What is the logic behind not having a central AH?

Ser Lobo · August 2014

The only comment I've seen from ZOS is in the FAQ. And it is concerning how, with larger market systems, rare items become less rare and more readily available, defeating any mechanics the developers use to keep them rare.

How does this work? Say a game has, reportedly, 750,000 subscribers, divided over two mega-servers. Translates to roughly 375,000 people per server. Lets say a measly 5% of those players run high-end content, dungeons, trials, etc. That's 18,750 pro-gamers.

Lets say a particular purple item has a drop chance of 2%, very common in auction house games. And that is from a 20minute dungeon (or trial, in ESO). If 18,750 players run that dungeon once, taking approximately 20minutes total to do so, this can theoretically translate into 375 of those items being looted. In three hours of play, approximately 3375 of these items may hit the market place.

This of course doesn't count repeat runs, grinding groups, or the really leet gamers who run a particular raid at the same time every day for a week straight.

The 'grind' function of high-end content happens because loot percentages are so very low, sometimes in the .5% range. This is partially caused to compensate for market compensation. But this could mean that a player, in order to obtain that specific item, would need to run that raid 200 times in order to achieve the item they may need to complete a set piece required to do next-stage content.

In that meantime, the player has looted untold amount of items they DIDNT need, including copies of items they already have, and dumped said items on a global auction house. What should be rare and require a ton of effort, is now *relatively* easy to get and cheap.

For those not wanting to do said content ... not wanting to do the work ... it's a nice advantage. For those who do put in the time, it's a slap in the face.

Of course, they compensate in other ways, with 'bind-on-pickup', which forces the player to not only grind, but get no reward for much of it.

Smaller markets, means that while there is still the grinding and market saturation, it's in much smaller quantities and not as impactful on the overall market of the game. A dupe glitch, for instance, may ruin the store in a couple guilds, but has a much harder time ruining the whole game (as it did in WoW very recently).

This game has far less 'bind-on-equip' pieces than the vast majority of games on the market. The player has far more chance to have something to reward their work. And may ask for more money for that work. They just can't sell as quickly or easily, and will probably be limited to selling in guilds with other players addressing end-game content just like them. Resulting in a balance in favor of keeping items rare, work worthwhile, and players playing.

Cause players simply buying end-game equipment is NOT encouraging play. Exactly the opposite.

oldspook619 · August 2014

I played WOW for over 2 years. I probably would have quit after 6 months or less if it wasn't for the auction house. I enjoyed "playing the market" and having alts that were crafters and a banker.

If having an auction house would attract and keep players that enjoy that type of game, it would be worth it to the developers. Bashing heads gets boring after a while, playing the economy gives the game a goal other that being the best head basher.

Phantax · August 2014

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

The only comment I've seen from ZOS is in the FAQ. And it is concerning how, with larger market systems, rare items become less rare and more readily available, defeating any mechanics the developers use to keep them rare.

(Not having a pop at you here Ruze)
Anyway what load of crap, an AH can't make an item less rare. I've heard/seen this comment before and it's just an excuse by Zenimax. An item will be as rare as the drop/find rate that it is set to and how often people find it. They will still sell it if they don't want it, doesn't matter if that's in an AH or in a guild store !
Geez, they may as well disable all the chat channels then just to stop people from WTS any rare items they have. Personally I'd rather have all that in an AH and not see chat spammed with it.
Yes of course some people will still sell stuff in chat, but an AH would help minimise it !

Ser Lobo · August 2014

Phantax wrote: »

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

The only comment I've seen from ZOS is in the FAQ. And it is concerning how, with larger market systems, rare items become less rare and more readily available, defeating any mechanics the developers use to keep them rare.

(Not having a pop at you here Ruze)
Anyway what load of crap, an AH can't make an item less rare. I've heard/seen this comment before and it's just an excuse by Zenimax. An item will be as rare as the drop/find rate that it is set to and how often people find it. They will still sell it if they don't want it, doesn't matter if that's in an AH or in a guild store !
Geez, they may as well disable all the chat channels then just to stop people from WTS any rare items they have. Personally I'd rather have all that in an AH and not see chat spammed with it.
Yes of course some people will still sell stuff in chat, but an AH would help minimise it !

