Hawtsauce wrote: »

As I think many people have said no AH kind gives it an "old school MMO feel" ... there is a reason that 99% of new MMOs have an AH - most players want it and it is the best option to adress the need to buy and sell items. The whole agrument "prices will skyrocket , there will be price fixing", etc is just not true - this is basic economics , supply and demand. If 1000s of players all have jute listed the price will naturally begin to drop until the demand > supply.

At the very least please give us a dedicated trade channel.

Im not gonna use a microwave to cook my meals, Im going to use the oven because it has that old school cooking feel ...

The problem is most players will be lucky if they can get materials to sell at the rate these third world farmers and the bitters work at. It just means the market gets flooded with stuff no one could afford without killing wolves in Crow's Wood for 2 hours or sucking it up and buying gold from farmers. No game with a global AH has ever successfully managed to keep a stable economy. Even EvEs fluctuates, though to be honest a level less game seems to do better in regards because gear and equipment never become obsolete.

Hawtsauce wrote: »

You may disagree but I would say that WoW , GW2 and Rift all have global AH and all have stable economies.

I haven't played WoW in many years, but back when I did it was very easy to manipulate that economy.

Location based bazaars would be an interesting addition, especially if they made resource nodes more common based on environment. Visiting the trade bazaar at of a town close to a forest might be a good way to find cheap lumber. If you were dedicated enough to stockpile and transport it the bazaar in a barren desert environment you could make some nice coin.

Convenience for performing what players believe should be simple game tasks is really a threshold matter for whether they continue to play. If you want to talk about old school MMOs, trading in EQ was 100% player to player sure, but even getting from point A to B was an activity in and of itself. People just don't tolerate that anymore.

If you're going to avoid some of these convenience elements, then you really should at least make it different enough to be interesting. You can't just throw us back to '99.

P.S. - the interface for the guild store is really bad and not as responsive as it should be.

Hawtsauce wrote: »

You may disagree but I would say that WoW , GW2 and Rift all have global AH and all have stable economies.

WoW does not have a global AH. The game is sharded. The issue here is it's a megaserver game, so the cap on the number of participants is much, much higher than in WoW. That makes for a hyper-efficient market, which means a huge amount of supply, unless drop rates and crafting rates are ratcheted severely downwards. A megaserver game can't function well with a global AH. Even EVE doesn't have one -- it has regional markets.

Hawtsauce wrote: »

The whole agrument "prices will skyrocket , there will be price fixing", etc is just not true - this is basic economics , supply and demand. If 1000s of players all have jute listed the price will naturally begin to drop until the demand > supply.

In an MMO, it does not work. Here's why.

1, Gold farmer is sitting on millions of gold, because unlike normal players, he is(actually, hundreds of bots and sweatshop workers) grinding the game 24/7.
2, 1000s of players all have jute listed at ~20 gold.
3, Gold farmer buys all that jute (he has virtually unlimited gold source) and reposts it at ~400 gold.

Nothing will naturally drop - as soon as someone posts jute for less than 400 gold, the gold farmer will buy it milliseconds later(automated program) and repost it at 400 gold.

That's with global AH. Guild stores on the other hand cannot be manipulated so easily - there is no way for the gold farmer to instantly re-buy all jute anyone posted in any of the hundreds of individual guild stores.

Kiwi wrote: »

heres a crazy idea
how about stop making demands from a company thats already said NO

try to stand on your own two feet and be self sufficient instead of relying on others for handouts and shortcuts

sounds crazy right? its not

Umm what ? What does an AH have to do with 'standing on your own 2 feet , handouts or shortcuts " ?

No it isnt, there is no reason at all for an auction house. Thats a stupid system from a game this genre is trying to move away from. WoW became a disease is this formerly brilliant type of game. It closed everyone's minds to reaching further from its clutches and clones.

There is little learn from WoW other than: how people become sheep and dont aim for anything from beyond saying "baahhh"

Gonna keep a pause to ESO untill there is a better system for more casual players to sell the exploration stuff, the inventory management is already a pain for people who want to gather alot of stuff and create things with them.

I've been in 4 trade guilds with around 2000people, only good sell place has been /zone chat and that is full of spam atm.
Also the bank/guild store UI is horrible, the constant switching between guilds and not having the possibility to search by name or even from every trade guild store at once. So the time I keep playing 60% of my time goes to space/bank management.
More freedom to casual players too.

Ziiko wrote: »

Location based bazaars would be an interesting addition, especially if they made resource nodes more common based on environment. Visiting the trade bazaar at of a town close to a forest might be a good way to find cheap lumber. If you were dedicated enough to stockpile and transport it the bazaar in a barren desert environment you could make some nice coin.

Convenience for performing what players believe should be simple game tasks is really a threshold matter for whether they continue to play. If you want to talk about old school MMOs, trading in EQ was 100% player to player sure, but even getting from point A to B was an activity in and of itself. People just don't tolerate that anymore.

