Oh, I understand the role of guild traders. What is apparently not widely understood is that the guild traders were not intended to be put to use this intensely.Shadowshire wrote: »By definition, the economy is created by the transactions performed by humans.
....
Well, at least you got that right. As to the rest of your remarks, evidently you do not understand the role of the Guild Traders, i.e., of the "economy", in the play of the game. It is possible to design a game such as ESO without any provision for exchanging goods and/or services among players at all. But it would be a much less interesting game to play.
Trading allows players who have something that their characters don't need to exchange it for something that their characters do need. It also encourages and rewards players to use their characters to obtain and/or to create items that other players might need in order to exchange them for other items which they need for themselves.
One ESO feature allows us to trade items in "face-to-face" meetings between our respective characters, whether to exchange an item for Gold Pieces (GP) or as barter for another item instead. The Guild Store is another way to "sell" items for GP that we can then use to "buy" other items which we want. With the Guild Store, the seller does not have to be present, or currently playing the game, in order for the buyer to obtain what they want. This is convenient for both parties to the transaction.
Guild Traders simply make the content of a Guild Store available to players who are not members of its guild. This approach has its advantages, but also has disadvantages. In particular, there is no limit to the number of guilds that players may organize, but there must be a limit to the number of Guild Traders. Arguably, Bethesda Software could increase the number of Traders beyond the current number, in order to offer more guilds an opportunity to sell goods in their stores to non-members. But it is doubtful whether there will ever be enough Traders for every guild that seriously wants one.
As to whether any player produces or otherwise obtains items for the sake of simply accumulating GP from selling them, I suppose that their greed does not, in and of itself, adversely affect anyone. Personally, I only sell items because I want to get the GP that I will need to buy others. Of course, the more GP that I earn, the more likely it becomes that I can buy rare items which are currently in high demand. Regardless, in ESO the Gold Piece primarily functions as a medium of exchange, not as a store of wealth.
Note that it is Bethesda Software which is responsible for whether an item is plentiful or is scarce, not the players. So, if you don't like the economy, then you know to whom you should complain.
There are signs that things with guild traders have gone beyond what they were made to handle.
Alphabetical listings are for long lists. No alphabetical listing option leads one to consider that long lists such as found on trading guilds are not what the design had in mind. Simple logic - if they expected long lists then they would have included better ways to navigate long lists.
Visible bank balance, bid history. Able to see the balance now and the original ability to see the history leads one to consider that the design considered these as safe things to see. It's only in these commerce-driven guild competitions that these pieces of data become sensitive info, so obviously the original intent did not include such commerce-driven guild competition.
Other guild-related elements point away from the driven-by-commerce model - chat channels, tabards, travel to player and mail both accessible through the roster and voice chat tabs. These are useless to the driven-by-commerce model as the primary info dissemination channel to the public would be motd and about-us.
Individually, these each can be dismissed as easily as a random drop of water falling from the sky. Taken together, they motivate one to go find an umbrella.
The 'trading guild' superstore that competes against other superstores was not an intended result. They made eso as a heroic sword and sorcery game, not as a build-a-superstore Walmart / Kroger / Costco game.
The problem isn't zos ignoring the people who turned the friendly guild trader system into a competitive business model... The problem is that people turned the friendly guild trader system into a competitive business model.
Zos has been supporting the elements of guilds that align with their intended use. I believe I saw a green text quote that they are working on the roster jumping when people log in or out. That's an element of participating in a friendly community - looking to interact with others, so it gets developer love. An alphabetical listing of items is not interacting with others at all, so it doesn't get developer love.
Real example - @ZOS_GinaBruno pass this along - Xbox the respec cost is still 1 gold per point. Last night some guild mates were running wayrest and getting wiped, then came into guild chat needing a healer. Another guild mate lamented that she had just respec'd out of her healing skill lines, but if they gave her a few minutes she would flip back and come help out. Does that happen if the point cost had been put back to 50 per point? Very doubtful. Low respec cost got developer love, because it assists people actually playing the heroic sword/sorcery game rather than some other thing. So I hope it doesn't get put back to the way it was before, because it then acts as a barrier to events like last night.
