Guild's and Auction Houses.

Jeremy

Gwarok wrote: »

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game.

But they aren't competitive. That's the problem.

Unless you are a member of the guild you can't even access them, let alone contribute towards a healthy competition between them. Add to this the limited capacity rules - and what you end up with is hundreds of different and isolated markets.

So if you truly want a competitive economical system like you say, I would ask you to give up your guns and add your support to a public market. Because the best way to create a competitive economy is to open it up to the public so more people can participate in it.

Cheatingdeath23

Jeremy wrote: »

Gwarok wrote: »

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game.

But they aren't competitive. That's the problem.

Unless you are a member of the guild you can't even access them, let alone contribute towards a healthy competition between them. Add to this the limited capacity rules - and what you end up with is hundreds of different and isolated markets.

So if you truly want a competitive economical system like you say, I would ask you to give up your guns and add your support to a public market. Because the best way to create a competitive economy is to open it up to the public so more people can participate in it.

See, his conclusion is counter to real world economics (single AH would increase prices), but I also don't agree with your goal to make a "competitive economy" by having more people participate in it.

Looking at the current global economy, having very little transactional cost to ship goods from China to America (or anywhere) has segmented the world into different roles. America has a consumer role, China has a producer role, and you can easily go through and look at every country and see how the global economy has affected their industry growth.

Translate this to a single AH, there will be clearly segmented roles. Prices will go down as it will be a race to the bottom, some people will be content selling their gear for very little and that will set the market (China). There will be no differentiation between goods, as everything in ESO is equivalent, so normal users who want to sell their goods will find very low prices greeting them. Everyone will expect Walmart prices.


So yes, the "consumer" is benefited from a global economy (single AH), but it will do nothing for the crafters. As it is, the cost involved in making a blue armor set is much higher than they are selling for, so there is a disincentive to craft. If you further increase supply (single AH) with a smaller increase in demand (everyone can only have 7 items of armor, but can easily find more than 7 items of armor in loot), the prices will decrease.

While having guild stores is frustrating and creates barriers to entry, it prevents a single entity from supplying the market with low cost goods, thus setting a low baseline price for items like Walmart has.

Jeremy

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Gwarok wrote: »

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game.

But they aren't competitive. That's the problem.

Unless you are a member of the guild you can't even access them, let alone contribute towards a healthy competition between them. Add to this the limited capacity rules - and what you end up with is hundreds of different and isolated markets.

So if you truly want a competitive economical system like you say, I would ask you to give up your guns and add your support to a public market. Because the best way to create a competitive economy is to open it up to the public so more people can participate in it.

See, his conclusion is counter to real world economics (single AH would increase prices), but I also don't agree with your goal to make a "competitive economy" by having more people participate in it.

Looking at the current global economy, having very little transactional cost to ship goods from China to America (or anywhere) has segmented the world into different roles. America has a consumer role, China has a producer role, and you can easily go through and look at every country and see how the global economy has affected their industry growth.

Translate this to a single AH, there will be clearly segmented roles. Prices will go down as it will be a race to the bottom, some people will be content selling their gear for very little and that will set the market (China). There will be no differentiation between goods, as everything in ESO is equivalent, so normal users who want to sell their goods will find very low prices greeting them. Everyone will expect Walmart prices.


So yes, the "consumer" is benefited from a global economy (single AH), but it will do nothing for the crafters. As it is, the cost involved in making a blue armor set is much higher than they are selling for, so there is a disincentive to craft. If you further increase supply (single AH) with a smaller increase in demand (everyone can only have 7 items of armor, but can easily find more than 7 items of armor in loot), the prices will decrease.

While having guild stores is frustrating and creates barriers to entry, it prevents a single entity from supplying the market with low cost goods, thus setting a low baseline price for items like Walmart has.

No you can't apply China as an example to this conversation.

The reason for the strength in China's economy is because they are trading with countries who have higher production costs. Our politicians are greedy and corrupt - and instigate trade deals to line their pockets without caring for the damage it will do to this country's manufacturing.

China has hardly any standards when it comes to their work-force. They also cheat - manipulating the value of their currency on the global market to advantage them economically. So you are trying to compare two very different situations here.

