POLL: Would you like a global AH as in other games?

yodased · June 2019

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure modders and TTC have made it a point to personally obliterate any defense of the current trade system. Literally, every counter-argument to a global AH is being done with the current system now because of mods and TTC.

Price homogenization and monopolization? Done.

The value to the current system? People can roleplay as accountants. I guess that's a plus...

No mods on consoles and TTC works maybe 10% of the time for them. PC is not the only, nor maybe the majority of players.

Tigerseye · June 2019

None of the above.

I am, generally, happy with the guild trader system* for everything except materials.

Materials need a central auction house/warehouse.

* Actually, that is not entirely true.

Better way to put it would be that I am happy with separate stores for everything except materials; not necessarily guild-run stores.

jainiadral · June 2019

paulsimonps wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

Don't care how beaten this horse is-- I'm going to whack it some more

Auction house, FTW!

Knock yourself out then I guess, cause only thing that will happen is that you will wear yourself out, while you beat that horse ZOS is gonna be sitting in the corner making crown store items in their money pile.

I think I can spare a post or two once a week. No biggie

The current system is a) inefficient, b) exclusionary, c) bloody annoying. I hate wasting at least ten minutes every time I want to, say, restock on Greater Repair Kits. Let alone the kind of purchases that make MMOs fun, like pets, outfits, other random thingiemabobbers. I have tons of gold, and the only thing I've spent it on recently is unlocking bank space. Yawn.

If anyone wants my gold to go to them, I'd suggest you hop on the Auction House Lobby Train. Choo choo!

*disclaimer: This poster is operating under the influence of too much Theraflu.

ghastley · June 2019

The existence of TTC suggests there's a demand for a global search, but I'm unsure what would really happen if it existed. If location of the guild traders didn't matter any more, and "passing trade" was irrelevant, it would have a big affect on the bidding for the prime spots.

The current system isn't so broken I want a change to something potentially worse.

Hyperion616 · June 2019

I prefer a company live with their choices and if it bites them in the butt later on so be it. I don't do guilds, I'm not playing this game for any one else but my self. I don't pay a monthly sub fee to be chums with other players out side of saying hi and maybe the occasional conversation in zone chat and that's it.

I pay a fee to play this game to escape the crap that goes on in this world even if it's just for a tiny bit of time a day. To be honest if it was mandatory to be in a guild in order to make gold in this game I'd have cut my trial off in the first few days and called it a wash.

Do I miss being able to throw stuff up on the AH for sale and make a little extra gold on the side, Sure I do. It all comes down to choice, you can either be apart of a guild and have the ability to move product or you can not and make gold through other means.

At least we as players have the (Other means) part in this game to make gold.

Tandor · June 2019

Schemering wrote: »

eso has a good system; not perfect but good, involving guilds in auctions of multiple traders making guilds desirable and creating vibrant economy... what i dont understand is that every time only one alternative is proposed, an auction house. Where is the creativity... if a creative proposal is made i would be willing to consider it as alternative but not this obsolete idea that would have to be copied from obsolete other games

I've suggested many times that the present system is opened up so as to include a NPC trader in each of the main city trading locations. Anyone could list a limited number of items at a high commission rate with the commission shared between the guilds in that location. It would cater for those who are casual traders, non-guild members, and members of guilds that haven't won a trader.

Moreover, the NPC trader could be part of the tutorial quests culminating in a referral to the guild finder system so that new players could get started on trading and then have an incentive to get involved in guilds.

Such a system would benefit both the trading guilds and those players who don't currently participate in the trading.

Additionally, there should be a central listing of items for buyers who could then choose either to visit the trader to make a purchase or have the item mailed to them for an additional fee.

I'd be more than happy with the present system if it was opened up in this way, but if the choice is between the present severely restricted and cumbersome system or a conventional auction house then I'd opt for the auction house. The present system is hopeless, even when it's working but more so when the traders are held by ghost guilds or guild alliances.

Jayman1000 · June 2019

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure modders and TTC have made it a point to personally obliterate any defense of the current trade system. Literally, every counter-argument to a global AH is being done with the current system now because of mods and TTC.

