Your views toward Trading Guild Monopolies

Carbonised · November 2018

kind_hero wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

The amount of item flippers and resellers on PC EU is more than enough to ensure that every "good deal" is gone from a trader within 10 minutes or less of being listed there, and shortly thereafter being relisted in one of the Craglorn guilds for 10x the original price.

I wondered many times how come certain items sold very quickly, or were sold in minutes after being listed on the TTC site. How does this happen? How can certain people be so aware of what is being listed?

Some people check on TTC, and a lot of flippers just routinely go through an amount of traders and sweep everything off of them that they can resell in Craglorn.

mxxo · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

kind_hero wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

The amount of item flippers and resellers on PC EU is more than enough to ensure that every "good deal" is gone from a trader within 10 minutes or less of being listed there, and shortly thereafter being relisted in one of the Craglorn guilds for 10x the original price.

I wondered many times how come certain items sold very quickly, or were sold in minutes after being listed on the TTC site. How does this happen? How can certain people be so aware of what is being listed?

Some people check on TTC, and a lot of flippers just routinely go through an amount of traders and sweep everything off of them that they can resell in Craglorn.

That´s the reason why i only to go craglorn if there is really no other choice.

Cously · November 2018

I like global auction houses for convenience. However if on one hand this localized trade system robbed players of always being able to sell stuff (without having to join a guild), on the other hand it created a new level of socialization for guilds. Raffles, auctions, donations, etc. Such thing is very good for a MMO.

Mettaricana · November 2018

We just go through a huge 25k member facebook page to buy and sell our junk for half the price the trades as

Jaraal · November 2018

kind_hero wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

The amount of item flippers and resellers on PC EU is more than enough to ensure that every "good deal" is gone from a trader within 10 minutes or less of being listed there, and shortly thereafter being relisted in one of the Craglorn guilds for 10x the original price.

I wondered many times how come certain items sold very quickly, or were sold in minutes after being listed on the TTC site. How does this happen? How can certain people be so aware of what is being listed?

I would imagine there are people who spend all day on the PC refreshing target searches in several windows, looking for bargains. Personally, I look for items I need once every couple days, because I have more important things to do than play the ESO stock market.

However, I will relate one experience I had that can show you how this works.

I had been looking on TTC for the rare Ayleid Brazier, Fiery diagram, because my personal grind for this plan had been unsuccessful. Checking once or twice a day for weeks, none had been for sale. Finally, one night, about 1 am, I looked again, and someone had just put one up for sale minutes earlier for 30k in a remote, single trader location in a low traffic zone. So I ran my character to the wayshrine and ported over there, excited to not only see one actually for sale, but at a bargain price. I had to check my map to see where this trader was actually located, as I had never even been in this area before. Once I finally located the spot, I discovered SIX other characters browsing this trader. And of course, the diagram was long gone. I brought up the TTC search window again shortly thereafter, refreshed it, and surprise, surprise.... there was now an Ayleid Brazier, Fiery diagram for sale on a Rawl'kha trader for 2 million gold. And the best part? I refreshed the search again an hour later, and it was sold. Haven't seen another one since.

swippy · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

swippy wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

swippy wrote: »

well that's just not true at all. the guy who owns your corner store doesn't need 10,000 candy bars for himself this month. he bought them from a warehouse for 60 cents each so he can "flip" them to walk-in customers for 89 cents. that Target store out in the suburbs didn't commission a batch of Wrangler jeans; those were bought wholesale so they can be flipped for a profit. this has been going on for centuries, so there's no way it collapses economic systems in an instant.

No no no. That's not flipping, all the examples you posted they provide a value added service.

right, just like the guy who found the blueprint for sale in the middle of nowhere and brought it to Mournhold where more buyers will browse it.

In the real world, bringing physical goods from remote spot A to spot B where people have more convenient access to it, as well as paying for the physical storage of the items and everything else associated with a store business, is indeed a service, which is why the merchant charges for it.

Your comparison with ESO, however, is bull, and I'm sure you know it. You're comparing going online, then visiting an online store with a limited edition expensive item of a single copy, buying it, then immediately putting it up on another online store for twice or thrice the original price. That's not providing any form of service, it's simply trying to fill my own wallet as much as possible, at the cost of someone else.

Funnily, these days we see a lot of lost business in the physical stores, with many old store brands having to shut down. Why? Their service is no longer needed, when you can go online to Amazon and buy everything the store sells, and get it delivered to your door, whish is why Amazon is expanding at an explosive rate these days, while other stores have to shut down.
So when the store provided a valuable service for the customer, such as convenience for physical goods, they could charge their customers for it, but when that service is no longer needed, since the alternative is just as convenient, or may even more so, the store loses business and will have to close down (or provide another service that Amazon doesn't).