The economy of Elder Scrolls shares the same currency. Certain factions do not have special rules in place to give certain crafters distinct advantages over others which allow them to sell extremely low and still make profit. And on a fair playing field such as this, increasing the size of the market would indeed encourage more competition and dramatically increase the available demand. So it would benefit both the suppliers and consumers.

ominous187

i think it would be a bad idea now to have a mass ah. the bots are bad enough dont need them messing up the prices and stuff on that 2. although i'm sure they already do if they open up guilds

Cheatingdeath23

Jeremy wrote: »

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Gwarok wrote: »

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game.

But they aren't competitive. That's the problem.

Unless you are a member of the guild you can't even access them, let alone contribute towards a healthy competition between them. Add to this the limited capacity rules - and what you end up with is hundreds of different and isolated markets.

So if you truly want a competitive economical system like you say, I would ask you to give up your guns and add your support to a public market. Because the best way to create a competitive economy is to open it up to the public so more people can participate in it.

See, his conclusion is counter to real world economics (single AH would increase prices), but I also don't agree with your goal to make a "competitive economy" by having more people participate in it.

Looking at the current global economy, having very little transactional cost to ship goods from China to America (or anywhere) has segmented the world into different roles. America has a consumer role, China has a producer role, and you can easily go through and look at every country and see how the global economy has affected their industry growth.

Translate this to a single AH, there will be clearly segmented roles. Prices will go down as it will be a race to the bottom, some people will be content selling their gear for very little and that will set the market (China). There will be no differentiation between goods, as everything in ESO is equivalent, so normal users who want to sell their goods will find very low prices greeting them. Everyone will expect Walmart prices.


So yes, the "consumer" is benefited from a global economy (single AH), but it will do nothing for the crafters. As it is, the cost involved in making a blue armor set is much higher than they are selling for, so there is a disincentive to craft. If you further increase supply (single AH) with a smaller increase in demand (everyone can only have 7 items of armor, but can easily find more than 7 items of armor in loot), the prices will decrease.

While having guild stores is frustrating and creates barriers to entry, it prevents a single entity from supplying the market with low cost goods, thus setting a low baseline price for items like Walmart has.

No you can't apply China as an example to this conversation.

The reason for the strength in China's economy is because they are trading with countries who have higher production costs. Our politicians are greedy and corrupt - and instigate trade deals to line their pockets without caring for the damage it will do to this country's manufacturing.

China has hardly any standards when it comes to their work-force. They also cheat - manipulating the value of their currency on the global market to advantage them economically. So you are trying to compare two very different situations here.

The economy of Elder Scrolls shares the same currency. Certain factions do not have special rules in place to give certain crafters distinct advantages over others which allow them to sell extremely low and still make profit. And on a fair playing field such as this, increasing the size of the market would indeed encourage more competition and dramatically increase the available demand. So it would benefit both the suppliers and consumers.

I was basing my example of China off of the "bots" in ESO.

They can't craft gear, yet, but who knows what people will be willing to do. I really firmly believe a single AH will see all prices plummet-- part of the current inflation of prices is due to not knowing what something is worth. Once you establish a baseline, you drag the entire economy down to it.

Whereas if you can find alternatives, you pay what you think it is worth. A rune or a piece of armor is worth 10X to you, because it serves a purpose... but if you can find it in the AH for less, you will refuse to pay 10X instead of X.

Catches_the_Sun

Jirki88 wrote: »

Yeah, as it stands guilds aren't about being guilds - guilds are just about being marketplaces. It doesn't add to the social aspect of the game - it eliminates one social aspect of the game. Instead of a guild being somewhere you're social, it becomes somewhere you just try to sell and buy stuff. It's pretty poor.

Then I would also like to add the RIDICULOUS charges for listing stuff. Overkill much?

You can join 5 Guilds...so make one of them your traditional social Guild and the rest of them your trade Guilds. Nobody is forcing you to stay out of the Guilds that you're used to.

Tolio

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

It makes crafting more important-- you don't just buy your goods, you make them.

It gives crafters money for their work-- they can sell them for actual money. I'm level 10 blacksmithing but hoard my dwarven oil for myself. If someone wants to buy a piece of armor, I expect to be paid for it.
...

It doesn't make crafting more important.
Crafting is important when you have a balanced supply and demand market. Which you will never have, as the "demand" will be a max of 2500 people if you are in 5 maxed out trading guilds.
Given that the people in the trading guild are there to trade, aka make money not buy your crafts to become more effective you will be very hard driven in a small crowded market to sell anything crafted at all.