(Purpose of discussion, not personal either)

Disagree, as I went on to describe. Large, centralized market systems make rare items less rare, especially as populations increase.

I don't take it personally, but I definitely understand the logic behind it. If you can't or don't want to diminish the rarity by making the item bound-on-pickup (which discourages play because it no rewards for much content) or making it even harder to get by decreasing the drop rate (which discourages play by making rewards feel impossible to achieve, due to RNG not being a very nice system to many people), then you decrease it's availability by making it harder for others to find in order to purchase.

This can be done by setting hard values on the system (another option they could have went with, by setting an auction house but not allowing players to sell certain items at values lower than listed), or by making it more difficult to find the item on the market.

Plus, the advantages of smaller markets on game-breaking cheats and hacks, or reducing trade-bot use (programs designed for real life trade, and easily incorporated in many games to break market economies), or encouraging trade which requires market fluctuation in order to function (market fluctuation which now exists between individual stores; buy low, sell high mechanics).

GnatB · August 2014

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

Global Auction Houses can not only be gamed by people who just want to win the market, but bottom out pretty much all prices except for things that are rare based around the rng.

So, which is it. Do Global Ah's raise prices as people buy out things to resell higher, or do they lower them as there is a constant stream of them entering the game leading to undercuts?

Considering the mega server thing, my money is on the latter. Which, IMO, is a GOOD thing. Common stuff will be cheap as supply/demand dictates.

Be far easier to control the market by controlling the 90 or so good guild merchant shops. Hopefully the gold selling marked in ESO is small enough that it isn't worth it for gold sellers to buy the 900 or so accounts it would take to do that.

GnatB · August 2014

SFBryan18 wrote: »

It's like Walmart. Buyers would love the fixed low prices. Sellers would hate them. That's why here in San Francisco, they won't allow a Walmart.

Because the companies are in charge at the expense of the average person?

Makes sense. I knew SF was messed up.

DenverRalphy · August 2014

The lack of a global AH is designed to help the sellers. Many many MMOs had global auction houses that have worked well. Except in the eyes of the sellers. Most MMOs that had different servers still had a global AH. Most people just didn't notice it though. Post something for sale on your server? Guess what, all servers accessed the same AH.

The only people against global AH's are those who are looking for a huge profit at the expense of the buyers. While the buyers are looking for a good deal.

EQ2 had the best system. A global AH combined with player owned kiosks. Find an item on the AH you liked but was a tad too much? Then all you had to do was take note of the seller's name, visit their house, and buy it from their kiosk at a better deal because you circumvented the listing fees.

SirAndy · August 2014

audabon2013 wrote: »

People make up all kinds of fantastic lies about how an AH would ruin an economy, but anyone with a brain knows it will increase trade dramatically. Many proponents of the current system want to jack their prices up so they can artificially inflate their bank.

zaria · August 2014

Phantax wrote: »

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

The only comment I've seen from ZOS is in the FAQ. And it is concerning how, with larger market systems, rare items become less rare and more readily available, defeating any mechanics the developers use to keep them rare.

(Not having a pop at you here Ruze)
Anyway what load of crap, an AH can't make an item less rare. I've heard/seen this comment before and it's just an excuse by Zenimax. An item will be as rare as the drop/find rate that it is set to and how often people find it. They will still sell it if they don't want it, doesn't matter if that's in an AH or in a guild store !
Geez, they may as well disable all the chat channels then just to stop people from WTS any rare items they have. Personally I'd rather have all that in an AH and not see chat spammed with it.
Yes of course some people will still sell stuff in chat, but an AH would help minimise it !

