It is not losing a bid that bothers me about this situation. The system is what it is, and anyone can lose a bid on any given week. For all the comments I’ve read in the past few days about how us “filthy, dirty, money-grubbing GM’s” are crying and upset about losing, I’ve seen no evidence of that. Sure, it doesn’t feel great to lose, and there is not a single person in my guild that takes a losing bid harder than I do. I have 500 members who donate and participate every week, and they trust ME to secure a high traffic location on their behalf. When we lose, and this is not the first time we’ve lost, it makes me feel sick. Not because of all the sweet sweet profits I’m going to miss out on personally; I don’t profit personally. It makes me feel sick because I have let my community down, even though we all know how the system works, and that losing on any given week is a real possibility.

Usually, when faced with a losing bid, I can at least tip my hat to my competitors for a well-placed bid, and find some solace in the fact that a different guild gets to have the benefit of a really awesome location for the week. Please tell me, though: who is benefitting this week? It isn’t as if there are 5 new guilds, loaded up with 450-500 member each with a full guild store of merch to sell sitting in Rawl’kha right now. For all the talk about how this person is “doing it for the little guy”, I see no actual “little guys” represented here. How many people have items listed in the RIOTS guild stores again?

People have all sorts of opinions about how the economy works, and that’s fine. Certainly, just as some PvP’ers or some PvE’ers are not nice, there are GMs that are pretty bad, as well. Bad enough to shutter 5 fully active guilds, kick 2500 members and steal all the gold for themselves. But just as those bad apples in the PvP and PvE communities are anomalies, so are the type of bad GM’s that are the target of so much fear mongering. There are a few GM’s that I don’t care for on a personal level but I still respect them as fellow GMs.

The fact that the community (as represented by the forum dwellers) has been foaming at the mouth to proclaim this guy a “hero” while rabidly cheering the misfortune of 2300+ players (500 per guild with an allowance for dual membership) is twisted and just plain mean spirited. The hate and vitriol pointed at guild leaders specifically, who spend a ton of time, effort and real money to create communities for other players to thrive in is beyond sick, and sadly emblematic of the world we live in.

I have personally done everything in my power over my years as GM of Angry Unicorn Traders to foster a positive and welcoming environment while maintaining the highest level of transparency to my members. I’m really proud of the fact that my guild has some of the LOWEST minimum requirements of any major trading guild in the game, making it super easy for new and casual players to have access to a high traffic place to sell their goods. All of that information (and then some) is publicly available at tinyurl.com/AUTGuild. You don’t even need to be a guild member to check it out.

Lastly; I’ve seen claims that the kiosks in Rawl were able to be purchased for around 7 million gold per location (35 million for the city) in order to prove that the “money-grubbing, dirty trade guild GMs” were fleecing their members and lying about our bid costs. I’ve seen some members of the community calling for proof from the RIOTS guild leaders of what was spent. I am 100% sure that there will be no proof coming to back up that claim because it’s simply not true. While I can’t speak for every Rawl guild that was dislocated, I can absolutely speak for my own. We laid down over 22 million for our location; if the other guild’s bid similarly….well, I’ll leave you all to do the math.

I don’t provide this information to provoke empathy; it’s clear to me from these threads that many in the forum community have none. I provide this information only to repudiate the claim that so little was spent to take over the city. If that claim is clearly a lie, does it not call into question stated motives as well?

My guild, when taken as a whole, is not “the little guy”, but we do have lots of “little guys” as members, as many large trade guilds do. I look out for them to the best of my ability each and every week. It’s a pity that more players can’t do the same.

CipherNine wrote: »

Because they enjoy doing it. Simple as that. The trade guild I am in is very transparent about how much gold comes in and out. The officers spend a lot of their game time organizing raffles, auctions, contests, events and on top of that keep a trader for us to use each week.

This stunt was just that, a stunt. It wasn't a protest nor a demonstration. It was a stunt that will have little or no impact beyond what is taking place in these forums. It accomplished nothing in game except to deny five small guilds a chance at a trader.

Oh enough with this nonsense and bs deflective argument that any of the small guilds ever had a chance at those spots. They had 0 chance. There is a reason there is a monopoly on all the best spots in the game.
Yeah it's like you said..The "officers" spend there game time organizing all that. My point is people acting its the GM's working so hard for them. Sure working hard pocketing 100's of millions of gold.

When did I say a small guild would get those five spots? I didn't. There is a set number of traders. Five are empty this week. That means five guilds that could have purchased a trader could not. THose five guilds are not top trading guilds They are smaller guilds or casual guilds that try to get a location. They were denied the opportunity to get a trader because five are sitting empty. Actually whoever did this did prove one other thing. There is no monopoly as you suggested. If there were he wouldn't have been able to do this.
The Officers and GM in my trading guild do work very hard to keep us happy. They are also transparent in what the guild brings in and what goes out. They are not pocketing 100's of millions in gold. That is just some fantasy you have decided to believe.