So thats back to spamming zone chat than again. Unfortunately at sometime in development it will probably reach the state of the trade channels in d2, where you had to actively scroll bach up through the channels to even see something.

You hoard those dwarven oils- how do you plan to aqquire the materials needed to upgrade from rare to someday legendary?
Buying them? Good luck, same pattern as above.

But now we imagine you have crafted that nice legendary item and want to sell it for (made up amount) 10k. Now, which guild store to list it in, the fee is impressive and if someone undercuts you chances are slim (due to low demand in 500 players available) that you will sell your items. So, back to spamming zonechat it is than?

Now tell me again where crafters do benefit from this system? Right now there is the starting demand as people extract mats to level their crafts, once that is over your items will just sit there for 30 days as the crowd you reach is simply to small.

Jeremy

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Gwarok wrote: »

No...Just no. I going to have to stick to my guns here on this one.

No "one world AH".

I love the way they have set up the competitive economical system in this game.

But they aren't competitive. That's the problem.

Unless you are a member of the guild you can't even access them, let alone contribute towards a healthy competition between them. Add to this the limited capacity rules - and what you end up with is hundreds of different and isolated markets.

So if you truly want a competitive economical system like you say, I would ask you to give up your guns and add your support to a public market. Because the best way to create a competitive economy is to open it up to the public so more people can participate in it.

See, his conclusion is counter to real world economics (single AH would increase prices), but I also don't agree with your goal to make a "competitive economy" by having more people participate in it.

Looking at the current global economy, having very little transactional cost to ship goods from China to America (or anywhere) has segmented the world into different roles. America has a consumer role, China has a producer role, and you can easily go through and look at every country and see how the global economy has affected their industry growth.

Translate this to a single AH, there will be clearly segmented roles. Prices will go down as it will be a race to the bottom, some people will be content selling their gear for very little and that will set the market (China). There will be no differentiation between goods, as everything in ESO is equivalent, so normal users who want to sell their goods will find very low prices greeting them. Everyone will expect Walmart prices.


So yes, the "consumer" is benefited from a global economy (single AH), but it will do nothing for the crafters. As it is, the cost involved in making a blue armor set is much higher than they are selling for, so there is a disincentive to craft. If you further increase supply (single AH) with a smaller increase in demand (everyone can only have 7 items of armor, but can easily find more than 7 items of armor in loot), the prices will decrease.

While having guild stores is frustrating and creates barriers to entry, it prevents a single entity from supplying the market with low cost goods, thus setting a low baseline price for items like Walmart has.

No you can't apply China as an example to this conversation.

The reason for the strength in China's economy is because they are trading with countries who have higher production costs. Our politicians are greedy and corrupt - and instigate trade deals to line their pockets without caring for the damage it will do to this country's manufacturing.

China has hardly any standards when it comes to their work-force. They also cheat - manipulating the value of their currency on the global market to advantage them economically. So you are trying to compare two very different situations here.

The economy of Elder Scrolls shares the same currency. Certain factions do not have special rules in place to give certain crafters distinct advantages over others which allow them to sell extremely low and still make profit. And on a fair playing field such as this, increasing the size of the market would indeed encourage more competition and dramatically increase the available demand. So it would benefit both the suppliers and consumers.

I was basing my example of China off of the "bots" in ESO.

They can't craft gear, yet, but who knows what people will be willing to do. I really firmly believe a single AH will see all prices plummet-- part of the current inflation of prices is due to not knowing what something is worth. Once you establish a baseline, you drag the entire economy down to it.

Whereas if you can find alternatives, you pay what you think it is worth. A rune or a piece of armor is worth 10X to you, because it serves a purpose... but if you can find it in the AH for less, you will refuse to pay 10X instead of X.

Prices would come down. I won't disagree with you about that. But that needs to happen and is actually a good thing. Because anything with significant demand right now is usually over-priced. The symptoms of a bad economy.

The lack of market based pricing is part of it as you point out. But it also has to do with poor supply on the market. And that leads to desperation and price gouging.

Baselines aren't inherently bad. They are good if fairly achieved. That is how a market stabilizes and becomes prosperous for as many people as possible. And it would be impossible for bots on Elder Scrolls to act as China in the real world does because there are no currency discrepancies in Elder Scrolls to take advantage of. Nor would they be able to lure all of the game's producers into their ranks by tempting them with cheap labor. So I don't think it's a realistic comparison.

