Can we please get a Auction House?

reazea

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

Northwold

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

There are a whole litany of responses in this thread that blow to pieces the inflation point.

If anything contributes to inflation, it's the way the trader setup concentrates the vast, vast majority of all trading in a small handful of geographic locations with a lot of footfall, without any easy mechanism for players to see prices elsewhere.

Effectively, prices are set in Wayrest, Belkarth, etc, and prices at ANY of the other traders become completely irrelevant to the game's economy because so few people bother to look elsewhere / so many people are fed up of seeing something on TTC only to find it's gone by the time they get there that they stop bothering.

That also creates a huge incentive for flipping.

Price transparency / discoverability (and therefore proper price competition) does not happen properly in ESO. Ergo, sellers can raise prices at will in the core locations and demand will not fall commensurately to counteract that on commodity items because no one can see the other prices and few go through the mad exercise of trekking the world just in case, while any seller in the key locations with an ounce of common sense will just follow the prevailing prices there because someone is going to buy at the higher price anyway.

Those prices are in turn driven up BECAUSE of the trader bidding system, which drives guild dues in the key trader locations. As gold sinks go, a gold sink that itself significantly contributes to the very inflation it is supposed to address looks rather misguided.

Separately, the guild membership gate to selling means a slice of players plain do not sell. That artificially restricts supply, particularly of commodity items. Which, again, reduces any pressure to lower prices.

SmellyUnlimited

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

I see no scenario where this would actually “increase” inflation. If players have a global look at goods for sale, the contrary would be true - prices inevitably would drop and find a medium. Right now the inconvenience of getting to certain area guild traders is what leads people to purchase items at a higher cost from the high density traders in the big cities (Deshaan, Elden Root, etc.). They’ve monopolized the markets and the lower tier traders rarely get much traction, which is why the big guilds can charge 20-50k a week for the ability to sell at high density locales.

Kidgangster101

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

I see no scenario where this would actually “increase” inflation. If players have a global look at goods for sale, the contrary would be true - prices inevitably would drop and find a medium. Right now the inconvenience of getting to certain area guild traders is what leads people to purchase items at a higher cost from the high density traders in the big cities (Deshaan, Elden Root, etc.). They’ve monopolized the markets and the lower tier traders rarely get much traction, which is why the big guilds can charge 20-50k a week for the ability to sell at high density locales.

Yep and it also gives people in those big guilds the ability to do rounds as often as they want to get all the cheap items they relist for 2x or more of their money. People that make the claim about the economy are the ones doing this usually and don't want it fixed because then they would actually need to farm items to sell.

Would prices go way down on goods to start if a central type hub came into play? Maybe at the start because all the players that just npc everything would get to sell. So it would flood the market in a huge burst but eventually everything will settle in and finally normalize.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

xFocused wrote: »

Can we please get a Auction House?

HELL NO.

Current system is perfectly fine.

Sheezabeast

The heck is this idea that prices are set?

Anyone can use TTC and find the cheapest posted item. Just like equally anyone in need of fast funds can price up or down their item for quick sale or hoping someone pays the higher price for the convenience of not having to.shop around.

DMuehlhausen

xFocused wrote: »

It's so time consuming to have to run to each and every zone checking every trader for a specific piece of gear when we could have a auction house in a major zone where multiple guilds can list items. You could even make 3-5 Auction Houses spread across Tamriel to hold multiple guilds as to not bog down one single zone. Just something that would make shopping/selling a lot easier in my opinion

No. Technically with TTC it's an Auction House anyway. Don't complain about a time sink or wasting time at this point. When they first launched you had to go check like 40 different traders hoping to find what you wanted.

Kidgangster101

reazea wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

There are a whole litany of responses in this thread that blow to pieces the inflation point.

If anything contributes to inflation, it's the way the trader setup concentrates the vast, vast majority of all trading in a small handful of geographic locations with a lot of footfall, without any easy mechanism for players to see prices elsewhere.

