starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

@srfrogg23

Not at all did you read by comment and theirs?
They just proved exactly what points I was making.

The current system can’t be manipulated as easy as a global AH (summarized ) so your idea to force a global AH makes it so that person and their team can all do it independently and easier having a much greater and worse impact which is why the current system is much better even with its flaws.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

@srfrogg23

Not at all did you read by comment and theirs?
They just proved exactly what points I was making.

The current system can’t be manipulated as easy as a global AH (summarized ) so your idea to force a global AH makes it so that person and their team can all do it independently and easier having a much greater and worse impact which is why the current system is much better even with its flaws.

Manipulation is manipulation. The number of people involved is irrelevant. Having a system that is immune to players is a pipe dream. Players will always find a way to profit, it’s only natural.

That being said, you’ve got the same end result with ESO, just wrapped up in an obnoxiously convoluted package that adds all sorts of caveats to selling. I appreciate your strict belief that this system is somehow different for good reasons, but wanting it to be so, doesn’t make it true.

Also, the markets in other MMOs are not as easily manipulated as people would have you believe. As I said in a previous post, people can come in and buy up all the stuff I put out and try to re-list at a higher price, then someone else comes in and undercuts their efforts (usually me). So this idea that there is a zero-sum game with global AH’s is just ignoring reality. Manipulating those systems is not nearly as easy as the strawman argument against it suggests.

The number of people is not irrelevant. The number of people is the more important piece to understanding this. Manipulation is a direct relation based on the number of people which leads to the impact and influence.

This game is a closer representation of a real economy and a global AH is a close representation to the things governments are fighting against (one unified currency and market). I’m not a big economics person but some of this is basic stuff you learn and figure out depending upon what industry you work in or are influenced by

I’m going to exit this discussion now

Androconium wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

You are silly. There is a least one...

rustic_potato wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

@srfrogg23

Not at all did you read by comment and theirs?
They just proved exactly what points I was making.

The current system can’t be manipulated as easy as a global AH (summarized ) so your idea to force a global AH makes it so that person and their team can all do it independently and easier having a much greater and worse impact which is why the current system is much better even with its flaws.

Manipulation is manipulation. The number of people involved is irrelevant. Having a system that is immune to players is a pipe dream. Players will always find a way to profit, it’s only natural.

That being said, you’ve got the same end result with ESO, just wrapped up in an obnoxiously convoluted package that adds all sorts of caveats to selling. I appreciate your strict belief that this system is somehow different for good reasons, but wanting it to be so, doesn’t make it true.

Also, the markets in other MMOs are not as easily manipulated as people would have you believe. As I said in a previous post, people can come in and buy up all the stuff I put out and try to re-list at a higher price, then someone else comes in and undercuts their efforts (usually me). So this idea that there is a zero-sum game with global AH’s is just ignoring reality. Manipulating those systems is not nearly as easy as the strawman argument against it suggests.

Market manipulation of ESO guild stores are not as easy as people assume it to be. First and foremost it requires a very large capital to even attempt doing it. Second the right items should be identified and the item should be in constant demand. It is a lot of time and gold invested in what may end up giving you nothing in the end. It typically takes months to start seeing profits. TTC has made the background work a lot easier. There is a reason alchemy mats prices increased more than 2X its price in just a period of 5 weeks on the PCNA server.

Of course whenever something drastic happens the devs usually intervene and tone it down a bit. Like the potency runes offered by NPC vendors and hakeijo and alch mats avaialable for telvar are a few outright examples.

Ssalaar wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Please don't start with this crap again. If what you said were true, ESO would be the only MMO with an actual economy, instead of being the only one WITHOUT an actual economy.

Have you played other MMOs? Have you seen the flipping that happens on their AH systems?

I've played just about every AAA mmo ever made, and I have an understanding of how supply and demand works. This is by far the worst, and I can't stress that enough, the worst market design I have ever seen. Even worse than Lineage 2, and that was awful.

@Drachenfier

Honest question and not trolling or baiting.
What are your thoughts on your real world economy and access to goods and services?

The game is more similar to that which is possibly why some have the opinion that this game doesn’t have a good economy.

Today's market would be more similar to how later Everquest did it. ESO's market is similar to how the middle ages were.

TOday's world economy is what the corporations wanted. The issue with that is if one region of the world is having an issue, it ripples and affects the whole world market. When it was not that way in the past , we didnt care if there was a typhoon in Japan area that shut down the economy there, America went right on moving.

