Here's a quick way to measure the difference between a global AH and the individual auction vendor system that was initially intended.

What's the going rate of a "scarce" thing that's currently impossible to farm like the Dubious Camoran Throne recipe across all platforms?

On PC, which has TTC and MM filling in for the lack of a global auction house, the going rate is close to 30 tempering alloys.

If you're on PS4 or XB1 how many tempering alloys does the recipe cost?

@Darlgon thanks for linking that thread again, I went through some of the relevant posts, but there is one thing I do not understand.

I'm not sure I am getting the full context of this, but it seems like back then you were arguing for a global AH, as present in other games. I will quote you full post for completeness, I have bolded the most relevant parts.

Post from July 2014

Darlgon wrote: »

Since you are letting go on the group content a little and making such big changes in vision on Veteran content.. can you PLEASE PLEASE consider giving up on the Guild Store system? Frankly, as a person who has EXTENSIVELY used the limited AH in Lotro and EQ, the Single faction AH in SWTOR, and the global AH in GW2, this is the WORST POSSIBLE way to sell the things you make and loot.

In EQ, I used to look for items listed lower than vendor, buy them, sell them to the vendor and laugh all the way to the bank, not counting the fun of leaving my character online to sell when I went to bed, waiting for the dial-up modem to time out. In Lotro, I used 5 alts to list items with the 30 item limitation in Lotro. and until the game started dying, listed to cap on each one. In SWTOR, even with a jacked up economy, I was able to pay for a lot of things my other guildies could not afford because I would list to max every day, sell what sold over night, and then replace it with crafted/looted stuff from my bank, even if I did not play that day. In GW2, I actually was a pretty heavy trader, even keeping up with what to buy to decon for items to resell, when the components sold for more than the items.

While I was never rich, I also was never poor. In this game.. I feel.. POOOOOR. I cant sell stuff that I shake my head at, when I think of how it would sell it overnight in other games to other crafters or other people who just checked the AH for a single point upgrade in gear, In this game.. the limitations of the store are not only in the interface, but also in the limited market I can sell to vs a global economy, with fees/taxes higher than I would think for such a SMALL CHANCE to sell my items. I have frankly stopped offering 99% of my items, deconing them for mats that also wont sell and will likely end up with a vendor.

Frankly, all thru the Stress Test weekends, I told people to give it a try, see how it worked. Now, I have to say.. IT AINT WORKING.

Please fix it. And thanks for listening.

So now this leaves me confused, what was your stance then, and what is it now?

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Still going eh?

Still the same old nonsense being spouted about getting booted in a couple of days if you don't make as sale? Or the number of trader slots available (people always forget there are two servers, three platforms... six times as many potential traders as they choose to state). Or the amount of gold that you have to pony up just to be a member of the trading elite...

Still the same old inconsistencies... major trading locations run by cartels, minor traders forced to sell at low prices (isn't that what you want?). Buying is such a pain, traders make too much money (really... but you said buying was so difficult...). There's no other way to sell... chat is full of people selling! The top guilds boot you out if you don't sell, and yet they guarantee themselves and their mates the top sales from the prime locations.

If you have ever been in a top trader guild, selling in a top location, and you haven't made a sale then you are either an idiot, or indolent, or both. And don't deserve to deprive another seller of the chance to sell...

I understand that some people find shopping a chore, and so want things made easier for them.

I can see that traders don't want those unhappy shoppers trashing what is a vital part of the game for them, just so that someone else gets a good deal in seconds and can go about what they enjoy.

But let's be honest about the current system because it isn't as bad as frequently portrayed and it does give a lot of enjoyment to people who want to trade. Buying isn't particularly onerous, and if you are looking for something ultra-specific then maybe it should be a bit difficult...

And above all, if we are to have a sensible discussion about trading then we really do need to drop the entitlement...

"I want it now, at a price I want to pay, so that I can go and do what I want to do (and I don't care if it spoils what you want to do)"

All those platforms?? Never the twain shall meet, so let's stop with the hyperbole, OK? It's not like there is buying and selling cross servers.

And yes, there are people in my guild (PC EU) that are in one of the 'cartel' guilds and they have to sell 30K a week to be in it or they get booted.

So you blowing hot air and saying the posters here are "spouting nonsense" makes you sound ridiculous.

I feel that many of the folks who are adamantly opposed to the concept of an integrated auction house system vastly underestimate the number of players who are unable to enter the market as buyers due to the lack of an auction house system; furthermore, they underestimate the amount of gold some of those players might have and/or be willing to spend to purchase things which they have delayed purchasing due to the complexities of the trader system. (Generally speaking, they underestimate the number of players who are not in guilds with trader stalls, which is likely a fairly large number.)