The bots could attempt to manipulate the market. But it would be next to impossible to pull off unless they were able to monopolize the means of production. And that is something I just don't see happening on this game due to its design and the wide and varied means of obtaining materials in demand.

Arsvita

edwar368 wrote: »

I agree. In addition, not everyone in the world puts money first and wants to charge "guild mates" for items. To me not only is this "Guild Store" a bad idea for anyone who wants to sell things, but it actually "breaks" Guilds. It turns guild mates into customers. Having played since the 5 day early access, still loving the game, but this single feature (or lack of) spoils it for me

I was covering this aspect of the topic elsewhere, but here was what a guild was to me.
I have been known to help guild mates , even making rare goods with my own rare items, at no cost to them.
That can not be done with a Guild Store, but can be done with guild chat.

My apology;

A ) I want to actually know my guild mates whether I get along with all of them or not.
B ) A guild is a family. That family helps one another out.
C ) A family lives in a community. You help your community to make it better.
c ) I have people that have asked to help me in any way they can because I have done a good turn by them.
D ) I am under strong belief that Gold Farmers and Sellers are in the large guilds already where they can sell items for maximum profits. It would be a great place to sell goods for gold ... and if nobody cared or really knew who you were...

The only store I mentioned was Guild and Gold Farmers and Sellers for max profit.

Cheatingdeath23

Tolio wrote: »

Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »

It makes crafting more important-- you don't just buy your goods, you make them.

It gives crafters money for their work-- they can sell them for actual money. I'm level 10 blacksmithing but hoard my dwarven oil for myself. If someone wants to buy a piece of armor, I expect to be paid for it.
...

It doesn't make crafting more important.
Crafting is important when you have a balanced supply and demand market. Which you will never have, as the "demand" will be a max of 2500 people if you are in 5 maxed out trading guilds.
Given that the people in the trading guild are there to trade, aka make money not buy your crafts to become more effective you will be very hard driven in a small crowded market to sell anything crafted at all.

So thats back to spamming zone chat than again. Unfortunately at sometime in development it will probably reach the state of the trade channels in d2, where you had to actively scroll bach up through the channels to even see something.

You hoard those dwarven oils- how do you plan to aqquire the materials needed to upgrade from rare to someday legendary?
Buying them? Good luck, same pattern as above.

But now we imagine you have crafted that nice legendary item and want to sell it for (made up amount) 10k. Now, which guild store to list it in, the fee is impressive and if someone undercuts you chances are slim (due to low demand in 500 players available) that you will sell your items. So, back to spamming zonechat it is than?

Now tell me again where crafters do benefit from this system? Right now there is the starting demand as people extract mats to level their crafts, once that is over your items will just sit there for 30 days as the crowd you reach is simply to small.

You make the assumption that everyone who joins the guild is looking to sell. But since there are no auction houses, everyone looking to buy also joins guilds to have access to the guild store. Thus solving your supply/demand dilemma.

I hoard dwarven oil but I've reach the point (at level 23) that I have 30-40 of them, so I might stop hoarding as much. I won't be giving them out for free, but I have sold some to people.

The thing is, I use heavy armor and need dwarven oil (or higher). My wife uses medium armor and has no need for it, and a guild mate uses light armor and has no need for it. Therefore, I get mats from the three of us and I send gear in return for them to develop. Since not everyone uses the same armor, there is opportunity to find things on the market.

Also, your hypothetical about trying to sell a legendary item isn't solved by having an auction house-- if you are worried about being undercut by someone else in the guild store, imagine a global auction house! There will be hundreds of similar legendary items.


Examples of the difference between the two are Ebay and Craigslist. Ebay establishes a baseline price with minor fluctuation due to a bidding war or a unique item. Craigslist has no baseline price as it is subdivided into local zones, offering some people the chance to sell things for more than they are worth and also the opportunity to buy things for LESS than they are worth.

Guild stores are like Craigslist. Sometimes crafters prosper (I need a third item for a set, it is there, I'll pay whatever) and sometimes consumers prosper (crafters might get enough of a particular set and dump them to the store).

Cheatingdeath23

What we really should do is start a thread listing crafters and what they can make. I don't have any interest in crafting an original set just to list in the guild store, as there are so many different combinations of items to make and only a finite supply of dwarven oil.