An MMO is not an real marked, you have an constant influx of items, this include common and pretty rare drop like armor set.
Most players is more interested in quick money than 25% higher profit in 20 days so they underbid the other selling the item, result is that common and semi rare items drop in price, often to the price the npc traders offer.

The two effects below also exist in real world markets. Note that huge real world items are better to sell uncommon but pretty worthless items as you usual find a clueless guy why pay way to much.

Very rare items on the other hand like rare motifs tend to have the opposite effect.
Here the item is known to be very expensive so prices get inflated this is the expensive items who get sold in zone chat, prices in an AH would be higher.
Demand is larger than supply and you have lots of players with lots of gold.

You also have the problem with manipulation, if you are rich you can buy up items who many need and is pretty rare like the round glyph so you buy all who is sold cheap and sell out expensive over time.

Cogo · August 2014

Quote from Zenimax.

The Elder Scrolls Online will not have an auction house. Konkle explained why on Shoddy Cast:

"You don't necessarily want to do a global auction house for a game with one giant server because that generally leads to all the best gear being available at very, very cheap prices. A lot of times that can trivialize the game. You cannot have a healthy economy when there are no restrictions on getting the best stuff in the game."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10/18/tamriel-infinium-selling-your-wares-in-the-elder-scrolls-online/

I already posted several times Matt Firor stating no AH in ESO because it would ruin the economy, decrease interaction, and quickly make most items loose their value.

He is right!

A Motif I found in May, I could sell for 1500 gold. I still can today. Harder! But there are players who pay for it.

And hell yeah, zone chat trading increasing interaction. I found friends that way :-)

je25ffb14_ESO · August 2014

sotonin wrote: »

k9mouse wrote: »

With the lack of an AH, people are "encourage" to interact with each more; thus make more friendships. I really enjoy the lack of AH in ESO,

Yeah because standing inside a bank at the banker searching the guild store then clicking a button to buy said item is so much more "interaction" than standing in front of an auction npc searching for an item and clicking the buy button.

Lets be realistic folks, the omission of an auction house is just pure laziness. There is no other reason behind it. There is no more interaction today vs if there was an auction house, the ONLY thing that the current system does is frustrate and LIMIT our gold earning and item finding capabilities.

/agree

It just completely boggles my mind. The argument that it facilitates more interaction, or it stops gold sellers is just completely unfounded. I have yet to see a rational argument for it.

There is a world of NON zero-sum items on the server. Materials can be gathered, loot can be found, etc, without stopping. There's no reason why I, or anyone else, should be limited from offering my gathering, crafting, or adventuring rewards from the entire server.

je25ffb14_ESO · August 2014

The fact that I have 5 guilds isn't logical either. There's no lore or economic reason behind it. I just don't get it.

If I end up searching for a guild to find an item I want to sell or buy, does that really add to interaction or immersion?

Cogo · August 2014

The difference in ESO is that ESO is meant to be "PLAYED".
"Farming", "grinding" "Leveling", are terms that the game even got mechanics against.

ESO is an MMO for playing. Doing something.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO · August 2014

Phantax wrote: »

andre.roques.3b14_ESO wrote: »

I think the biggest concern is the use of mega servers rather than smaller population servers that many MMOs used previously. The logic is that if you have 1/2 million people playing on a mega server, a single AH would be a bit of a nightmare.

Rubbish ! Works perfectly well in EVE. They have megaserver technology (single too, not split into NA/EU) and they have no problems with it. Hell trade is actually one of EVE's selling points so as you can imagine they need a dynamic system that works !
(Oh and they have about the same amount of players as we do, so don't try using that as an excuse...lol)

Eve does not have a centralized auction house, their syatem is now similar to ours. SO no idea wtf you are talking about.

DenverRalphy · August 2014

Cogo wrote: »

Quote from Zenimax.

