If we wanted to live in medieval times, there are places where we can live in the real world that do things like that. For the rest of us, yes there might not be a 'universal' store (like Amazon), but, effectively there is: the Internet. No one has to go to the store and hope they have what they want or need anymore. We search online, find the places that might carry it, call them up, and then make a trip. From beginning to end, extremely short amount of time. I recently needed two parts for a dryer that is no longer produced. From discovering the dryer was broken, to having the dryer fixed, took less than four hours. In ESO terms, that process would have taken DAYS. ESO can keep the traders, np... but, add a universal search that shows which traders have the item you are looking for, and for how much, so that you go to only the traders you need to go to.

Let's talk medieval... no, it wasn't an adventure to find what you needed. Because, in your town, you knew who sold what, and how much they were asking. Even if you had to travel for the day to the big city (which happened once a year, btw, after harvest, for the festival), they only did this once/twice a year, not every day, or every week. It isn't like that in ESO, not even remotely. The way ESO is, is every guild is an individual bazaar, filled with hundreds/thousands of a random assortment... each guild is a flea market. In medieval terms, each guild is its own Festival Market Day, every day, all the time. Now, imagine someone in those times being told it is reasonable to have to travel to several cities, and sort through each of the festivals to find the item they want?

Notice, that concept never occurred in our history? Yeah, it's because it is ridiculous. Even with fast travel, there is no reason for it. Even in our own history, we grouped farmer's goods together (a few odds and ends in there that the farmers carved, or had no need of anymore, but 95% was grown food), the butchers had their area, carpenters another, etc etc. it was easy to know exactly where to look, and one could quickly decide what to buy... nothing like ESO.

But, even THAT died out as soon as we got the technology to allow otherwise. You people that argue against this, forget that one of the first add-one made for this game was a way to search the guild stores faster and more efficiently. Yeah, the game is set in a 'medieval' time period, but the PLAYERS are set in a modern day, with Google, Amazon, groceries that can be delivered to your house! No, forcing them to endure the abuses that even people in the DARK AGES didn't have to put up with is not acceptable, we put up with it because they have a monopoly on ELDER SCROLLS MMOs! We either deal, or don't play the closest online resemblance to the series we love... but, that doesn't make it OK to abuse the playerbase.

TL;DR: ESO guild trader system has absolutely zero in common with any form of medieval trade system other than there are people, and they sell stuff.

@Avalon

As fascinating as these real life counterparts are, they have absolutely nothing to do with a game mechanic. We don't flood the forums with how the Dow Jones is falling but gold tempers are rising in game.

The reason this issue is so controversial is because each side only focuses on one side of the coin.

Having one guild trader benefits frequent buyers to getting the best price, while screwing frequent sellers by being undercut.

The current system, multiple traders, minimizes sellers from being undercut. However, it's increasingly frustrating to frequent buyers due to running all over the place to only end up finding the same overpriced item over and over again.

I agree that there needs to be a change in the trading system. I vote for a universal search feature to look up every item in each guild trader. This obviously helps buyers and I doubt this feature would significantly increase the rate at which sellers are being undercut (albeit some increase may be possible).

Global please. I don't like trade power being monopolized.

Darlgon wrote: »

ZoS has said.. since launch... "A global trading system would require us to scrap the entire games code and rebuild. That is not going to happen."

Grow up, learn to search for the 1000 threads on this already, and move on.

And use https://tamrieltradecentre.com/

So the same people who are opposed to a global system, point to use a third party addon which serves the key function of having a global market in the first place.

If you are opposed to a global system, the you should also be opposed to the addon.

Reading between the lines, there is clearly some exploit that people are protecting.

BigBragg wrote: »

@Avalon

As fascinating as these real life counterparts are, they have absolutely nothing to do with a game mechanic. We don't flood the forums with how the Dow Jones is falling but gold tempers are rising in game.

Exactly how does that make any sense? That is QUITE a stretch! You are trying to compare things that have absolutely no bearing on each other, whereas, I am comparing two things that have very much to do with each other.

If you are referring to my long-winded explanation of medieval vs ESO? That is because one of your allies in the argument against a unified trader system was attempting to say that since ESO is a medieval system, it is more authentic, and thus, should be left alone. I guess for immersion or some other nonsense. I was proving them wrong, not trying to say we SHOULD be comparing them.

