That is 1 added benefit to the kiosk system. The pricing of goods is protected to the extent players want to shop ie spend time bargain hunting for a better price. Some items I will visit every kiosk I know of until I find a price I like. Some I dont want to take the time and pay the extra money. In other words the system protects the merchants and the buyers which over all protects the economy. It really was a ingenious idea to MMO economy issues that plague all MMO's the longer they are out. It really does slow the inflation curve which gives the developers more time to react.

Razzak wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Sylvyr wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

While a public AH would be more convenient, it would not jive with the general game feel for me, and I would not use it. We will have to agree to disagree on this one. I do like the guild trader system and I think they fit in well with the general atmosphere of the game.

What do you mean by game feel?

I see an acknowledgement that a more centralized system would be more convenient, so I can only take from that that the current system does have factors that are inconvenient. So something else about it gives you a positive jive. Is it running around looking for things from vendor to vendor, zone to zone, like an adventure for you?

I think the current system meshes in well with the general atmosphere of the game. You are wandering around the world and you find a chest. Or a rift. Or M'aiq the Liar. Or a wandering merchant. Or a guild trader that may or may not have something for sale that you want. I'll check all of those out. I may just get some gold out of the chest. Or I may get a set item from a set I really want. The trader may have the last piece of the set I'm trying to put together at a reasonable price. Or treasure maps that are not overpriced. Or they may not.

It just fits in.

An AH would be Login to AH interface -> Search -> buy cheapest version of what I want. That would be pretty boring, even if it saves time. It just doesn't feel like part of ESO to me.

And oddly enough, looking at the post about the different kinds of shoppers, I'm more of a power shopper (unless we are talking about books and video games, in which I'm a hybrid). But I like the traders.

Now, as I mentioned in my previous post, I use AwesomeGuildStore and I have forgotten how clunky the vanilla Guild Store UI is. This addon really improves your experience 1000% and makes things far easier to find across multiple traders.

We all have things which we enjoy in and the "feel" you are talking about is probably the most difficult to explain. I thought I knew what you were trying to say when I read your previous post, but this one got me all confused.

I am not familiar with the add-on you are talking about, but if it "makes things far easier to find across multiple traders", isnt't that an approximation of an AH? Or does this add-on allow the search only on one guild trader? The one you are currently viewing? If it is so, I apologize for my wrong assumption.

AwesomeGuildStore remembers the last filter/search you had at a guild store when you connect to the next one. It remembers some search history, and also allows you to save "favourite" searches. It has very specific filters you can combine, so if you are looking for set items for example, it's fairly easy to go through a dozen traders in a few minutes. You just have to know where they are (which apparently I do!)

Of course, the downside is that it remembers the last search you made and sometimes you forget that and wonder why the store has no items. Or only blue ones...

HydroCanuck wrote: »

Sylvyr wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

While a public AH would be more convenient, it would not jive with the general game feel for me, and I would not use it. We will have to agree to disagree on this one. I do like the guild trader system and I think they fit in well with the general atmosphere of the game.

What do you mean by game feel?

I see an acknowledgement that a more centralized system would be more convenient, so I can only take from that that the current system does have factors that are inconvenient. So something else about it gives you a positive jive. Is it running around looking for things from vendor to vendor, zone to zone, like an adventure for you?

Seems like some people want ESO to be like a fantasy version of Second Life...

I do not know Second Life, so I cannot speak to the accuracy of your assumption.

mandragor1996 wrote: »

That is 1 added benefit to the kiosk system. The pricing of goods is protected to the extent players want to shop ie spend time bargain hunting for a better price. Some items I will visit every kiosk I know of until I find a price I like. Some I dont want to take the time and pay the extra money. In other words the system protects the merchants and the buyers which over all protects the economy. It really was a ingenious idea to MMO economy issues that plague all MMO's the longer they are out. It really does slow the inflation curve which gives the developers more time to react.

Now that all depends on the vendors in proximity, which change.

What you mean by protected means less subject to being undercut, or have your customer find a product somewhere else rather than purchase yours. It's an interesting point.

I'll translate it a little though: The system is such a pain in the ass that sellers, that actually have access to sell at a kiosk, which may change, for a while, -might- be in a nice bubble to sell their goods at their set (high) price without having to adjust it in competition because the system makes it a pain for buyers and they are less likely to find goods that you are selling at a better price elsewhere unless they put a lot of work into it.

How about when a new guild bids a merchant next to yours and generally has much lower prices? Either you have to put "work" in and adjust your gouging practices, or not sell because buyers willing to put in minimal comparative shopping time will at least check the vendors next to yours.

What about sellers in guilds that can't get a kiosk or get outbid? How does it protect them?

I dunno, I mean I see what you're saying. Like if it was a global AH you'd have to worry about undercutters and adjust your prices all the time and this system alleviates some of that by hindering buyers from finding other goods. But it seems that this little gem of ingeniousness is buried under and reliant on layers of a generally painful system that is a crapshoot most of the time anyway.

I guess it comes down to how "fun" it is from both the buyer and seller perspective to be in an ever morphing bubbled economy with lots of moving pieces. For some it's part of the adventure of it all, for others it's overkill.

For me it's interesting for sure. My main beef is for those guilds that want a store but have difficulties getting one, particularly the blind bidding system indirectly mixed in with the tax system.

- There are a finite amount of kiosks, which means only a finite number of guilds can have a merchant.
- If more guilds want merchants than available, bids will be higher. If bids are higher than taxes generated from sales that means paying out of pocket. While many guilds have come up with creative ideas like lotteries to generate additional funds or pay out of pocket it takes more time either way, some might find that fun some might see it as more work that takes them away from other adventuring.
- If a guild loses the one bid a week they get, they no longer have a merchant and this brings headaches to the sellers and dramatically changes the landscape for them
- There are a lot of guilds with pretty pathetic stores taking up these finite merchants. How they can afford it or why they do it, I dunno, they have dup gold to kill?
- The moving of guild stores in the bid shuffle make it not only a pain for the sellers but doesn't allow buyers to develop rapport with sellers. For example, a buyer thinking "oh I found a great seller guild in riften at such and such merchant that sells mats consistently that I can go to" and next week, oops not there, time to start over, or don't have enough time I guess I'll have to pay what the new guy is charging and just suck it up.
- As the game grows, how will the finite amount of merchants work? Will the devs have to expand them or contract them? Or just leave it and let the bidding get higher and higher which will demand further efforts to maintain them?

What if, everyone could buy a spot at a merchant. Maybe for a flat fee. Or a sliding fee based on how many other guilds want to sell at that merchant too? But the idea would be allowing guilds to choose their spot. Buyers could come up to the merchant and select the store they want to see. Rapport could be built between the buyer and the store as the buyers find the ones they like and can consistently come back to them. Guilds could move their stores based on intelligent (or not) decisions rather than a PvP bidding system. Either do away with the guild portion of the taxes or even better make it adjustable by the guild leader. On one hand it'd be nice to get some reward for all that recruiting and maintenance and being adjustable would make for a neat dimension of how much taxes can we get, or on the other hand, charge no taxes. The current system is just soooooooo whack-a-mole it'd be a bit of a relief to make it a little more consistent.