Auction house is a must!

Hawtsauce

As I think many people have said no AH kind gives it an "old school MMO feel" ... there is a reason that 99% of new MMOs have an AH - most players want it and it is the best option to adress the need to buy and sell items. The whole agrument "prices will skyrocket , there will be price fixing", etc is just not true - this is basic economics , supply and demand. If 1000s of players all have jute listed the price will naturally begin to drop until the demand > supply.

At the very least please give us a dedicated trade channel.

Im not gonna use a microwave to cook my meals, Im going to use the oven because it has that old school cooking feel ...

pysgod1978b14_ESO

Hawtsauce wrote: »

As I think many people have said no AH kind gives it an "old school MMO feel" ... there is a reason that 99% of new MMOs have an AH - most players want it and it is the best option to adress the need to buy and sell items. The whole agrument "prices will skyrocket , there will be price fixing", etc is just not true - this is basic economics , supply and demand. If 1000s of players all have jute listed the price will naturally begin to drop until the demand > supply.

At the very least please give us a dedicated trade channel.

Im not gonna use a microwave to cook my meals, Im going to use the oven because it has that old school cooking feel ...

The problem is most players will be lucky if they can get materials to sell at the rate these third world farmers and the bitters work at. It just means the market gets flooded with stuff no one could afford without killing wolves in Crow's Wood for 2 hours or sucking it up and buying gold from farmers. No game with a global AH has ever successfully managed to keep a stable economy. Even EvEs fluctuates, though to be honest a level less game seems to do better in regards because gear and equipment never become obsolete.

Hawtsauce

You may disagree but I would say that WoW , GW2 and Rift all have global AH and all have stable economies.

Vikova

Hawtsauce wrote: »

You may disagree but I would say that WoW , GW2 and Rift all have global AH and all have stable economies.

I haven't played WoW in many years, but back when I did it was very easy to manipulate that economy.

Hawtsauce

Sure anyone with a little coin can try to corner the market on a hot item BUT there is always a risk that someone else will post items to undercut you and drive the price down forcing you to either be stuck holding a lot of stock until the price recovers or sell it at a loss.

Ziiko

Location based bazaars would be an interesting addition, especially if they made resource nodes more common based on environment. Visiting the trade bazaar at of a town close to a forest might be a good way to find cheap lumber. If you were dedicated enough to stockpile and transport it the bazaar in a barren desert environment you could make some nice coin.

Convenience for performing what players believe should be simple game tasks is really a threshold matter for whether they continue to play. If you want to talk about old school MMOs, trading in EQ was 100% player to player sure, but even getting from point A to B was an activity in and of itself. People just don't tolerate that anymore.

If you're going to avoid some of these convenience elements, then you really should at least make it different enough to be interesting. You can't just throw us back to '99.

P.S. - the interface for the guild store is really bad and not as responsive as it should be.

Vikova

Ziiko wrote: »

You can't just throw us back to '99.

But...but...the parties.

knightblaster

Hawtsauce wrote: »

You may disagree but I would say that WoW , GW2 and Rift all have global AH and all have stable economies.

WoW does not have a global AH. The game is sharded. The issue here is it's a megaserver game, so the cap on the number of participants is much, much higher than in WoW. That makes for a hyper-efficient market, which means a huge amount of supply, unless drop rates and crafting rates are ratcheted severely downwards. A megaserver game can't function well with a global AH. Even EVE doesn't have one -- it has regional markets.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Leave elder scrolls as is. If you want an AH there are 999 wow clones that offer it. I guess if you are here that means AH's dont make or break a game as you claim.

Sharee

Hawtsauce wrote: »

The whole agrument "prices will skyrocket , there will be price fixing", etc is just not true - this is basic economics , supply and demand. If 1000s of players all have jute listed the price will naturally begin to drop until the demand > supply.

In an MMO, it does not work. Here's why.

1, Gold farmer is sitting on millions of gold, because unlike normal players, he is(actually, hundreds of bots and sweatshop workers) grinding the game 24/7.
2, 1000s of players all have jute listed at ~20 gold.
3, Gold farmer buys all that jute (he has virtually unlimited gold source) and reposts it at ~400 gold.

Nothing will naturally drop - as soon as someone posts jute for less than 400 gold, the gold farmer will buy it milliseconds later(automated program) and repost it at 400 gold.