Price homogenization and monopolization? Done.

I think both of these points are false. For one you can't look up every item globally. TTC is reliant on actual players upload their listings to the TTC website. They can't do this until they have logged out of the game, so inherently there's a lot of delay here and also you can far from be sure that all listings from all traders will even be listed on TTC, because it may be that no one uploads that listing, or it may get sold before it gets uploaded (which probably happens a lot).

As far as homogenization and monopolization go the current system allows for a lot of price fluctuations from each guild trading hub to the next. If you travel around you may pick some amazing deals now and then. I really like that, it gives extra purpose to each location. So there goes the homogenization. There is also no monopolization, each player in the guilds are their own independent trader competing with other sellers to get their goods sold for the best price. This is a FAR cry from any type of monopolization.

yodased · June 2019

Hyperion616 wrote: »

I prefer a company live with their choices and if it bites them in the butt later on so be it. I don't do guilds, I'm not playing this game for any one else but my self. I don't pay a monthly sub fee to be chums with other players out side of saying hi and maybe the occasional conversation in zone chat and that's it.

I pay a fee to play this game to escape the crap that goes on in this world even if it's just for a tiny bit of time a day. To be honest if it was mandatory to be in a guild in order to make gold in this game I'd have cut my trial off in the first few days and called it a wash.

Do I miss being able to throw stuff up on the AH for sale and make a little extra gold on the side, Sure I do. It all comes down to choice, you can either be apart of a guild and have the ability to move product or you can not and make gold through other means.

At least we as players have the (Other means) part in this game to make gold.

A bit off the path here, but I just want to put a spotlight on this poster's behavior and attitude.

Plays game, game doesn't do fit the exact needs of the player, finds new game.

This is refreshingly self aware and rare. So thanks for that.

Most play game, game doesn't fit the exact needs of the player, player trys to enact changes to make game fit those selfish needs.

Again, no auction house is coming, but feel free to debate the free market and decentralized choices all day

Arrodisia · June 2019

I used to believe guild traders were a good thing for the game, but unfortunately, I changed my mind.

Once I was able to peek behind the curtain of multiple trade guilds, I saw a large portion of the system is corrupt. Many GM's have voiced their opinions, and are against the abuse in the current system, but if they play clean, they lose gold and even lose their vendors. Non trade guild players, and most small to medium sized trade guilds, rarely, get items for a decent price, because almost every item ends up filtered through the main group of Craglorn vendors, and their dozens of sister guilds first. They, in turn, jack the prices sky high, way too high for most every day players to afford.

Besides, the bidding and G quit drama, they also, take advantage of the websites, which includes, but is not limited to making sure lower prices in the TTC are very hard to find. They do this by repeatedly spamming their wares onto the sites over and over burying any cheaper items, while they send the guild lacky out to buy it up before anyone else can find it.

Another issue is players with dual and triple accounts, who buy up their own over priced items to fluff sales and fluff the average price of the items. That's just he beginning of this fiasco, because if your guild tries to rise up and sell things cheaper, The main craglorn groups send a newly created sister guild over with a ridiculously op bid to leave you with no spot, unless you cheat the system like they do. They don't even want or need the spot. They just make sure your cheaper wares aren't there. Oh and I almost forgot something. You have GM's from one guild, approaching other GM's from another to pay them off to sabotage their own guilds. I could go on, but I rather not. This whole thing is just as corrupt as it gets, and I hope ZOS does something about it.

Since we already have a lot of massive problems within this system already going on, I highly doubt a couple changes can fix this mess. For these reasons above and many more, I support a complete switch to a server wide auction house accessible either from our guild stores or from the area banks. Then to kill 2 birds with one stone, ZOS can maybe make the purchased crown items sellable in the AH, as well, once the timer for refund (which could be implemented) has expired. These are just my humble opinions and suggestions to make trading a more pleasurable experience for all. ZOS will do as they see fit with the system.

THEDKEXPERIENCE · June 2019

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

THEDKEXPERIENCE wrote: »

Side note - anyone complaining about guild dues being too high is silly. Do you know how much gold you can make a week? 10 or even 20k is nothing. I didn’t play on Monday, so when logging in on Tuesday I had 176K in new earnings.