The Elder Scrolls Online will not have an auction house. Konkle explained why on Shoddy Cast:

"You don't necessarily want to do a global auction house for a game with one giant server because that generally leads to all the best gear being available at very, very cheap prices. A lot of times that can trivialize the game. You cannot have a healthy economy when there are no restrictions on getting the best stuff in the game."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10/18/tamriel-infinium-selling-your-wares-in-the-elder-scrolls-online/

I already posted several times Matt Firor stating no AH in ESO because it would ruin the economy, decrease interaction, and quickly make most items loose their value.

He is right!

A Motif I found in May, I could sell for 1500 gold. I still can today. Harder! But there are players who pay for it.

And hell yeah, zone chat trading increasing interaction. I found friends that way :-)

No MMO with a global Ah has ever resulted in the best gear being available at crazy low prices. Common gear and mats, yes. But top quality gear? Never.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO · August 2014

GnatB wrote: »

SFBryan18 wrote: »

It's like Walmart. Buyers would love the fixed low prices. Sellers would hate them. That's why here in San Francisco, they won't allow a Walmart.

Because the companies are in charge at the expense of the average person?

Makes sense. I knew SF was messed up.

umm small businesses wanting to stay in business and continue paying their workers' wages as opposed to a large business moving in who pays their workers starvation wages, requiring the workers to get govt assistance and making them non-participatory in the economy at any feasible level is not about corporate big shots hurting the average person lol.

Good for SF, Walmart is a leech and the taxpayers spend too much money compensating for the unlivable wages they pay their workers.

Faustes · August 2014

The guild kiosks were a step in the right direction. Next, we need a global AH, similar to GW2's centralized AH.

Tired of zone spam chat, joining guilds I don't to be in (and disable chat in) just to trade, overpriced items due to small pool of auctions, not being able to find items I want due to small pool of auctions, etc...

TheRealDoc · August 2014

I have no idea if a central auction house would be a good thing or a bad thing in Elder Scrolls Online, but I know I really don't like spending so much time looking for certain items and the prices when you do find them. Making sets is absolutely tedious and full of price gougers.

I know I liked it in DAOC where there was a central index trader and then you would have to ride to the persons house and trade with their personal market trader. Several times I arrived to find the item sold already.

I know I don't like the problem in ESO where the high end loot is difficult to find at reasonable prices. This can give the impression that certain guilds specialize in running trials and control the market with hugely inflated prices. It's so bad, it would not surprise me if these guilds were fronts for real money trading, after all the bots seem to have gone away so they need another way to play.

There's one particular guild who have a store in Craglorn and have all the high end loot at stupid high prices. Literally, there are a dozens of different high end identical items at 50k-250k. Completely out of reach of the average player.

I wouldn't mind seeing an index trader per realm and see how it goes. It would increase competition, lower prices and make good loot more achievable for the average player.

The current situation puts me off subbing long term and I already quit once when VR levelling was similarly tedious and PvP was broken for a month......

nicholaspingasb16_ESO · August 2014

Clunan wrote: »

A decentralized market increases the viability of merchants, people can actually buy low and sell in this game. In other games with an AH, that ceases to exist due to price stabilization. This system is VERY seller friendly. As I typically sell more stuff than I buy, I enjoy it. Now as a buyer, you will have an often hard time finding what you need when you need it, but that can be mitigated almost entirely by joining a main guild, and four trading guilds. If you havent joined a trading guild or two or three or four, you haven't begun to try to understand this system. Which would sum up most of the complaints. This games economy is extremely volatile and reactive/proactive and that is a good thing. It makes the game more enjoyable for those that aren't mouthbreathers. People(Especially adolescents and children) fear/hate what they don't understand. QQ the dead horse is dead, quit beating it... For MONTHS.

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

I looked for a VR1/2 glyph in all the guild stores I'm in. Found 1 for 3,000 gold....Why ZOS decided to make guild stores is completely beyond me. It's absolutely astonishing.

Yeah, I checked every guild store in the Ebonheart Pact and coldharbour and only one had a single glyph that I needed (I wanted 7 for my armor, and this single white glyph costed me 2.5k). I also spammed zone chat in various zones for an hour with WTB requests, not a single response.