I did that here:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/89268/list-of-crafters-available-for-hire?new=1


If people are interested, I'll make a Google spreadsheet and allow crafters to add their own page and update it with the individual traits they can make.

methjester

A global auction house in a game this size makes sense. Have stuff, post stuff. Post it lower than the other guys, prices go down. In demand item, prices go up. It beats zone trade spam hearing people trying to sell crappy overpriced armor every few seconds.

Why they are against this while every other MMO on the market is beyond me. It would just be nice to pick up people could use and actually sell it instead of junking it.

tylarthb16_ESO

Current system isn't competitive, the pool of active people who may buy is too small for anything but very desirable items. The system is very poor for any moderate or niche market. a few example of how the system is poor for me:

my alt in a separate alliance to my main i want then to have lvl 25 food, i can't buy this from the guild stores, people just are not selling it, my main can go back and hand farm for a while, but I'd have to do this at every stage i want provisioning or pot upgrades or any other gear not gotten from drops. The guilds i am in are maturing in lvl, so there is little incentive for them to post multi tiered gear that they are not getting in loot anyway. Thatis the Alt issue.

Other principle issue is the lack of variety from a small pool of players with limited listings. It is extremely tough to acquire all the research traits for a particular craft with a minimal selection of items, this is also true with set bonus gear.

Biggest issue is with provisioning and alchemy items, i'd like bulk of ingredients and can't get then other than rummaging through 100s of crate/boxes/bags. i'd like to buy a usable stack of food and pots or sell them, but the guild store do not have enough customers who sell or want items.

In all these cases a far larger pool of players would solve the difficulties, players would be able to identify real junk from real treasure more readily with genuine player demand being express in a broader range of ingredients, materials, consumables and mid lvl/tier gear.

Cheatingdeath23

<Removed post, wrong thread>

Grumwulf

I think a global auction house would be a bad idea. It would really force the price down for crafted items and ultimately make crafting things seem pointless as you would be able to simple buy the item for only a little bit more than the cost of the materials. But the system as it is now has problems too. A guild of 500 is just too small I think. I wonder if having an auction house limited by campaign and faction would be a solution. You could do a quest to get a 'supplier's' licence from Cyrodiil. This would open up an auction house specific to your pvp campaign and faction. If there are ten campaigns that would divide the trade so that each AH would account for 3 or 4 per cent of all the trade.

Cheatingdeath23

Grumwulf wrote: »

I think a global auction house would be a bad idea. It would really force the price down for crafted items and ultimately make crafting things seem pointless as you would be able to simple buy the item for only a little bit more than the cost of the materials. But the system as it is now has problems too. A guild of 500 is just too small I think. I wonder if having an auction house limited by campaign and faction would be a solution. You could do a quest to get a 'supplier's' licence from Cyrodiil. This would open up an auction house specific to your pvp campaign and faction. If there are ten campaigns that would divide the trade so that each AH would account for 3 or 4 per cent of all the trade.

I like that idea, but that is still thousands of people.

I think it can be done somehow differently than it is currently, but I think your idea would be a start. Maybe have something like 3 AH for each PVP campaign/faction, and you can only be a member of 1 AH.

I really don't know, but I don't want a global AH. There is a lot of room between a guild of 500 and a global AH, though.

methjester

Grumwulf wrote: »

I think a global auction house would be a bad idea. It would really force the price down for crafted items and ultimately make crafting things seem pointless as you would be able to simple buy the item for only a little bit more than the cost of the materials. But the system as it is now has problems too. A guild of 500 is just too small I think. I wonder if having an auction house limited by campaign and faction would be a solution. You could do a quest to get a 'supplier's' licence from Cyrodiil. This would open up an auction house specific to your pvp campaign and faction. If there are ten campaigns that would divide the trade so that each AH would account for 3 or 4 per cent of all the trade.

In a few months people will start hitting the vet ranks. Low level crafting will be dead. There won't be a fraction of players to trade with as people are all doing it now. It's all going to be about end game and end game mats.

The best way for lowbies at that point will be to collect stuff and put in in a big house and sell it to other players leveling skills who don't want to go back and collect lower level mats. You won't have that though because this system isn't designed for that.

EVERY MMO has a global or faction auction house. Why? Because they work.