There is nothing appealing about having to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of gold just to join a guild which promises to kick you out if you don't list X number of items and generate Y gold worth of sales, while being required to log on daily to prove you are "active." Yet this is exactly the sort of guild ad I see all the time. Alternatively, you can join a guild with less stringent requirements who, if they are lucky enough to have a trader, find its stall located in some backwater nowhere location visited by one or two people a day, if that.

There is a distinct inability of players lacking membership in a trading guild to sell the things we craft, find, loot, or otherwise come across (except to vendors for a fraction of their actual value, or to spam on the zone chat for hours on end hoping a buyer wanders along and that we aren't overpricing or underpricing the item we're trying to sell.) This discourages buyers and at the same punishes sellers by greatly limiting their exposure to potential customers.

Perhaps a potential (minor) compromise would be to keep the existing trader system, but add an integrated search interface which searches ALL traders. The current search UI leaves MUCH to be desired and is in desperate need of improvement or outright replacement. It is like trying to search the Web without Google or any other search engine: you know what you want, but in order to find it, you've got to jump from URL to URL looking for it, hoping to get lucky, and along the way you might miss it because you don't know the URL you are looking for even exists. Another analogy would be trying to find something on eBay with no search function and no categories, leaving you to look through millions of listings hoping to run across what you want by pure chance.

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

Sigtric wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Kurkikohtaus wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

3. What you are doing is thinly veiled as something different. Your arguments clearly indicate you are attempting to do the same thing every one of those pro AH threads have done. You merely state having both in the game will prove something.

I think it would prove something, as stated above. And I am willing to accept that if in the described system both trading methods managed to co-exist indefinitely, then I would be wrong. And certainly if those who support guild-trading lead a successful boycott of the GAH, then I would of course be wrong as well.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Another example where you belittle those who do not support an AH as inexperienced and ill-informed.

There is not a single experienced and well-informed (from other MMOs) BUYER who is AGAINST a global AH ... think about that.

Yes, looking at it now, that statement was badly worded. Since then I have changed my tone.

Now I would present that argument this way:

I cannot imagine that experienced and well-informed buyers would be AGAINST a global AH, because the advantages to the buyer, both serious and casual, are too great to overlook.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

So in the end what you have presented in your OP is really just another AH thread except you call it a hypothesis. In the end you present the same baseless argument as everyone else yet somehow think it is more important.

Such is the nature of thought experiments. You propose something and try to understand what will happen and what it means. I don't think my "thought" is more important than anyone else's, except those who blindly claim that "the Majority" wants guild-traders, end of discussion.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

To prove my point that your thread and your replies are merely nothing more than every other AH thread I will present what you posted on page 2.

It is YOU, the SELLERS in the current system who are actually resisting change, because the prospect of adaptation is too daunting.

That quote serves another great example. Those in support of the guild traders have adapted. They might have resisted change in the beginning, but moved past that. It is probably the most illogical statement made in this entire thread.

I stand by my statement quoted in your quote above. Within the context of ESO, people who engage in guild-trading have adapted to nothing, because that is all that there every was. If the system changed or had to compete concurrently with an alternative system, THEN people would have to adapt, and I think that is what some who support guild-trading fear.

the current system is robust and successful.

Hardly. It's a convoluted mess that makes trading for the masses difficult and time consuming. There's nothing "robust" or "successful" about it. How many people in game don't even bother with it? How anyone can claim that's a success is beyond me.

@Drachenfier all of most kiosks are take each week. 100s of millions of gold change hands evevery week via the guild traders. That means a great many players do bother with it.

Its a week argument to state that some players don't bother with it when many players in any game don't bother with or rarely bother with the AH. No solid foundation there.

Not really a weak argument, considering the amount of people that have admitted they don't bother with this system due to it's overly and completely unnecessarily complicated nature. This game's economy is a wreck, prices are all over the damn place, items are virtually impossible to find. When your trading system's main claim to fame is it's "needle in a haystack" nature, I wouldn't call that successful by any means.

I don't understand where this "complicated" argument comes from. It's one extra step to sell. Join a guild with a trader then list away. Buying, granted they could add some better filters but it's not hard.

Laziness and unwillingness to use something different is what keeps people from using it.

First off, it's a big extra step to sell. You also need to be aware of market value, which requires additional addons because you can only see your own trader's sales at your own kiosk. And then if you aren't in multiple trading guilds with high volumes of sales, MM data is probably off as well so really you need to rely on TTC which is constantly becoming out of date. It's tedious for those of us who really just want to get some coin for an item beyond vendoring it. Those of us who actually manage our money and deal with financial planning IRL don't really want a complicated process in our games, go figure lol.

