Please feel free to post your IDEAS to improving trade between players. Please do NOT post generic statements defending the current system NOR statements proposing or advocating a generic global AH system. If you MUST post a defense of the current system please provide IN DEPTH and DETAILED analysis of why. Please feel free to DISCUSS ideas posted here.

Now, I feel my own suggestion got lost in the last mega thread on the problems of trade so I will post it again. You can see my original post here: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1790677/#Comment_1790677

If the devs do not like the idea of a server wide auction system, then use the EvE style of regional markets. The EvE system works like thus:

1) Enter the closest system for the regional market you wish to check
1b) I recommend docking up first for safety
2) open the market menu
3) browse goods
4) buy/sell desired goods if the regional prices are ok
5) travel to said market hub to pickup items if not in the same system

Now to apply the idea to ESO:

1) Travel to zone whose market you wish to check
2) Visit nearest NPC Guild Broker, could be something done via Fighters Guild as they tend to protect merchants more
3) Check listings and prices
4) Buy items if price is agreeable for what you desire, post items as you see fit
5) Travel to central trade hub for zone to or to appropriate town/village where item purchased was posted and collect item

Immersion Protection and Guild Merchant Protection

1) Restricting view of NPC Guild Merchants to zones means you have to travel about to do your trading, even if it is only fast traveling
2) Traveling to collect purchased goods in a zone reinforces the impression of a dynamic universe and community
3) NPC Guild Traders charge a fee to both post an item (based on vendor value, minimum 1 gold even on no value items) and assess a fee on a sale. IF AN ITEM SALES THE POST FEE IS REFUNDED AND ONLY THE SALE FEE IS ASSESSED!
4) Guild Traders have no associated fees for their guild members to post or on the sale. Funds stay within the player guild or enter the player guild undiluted

INTRODUCTION
I would like to build a bit on this idea and flesh it out some more. First some definitions:
ZONE - various high level areas as seen on the Tamriel map itself, for example, Stonefalls, Cyrodiil, Alik'r Desert, Auridon
NPC Guild Trader - A guild trader belonging to an NPC organized and led guild, I.E. The Fighters Guild; Essentially a zone wide only Auction House
Village/Town/City - A place, created by the devs at ZOS, that can be reasonably perceived as a sizable place and concentration of NPC residents, I.E. Davon's Watch, Ebonheart, Mournhold, Windhelm, Riften
Public Guild Trader - An NPC merchant that represents Player Guilds and the wares the members of said guilds wish to sell, I.E. the gurrent Guild Trader merchants

Keeping with my suggestion of such a system of NPC regional auction/trade system that is overseen by regional banks and manned by guards of Fighters Guild, only those town with a representative of the Fighters Guild should posses such NPC Guild Traders.

If I am in Stonefalls and wish to see the market in say, Malabal Tor, I would have to travel there either manually or by fast travel and visit a town there before I could see the goods being sold there and at what prices.

Player Trading Guilds can still continue to exist however the current system of auctioning space should be eliminated. Instead a flat fee of say 500k gold should be assessed weekly for the privilege of a public Guild Trader to sell goods from that guild to the public. These vendors should be able to represent an unlimited number of guilds so long as they can pay the necessary 500k fee.

If gold is building up so fast in this game, then you might consider a 500k fee PER Public Guild Trader. Then a large guild might spend 5,000,000 gold on 10 merchants in the 10 largest or most populated cities/towns in game. Price per merchant should be monitored and adjusted according to the overall accumulation of wealth in game.

Small guilds can compete as they no longer have to watch themselves get outbid continuously for a Public Guild Trader. Furthermore there is the Regional NPC Guild Trader System they can fall back on while they build up a supply of wealth.