Effectively, prices are set in Wayrest, Belkarth, etc, and prices at ANY of the other traders become completely irrelevant to the game's economy because so few people bother to look elsewhere / so many people are fed up of seeing something on TTC only to find it's gone by the time they get there that they stop bothering.

That also creates a huge incentive for flipping.

Price transparency / discoverability (and therefore proper price competition) does not happen properly in ESO. Ergo, sellers can raise prices at will in the core locations and demand will not fall commensurately to counteract that on commodity items because no one can see the other prices and few go through the mad exercise of trekking the world just in case, while any seller in the key locations with an ounce of common sense will just follow the prevailing prices there because someone is going to buy at the higher price anyway.

Those prices are in turn driven up BECAUSE of the trader bidding system, which drives guild dues in the key trader locations. As gold sinks go, a gold sink that itself significantly contributes to the very inflation it is supposed to address looks rather misguided.

Separately, the guild membership gate to selling means a slice of players plain do not sell. That artificially restricts supply, particularly of commodity items. Which, again, reduces any pressure to lower prices.

No there's not. There's just a bunch of posts from people who want to change one of the central aspects the game design because they don't like the trader system ZOS created.

@reazea

So if it's a central thing that is so great....... Why is there an addon that PC players use to help turn this unique amazing system ZOS created basically into a central AH? If it was as amazing and unique as people say then there would be no need of an addon to improve such a great feature right?

1) AH would give everyone the ability to see what is listed and would keep track of recent sales.

2) PC addon allows you to see where items are listed (yes some might be sold out by the time you arrive but at least you know where to look). And it allows players to see recent sales and prices of items.

So with those 2 things listed above please tell me what's the difference? PC is playing with a central AH (not intended to be the way ZOS wanted this unique style system to be used) while console players get to live the great amazing system ZOS created. I legit don't get how people argue against saving time for non PC players (and yes I have a PC but I wouldn't ever start over just to use add-ons that should be built into tne game). I started on console long before I got a decent PC and I refuse to start over everything from scratch. If your answer is for me to be punished for playing on console please don't say it because that should never be a thing.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After removing some unnecessary back and forth from this thread, we would like everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, civil, and constructive.

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here

LittlePinkDot

xFocused wrote: »

It's so time consuming to have to run to each and every zone checking every trader for a specific piece of gear when we could have a auction house in a major zone where multiple guilds can list items. You could even make 3-5 Auction Houses spread across Tamriel to hold multiple guilds as to not bog down one single zone. Just something that would make shopping/selling a lot easier in my opinion

Please yes for the love of God. As a solo player I'm completely left out from being able to make gold. I basically have to wait for gold drops from daily rewards and hope I have enough time to get them.

Vulkunne

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

Well now if it's a central marketplace, (again best example I've seen of this was back in New World) then yeah all sales will come from one source and the value of everything is going to drop... like a rock. Because all these bidders are now directly competing against each other in-house.

So the auction house would actually deflate the price of many things however it would almost certainly remove the gold sink that comes from bidding, which drives the guild and members into collecting the money, doing guild events for this purpose and overall caring about the financial well-being of the guild. Thus, kiosk bidding drives the economy.

But if the bid mechanism goes away and then cheaper sales means the tax revenue will diminish (but still be valuable over time), then the first casualty is going to be guild identity. If the guild can no longer help players make money or if able provide for a weekly sales kiosk then people will lose interest in them. And some guilds pride themselves on having their own 'flavor' for sales and such, that too will have to go away.

People are not going to pay for what something will be worth when they can get it for pennies from a couple thousand sellers. Alot of damage to the ESO economy would be done and it would also kill a chunk of the Team spirit (gags) that drives guilds, which also drives the economy.

They'd get their free stuff for pennies and then make no money at all really when they want to turn around and sell something. So fix one problem and create a bigger one. Game economy would go into a deep recession, people would not have any money except for the large guilds or companies that survive somehow, and some would. All the money would go to them thru taxes (maybe), like if they owned territories or zones or something. They'd sit on all that money and you'd all still be broke.