I can't find what I need in the current system, and if I do, it takes me 20-60 minutes of zone chat spam and working through the obtuse guild store UI. This is not good game design.

Cogo · August 2014

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Clunan wrote: »

A decentralized market increases the viability of merchants, people can actually buy low and sell in this game. In other games with an AH, that ceases to exist due to price stabilization. This system is VERY seller friendly. As I typically sell more stuff than I buy, I enjoy it. Now as a buyer, you will have an often hard time finding what you need when you need it, but that can be mitigated almost entirely by joining a main guild, and four trading guilds. If you havent joined a trading guild or two or three or four, you haven't begun to try to understand this system. Which would sum up most of the complaints. This games economy is extremely volatile and reactive/proactive and that is a good thing. It makes the game more enjoyable for those that aren't mouthbreathers. People(Especially adolescents and children) fear/hate what they don't understand. QQ the dead horse is dead, quit beating it... For MONTHS.

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

I looked for a VR1/2 glyph in all the guild stores I'm in. Found 1 for 3,000 gold....Why ZOS decided to make guild stores is completely beyond me. It's absolutely astonishing.

Yeah, I checked every guild store in the Ebonheart Pact and coldharbour and only one had a single glyph that I needed (I wanted 7 for my armor, and this single white glyph costed me 2.5k). I also spammed zone chat in various zones for an hour with WTB requests, not a single response.

I can't find what I need in the current system, and if I do, it takes me 20-60 minutes of zone chat spam and working through the obtuse guild store UI. This is not good game design.

Why is it a bad design if you don't find what you need right away?

Aenra · August 2014

no logic. only lack of.
(sorry dear devs)

compounded further by the stupidity of the post-WoW ***, sorry i meant player

- i sell ***
- i sell *** on the highest imaginable price. Who knows, someone might buy it
- i am too dumb to realise that by inflating prices myself, a month from now i will also be incurring the penalty. Of my own damn actions

it's one thing to have those as well in an AH, as it also includes everything else, the good, the rare, and so on..but when it's one lil shop every few mins of travel..
buuuut that is just me.

and don't get me started on the Zeni statement about megaserver and protecting the economy because for example motif goes for 500-600g on general? it's 900-1000g in the guild seller. Kutas go for 3k (if i recall correctly)? you see them for 5k in the guild seller. And so on.

to be fair however, worthy of mention is the fact that they were nice enough to add them at least. It IS an improvement, as before there was nothing.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO · August 2014

I don't know how you guys are having such a hard time. I can get stuff fairly easy checking Rawl'kha or somewhere like craglorn, or the two trade guilds I'm in, both of which I actively participate in helping others, chatting etc. I have yet to even use the guild traders but I know that will help even more.

I can get decent prices because there aren't 1000 of the item I am selling in the stores, (and I try not to undercut or overcharge.)

I love the system as it is, tbh. I have experienced a centralized AH, and it wasn't even a megaserver, and the prices were wrecked. You could work hard for something fairly uncommon, and you'd be lucky to get 100 gold for it, crafted items were worth almost nothing.

There was this one item I made. I had to spend millions of platinum to learn to make it, it was called Ambleshift's Opal Automated Amalgamator. It took every tradeskill but poisoning to make, including the gnome only tradeskill tinkering. It took a very long time, a lot of farming, and a lot of platinum to get my skill to that point. I originally sold them for 60k, and the actual cost of making them was around 15-20k, depending on if you wanted to farm for days first. This was great while it was going at that, I made livable profit, and had started getting money back after being perpetually poor. I was using my skills and benefiting from them.

Then a whole ton of other people got skilled at doing it, and because I was competing with ALL of them and many of them didn't really seem to care how much of a profit they made, as long as they sold the item, the prices dropped to at cost for the most part and it became impossible to make any profit, even though the actual item could take hours to craft.