Flipping an item from Riften to Mournhold isn't a service, when I can simply go to TTC and see the stock of every trader in the game. And it certainly in no way in heck is a "service" worth 10 x the price of the original item.
What would you say if you walked into your every day store, to see that the price of candy bars had gone up from $3 to $30 overnight, due to the "service" of the store owner having brought it from the warehouse to his store. Oh, and btw, none of the other stores in the city, or any other city in your country, is selling candy bars.
That's the kind of example you should have made, if you wanted an apt comparison.

we disagree. it's rude of you to assert that i'm being disingenuous, but maybe i was rude first? if so, i apologize. (it's tough to bounce around to all the different posts on a tablet.)

i thought it was established earlier that most flipping done is for around 5-10% differences, but you're talking again about doubling and tripling or even increasing by an order of magnitude the original price. okay, let's go with it:

first of all, TTC isn't part of the game. it's absolutely unreliable on the server where i play, even if i bothered to access it. it probably does affect one-third of the economies in this game, but that's a minority and not universal at all, so i don't see it as a valid point when talking about how these economies are designed to run.

i still consider it a valuable service to bring an item someone's looking for from an inconvenient backwoods trader to a major city where it's easier to shop around. since real-life examples are so fun, we'll do another one (hoping we can refrain from passing judgment on my deplorable health habits): i usually buy my cigarettes at a reservation. i stock up. but sometimes on the way to work i realize i'm low, and i stop at a city store to grab some for four times the price. i appreciate having both options. one saves me money, one saves me time. both are valuable, depending on which resource i'm valuing more highly at the moment.

and now we'll play with your candy bar adjustment: if i were to walk in and see candy bars for $30 and then find out that nobody else had candy bars, i would genuinely admire the ingenuity of that market manipulation. they'd be charging a premium for rarity, and i'd simply decide i'll be fine without a candy bar. lots of other people would do the same. now that store owner is losing money buying up all the candy bars if he insists on a price noone will pay. the thing you're ignoring is, that situation won't last long. somebody's gonna figure out how to make their own candy bars, and then realize they can make a killing selling them at only $20 each. between these 2 forces, the prices will eventually settle back down to a fair market value. it just might not happen in one day, which is also fine. they even have a term for that, "bubbles".

i also think that an experienced trader is fair to claim compensation for keeping track of the pricings on so many different items. that requires effort, and if the seller only wants less than average market value for a quicker sale they should be free to make that decision, just as the buyer should be free to re-list it.

so i think i figured out where we disagree: i believe that price-gouging is only morally wrong when dealing in necessities. nobody actually needs candy bars or Aetherial Dust, and anyone who doesn't feel right without that motif page is free to farm it themselves.

this is why i'm comfortable with free markets in videogames, is because nobody's really gonna die from it. the economics are interesting, and it's just a sandbox. obviously any runaway patterns are worth fixing in order to preserve the fun of the sandbox, and i don't think the concerns raised in this thread meet that standard.

[if a disclaimer's necessary, i remember flipping one item ever, and i'm not yet a millionaire. i don't want anyone to think i'm defending my personal "way of life" or anything. this is entertainment, to apply intellectual ideals to a game and learn what i can from it.]

kargen27 · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

People shouldn't complain about a gap in results when they are unwilling to put in the time to reach the same level. It is akin to complaining that some players can run vMA in forty minutes when it takes others several hours spanning a couple of days.

I make millions every week in my 5 trade guilds, 2 of them being the top 2 trade guilds on my server, and the 3 others being affiliate guilds.
Difference is, I don't flip items or resell, I sell surplus mats and items, and items I have crafted myself.

This was never a question of "time put in" or "expertise" or even envy. Some make their business through honest means and everyone else can easily compete with them by selling the same stuff in the free market if they wish, some make their business flipping high-end expensive items, and have the means to buy up all the competing sales and effectively create a monopoly.

If you can't see that then I guess the point went over your head.

There's a reason why every modern state has strict laws regarding monopoly, and why it is regulated in order to promote even competition. There's a reason why Apple, Amazon and Google have all been scrutinized heavily by the EU commission and even issues multimillion fines due to unfair advantages towards their competitors.

A monopoly does not benefit the customer, it does not benefit the competitors, the monopoly only benefits one with the monopoly.

I see perfectly what you are saying. You are claiming a monopoly exists. I am telling you with there being over 200 guild trader spots in the game a monopoly can not exist. Sure there are players that flip items in the game. I know at least two people that do that almost exclusively. They are not members of any cartel of trade guilds. They are simply players that enjoy hunting for bargains then flipping them.

And what makes you think flipping items isn't an honest means of making gold? Are they in some way forcing people to list their items at bargain prices? Are they somehow forcing people to buy items at extremely high prices?

Nobody has the time to monitor every trade location in the game all day every day. Even with data bases and add-ons they simply can't do it. They may have the gold to control the market but they lack the time and other resources involved. The closest players come to a monopoly is when they get on the Public Test Server and discover an update coming will increase the value of some item. They then try and grab up that item before the change goes live so they can take full advantage. Doing this they have at best a week to take advantage of high prices. Even then they do not have a monopoly as a lot of players adopt this strategy. Others spend time in the PTS learning where new rare items drop and how best to farm those rare items. They then rush when update goes live to put their knowledge to good use and provide those items to the market first. Point is they put the time in to make gold. They do not have a monopoly.