Instead, I understand the reality that even though we are PLAYING in a semi-medieval atmosphere, we are EXISTING in a modern day reality. By including the system they have chosen, they have not given us better immersion, but rather chosen to give us a major time sink so that we do not notice the rest of the game's failures. It is an artificial time-sink designed to make players take time to go through tons of items, tons of traders, war with each other to buy the best ones, etc, so that they do not need to make sure there is ACTUAL content.

We see threads all the time about how end game is pretty boring, and how there are large swathes of land with nothing to do, and no one even traveling around in them either... I remember going to Rivenspire and seeing MASSES of people all over the place, hustling and bustling. And, not even talking about the people adventuring through the area, there were maxed toons there as well! I went there last night to go check on the traders, which is one of the longer runs in-game from shrine to guild traders, so we get to see a good portion of the city on the way...

There were 3 people from the shrine to the traders. THREE. Why? Because, really, there is no reason to come back to so many areas in the game, that once news areas show up, those places become dead zones. So, instead of creating content, they created stuff in game to take up your time for no reason at all other than to just keep you occupied.

Don't believe it? How come we cannot even sort the stuff on the traders alphabetically? Screw that, how come we cannot even get a search bar to use PER TRADER? That wouldn't affect the system in any possible way, we would still have to go trader to trader, traveling all over... but, it would allow us to quickly find whether this trader has "Crafting Motif 38: Draugr Helmets", because as it is, there is a very REAL possibility that trying to go through the vast inventory of thousands of motifs and chapters on every single trader, players can slip past the one they need, missing it entirely.

Oh, and on that note, for those that claim it doesn't really take that long? There is a major city in each of the 15 areas that launched with the game, plus coldharbour. So, 16. With about 6 traders per: 96. There are at least 4 other traders in the game, so let's work with 100 (for easy math). There are well over 500 motifs listed, on average, per trader: 50,000. If it takes you only ONE second to register, comprehend, and move on, through each and every one of them, and you INSTANTLY traveled to each trader and pulled up their inventory, that means no less than 50,000 seconds, or just shy of 14 hours.

So, I'm going to call a HUGE B***S***!! The system needs fixed, if for no other reason than for the friggin MOTIFS!

Kodrac wrote: »

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

The people that voted "yes" must be new to mmos, or simply lack a basic understanding of economics.

"New" to MMO's yet every single MMO to date has had a centralized server wide market place.

Have you ACTUALLY tried any of them? Please do. You'll just end up proving me right.

Yes, he's a buy low/sell high price fixer in SWtOR. He wants to do that here too and can't.

If you think that's not happening in game right now I have a bridge I'd like to sell you >.<

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

The people that voted "yes" must be new to mmos, or simply lack a basic understanding of economics.

"New" to MMO's yet every single MMO to date has had a centralized server wide market place.

Have you ACTUALLY tried any of them? Please do. You'll just end up proving me right.

I have actualy tried a lot of them. this strawman argument you all keep bringing up about how prices are brought down to unprofitable, with exception of few items being unafordable by most? projecting much? in every game that I played with centralized auction house, every single one - trading and making in game currency from trading PROFITABLY - was not only very possible, but it was accessible to every. single. player. shopping was fabulous - search for specific item you want, know immediately if one is available, buy when it is. because you could NOT in fact price fix, like you can in this game thanks to all the inconveniences in finding a "good deal" - you could actualy afford most anything. super rare in demand items? are even MORE unaffordable in this game.

having played other games with actual centralized auction house/trading house? yes. i want it. because THAT is a genuine free market, not this... mess we have in ESO.

and before you start blathering about going to other games if I prefer centralized trading, maybe YOU play for trading. I play for everything else. trading is means to an end. I LIKE ESO stories, I like ESO gameplay I like the enviromental and character art, i like THIS game, you know the actual GAME parts.

edited to add, oh look, D3 gets brought up AGAIN. D3 issues were NOT becasue the auction house was centralized, the issue was that trading was done for RL money, and because blizzard wanted that cut (they got a cut from every transaction) they made drop rates specifically to make it impossible to collect any sets without using rl auction house. and because there is a chunk of the game (set dungeons) that requires you to have a complete set - specific set, to acess? obviously people were unhappy with having to pay extra REAL money. this is closer to putting stuff in crown store that is highly needed to acess parts of the game and is NOT available by any other means.

Kodrac wrote: »

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Absolut_Turkey wrote: »

The people that voted "yes" must be new to mmos, or simply lack a basic understanding of economics.

"New" to MMO's yet every single MMO to date has had a centralized server wide market place.

