BoP in One Tam - will it help stop the Guild Cartel

AmberLaTerra · September 2016

the problem is in a global auction house (which is the solution most suggest for when things like this occur, I really don't see it as the trading guild I am in does not work with any other trade guilds in the way accused here, but I am PC NA not EU.) The monopolization and manipulation of prices would be even worse as those super rich players who wanted to could far more easily buy up the entire supply of gold tempers and jack up the price in one place, not have to travel store to store to do it and hope more are not relisted at the price they bought for.

strikeback1247 · September 2016

Buying tempers when there is a low demand and selling them when prices skyrocket is a common smart investment strategy. It's basic economics and I see nothing wrong with that. Only when a guild can create a monopoly on an item, that's when things start to go bad, but freshly farmed items are pumped into the economy every day. No-one has enough gold to buy all the mats in the game and all the new farmed ones every day.

idk · September 2016

AmberLaTerra wrote: »

the problem is in a global auction house (which is the solution most suggest for when things like this occur, I really don't see it as the trading guild I am in does not work with any other trade guilds in the way accused here, but I am PC NA not EU.) The monopolization and manipulation of prices would be even worse as those super rich players who wanted to could far more easily buy up the entire supply of gold tempers and jack up the price in one place, not have to travel store to store to do it and hope more are not relisted at the price they bought for.

Very true

Dubhliam · September 2016

FFS people, stop saying things like monopoly and *** you don't understand.

These things you are talking about would only be true if the "mafia" was the only one capable of obtaining those "inflated" items.

They're not. Everyone can farm mats and sell them for the high price.

You're talking bull.

altemriel · September 2016

Cherryblossom wrote: »

Lumbermill_Emperor wrote: »

@Cherryblossom only noobs taking an addon price as price for listing an item

every good trader know he need also to check stores around store he want to list it
and choose lowest price among listed items

and if your items will be sold after that - its good result for a seller
if buyer with tinfoil on the head thinking all prices in guild store is a result of manipulation - he can try to buy in /zone

You confirm my quote then, I agree the price check is a guide line, I said you only need join the guilds in most popular areas.

So you totally agree it's possible to manipulate an items price. Thanks

you only need to join trader guilds, with at least 350 people, minimal 400 ideal. they usually have some mandatory selling, but if you have at least one vet main, then you will make it, you can sell blue, purple and sometimes even green or white stuff, for good some hundret, usually around 200 or 300, sometimes 182 or 111. nice earnings, one by one, they make a million. no, my max gold was like 70 000. I spend it usually on materials or potions. I was not investigating how to craft set gear so far. I am like at 5 or 6 traits on some armor or weapon pieces, researching more.
my new khajiit magNB is doing fine, just got the vamp bite

I never heard of the concrete names of some cartel guilds, so I am at CSF, Elder of Nirn, Crafter`s Exchange, Priests of Hircine and Imperial Trading Company

. They are nice. I recommend

altemriel · September 2016

strikeback1247 wrote: »

Buying tempers when there is a low demand and selling them when prices skyrocket is a common smart investment strategy. It's basic economics and I see nothing wrong with that. Only when a guild can create a monopoly on an item, that's when things start to go bad, but freshly farmed items are pumped into the economy every day. No-one has enough gold to buy all the mats in the game and all the new farmed ones every day.

this is a very good point. so we never get real inflation, never get our economy crashed. because we everyday generate new mats and items (drops too), which we are selling to the economy, which is then bought by new gold, which is also generated more and more by the game. so the question is, how is the formula between finding and selling and finding gold. are the numbers in gold the same or equaly generated? I mean the price of the items and mats, that we find and the amount of gold, which this game generates trough loots and drops, if it is in equilibrium or in disconnection?

We generate gold by drops and loot. So is the gold that we generate like this similar, the same or higher or lower than the amount of gold in price that we get, when we sell in guildstores all those dropped items. Actually selling the stuff in NPC traders, we pump gold into the economy. As we get more gold generated like that by that game, drop for imaginary money created by a NPC trader. The we go to the guild store and buy some nice item set there for that gold. So we are literally pumping some gold by that into the game economy. If we sell it to the guild store guildie, no new gold is generated into the game, so only circling from one owner to other owner. Se we have to sell to NPC traders much too, to keep the economy flowing. or we have to farm too. as we have to find enough gold, to be able to buy everything that is sold, so that it turns the gold. but where does it turn, that amount depends on those, who sell also to the NPC traders. They generate gold out of nothing, from loots and drops, we sell that, they generate new gold