The point being, no amount of work or time matters when half the market just wants that rewarding notice that they have sold something. People will play the market like it's a minigame, and the actual profit they get is completely irrelevant. This is great if you are a buyer, but ultimately there is probably going to be a point when everyone is a seller, and you will find that whatever you're selling, save something that is rare by virtue of the RNG perhaps, will be worth next to nothing.

Global AHs also open the market up to bigger sellers buying up all the cheap stuff and selling it at a high price so what isn't ridiculously low, say key items that are rare or uncommon, will be inflated in price through the actions of one or two people, and you will not be able to turn to different places for an alternative, since you already put all your eggs in one basket.

There are pros for a global AH, but not ones that are applicable on a megaserver.

je25ffb14_ESO · August 2014

Cogo wrote: »

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Clunan wrote: »

A decentralized market increases the viability of merchants, people can actually buy low and sell in this game. In other games with an AH, that ceases to exist due to price stabilization. This system is VERY seller friendly. As I typically sell more stuff than I buy, I enjoy it. Now as a buyer, you will have an often hard time finding what you need when you need it, but that can be mitigated almost entirely by joining a main guild, and four trading guilds. If you havent joined a trading guild or two or three or four, you haven't begun to try to understand this system. Which would sum up most of the complaints. This games economy is extremely volatile and reactive/proactive and that is a good thing. It makes the game more enjoyable for those that aren't mouthbreathers. People(Especially adolescents and children) fear/hate what they don't understand. QQ the dead horse is dead, quit beating it... For MONTHS.

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

I looked for a VR1/2 glyph in all the guild stores I'm in. Found 1 for 3,000 gold....Why ZOS decided to make guild stores is completely beyond me. It's absolutely astonishing.

Yeah, I checked every guild store in the Ebonheart Pact and coldharbour and only one had a single glyph that I needed (I wanted 7 for my armor, and this single white glyph costed me 2.5k). I also spammed zone chat in various zones for an hour with WTB requests, not a single response.

I can't find what I need in the current system, and if I do, it takes me 20-60 minutes of zone chat spam and working through the obtuse guild store UI. This is not good game design.

Why is it a bad design if you don't find what you need right away?

It isn't expediency necessarily (although that's what demand is about in many instances) , it's availability.

Ser Lobo · August 2014

Or laziness. That's another perfectly good good word.

The convenience of the issue, in my opinion, is behind more calls for an auction house than any logical argument of economics. The proof is against large-market systems. The facts show how much damage Walmarts and Amazon cause to trade. Governments are passing laws to slow down, sometimes stop entirely, these types of destructive processes.

But in game (and it is a game) the balance of 'convenience' and 'value of time' is important.

Those arguing for an auction house: would you also support players being able to go to one mob in the world and level all the way to VR12? Or choose exactly what drop they want from a boss after beating them? Or automagically be teleported to the next quest objective?

Arguments for convenience only go so far.

nicholaspingasb16_ESO · August 2014

Cogo wrote: »

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Clunan wrote: »

A decentralized market increases the viability of merchants, people can actually buy low and sell in this game. In other games with an AH, that ceases to exist due to price stabilization. This system is VERY seller friendly. As I typically sell more stuff than I buy, I enjoy it. Now as a buyer, you will have an often hard time finding what you need when you need it, but that can be mitigated almost entirely by joining a main guild, and four trading guilds. If you havent joined a trading guild or two or three or four, you haven't begun to try to understand this system. Which would sum up most of the complaints. This games economy is extremely volatile and reactive/proactive and that is a good thing. It makes the game more enjoyable for those that aren't mouthbreathers. People(Especially adolescents and children) fear/hate what they don't understand. QQ the dead horse is dead, quit beating it... For MONTHS.

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

I looked for a VR1/2 glyph in all the guild stores I'm in. Found 1 for 3,000 gold....Why ZOS decided to make guild stores is completely beyond me. It's absolutely astonishing.

Yeah, I checked every guild store in the Ebonheart Pact and coldharbour and only one had a single glyph that I needed (I wanted 7 for my armor, and this single white glyph costed me 2.5k). I also spammed zone chat in various zones for an hour with WTB requests, not a single response.