LalMirchi

Somehow I seem to remember that ESOs trading system was deliberately designed to be unlike the other MMOs of that time. They created their own trading system which is in the game at present.

It is highly unlikely that there will be an auction house in the foreseeable future.

kargen27

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

I see no scenario where this would actually “increase” inflation. If players have a global look at goods for sale, the contrary would be true - prices inevitably would drop and find a medium. Right now the inconvenience of getting to certain area guild traders is what leads people to purchase items at a higher cost from the high density traders in the big cities (Deshaan, Elden Root, etc.). They’ve monopolized the markets and the lower tier traders rarely get much traction, which is why the big guilds can charge 20-50k a week for the ability to sell at high density locales.

You are thinking about common items only. Sure the price of common items would drop. That means it is less easy to earn gold. Rare items would go up in price. So basically the economy gets a double whammy of inflation on rare items. Harder to earn gold and prices are higher.
I was in a couple of trade guilds that every week had one of the absolute best locations in the game. Thing is there were four other traders right there in the same area. You couldn't over price your items by much because of how easy it is to check the other four traders. Sure you could increase prices some because of the convenience but you had to be smart about it. The players that are making multiple millions each week are doing so not because they could charge so much more but because of the huge volume they were able to cycle through the trader.
Rare items of course are a bit of a different game. You can stick a pretty decent price increase on rare items because of the location. Rare items really isn't where most the big time traders make their profits though and even with rare items it is easy to price yourself out of a sale.

Northwold

Vulkunne wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

Well now if it's a central marketplace, (again best example I've seen of this was back in New World) then yeah all sales will come from one source and the value of everything is going to drop... like a rock. Because all these bidders are now directly competing against each other in-house.

So the auction house would actually deflate the price of many things however it would almost certainly remove the gold sink that comes from bidding, which drives the guild and members into collecting the money, doing guild events for this purpose and overall caring about the financial well-being of the guild. Thus, kiosk bidding drives the economy.

But if the bid mechanism goes away and then cheaper sales means the tax revenue will diminish (but still be valuable over time), then the first casualty is going to be guild identity. If the guild can no longer help players make money or if able provide for a weekly sales kiosk then people will lose interest in them. And some guilds pride themselves on having their own 'flavor' for sales and such, that too will have to go away.

People are not going to pay for what something will be worth when they can get it for pennies from a couple thousand sellers. Alot of damage to the ESO economy would be done and it would also kill a chunk of the Team spirit (gags) that drives guilds, which also drives the economy.

They'd get their free stuff for pennies and then make no money at all really when they want to turn around and sell something. So fix one problem and create a bigger one. Game economy would go into a deep recession, people would not have any money except for the large guilds or companies that survive somehow, and some would. All the money would go to them thru taxes (maybe), like if they owned territories or zones or something. They'd sit on all that money and you'd all still be broke.

I'm not clear that you're talking about the economy at all, but about guilds, when you say "a lot of damage to the ESO economy would be done"? Granted, ZOS have conflated guilds and *access* to the economy. But I can't see the economic damage of what you're describing?

The gold sink of bidding for traders is self defeating -- it incentivises selling at ever higher prices, the level of the gold sink rises as bids get higher, sales have to price higher still. While it's often thought to be a good reason to have the guild trader system because it supposedly combats inflation, it's rather likely to be *causing* inflation in the first place!

Vulkunne

Northwold wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

Well now if it's a central marketplace, (again best example I've seen of this was back in New World) then yeah all sales will come from one source and the value of everything is going to drop... like a rock. Because all these bidders are now directly competing against each other in-house.

So the auction house would actually deflate the price of many things however it would almost certainly remove the gold sink that comes from bidding, which drives the guild and members into collecting the money, doing guild events for this purpose and overall caring about the financial well-being of the guild. Thus, kiosk bidding drives the economy.