You do realize that some people play 2 hours a day and they have to decide do I farm to put stuff on broker or do I do content since I'm actually playing a game and want to run content that was created rather than meeting guild requirements. Or what if I want to take a break for 2 weeks to not lose my spot I have to pay dues for 2 weeks or get kicked meaning I waste money? Lol you are just silly with your logic.

I make double at least in a day what you make but I know how to manipulate the current system like I said earlier 😉

I play at most 3 hours a night but really it’s more like 12 - 15 hours a week. Not only do I realize it, I am that guy.

I really don’t farm at all. I certainly don’t farm gear to sell it. I just play. When I’m done for the night I post what I have on hand. If it’s not enough for 30/30 I’ll go into my craft bag (which you understandably may not have) and sell off excess materials.

When ESO dropped many years ago I decided that I would corner the market on something. At first it was soul gems, a stack for a few hundred more than the vendor cost. When my margins were lost on that I took the time to re-evaluate my “business” and decided that I wanted to focus on goods that can be sold for thousands as opposed to hundreds. Crafting mats were, and often still are, at the top of that list along with impen gear (PVPers buy it), master writs, rune box fragments, trophies, and now training rings. And I do it by selling everything 10 to 20% below everyone else. I’m essentially a volume wholesaler.

As for losing your spot ... I didn’t play for 10 months. I was invited to a new trade guild in a major hub within a day of logging in. Just waited till I saw an add in chat. It wasn’t hard.

yodased · June 2019

juttaa77b16_ESO wrote: »

I used to believe guild traders were a good thing for the game, but unfortunately, I changed my mind.

snip

Besides the bidding G quit drama, they also, take advantage of the websites, which includes, but is not limited to making sure lower prices in the TTC are very hard to find. They do this by repeatedly spamming their wares onto the sites over and over burying any cheaper items, while they send the guild lacky out to buy it up before anyone else can find it.

snip

I'll leave the consipiracies to the forum detectives, but as a systems guy this is just completely false simply because there is a sort by price option in the data, so regardless of how many times the "spam" the system with their "overpriced" goods, literally clicking the "price" modifier will remove that.

Also, craglorn guilds? Really? Is this 2016? Who cares about Craglorn? Thats like 2 maybe even 3rd tier now, you wanna talk about rwal'ka or wayrest, mournhold or the newest dlc ok we can talk about that, but craglorn? Thats old news

ZOS_JesC · June 2019

Greetings, we've removed several comments that were off topic and derailing the thread. This is a friendly reminder to make sure your comments adhere to our forum rules. Thank you!

Tebari · June 2019

I have an alternate proposal.
The first part would be to leave the guild traders as they are.
The second part would be to add a global trader. This trader would be available to everyone, but you would only be able to list a few items - 5 is what would probably work best. There would be a listing fee and sale fee. The proposed fees would both be slightly higher than current guild trader fees. (maybe 2% listing and 15% sales commission). These global traders would have stalls like guild traders, but they would be located outside of any city having more than one trader already.
For ESO+ subscribers, they could get a benefit of either additional trade slots and/or reduced fees on the global trader.

yodased · June 2019

Tebari wrote: »

I have an alternate proposal.
The first part would be to leave the guild traders as they are.
The second part would be to add a global trader. This trader would be available to everyone, but you would only be able to list a few items - 5 is what would probably work best. There would be a listing fee and sale fee. The proposed fees would both be slightly higher than current guild trader fees. (maybe 2% listing and 15% sales commission). These global traders would have stalls like guild traders, but they would be located outside of any city having more than one trader already.
For ESO+ subscribers, they could get a benefit of either additional trade slots and/or reduced fees on the global trader.