Again this was a stunt and a call for attention. He got his attention here in the forums. He also caused five guilds to not get a trader. And that is all he did. And he is lying about how much gold it took to purchase those traders. I know how much is bid on other locations and it is much more than he is claiming. If it were as cheap as he claims there would be a lot of turnover at those locations.

What about traders in other spots, like Riverhold? I can't see any. Is Rimmen the only place in Elsewyr with guild traders?

it was definitely a show. people got up in arms, said the riots Was sticking it to the big guys, how cool they were. No, it was paid advertisement for their new more efficient market in rimmen, which has all guild stores, a wayshrine, and all crafting stations within a 5 second walk of each other. It's got the crafting of Alinor with the guild stores of Mournhold. I don't know why nobody anticipated this. i'm just more interested in who will pick up the slack in Rawl, unless the "joke" guilds really do spend 1000's of real dollars to upkeep the facade.

I'm out of the loop of the politics of trade guilds.
I have a few questions about what happened. Whats the message the riots guilds are trying to say? Did they sent out a message or manifesto? Or is everyone just speculating on their message? Do we know for sure if they have a grudge or if they did it as a prank they thought would be funny?

Grandma wrote: »

No, it was paid advertisement for their new more efficient market in rimmen, which has all guild stores, a wayshrine, and all crafting stations within a 5 second walk of each other

Are you KIDDING ME?! No, let me tell you, the stomach aches these guild leaders had and all nighters for most was like, the LAST thing any of them wanted to do. They were not behind this. Besides, Unis got a spot in Eastmarch, so that shoots your theory. Rimmen was all that would be available and they worked hard to get it, and so did craftaholics, a non-Rawlka guild. The biggest guilds don't want an expansion/DLC spot because then not everyone can access their stores. All of these conspiracy theories really show just how people want to think they know the "truth" so they can pretend to be smarter than other people. Ridiculous.

StabbityDoom wrote: »

They did make a statement, it's up on reddit somewhere, but in essence it was they had money and wanted to break up the "cartel" of guilds and show the "little guy" how it only took them 7 mil and that they could do it too.

Which is just wrong on every level.

Makes me wonder if they counted on one of the oh so evil trade GMs actually posting a screencap of her way, way higher bid to prove them wrong. Sure does put things into perspective, actually seeing those numbers.

Imagine if some entire troll group went ahead and bought out ALL guilds in the entire game and replaced them with empty troll duds.... this may be their next big project.

Minno wrote: »

There community is all lovey dovey now, but I remember a time 5 years ago before trade addons where a select few people guarded the vamp spawns in order to charge crazy prices for vamp bites.

This type of behavior never changes, despite the good will of some folks.

Yeah, specific people were jerks five years ago. No one's saying that didn't happen, especially not trade GMs (ours talked a lot about it in response to this, actually). But using that to say that different people are being jerks now because trade guilds like... Exist? And some are successful? Is simply daft, which is what makes this whole affair and some of the response to this so silly.

vierne wrote: »

I think people assume that big trading guild in ESO = multinational corporation IRL. You know, surging CEO compensation while worker bee salaries remaining the same in spite of inflation and increasing costs of living. (Source) I don't mean to generalise by the way, there are definitely businesses that go in a different direction, but by and large speaking, this is the trend IRL and people assume this translates easily to ESO. It doesn't.

Yeah, some of the replies bringing irl capitalism into this really point at people running they're equivalent which just has me all "????"

If things worked irl as they do in eso, I wouldn't be a poor leftist arguing about the immorality of CEOs pocketing millions while employing workers that can barely stay afloat on a full time job, let alone pay for essential things like healthcare lmfao

It's also just... they just assume some random bidding price and how all the extra goes into the GMs pockets while refusing to consider that the people saying the bids are higher might be speaking the truth. In which case go ahead, try nabbing Rawl with your 5 million bid! I hope Sylvie posting her failed bid finally gets through to these people but I doubt it. Complaining and drawing false equivalences is easier.

JumpmanLane wrote: »

No wonder my crap ain’t selling I’m SO pissed 😠

Them broke nerds in Rimmen ain’t buying NOTHING!

LOL, not broke but am in Rimmen buying nothing as always

This thread has bern really enlightening. I never pictured trading GMs as being fat cats. But I had no idea how much work this stupid system was or how many resources were wasted. Seems like a lot of time, gold, and effort for something that should be handled automatically by an in-game system-- like in practically every other MMO on the market.