Cryptical wrote: »

Xbox NA - I don't really participate, beyond tossing a few motifs into the store cheap so they can be gotten by any who don't happen to be in chat. If they were in chat, I'd give them away free. I also don't bother shopping at the traders either, because I know whatever I see is overpriced.

So, I don't have any chosen side in this. I'm not biased from personal experience or a personal agenda.

So it is from a purely detached analytical standpoint I speak from when I say that more guild traders is not the answer to the issue of being frozen out of the marketplace. There would still be a limited number of traders, a short period of adjustment would happen from "This guild has 2 subsidiaries to monopolize 3 trader carts" into a small shift being "this guild has 4 subsidiaries to monopolize 5 trader carts".

This truly does have resemblance to the Robber Baron era and the monopolies like Standard Oil.

That idea is supply-side economics. Thinking that merely adding more carts will push prices down, without taking into consideration that the current Big Money immediately has the capital to devote to claiming that new store space and continue to shut out less money-focused groups.

Purchasing the spot is a gold sink. An unavoidable gold sink, the size being of the big trade guilds' own making. They drop a pile of gold, and then if they don't move enough product at a high enough price their investment lost money.

As I said, the purchase is unavoidable, and takes place up front. So the only guaranteed method for we players to shake up this system is not to participate in it.

Yes, this is a long post that could be simplified down to "If we don't shop there, they will be shelling out large bids for crap sales, and either return to reasonability or go bankrupt".

I think the best case change would be a Trader that everyone can use for selling, but with a limit of about 5 items. Maybe placed in the city of the 5th zone of each alliance, to keep the lag caused by player traffic away from the current problem areas. With a limit of 5 listings, people can't stick their entire product line there, but the wide array of people would provide a grounding effect against any minority taking control and causing exploitative gouging.

CombatPrayer wrote: »

forget it. This whole topic is pointless. When rich members can float a whole effing guild for millions of dollars and other guilds with full memberships and good sales can't keep up with that the system is fatally flawed. Just like the terrible random dungeon system, here is another thing that is broken and only those who are in the middle of it have a clue. The rest of the people make judgments about what they THINK is going on and it turns out they have no idea but consider themselves right because it's their perspective (despite it not being a full one). Doesn't matter if they are not aware of all the information or if they have the wrong understanding of what is going on. Nope. They think it's over two recipes. Really it's about very active guilds being kicked from locations.

CombatPrayer wrote: »

forget it. This whole topic is pointless. When rich members can float a whole effing guild for millions of dollars and other guilds with full memberships and good sales can't keep up with that the system is fatally flawed. Just like the terrible random dungeon system, here is another thing that is broken and only those who are in the middle of it have a clue. The rest of the people make judgments about what they THINK is going on and it turns out they have no idea but consider themselves right because it's their perspective (despite it not being a full one). Doesn't matter if they are not aware of all the information or if they have the wrong understanding of what is going on. Nope. They think it's over two recipes. Really it's about very active guilds being kicked from locations.

Appleblade wrote: »

"It's like real life!"

In real life I can shop on the Internet. I also can't craft wood sticks that shoot lightning. I always love how selectively the real life argument is applied to gaming. Not sure why it's supposed to be such a compelling argument. Real life would be permadeath, too.

"It's capitalism" is a fun one, too. If Tamriel were capitalist, there'd be vendor cart megamalls in or near every town. Wal-Cart would be locked in economic combat with KhajiitCo to get wares to the public as easily as possible. Feels more like a mercantilist system with the government (Zenimax) handing out access to the fixed trading resources. I've even seen guilds named after historical equivalents like the East India Company.

Personally I'd be happy just to get a better search interface to the traders.

Lumenn wrote: »

I'm just cynical as **** I guess. All I picture when I hear guild fees is a fat toad taxing all its subjects so they can sell in game gold online. I'm sure the bids are outrageous, and many guilds struggle just to meet them, but you have to admit it's a great system if you're selling gold. May not happen much but I'm sure it happens.

I don't see how adding more traders would help the bid wars or shoppers(currently it's like a horrible yard sale. Sometimes you find a deal, often it's overpriced junk) if AH never happens maybe they could cap the bids and give it to the first ones that put in the bid(or fee?) Making it a race, instead of a monopoly? Just an idea anyway. Sure you'd get beat some weeks, but you wouldn't be bidding millions...

rsantijw13 wrote: »

remove the tax cut that goes into oblivion.guilds should get the full % stupid to keep taking it

Pevey wrote: »

I don’t think the OP is out of date at all. Still totally relevant. The only thing that has changed is bids are 10-20x higher and poised to go higher still after multi-bidding is released.