COMPARE AND CONTRAST: -- NPC GUILD TRADER VS PUBLIC GUILD TRADER IN THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

THE NPC GUILD TRADER

• The NPC Guild Trader assesses a 1g minimum fee on the item to be posted and sold. This includes 0g items, such as provisioning supplies, in order to deter flooding the the NPC Guild Trader and the server resources required to operate the NPC Guild Trader. Otherwise, this fee should be 10% of the NPC VENDOR VALUE.
• The NPC Guild Trader assesses a 10% tax upon the sale value of item if successfully sold. There is no tax on an item that does not sale over a given duration of time.
• The NPC Guild Trader REFUNDS the previously assessed posting fee in the advent of a successful sale.
• The NPC Guild Trader should list items for one week to permit adequate time to be reviewed by players looking for goods to buy and yet be in keeping with the time limit on the Public Guild Trader.
• Items purchased on the NPC Guild Trader Network for a given zone, can only be picked up at the actual trader where they were listed. If you are in Ebonheart and purchase a rare recipe that was listed in Davon's Watch, then you will need to travel from Ebonheart to Davon's Watch to pick it up. This protects immersion.

THE PUBLIC GUILD TRADER

• I have seen quotes in other threads claiming 700k average for a trader there with the best as much as 3,000,000 gold. The Public Guild Trader access is purchased week by week, with the reset being at the same time each week. Say 5pm US EST every Sunday. After that time each guild wishing for one or more Public Traders must travel to each city they want a trader in and pay a 500k, or other reasonable price, fee for a Public Trader in that city for the following week. You can register at anytime during the week, just know that you will have less time if you register on say a Thursday vice registering right after the new period starts on Sunday.
• Any item listed and not sold before access to the Public Trader expires is mailed back to the lister.
• A posting fee is charged on the same scale as the NPC Guild Trader. Again to prevent people from flooding the Guild Trader and the server resources it draws upon unnecessarily.
• No sales tax will be assessed upon a successful sale.
• Posting fee shall be refunded upon a successful sale. This is to give the Public Guild Trader a distinct advantage over the NPC Guild Trader. If you are a member of a Trading Guild, post an item, and sell it, you should loose no gold and make maximum profit up to what the item sold for.
• The set price on a week of time with the Public Guild Trader means that small guilds, as well as the big, can all acquire merchant time. Smaller guilds might not be able to afford as many merchants or as often, but at least they will be able to acquire one from time to time.

CHANGES TO GUILD TRADER UI AND GAME APPEARANCE
Right now as it stands, you MUST use a mod in order to get any real effectiveness out of the Guild Traders. This is because you CANNOT enter the name of what you are looking for and running a search. This can make it very difficult to search for specific items on a Guild Trader. Particularly on Traders belonging to very large guilds. A Name Entry search function is really the biggest and most important change that is needed (and I do mean NEEDED.)

Now then, first change is to remove the name of the guild(s) being represented. When you talk to the Public Guild Trader, he should advertise him/herself as a "Representative of Major and Minor Tamrielic Trading Guilds" alike. All items posted by all guilds having paid his fee, should be posted together into a communal market. An additional line of dialogue should be added where he can name all guilds he/she is currently representing and how many items they have posted in that zone. Note I said in the zone and not in that city/town. Sales information and such do not matter, just who and how many.

You can leave multiple Public Guild Traders in a town/city. They add spice to the environment and make the town/city appear to be more lively. However talking to any of them brings up the same zone trading market for people to view.

CHANGES TO PUBLIC GUILD MERCHANT FUNCTIONALITY
Public Guild Merchants should also share the same zone wide nature of their market as the NPC Guild Trader does. However, because Guilds are required to pay a registration fee each week PER merchant in each town/city, if you run into a small village and talk to the NPC there, you may find that not all guilds with merchants in that zone will be represented at that particular Guild Trader. Players will then need to seek out the Public Guild Traders at the more popular trading destinations to find access to a broader market even in the same zone.

The purpose of this change is to increase convenience for buyers and sellers. Since they don't have to run as much before finding a Public Guild Merchant to browse goods at when looking for something to buy or to post items they have found during their questing, exploring, and adventuring. Further this helps cut down on WTB/WTS trade spam, so zone chat feels less "busy" at times, and more fun.