I personally don't use MM or other trading tools. As stated, no way in health would i trust running an executable on my machine. A Streamer BladeBorques used to make millions buying and selling from one trader to another, then moved on to another MMO and is doing the same there. He like the economy or whatever better. (and i think got in trouble for supposedly scheming the system that was dismissed? ) But i dont see a purpose of a single AH. I prefer the surprise of hunting to see what different merchants have and it reminds of the classic "shop around" and trying to be unique. too bad they fell in prey of housing and loot crates like all the other systems.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

rustic_potato wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

@srfrogg23

Not at all did you read by comment and theirs?
They just proved exactly what points I was making.

The current system can’t be manipulated as easy as a global AH (summarized ) so your idea to force a global AH makes it so that person and their team can all do it independently and easier having a much greater and worse impact which is why the current system is much better even with its flaws.

Manipulation is manipulation. The number of people involved is irrelevant. Having a system that is immune to players is a pipe dream. Players will always find a way to profit, it’s only natural.

That being said, you’ve got the same end result with ESO, just wrapped up in an obnoxiously convoluted package that adds all sorts of caveats to selling. I appreciate your strict belief that this system is somehow different for good reasons, but wanting it to be so, doesn’t make it true.

Also, the markets in other MMOs are not as easily manipulated as people would have you believe. As I said in a previous post, people can come in and buy up all the stuff I put out and try to re-list at a higher price, then someone else comes in and undercuts their efforts (usually me). So this idea that there is a zero-sum game with global AH’s is just ignoring reality. Manipulating those systems is not nearly as easy as the strawman argument against it suggests.

Market manipulation of ESO guild stores are not as easy as people assume it to be. First and foremost it requires a very large capital to even attempt doing it. Second the right items should be identified and the item should be in constant demand. It is a lot of time and gold invested in what may end up giving you nothing in the end. It typically takes months to start seeing profits. TTC has made the background work a lot easier. There is a reason alchemy mats prices increased more than 2X its price in just a period of 5 weeks on the PCNA server.

Of course whenever something drastic happens the devs usually intervene and tone it down a bit. Like the potency runes offered by NPC vendors and hakeijo and alch mats avaialable for telvar are a few outright examples.

I’m sure it’s not like flipping a light switch. It’s never that easy. I was only pointing out that it happens, even with the guild traders.

The big argument against a global AH is that someone will manipulate the economy, which is true, people will try. But, that’s just the nature of gamers. We try to make the systems work to our advantage. Nothing wrong with that. It’s a game.

My point is this: having a system like the guild traders does not prevent that. So, you get the same problem along with a whole slew of other issues and annoyances.

It’s also not as easy to manipulate a global AH, as people want claim on these forums. It’s a free-for-all system with zero barriers to entry. Even when someone attempts to buy all of a certain item and re-list it at a higher price, they still have to contend with the influx of new items being posted that undercut theirs from everyone else. Hell, it’s actually easier to get burned using that strategy with a GAH, imo, because there is no barrier to entry. And, the prices are much more transparent, just look in the AH (no need for 3rd party programs). Much harder to profit while attempting to manipulate it.

I said i was exiting but gosh.....

I understand what people are writing but maybe it’s the word choice they are using, which is wrong.

It’s literally not the same or similar behaviors and the effects of those behaviors but I comprehend its suggested that the behavior of players trying to manipulate is the same or similar but that’s not true.

The intent perhaps is similar but the actual behaviors are very different as well as how those behaviors effect each model differently.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

rustic_potato wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Motherball wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

Ive played several games that had an AH or bazaar and the trading is easier and more accessable for everyone. If items are overpriced in an AH system, I can just farm a few items and sell them to afford whatever I need. How can you argue for an exclusive system in a multiplayer videogame when inclusive ones work better and let players actually participate and enjoy such a huge aspect of these games?

They don’t work better tho. I think that’s the disconnect.

Yes they seem more accessible but more access with less controls isn’t better. Those other games had exponentially lesser participants than this game would.

I’m going to have to call shenanigans on that. Everything that people claim happens with a global AH in other games already happens in ESO. The undercutting and price manipulation already exist. Happens every day.

Maybe, just maybe, the guild traders would have worked the way every thinks they should have worked if things like TTC and MM didn’t exist. Those things broke the system.

For example, why bother looking at the random traders out in the wilderness? Everyone sells for the same prices. So your odds of finding a better deal are virtually non-existent, and certainly not worth the time it takes to travel to all of them. So, those spots are basically a pointless gold sink for the guilds that win them. Especially when you can use TTC to see exactly who is selling what and for how much - you can immediately undercut the competition.