. How awesome is that. Perpetum mobile

If the amounts would be the same, it would be awesome. If not, it would mean disbalance. There are places or ways, how to accumulate highest priced items, like gold gear, gold tempers, high potion and high poison mats. tri poisons and tripotions, actually 6 potions, as Increased max health, stamina and magicka and increased regeneration of all those 3, that is 6 imho

so nice, so these mats are the best to sell. And also IC trophies were best to sell, they sold pretty high, some of them, I used to earn pretty much gold for that. Or also Glass mats, or Xivkyn charcoal - Xivkyn charcoal of remorse sold for 650 or 700 a piece few months, ago or so. Now they are like 300 or 350

. I dunno if it is demand and supply, or cartel manipulation, or farmers flooding the market with some mats. The prices flow, they are hard to grasp.

My theory. What do you say?

VoidBlue · September 2016

They just need to do a damn global auction house, it's annoying as hell having to wayshrine to 20+ places to check guild stores.

Be so much easier to search for certain item/s in one spot and it would help prices too. As it be easier to list stuff at a good price than seeing one guild have it at 300k and another 15k lol

kargen27 · September 2016

When details about new content is released it always causes prices on some things to go nuts. Not that long ago you could get a treasure map for most zones for between 100-150 gold coins. Now that every zone is going to level if you can find a map at all other than Cyradiil it runs about 3,000 gold coins. People are speculating those treasure chests will be filled with all kinds of goodies. Kind of on a tangent with this one, but very few people are using their daily pledge keys hoping to score new gear when the new content comes out.

Some people were afraid mid level crafting supplies would be hard to find with the new content and bought all they could find either for personal use later or hoping for a big score when other need it.

It isn't just big guilds trying to control the market that causes some of these things. I'm in a trading guild that almost always gets a prime location and I have never had anyone suggest prices to me. I have seen a couple of people try and control the market on a few rare items but they so far have always failed.

altemriel · September 2016

VoidBlue wrote: »

They just need to do a damn global auction house, it's annoying as hell having to wayshrine to 20+ places to check guild stores.

Be so much easier to search for certain item/s in one spot and it would help prices too. As it be easier to list stuff at a good price than seeing one guild have it at 300k and another 15k lol

Or even better in my opinion, would be if they would do it like that, that you are able not only to buy from guild traders, but also sell unlimited. That would be awesome.

Lumbermill_Emperor · September 2016

Sunver wrote: »

LOL. So many socialists here...

Someone is too rich, lets make some regulations to make them as poor as everyone else, who don't have the nerve or stamina to earn big like them!

This is everything but fair people.

What would have happened if someone said to you:
This car of yours its 100k$, right? Well you see, I have only 5k$ car so lets sell mine and yours and buy two 52,5k$ cars for both of us, alright? It's unfair that you are rich and I am poor.

Hilarious, right? But that's exactly what you are proposing by "merchant rotation" or "ZOS do something".

You want to punish people for being good entrepreneurs and taking their chance when everyone else went with their mediocre income just fine out of laziness or fear to loose time/money. And now the whines and QQ's... for crying out loud, stop.

agreed under every word
poor noobs in eso already got me

VoidBlue · September 2016

altemriel wrote: »

VoidBlue wrote: »

They just need to do a damn global auction house, it's annoying as hell having to wayshrine to 20+ places to check guild stores.

Be so much easier to search for certain item/s in one spot and it would help prices too. As it be easier to list stuff at a good price than seeing one guild have it at 300k and another 15k lol

Or even better in my opinion, would be if they would do it like that, that you are able not only to buy from guild traders, but also sell unlimited. That would be awesome.

Yea they can keep it as is but add another bidding system to have your guild store listed in a global auction house. So it be one or the other, either bid for a guild traders spot like usual or bid to be in the AH. The AH could have a limited number of spots like 25-50, which would open up trader spots for guilds who could never afford bids before.

