Zenimax could do much worse than copy GW2's inventory system and AH, in fact i would praise them to no end if they ever did that.

The general bank / crafting bank storage system as well as the 'send to bank' option from anywhere was soooo nice

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".

Its not an lack of loot in ESO, rather the opposite, add that few items are bound to account. For raw materials everybody can collect everything.

Most players are not after maximizing profit but making sure and fast sales, you see 10 other selling one item so you put your own price a gold below the others. The next one repeats this. Result is that prices falls for most stuff, the exception is any rare items where demand is larger than supply, here the price will be high often very hight as all the players with lots of gold has little else to use the money on.
Imagine that tempers to take stuff up to legendary will be legendary expensive, no it would not really be worth the 5% bonus but its the only way to get it.

zaria wrote: »

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".

Its not an lack of loot in ESO, rather the opposite, add that few items are bound to account. For raw materials everybody can collect everything.

Most players are not after maximizing profit but making sure and fast sales, you see 10 other selling one item so you put your own price a gold below the others. The next one repeats this. Result is that prices falls for most stuff, the exception is any rare items where demand is larger than supply, here the price will be high often very hight as all the players with lots of gold has little else to use the money on.
Imagine that tempers to take stuff up to legendary will be legendary expensive, no it would not really be worth the 5% bonus but its the only way to get it.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Scarcity creates value. Things that are more rare, and more difficult to obtain SHOULD cost a lot more than things that are common and easily obtained. Why should I pay more than a pittance for white crafted gear when with a little effort, I can make it myself? Or, even easier, find hundreds of thousands of other crafters who can make the same thing, and are asking less?

You say it wouldn't be worth a mere 5% bonus, but I say, if people are willing to pay that much more for a 5% bonus, then it absolutely IS worth that much more. You're issue is that someone else is willing to pay more for it than you want to, so you are forced to either pay that much or do without. Because of this, you have an instinctive reaction that you want to somehow CONTROL the economy, or have someone else control it for you. The problem is, every type of control has the opposite effect that you want: prices become LESS fair than if they were set by pure supply and demand, not more fair.

I'd like to see a public auction house.
I don't like the current selling mechanic with one.
If people like within guild auctions, that's fine...we still need a public one.

We really need an AH. So much easier. I don't want to be in 5 guilds, just 1 and non trade. The trading would be way more open towards players.

Lot of good points here. I can live with the system for the most part. I don't like that I can't access the average prices for an item except to manually search the guilds that i'm in one at a time. I need to get to town, quickly list my stuff at a fair price and get back out there. I want to make a small profit but I don't want to list stuff for way more than the other guilds and rip my guild mates off or have the item sit there overpriced and not sell at all.

Trade channel yes.

OK, so i have read a lot about the auction house stuff. I think it's a bad idea. people will abuse it. Look at Final Fantasy on-line's or even Blizzard's attempt to make a stable one. human's are greedy, join guilds or offer your items in chat.

Disagree that we need a traditional server-wide auction house.

I agree with those saying we need a trade channel, and also the guild store needs some work, the most important being searching the listings by keyword.

RakeWorm wrote: »

Krayor wrote: »

I can't believe that some of you are still hanging on to the laughable "gold seller" arguments. Even after being literally disproved by the gold sellers. Although just about every argument against a better trade system has been laughable... You sound like broken records at this point.

And yet you guys are the ones that can't let these threads die, but continue to say the same things over and over in new threads.

At least the points being made by those wanting improvements aren't laughable at best, but are very good points. It gets tiring shooting the irrational arguments of the "No AH" crowd down left and right. When your argument is debunked, it's stupid to keep regurgitating it. I'm losing respect for you.

Threads about issues shouldn't die because *you* don't have an issue with it. You don't like it, don't be stupid enough to click on it then. I know that's probably an incomprehensible idea for you.

Dear ZOS and fellow players,

1. There are three ways to trade at present:
(1) Travel to a faction-wide "keep store" in Cyrodiil.
(2) Join a large trading guild and using the "Guild store".
(3) Advertising in zone chat (using either direct trade or COD mail to complete the transaction).