Nope. An analogy of this would be Zos building a baseball park, set aside a few tables for people to do small-scale yard-sale level lunch sales, and you being pissed off because they didn't do enough to support the concession stand business you built upon the picnic table foundation... They built a baseball park, for people to play baseball and do small scale trading on the side, not a shopping mall where people play baseball on the side.Shadowshire wrote: »By definition, the economy is created by the transactions performed by humans.
....
Well, at least you got that right. As to the rest of your remarks, evidently you do not understand the role of the Guild Traders, i.e., of the "economy", in the play of the game. It is possible to design a game such as ESO without any provision for exchanging goods and/or services among players at all. But it would be a much less interesting game to play.
Trading allows players who have something that their characters don't need to exchange it for something that their characters do need. It also encourages and rewards players to use their characters to obtain and/or to create items that other players might need in order to exchange them for other items which they need for themselves.
One ESO feature allows us to trade items in "face-to-face" meetings between our respective characters, whether to exchange an item for Gold Pieces (GP) or as barter for another item instead. The Guild Store is another way to "sell" items for GP that we can then use to "buy" other items which we want. With the Guild Store, the seller does not have to be present, or currently playing the game, in order for the buyer to obtain what they want. This is convenient for both parties to the transaction.
Guild Traders simply make the content of a Guild Store available to players who are not members of its guild. This approach has its advantages, but also has disadvantages. In particular, there is no limit to the number of guilds that players may organize, but there must be a limit to the number of Guild Traders. Arguably, Bethesda Software could increase the number of Traders beyond the current number, in order to offer more guilds an opportunity to sell goods in their stores to non-members. But it is doubtful whether there will ever be enough Traders for every guild that seriously wants one.
As to whether any player produces or otherwise obtains items for the sake of simply accumulating GP from selling them, I suppose that their greed does not, in and of itself, adversely affect anyone. Personally, I only sell items because I want to get the GP that I will need to buy others. Of course, the more GP that I earn, the more likely it becomes that I can buy rare items which are currently in high demand. Regardless, in ESO the Gold Piece primarily functions as a medium of exchange, not as a store of wealth.
Note that it is Bethesda Software which is responsible for whether an item is plentiful or is scarce, not the players. So, if you don't like the economy, then you know to whom you should complain.
Oh, I understand the role of guild traders. What is apparently not widely understood is that the guild traders were not intended to be put to use this intensely.
There are signs that things with guild traders have gone beyond what they were made to handle.
And that is the fault of ZOS' faulty mechanics, *not* the players. You are blaming the players for something that was poorly implemented by ZOS.
Edited to add: And furthermore, stop telling people how to play. This game has something for everyone. You are tut-tutting people for not playing the game the way *you* think it should be played. How arrogant.
Dreadhsif1978 wrote: »Zos needs to make it so the "hired trader" section of the guild history is only view-able to the guilds officers and the guild master at least..
phaseadept wrote: »ZOS should just double the amount of guild traders. Them nobody has to lose sleep over it
phaseadept wrote: »It's hard not to look at this thread with some cynicism, mainly because of all the grief big trading guilds give players that are looking for other options to trade, like a public trader type system....
These are 500 man active guilds, there should be far more incentive than just selling stuff to people who can't afford to join the 1% Wall Street players.
phaseadept wrote: »ZOS should just double the amount of guild traders. Them nobody has to lose sleep over it
OVERVIEW
The Elder Scrolls Online v2.5.7 is a small incremental patch that fixes a few issues including not being able to group properly, crafted poisons not working with some abilities and sets, Knight Commander Panthius not appearing in the Kvatch Arena, and more. The size of this patch is approximately 118MB.
medusasfolly wrote: »Like many have stated, I don't understand why trader transition isn't done on Sunday, around 3-5pm est. It would allow more guild members to help with the bidding and if needed, the identification of a back up location. And it wouldn't conflict with maintenance.
I also feel with the increase of the trader cost, it's getting harder and harder to squeeze more money out of the same 500 members. It's not like we can increase our available pool of members to spread the cost around more. It's tapping the same players for more and more contributions.
I'd also really like the ability for guilds to optionally allow sales from non-members for a higher percentage. This would allow players with just a few items to be able to list things without commitment and allow guilds to supplement their income.
ZOS WHERE THE *** ARE YOU AT THIS MORNING????