This of course is a two way street. You also need buyers for these strategies to work. There are players in the game for instance that want the new furniture recipes as soon as they drop. They are willing to pay high prices to get those recipes as quick as possible. There are players that are willing to do the grind for those recipes then put them up for sale. All involved are happy. The casual player isn't going to be able to afford those recipes in the early stages after release but that doesn't mean there is a monopoly. And as anything found in the guild store can be found elsewhere in the game players can decide if the gold something costs makes up for the time they would have to spend getting it themselves.

Yes there are players that flip items in the game but they do not nor have they ever had a monopoly. You yourself admit the ability to make millions in a very short time just selling more common items. Any person in the game can do that same thing meaning any person in the game can compete with the flippers when it comes to buying the rare items.

No you don't see a thing of what I'm writing, or purposely choose to misunderstand.

200 traders is completely irrelevant. First of all, 20 of those traders are viable, the rest are trash due to location. Secondly, if I own all the 5 Aetherial Ciphers on my server at any given moment, the amount of trader locations isn't even remotely associated or connected to my monopoly. Do you even know what a monopoly is? When I own all the copies of a rare and expensive item, I get to choose the price. Someone relists another copy at a lower price? I buy it and relist it at my price. I create an artificially inflated price, de facto control the price, and have no competitors. That's what monopoly and price fixing is, it has nothing to do with the amount of traders available.

And no I don't need to monitor every trader. I can check TTC now and then for any other listing of my expensive item, and simnply buy up the ones that I find.

As for me making gold, no I don't sell "common items", if I did that, I'd have to be a bot or have ESO as a full time farming job to make that amount of gold. Any person can't do that, btw. considering that I have poured a considerable amount of time, effort and gold into becoming a master crafter with all motifs and 99.9 % of all furniture recipes.
I provide a service, I craft items that people want, that they cannot make themselves, and I sell them in an open market, competing with everyone else who sell the same items. If someone comes along with the same kind of expertise, they're free to get into that market and compete with the rest of us (which often happens, btw). That's not monopoly, that's an open market where the supply/demand and other rules of economy establish the prices.

And yes, compared to that, price fixing, creating inflated prices and establishing monopolies of certain rare and expensive items is nothing but leeching on someone else's efforts. You're not making or creating items, you're not refining or transforming items, and you're not providing a service for neither the original seller nor the potential buyer. You're simply creating inflated prices, controlling the market value of certain items, de facto establishing a monopoly, and thereby only fattening your own wallet.

I see exactly what you are saying and what you are trying to do. All traders are viable. The only thing preventing an out of the way trader from thriving is player attitudes. That and the turn over rate is usually quicker. When a guild gets a trader for the first time they are not going to have a great amount of items to choose from. If they can keep it for a few weeks inventory will build up, players will notice and will start checking more often.

Aetheric Ciphers might be the rarest drops in the entire game. That you have to go to the absolute extreme shows you know your argument has no merit. Sure if you have all five you can set the price but you go to high and players can decide to farm the item for themselves. To really take advantage of owning all the Aetheric Ciphers you would need to also control the Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia Recipes that are on the market and to take full advantage you need to grab all the Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia as well. So while you have a monopoly on the item for a time you still have to price according to other criteria. First being other than a few completionist types the Aetheric Ciphers are not really sought. More important though the final product while still rare is much more common and that has to be figured into your price. Throw in you must also monitor over 200 traders to be sure another isn't offered up taking away a rare customer that even wants the thing.

And yes any person in the game can become a master crafter. Really it takes nothing but time. Motifs take more effort or gold but still something any player willing to put in the time can do. As an aside most my gold comes from selling motifs and furniture recipes. Common items are items that are readily available in the game. Most crafted items would fall into the common category. Doesn't mean they are cheap just that you can find (or craft for yourself) the item with little effort.

If you buy an item another player has listed it doesn't matter what you intend to do with that item the transaction is the same. The seller got what he wanted. If you then list that item and another player buys is you are doing them a service. You are placing that item in a location they will visit and are listing it at a price they are willing to pay. I know a lot of players in this game that would rather spend gold than spend any time at all looking for items or comparing prices of those items. Players that keep the central hubs stocked with rare items absolutely preform a service for players that are not inclined to go out and about looking for those items. The player buying the item doesn't care if you went out and farmed the item yourself or if I bought it at a trader and relisted it. They don't care where it came from. If it is a price they want to pay they are happy to see it without having to shop around.

You are right though, people who enjoy trading in the game are looking to make a profit. Would be silly of them not to. Would be like going through a trial but quitting when you get to the last boss. Then charging more for items located in a heavily populated area isn't creating a monopoly. With the exception of some really rare drops at some extremely specific times they don't even have much influence on the overall market price. The 200+ traders simply doesn't allow for it.

Mintaka5 · November 2018

I hate them. They have a stranglehold on the game's economy. Have you seen the guild houses of some of these top-tier trading guilds? They are fully stocked, whereas the rest of us grind for months just to land a single atunnable station.

GIVE US A PUBLIC MARKET! Every other MMO I play has it.