I can't find what I need in the current system, and if I do, it takes me 20-60 minutes of zone chat spam and working through the obtuse guild store UI. This is not good game design.

Why is it a bad design if you don't find what you need right away?

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Clunan wrote: »

A decentralized market increases the viability of merchants, people can actually buy low and sell in this game. In other games with an AH, that ceases to exist due to price stabilization. This system is VERY seller friendly. As I typically sell more stuff than I buy, I enjoy it. Now as a buyer, you will have an often hard time finding what you need when you need it, but that can be mitigated almost entirely by joining a main guild, and four trading guilds. If you havent joined a trading guild or two or three or four, you haven't begun to try to understand this system. Which would sum up most of the complaints. This games economy is extremely volatile and reactive/proactive and that is a good thing. It makes the game more enjoyable for those that aren't mouthbreathers. People(Especially adolescents and children) fear/hate what they don't understand. QQ the dead horse is dead, quit beating it... For MONTHS.

je25ffb14_ESO wrote: »

I looked for a VR1/2 glyph in all the guild stores I'm in. Found 1 for 3,000 gold....Why ZOS decided to make guild stores is completely beyond me. It's absolutely astonishing.

Yeah, I checked every guild store in the Ebonheart Pact and coldharbour and only one had a single glyph that I needed (I wanted 7 for my armor, and this single white glyph costed me 2.5k). I also spammed zone chat in various zones for an hour with WTB requests, not a single response.

I can't find what I need in the current system, and if I do, it takes me 20-60 minutes of zone chat spam and working through the obtuse guild store UI. This is not good game design.

Why is it a bad design if you don't find what you need right away?

It isn't expediency necessarily (although that's what demand is about in many instances) , it's availability.

This.

Azzuria · August 2014

andre.roques.3b14_ESO wrote: »

I think the biggest concern is the use of mega servers rather than smaller population servers that many MMOs used previously. The logic is that if you have 1/2 million people playing on a mega server, a single AH would be a bit of a nightmare.

^This. And to add, being able to join 5 guilds opens up the actual player-based market and makes it more difficult for a few people monopolize things, especially hazardous on a mega-server.

Or, as they used to say in the 80s, diversify!

Sapphy24 · August 2014

Logic is a hard to come by commodity in this game. I've found so little logic here at all except that everything thing missing is because of the game lore.
Please don't go looking for logic just look at the lore.

Dayel · August 2014

To prevent crime, corruption, chicanery, monopolies and general bad behavior, and cheating the life out of the noobs and lower levels.

Gillysan · August 2014

Ever hear of a search button?

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/search?Search=auction+house

Gillysan · August 2014

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

Phantax wrote: »

andre.roques.3b14_ESO wrote: »

I think the biggest concern is the use of mega servers rather than smaller population servers that many MMOs used previously. The logic is that if you have 1/2 million people playing on a mega server, a single AH would be a bit of a nightmare.

Rubbish ! Works perfectly well in EVE. They have megaserver technology (single too, not split into NA/EU) and they have no problems with it. Hell trade is actually one of EVE's selling points so as you can imagine they need a dynamic system that works !
(Oh and they have about the same amount of players as we do, so don't try using that as an excuse...lol)

Eve does not have a centralized auction house, their syatem is now similar to ours. SO no idea wtf you are talking about.

So much misinformation here, including the previous quotes.

There are 26 regions and hence 26 markets in EVE Online and region can have say up to 50 systems(I believe the grand total of systems is somewhere around 6000). EVE is a PVP game, granted you can avoid a lot of PVP in High Security systems, however this is exactly where traders moving between markets get popped.

People who outfit their ships in shiny modules (purple/legendary) then go mission running (questing) are hunted down in Hisec with extreme prejudice. People who transport such valuables and don't take steps to avoid being ganked, are hunted down with extreme prejudice. People in EVE make a living off people making a living.

Also people make a living baiting the gankers.

Good times.