It's really a win/win for everyone.

nraner81 · September 2016

Cherryblossom wrote: »

I checked it once with Soulshine Rings, average price was about 500g I went around and bought all in the main Hubs then put them up in 4 of the guilds I belonged to for 2k ish, they all sold and people started following the trend of around 2k for a while.

this exactly, im in a trader guild that has 6 total guilds and ive never been told what or how to sell.

if its big ticket I see what the lowest is and go from there if its something I don't even care about (flanking/morias(bad spelling) etc...) I put it up at 950 as that's cheap and makes me 900 more gold than npc will.
Its not about conspiracy its about easy and lazy lol.
the only thing I wish they had and again its more about ease and lazy is being able to search by alphabet.
I hate looking through a bunch of junk for that one piece.

disintegr8 · September 2016

Looks like we have digressed away from the BOP discussion.

The only people that are helped by making more things BOP are those who have the time to farm dungeons and trials for top level gear or farm locations for raw materials. It would severely limit any 'casual' players ability to gather materials to make gear, get top level gear from dungeons and trials or improve anything to gold.

If the only way to get good gear in the game is to grind, I believe this alone would lead to a huge drop in the player base and have a negative effect on ZOS cash flow - which is not in their interests or ours.

The game was created with ways to get good items without the grind and players have the choice to either grind or buy. I have said before that if someone has an item to sell, they got it from somewhere and you can get it the same way, without buying it. If you'd prefer to buy but the prices are too high for you, then go grind for it or find it cheaper.

Nobody has ever been forced to buy anything from a guild trader, so these calls to make changes to restrict what people can buy or sell are not warranted.

sigsergv · September 2016

But we don't have Global Auction House! Everyone knows that cartels only possible if AH exists!

altemriel · September 2016

nraner81 wrote: »

Cherryblossom wrote: »

I checked it once with Soulshine Rings, average price was about 500g I went around and bought all in the main Hubs then put them up in 4 of the guilds I belonged to for 2k ish, they all sold and people started following the trend of around 2k for a while.

this exactly, im in a trader guild that has 6 total guilds and ive never been told what or how to sell.

if its big ticket I see what the lowest is and go from there if its something I don't even care about (flanking/morias(bad spelling) etc...) I put it up at 950 as that's cheap and makes me 900 more gold than npc will.
Its not about conspiracy its about easy and lazy lol.
the only thing I wish they had and again its more about ease and lazy is being able to search by alphabet.
I hate looking through a bunch of junk for that one piece.

wait you are not using awesome guild store addon? that allows seaching by name, quality, trait, item type etc, everything

sadownik · September 2016

Correct me if im wrong but arent guild traders separate for vet zones and normal zones?

silvereyes · September 2016

silvereyes · September 2016

sadownik wrote: »

Correct me if im wrong but arent guild traders separate for vet zones and normal zones?

No, a kiosk is available to all 3 alliances. They just get the most traffic in the normal zones.

sadownik · September 2016

silvereyes wrote: »

sadownik wrote: »

Correct me if im wrong but arent guild traders separate for vet zones and normal zones?

No, a kiosk is available to all 3 alliances. They just get the most traffic in the normal zones.

thanks!

Gargath · September 2016

I noticed the problem with minor trading guilds and in less meaning trading hubs may be that many of their players are noobs when it comes to the average prices and they bid usually in prices way too high from the MM average. Then they wait forever for a buyer, because nobody want to be robbed from their gold, if they can buy the same in top locations for more or less MM average (where competition is really high). That's weird I admit but usually the lesser the guild and worse trader location the more greed for gold in their members, but sometimes with an exception of course. I scout Tamriel on a frequest basis and would like to buy from lesser trading guilds too, but their prices usually are just... meeeeh. After few attempts to seek for goods via those stores I simply give up.
I believe that after several weeks of empty sales such guild masters, from guilds with poor sales, bring the issue to forum and says the cartel has taken all their customers away to major trading hubs only. The solution for minor trading guilds may be simple - fight with prices and variety of goods and members. Encourage all your members to use MM addon, encourage to use only good prices, focus on members and bids that may show your guild as greedy one and remove them from store, and eventually you will have customers even in minor trading hubs or single traders

.

altemriel · September 2016

Gargath wrote: »

I noticed the problem with minor trading guilds and in less meaning trading hubs may be that many of their players are noobs when it comes to the average prices and they bid usually in prices way too high from the MM average. Then they wait forever for a buyer, because nobody want to be robbed from their gold, if they can buy the same in top locations for more or less MM average (where competition is really high). That's weird I admit but usually the lesser the guild and worse trader location the more greed for gold in their members, but sometimes with an exception of course. I scout Tamriel on a frequest basis and would like to buy from lesser trading guilds too, but their prices usually are just... meeeeh. After few attempts to seek for goods via those stores I simply give up.
I believe that after several weeks of empty sales such guild masters, from guilds with poor sales, bring the issue to forum and says the cartel has taken all their customers away to major trading hubs only. The solution for minor trading guilds may be simple - fight with prices and variety of goods and members. Encourage all your members to use MM addon, encourage to use only good prices, focus on members and bids that may show your guild as greedy one and remove them from store, and eventually you will have customers even in minor trading hubs or single traders .

