The lack of an auction house means that people who like playing the game as merchants can buy low in one zone and sell for more in another. It's not how I play the game, but it's an MMO...

Flat no to AH, monopoly manipulation risk but more sp wrecking an interesting part of the game. Stop being lazy

The main argument repeated over and over against any sort of universal trading post is the claim that it would enable a person to corner the market on a commodity and raise prices to a gouging level.

The main flaw with that argument is that it is already possible for a person to do such a thing. So a universal trading post enables nothing.

The next flaw with the idea that a person could corner the market is the reliance on the assumption that supply in the game acts like supply in real life.

The usual laws of supply and demand only loosely apply to the game economy, because at the core of the system every person can be their own supply chain.

It’s simple. If any commodity is purchased in large numbers, then more people will immediately begin providing more supply.

A real world example would be the Fingerling toy. It’s been bought up by internet-connected bots for immediate markup to gouge desperate parents. This is the scenario that people think of when they imagine a universal trading post. However, the parents are only desperate because they cannot be their own supply chain - while in Eso the players CAN be their own supply chain.

In a universal trading post system, prices would lower.

Not necessarily an AH but maybe an NPC in the bank of each zone that you can see each stall in the zones items. This of course would be paired with a functioning search feature.

The capitals could maybe be linked too. That way you could see what's in the other capital cities from the one you're in.

Lore wise just say there's a consensus and all guild traders are available for browsing in a registrar or something. Ez pz.

As a "Noob" who hasn't played lot's and lot's of MMO's, (WoW for about a year, but hated it), I view "Market Manipulation" or "Trade Monopoly" like this.......
Auction House~ I go to bank, open AH, I have access to all trade wares from everyone. I take 10 mill gold and buy all the Perfect Roe.... i then re list it at my price, what ever I choose and now own the Roe market.

ESO~ I have to have all DLC's and Morrowind Chapter, then travel to 183 Guild traders buying all the Perfect Roe I can find. Then I can go and list it in my 5 Guild Traders and sell in zone, 1 zone at a time..... Still can't corner market after spending 183 load screens and X-Hours searching all the traders.

I enjoy the feel of the Trader System in ESO. I for one am glad ZoS didn't "cookie cutter" ESO to be like WoW or GW's.
But it is a moot subject. Guild Kiosks are here to stay.

In the absence of a global AH, I simply treat the game as a single-player one in terms of economy.

I occasionally buy motifs or recipes from guild stores but I either use, vendor or stash anything I find.

Don't want Auction House.

Would LOVE a Zone Wide Market - no bids, items listed just as they are now, but in a central "market" for each Zone.
Oh, and a much, much improved user interface, so I can search for a specific item BY NAME.

All The Best

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

No I am not making things up and if you didn't see evidence then you were either not paying attention or have selective memory.

Do you realize how simple it would be for three people to price control something like Perfect Roe if we had an auction house?

Unless you can cite specific instances of "cornering the market" I am going to assume you are indeed making it up.

In almost 12 years of playing nothing but MMORPGs I have never, that is NEVER - NOT EVEN ONCE, seen any genuine evidence of a market being cornered.

I've seen many hundreds of threads from players who clearly have no real understanding of either economics, or how an Auction House actually works, "claiming" that such market cornering does happen - but hard evidence of such - nope, not even once.

All The Best

Guild vendors = Market cornering

Coming from Wow I know how much better a global auction house is. The guild store is really a joke. Never can find what I'm looking for, can't sell hardly anything. I get most of my items from asking inside guild chat. My guild is very good for that and helping. But a public auction house would greatly increase your chances of finding what you need, making more gold. Which is needed as mounts are ridiculously high in this game. Trading guilds are OK but I'd much rather have a public auction house in every major city.

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

ereboz wrote: »

I would love a global auction house. I know some people say it would ruin the market because a percentage of players would fluctuate the market. But it's not much different than what people do now visiting guild stores and buying low selling high. So would you like to see a global auction house?

Youre not going to get a fair shake here on the forums. Those here are either heavily involved in running said Trade Guilds or simply buy into the misinformation about how things actually work in an Auction House.

Or we have seen the disasters that readily happen in games that feature an auction house and don't want to add another problem area into this game. Check the forums of games that have an auction house and it is rare that you can get past the first page without seeing complaints about someone monopolizing some particular part of the market. With an auction house it is very easy to do.

What disasters?


Lets be honest. I know that you arent going to cite any disasters that can be backed up with evidence. Because youre just making things up. And expect me to be lazy and not go looking for these made up complaint threads. Ive played my fair share of MMOs from STO to WoW to SWTOR. And never once did I see anyone bring forth any evidence of "cornering the market" as people cite here in defense of Guild Traders. The biggest complaints, which happen here as well, is that things are outrageously priced and out of reach of new players. But thats not an issue of cornering the market, its because the gold/credits in said games is so easily accessible at one point or another and the end result is price inflation occurs.

The absolute vast majority of issues in games economies are a result of interference by Developers. Either too late and too little creating a bubble of wealth with veteran gamers and starving out newer players or making drastic changes that absolutely upset the games Supply and Demand. Even speculation of Developer involvement can have drastic impacts in the games supply and demand. We saw that here in ESO just last year when people thought there would be a change to the availability of Gold Tempers.

