Not this again.... More biased arguments...

No auction house.

Do we need market monopolization? No we don't.

Trading system is fine as it.



PS - Guild houses - that's what we need!

EternalDiva wrote: »

Global auction house
1) buyers and sellers only as limited as the realm (or server) you are playing on. Potentially hundreds or thousands of players.
2) auction houses are located in every city and the goods can be accessed from anyone of them. No hoping from city to city, or down beaten path to find what you need.
3) The auction house does take a small fee for items sold on auction house. But you do not pay anyone else for access.
4) prices are governed by competition. Just as with a trader, if the item is limited the price may be jacked out of proportion and only the wealthiest players can afford it. On the other hand, more often, the more sellers you have the better the prices.
5) because you have access to more buyers and sellers its easier to find what you need or easily sell what you farm or create


ESO trading system
1) Limited to 5 guilds for a total of 2500 players to buy and sell from.
2) most guilds demand 150K per week to be a member. You are spending with no guarantee of getting your moneys worth. The guild owner reels in the profits.
3) guild trader also charges a fee per item
4) you will have to travel a LOT if you are looking for something that your limited 5 guilds isnt selling.
5) with less buyers your options for selling usually are not be as good as it is with a global auction house.
6) because access to buyers is limited the items generally sell for higher prices

I have used both systems for years. The global auction house is better by far. T

What I like about the global auction house THE most is that there is no highway robbery from your guild. If you belong to a guild it's about game play. Whether you stay in the guild or get kicked --it is about your game play and attitude toward others. Not about the money the guild owner wants you to provide so that they can make a profit off you.

ESO is a great game. But the trading system only works for the few. Too much like capitalism.

Id also like ESO to stop closing down legitimate conversations about this when one person gets nasty. Delete the nasty person from the thread. Don't shut down the rest of us. Because it kinda looks like you just don't want to hear a different opinion when you do that. Especially when the convo really wasn't contentious at all. Its kind of like the bully yells at the kid chatting amiably to shut up. Then instead of making the bully go away you just shush everyone. Bully wins every time.

You might not want an auction house dear ESO. But you should at least be willing to let us talk about it. And listen to what we are saying. There is nothing to be afraid of. And everything to be gained by LISTENING.

Love you!

P.s to those of you who feel threatened by people talking about auction houses or you are just "so sick of hearing about it"...stop reading things you do not like. Go away. Play your game. Leave those who do want to talk about it alone. Don't be that troll. You know that troll? The one who has no life and goes around looking for people to be rude to. If you dont like the topic go find one you do. Or make up your own!

Where did you get this 150K requirement to be in Most trade guilds?

Most I have ever had to pay as a min requirement is 25K per week and that could be paid through sales tax if I didn't feel like buying raffle tickets.

Unless your confusing weekly min dues with sales targets that some guilds use instead, those are usually high because the guild is relying on the sales tax rather than a straight donation, remember that the guild only gets half the sales tax the other half is a gold sink.

At the moment I pay 10K a piece a week for the 5 trade guilds I am in and usually make over a million in sales more if I go out of my way to get stuff to sell, some weeks I choose to sell nothing but pay my min dues so that I retain easy access to 5 guilds to buy from whenever I go to a bank.

If players can't scrape up enough to sell to outweigh the loss of 5 - 10K in weekly dues, your likely not the target member for most of the big and medium sized trade guilds, there are still smaller ones with low or no requirements.

Your in no way limited to 2500 customers, its more like 2500 potential competitors for what your selling to anyone that stops by the trader either to browse or specifically after something they noticed on TTC.

That said plenty of guild members shop in house in there own guilds first, sometimes I even overpay for stuff when I know the seller especially when I know they have bought some of my overpriced items



Finally not matter how many of these posts about auction houses are created, even if auction houses have there good and bad points, we already have a trade system in game, that ZOS has no intention of changing and perhaps no cheap way/incentive for them to change.

I used the Global trading network in SWTOR for years, when I was more active in that game, made and lost fortunes quite easily, most of the time the cheap stuff listed, did not matter what it was, would be bought out and relisted at a higher price, because players have such a large fortune at their disposal that they can buy up every dam thing, no matter how many are listed.

For sellers it was not too bad your items would sell quickly, you would get your asking price, for buyers who actually wanted to use stuff rather than just relist it, they were paying stupidly high inflation on the majority of things sold in the market place.



When I started playing ESO I was kinda shocked to be honest at how cheap everything was on the traders, sure you got a few cosmetic items that always sell for a lot in any game but for the rest of it, didn't really see what people were complaining about price wise every thing seemed priced well enough that it would not take too long to earn the gold needed to buy it.