I always use the MM addon, I am in 4 non-trader guilds and 1 trader guild, I always sell for about 10 to 100 gold lesser than the MM is showing and it words pretty fine!!gold is pouring!!

Vipstaakki · September 2016

Another auction house thread?

Zos has already said NO for auction houses and that guild traders are here to stay. Period.
Like seriously, it has been voted upon again and again and they all end up the same way. The majority of the community does not want auction houses but want to keep the guild traders.

Knightpanther · September 2016

disintegr8 wrote: »

Looks like we have digressed away from the BOP discussion.

The only people that are helped by making more things BOP are those who have the time to farm dungeons and trials for top level gear or farm locations for raw materials. It would severely limit any 'casual' players ability to gather materials to make gear, get top level gear from dungeons and trials or improve anything to gold.

If the only way to get good gear in the game is to grind, I believe this alone would lead to a huge drop in the player base and have a negative effect on ZOS cash flow - which is not in their interests or ours.

The game was created with ways to get good items without the grind and players have the choice to either grind or buy. I have said before that if someone has an item to sell, they got it from somewhere and you can get it the same way, without buying it. If you'd prefer to buy but the prices are too high for you, then go grind for it or find it cheaper.

Nobody has ever been forced to buy anything from a guild trader, so these calls to make changes to restrict what people can buy or sell are not warranted.

I have no problem with BOP as long as the crafting system stays as it is ie: the equipment is very decent.
The trading system in ESO whilst exciting in theory (same concept as early EQ) unfortunately due to manipulation is not fit for purpose.

Most likely these combined guilds are just fronts for gold selling company's and their rigging of prices (and if you don't think its happening take your head out of your arse).

Folks buying stuff and reselling higher has always happened but when its done on an industrial scale it will just destroy the casual player base, who to be honest probably buy the most from these guilds.

Don't even get me started on the people on this forum who call others noobs for wanting BoP, in a lot of games it works very well, although I would prefer an account wide BoP similar to that in GW2.

People calling others noobs always makes me laugh, it conjures up some spotty kid sat behind their keyboard ranting at the world with no clue what they are talking about.

Jog on.

Legedric · September 2016

This thread is kinda amusing to me being a very active trader on PC EU and being in 4 trade guilds with major spots in Belkrath (top trade spot in EU) and some faction Undaunted areas.

You do know there is actually still (for over a year now?) a "war" going on between at least two of the largest trade guilds on PC EU competing over trader spots, spying, ruining each others reputation etc.? So they barely communicate with each other and of course would never work together for any reason.

You do know many of the top trading guilds in EU (like TTG, AT, TTM) do not belong to any larger alliance at all and don't care about other's prices at all from a pure guild view?

You do know that the largest trading guild alliance (the one you are calling a cartel here) on EU (called UTE, containing like ~15 guilds) is just there to protect itself against spot-stealing and not to manipulate prices in the first place?
Yes, they are controling like 100% of Rawl'kha (2nd best trade spot on PC EU), but they usually only have 1 trade spot (Just Traders) in Craglorn and the rest is spread out over the 3 Undaunted areas, starting zones and Tamriel in general.
I think the largest of these guilds is Just Traders and that one is even "small" (like ~50% of the total sales only) compared to the other three independent guilds I mentioned above.
Some of them are not even worth mentioning as they hardly get 10 new listings a day up to their trader... so way too many small unworthy guilds in there to call it a conspiracy or cartel if you ask me...

In addition here are still plenty of large trading guilds (Harrods, DTG, PVT and some more) that do not belong to UTE in any way, including the 3 major trade guilds mentioned above.

Side Note: If your made up name is referring to the leader of one of the major trade guilds (having "blob" in his name), you should know that especially his guild and himself as a person has no (friendly) relationship to UTE.

Of course some traders (not whole guilds) like myself buy the current alloys etc. for cheap prices to sell them for a higher price after One Tamriel raised the demand for it due to the amount of new sets coming into the game.

