reasons in this thread if you look.
And again I'm not saying no changes. I am saying no reason for a complete overhaul. There are things that can be done to make the system we have better. I shared a few of my ideas in this thread and others. I'm not saying changing would make things worse. I am saying the changes you want to make would make the system worse. THe idea you are supporting is a bad idea.
you continously go in circles over and over and over again, much like a dog chasing its own tail. I have read the other threads and at the very least have attempted to address the various issues that people have raised about a central market. You can keep going on and on about how some guilds will cease to exist but I find it moot. Guilds have already collapsed under the current system so its a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every change is inferior to the old system because thats what people make it out to be when they are complacent and personally don't feel like having a change.
Sigh.
This whole thread is pointless as eso system cannot support what you are proposing.
With what money does zos have to buy high powered servers and to rewrite the base game code to accommodate the gigantic communication load a centralized AH would make?
Go to ANY large guilds store and search for something. That delay, that wait for search results. That is there for a guild with only at most 500 members who may or may not have maxed out their allotment of selling slots. That’s 30*500 items at most.
Now multiply that by a further 10,000(?) is that even a realistically large enough number? If the delay was that long before what will it be now? And remember, everyone using it will be searching and posting and buying, AT THE SAME TIME!!! From the same constantly updating list of items!!!
Eso does not have servers like wow. Everyone gets put in the same mega server. So think of all of wows servers, now crush them all into a single mega auction house and you can start to comprehend the issue.
Wow does NOT have a centralized auction house. They don’t have a server that could accommodate it. They have many smaller auction houses divided up into smaller segments. These segments are called servers. Guilds provide that separation here in eso.
Do you see? Even without guilds. A centralized AH cannot exist in eso because a centralized AH does not exist in ANY game. You just have the illusion of a centralized AH in wow, but you already chose your “store” when you chose what server to play on.
WoW does have some very large servers (A52, Stormrage) while not imposing listing caps (volume sellers may have 1000s of items posted), though not sure how population/item counts compare from a WoW large server to say PC NA, though we can assume they have some very high volume AH markets. They also make all the AH data available via an API, so players can use any number of third-party sites on the web and mobile as well as in-game add-ons to see all kinds of price / volume data that is just totally missing in ESO even with things like TTC.
Oh and they have also announced they will have region-wide (e.g. NA / EU / Asia) AH in place for commodities/consumables in the next expansion - so they will have a true 'megaserver' AH for most items.
Of course, they have had to rebuild their AH system several times, most recently they did a complete rebuild an expansion or so ago when the AH was nearly unusable on the larger servers.
Anyways, I have no idea how much time and money it cost them to build the systems they have, nor whether ZOS will ever be granted similar levels of resources for ESO.
I'm just putting this out here to say the idea of a central marketplace being technically impossible is nonsense, even though I agree it would probably require a miracle for ZOS to pull it off, doubly so given what we know of their current infrastructure.
You are correct in that it is entirely possible that ZOS can make it work, But it would be a major investment.
It is also one of the very key factors that players disregard or ignore whenever this topic comes up.
This is one of the reasons I keep mentioning it. ZOS simply can't flip a switch and change how the system works. There are a lot of factors and trade offs involved. Most of which are 100% out of the player bases control.
All of which make the likelihood of asking for a GAH or even a native server or zone search function very unlikely.
Personally I would prefer that zos fix and reinforce all of the other server issues before making an investment like this.
Agreed - they should also look at what can be improved about what we have without causing more issues behind the scenes.
I mean for sure, I would much prefer a central non-guild-based marketplace system - but I too realize given the history and current state of ESO's technology infrastructure that doing so would be a monumental and costly undertaking.
Edited by Dawnblade on August 2, 2022 5:25PM0 -
danno8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.
A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.1 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.
A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
TTC does not provide updated and accurate information. Items can be in game for hours and never show on the TTC database. Items that sell might not be removed for a significant period of time. An in game system would have to track each and every item as it is listed real time and each transaction as it happens. TTC does nothing near this.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."1 -
danno8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.
A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
TTC does not provide updated and accurate information. Items can be in game for hours and never show on the TTC database. Items that sell might not be removed for a significant period of time. An in game system would have to track each and every item as it is listed real time and each transaction as it happens. TTC does nothing near this.