No I am not making things up and if you didn't see evidence then you were either not paying attention or have selective memory.

Do you realize how simple it would be for three people to price control something like Perfect Roe if we had an auction house?

Took me less than a minute (much less) to find people if forums of all the games you mentioned complaining about a person or a group of people manipulating pricing.

Just think how drastic that impact would have been if the speculation could have taken place at one central location instead of being spread across every zone. You pretty much argued my point for me.

In other words, youre full of it and you have no actual evidence of these complaint threads. "You werent paying attention".....really thats the best you can come up with?

Do you realize that when you make things up and then cant provide evidence to back up your claim it invalidates your argument and in turn brings into question everything else you say?

Took you less than a minute but couldnt spend less than a minute linking to those threads. Hmmm.

Just think how drastic it would be if your argument actually had some validity behind it, how much people would believe you rather than laugh at your poor attempt to sway someone already set in their opinion.

Hmmm indeed. Attack the messenger and not the message. We all know what that means. I accept your admission of defeat on this subject.

I guess 90% of the people who voted "no" are people in a good trading guild that are happy and willing to grind mats or other things every day/week/month to meet the requirements needed to just have the right to sell in their guild...
What I know so far is that many players, and all of my friends, decided to quit eso because they had no chance to sell anything without having a guild. I find it stupid that if I play, for example, a month, and in that month I drop something valuable, I MUST be in a guild to sell that thing easily, just to be kicked a couple of weeks later because I'm not playing anymore at that time.. By now, the market is in the hands of few guilds, few players.. All the others can spam WTS in chat. Sorry for my english but I think you know what I mean. Oh, and just to answer to people saying that having an auction house would kill the market because prices would just drop very quick: price of things like motifs, are dropping down veeeery quick anyway, take Morag Tong motif, it's just an example, the drop rate is ridiculous, maybe 2/3 motifs in a month, doing all the dailies every day.. The price of this motif should be at least 70/80k each for the stupid rarity it has, but you can find players selling it for 15/20k or even less, so what are you talking about? I don't think an auction house would be so horrible but we will never see one in eso.

kargen27 wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

ereboz wrote: »

I would love a global auction house. I know some people say it would ruin the market because a percentage of players would fluctuate the market. But it's not much different than what people do now visiting guild stores and buying low selling high. So would you like to see a global auction house?

Youre not going to get a fair shake here on the forums. Those here are either heavily involved in running said Trade Guilds or simply buy into the misinformation about how things actually work in an Auction House.

Or we have seen the disasters that readily happen in games that feature an auction house and don't want to add another problem area into this game. Check the forums of games that have an auction house and it is rare that you can get past the first page without seeing complaints about someone monopolizing some particular part of the market. With an auction house it is very easy to do.

What disasters?


Lets be honest. I know that you arent going to cite any disasters that can be backed up with evidence. Because youre just making things up. And expect me to be lazy and not go looking for these made up complaint threads. Ive played my fair share of MMOs from STO to WoW to SWTOR. And never once did I see anyone bring forth any evidence of "cornering the market" as people cite here in defense of Guild Traders. The biggest complaints, which happen here as well, is that things are outrageously priced and out of reach of new players. But thats not an issue of cornering the market, its because the gold/credits in said games is so easily accessible at one point or another and the end result is price inflation occurs.

The absolute vast majority of issues in games economies are a result of interference by Developers. Either too late and too little creating a bubble of wealth with veteran gamers and starving out newer players or making drastic changes that absolutely upset the games Supply and Demand. Even speculation of Developer involvement can have drastic impacts in the games supply and demand. We saw that here in ESO just last year when people thought there would be a change to the availability of Gold Tempers.

No I am not making things up and if you didn't see evidence then you were either not paying attention or have selective memory.

Do you realize how simple it would be for three people to price control something like Perfect Roe if we had an auction house?

Took me less than a minute (much less) to find people if forums of all the games you mentioned complaining about a person or a group of people manipulating pricing.

Just think how drastic that impact would have been if the speculation could have taken place at one central location instead of being spread across every zone. You pretty much argued my point for me.

In other words, youre full of it and you have no actual evidence of these complaint threads. "You werent paying attention".....really thats the best you can come up with?

Do you realize that when you make things up and then cant provide evidence to back up your claim it invalidates your argument and in turn brings into question everything else you say?

Took you less than a minute but couldnt spend less than a minute linking to those threads. Hmmm.

Just think how drastic it would be if your argument actually had some validity behind it, how much people would believe you rather than laugh at your poor attempt to sway someone already set in their opinion.

Hmmm indeed. Attack the messenger and not the message. We all know what that means. I accept your admission of defeat on this subject.

You can accept whatever imaginary admission you want. Still no evidence, just baseless claims.

No. I don't want to sit on my listed items and keep lowering the price from the constant undercutting. XIV ruined AHs for me.

Glurin wrote: »

Yo_Langland wrote: »

Not to mention as it is right now, there is a HUGE disparity in prices certain people can list the same item for based on guild trader location.

Working as intended.

Exactly. And this is a GOOD thing. It means buyers that put the effort in can find a deal. Trading is a massive part or the game, running it down is ludicrous for those people that have worked on it and enjoy it.

The game has already been toned down and its not helping its longevity.

Anyway the horse is dead and we are out of whips.