That's with global AH. Guild stores on the other hand cannot be manipulated so easily - there is no way for the gold farmer to instantly re-buy all jute anyone posted in any of the hundreds of individual guild stores.

Kiwi

heres a crazy idea
how about stop making demands from a company thats already said NO

try to stand on your own two feet and be self sufficient instead of relying on others for handouts and shortcuts

sounds crazy right? its not

Hawtsauce

Kiwi wrote: »

heres a crazy idea
how about stop making demands from a company thats already said NO

try to stand on your own two feet and be self sufficient instead of relying on others for handouts and shortcuts

sounds crazy right? its not

Umm what ? What does an AH have to do with 'standing on your own 2 feet , handouts or shortcuts " ?

zbcole

@Krayor‌ - would love to know exactly what assumptions I am making on general economic theory or how gold farmers influence the market. Anyone can make a statement and pretend it's true. I can point you to any number of examples of how gold farmers collectively and negatively influence a games market where gold farmers have a presence and a general ah exists. And these items hold true on how these virtual currency sellers have built a near billion dollar industry.

Is your stance really that they don't do that?

byghostlightrwb17_ESO

No it isnt, there is no reason at all for an auction house. Thats a stupid system from a game this genre is trying to move away from. WoW became a disease is this formerly brilliant type of game. It closed everyone's minds to reaching further from its clutches and clones.

There is little learn from WoW other than: how people become sheep and dont aim for anything from beyond saying "baahhh"

Greydog

byghostlightrwb17_ESO wrote: »

how people become sheep and dont aim for anything from beyond saying "baahhh"

I've said that to a few mages

Railo

Gonna keep a pause to ESO untill there is a better system for more casual players to sell the exploration stuff, the inventory management is already a pain for people who want to gather alot of stuff and create things with them.

I've been in 4 trade guilds with around 2000people, only good sell place has been /zone chat and that is full of spam atm.
Also the bank/guild store UI is horrible, the constant switching between guilds and not having the possibility to search by name or even from every trade guild store at once. So the time I keep playing 60% of my time goes to space/bank management.
More freedom to casual players too.

Thechemicals

I hope they don't add an AH. A trade chat and guild store is fine. An auction house is a waste of time, literally.

Phadin

Ziiko wrote: »

Location based bazaars would be an interesting addition, especially if they made resource nodes more common based on environment. Visiting the trade bazaar at of a town close to a forest might be a good way to find cheap lumber. If you were dedicated enough to stockpile and transport it the bazaar in a barren desert environment you could make some nice coin.

Convenience for performing what players believe should be simple game tasks is really a threshold matter for whether they continue to play. If you want to talk about old school MMOs, trading in EQ was 100% player to player sure, but even getting from point A to B was an activity in and of itself. People just don't tolerate that anymore.

If you're going to avoid some of these convenience elements, then you really should at least make it different enough to be interesting. You can't just throw us back to '99.

P.S. - the interface for the guild store is really bad and not as responsive as it should be.

I like this idea. Have some kind of community store that players can post items at, but the store in one town would only list items posted in that location. It could add a factor of travel and moving locations to find the best place to buy or sell an item, which adds a bit to the immersion. However, I think fast travel hurts it a bit, since traveling betwen locations becomes so easy.

Hawtsauce

Please add 1. Trade Channel 2. The ability to add a 4 hr timer on COD mail - nothing is more frustrating than to COD something and then have it sit in the 'buyers' mailbox for up to 30 days.

I would really like to have an AH but I do understand peoples concerns and the idea of trying to make this different than other MMOs.

I like Phadin said about being able to sell items on consignment at regular merchants? I list items for sale at that merchant, that is the only place they are available. I can stop later and collect all sales from that merchant.

Nilliad

This is a response to todays post on TESOs Facebook page concerning a forum that was created where people can advertise to buy/sell/trade their wares in game (it's basically an auction house except you gotta then contact the person that posted in game and make the trade, a good idea over all considering the sham of a trading system currently in the game)
Now I agree something like this in game is required so here's what I wrote on it, copy pasted because I wasn't arsed to edit to suit this format but you'll get the idea so don't worry.