Which then leads to the most 5 - X rarest items in the game being able to be purchased by the < 1% because no one is wasting a global AH spot on something not worth millions

Arrodisia · June 2019

yodased wrote: »

juttaa77b16_ESO wrote: »

I used to believe guild traders were a good thing for the game, but unfortunately, I changed my mind.

snip

Besides the bidding G quit drama, they also, take advantage of the websites, which includes, but is not limited to making sure lower prices in the TTC are very hard to find. They do this by repeatedly spamming their wares onto the sites over and over burying any cheaper items, while they send the guild lacky out to buy it up before anyone else can find it.

snip

I'll leave the consipiracies to the forum detectives, but as a systems guy this is just completely false simply because there is a sort by price option in the data, so regardless of how many times the "spam" the system with their "overpriced" goods, literally clicking the "price" modifier will remove that.

Also, craglorn guilds? Really? Is this 2016? Who cares about Craglorn? Thats like 2 maybe even 3rd tier now, you wanna talk about rwal'ka or wayrest, mournhold or the newest dlc ok we can talk about that, but craglorn? Thats old news

Nice bait, but I'm not falling for it. Dual + scans are not removed on the site and yes it does function like that. People rarely change the setting when searching an item, since they want the most recent ones, and if a guild is spamming over and over they'll see mostly that guild's prices. 2nd and 3rd tier areas belong to Craglorn sister guilds as well.

I know. Some people will disagree with me. They don't want changes to the system, because they are the ones benefiting most from the corruption. There is nothing I can do about that. All have a right to their opinion, including myself. Anyway, I'll just agree to disagree with you.

srfrogg23 · June 2019

yodased wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure modders and TTC have made it a point to personally obliterate any defense of the current trade system. Literally, every counter-argument to a global AH is being done with the current system now because of mods and TTC.

Price homogenization and monopolization? Done.

The value to the current system? People can roleplay as accountants. I guess that's a plus...

No mods on consoles and TTC works maybe 10% of the time for them. PC is not the only, nor maybe the majority of players.

I have ESO on PS4 and occasionally hop on to play that account, too. The trade prices there are absurdly high. They're much higher than PC due to the lack of mods and TTC.

Which is particularly humorous to me when i look at it. You're right, no mods or TTC on console, and those prices are horrific by comparison.

I'm sure the primary defense is from PC players who aren't seeing just how terrible of a RIP-off this system is due to the price control that they claim to be "impossible" with this system.

Jayman1000 · June 2019

Tebari wrote: »

I have an alternate proposal.
The first part would be to leave the guild traders as they are.
The second part would be to add a global trader. This trader would be available to everyone, but you would only be able to list a few items - 5 is what would probably work best. There would be a listing fee and sale fee. The proposed fees would both be slightly higher than current guild trader fees. (maybe 2% listing and 15% sales commission). These global traders would have stalls like guild traders, but they would be located outside of any city having more than one trader already.
For ESO+ subscribers, they could get a benefit of either additional trade slots and/or reduced fees on the global trader.

That's a very interesting suggesting, I really like those details with a limit of 5 listings; but I dont think this limit should be any higher than 5, I think the current system must not be compromised. Maybe the limit should even be 5 total sales per day.

Skwor · June 2019

No no no.

Karm1cOne · June 2019

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Karm1cOne wrote: »

Another auction house poll? The system is fine, but needs some work to make it more universally accessible, such as:
Disbanding guild gives trader to 2nd highest bidder.
More stalls in busy zones.
Maybe a ranked trader bid, highest x# of bids get spots instead of individual stalls.

Everyone keeps complaining of no auction house, but dont realize how much more average traders would be screwed... or maybe they do...

There are a few reasons we should get one. I work a 40+ hour job as do many others, we pay bills in real life. We play a game to escape reality for a little bit to have fun, but in this game I have to pay "bills" to use the trader guild plus in some guilds sell a certain amount of items. Dues for trader guilds use to be 5k a few weeks ago, then went up to 10k, then went up to 15k a week to use a trader. Soon it will be 20k then be 25k then go up to 30k........ See my point on how this is flawed for most people? The people that like to farm and sell items might not have time to meet guild requirements of selling x amount of dollars or be kicked. We shouldn't have to pay "bills" to use a feature of the game because it is flawed. If I want to sell an item in real life on say eBay I make an account and just sell it, I don't sign up pay them a weekly fee for the ability to sell just one item I want to sell.