If nothing else the trader system seemed to keep prices somewhat stable.



The one real positive I will give ESO trader system, is it gave me incentive to actually join a guild, for me at first I was just here for the story more or less playing this game as a single player experience with the occasional well scripted blue NPC's running past me every now and then

After I joined a trade guild I started socializing more in game doing a lot more group activity's, nothing forced no group sign ups or expectation to do anything just like minded individuals who didn't want to resort to the group finders to form groups, sharing advice helping each other out from time to time etc..

Just had to pay my weekly dues and I can be as involved in stuff with my guild mates or pretend they don't exist, no risk of being kicked or being bothered to do stuff, that does not interest me.

If it were not for ESO's trade guilds I would never have bothered joining a guild, I would have continued to play the game solo for all the other types of guilds held no interest for me whatsoever.

zer0_sum wrote: »

idk wrote: »

zer0_sum wrote: »

idk wrote: »

zer0_sum wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pretty much an AH is not going to happen in this game in any form as the devs stated the reasons they purposely chose this the guild based trading over an central AH and some of those reason directly concerned the AH itself.

I understand and respect those who prefer a different system for various aspects of the game. However, there are some things the devs should hold true to their vision if it is working fine for the game and this trading system seems to do that just fine though only Zos can see the actual numbers of the millions of gold traded each day vis guild traders.

I'm willing to bet anything that 80% or more people ignore trading entirely in this game. If a system isn't being used by the majority of players in the game, your "vision" needs to change and adapt.

You are probably right as 80% of those who have purchased the game have probably not logged in over the past few months. Heck, it could also be 80% of the player base of any MMORPG rarely deals with or never deals with an AH in any given month.

The reality is you are just tossing out numbers without any basis for how you came up with those numbers making it pretty meaningless. Hence your reason that Zos needs to change needs to change and adapt is really you not wanting to change and adapt. Nothing more and nothing less.

This is going against other games with intuitive market systems. WoW's global Auction House is really a nobrainer of an auction system, as dumbed down as you can get. I.

Intuitive does not mean easy or dumbed down. One could say it is intuitive that trading be done on a social nature since that is how it has been done historically (before the internet).

Further, ESO is it's own game and should not even try to be like other games. Heck, I do not play WoW because I do not want to play a dumbed down game. Besides, ESO is not the first game to have a decentralized trading system. Just some games go with easy dumbed down things. Glad ESO does not.

You are arguing with me as though as though if you win the argument Zos will bend to your will or you just want to argue on the subject. Either way, I was merely pointed out Zos' position on the subject and really do not care that people have different opinions on any subject. The only reason I replied to you in the first place is you replied to me with baseless false information.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying unless the system was simplified as to not require usage of memberships to trade guilds you'd might get people to take the multiplayer aspect of the game more seriously.

Right now it seems the only guilds anyone joins aren't ones they want to be in at all. They're trade guilds for necessity.

I don't care if they charge me an extra fee to use somebody elses trader I don't want to join your useless trade guild that serves no function at all apart from the usage of a trader. That's not a guild I want to be in. Why should I be forced to join a guild just to access the trade function of the game? Why isn't there an unaffiliated trader that anyone can use?

I've been playing since launch and I am exactly in the 5 guilds I want to be in. 2 of them are trading guilds, and are filled with pretty nice folks. 2 are social guilds, one of which tries to get a trader when they can, and one is a PvP guild that also puts in an effort to get a trader.

I trade for fun and because I figure someone else might need the stuff that I don't, but if we ever change to an Auction House, I want ZOS to put a gold price on all items in the game (like provisioning stuff vendors for 0 gold right now), so I can opt out of that entirely and just vendor all the stuff.

It's not like that doesn't bring in a huge amount of gold anyway.

zer0_sum wrote: »

idk wrote: »

zer0_sum wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pretty much an AH is not going to happen in this game in any form as the devs stated the reasons they purposely chose this the guild based trading over an central AH and some of those reason directly concerned the AH itself.

I understand and respect those who prefer a different system for various aspects of the game. However, there are some things the devs should hold true to their vision if it is working fine for the game and this trading system seems to do that just fine though only Zos can see the actual numbers of the millions of gold traded each day vis guild traders.

I'm willing to bet anything that 80% or more people ignore trading entirely in this game. If a system isn't being used by the majority of players in the game, your "vision" needs to change and adapt.

You are probably right as 80% of those who have purchased the game have probably not logged in over the past few months. Heck, it could also be 80% of the player base of any MMORPG rarely deals with or never deals with an AH in any given month.