But if the bid mechanism goes away and then cheaper sales means the tax revenue will diminish (but still be valuable over time), then the first casualty is going to be guild identity. If the guild can no longer help players make money or if able provide for a weekly sales kiosk then people will lose interest in them. And some guilds pride themselves on having their own 'flavor' for sales and such, that too will have to go away.

People are not going to pay for what something will be worth when they can get it for pennies from a couple thousand sellers. Alot of damage to the ESO economy would be done and it would also kill a chunk of the Team spirit (gags) that drives guilds, which also drives the economy.

They'd get their free stuff for pennies and then make no money at all really when they want to turn around and sell something. So fix one problem and create a bigger one. Game economy would go into a deep recession, people would not have any money except for the large guilds or companies that survive somehow, and some would. All the money would go to them thru taxes (maybe), like if they owned territories or zones or something. They'd sit on all that money and you'd all still be broke.

I'm not clear that you're talking about the economy at all, but about guilds, when you say "a lot of damage to the ESO economy would be done"? Granted, ZOS have conflated guilds and *access* to the economy. But I can't see the economic damage of what you're describing?

The gold sink of bidding for traders is self defeating -- it incentivises selling at ever higher prices, the level of the gold sink rises as bids get higher, sales have to price higher still. While it's often thought to be a good reason to have the guild trader system because it supposedly combats inflation, it's rather likely to be *causing* inflation in the first place!

@Northwold

Thank you for your reply.

I think the message was put forth pretty straight forward. However you know I understand there's alot of frustration surrounding this thing. So yeah I get it.

Now I'm not certain how many people here deal with raising money for the kiosk bids (or just helping their guild out in general), but that activity alone seems to me like a pulse or heartbeat. However, the trend (that when I say 'we' have noticed in the guild I am a member of) is to keep the members informed about the guilds needs, which includes reminders regarding raising bid funds for the kiosk, also seems to drive sales too. So its a double-wamy. We raise gold for the bid and this drives sales which permits a certain freedom for our members to participate in the market, set the sale price they like and be able to compete freely, thereby making more money in the process overtime.

One thing drives another. Getting the kiosk bid brings marketing opportunities although I really wish we maybe had like a trade-channel, as I do remember that actually being a good idea from New World. The thing is though, many people don't understand how expensive these bids are and so that's a considerable amount of gold raised, not pulled from savings necessarily but liquidity that disappears which keep inflation from getting too high because there's less gold out there. But even I really think its important to understand that in addition to keeping inflation down, the action itself of raising gold is a very healthy thing, keeps folks interested in the guild, helps justify rank & titles and so forth, while at the same time creating opportunities for our members to make sales, make them some money and prosper.

What can I say, everything has a price. Nothing wrong with working for your meal so to speak. I'd rather have that then sit and wait forever for some central party to move my goods with most of the profit lost either in time to sell or in the thing being devalued by all the other sellers trying to move their stuff. It is what it is and those opposed can do what you need to do but in this matter I'll be on the other side of the fence. At least until a better concept comes around.

jaekobcaed

My two cents... let's not.

I've played quite a few MMOs over the years and one sad reality of this genre is that it has dramatically hemorrhaged the social aspects (they also tend to lose the script on the roleplaying elements as well, but that's not a problem with ESO). Back when the MMO genre was a novel concept, people fell in love with them not because of raids or grind or being the best. No, they fell in love with the fact that these games are supposed to be living worlds wherein many players play together; while there's definitely a need for solo gameplay in every MMO, the game should also actively encourage players to interact in at least a few different ways.

ESO does this marvelously.

From the megaserver approach to the way grouping is completely painless to the fact that we have so many guild options, the game is already fantastic at making social gameplay fun and rewarding, even to people who primarily play solo (which I do, by the way). No-obligation social content is what I love in online games and that's why I love both Fallout 76 and ESO.