Carbonised · November 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

Aetheric Ciphers might be the rarest drops in the entire game. That you have to go to the absolute extreme shows you know your argument has no merit.

Aetheric Ciphers are far from the rarest items in the game. That you fail to realise this, shows how little you know of the economy in this game, and I'll not pay more attention to your posts about this.

Starlock · November 2018

I avoid buying from the corporate guilds as much as I can, honestly. It's my way of giving them the finger.

SteveCampsOut · November 2018

The solution is to implement Guild Houses with Traders located at the door. You go to any house and the trader will give you a list of the guild's who own that home to choose from. You chose the guild you want to buy from the list and it will show you their wares. Not an Auction house and no more bidding on traders. These guild houses cam be very expensive, but mega trade alliances will be able to afford them and they will be able to abandon trader bidding to those guilds who can't afford the guild houses.

DBZVelena · November 2018

right now there is a limit on locations for trading. there are only so many npc's.
If every trading hub had 1 npc that all guilds could get at a default price. then the monopoly the big guilds have on those locations suddenly goes away.
UI wise, if you talked to that npc it would say something like "I represent an alliance of sort of trading corporations. " Followed by a list of click-able guild names.
As a player, you'd click the guild name and the rest of the UI would behave as other trade npcs from there on.

This way small and medium trading guilds would have a chance to trade without needing to demand donations or do raffles ect.
On top more trading in the same location means less trading for those who buy and then sell for more.
And the really huge guilds would not have a monopoly any more. just a "premium" location. Which would still be interesting because some players are lazy and rich.

kargen27 · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Aetheric Ciphers might be the rarest drops in the entire game. That you have to go to the absolute extreme shows you know your argument has no merit.

Aetheric Ciphers are far from the rarest items in the game. That you fail to realise this, shows how little you know of the economy in this game, and I'll not pay more attention to your posts about this.

Like I said, you know your argument has no merit. Whether they are the rarest drop in the game or not doesn't change the fact that there is no monopoly on them nor any other item in the game that lasts for more than a day or two at most. Your own admission that you do not make your gold from common items and that others can and do compete with you says all we need to know. There is not a monopoly nor an oligopoly in ESO.

Feric51 · November 2018

I want to add my two cents from the viewpoint of someone who is Co-GM of a small, social guild that some weeks has a trader and most weeks does not. Our guild has around 170-200 members at any one time, and probably half of those are inactive if we truly looked into it, but my point is this: Myself and the other guild leader do the minimal amount of effort to recruit and "rally the troops" to get a trader. We generally use our own money just to see if it the bid goes through. We don't charge dues, and we're fine with that.

My other four guilds are all part of a large, multi-branched conglomerate of tradings-specific guilds and the four locations I picked were Mournhold, Belkarth, Wayrest and Alinor. I paid millions of gold to become a permanent member and the volume of sales has been a tremendous increase from when I had traders in outlier locations, so it has been worth it to me.

The overall point I'm trying to make revolves around the amount of effort the GMs and the mass of underlings put forth each week to maintain these trader locations and ensure the success of the guilds. They use non-ESO avenues to keep communication up (BAND App, among others) they spend hours and hours of their own time each day devoted solely to the betterment of the guild, and probably spent hundreds of their own real-life money to outfit guild houses with Mundus Stones and other items back before you could buy/sell crowns for in-game gold.

Bottom line - I think a lot of people drastically underestimate the amount of time it takes to maintain these "monopolies" and it's not like it's just super simple.

JumpmanLane · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

Since the current guild trading system is completely dependant on winning the bid for the trader in the popular areas, the gap between casual and elite/hardcore trading guilds will necessarily become larger and larger.

But the real monopoly is created through item flippers, who vaccum all the other traders clean of specific high-end expensive items, and resell them in their traders for a huge profit, essentially creating a monopoly and earning large sums by doing very little work themselves. All it takes is the starting gold to ensure the monopoly.
There's no way to break this monopoly, if you list something at a more reasonable price, it gets sucked up by the vacuum cleaners and relisted 5 minutes after at the inflated price.

That's why prices are spinning out of control for the most expensive items, which continue to rise in price even though they're already in the millions. Of course, Master Merchant addon and Tamriel Trade Center website makes flipping items and reselling them a million times easier (PC) than it would have been without these addons (console).
Not sure what the appropriate solution is, and knowing ZOS they don't give a hoot anyway, but flipping items and reselling aided by MM and TTC is surely ruining the entire trading business on the PC server, while funneling more profit - and more taxes - through the established top 5 guilds.

What you describe is not a monopoly as the large traders don’t control prices of items for sale in their traders. “Flipping” as you call it is arbitrage (which is a legitimate way of making money in markets).

The guild system is one of the few things that works in ESO. Seems like you’re after some sort of free lunch (OP) as in “I want to start some lil guild and INSTANTLY be able to compete against established trading guilds...even though I’m new and broke.”