How about guild leaders that make multiple fake accounts and have a level 7 toon as the leader of a guild? They make so much money because they run 5+ trader guilds? But people say guild masters don't make a profit....... If they don't make a profit why are they running so many guilds? They do it out of the kindness of their heart?

Or let's talk.about guilds that will buy up entire zones with fake traders so they can set the market for that area. That isn't anything different than an auction house right? Or the fact that you can go all over the world to buy items for cheap then sell them at the monopolized areas were prices are high and you make huge amounts of money just re selling everything you bought for cheap?

Each system has flaws but the difference is with a global auction house it allows everyone the same ability to sell items. In both you can manipulate the system but at least it gives the people that don't make much gold a chance to make gold. This game is like real life, the rich get richer lol.

With a global ah we get 1 set price for an item. With the current system we have the "bad" trader areas that under price their items because they are in a low traffic area. And we have "good" spots where people can buy from those "bad" trader spots and price the item for double to tripple what they bought it for in the "good" trader spots. If we had a global AH it gets rid of this problem of again the rich getting richer because they manipulate the market.

Now let's look at the thing people get worried about with a auction house. Let's say I buy every single spell strategist inferno staff on the market then put them all back on the auction house for insane amounts of gold. Yes I've manipulated the market to drive it up, but guess what? Any smart person can look at the history on that item and see I paid 5k each and tried selling them for 500k each. They can just let my items sit there and wait for someone to just undercut me and drive the market back down making me waste a lot of money on items I'm having trouble moving now. With our current system no one would know that I bought all the inferno staffs to drive the price up.

So please explain to me why you think this system works again?

It works, in so much that cornering the market is almost impossible. If you had read the post you responded to, I agree that some changes should be made to make the market more accesible, and proposed some ways to do so.

Skwor · June 2019

srfrogg23 wrote: »

yodased wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure modders and TTC have made it a point to personally obliterate any defense of the current trade system. Literally, every counter-argument to a global AH is being done with the current system now because of mods and TTC.

Price homogenization and monopolization? Done.

The value to the current system? People can roleplay as accountants. I guess that's a plus...

No mods on consoles and TTC works maybe 10% of the time for them. PC is not the only, nor maybe the majority of players.

I have ESO on PS4 and occasionally hop on to play that account, too. The trade prices there are absurdly high. They're much higher than PC due to the lack of mods and TTC.

Which is particularly humorous to me when i look at it. You're right, no mods or TTC on console, and those prices are horrific by comparison.

I'm sure the primary defense is from PC players who aren't seeing just how terrible of a RIP-off this system is due to the price control that they claim to be "impossible" with this system.

No one said impossible, that is a strawman argument. It is harder which is the point, not impossible.

Also would greatly reduce the socialization on the game which is one of the main reasons for guild traders.

When a game goes from individual/small auction structures to a global one it loses a massive social network of player interaction in the process. EQ1 being one of the most egregious examples.

yodased · June 2019

juttaa77b16_ESO wrote: »

yodased wrote: »

juttaa77b16_ESO wrote: »

I used to believe guild traders were a good thing for the game, but unfortunately, I changed my mind.

snip

Besides the bidding G quit drama, they also, take advantage of the websites, which includes, but is not limited to making sure lower prices in the TTC are very hard to find. They do this by repeatedly spamming their wares onto the sites over and over burying any cheaper items, while they send the guild lacky out to buy it up before anyone else can find it.

snip

I'll leave the consipiracies to the forum detectives, but as a systems guy this is just completely false simply because there is a sort by price option in the data, so regardless of how many times the "spam" the system with their "overpriced" goods, literally clicking the "price" modifier will remove that.

Also, craglorn guilds? Really? Is this 2016? Who cares about Craglorn? Thats like 2 maybe even 3rd tier now, you wanna talk about rwal'ka or wayrest, mournhold or the newest dlc ok we can talk about that, but craglorn? Thats old news

Nice bait, but I'm not falling for it. Dual scans are not removed on the site and yes it does function like that. People rarely changed the setting when searching an item since they want the most recent ones, which are default, and if a guild is spamming over and over they'll see mostly that guild's prices. 2nd and 3rd tier areas belong to Craglorn sister guilds as well. I know. Some people disagree with me. They don't want changes to the system, because they are the ones benefiting most from the corruption. There is nothing I can do about that. All have a right to their opinion, including myself. Anyway, I'll just agree to disagree with you.

