Lumbermill_Emperor 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
If anything mate, the actions your seeing will be increased after 1T, not reduced as Zo$ will take away vet players earning money from selling gold trial gear.
I am PC EU and mainly seeing the currency of gold upgrading tempers being manipulated. Not only that but i have talked to a few players who know specifically who is buying what/when/how much for. There are guilds specifically buying the market out on these as well as a few players who think they can make profit when 1T hits.
As for guild traders blocking spots, this will also become more frequent as guilds will boil down to only a few trading ones worth being in because of the trader spot.
In my opinion these actions will simply push more into doing the mind numbing writs over multiple characters per day to get the gold tempers. I think its extremely hard for a new player now in ESO to be competitive, its basically 100k to upgrade any metal piece to gold. 300k for DW and 2H, never mind Golding the armors ))
stevepdodson_ESO888 wrote: »As we are experiencing (on the EU server at least) right now, there is a large Guild Cartel, acting in some ways like an in-game Mafia, taking over and trying to manipulate the game economy.
They don't even try to hide this as you will now see about 15 to 20 of these guilds have even started wearing the same tabbard. (check out Belkarth, Rawlka, Mournhold, Grahtwood and look at the tabbards)
The infamous SkyBlobber (no real names here so no name and shame...and hopefully no one else has picked the name SkyBlobber) robber baron or "The Don" has even gone about buying up certain types of mats so can then fix/manipulate the price for them.
They have also set up "dummy" Guilds with little or nothing to sell just so they can bid for traders and prevent others who are not in the cartel from getting a spot.
I am not fully sure of the ZoS terms of service, but i am sure these "so called" trading practices go against them and those doing this should be banned (ban hammer in-coming).
There are still guilds who have not been strong-armed into joining the Cartel and "paying the protection money" but they are finding it harder and harder to find a guild trader to hire.
It is my hope that with sets becoming BoP and the updated writs providing more mats, the Cartel will become starved of money.
I know BoP will hit other players too (PvE raiders for example, but at least they will be compensated a bit by the high value items they can sell to vendors to offset the cost of potions) and is frowned upon by large parts of the gaming community, but we seriously cannot continue with this current Guild System that allows such practices.
*phew* spleen vented...you see what happens to me when maintenance goes on too long
I am not sure if I understand what you mean by the cartel mafia practices and dumping the prices (maybe because I am not english native), but my english is quite good, so please explain the theory behind it more.
What do these cartel guilds do? They buy all the mats and then sell them for higher prices? Or what?
Will then the other guilds who still sell the mats for lower prices make even more profit by that?
Or do you mean that the cartel guilds sell the mats for lower prices than usual? That would be good in my opinion.
And about trader bids, that the billionaires buy out all the trader spots, that is pretty bad, but I have no idea how to solve that.
I wrote that many months before, that this game allows the people to become insanely rich, but I am not sure if it is bad or good.
I have just basic knowledge of the economy theory. Maybe there should be a cap (a few millions) that how max gold can one account accumulate.
Cherryblossom wrote: »I find these topics hilarious/sad. I run a trading guild on NA PC, probably a sort of mid range guild. I do not tell people how to price their goods, or interfere in any way with anyones trading. If goods are selling for x amount, it is not because there is any conspiracy to force people to sell at x amount, it's because people have worked out for themselves that they can get x amount for that/those item(s). And people are buying them for x amount.
Put away the tin foil hats!
I think you forget most traders use an Addon to decide the price, so if you can get the most popular spots selling for the same sort of price it's incredibly easy to manipulate the Price.
You never need to tell people to sell at a certain price, because most will sell close or just below the normal price in the guild, if anyone goes well below, someone in the guild buys and puts straight back up for the Price they want it manipulated to.
It's not difficult and more or less any fool can do it if they have the gold. with 4 accounts you can belong to the guilds in the 20 most popular locations and do this solo if you want.
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 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.
@AzuraKin you are talking nonsense.
You do realize that when a person buys mats at low prices "to sell them for higher", those low price sales also get registered by the MM addon?
Every player is in the exact same starting position.
Materials are available for farm to everyone in equal amounts.
Anyone can earn gold in the game in many variety of ways.
In the end, if you believe some items have high prices, simply go farm for those items yourself.
Or is your tush too royal to do some actual work?
Supply and demand.