However, one of the nicer ways that ESO encourages this is through the guild traders. At first, you might just think they're essentially small auction houses controlled by guilds but they're that and more. They encourage players in guilds to work together to help provide for the guild trader. A guild that has more active contributors is more likely to be a guild that has members selling boatloads of useful items. This can also create some inter-guild interaction in ways that you don't often see outside of PVP. It can create rivalries or even alliances for guilds, due to the limited number of traders the game has.

Then, let's not forget the fact that having them scattered throughout Tamriel means that players also get a bit of scenic variety, even when they're going on a quick run for a specific item. Sure, the scenery is unchanging but considering how most zones in ESO have a unique feel (or, at least, the biomes have a unique feel), that adds just a little bit more variety in views to prevent aesthetic burnout, which is important considering this is a video game, not a corporate job.

So nah, I think guild traders are far superior to auction houses. Auction houses are convenient because of the one-stop nature of them, but every game that has one tends to lose the social aspect over time as more and more people retreat to cliquey socialization within tight-knit guilds, rather than just interacting with anyone you come across, as is the spirit of an MMORPG.

FlopsyPrince

Vulkunne wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

To me that's not a healthy market when I'm forced to lose money because someone else wants to basically give things away. You know I understand folks are different and have different opinions on things and that's fine but just don't stop other people from making money because someone else has a point to make.

How are you ever forced to lose money?

You would only have any pressure there if you were flipping, but even that wouldn't be forced.

You and all of us have to sell for what the market will pay.

Yeah I covered my thoughts on this one already, however its fine if you don't agree.

No one's going to be buying anything for what its worth when they can get it from someone else whose selling it for less. And in this discussion we're talking about a central marketplace that pools hundreds, if not thousands of different sales together for same or different items. Again, this happened way too often in New World and the market did not set the price, it was the guys selling everything for pennies that forced us to either stop selling, (change servers in order to make a sale) or reduce our prices significantly lower in order to undercut (but in reality we didn't care about undercutting it was all we could do to make a sale).

So again, I must respectfully disagree that we would not be forced to change our prices and take losses in order to sell. Because I saw it happen before, others experienced it and it was a common issue that occurred frequently.

What someone will pay is what it is worth.

How do you claim a different value for something?

You can only get more now because it is not possible to find what it is really worth easily (especially on console).

FlopsyPrince

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

This is often asserted, without any proof.

No one knows for sure what would happen if things were centralized. It is too big of a change to fully predict.

We still need some central way to find things and "reasonable" prices. That can happen in the current system, but it really is needed!

Vulkunne

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

To me that's not a healthy market when I'm forced to lose money because someone else wants to basically give things away. You know I understand folks are different and have different opinions on things and that's fine but just don't stop other people from making money because someone else has a point to make.

How are you ever forced to lose money?

You would only have any pressure there if you were flipping, but even that wouldn't be forced.

You and all of us have to sell for what the market will pay.

Yeah I covered my thoughts on this one already, however its fine if you don't agree.

No one's going to be buying anything for what its worth when they can get it from someone else whose selling it for less. And in this discussion we're talking about a central marketplace that pools hundreds, if not thousands of different sales together for same or different items. Again, this happened way too often in New World and the market did not set the price, it was the guys selling everything for pennies that forced us to either stop selling, (change servers in order to make a sale) or reduce our prices significantly lower in order to undercut (but in reality we didn't care about undercutting it was all we could do to make a sale).

So again, I must respectfully disagree that we would not be forced to change our prices and take losses in order to sell. Because I saw it happen before, others experienced it and it was a common issue that occurred frequently.

What someone will pay is what it is worth.

How do you claim a different value for something?

You can only get more now because it is not possible to find what it is really worth easily (especially on console).

The market should set the price. Just anyone is not going to come into my store and change my prices around. Therefore, if I'm too being too greedy nothing sells, if I put the price too low I lose money and am out of stock.