It's not bait as I actually believe what I'm saying. I agree with you that the system can be and probably is manipulated by bad actors, but that is all systems.

No system is impervious to exploitation as long as humans interact with it.

That being said, you are blaming the system and the user in the same breath. "Most users don't"..... is not a conversation either of us can have because neither of us have any actual data or clue of what "Most users" do or don't do on any system.

Now, if you had click results of TTC and they show that the supermajority never click the price modifier, fine I'll go with that, but to just suppose users behave a certain way is really easy way to go down the wrong route.

Do guilds have shadow guilds that allow them to maniuplate and guarantee they get a weekly spot? Sure they do. Do they try to manipulate TTC and MM to show their items only and to raise prices of things? Sure they do.

These do nothing to deter that there are work-arounds for this, you can find deals if you take the time to look for them.

The issue comes from not wanting to put effort or time into commerce and thats what the game designers wanted. Why they ever allowed TTC or MM to even exist in the first place honestly should be your question.

If I was hired as the PM to fix the commerce in this game the first thing I would do is turn off the endpoints for literally everything having to do with commerce in the API and make the users use the system as it was intended.

Jayman1000 · June 2019

VaranisArano wrote: »

This again?

No.

My reasons behind spoiler for length.
There's lots of reasons why not.

For one, ZOS designed ESO for a more decentralized market. One of their concerns at launch was that in an Auction House situation, it becomes very easy to acquire the beat gear very cheaply. They also wanted to encourage the different pricing at different guilds, specifically citing that you could go to different guilds to find cheaper prices.

Second, the spread out nature of ESO's guild traders makes it harder to manipulate prices over the whole market for a long time. Not impossible, but harder. When I see market manipulation happen, and I've got examples of it in mind if I need to explain further, it's typically for a few, rare items and only for a relatively short span of time. That's because most people simply can't put the effort in to stay on top of ESO's spread out market for more than short-term profit. Auction houses and centralized listings make that much easier to find items and control pricing, and that's actually something we see with TTC and even MM with price manipulation and TTC allowing players to quickly buy up bargains for resale.

Third, the current guild centric system benefits the social system of the game, which is primarily focused around Guilds. One of the strongest suggestions in favor of a central auction house is that then players don't have to join guilds or use zone chat to trade. The counter argument is that ZOS desires players to be in guilds for many reasons, and just made it easier for you to find a trading guild that fits your needs with Guild Finder.
A. guilds, even trading guilds, are a place where players can form strong social bonds and do a variety of content together. My first trading guild did PVE and PVP and offered help with crafting, and is a large part of why I PVP for the Pact now. As many group dungeon players can attest, runs done with guildies are usually better than random PUGs. I've never been in a trading guild that didnt have some social interaction, whether dungeon runs, trivia contests, or just an Auction, so I can see where even serious trading guilds help players engage in the social aspects of an MMO RPG.
B. Trading guilds are a huge gold sink for the economy because of the weekly trader bid. Gold sinks are essential if ESO's economy is to avoid extreme inflation, and the individual sale taxes dont account for near as much gold as those weekly trader bids. Players wanting an Auction House need to consider what alternate gold sinks they want to introduce to combat inflation.

So I think there's a strong argument to be made that the status quo serves ZOS' needs and desires for ESO better than an Auction House or centralized listing system.

My challenge for anyone arguing in favor of the Auction House or globalized system is to answer there points?
A. How is your desired system better at maintaining ZOS'original desire to prevent powerful items from becoming very cheap and easy to get?

B. How is your desired system better at preventing large scale, long term market manipulation?

C. How is your desired system better at providing the social and economic benefits that guilds bring to ESO?

That was very insightful and some good points, I kinda agree with everything you said, but enjoyed reading it anyway. Thanks for an informative post!

Gythral · June 2019

Even if it happened, what state do you really think any code by ZOS would be in???