Learn it or...
...come to the forums and whine.
WillhelmBlack wrote: »WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.
A red tabard with a skull and crossed daggers on the front. You will notice on EU that it's around 80% of the trading guilds in the popular locations.
ok, I will check that out in the game.
And could you please elaborate more about which mafia cartel practices they do?
I'm not calling them a mafia or a cartel. Just simply saying that buying from one of these guilds is potentially giving them even more gold to buy out another traditional guild, which eventually will lead to someone owning all the trading guild locations and fixed pricing. It could even ruin the entire game, who knows? I'll continue to buy from independents and be happier doing so. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if someone at the top of this chain was a gold seller. Why else would you need that much in game currency, why so greedy?
stevepdodson_ESO888 wrote: »but you know, that skyblobber is an opponent of those that wear the same tabbard?
cos you sound like those 2 would be the same
i made up the name "skyblobber" as i was not going to name and shame...if you are saying there is a real skyblobber then i immediately change the name again so as not to offend (break the TOS)
let me just refer back to an earlier response that called them "red bibs" i think it was...so if you actually know of an "opponent" to this then you are fully aware that a cartel exists and you prove my point
the "opponent" as you call him might also be involved in some nefarious (i always wanted to use that word in a sentence) trading practices. oh hang on, i want to use the word nefarious again.
btw - thx to everyone who responded (good, bad, happy, sad) it's amazing what turns up when you log off for a while. anyway, i can go and play the game now.
Did you read the post? Shutting others out of the market, by propping up a dummy guild to take up more of the limited space, is predatory capitalism at its worst.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.
what do you mean by "red bibs"?
A red tabard with a skull and crossed daggers on the front. You will notice on EU that it's around 80% of the trading guilds in the popular locations.
ok, I will check that out in the game.
And could you please elaborate more about which mafia cartel practices they do?
Imagine Starbucks going around buying up the locations around town to shut out competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's and Taco Bell etc, so that your ONLY option is their overpriced products.
The people who mindlessly parrot 'supply and demand bruh' as if the words are a protection from market manipulation have not given consideration to how it stops being a 'free' market when competitors are not able to get a spot in the marketplace.
This is why I say the one surest method of returning integrity to the marketplace is a public trader available to all. And, likely making things bought from a trader BoP to quell reselling.
Did you read the post? Shutting others out of the market, by propping up a dummy guild to take up more of the limited space, is predatory capitalism at its worst.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.
what do you mean by "red bibs"?
A red tabard with a skull and crossed daggers on the front. You will notice on EU that it's around 80% of the trading guilds in the popular locations.
ok, I will check that out in the game.
And could you please elaborate more about which mafia cartel practices they do?
Imagine Starbucks going around buying up the locations around town to shut out competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's and Taco Bell etc, so that your ONLY option is their overpriced products.
The people who mindlessly parrot 'supply and demand bruh' as if the words are a protection from market manipulation have not given consideration to how it stops being a 'free' market when competitors are not able to get a spot in the marketplace.
This is why I say the one surest method of returning integrity to the marketplace is a public trader available to all. And, likely making things bought from a trader BoP to quell reselling.
So basically you want to take away a good size chunk of this game. Some people enjoy looking for deals to resell items, and you want to take that away by making bought items bop.
If people was unable to join guilds with traders then your theory might hold water. But someone has already stated there is open slot in his guild and asked if you would like an invite. That is your choice to stay in a guild that can't keep a trader.
Supply and demand definitely apply here. If people were not buying the mats at the price they are being sold the price would go down. So effectively the buyers are bumping the price up as they continue to purchase upgrade mats at higher prices.
The sellers would lower the cost if people were not buying their products.
Did you read the post? Shutting others out of the market, by propping up a dummy guild to take up more of the limited space, is predatory capitalism at its worst.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.WillhelmBlack wrote: »I don't buy from red bibs. No one should.
what do you mean by "red bibs"?
A red tabard with a skull and crossed daggers on the front. You will notice on EU that it's around 80% of the trading guilds in the popular locations.
ok, I will check that out in the game.
And could you please elaborate more about which mafia cartel practices they do?
Imagine Starbucks going around buying up the locations around town to shut out competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's and Taco Bell etc, so that your ONLY option is their overpriced products.