LadyInTheWater

methjester wrote: »

The best way for lowbies at that point will be to collect stuff and put in in a big house and sell it to other players leveling skills who don't want to go back and collect lower level mats. You won't have that though because this system isn't designed for that.

EVERY MMO has a global or faction auction house. Why? Because they work.

Question: If we had a global AH, what would prevent high-level characters from consistently over-farming the low-level crafting mats and posting them for ridiculously high prices?

Follow-up question: What would prevent wealthy characters from buying out the low-level crafting mats on a global AH, and reposting them for ridiculously high prices?

Jeremy

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

methjester wrote: »

The best way for lowbies at that point will be to collect stuff and put in in a big house and sell it to other players leveling skills who don't want to go back and collect lower level mats. You won't have that though because this system isn't designed for that.

EVERY MMO has a global or faction auction house. Why? Because they work.

Question: If we had a global AH, what would prevent high-level characters from consistently over-farming the low-level crafting mats and posting them for ridiculously high prices?

Follow-up question: What would prevent wealthy characters from buying out the low-level crafting mats on a global AH, and reposting them for ridiculously high prices?

First it was massive under-cutting and everything becoming worthless. Now its back to everything becoming super expensive.

This fear-mongering over a public market might be more effective if you anti-auction house people could make up your mind which it would do. Instead you have directly opposite descriptions as to the type of cataclysm that would likely follow. It's just silly.

But to answer your question with the obvious and simple answer - what will prevent it is no one is going to buy these crafting materials if people put them up for ridiculously high prices. They will just go farm them up themselves.

Then the prices will steadily come back down to a more reasonable price... unless this wealthy character has endless money and can keep buying these materials forever. In which case, he would probably be banned as an obvious cheater.

LadyInTheWater

Jeremy wrote: »

First it was massive under-cutting and everything becoming worthless. Now its back to everything becoming super expensive.

I have never seen super-expensive items, nor worthless items, for sale on any of my guild stores. Perhaps you're just in guilds that don't meet your expectations.

alphawolph

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

methjester wrote: »

The best way for lowbies at that point will be to collect stuff and put in in a big house and sell it to other players leveling skills who don't want to go back and collect lower level mats. You won't have that though because this system isn't designed for that.

EVERY MMO has a global or faction auction house. Why? Because they work.

Question: If we had a global AH, what would prevent high-level characters from consistently over-farming the low-level crafting mats and posting them for ridiculously high prices?

Follow-up question: What would prevent wealthy characters from buying out the low-level crafting mats on a global AH, and reposting them for ridiculously high prices?

Easy, No one buys them. In a healthy economy the buyer sets the price.

alphawolph

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

First it was massive under-cutting and everything becoming worthless. Now its back to everything becoming super expensive.

I have never seen super-expensive items, nor worthless items, for sale on any of my guild stores. Perhaps you're just in guilds that don't meet your expectations.

To bad we can't be in your guild cause I've given up trying to find a good guild store. I can vendor all my excess mats and make plenty gold.

Opioid

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

Question: If we had a global AH, what would prevent high-level characters from consistently over-farming the low-level crafting mats and posting them for ridiculously high prices?

Follow-up question: What would prevent wealthy characters from buying out the low-level crafting mats on a global AH, and reposting them for ridiculously high prices?

In response to your first question: Nothing would prevent anyone from doing that. It's a waste of time since crafting mats are so easy to obtain. All it takes is for someone to look at the AH, see that all the Dwarven Ingots are selling for something ridiculous like 10k/stack and say "Screw that" and just go run around for 20 minutes harvesting it themselves.

Response to your second question: Again, nothing would prevent it. But again, it's a waste of time.

Another thing to consider: listing fees. Right now, all postings in the guild stores have an up-front listing fee, which is calculated as a percentage of the purchase price you set. This higher the price, the higher the listing fee. All postings also exist for 30 days. That's plenty of time for someone to undercut your listing. At that point, you can either sit on it for 30 days until it expires and get your listing fee back, or you can cancel your listing and forfeit your listing fee. And yes, one could also purchase any listings that undercut your own, but with a larger market with tens(or hundreds) of thousands of people participating, there are far more opportunities for others to undercut ridiculously high prices and it would become incredibly expensive and time-consuming for someone to try and corner the market on common goods.