The reality is you are just tossing out numbers without any basis for how you came up with those numbers making it pretty meaningless. Hence your reason that Zos needs to change needs to change and adapt is really you not wanting to change and adapt. Nothing more and nothing less.

This is going against other games with intuitive market systems. WoW's global Auction House is really a nobrainer of an auction system, as dumbed down as you can get. Guild Wars 2 simplifies it as well but adds the ability to post both a request and an item. Allowing crafters to make money by just selling to already bosted requests without looking for customers.

ESO is a complicated system designed for really hardcore traders. This system makes the Stock Market seem easy to get into. I mean if you just want to go into who's in a trade guild and who isn't, more probably aren't in one.

But of course game devs will never admit their vision is wrong. I mean look at wow, "You think you do, but you don't!". They never have and never will admit their system design isn't quite working.

But to me, who cares. I play this game like a single player game with very weird AI.

I'm not sure we played the same GW2. I really dislike the way the game is designed to force you to use the Auction House. There's no reasonable way to gather mats in sufficient numbers if you want to level crafting, which is really easy to do in ESO.

Meanwhile, making money from crafting is a joke there unless you have a PhD in Crafting and you keep a close eye on the market and analyze what is profitable or not via 3rd party sites.

In ESO all you need to do if you want quick money is gather raw mats and sell them.

On top of that an Auction House is really impersonal, and doesn't serve any function that an NPC trader doesn't. If you are going to play a single player game, you might as well just have NPC traders with random inventories that buy your stuff for a range of prices and save yourself the server load.

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

The number of trading spots is limited and the number of traders is constantly growing. Imagine joining a trading guild, paying 15k a week, and then not getting a trading spot.

I make millions from traders and I know I'd rather have a central auction house, accessible from any capital city like your bank.

It wont crash the economy. It'll let more people participate in it.

It wont hurt socialization, as there's still billions of reasons to join guilds in this game. (social, pvp, pve)

Trading guilds have to actively fight against other guilds to get top spots. This is great if you're on top. Or you could be a mid-tier guild with no trader 50% of the time because blind bidding screws you out of your spot because a bigger guild lost their first 3 choices.

If WOW can do it with millions of people I dont see a problem with giving everyone 20-30 spots once they've hit level 20 on their account.

This.

The only slight query I have about your post is why does everyone constantly refer to WoW and only WoW? There are plenty of other MMOs that have highly successful Global Trading Houses. Otherwise I couldn't agree more with you

Moving on from your very sensible post then....I know just how good the GTH system is as I have played quite a few games using it, and none have the dire cons that so many ESO players keep banging on about (and many of whom have probably never experienced a proper working GTH, and are likely basing their opinions on bias towards the only system they really have any knowledge of). Many of the ESO players who do advocate a GTH have also probably played other games with that system, and are fully aware of the advantages, and the fact that this ESO Guild Trading system falls woefully short.

ESO trading system
1) Limited to 5 guilds for a total of 2500 players to buy and sell from.
2) most guilds demand 150K per week to be a member. You are spending with no guarantee of getting your moneys worth. The guild owner reels in the profits.
3) guild trader also charges a fee per item
4) you will have to travel a LOT if you are looking for something that your limited 5 guilds isnt selling.
5) with less buyers your options for selling usually are not be as good as it is with a global auction house.
6) because access to buyers is limited the items generally sell for higher prices

So ummm... this is just not true. I'm in 2 guilds, one in Belkrath, one in Wayrest. Neither one have dues, they have various sales requirements (100k & 2k respectively), and before I started sell more things, the cheaper one (which I started first in) was perfectly fine for moving my wares. If you miss your sales req, you'll have to donate to the guild, but that sum is not very large for either guild.
And you seem like you have no clue of how the financials of a trading guild works. The vast majority of the owners are NOT getting a ton of profits from the trading guilds. They get their gold from selling stuff like everyone else.

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

That subculture has pros and cons. I've heard tails of constant harassment and bullying due to trade spot stealing. The cultural aspects are overrated and deserve to be destroyed.

I've heard the same about many other aspects of the game. Lets destroy those too. If you heard it, it must be true and pervasive, right?

Contaminate wrote: »

Trader systems make monopolizing anything a futile effort due to decentralization.

Improves the profits of traders by keeping many players out of the market.

A global AH... saves you a few minutes here and there.