The people who mindlessly parrot 'supply and demand bruh' as if the words are a protection from market manipulation have not given consideration to how it stops being a 'free' market when competitors are not able to get a spot in the marketplace.
This is why I say the one surest method of returning integrity to the marketplace is a public trader available to all. And, likely making things bought from a trader BoP to quell reselling.
So basically you want to take away a good size chunk of this game. Some people enjoy looking for deals to resell items, and you want to take that away by making bought items bop.
If people was unable to join guilds with traders then your theory might hold water. But someone has already stated there is open slot in his guild and asked if you would like an invite. That is your choice to stay in a guild that can't keep a trader.
Supply and demand definitely apply here. If people were not buying the mats at the price they are being sold the price would go down. So effectively the buyers are bumping the price up as they continue to purchase upgrade mats at higher prices.
The sellers would lower the cost if people were not buying their products.
I'm fine with making stuff bought from traders bound, because the game is about fight and fantasy, not economic tycoon. Your 'join a guild' angle is bull shite, because guilds have a maximum membership and therefore there is a maximum number of people that can possibly sell through a trader. A FREE market is accessible to all, not just the people who got lucky enough to grab one of the limited number of slots.
This always makes me laugh.And last I remember they said PLAY AS YOU WANT. Not only fight and fantasy. The game is not called fight and fantasy tycoon so can we stop acting like others call it economic tycoon.
This always makes me laugh.And last I remember they said PLAY AS YOU WANT. Not only fight and fantasy. The game is not called fight and fantasy tycoon so can we stop acting like others call it economic tycoon.
Play with what they provided, however you want.
Here's a basketball, you play however you want. Oh, you want to play with a baseball bat? Fine, play as you want, but I'm not obligated to modify the basketball I handed you into something smaller and harder to accommodate you. I made a basketball, you bought the basketball, if you can't handle that then what are you expecting?
Zeni made a hack and slash and magic and dungeons game. With guild traders tacked on so people could find their own way around swapping stuff with each other. Those traders are secondary to the game they are providing, as evidenced by how many things are bind on equip and pickup, and on how that list of BoP/BoE is growing.
You play how you want. Just be aware this isn't Elder Merchant Tycoon Online, so they aren't obligated to fulfil your desire to have tons of gold nor to cater to your moneymaker play style.
strikeback1247 wrote: »This always makes me laugh.And last I remember they said PLAY AS YOU WANT. Not only fight and fantasy. The game is not called fight and fantasy tycoon so can we stop acting like others call it economic tycoon.
Play with what they provided, however you want.
Here's a basketball, you play however you want. Oh, you want to play with a baseball bat? Fine, play as you want, but I'm not obligated to modify the basketball I handed you into something smaller and harder to accommodate you. I made a basketball, you bought the basketball, if you can't handle that then what are you expecting?
Zeni made a hack and slash and magic and dungeons game. With guild traders tacked on so people could find their own way around swapping stuff with each other. Those traders are secondary to the game they are providing, as evidenced by how many things are bind on equip and pickup, and on how that list of BoP/BoE is growing.
You play how you want. Just be aware this isn't Elder Merchant Tycoon Online, so they aren't obligated to fulfil your desire to have tons of gold nor to cater to your moneymaker play style.
It seems to me that he is completely fine with what zos has given him. You are the one that wants to change the game to accomodate for your playstyle. Zos isn't obligated to cater to your ideas of the economy.
stevepdodson_ESO888 wrote: »but you know, that skyblobber is an opponent of those that wear the same tabbard?
cos you sound like those 2 would be the same
i made up the name "skyblobber" as i was not going to name and shame...if you are saying there is a real skyblobber then i immediately change the name again so as not to offend (break the TOS)
let me just refer back to an earlier response that called them "red bibs" i think it was...so if you actually know of an "opponent" to this then you are fully aware that a cartel exists and you prove my point
the "opponent" as you call him might also be involved in some nefarious (i always wanted to use that word in a sentence) trading practices. oh hang on, i want to use the word nefarious again.
btw - thx to everyone who responded (good, bad, happy, sad) it's amazing what turns up when you log off for a while. anyway, i can go and play the game now.
I think youre just very confused to be honest. The "cartel" youre talking about is an alliance of (often smaller) trading guilds that were fed up with getting pushed around by this "skyblobber" guy and his big trading guild.