Sennecca · June 2019

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Karm1cOne wrote: »

Another auction house poll? The system is fine, but needs some work to make it more universally accessible, such as:
Disbanding guild gives trader to 2nd highest bidder.
More stalls in busy zones.
Maybe a ranked trader bid, highest x# of bids get spots instead of individual stalls.

Everyone keeps complaining of no auction house, but dont realize how much more average traders would be screwed... or maybe they do...

There are a few reasons we should get one. I work a 40+ hour job as do many others, we pay bills in real life. We play a game to escape reality for a little bit to have fun, but in this game I have to pay "bills" to use the trader guild plus in some guilds sell a certain amount of items. Dues for trader guilds use to be 5k a few weeks ago, then went up to 10k, then went up to 15k a week to use a trader. Soon it will be 20k then be 25k then go up to 30k........ See my point on how this is flawed for most people? The people that like to farm and sell items might not have time to meet guild requirements of selling x amount of dollars or be kicked. We shouldn't have to pay "bills" to use a feature of the game because it is flawed. If I want to sell an item in real life on say eBay I make an account and just sell it, I don't sign up pay them a weekly fee for the ability to sell just one item I want to sell.

How about guild leaders that make multiple fake accounts and have a level 7 toon as the leader of a guild? They make so much money because they run 5+ trader guilds? But people say guild masters don't make a profit....... If they don't make a profit why are they running so many guilds? They do it out of the kindness of their heart?

Or let's talk.about guilds that will buy up entire zones with fake traders so they can set the market for that area. That isn't anything different than an auction house right? Or the fact that you can go all over the world to buy items for cheap then sell them at the monopolized areas were prices are high and you make huge amounts of money just re selling everything you bought for cheap?

Each system has flaws but the difference is with a global auction house it allows everyone the same ability to sell items. In both you can manipulate the system but at least it gives the people that don't make much gold a chance to make gold. This game is like real life, the rich get richer lol.

With a global ah we get 1 set price for an item. With the current system we have the "bad" trader areas that under price their items because they are in a low traffic area. And we have "good" spots where people can buy from those "bad" trader spots and price the item for double to tripple what they bought it for in the "good" trader spots. If we had a global AH it gets rid of this problem of again the rich getting richer because they manipulate the market.

Now let's look at the thing people get worried about with a auction house. Let's say I buy every single spell strategist inferno staff on the market then put them all back on the auction house for insane amounts of gold. Yes I've manipulated the market to drive it up, but guess what? Any smart person can look at the history on that item and see I paid 5k each and tried selling them for 500k each. They can just let my items sit there and wait for someone to just undercut me and drive the market back down making me waste a lot of money on items I'm having trouble moving now. With our current system no one would know that I bought all the inferno staffs to drive the price up.

So please explain to me why you think this system works again?

Yes, they will sell it for 495k

rager82b14_ESO · June 2019

My mind is blown that no is winning, but maybe not. Guild traders are so corrupted, that who would want to lose that power?

yodased · June 2019

@Kidgangster101 you are operating under the fallacy that you would be alone in this manipulating tactic.

Sure, if you bought up all the 5k spell strat and relisted them then you are easily defeated.

If the barons of ESO that have billions get together and decide that the spell strat market needs to be inflated, then you are fuct.

If you have 10 people with 1,000,000,000,000 each and they all come together to decide that spell strat staves are 500k then you are either going to be VERY VERY lucky and find one that isn't scooped by that conglomerate or you are going to accept the price.

The issue with a global auction house is barrier to entry, when you have a centralized place to sell things and everyone has access to the same inventory, you then remove the ability to undercut them by travel.

As it is now, it is a pain in the ass to try and manipulate one particular item because smaller guilds can ban together against a conglomerate and beat them back with lower pricing people can get by travelling and beating the conglom to the punch.

With a centralized location, there is no option to beat them. Those with the most money win, every single time.

Kiralyn2000 · June 2019

Yes, it would be nice to have an economy that everyone can participate in, without obnoxious barriers.

That said, it's never going to happen, so let it go.

myskyrim26 wrote: »

I've seen the AH in other MMO game. It is good for buyers and really bad for sellers. As in ESO I have to do both - sell and buy - I don't want the AH.