The game already does all that.
The game already tracks every item in real time and tracks every transaction as it happens.
The game already has a listing of every single item up for sale. You just don't get to see it all at once since it only serves it up by the kiosk that you are at.0 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.3 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭.A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.
Honestly, running trading off a dedicated database server that pipes into the game and is accessed on a per query basis would be pretty standard so the real problem with these reasons is that it equates in effect to "we can't do this because ZOS doesn't want to spend any money". I mean, fair enough, but most users pay money for ESO in one form or another so it's a bit Stockholm Syndrome to excuse that unquestioningly.
Also given that ZOS are on record saying they do consider the trading question periodically, I'm not even sure these technical points are true. You can't seriously consider doing something it is not technically possible to do.Edited by Northwold on August 3, 2022 8:13PM0 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.
A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
TTC does not provide updated and accurate information. Items can be in game for hours and never show on the TTC database. Items that sell might not be removed for a significant period of time. An in game system would have to track each and every item as it is listed real time and each transaction as it happens. TTC does nothing near this.
The game already does all that.
The game already tracks every item in real time and tracks every transaction as it happens.
The game already has a listing of every single item up for sale. You just don't get to see it all at once since it only serves it up by the kiosk that you are at.
The last paragraph being the important one. When you visit a trader the server only needs to bring up at most .5% as there are more than 200 traders and it only needs to bring up the contents of one trader. With a global market every visit would have to bring up the entire data base of items.
To me that doesn't matter near as much as other factors. I believe a global market is easier to manipulate and have seen examples of manipulation in other games. I also believe the system ESO has in place brings much more to the game than a global system would bring. And as has been said earlier by me and others switching now would bring about devastating results far beyond what we would see if a global market were in place from the beginning. Way to much gold in the economy to switch how it works now. Better to concentrate on quality of life improvements for the current system than a complete overhaul.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."1 -
danno8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭wolfie1.0. wrote: »I admit that some of the ideas here may have merit and are probably worth exploring and discussing.
But unfortunately they probably won't work.
An in game TTC system would either crash the game, be out of date, or be incredibly time consuming, or otherwise restrictive. The servers are simply not set up to handle the traffic. Per ZOS the can't handle current scans and queries of guild history, and zos has heavily hinted that they can barely handle combat.
Until that changes zos is just going to keep trickling in trader stalls.
A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
TTC does not provide updated and accurate information. Items can be in game for hours and never show on the TTC database. Items that sell might not be removed for a significant period of time. An in game system would have to track each and every item as it is listed real time and each transaction as it happens. TTC does nothing near this.
The game already does all that.
The game already tracks every item in real time and tracks every transaction as it happens.
The game already has a listing of every single item up for sale. You just don't get to see it all at once since it only serves it up by the kiosk that you are at.
The last paragraph being the important one. When you visit a trader the server only needs to bring up at most .5% as there are more than 200 traders and it only needs to bring up the contents of one trader. With a global market every visit would have to bring up the entire data base of items.
It really doesn't though. When you visit a trader it only brings up the first page of whatever default option is on that first page. When you click to go to the next page the system then queries "what is on page two for x trader within the search criteria" and only displays that.
The system currently only does it very piecemeal and that is how a Global Listing search would work as well. It is not as if every item in the game would be loaded and displayed for you on in one fifty million entry long list. If it takes longer for search results to come back since you are searching the whole database rather than one trader at a time, well that is fine, since you are going to be saving a tonne of time by not having to visit dozens of traders all over the place to get your results anyway. ZoS would simply set the search query limits and pacing themselves.
You should also consider that there would be fewer individual trader queries on the server since it is likely you won't have to interact with so many of them because the global listing would tell you exactly which trader you need to go and interact with to get your item.
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danno8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.
Like I said, ZoS could do it at least as well as TTC and probably better. It doesn't even need to be completely real time to be better than TTC like you pointed out. Updating the Global Listing once every few minutes would be a huge improvement. Or segmenting it by trader or however best to break up the flow so it is manageable.
A Global Listing while maintaining individual traders would retain the need to visit each kiosk, preventing the easy manipulation that most advocates of the current system tout as a big plus, while allowing people to actually find what they need within a reasonable time and allow far flung traders in remote locations to be useful.1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭.A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.