"Gotta admit, i'm very let down by trading in this game, it's probably my least favorite aspect of it. The games economy has so much potential with the implementation of the mega servers, you've created these servers that effectively holds every single player in the EU or US and then restricted their potential buyer/seller market to whatever guilds they're in and whoever just happens to be in the same zone as them at any given time, it's such a waste.

An auction house isn't even required to fix this, something new and revolutionary could work, say for example removing member limits to guilds, that would create massive crafting/trading guilds, and only a handful of them which would garner better competition between them would exist because they'd eventually absorb into each other, instead of just joining 3-4 trading guilds that reach guild cap and then selling your items to whichever one has the best profits at any given time. If we had guilds with thousands of members competing against each other to have the best value and quality items to gain more members, then that alone would create a vast exciting aspect to the game, but no, we're left with a ***, tiny system. Not to mention with the larger more popular trading guilds eventually becoming more and more famous among players it would make them more inclined to try advertise their wares in more interesting ways, offers, gifts etc etc, and create a better social aspect among them. You have the option to join 5 guilds, but all i'm seeing is people joining one guild that they can be social, quest and raid in and then 3-4 trading guilds where they block chat and just sell their junk to every now and then, it's a waste of being able to join 5 guilds....

Another idea would be to have markets in the major cities/towns of each zone, not like an AH but instead an area that has a global chat linked to the other markets, like tradechat, only restricted to said markets instead of the entire city. A possible "posting board" for trading, buying and selling requests and offers (for a small fee to advertise of course), and then people would have to actively interact with their seller/buyer, either respond on the post or send them a mail with their offer and organise to meet up or work over mail for the trade, there could be separate boards where specialized crafters could post their services (again for a fee to have the "add" up for so long), a master blacksmith with whatever research and motifs he has, or an alchemist with a list of what they can make and at what quality, this would create an incredibly interesting aspect to the game where players actually get involved when it comes to selling their wares and have to compete with market standards and values against each other.

Then of course there's the possibility of creating a system incorporating both of these possible solutions, that would create a global market and a place for the giant guilds to compete with each other to make the best offers, smaller guildless crafters could survive off loyal customers while the large trading guilds would have a network of suppliers, crafters, buyers and sellers to make the best profits they possibly can, while still keeping the economy balanced and interesting.

Currently the system is weak, and if i'm honest it's an embarrassment to an amazing game, the mega servers gave so much potential to create an interesting, competitive, lively and vast economy/market but it was wasted, and what we're left with is a tiny target market with the guild stores, and the boredom of zone hopping posting your wares in /z for possibly a few hours hoping someone wanting to buy just happens to be in the same zone as you at the same time...

Of course these are just some of my ideas and my opinion on the current system, but looking at other comments it seems many people would agree that the current system is extremely weak and that some sort of alternative that can utilize the vastness of the mega servers would greatly increase the quality of the economy and the game itself. I do agree with the commenters that an AH is a boring solution though."

morgueanna

To everyone saying that no AH legitimizes guilds and enforces the 'social' aspect of the game, I ask: How?

How does forcing people to join large guilds just to sell their items encourage the social aspect of the game? If the only reason I'm joining a guild is to sell my stuff, that doesn't make me want to be social- in fact I think it has the opposite effect. People are now just joining guilds to sell their stuff instead of wanting to join guilds for, you know, actually playing the game.

The people joining trading guilds are only doing it to sell their items, which means for the most part they aren't socializing, they're just using the game mechanic. That doesn't help anyone, and in fact it limits how many items you get to see when you do want to purchase something- you're limited to the 499 other members of the guild (if you're lucky enough to be in a capped guild and not just one that has a 100 or so members). This leads to people constantly jumping from guild to guild, testing the market for their items and seeing what others have to sell, which means there's no stability or trends that can be monitored to see exactly how much you should sell your items for, or whether or not buying that new bow for 1k gold is a good deal or not.

It's frustrating for casual players like myself who cannot log on for more than an hour a day- due to my lack of game time, no guild that has a strong guild store wants me, so I'm forced to join trading guilds that only have a handful of members who are just as casual as me, so none of us can afford to buy off each other anyway. I can't sell my stuff without spamming zone chat, which eats into my game time, I can't sell it in the guild store because none of my trade guildmates plays enough to have the money, and I'm stuck with stacks of things I don't need that I either vendor just to make space or makes me log out in frustration.

