i don't understand why would they do that? If a "dummy" guild exists, I'm presuming its not an actual used trader so that would only increase the price of the other trading spots, thereby costing guilds even more to bid on a kiosk.

Can you provide some more information?

A dummy guild would have to have the gold to bid on a spot, right? Why would they do that if they have no intention of selling anything? It's just gold down the drain. I guess some people have lots and lots of gold with nothing better to do with it. Just to screw guilds over and increase prices?

Switch to PC. Problem solved.

So, how easy is it to find 50 players, or even 50 accounts, to make a guild that has a store that can then bid on a kiosk? How long does it take to log to all 50 of those accounts to join a fake guild? Once they do bid on a kiosk in a prime location, where do they get the gold to make the bid? If they are doing this so a "friend" can then get kiosk, why doesn't the friend just bid themselves? Do they pay less than the original bidder? If so, how does the original bidder maintain the funds to do this?

Just curious, because I don't see how the economics or logistics of this work out. This is a money loosing situation no matter how you look at it, so how sustainable is it?

The simple and easy solution, if this is really a chronic and widespread thing, is to just leave a kiosk unpopulated if a guild disbands just after winning the bid. Something tells me it's not due to the amount of time it takes to make these guilds each week, and the risk of losing the gold during the process, not to mention the losses from the spread needed to make this even palatable to another guild.

Then again, I have seen large groups doing dumb things in a game before that is not to their benefit.

Or, just go do your shopping in another non prime city. If you vote with your wallet, this behavior that you described would stop in a week.

The dummy guilds could each go and bid on a location in a top area. If one of them wins, they disband and the slot opens up, allowing them to sell it to the highest bidder, ideally recouping their costs. They can use it to profit or guarantee their primary guild gets a spot by essentially multiplying the number of bids they get any given week.

The simple solution is to change the way disbanding affects guild traders and keep that trader locked down for the current week even if the guild disappears. That removes most of the incentive to do it outside of trolling, which would get expensive without a way to recover your costs.

@Grabmoore This issue exists on PC as well, if it is the same practise that I am thinking of.

@Jayne_Doe The purpose of this manuver is to cut the competition off from the market to deny them the profits necessary to buy the trader in the next week. If a top tier trading guild doesn't have a trader three weeks in a row, its best traders will start looking for other trading guilds unless they are loyal.

Well Nestor apparently its pretty easy - because someone is in fact making at least 6 dummy guilds every week to do this and as badmojo and redspectre said this is not losing them gold at all.


The solution to me is simple - you can't disband the guild while it holds a trader? Any reason why this could not be put in place?

No, the easy and best solution is to keep the gold of the guild that disbands after winning a kiosk.

I mean, the guild does not exist, right? So, no one to send the gold too.

It would stop this practice cold.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Nestor I think that would help but it wouldn't stop the practice of dummy guilds because its being able to disband straight after that allows them to put the desired guild in that spot.

the easy way to stop this is to create a global auction house with access ports, like the banker, at most cities. (with a search function for crying out loud).

boom. problem solved.

k_hartley4349b16_ESO wrote: »

Ok whether we like the current system or not its the one we have so lets try to find a solution within the current system.

well that's my point man, there is not fix with the current system. Perhaps this trader location thing was perfect for ESO when it launched 4 years ago but now it's time to move to a global auction house.

So long as guilds have to bid on a trader weekly, there will be practices that attempt to undermine the system for ones benefit. Especially when there are only 4-5 large trading guilds that have sister-guilds that populate the largest cities.

boom they just aren't going to do it - so we have to find a fix to this situation. Not refunding the bid on disbanded guilds will help but won't stop the practice imo.

However if you could get refund from dummy guild I would expect this to be way more common on PC-EU.
Its not against the rules as in you can not be banned for it and ZOS could easy stop it by not refunding.

Bidding would change to who had most gold, not who who could afford the highest rent.

We need a solution to this because more guilds are getting involved in this method of gaining a town trader and while its not against the rules I doubt this is what Zenimax intended or wants people in the game to be doing with guilds.

Would it be wrong to suggest hunting down the offenders and breaking their arms? I'm only asking, I wouldn't actually suggest this, just mentioning it.