Have you ACTUALLY tried any of them? Please do. You'll just end up proving me right.

Yes, he's a buy low/sell high price fixer in SWtOR. He wants to do that here too and can't.

rolls on a flour laughing. are you kidding me? seriously? THIS IS WHAT LARGE SCALE TRADERS DO IN ESO. they buy low and resell high, the only difference is - they buy low in out of the way places, to sell high in their centralized location. you just don't want players who are not bulk sellers to have any chance of selling for a decent price. because right now - the only way for someone in out of the way guild to sell an item? is to price it low enough so that the trading whales concider it a "good deal" to RESELL.

Kodrac wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

rolls on a flour laughing. are you kidding me? seriously? THIS IS WHAT LARGE SCALE TRADERS DO IN ESO. they buy low and resell high, the only difference is - they buy low in out of the way places, to sell high in their centralized location.

Yes I know this. But at least here it takes time and effort to find the deals to either keep or resell. You can't just open the AH and in ten minutes corner the market. If you want to do something like that here you have to make the effort.

Linaleah wrote: »

you just don't want players who are not bulk sellers to have any chance of selling for a decent price.

I never said anything of the sort. I said people need to work for it. It's not like it's hard you just can't be lazy. This system requires effort - from the guilds to get and keep traders and from the players to shop around - and the fragmented nature prevents easy market manipulation. Effort and competition - two things the lazy tend to avoid.

1. you cannot corner the market when the entire server is immediately in on the market. people have tried in other games for YEARS. they are rarely if ever successful.
2. the subtext is there. and dear god, do i despise the laziness argument. WASTING TIME IS NOT EFFORT. it doesn't take any particular effort to click wayshrines. it. takes. time. time that most players don't have to waste becasue they would like to enjoy the game outside of trading.

funny thing is among other things, centralized trading system would actual help crafters, becasue right now, chances of reaching the right buyer are very low, since the traders are so scattered (and in centralized location its more profitable to do the buy low/sell high shtick)

you all are not fooling anyone. you just want to keep your little monopolies.

edited to add, becasue apparently it needs to be reminded, as people bring up swtor as another example of centralized trading gone wrong.

you all need a history lesson along with video game economy lesson. GTN in swtor was doing just fine for years. it wasn't fully centralized at first either, and it has become healthier once bioware changed it from being faction specific to one single listings pool. it wasn't until 4.0 that economy truly went to hell. why? couple of reasons. it was sliding down a bit, but not as badly before due to so many of the items being traded - coming from cash shop, but there was still healthy influx of in game items, crafted items, etc. its been getting worse and worse lately, to the point where vast majority of items added to the game are from cash shop. but even that wouldn't have cause the insane bump in prices that is there right now. no. what cause it was that in 4.0 2 things happened. 1. bioware changed how repeatable quests worked and how much credits they awarded. and 2. and this one is a biggie - there was a glitch in game, for MONTHS where you could buy an item from a vendor and then sell it RIGHT back at something like 1000% profit. millions of credits were generated in minutes. and this was happening for MONTHS. vast majority of those credits? are still floating in game. last but not least, this was helped along when back in shadow of Revan still, bioware removed any and all training costs, which was one of the few significant goldsinks in a game (not the only one, so that alone wouldn't have cause the apocalypse, but it did help)

here's the thing about in game economy (and real life economies too) hyper inflation happens when the amount of currency created and added to said economy? is much MUCH larger then removal of said currency FROM circulation. this is why ZOS will never remove fence limits, this is why quest rewards will remain as relatively low as they are. this is why so much of the housing is pure gold sink. (ad its likely, unfortunately why the guild trader bid system is here to stay - not becasue its healthier trading system, but becasue its one of the few gold sinks this game have, and they haven't figured out a system with more universal appeal that housing quite yet) they cannot allow creation of gold outstrip its removal. trading? does not generate gold. it only shifts it around, removing some via fees. I mean... how much have the costs gone up even in ESO, due to more gold being generatable via non trading activities? but the point is - centralized system on its own will not cause economic apocalypse. it can improve life for a lot of people by allowing the prices to be more competitive, by allowing more people opportunity to participate as sellers as well as buyers. and the gold sync of guild trader bids can be shifted to gasp.. overall increased listing fees per item, while reducing the duration of the listing to say.. a week.

but you don't want to look for solutions. you want to continue to milk this highly exclusionary system. not for the health of the game. for your own wants.