Do I feel bad about this? No!
That's how an economy works and to be honset, my moral limit for drying out a market, an opposing trade guild or whatever for a certain product in a game's ecenomy is near zero. It's just pixels. I don't care if someone won't be able to afford a 20k Tempering Alloy after One Tamriel. It's not like I am speculating on food prices in the real world (just to make a comparison here).

But that's nothing what my trade guild is telling me to do, that's my very own decision and I never heard of any of the large trade guilds to tell their people to drive up prices for a certain good etc. I mean, imagine you want to control 500 individuals to do something... it hardly works with 50 people

Most of the traders that try to manipulate or even monopolize a certain market (for example for a flower type) are just individuals and ZOS is not able to prevent this by any technical measures.
Not even a global AH would solve this as I would still be able to buy every Alloy up to a certain limit and raise the prices if my wallet allows me to.

So to answer the original question from my view: No, it won't change anything. The trial sets will just get replaced by some other (open world) sets now and the active traders will still be able to easily earn mony out of others needs or (even better with hgher margin) our of others stupidity.

Junipus · September 2016

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Another auction house thread?

Zos has already said NO for auction houses and that guild traders are here to stay. Period.
Like seriously, it has been voted upon again and again and they all end up the same way. The majority of the community does not want auction houses but want to keep the guild traders.

Another nerf stamblade thread?

No! Buff stamsorc

Cherryblossom · September 2016

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Another auction house thread?

Zos has already said NO for auction houses and that guild traders are here to stay. Period.
Like seriously, it has been voted upon again and again and they all end up the same way. The majority of the community does not want auction houses but want to keep the guild traders.

You obviously didn't read the title or the Ops post, this had nothing to do with Auction House. Although now you mention it, it would be a fantastic idea.

Jim_Pipp · September 2016

kuro-dono wrote: »

Guild traders> i would like to have this on items> item you buy from trader cant be resold, it gets locked for this purpose. Would this help? So if you want to resell someones items, buy them directly from them without trader, since there is already *** loads of folks trading their junkies off at stormhaven, wayrest sewers city for example.

I just want to repost this (I know lot's of others have expressed similar sentiments). This is the easiest way to stop anti-social and selfish traders. I respect peoples right to role-play as some kind of wolf of wall street, but if you are buying something you don't need to resell it, you are just making the game more difficult for someone who did need that item.

It strikes me that making all guild trader items Bind-on-Pickup (BOP) would mean that gear that is currently BOP could instead be Bind-On-Equip, so the most serious players would still be able to make money by selling rare gear, but they couldn't control the market. This would give more casual players access to a wider range of gear and so make guild traders more relevant.

p.s. My first post in three months because I am so passionate about this idea!

Legedric · September 2016

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

I just want to repost this (I know lot's of others have expressed similar sentiments). This is the easiest way to stop anti-social and selfish traders. I respect peoples right to role-play as some kind of wolf of wall street, but if you are buying something you don't need to resell it, you are just making the game more difficult for someone who did need that item.

This my friend is what I would call a game's economy. Preventing resale of items is like getting rid of trading entirely.
Imagine someone would do that with cars or houses in real life...

Cryptical · September 2016

Legedric wrote: »

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

I just want to repost this (I know lot's of others have expressed similar sentiments). This is the easiest way to stop anti-social and selfish traders. I respect peoples right to role-play as some kind of wolf of wall street, but if you are buying something you don't need to resell it, you are just making the game more difficult for someone who did need that item.

This my friend is what I would call a game's economy. Preventing resale of items is like getting rid of trading entirely.
Imagine someone would do that with cars or houses in real life...

Hmmm... You mean nobody could flip houses and inflate a housing bubble, like what popped in 2008?

Legedric · September 2016

Cryptical wrote: »

Legedric wrote: »

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

I just want to repost this (I know lot's of others have expressed similar sentiments). This is the easiest way to stop anti-social and selfish traders. I respect peoples right to role-play as some kind of wolf of wall street, but if you are buying something you don't need to resell it, you are just making the game more difficult for someone who did need that item.

This my friend is what I would call a game's economy. Preventing resale of items is like getting rid of trading entirely.
Imagine someone would do that with cars or houses in real life...

Hmmm... You mean nobody could flip houses and inflate a housing bubble, like what popped in 2008?

I am not talking about prevent bubbles... I am talking about the inability to sell you car or house at whatever point of time in your entire life.