Honestly, running trading off a dedicated database server that pipes into the game and is accessed on a per query basis would be pretty standard so the real problem with these reasons is that it equates in effect to "we can't do this because ZOS doesn't want to spend any money". I mean, fair enough, but most users pay money for ESO in one form or another so it's a bit Stockholm Syndrome to excuse that unquestioningly.
Also given that ZOS are on record saying they do consider the trading question periodically, I'm not even sure these technical points are true. You can't seriously consider doing something it is not technically possible to do.
Sorry, my intention was to point out the issue as not an excuse but more a hurdle or challenge. It can be done provided that we can convince ZOS to invest in it.
That said we can't seem to get them to invest in stable PVP connections for years so take from that what you will.0 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.
Like I said, ZoS could do it at least as well as TTC and probably better. It doesn't even need to be completely real time to be better than TTC like you pointed out. Updating the Global Listing once every few minutes would be a huge improvement. Or segmenting it by trader or however best to break up the flow so it is manageable.
A Global Listing while maintaining individual traders would retain the need to visit each kiosk, preventing the easy manipulation that most advocates of the current system tout as a big plus, while allowing people to actually find what they need within a reasonable time and allow far flung traders in remote locations to be useful.
Yup ZOS could totally do it. They just have to be convinced that players need it to play the game and that players will toss more money at them if they make the investment.
That hasn't exactly worked out for general server stability over the years.0 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭Honestly, running trading off a dedicated database server that pipes into the game and is accessed on a per query basis would be pretty standard so the real problem with these reasons is that it equates in effect to "we can't do this because ZOS doesn't want to spend any money". I mean, fair enough, but most users pay money for ESO in one form or another so it's a bit Stockholm Syndrome to excuse that unquestioningly.
Also given that ZOS are on record saying they do consider the trading question periodically, I'm not even sure these technical points are true. You can't seriously consider doing something it is not technically possible to do.
You're right about the technical feasibility and that ZOS could solve this by putting enough resources and money behind it. It's not a trivial move, though, and even MMOs built around a (somewhat) central trading system can still have significant performance issues. And I think ZOS would put off many players if they decided to invest in infrastructure for centralized trading instead of fixing PVP or other performance issues.Edited by Ph1p on August 3, 2022 10:45PM0 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭The current system sucks for those not profiting by it.
Still VERY difficult to find what you want (that is still in stock) when gearing up a new CP160, for example.
It won't get much support here because some benefit from the current system too much and ZOS hasn't indicated any indication for any QoL changes in this area, even with searching listings and finding things worldwide (in the game, not with the useful but limited TTC addon).PC
PS4/PS50 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭warlordangel wrote: »
He means the gold taken out of the system because of the gold guilds pay for custom trader locations.
Whoever thought up the current system was really thinking of finding stuff, but of drawing gold out and making guilds compete. Not a well designed system, though many love it now.PC
PS4/PS50 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭wolfie1.0. wrote: ».A single guy is able to setup TTC on his own dime (using ads for revenue of course), and maintain it for years even though he is not playing the game anymore, but ZoS with a multi-faceted development team and huge resources at their disposal couldn't somehow do the same?
I mean I know it's fashionable (and deserved at times) to mock the abilities of the developers of any game you are currently playing, but I gotta believe ZoS could pull it off at least as well as the owner/author of TTC.
Yes I am aware of bugs/features/current PTS and other ZoS failures but it's hardly a good reason to not ask for new or improved things. Otherwise we should never ask for anything for fear of it being poorly done.
This isn't about mocking ZOS or its developers. It's about how most databases work. If you need to find a needle in a haystack, it will take longer if the haystack is much bigger. It will take even longer if you need to find 10 needles. And it will take forever, if 1000 people tell you to find their individual 10 needles at the same time. Combining all listings in a central trading hub impacts performance in all 3 ways: The system needs to execute more queries on a larger database and it needs to return a larger number of hits on average.
Presumably, you can see these performance issues in other games: As Dawnblade mentioned, WoW has auction houses that have significantly more listings than an ESO guild trader. A year ago or so, many were unusable, especially on high-population servers or during peak times. In ESO, having a megaserver-wide trading hub could potentially be even larger, although it's not directly comparable.