JumpmanLane · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

That's why prices are spinning out of control for the most expensive items, which continue to rise in price even though they're already in the millions. Of course, Master Merchant addon and Tamriel Trade Center website makes flipping items and reselling them a million times easier (PC) than it would have been without these addons (console).
Not sure what the appropriate solution is, and knowing ZOS they don't give a hoot anyway, but flipping items and reselling aided by MM and TTC is surely ruining the entire trading business on the PC server, while funneling more profit - and more taxes - through the established top 5 guilds.

You can do flipping but the reason some items is so expensive is as you say its lots of players with insane amounts of gold.
Then they start competing for rare items price will skyrocket.

Flipping is also a part of it. Someone might get lucky and find a rare item and list it at a price at a trader. Now, I don't mind if someone else gets there and buys it, then he got a good deal. But you can reast assured that it will be snatched up by someone else within minutes and resold in Craglorn or one of the other hot spots, for some easy profit. Which essentially eradicates the possibility for anyone to get a good deal, since everything will be flipped until it reaches the maximum price. It also doesn't benefit the original seller, as the additional profit is "stolen" by the flipper.

Case in point, yesterday one of the very rare purple Dwarven recipes was listed at a trader for 50k, it was snatched up within minutes and resold for 2m+ at a top trader. Of course, MM and TTC only makes this process much more easy for the reseller.

Well, someone got there and bought it, so he got a good deal. It's not really relevant what he does with it next. Of course people will hunt for good deals. And in your example even a moderately involved player would've noticed how underpriced that recipe was. You do not have to be a dedicated flipper to put 2 and 2 together. A deal like that would've been gone in 10 minutes anyway.

And how do you think they get all those deals within minutes? Those guys dedicate time to run around all the traders looking for cheap items. There is nothing unfair and anyone can do it.

And no profit is stolen. Original seller listed the item for the price he wanted for it. He had all the power to list it for 2 millions too.

typos

Flipping creates a false demand. If the people who actually needed the items bought them, th eprices would be lower. If everyone who's looking for easy profits buy them, the prices go up. Can't believe I have explain economics 101.
This example was just the most recent one, it happens on a much more regular basis, especially with rare motifs and furniture recipes.

If your logic was applied to the real world, the economy systems would collapse in an instant. I already hinted at the trading and monopoly regulations in the EU, and they are there in the US and the WTO as well.
There's no reason to think that unhealthy economic phenomenon are no less unhealthy in a virtual economy like this one.

What you call flipping is actually arbitrage, a very legitimate, real world practice which goes on everyday. Finding pricing “discrepancies” between markets and capitalizing off those discrepancies is legitimate.

In a free market, prices are not ONLY determined by supply and demand; but by many things, (convenience, for example). What a person ultimately pays for a VALUE is determined by what a person is WILLING to trade his gold (or value) for EQUITABLY in his own mind. That is to say, is the item WORTH it TO ME.

Monopolies fail in truly free markets because the prices are to high and no one wishes to pay. So, the prices drop. What most most people are WILLING to pay for a given value is the ACTUAL price of that value in a free trade.

Finding a value sold cheaper in one market and selling it for more (or it’s actual price) is not ONLY legitimate, it is the way of free markets and done ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

If you want to get rich, champion champion capitalism in its purest form.

Haquor · November 2018

ArchMikem wrote: »

As I've come to notice, there are Guilds that manage to hold a recurring presence in multiple Hubs simultaneously, using multiple sub Guilds. On Xbox NA, Lunacy, Old Man Meta, and Sauce are some big players. When a guild such as those become Company sized organizations they create sub divisions under the same main branch, different names, same Guild, more income from sales. Having several Traders at once creates a Monopoly on the Player market as more and more players will see your Guild name and associate a level of "professionalism" with it, thus whenever they desire an item, they'll think about your Trader first. This can ultimately hurt other smaller Guilds as they won't even be considered since their name is unfamiliar, regardless of what's being listed or not. This leads to players deciding its best just to join them, rather than try to compete.

Correct.

I want to sell stuff. If a guild repeatedly has a trader located at a main hub or city with high player traffic then yes i want to join. Its not productive to me to be part of a guild that loses its trader every week or is only selling to other guild members die to no player traffic in vicinity of the trader.

I dont know what you are asking to happen or how any change could be fairly regulated.

The only thing that can be done is trader resets. And unfortunately the guilds more successful at raising gold will always secure the best locations. Smaller guilds with less gold to invest in a trader will earn less as a result.

What do you suggest shiuld happen? Redistrubute wealth?

SirAndy · November 2018

ArchMikem wrote: »

more income from sales

You would have to move billions in sales to make decent money as a guild, the house cut is tiny ...

victory.immortalb16_ESO · November 2018

Personally I find the trading guilds system as a very casual player completely frustrating.

I don't want to spend all my time travelling all over the place checking several dozen pitches to try and locate an item at a sensible price. For me, it's not a good use of my limited playing time.

Much prefer either of two options: favourite is a world-wide trading post where anyone can list items to buy and sell. makes finding things easy. Second best, one trading area where anyone can pitch a tent and start selling/buying. Still annoying to check every tent but at least it's all in one place and you can soon learn the over pricers.

The current system is designed to take money from smaller player groups and guilds and casuals and put it in the hands of the major trading guilds, which is fundamentally flawed.