But our main issue, which I'm gonna keep coming back to until people understand, is buying. For the most part, average / casual / PvE/PvP focused players just want to be able to easily buy what they need and get back to actually playing the game. This system is horrendous for buying. A unified search feature with up-to-date data would be nice, but it's still a huge pain to get to wherever its being sold, and in that time something could easily be bought out and suddenly you've wasted 10 minutes.

- Additional addons are required even on AH games. Unless you want to be a constant prey to market manipulators, which on AH are tenfolds compared to guild stores.

- ESO has got its flavor. It's a large amount of small factors that put together form the "ESO experience". Saving 10 minutes is not part of that. You want that if you are shopping in real life and have an appointment. On the contrary, MMOs are all about making you use as much time as possible and ESO is totally aligned with that.

Darlgon wrote: »

Kurkikohtaus wrote: »

@Darlgon thanks for linking that thread again, I went through some of the relevant posts, but there is one thing I do not understand.

I'm not sure I am getting the full context of this, but it seems like back then you were arguing for a global AH, as present in other games. I will quote you full post for completeness, I have bolded the most relevant parts.

Post from July 2014

Darlgon wrote: »

Since you are letting go on the group content a little and making such big changes in vision on Veteran content.. can you PLEASE PLEASE consider giving up on the Guild Store system? Frankly, as a person who has EXTENSIVELY used the limited AH in Lotro and EQ, the Single faction AH in SWTOR, and the global AH in GW2, this is the WORST POSSIBLE way to sell the things you make and loot.

In EQ, I used to look for items listed lower than vendor, buy them, sell them to the vendor and laugh all the way to the bank, not counting the fun of leaving my character online to sell when I went to bed, waiting for the dial-up modem to time out. In Lotro, I used 5 alts to list items with the 30 item limitation in Lotro. and until the game started dying, listed to cap on each one. In SWTOR, even with a jacked up economy, I was able to pay for a lot of things my other guildies could not afford because I would list to max every day, sell what sold over night, and then replace it with crafted/looted stuff from my bank, even if I did not play that day. In GW2, I actually was a pretty heavy trader, even keeping up with what to buy to decon for items to resell, when the components sold for more than the items.

While I was never rich, I also was never poor. In this game.. I feel.. POOOOOR. I cant sell stuff that I shake my head at, when I think of how it would sell it overnight in other games to other crafters or other people who just checked the AH for a single point upgrade in gear, In this game.. the limitations of the store are not only in the interface, but also in the limited market I can sell to vs a global economy, with fees/taxes higher than I would think for such a SMALL CHANCE to sell my items. I have frankly stopped offering 99% of my items, deconing them for mats that also wont sell and will likely end up with a vendor.

Frankly, all thru the Stress Test weekends, I told people to give it a try, see how it worked. Now, I have to say.. IT AINT WORKING.

Please fix it. And thanks for listening.

So now this leaves me confused, what was your stance then, and what is it now?

Yep.. argued for.. but.. ZoS has stated since that they would have to rebuild the whole game from the ground up to accommodate it. Making any discussions about it a dead horse. It aint gonna happen.

And I can tell you unequivocally that if ZOS said that, they're full of 100%, farm fed, pure grade AAA ***.

Kurkikohtaus wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Gold farmers LOVE central AH MMOs. It's their core business to sell to as many prospects as possible and AH is exactly giving them that.

In no way do I condone gold farming / selling. On the other hand, who cares?

Vahrokh wrote: »

Additional addons are required even on AH games. Unless you want to be a constant prey to market manipulators, which on AH are tenfolds compared to guild stores.

Not in SWTOR, where there are no add-ons whatsoever, but there is an excellent AH interface. You type the name of the item you want, and up comes a list of every single one of those items that is for sale, which you can order from lowest to highest (unit) price. But the point is every listing of that one item is displayed when you search.

Vahrokh wrote: »

ESO has got its flavor. Saving 10 minutes is not part of that.

That would be a fantastic tag-line to attract new players. Or maybe not.

As I have written in another thread, not only I have seen "a lot" (playing MMOs since before 2000) but I also have been a large market manipulator in other games.

AH aligns both with market manipulators and gold farmers.

The former "just" make glorious amounts of money... and that money comes from their "targets", that is you and other players - preferably as green as possible.

The latter, are very worth of "who cares". A MMO with a lot of gold sellers:

- gets inflation, lots of it. New players greatly suffer, even beginner stuff costs 10x.
- steal accounts. ZOS keeps reducing recycling efficiency exactly because that's one of the ways gold farmers make money (recycling stolen accounts materials / gear) and an AH makes this extremely easy. Not only, stuff bought from a guild store has a short supply chain and can be tracked to a potential gold farmer. On an AH, stuff gets sold and rebought and passes more hands and gets easier to "launder".
- ruin economy, they are not regular players. They are industrial. They create tenfold materials, tenfold money, they drown the economy.