Any system that does not allow the market to set the price is going to be corrupt. Just like those jokers setting things for 0.01 gold, one day we had one of them raging in chat about it claiming he was helping new players and sticking it to this or that. Alright fine. So let's take 200 Dreugh Wax and set that at 1 gold/each now. C'mon now we're helping new people right, sticking it to the man... yeah? Oh but they won't do that because doing so this way won't hurt anyone else trying to sell it for what it should be worth.

This is why the market should set the price. Although to be fair with you, those guys who flip prices all day are just as guilty. But I don't tell other people how to spend their money and I don't expect them to tell me either. Which in a nutshell is why ESO's system is better. It just works, as they say.

wolfie1.0.

look at the end of the day, regardless of what economic system is used, players that are interesting in hardcore trading will find a way to make gold.

I do feel that there are valid concerns about both systems. historically i have found the ESO system refreshingly different from the more tradditional trading system. But after 9 years of playing it that novelty has worn off.

My current position though is that the enormous restructuring that would be involved in changing systems, without significantly damaging the economy is too risky for ZOS to implement. As well as too costly internally.

My expectation is that ZOS will focus on implementing changes to the existing structure to make economic changes. for example: Item set collections and Reconstruction. this is an indirect influence on the economy, it turned gear collecting from an inventory burden into a collectors paradise. it boosted many players economic needs and even spawn a sub economy of selling guaranteed piece drops. On top of that reconned items are not tradeable and do not require gold to create, and only need improvement items.

jewelry changes is another example of such a change.

A search tool could also be another such enhancement. I would argue that ZOS would need to set up some type of cost involved per search to prevent boting or too many quick queries, or maybe space them out.

i think with the right support from ZOS things can change for the better with smaller changes to the system vs making really large and sweeping changes.

because i honestly think that if given a choice between making everything in the game bind on pick up vs introducing a global trading system, ZOS might actually choose BOP first.

reazea

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

This is often asserted, without any proof.

No one knows for sure what would happen if things were centralized. It is too big of a change to fully predict.

We still need some central way to find things and "reasonable" prices. That can happen in the current system, but it really is needed!

We can say for sure all the trade guilds would become obsolete overnight. That unto itself would be very damaging to the game and every member of a trade guild that is an integral part of the social aspect of the game.

Ratharel

Oh yes, please! Just get rid of the Trade Guild system, it's terrible. The worst have seen in any MMO!
As a person that plays hop on and hop off the current system is major PITA. A week of two of inactivity means I'm getting kicked out of my Trade Guilds and can't sell stuff. And when playing, monitoring the level of sales with addons just to keep up with the sales quotas. I'm giving up with selling in ESO, it's anti-fun and I'm person that loves crafting and selling crafted stuff in MMOs.
And as a buyer is even worse. If you need a specific item there is no in-game mechanics that let's you find it, you have to randomly visit kiosks all over Tamriel and hope one of them maybe, maybe will have it. I can't imagine designer with a sane mind who thought it's a good solution, why it even hit the live servers is beyond me. TTC helps, but it's still far from perfection as it obviously can't present up-to-date information.

Lumsdenml

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

This is often asserted, without any proof.

No one knows for sure what would happen if things were centralized. It is too big of a change to fully predict.

We still need some central way to find things and "reasonable" prices. That can happen in the current system, but it really is needed!

It's very simple to know what would happen with an AH, rich people would corner the market and jack up the prices. Why would you not under that system? Sit at one place, buy up all the sales of a rare item and post them for twice the price. It's simple. Just ask yourself in which system would that be harder, the current where you have to run around everywhere or just sit in one place? Hard no.

Pixiepumpkin

Lumsdenml wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Hard no on an auction house. Trade guilds are an integral part of the game and the current system controls inflation in a way a central auction house will not. Things are already too expensive, especially for new players. A central auction house would blow up the in game economy.

This is often asserted, without any proof.

No one knows for sure what would happen if things were centralized. It is too big of a change to fully predict.

We still need some central way to find things and "reasonable" prices. That can happen in the current system, but it really is needed!