Problem is, it's now way too late to fix it and we're stuck with it- which probably explains why I don't play that often and will soon cancel my ESO plus.

Jhalin · November 2018

victory.immortalb16_ESO wrote: »

The current system is designed to take money from smaller player groups and guilds and casuals and put it in the hands of the major trading guilds, which is fundamentally flawed.

You can literally go in brand spanking new and join a major trade guild. On the list of unleveled items you can sell for good amounts are:
1) raw materials - always in demand from crafters after upgrade mats, and very easy to grab a lot of at the very start
2) motifs - granted, primarily from DLC dailies but very very easy and typically move quick
3) furnishing plans - harder to farm, but no setup required
3) Potent Nirn - no fighting of mobs required
4) raw fish - for the same reason as raw mats
5) Runebox pieces
6) alchemy mats - widely available for cheap in the Imperial city satchels

There’s no money being taken from smaller guilds. They listed their price and they got what they asked. They make less due to being in less convenient spots and typically, because the listing in the store are minimal or poor. I’ll stop by random traders while I’m running around leveling an alt, and 75% of the time they have either nothing for sale, or a mess of <cp160 junk that people don’t want. I try to grab motifs as I go, and I don’t really need the best deal, but if there’s nothing there, I can’t buy anything

EllieBlue · November 2018

We have some casual guildies. When they have something to sell, they will mail me asking for an invite. They sell their stuff very fast. They say, thank you but I don't have anything to sell anymore right now. I don't want to take up the spot that someone else can utilise better so I will leave. I will ask for an invite again when I have more to sell. Cheers! And off they go. In a month time, I get another mail asking for re-invite. I owe them nothing and they owe me nothing. We both have served our purpose. I provided him with a good place to sell his wares and he provided me with sales and a tiny bit of sales tax (3.5%). I do think this is a good compromise for casual players/sellers.

spartaxoxo · November 2018

ArchMikem wrote: »

As I've come to notice, there are Guilds that manage to hold a recurring presence in multiple Hubs simultaneously, using multiple sub Guilds. On Xbox NA, Lunacy, Old Man Meta, and Sauce are some big players. When a guild such as those become Company sized organizations they create sub divisions under the same main branch, different names, same Guild, more income from sales. Having several Traders at once creates a Monopoly on the Player market as more and more players will see your Guild name and associate a level of "professionalism" with it, thus whenever they desire an item, they'll think about your Trader first. This can ultimately hurt other smaller Guilds as they won't even be considered since their name is unfamiliar, regardless of what's being listed or not. This leads to players deciding its best just to join them, rather than try to compete.

I don't care because I don't believe most people actually do pay all that much attention to the guild names. I think most just go to the big cities and that's about it. And most people don't care enough to try to make competition, because it would take too much work and coin is fairly easy to come by.

It isn't like RL.

But I'm on console, it happens less and there are more competitive trading spots.

Mr_Walker · November 2018

JumpmanLane wrote: »

What you call flipping is actually arbitrage, a very legitimate, real world practice which goes on everyday. Finding pricing “discrepancies” between markets and capitalizing off those discrepancies is legitimate.

As someone who has a background as a bond trader, we shouldn't pretty it up with words like "arbitrage". It's still flipping. Don't be under any illusion.

JumpmanLane wrote: »

In a free market, prices are not ONLY determined by supply and demand; but by many things, (convenience, for example). What a person ultimately pays for a VALUE is determined by what a person is WILLING to trade his gold (or value) for EQUITABLY in his own mind. That is to say, is the item WORTH it TO ME.

Monopolies fail in truly free markets because the prices are to high and no one wishes to pay. So, the prices drop. What most most people are WILLING to pay for a given value is the ACTUAL price of that value in a free trade.

Finding a value sold cheaper in one market and selling it for more (or it’s actual price) is not ONLY legitimate, it is the way of free markets and done ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

If you want to get rich, champion champion capitalism in its purest form.

Most people misunderstand free markets and capitalism in general. Free markets inevitably move towards the oligopoly/monopoly model, as "capitalism" occurs, and that would be capitalism in its purest form, which is a system based on the accumulation of capital. Inevitably, as soon as a party can exercise a strategic/price/knowledge/manufacturing advantage over another, it will gain capital, at the expense of others. Then they either swallow them up or squeeze them out of the market.

Ultimately, the accumulation of cpaital grows to the point where that party can afford to use violence to maintain/increase that power.

That's not really an ecomnomics lesson either, more a "history of humanity".

AverageJo3Gam3r · November 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

That's why prices are spinning out of control for the most expensive items, which continue to rise in price even though they're already in the millions. Of course, Master Merchant addon and Tamriel Trade Center website makes flipping items and reselling them a million times easier (PC) than it would have been without these addons (console).
Not sure what the appropriate solution is, and knowing ZOS they don't give a hoot anyway, but flipping items and reselling aided by MM and TTC is surely ruining the entire trading business on the PC server, while funneling more profit - and more taxes - through the established top 5 guilds.