---

I have a 2011 account on SWTOR. It's just wrong taking as example a MMO which has failed in so many ways. The AH search feature is clumsy at best, because it does not take partial names, you have to type exactly the portion of the name it wants and it's usually not simple to guess. Items last only for up to 2 days (if I recall correctly).

I have manipulated SWTOR markets (expecially mods, enhancements and so on) for years and you did not even notice!
Either I am very good or you are not trained at spotting manipulations

(Yes, I also have done manipulations on GW2, EvE, WAR and many others including unknown MMOs like Istaria too!)

^ honestly if you spend 5 hours looking through Guild traders you are doing it all wrong. No wonder you hate the current system if you don't use it efficiently....

Surprised this thread is still rumbling on. The effort into the Pro AH campaign on here certain outweighs my effort to just use the current system and have all I need and more and find mega deals.

100% NO to AH... (to be clear )

Vahrokh wrote: »

I have a 2011 account on SWTOR. The AH search feature is clumsy at best, because it does not take partial names, you have to type exactly the portion of the name it wants and it's usually not simple to guess.

Just a side note, not important to the discussion, but I played SWTOR between 2012 and 2015 and I am sure that the AH search tool does take partial names of items, but I digress.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

Going to exaggerate a little bit, play devils advocate and offer a slanted mis-representation of what I am reading in between the lines of the anti AH camp's argument:

A global AH will take away the slice of the pie that I have developed and make the opportunity to sell it and eat it too available to everyone. That bothers me, because I want it for myself.

Yes, I realize that is NOT what you are all saying and may not even represent your attitudes. But to those that are out of the loop, that's what it seems like. And perception is everything.

^ seriously. You haven't listened to a thing, that's my perception.

AH would wreck things for me as a buyer too, deals would be gone.

And this whole conspiracy thing the Pro AH camp seem obsessed with would only get worse in an AH. Ita like the only counter that you have, these selfish manipulators resisting your theory because of control issues ITS NONSENSE. and besides these imaginary 'Pie slice' owners you refer to if they are the fat cats you fear would lap up all the pies in an instant with AH.

Anyway its pointless replying. You don't listen and come back with the same old arguenents. This thread is a necro of a 1000 others with same arguments, its gotten dull

My vote is for effort = reward. I say again stop wrecking elements of this game because you can't be bothered to learn the game.

I've been open to your ideas, that side by side would fail as one would undermine the other yes. But yet you refuse to be open to the others side or listen properly.

Hey ***, there is no AH, which is great. For buyers (that aren't lazy) and sellers alike, those that put effort in will.get reward, those with a feeling of entitlement want to wreck the system so everyone regardless of effort is the same... Same old left / right argument we read about everyday in the media..... It won't go away.

Done now, unfollowing thread. Peace out!

"[Hypothetical] What would happen if there WERE a global AH"

The same thing that happened in other mmos (WoW I think was one of them).
Richest players and guilds will push auctions prices to it limits, buy items for ridiculously high price, sell it for even more.. repeat and repeat. In other words - exploit the f**k out of the system and raise global price on EVERYTHING....

That is why an AH (Auction House) is a bad idea. But something needs to be done... Current system is also extremely exploited right now....
- Rigged bids on Vendor NPCs (by using fake, empty guilds etc).
- One guild perma-taking one spot (no rotation, just one guild occupying the same spot over and over again (yes I am talking to you Craglorn trading guilds).
- Total Market monopolization.
- And of course - Total exclusion of small guilds / solo players from being able to sell their stuff
(common, you call zone spamming "WTS xyz" a good thing ? ) It is probably the worst method of selling stuff I have seen in a mmo....

Just add a global search engine so I can find item what I need and not waste time for running like crazy to literally to all gilds on the world...

Belegnole wrote: »

The result would be that most people would rejoice. While those who control the market now will complain to the devs.

There is a simple solution for that - a global Trading House (not auction house) so small guilds & solo players could also sell their stuff (but of course with some limit like 2 - 5 items per week so large guild would stay relevant).
It does not even need a new vendor NPC... just a menu button to open...

I play, and have played, a lot of MMOs with global markets: SWtOR, EQ, EQ2, GW2, LotRO, TSW,...

Never have I seen the chaos described by so many that are against a Global Market in this game. Sure, sometimes the prices are silly, but so are the prices on the various Guild Traders. On a Global market I can find stuff, buy stuff and sell stuff. Not even interested in shopping on Guild Trader...

I would love to be able to sell stuff to other players and not just vendor or decon.

But I would settle for a Global Search.