It's very simple to know what would happen with an AH, rich people would corner the market and jack up the prices. Why would you not under that system? Sit at one place, buy up all the sales of a rare item and post them for twice the price. It's simple. Just ask yourself in which system would that be harder, the current where you have to run around everywhere or just sit in one place? Hard no.

But that can only happen if the population is small and the items on the AH are not being replentished.

People always leave that part out. Its not like everything is going to be bought up, relisted higher and sell, because items are always going to be listed to be sold. The flippers would not be able to keep up.

Rare items could be purchased and flipped higher, but that already happens now due to addons that ping flippers with items that have been listed cheaper.

Ratharel

Lumsdenml wrote: »

It's very simple to know what would happen with an AH, rich people would corner the market and jack up the prices. Why would you not under that system? Sit at one place, buy up all the sales of a rare item and post them for twice the price. It's simple. Just ask yourself in which system would that be harder, the current where you have to run around everywhere or just sit in one place? Hard no.

Hard yes. If I do not have to run all over Tamriel to get a single item or pray that "last seen 10 hrs ago" on TTC is still valid, then I'm all in. Trade Guilds is a failure.

SaffronCitrusflower

Bobargus wrote: »

I want an auction house system in ESO.

I want a central auction house too. But only if I'm the only player who has access to it.

Ratharel wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

It's very simple to know what would happen with an AH, rich people would corner the market and jack up the prices. Why would you not under that system? Sit at one place, buy up all the sales of a rare item and post them for twice the price. It's simple. Just ask yourself in which system would that be harder, the current where you have to run around everywhere or just sit in one place? Hard no.

Hard yes. If I do not have to run all over Tamriel to get a single item or pray that "last seen 10 hrs ago" on TTC is still valid, then I'm all in. Trade Guilds is a failure.

The current trading guild/vendor system is what keeps inflation under control....at least as much as can be expected. I like my trade guilds. It would be a huge disappointment to lose them.

SmellyUnlimited

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Bobargus wrote: »

I want an auction house system in ESO.

I want a central auction house too. But only if I'm the only player who has access to it.

Ratharel wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

It's very simple to know what would happen with an AH, rich people would corner the market and jack up the prices. Why would you not under that system? Sit at one place, buy up all the sales of a rare item and post them for twice the price. It's simple. Just ask yourself in which system would that be harder, the current where you have to run around everywhere or just sit in one place? Hard no.

Hard yes. If I do not have to run all over Tamriel to get a single item or pray that "last seen 10 hrs ago" on TTC is still valid, then I'm all in. Trade Guilds is a failure.

The current trading guild/vendor system is what keeps inflation under control....at least as much as can be expected. I like my trade guilds. It would be a huge disappointment to lose them.

How exactly does it keep inflation under control? It seems like the opposite would be true. More players listing goods, the market would more likely lower in price as people would be more inclined towards getting a sale than waiting for someone to buy from them with that much competition. It would eventually reach a medium, as the free market would dictate, and it’s more regulated than the gold baron system of traders we have now who arbitrarily inflate the prices based on how accessible they are as opposed to smaller trading guilds. No more weekly dues, no more money hoarding, individual traders can actually make money without having to subsidize a guild. PvE and PvP guilds will still abound, but the trading guild dynamic has languidly persisted for too long with little to no benefit to the majority of players.

Four_Fingers

I never do any trading at all and always have an average balance of million gold in the bank just from playing the game.
But then again, I kill and loot everything in sight and vendor the trash rather than ignoring a train of mobs running behind me because I can't be bothered, or they are "too easy" to kill. I look at them as gold.
Now if you want to be a multi-millionaire that is a different story.

Stx

The lack of an auction house is one of the worst things about this game. It’s so incredibly infuriating to not be able to do something as basic as sell a valuable item or material without going through a process of finding a specific guild for it. Very unfriendly to casual players.

wolfie1.0.

Whether its the current system or a universal shop system. both have their good and bad sides to them.

Neither will prevent inflation.