You can do flipping but the reason some items is so expensive is as you say its lots of players with insane amounts of gold.
Then they start competing for rare items price will skyrocket.

Flipping is also a part of it. Someone might get lucky and find a rare item and list it at a price at a trader. Now, I don't mind if someone else gets there and buys it, then he got a good deal. But you can reast assured that it will be snatched up by someone else within minutes and resold in Craglorn or one of the other hot spots, for some easy profit. Which essentially eradicates the possibility for anyone to get a good deal, since everything will be flipped until it reaches the maximum price. It also doesn't benefit the original seller, as the additional profit is "stolen" by the flipper.

Case in point, yesterday one of the very rare purple Dwarven recipes was listed at a trader for 50k, it was snatched up within minutes and resold for 2m+ at a top trader. Of course, MM and TTC only makes this process much more easy for the reseller.

Well, someone got there and bought it, so he got a good deal. It's not really relevant what he does with it next. Of course people will hunt for good deals. And in your example even a moderately involved player would've noticed how underpriced that recipe was. You do not have to be a dedicated flipper to put 2 and 2 together. A deal like that would've been gone in 10 minutes anyway.

And how do you think they get all those deals within minutes? Those guys dedicate time to run around all the traders looking for cheap items. There is nothing unfair and anyone can do it.

And no profit is stolen. Original seller listed the item for the price he wanted for it. He had all the power to list it for 2 millions too.

typos

Flipping creates a false demand. If the people who actually needed the items bought them, th eprices would be lower. If everyone who's looking for easy profits buy them, the prices go up. Can't believe I have explain economics 101.
This example was just the most recent one, it happens on a much more regular basis, especially with rare motifs and furniture recipes.

If your logic was applied to the real world, the economy systems would collapse in an instant. I already hinted at the trading and monopoly regulations in the EU, and they are there in the US and the WTO as well.
There's no reason to think that unhealthy economic phenomenon are no less unhealthy in a virtual economy like this one.

You can’t apply real-world economic principles to an economy where currency is infinite.

Jhalin · November 2018

It’s cant be a monopoly if everyone has exactly the same opportunity to acquire those items as anyone else

You either save time or you save money, you don’t get to have it both ways

Arkangeloski · November 2018

That is not true... the more famous the guild and the more popular the location prices tend to be crazy high either desperate or very rich people would be the only ones buying there either because the are lazy and dont want to search other guilds or don't know any better. Me personally I take my time looking on those no name guilds buy cheap and then flip it for a profit.

idk · November 2018

kargen27 wrote: »

"What I'm getting at is the fact that most guilds don't even have a slight chance of selling it to the public because while there maybe 200 trading locations, a percentage of it are being occupied by the same guilds. This business of creating a new guild, bid for a spot and then disbanding it to open up the bid for the real trading guild is, IMHO exploitive."

Yes it is exploitative but that isn't the issue here. That is a separate issue and it needs to be addressed. Quick fix would be the trader is locked to the winning bid for the week whether that guild continues to exist or not. Even with that exploit each guild only gets one trader. They use the ghost guild to bid on a secondary spot in case they fail to get their preferred spot. Either way they end up with one trader for the week.

"The word they are looking for is Oligopoly. Nitpicking over the term they use doesn't change the fact that the goods are monopolized, by multiple concerns in case of an oligopoly."

Oligopoly also does not apply. Over 200 traders does not an oligopoly make. And no one saying hubs do not exist. Obviously there are preferred locations in the game where multiple traders are near one another. Those traders do have an advantage of location. They also come at a very steep price. The out of the way places do not get the foot traffic but the cost each week makes them easily affordable to most guilds. It takes a different mind set to make tons of gold at the out of the way places. Don't stick your rare items there at market value unless you are willing to wait a while. They are a great place to stick materials and other common good at market price though as those types of items move fairly well anywhere. My rings for decon still sell near market value even in guilds that do not have a trader accessible to people outside the guild. Sales are slowing but still there.

All that said I think it would be a good idea to put another trader at each location where there is a single trader. That means more guilds get to participate and those out in the boonies traders might get more traffic.

And we really need an intuitive search inside the guild trader menu.

1. it is not an oligopoly or monopoly as there are many large trading guilds. To what OP is speaking to, there are some that have multiple guilds under their umbrella but even then they are often not in the best locations. Those that are truly strong trading guilds that may have multiple guilds that are in prime locations are far from controlling the market.

2. As for preventing guilds from using a sham guild to bid and hence ensure they have a location, your idea of locking that trader to the winning guild is not a bad idea. There may be unintended consequences that could be an issue though.

3. As for more guilds being able to participate, I am in two PvE guilds that do not push themselves or try to be a trading guild but often both have a guild trader without spending more than the minimum big. So it does not seem to be a real pinch point finding a guild trader. It is reality that no guild is or should be guaranteed to get their trader.