If you're going to avoid some of these convenience elements, then you really should at least make it different enough to be interesting. You can't just throw us back to '99.

P.S. - the interface for the guild store is really bad and not as responsive as it should be.

I like this idea. Have some kind of community store that players can post items at, but the store in one town would only list items posted in that location. It could add a factor of travel and moving locations to find the best place to buy or sell an item, which adds a bit to the immersion. However, I think fast travel hurts it a bit, since traveling betwen locations becomes so easy.

This is a response to todays post on TESOs Facebook page concerning a forum that was created where people can advertise to buy/sell/trade their wares in game (it's basically an auction house except you gotta then contact the person that posted in game and make the trade, a good idea over all considering the sham of a trading system currently in the game)
Now I agree something like this in game is required so here's what I wrote on it, copy pasted because I wasn't arsed to edit to suit this format but you'll get the idea so don't worry.

"Gotta admit, i'm very let down by trading in this game, it's probably my least favorite aspect of it. The games economy has so much potential with the implementation of the mega servers, you've created these servers that effectively holds every single player in the EU or US and then restricted their potential buyer/seller market to whatever guilds they're in and whoever just happens to be in the same zone as them at any given time, it's such a waste.

An auction house isn't even required to fix this, something new and revolutionary could work, say for example removing member limits to guilds, that would create massive crafting/trading guilds, and only a handful of them which would garner better competition between them would exist because they'd eventually absorb into each other, instead of just joining 3-4 trading guilds that reach guild cap and then selling your items to whichever one has the best profits at any given time. If we had guilds with thousands of members competing against each other to have the best value and quality items to gain more members, then that alone would create a vast exciting aspect to the game, but no, we're left with a ***, tiny system. Not to mention with the larger more popular trading guilds eventually becoming more and more famous among players it would make them more inclined to try advertise their wares in more interesting ways, offers, gifts etc etc, and create a better social aspect among them. You have the option to join 5 guilds, but all i'm seeing is people joining one guild that they can be social, quest and raid in and then 3-4 trading guilds where they block chat and just sell their junk to every now and then, it's a waste of being able to join 5 guilds....

Another idea would be to have markets in the major cities/towns of each zone, not like an AH but instead an area that has a global chat linked to the other markets, like tradechat, only restricted to said markets instead of the entire city. A possible "posting board" for trading, buying and selling requests and offers (for a small fee to advertise of course), and then people would have to actively interact with their seller/buyer, either respond on the post or send them a mail with their offer and organise to meet up or work over mail for the trade, there could be separate boards where specialized crafters could post their services (again for a fee to have the "add" up for so long), a master blacksmith with whatever research and motifs he has, or an alchemist with a list of what they can make and at what quality, this would create an incredibly interesting aspect to the game where players actually get involved when it comes to selling their wares and have to compete with market standards and values against each other.

Then of course there's the possibility of creating a system incorporating both of these possible solutions, that would create a global market and a place for the giant guilds to compete with each other to make the best offers, smaller guildless crafters could survive off loyal customers while the large trading guilds would have a network of suppliers, crafters, buyers and sellers to make the best profits they possibly can, while still keeping the economy balanced and interesting.

Currently the system is weak, and if i'm honest it's an embarrassment to an amazing game, the mega servers gave so much potential to create an interesting, competitive, lively and vast economy/market but it was wasted, and what we're left with is a tiny target market with the guild stores, and the boredom of zone hopping posting your wares in /z for possibly a few hours hoping someone wanting to buy just happens to be in the same zone as you at the same time...

Of course these are just some of my ideas and my opinion on the current system, but looking at other comments it seems many people would agree that the current system is extremely weak and that some sort of alternative that can utilize the vastness of the mega servers would greatly increase the quality of the economy and the game itself. I do agree with the commenters that an AH is a boring solution though."

You people continue tilting at windmills with the global AH when most seems to agree that is not the best solution.

There are more ways to build a healthy economy; other players have suggested local AH, personal shops, bazar areas. None of those is a perfect system but they give more freedom and prevent this "controlling the economy" abuse.

Why do you think that those thousands of people prefer the AH in other mmorpgs when they have trade channels?.

With the actual system we have many people excluded from the economy. An that is not good for any mmorpg.

Has there been official word from Zenimax to address player request for Auction House?

Yes!

A server wide Auction House would be nice. Also, the ability to center the Store while browsing. I don't need half of my screen taken up by the Bank Teller.

tallenn wrote: »

@vencibushy‌
Exactly, and well said. For some reason, people believe that "someone must protect us!" from "predatory" economic practices. The fact is, the ONLY thing that offers any protection in economics is a free, self-regulated market.

Any time you introduce control measures into a market, you change the best way to be successful from the model of "provide the best goods/services at the best price" to the model of "learn the best methods for gaming the system".

Totally agree

GW2 has an awesome AH