Also, if someone feels that they need to purchase something immediately and are willing to pay a ridiculously high price for it, that's their choice. If you're impatient and feel it worthwhile to overpay, so be it. Anyone with common sense will simply just not purchase a item for more than they feel it is worth. They'll keep searching for a better price or suck it up and put in the time and effort to obtain it on their own.

What's to stop people from doing that with the current guild store setup? There is no mechanism in place right now to prevent someone from opening up the guild store, finding a particular item, buying out all listings for it and re-posting at a much higher price. In fact, I'd be surprised if it isn't happening in some guild stores already. The benefit of having a global auction house is more competition. More competition leads to undercutting and price wars which lead to better prices for consumers. Eventually it becomes no longer worth it to keep dropping prices so they flatten out until the supply dries up. Prices will rise, people will see prices rising and start posting more of said item flooding the market again, leading again to excess supply, leading to lower prices, and so on.

There will always be an opportunity for someone with enough capital and free time on their hands to corner the market of exceedingly rare, difficult to obtain items. But the onus is on the consumer to decide whether they are willing to pay what someone else is asking. What may be a ridiculously high price to you may be worth it to someone else who isn't interested in putting in the work themselves to obtain an item and would rather just purchase it. There is nothing that exists in this game that you cannot obtain on your own without purchasing it from a market. All it takes is an investment of time and effort on your part to obtain it.

The only way to avoid fluctuations in market pricing is for Zenimax to step in and control the entire marketplace, setting prices and available quantities for everything and implementing a currency that can only be utilized on their market, not traded between players at all. That's just simply not going to happen, they have much better things to do with their time.

I actually like the idea of having a guild store. It's a great place for you to sell internally to your guild at a discount compared to selling to the public. I like the idea of a global auction house for allowing you to have much wider exposure to both buyers and sellers. There's no reason why the two could not co-exist.

Jeremy

LadyInTheWater wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

First it was massive under-cutting and everything becoming worthless. Now its back to everything becoming super expensive.

I have never seen super-expensive items, nor worthless items, for sale on any of my guild stores. Perhaps you're just in guilds that don't meet your expectations.

I wasn't talking about guild stores with that comment. I was talking about the fear-mongering surrounding public auction houses.

First the argument was it would cause massive deflation and all the items would become worthless. Now you are saying it would lead to massive price spikes.

My point was the anti-auction house people can't make up their minds.

sociald100ub17_ESO

I agree with this as it kinda forces you into joining a large guild if you want to sell stuff

LadyInTheWater

Jeremy wrote: »

First the argument was it would cause massive deflation and all the items would become worthless. Now you are saying it would lead to massive price spikes.

My point was the anti-auction house people can't make up their minds.

I have never, ever, tried to assert that a global auction house would lower the prices of items. And there's no fear mongering either. I just don't often enjoy playing in a game where people can buy out items and relist them on a server-wide scale... unless I can blow up that person's in-game property and cause them a financial loss.

devdztub17_ESO

there isnt a global marketplace and separate guild markets?

kelly.medleyb14_ESO

Utildai wrote: »

I am not sure I am understanding why the developers are forcing people to get into a guild, or five, just for the use of an auction house. I understand they are trying to force social functions on everyone, but that is all it does, forces them.

While I sort of like the mechanic... partly, I don't agree there should have to be 50 unique players in a guild to allow a guild the use of it's own auction house. What are smaller guild's supposed to do? Give up to the larger ones?

I really think the guild auction houses, and the guild banks for that matter need to have the pre-requisite numbers severely lowered, perhaps eliminated all together.

"This isn't a play how you want to play" way of doing things. This is a you must do this to go shopping sort of thing.

Anyway, something to think about.

I agree, all limits need to be taken off, guild cap limit at 500 is ridiculous.

First they have to fix the bank bugs and clumsiness though.

Also they need to get storefronts up and running asap, although I have a sneaking suspicion they will wait till player housing comes out.

jamie123

The guild auction houses are moronic.
Auctions are how I'd usually make my gold after I have completed every quest in a MMO, but I can't do that in ESO.
So I'm boke.
What do they expect me to do search the entire map until I find a *** kiosk that sells the stuff I need or is busy enough to put my own wares on it.
Considering the game has no hang out point for players.
The game desperately needs many things (all of which I have been telling them since beta) one of them is a proper auction house.