Global Guild Store Search

mxmissile_ESO · April 2015

I'm not asking for an AH, I want to be able to search *all* guild stores at once. Not buy, not post, just find out who has what. Really simple, and wont effect the economy.

Or is requiring players to run around BFE visiting each store just a time sink? Cause that is all it is.

Deheart · April 2015

On one hand it is more realistic and challenging to try to find specific pieces of the rarer armor, on the other hand... I don't want to have to put effort into this MMO with simulated realistic economy. It sucks but just like in the game, you cant just go to one store and always find what you need, you need to go from place to place in order to find what you want usually.

I used to hate this Economy system, until I realized that alot of people don't put effort into finding stuff so I end up having nice armor sets and the lazys don't.

Of course there are those who actually have a life and don't have time to spend 2-3 hours going from store to store, I don't count you as lazys, just poor folk who have other things to do than play an...

*Sob* Please kill me now!

Ketta · April 2015

I'd be happy with this even if it were a search function only and you still had to travel to whichever merchant had the goods you wanted.

A function like this would also show just how restrictive the system is for lower level players who can't get to most areas. This issue along with restricting selling only if you're guilded are big beefs with me, and I think with some tweaking, ESO could keep the system they have while not implementing a global market.

maryriv · April 2015

No, the economy is fragile as it is, this would utterly destroy it.

Ketta · April 2015

maryriv wrote: »

No, the economy is fragile as it is, this would utterly destroy it.

The reasons why it's fragile are many. I listed two reasons in my previous post: the current system does not reach an even remotely full potential for buyers and is limited as well by requiring joining a guild that has a merchant (that is hopefully in a halfway decent location, and sellers don't feel taken advantage of by how the guild is set up).

Sellers are compromised by lack of exposure to potential buyers, and buyers are restricted by available time and accessibility of guild merchants. If ZoS were to focus on improving on these two points, I'm very certain we'd see a major improvement in the economy (after an initial 'hiccup' while the system and people adjust, which is always the case when you mess with currently existing market systems).

Yes, some people have managed to be quite successful selling in the current system, but a lot of things are often in their favor like location and how the guild sets up their rules/guidelines. But they're basically a minority (it's not their fault, it's a result of how the market is set up). The only true competition between guilds is during bidding, when it should also be in how they get customers to their merchant and not other guild's merchants. Another perk of allowing a global search would encourage more competition between guilds and their members.

Frawr · April 2015

I do not believe that adding what you suggest would benefit the game or the players.

I think that it is yet more watering-down of an already pretty thing 'MMO' experience (note, as a singleplayer RPG it is fantastic and as an E-Sports pvp game it would be fantastic if only they would fix the damned lag)

Instead of tinkering with guild traders, we should look at games like Star Wars galaxies, Darkfall and Archeage for 'inspiration':

- Create a more sand-box-like space, allow player-built cities with player-created merchants housed inside player-made/player-decorated houses.
- Into this sand-box-like space, also add consensual PVP through the ability to take land/fight/defend/build castles a la Archeage/SWG/Darkfall etc. This would give more meaning to the pvp rather than this pingpong keep flipping E-Sports that we currently have (since you can own a keep and sell your guilds goods through the keep, i really think that it was intended for keeps to be far more difficult to take).

- this would give: the single player RPG storybased game that solo players enjoy
- an online sandbox-ish world in which people can live and fight. This area could be expanded to be all of the imperial provinces and the land could be massively increased in size to allow for masses of player population.

This would be my dream. It would be totally epic. I really believe that It would be a $$$ for Zenimax if they had the funding to implement it.

BigM · April 2015

It would be awesome to have something like this but really the way the game is now you do realize how much lag this would bring to the game. So no we do not need it.

But on other hand I wonder if some kind of database could be setup out of game with addons?

mxmissile_ESO · April 2015

BigM wrote: »

It would be awesome to have something like this but really the way the game is now you do realize how much lag this would bring to the game. So no we do not need it.

But on other hand I wonder if some kind of database could be setup out of game with addons?

I disagree, this can be done server-side with paging, and a *simple* search algorithm. Google does it with a lot more data than ESO will ever have, it's not like a google search kills my home internet.

mxmissile_ESO · April 2015

Regardless, I'm done, I cant take it anymore, I know this is a whiny reason to leave over something so small, but I enjoy the idea of selling/buying stuff virtually in a MMO. I am a harvester/collector, I prefer to sell my gathered goods and buy crafted equipment to support the crafting community. This game it's more work than its worth. Things like an AH, global search etc might not be good for an MMO economy, but at least there would be an economy, in ESO there is NO economy, it's nothing but mind numbing work.

This WILL fall on deaf ears but I am throwing it out there anyway. I would *love* to come back if these two issues are fixed.

* Global search, SWG had this with the terminals, you search for an item, it told you who's store had it, you ran out there and buy buy buy.

* A *simple* keyword search, there is so much crap guild members post on stores, its impossible to sift through it all. I know there are addons for this, but they only search 1 page at a time, you have to page through the entire store to get complete results.

/signing off

Nestor · April 2015

To an extent, I would like the ability to search all the stores. However, I like the Kiosks as they are now. I can find bargains, I still remember the VR1 Focus and Signet of the Warlock I picked up for 150 Gold, total.

Most towns have a set group of guilds that win bids, so I can pretty much figure on what I am going to get as I go to each town. Sure, there is some disruption with the guilds in each kiosk, but mostly, it is a stable situation. Of course that has it's good and bad points right there.

If they would give us two guilds per Kiosk, and a minimum of 3 Kiosks per town, rural can stay at single kiosks, then we would have a lot more to shop for at kiosk.

SirCritical · April 2015

This would mean that prices should fall, because people always could buy the wanted stuff on its lowest price. On the other side, cartelling would possible, when a branch bought up all the specific (rare) stuff, and sell them on a (much) higher price. I wouldn't support this, and I think (hope) it will never implemented.

P3ZZL3 · April 2015

In fairness, cartelling is perfectly do-able right now.

Acrolas · April 2015

Cartels are licensed monopolies/monopsonies. The Crown Store is the only cartel in the game.

In a truly competitive market, a seller is a price taker, not a price maker. But ZOS apparently doesn't know much about global economic design, which is why this banana can be sold for 150 gold by a grocer but is worthless if I try to sell it to that grocer. That is just unintelligent economic design and doesn't give me much faith in the larger game economy.

Yet the ZOS philosophy seems to be "scalper stores are acceptable gold sinks." Which is why the guild kiosks feel kind of like those guys outside the stadium trying to sell inflated tickets to the desperate. Only instead of tickets, it's 8 Bugloss for 8000 gold.

I don't want to be a scalper, but I don't want somebody flipping goods that I've priced fairly, either. Which is what the guild store search will unfortunately encourage. The sad thing is that ZOS will nerf everything in the game that an opportunist could take advantage of but not penalize the guild oligopoly monster they've helped create and daresay encouraged.