You tell me what my options are. I'm honestly looking for an answer.

Laerian

You people continue tilting at windmills with the global AH when most seems to agree that is not the best solution.

There are more ways to build a healthy economy; other players have suggested local AH, personal shops, bazar areas. None of those is a perfect system but they give more freedom and prevent this "controlling the economy" abuse.

Why do you think that those thousands of people prefer the AH in other mmorpgs when they have trade channels?.

With the actual system we have many people excluded from the economy. An that is not good for any mmorpg.

vencibushy

IMO the current system is flawed. What it does is leading the ingame economy in ever dwindling state and hammering down any potential personal gain of wealth. And yes the current economy would never allow for any player to actually call himself a rich.

For economically literate people that's the very definition of planned economy and socialism.

There are however numerous misconceptions about how "good" the current system is. Here is what I came across so far:
1. "Hey the guild stores promote personal engagement and improved community!" - I call this just plain stupid. What we haw now is players join one guild and totally mute the other four.
2. "This new system is much more different to all other games. That makes ESO unique" - I call this statement hilarious! You go the NPC open some interface, post your item. You don't give a flying f*ck who buys your items. No difference whether it's AH or guild store. Same thing.
3. "The AH will allow for gold farmers to do speculations" - Now this one is a real GEM. Only a complete person deprived of any sense of logic would do such a statement. THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY to do speculations is to have access to many SEPARATE markets like GUILD STORES. All you need to do i so have a 24/7 Chinese sweatshop, 2 PC's and 2 accounts per person. Having this setup I could totally buy and resell items between guild stores and literally make lots of money. In real life that would translate into the following example:

Imagine you buy apples from a local farm and you have 2 small towns you sell those to. The two towns are equally distant from you so the transportation expenditures are the same.
Imagine also that those two towns have no connection between. No road, no telephone, no internet, no nothing. Just like in the current system in ESO.
Now this one is a haven on earth for a master speculator. It's a gold mine. You simply buy apples from the farm for say €1/kg and resell them for €5/kg in town A or even €6/kg for town B.
Hell you could also go to town A and buy at €6/kg and sell in town B at €7/kg.
Now imagine those two towns get a telephone and internet (Auction house). Town A's mayor would telephone town B's mayor and say:
-Hey buddy we buy apples from that guy for €5/kg. How much do you pay for yours?
The other guy would say - Hey we get them for €6/kg! The delivery guy is freaking scamming us. Hey you know what? There is a apple farm nearby. How about we give them a call and check their prices?

Guess where they would go buy apples from

So this is how the AH works in a global economy. MEGASERVER anyone? For those who still fail to get it. Imagine the example above and add just a few more towns and apple farms. And yes they all have roads, telephones and internet

Altheina

Has there been official word from Zenimax to address player request for Auction House?

tallenn

@vencibushy‌
Exactly, and well said. For some reason, people believe that "someone must protect us!" from "predatory" economic practices. The fact is, the ONLY thing that offers any protection in economics is a free, self-regulated market.

Any time you introduce control measures into a market, you change the best way to be successful from the model of "provide the best goods/services at the best price" to the model of "learn the best methods for gaming the system".

Dovel

Yes!

A server wide Auction House would be nice. Also, the ability to center the Store while browsing. I don't need half of my screen taken up by the Bank Teller.

Left_Hand

Guild wars 2 is doing just fine with a global auction house, so is EvE. In fact i have found that material prices have dropped dramatically since launch in GW2.

Hawtsauce

tallenn wrote: »

@vencibushy‌
Exactly, and well said. For some reason, people believe that "someone must protect us!" from "predatory" economic practices. The fact is, the ONLY thing that offers any protection in economics is a free, self-regulated market.

Any time you introduce control measures into a market, you change the best way to be successful from the model of "provide the best goods/services at the best price" to the model of "learn the best methods for gaming the system".

Totally agree

Jeremy

]

Left_Hand wrote: »

Guild wars 2 is doing just fine with a global auction house, so is EvE. In fact i have found that material prices have dropped dramatically since launch in GW2.

That was the only thing about Guild Wars 2 that impressed me, and that was their auction house.

Hawtsauce

GW2 has an awesome AH