Personally, I find a global AH much easier for me to sell on - but that's probably because I'm not a "seller", just someone trying to quick unload things for some gold. Part of why I don't bother with this game's system - I just want to be able to throw a couple items up every week or two, undercut heavily, and get some extra gold for it. I'm not interested in playing Bloomberg Commodity Trader 2019.

And yeah, from a Buyer perspective, this system blows, since everything is scattered across a billion vendors & loading screens.

The sole, single, actual "good" thing about the Guild Trader system is that it's a massive gold sink.

Everything else about it is either making a system that's hard on the average participant in the economy, or making a system a protected market for the Big Traders.

So I just don't bother, and vendor/destroy all my stuff. (Which, of course, is part of the "protecting the market for the Traders" since it keeps Supply lower than it would otherwise. Every item that we vendor or destroy, is one more thing that's not competing with their sales of that same item.)

Jayman1000 · June 2019

yodased wrote: »

If I was hired as the PM to fix the commerce in this game the first thing I would do is turn off the endpoints for literally everything having to do with commerce in the API and make the users use the system as it was intended.

That would be a great way to alienate your players, a player hostile attitude trying to shoehorn a certain playstyle down the throats of players who really don't want that.

yodased · June 2019

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Yes, it would be nice to have an economy that everyone can participate in, without obnoxious barriers.

That said, it's never going to happen, so let it go.

myskyrim26 wrote: »

I've seen the AH in other MMO game. It is good for buyers and really bad for sellers. As in ESO I have to do both - sell and buy - I don't want the AH.

Personally, I find a global AH much easier for me to sell on - but that's probably because I'm not a "seller", just someone trying to quick unload things for some gold. Part of why I don't bother with this game's system - I just want to be able to throw a couple items up every week or two, undercut heavily, and get some extra gold for it. I'm not interested in playing Bloomberg Commodity Trader 2019.

And yeah, from a Buyer perspective, this system blows, since everything is scattered across a billion vendors & loading screens.

The sole, single, actual "good" thing about the Guild Trader system is that it's a massive gold sink.

Everything else about it is either making a system that's hard on the average participant in the economy, or making a system that makes a protected market for the Big Traders.

So I just don't bother, and vendor/destroy all my stuff. (Which, of course, is part of the "protecting the market for the Traders" since it keeps Supply lower than it would otherwise. Every item that we vendor or destroy, is one more thing that's not competing with their sales of that same item.)

This is just patently false. The barrier to entry may be perceived to be lower in a global auction house, but in reality the barrier there is absolute.

The only barrier in ESO commerce to sell in a store is to join a guild. There are hundreds of no fee trader guilds and if you REALLY don't like it, just find 10 like minded people and create a guild to get a store for yourself.

The barrier is social I guess, so if you hate people then you are not going to have a good time, but if you hate people why are you playing a mmo?

srfrogg23 · June 2019

Skwor wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

yodased wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure modders and TTC have made it a point to personally obliterate any defense of the current trade system. Literally, every counter-argument to a global AH is being done with the current system now because of mods and TTC.

Price homogenization and monopolization? Done.

The value to the current system? People can roleplay as accountants. I guess that's a plus...

No mods on consoles and TTC works maybe 10% of the time for them. PC is not the only, nor maybe the majority of players.

I have ESO on PS4 and occasionally hop on to play that account, too. The trade prices there are absurdly high. They're much higher than PC due to the lack of mods and TTC.

Which is particularly humorous to me when i look at it. You're right, no mods or TTC on console, and those prices are horrific by comparison.

I'm sure the primary defense is from PC players who aren't seeing just how terrible of a RIP-off this system is due to the price control that they claim to be "impossible" with this system.

No one said impossible, that is a strawman argument. It is harder which is the point, not impossible.

Also would greatly reduce the socialization on the game which is one of the main reasons for guild traders.

When a game goes from individual/small auction structures to a global one it loses a massive social network of player interaction in the process. EQ1 being one of the most egregious examples.

If changing to a global ah reduces socialization, then you all obviously didn't want to socialize that much to begin with. No big loss as far as I'm concerned. You'll find something else to talk about.