Wreuntzylla · November 2018

Jhalin wrote: »

It’s cant be a monopoly if everyone has exactly the same opportunity to acquire those items as anyone else

You either save time or you save money, you don’t get to have it both ways

They don't mean monopoly like the game, they mean monopoly in terms of antitrust. The long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.

idk wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

"What I'm getting at is the fact that most guilds don't even have a slight chance of selling it to the public because while there maybe 200 trading locations, a percentage of it are being occupied by the same guilds. This business of creating a new guild, bid for a spot and then disbanding it to open up the bid for the real trading guild is, IMHO exploitive."

Yes it is exploitative but that isn't the issue here. That is a separate issue and it needs to be addressed. Quick fix would be the trader is locked to the winning bid for the week whether that guild continues to exist or not. Even with that exploit each guild only gets one trader. They use the ghost guild to bid on a secondary spot in case they fail to get their preferred spot. Either way they end up with one trader for the week.

"The word they are looking for is Oligopoly. Nitpicking over the term they use doesn't change the fact that the goods are monopolized, by multiple concerns in case of an oligopoly."

Oligopoly also does not apply. Over 200 traders does not an oligopoly make. And no one saying hubs do not exist. Obviously there are preferred locations in the game where multiple traders are near one another. Those traders do have an advantage of location. They also come at a very steep price. The out of the way places do not get the foot traffic but the cost each week makes them easily affordable to most guilds. It takes a different mind set to make tons of gold at the out of the way places. Don't stick your rare items there at market value unless you are willing to wait a while. They are a great place to stick materials and other common good at market price though as those types of items move fairly well anywhere. My rings for decon still sell near market value even in guilds that do not have a trader accessible to people outside the guild. Sales are slowing but still there.

All that said I think it would be a good idea to put another trader at each location where there is a single trader. That means more guilds get to participate and those out in the boonies traders might get more traffic.

And we really need an intuitive search inside the guild trader menu.

1. it is not an oligopoly or monopoly as there are many large trading guilds. To what OP is speaking to, there are some that have multiple guilds under their umbrella but even then they are often not in the best locations. Those that are truly strong trading guilds that may have multiple guilds that are in prime locations are far from controlling the market.

2. As for preventing guilds from using a sham guild to bid and hence ensure they have a location, your idea of locking that trader to the winning guild is not a bad idea. There may be unintended consequences that could be an issue though.

3. As for more guilds being able to participate, I am in two PvE guilds that do not push themselves or try to be a trading guild but often both have a guild trader without spending more than the minimum big. So it does not seem to be a real pinch point finding a guild trader. It is reality that no guild is or should be guaranteed to get their trader.

Not so many large guilds to exceed the definition of oligopoly. In any case, it's not large guilds, it's hub guilds.

idk · November 2018

idk wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

"What I'm getting at is the fact that most guilds don't even have a slight chance of selling it to the public because while there maybe 200 trading locations, a percentage of it are being occupied by the same guilds. This business of creating a new guild, bid for a spot and then disbanding it to open up the bid for the real trading guild is, IMHO exploitive."

Yes it is exploitative but that isn't the issue here. That is a separate issue and it needs to be addressed. Quick fix would be the trader is locked to the winning bid for the week whether that guild continues to exist or not. Even with that exploit each guild only gets one trader. They use the ghost guild to bid on a secondary spot in case they fail to get their preferred spot. Either way they end up with one trader for the week.

"The word they are looking for is Oligopoly. Nitpicking over the term they use doesn't change the fact that the goods are monopolized, by multiple concerns in case of an oligopoly."

Oligopoly also does not apply. Over 200 traders does not an oligopoly make. And no one saying hubs do not exist. Obviously there are preferred locations in the game where multiple traders are near one another. Those traders do have an advantage of location. They also come at a very steep price. The out of the way places do not get the foot traffic but the cost each week makes them easily affordable to most guilds. It takes a different mind set to make tons of gold at the out of the way places. Don't stick your rare items there at market value unless you are willing to wait a while. They are a great place to stick materials and other common good at market price though as those types of items move fairly well anywhere. My rings for decon still sell near market value even in guilds that do not have a trader accessible to people outside the guild. Sales are slowing but still there.

All that said I think it would be a good idea to put another trader at each location where there is a single trader. That means more guilds get to participate and those out in the boonies traders might get more traffic.

And we really need an intuitive search inside the guild trader menu.

1. it is not an oligopoly or monopoly as there are many large trading guilds. To what OP is speaking to, there are some that have multiple guilds under their umbrella but even then they are often not in the best locations. Those that are truly strong trading guilds that may have multiple guilds that are in prime locations are far from controlling the market.

2. As for preventing guilds from using a sham guild to bid and hence ensure they have a location, your idea of locking that trader to the winning guild is not a bad idea. There may be unintended consequences that could be an issue though.

3. As for more guilds being able to participate, I am in two PvE guilds that do not push themselves or try to be a trading guild but often both have a guild trader without spending more than the minimum big. So it does not seem to be a real pinch point finding a guild trader. It is reality that no guild is or should be guaranteed to get their trader.

Not so many large guilds to exceed the definition of oligopoly. In any case, it's not large guilds, it's hub guilds. [/quote]

Regardless, they are not Oligarchs nor monopolies.

ccfeeling · November 2018

Please change to global market system , this game used to spend so much time in each area .