Which, honestly, is the only part I care about. I'm not and never have been a 'dedicated trader' - I don't care about maximizing profits, keeping a steady income stream, or any of that. I just want to be able to sell 0-5 items every few weeks - i.e, if I happen upon something that seems like it might sell (random guess, based on how I used the AH's in games like WoW, STO, SWToR, Secret World, etc). I will never have the desire or resources to belong to a trade guild, I don't have X amount of sales every single week. And finding/joining a guild every time I want to sell two items is absurd.

But as I mentioned earlier, I know that this game is never going to have an AH. So I just do not participate in the economy at all, vendoring or destroying anything that I don't keep for myself... which leads right back to my first point above. For all the items I (and anyone else) vendor/destroy, the value of the goods the Traders are pushing around is pushed higher. Because the supply of demanded goods is reduced.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

One thing that I would add is:
- Items sold once are bound.
^ Because as far as I can tell, currently that is not the case, so if something is sold cheap, people deliberately buy stuff, just to sell it for more. It only causes unnecessary ramping of the prices.

Also "auction" house is very misleading as there are no "auctions", rather a fixed price. So it would be um... Trading House ?

Anyway OP, as much as I like the idea to have both systems in game:
- Trading guilds.
- Global or per zone "Trading House" with limited sell per week (lets say 5 per week per account).

Trading guild "cartel" / "mafia" (whatever you call it) wont let you. As for a very tiny % of player base they are, They are extremely vocal on forums.
I have seen pretty much all topics about Auction / Trading house or even topics about improving the godawful "WTS/WTB" zone chat spam system to be improved, going to s**t because of them, despite all reason & quite logic and solid arguments.

Yeah. Cartels. Mafia. Too bad there isn't a tinfoil hat in the game.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6072752/#Comment_6072752

zer0_sum wrote: »

As a newerish player, frankly I dislike this concept of trade guilds massively.

From what I see there is l iterally only 2 types of guides:

1) Trade guilds who don't talk but require a set amount of sales per week.

or

2) Hardcore RP guilds.

That appears to be it. As a newer player I don't, and can't, post anything to anything near the zones I'm at. I don't know the world or where to look so I don't buy either. I'd venture to say 80% of the entire game playerbase completely ignores traders entirely.

I mean sure it's great for the few people that enjoy trading. But most hate it.

Why not both system? Somewhere easy to get to and linked for newer players and people who don't care, but traders for people who want bargain hunting and reposting.

You really need to change the parameters of what you want when you look for a guild. All of my guilds have a trader. One of my guilds considers itself a trading guild, although they charge no dues, no sales requirement, voluntary raffle and auction of items the officers and gm acquire. They have a guild house with crafting stations, dummies, mundus stones, the whole 9 yards, and also run trials, pledges, bosses, skyshard runs, and pvp in Cyrodiil. So do the other guilds I'm in. No dues; no sales requirement, one doesn't even bother with a raffle. And none of them are "hardcore rp". [although some of them are still working on getting all the crafting stations, despite "the gms reeling in the profits" [yes, that was sarcastic]]

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

I'd rather not bring guild drama on to the forums. So no, I will not prove to you that the harassment is true. I don't owe you or your vague rebuttals any sort of response, yet here I am. Is it pervasive? Why does it have to be? Is it only bad if thousands of players are getting bullied, instead of hundreds? Do you care if it doesn't happen on the PC or whatever system you use? People on this forum act like other systems don't even exist.

But I digress. If a part of the game is being used to harass other players and by design has winners and losers, then it does not deserve to be in the game. It needs to be fixed. Never has something that affects so many people been controlled by so few.

Game bad, destroy it.

Someone got bullied. Let's destroy it. I understand your point.

AlnilamE wrote: »

On top of that an Auction House is really impersonal, and doesn't serve any function that an NPC trader doesn't. If you are going to play a single player game, you might as well just have NPC traders with random inventories that buy your stuff for a range of prices and save yourself the server load.

Server load is used a lot in saying how a AH would crash it. You know that database systems such as AH's in MMO's are not handled by the same dedicated server processing as that which handles the combat or environmental interactions. If they are not then they are idgits, but this is how you can have large scale markets without bringing problems to those other parts such as you find in Eve Online.

The Server is really a series of servers interconnected with distributed processing. Your premise that Bank, Trade, Chat & Mail loads cause extra loads in the Environmental & Combat Interactions is rejected as false. What does affect the load in Combat is that added by combat & non-combat pets, assistants and mounts as well as particle effects. Make the change that non-combat & assistants are dismissed when in combat, that will lighten the load considerable as they no longer add in the position tracking and modeling while handling combat.

I remember the discussions in Beta when we were given the monkeys on how it adds to the already noticeable loads in combat. It was dismissed then as there will not be enough of them to make a noticeable difference. Yeah, right.