A STORY
A young Dunmer woman found herself waking up in a cell in Coldharbor. She was dead. Freshly slain by Mannimarco himself as a sacrifice to his master Molag Bal as he worked to bring Nirn closer to Molag's realm of Oblivion. She had been rescued from her cell and eventually escaped back to Nirn. Found in the local harbor of Davon's Watch, and small boat from Bleakrock Isle found her and saved her from the sea. She eventually woke up, her wounds healed, however her soul still missing, she set off on a grand adventure to rescue her soul, herself, and all of Mundus from Bolag Mal's machinations.

Time to time in her journey she found herself becoming over burdened by a wide assortment of goods she didn't particularly need but figures others might find of value. Bring them back to town and city she availed herself to the Fighters Guild Trade Network working in association with the major banking houses of Tamriel to provide some small order in grand chaos that had swept the continent since the fall of the Remen Emperors in Cyrodiil.

She would approach the merchant and sort her items, and ask the trader to list what she wanted to sell in the trade networks magical ledgers. She paid a small fee for the service and then departed to custom the shops in town, repair her gear, and prepare to resume her adventures. She would on occasion also check the Fighters Guild Trader and inquire as to what was for sale. Taking up a special quill pen fashioned by the Mages Guild, she would inscribe what she was looking to buy into a special page of the ledge and the magic of the pen and ledger would then find the item she was looking for and show what was being asked for it if it was available at all. If she found the price reasonable she would inform the Guild Trader of her interest in the item and hand over the asked for price. Then she would be informed in what town the item had been posted in and so she could then travel to that town, speak the Fighters Guild Trader there and pickup her purchase.

As time continued to progress, she began to encounter items of genuine value above the mundane. The prices the Fighters Guild Traders wanted began to become burdensome to her. She entered a local tavern, bought an ale, was enjoying a small bowl of stew when she overheard a boisterous group celebrating the sale of some rare artifacts for a very handsome sum of coin indeed. Curious she asked them, "By what means have you sold those items?"

Moderately surprised but full of good humor the leader of the group, a tall scared Nord, informed her, "We are all part of a guild of adventurers. We habe acquired much wealth in our journeys and contracted a merchant to represent us in the market places of Tamriel. We paid the merchant a flat fee as a group, and a much smaller fee upon listing each item. When the item sells we get gold back and don't have to pay any silly tax to the Fighters Guild and their banking partners."

"To make things even better, the merchants we have hired use the same magical system the Fighters Guild Traders use to spread the word of what is for sale. So we are well represented indeed. However, since the system was created by mortals, the magic powering it is limited. Trade networks are restricted to each specific region. So if you wish to see the goods for sale or sell goods in say Westfall, then you will need to travel their first before you can partake of their trade network. Maybe one day the Mages Guild will find a way to make a truly Tamrielic wide magical trade network, but it isn't today."

Intrigued by this idea of not having to pay a tax on sales of valuable items she had acquired at grave risk to her own life she asked, "How might I join such a guild?"

The Nord informed her, "Just as you are now. Visit the various towns and cities and seek out other adventurers and inquire if they are part of a guild. Hell if you are particularly skilled, we could offer to trial you in our own guild. What say you las? Are you comfortable facing the gravest of dangers with stout allies for highest reward?"

-- The above story should put the idea I propose into a better context of the the game "The Elder Scrolls Online" showing both systems working together to create a more cohesive economy and facilitating trade between new players and older more established players alike all the while staying in keeping with the Elder Scrolls universe. --

CONCLUSION
Finally, in closing, I would like to invite everyone to review my proposal and offer their own thoughts and comments. Can my idea be improved any? Could it work at all? Would this make your experience more enjoyable? Do you think this would be a boon or a burden to ESO? Do you have an alternative idea to improve the trading situation? Remember, please NO generic comments defending the current system, please provide a detailed in depth reason why the current system is fine as is if you like it. Also, please NO generic comments for a global NPC Auction House style system. Both kinds of commentary simply lead to flame wars and brings nothing to the game or the community.

Lastly, TL;DR -THERE IS NONE. PLEASE READ THE ABOVE SHORT ESSAY IF YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT TRADING AND ECONOMY IN GAME! Thank you.