In that regard, TTC is not a real-time trading database. It collects data from volunteers who look at guild traders, then uploads those datapoints when the volunteer logs out or reloads UI. What you see on TTC is a bunch of snapshots from different points of time, stitched together into a combined picture. If you buy an item, that transaction is not immediately added to the database. If nobody visits a specific trader for 5 hours, its data is at least 5 hours out of date.
Honestly, running trading off a dedicated database server that pipes into the game and is accessed on a per query basis would be pretty standard so the real problem with these reasons is that it equates in effect to "we can't do this because ZOS doesn't want to spend any money". I mean, fair enough, but most users pay money for ESO in one form or another so it's a bit Stockholm Syndrome to excuse that unquestioningly.
Also given that ZOS are on record saying they do consider the trading question periodically, I'm not even sure these technical points are true. You can't seriously consider doing something it is not technically possible to do.
Sorry, my intention was to point out the issue as not an excuse but more a hurdle or challenge. It can be done provided that we can convince ZOS to invest in it.
That said we can't seem to get them to invest in stable PVP connections for years so take from that what you will.
I share your frustrations there; it does start to feel a bit ridiculous when year after year, on myriad different topics, we hear that the servers aren't up to it. Well, change them, then.Edited by Northwold on August 3, 2022 11:13PM0 -
TaSheen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I find it interesting that there are two totally polarized viewpoints here. I would think that there would be a broader range of attitudes.
Intriguing.______________________________________________________
"But even in books, the heroes make mistakes, and there isn't always a happy ending." Mercedes Lackey, Into the West
PC NA, PC EU (non steam)- four accounts, many alts....0 -
Ph1p✭✭✭✭✭I find it interesting that there are two totally polarized viewpoints here. I would think that there would be a broader range of attitudes.
Intriguing.
The debate is reasonably civil though. This kind of discussion can devolve into finger-pointing when supporters of the guild system are painted as greedy scammers and billionaire fat-cats who look down on poor casuals and just want to preserve their trading cartels...
I think polarization is in the nature of this topic. A central trader/auction house is a polar opposite of the current guild trader system and incompatible with it. So you're not just adding a feature or modifying the gameplay, which most people can live with or adapt to. But it removes an element of the game (trading guilds), which many will find unacceptable.
Beyond that binary choice though, there have been lots of interesting suggestions to improve the situation without harming anybody, including:- In-game tool for sellers to check prices (à la MM/ATT)
- In-game tool for buyers to check listings (à la TTC) - could be by zone or Alliance and not real-time to improve performance
- Better search tool for buyers
- Quality-of-life improvements for guild masters to make it easier to manage their communities
- Addition of more guild traders to provide more opportunities for sellers
- Addition of automated traders for a non-guild trading option, balanced by higher taxes on listings, kind of like the smuggler assistant that takes a high cut compared to regular fences
EDIT: TypoEdited by Ph1p on August 4, 2022 10:52AM2 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭For what it's worth I did a post on reddit on the idea of pauper traders for those who don't join guilds. It was polarised and the usual reddit habit of downvoting or upvoting based on mob feeling rather than thought, but REASONABLY balanced. And given that over 29,000 people have engaged with it it may provide a better view of what people think.
I'm not sure if we're allowed to cross link here but I guess it can always be edited out if need be: https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/we7c1m/selling_stuff_pauper_npc_traders_for_players_who/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb
(Admittedly, by linking it here I'm basically inviting a flood of downvote because there are a lot of ultraconservative players here, but discussion is discussion.)Edited by Northwold on August 4, 2022 11:56AM0 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭FlopsyPrince wrote: »The current system sucks for those not profiting by it.
Still VERY difficult to find what you want (that is still in stock) when gearing up a new CP160, for example.
It won't get much support here because some benefit from the current system too much and ZOS hasn't indicated any indication for any QoL changes in this area, even with searching listings and finding things worldwide (in the game, not with the useful but limited TTC addon).
THe current system works well for those willing to participate. No system is going to work if you don't participate.
And yeah there could be some quality of life changes to help find certain items. These changes could be made without ditching the system we have now.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."1