Then you have the main trading hubs, where all the real economy manipulation happens. You get the uniform pricing and undercutting (or collusion), which can sometimes lead to the best deals. On the other hand though, how often do those guilds lose their spots? Not very often, and if they do, they’re right back there the next week. They’re basically monopolizing those locations.

But, the biggest problem of them all is this:

If you want to sell your goods on the pseudo-auction house - you have to get another player’s permission. And, if you don’t adhere to their expectations, they can cut off your access without so much as an explanation. Players shouldn’t have that kind of power over other players.

Tl;dr: ESO’s guild traders already have the same issues as a global ah from other games, just the added annoyance of being subjected to the whims of another player when it comes to selling.

No they don’t.
@srfrogg23

When people talk about undercutting and buying and listing in this game vs a game with a true global ah which I’m only aware of one game, it’s not happening in other games.

There’s a HUGE difference in groups of playing doing this between a few traders in this game vs anyone within one faction on one of hundreds of servers in another game.

The add-ons you mention, and the website folks use does have an impact but the economy isn’t messed up at all. Also while those tools can help guide someone or on PC help real-time it’s still not a global AH so there are literally no ways someone could cause the impact in his game that would be possible if there was a global AH.

You all are suggesting that Tom and *** and friends go around buying up this and undercutting that and using this site and that add-on (PC only) which requires them to travel to 200+ different trades every week/day as the same influence as sitting at one trader which would give access to not only the guild stores but also the non guild folks who don’t have a store or who trade outside of this.

Other than Diablo 3’s previous RMaH and Global AH, no other game has offered its entire player base on one platform one auction house.....and when it was attempted all of those resulted in thousands of the same listings with astronomically high prices where items just sit and get relished for weeks causing those who want to sale the only option to list so low their items are purchased only for resale.

See I think there are different motives at play.
1. Those who want to play AH
2. Those who are anti guild stores
3. Those who just want this game to become the other game they left due to whatever reasons.


Not one argument has presented any benefits to having a global AH cause there aren’t any vs what we have.

Sure some may not like one or a few parts of our current system but the system works. The system has flaws but it works and just as a result of Adam, Sue and Marry who found a way to annoy trader bidding and Larry and Moe found ways to offset Guild X and Ys items doesn’t give reason to go to an antiquated model.

Those server auction houses were a model for games with much lesser population per auction house.

No one wants a store that literally has 5-20,000 pages per category but that’s what you all are asking for. Essentially your proposing to create a monopoly as a result of your suggestions that you want an global AH because a monopoly exists now. Also you say it’s not an open market.

It’s wide open for those who choose to participate. I’ve yet to see or interact with any guild who doesn’t allow someone to join who wants to buy and sale to help the guild attract buyers and more members to hold down trader spots.

It’s really just an unwillingness to be open to a new games system. That’s all it boils down to as nothing you’ve wrote is even accurate if you actually played this and a few other games over the past 10 years where you fully understood what amount of players and what market those were open to and closed off from as well as how it was segmented.

rustic_potato wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

KiraTsukasa wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

It's just ridiculous the number of hoops you have to jump through just to sell some stuff.

Exactly. And people defend this system to their dying breath thinking it's good.

No, but I it is better than what you get in open systems.

With the current system, it's basically impossible to engage in any price fixing on a meaningful level. With a centralized AH, it's trivial to stick a bot at the AH, purchase and immediately flip anything that goes under the floor.

I mean, do you particularly like the idea of having to pay 1m for BA pages? Or 15k for Tempering Alloys? Because that is where this system would go in short order. If you don't believe me, go check MMOs with unrestricted AHs, and look at the historical pricing for items in them.

TTC and MM basically created that scenario. Don’t know if you noticed, but just about everyone sells for the same prices across all guild traders. The only difference now is a lack of centralized selling locations, and the ubiquitous guild politics governing who can sell at “the good spots”.

Never realized there was a conspiracy to hold onto a few locations... oh, that's right, silly me, because there isn't.

There's no secret ESO Illuminati controlling who sells in Rawl'Kha, and who sells in Wayrest. There's just astronomical bids, and a kid with a 50 member guild, who bid 25k in Mournhold crying about how the system must be rigged on Reddit or wherever.

Amusingly, MM and TTC actually protect against what I'm describing, though. Yes, you can hunt around and snarf up stuff that got listed below market value. Believe me, I do. But it also means it's much harder to gouge people by setting a new market value way above what the current going rate was. This is something that can, and does, happen in games with centralized AHs. If you're picking up Aetherial Dust for 60k and reselling it for 75k, that's what the market will sustain. However, you don't see people standing in one place, hoovering up all of the Aetherial Dust on the market, and relisting it for 150k each. Which you can, and will, see with centralized AH.

Right now there's only 519 Aetherial Dust for sale on PCNA in public traders. That's a small enough market to start seriously manipulating the prices with less than ten million in the bank, if you had unlimited access to one centralized trader.

I'm one of those who manipulates the market price for items for my profit. The current system also enables you to do it. Manipulating MM and TTC is actually pretty easy. When we start working on inflating an item it takes about 1-2 months before we can see results but it is not that difficult to do. Just requires a coordinated group. I guess with an AH I can do the entire process by just myself.

...awkward...

@srfrogg23

Not at all did you read by comment and theirs?
They just proved exactly what points I was making.

The current system can’t be manipulated as easy as a global AH (summarized ) so your idea to force a global AH makes it so that person and their team can all do it independently and easier having a much greater and worse impact which is why the current system is much better even with its flaws.

Manipulation is manipulation. The number of people involved is irrelevant. Having a system that is immune to players is a pipe dream. Players will always find a way to profit, it’s only natural.

That being said, you’ve got the same end result with ESO, just wrapped up in an obnoxiously convoluted package that adds all sorts of caveats to selling. I appreciate your strict belief that this system is somehow different for good reasons, but wanting it to be so, doesn’t make it true.

Also, the markets in other MMOs are not as easily manipulated as people would have you believe. As I said in a previous post, people can come in and buy up all the stuff I put out and try to re-list at a higher price, then someone else comes in and undercuts their efforts (usually me). So this idea that there is a zero-sum game with global AH’s is just ignoring reality. Manipulating those systems is not nearly as easy as the strawman argument against it suggests.

Market manipulation of ESO guild stores are not as easy as people assume it to be. First and foremost it requires a very large capital to even attempt doing it. Second the right items should be identified and the item should be in constant demand. It is a lot of time and gold invested in what may end up giving you nothing in the end. It typically takes months to start seeing profits. TTC has made the background work a lot easier. There is a reason alchemy mats prices increased more than 2X its price in just a period of 5 weeks on the PCNA server.

Of course whenever something drastic happens the devs usually intervene and tone it down a bit. Like the potency runes offered by NPC vendors and hakeijo and alch mats avaialable for telvar are a few outright examples.

I’m sure it’s not like flipping a light switch. It’s never that easy. I was only pointing out that it happens, even with the guild traders.

The big argument against a global AH is that someone will manipulate the economy, which is true, people will try. But, that’s just the nature of gamers. We try to make the systems work to our advantage. Nothing wrong with that. It’s a game.

My point is this: having a system like the guild traders does not prevent that. So, you get the same problem along with a whole slew of other issues and annoyances.

It’s also not as easy to manipulate a global AH, as people want claim on these forums. It’s a free-for-all system with zero barriers to entry. Even when someone attempts to buy all of a certain item and re-list it at a higher price, they still have to contend with the influx of new items being posted that undercut theirs from everyone else. Hell, it’s actually easier to get burned using that strategy with a GAH, imo, because there is no barrier to entry. And, the prices are much more transparent, just look in the AH (no need for 3rd party programs). Much harder to profit while attempting to manipulate it.

I said i was exiting but gosh.....

I understand what people are writing but maybe it’s the word choice they are using, which is wrong.

It’s literally not the same or similar behaviors and the effects of those behaviors but I comprehend its suggested that the behavior of players trying to manipulate is the same or similar but that’s not true.

The intent perhaps is similar but the actual behaviors are very different as well as how those behaviors effect each model differently.

So, you’re saying that I can’t look up an item I want to sell on TTC, see how much people are selling it for, and then undercut that price?

I’m pretty sure I can do that, and that’s exactly how a global AH works. I just don’t need to use a 3rd party program to look up that information since it’s all consolidated to an in game interface.

And, if I was so inclined, I could use TTC to see which guild traders are selling the items, fast travel to those locations, buy the items and then re-list them for a higher price. It’s called playing the auction house - apparently such a scary idea on the ESO forums, yet so normal in other games, that people here want to pretend it doesn’t happen...

No I didn’t say any of that at all. What I keep saying is that is not the same or similar to what you’re asserting is.

I think you’re stuck on your point of view and seemingly unable to consider what I’m writing which is that similar intentions within two absolutely different systems isn’t the same nor are the impacts and effects the same.

That’s exactly what I’m saying.