2. Each method of trade has positives and negatives:
(1) Keep Stores
+ Add an RP story element that is consistent with historical reasons for conflict between nations that would cause the war found in Cyrodiil (the control of markets).
+ Provide a goal for guilds to sponsor keeps and participate in Cyrodiil that is beyond getting an emperor title - a justification to fight over the keeps so to speak.
+ Create a reason for guilds to interact with each other (competition for control of stores, cooperation and alliances to control stores, scheming, backstabbing, etc.).
+/- Require a lot of play hours for a guild that hopes to maintain a market. Positive if you are someone who plays ESO with other guild mates who can contribute 18-hours a day... you get rewarded for your effort and dedication. A negative for players who cannot play as much (for whatever reason).
- You must travel to a PvP zone that often has significant transfer lag and travel time to a keep in order to access even one faction-wide store. The less time you have to play, the more you will be affected by this particular aspect of the game.
- Contributions of a guild to the faction war in Cyrodiil have no bearing on who controls a keep store. Keep stores go to whatever guild has an Officer nearest the keep NPC when it is captured by your faction. Effectively, whoever clicks the fastest gets a keep store regardless as to whether or not their guild is responsible for effort to capture the keep.
- Price comparison is basically impossible in this system unless you have several guild mates working together to compare items.
Observation: Keep Stores do nothing to prevent gold sellers except limit the share of the market they can access from a single "regional" store. It might even encourage gold farmers to play enough to maintain a keep store for their gold farming guild.

(2) Guild Stores
+ Provide a compelling reason to join a large guild with diverse skills.
+ Provide for centralized shopping that is setup in a single place. You can browse all your available guild stores from any bank albeit this is clumsy at present when switching between guilds.
+/- Price comparison is possible, but still cumbersome at present. When comparing prices between guild stores for multiple items I have to keep a pen and paper handy . However, this would be true from an RP perspective if I was at any kind of open market in RL and walking from stall to stall.
+/- Limiting a guild to 500 players will eventually create competition for membership to the guild stores with the best wares. This is because players who craft/farm/loot high-end items will want to participate in markets where they can buy and sell those items to others who have wares of similar quality. This is a positive for players who are engaged in the highest-end game content as they will probably have the best gear and materials to sell. This could also be a negative for the best players if they are counting on having access to large markets of casual players that usual buy high-end gear instead of completing high end content to get the best gear. Thus, this will also be a negative for more casual players who historically save gold to buy higher end items that are needed to participate in more difficult game content (or be more effective in PvP).
- Penalizes small guilds, especially so called "friends and family" guilds. These guilds are often made up of a few players that have well developed relationships and/or don't like the hussle and impersonal nature of many large guilds. Effectively, valuing small guild social interactions can deny you access to a major trading opportunity in the game.
(3) Advertise in zone chat
+ Access to large markets. Everyone in the zone that hasn't turned off zone chat will know what you are selling.
+ An RP acceptable method of trade (although hardcore RP-ers should probably use /say instead of /zone since no one could yell across an entire zone).
+/- Could create a new niche role within guilds that are looking to sell their items by having members in the guild whose full-time role is to hawk the guild member's goods. Heck, these players could even get a salary or work on commission.
- You can only access players that are logged on and monitoring zone chat.
- Effectively makes zone chat a 24-hour a day trade spam + guild spam + gold-farmer spam channel.

3. Considering a faction-wide Auction House:
-/+ There is only flimsy support for a faction wide AH from and RP/world-building perspective. Consider that from a real life perspective our current technology has allowed regional markets to be effectively accessed as a worldwide market (a discussion of currency trading, trade restrictions, regulation, etc is beyond the scope of this thread and this game*). However, the communications technology that we have today doesn't seem compatible with doing that in an ESO setting. With that said, perhaps some kind of flimsy 'Mage's Guild' store using "communications magic" in place of technology could be used to justify what would effectively be a faction-wide auction house. I am sure that crafty players and those that get paid to develop lore at ZOS could come up with a way to justify this that would make most people happy.
+ Auction houses can empower casual players because they can have their goods offered when they are not logged into the game and access to items that can help them access more content or play more effectively in pvp.
+ Auction houses allow easy access to the entire faction as a market of goods and potential customers.
- Auction Houses can empower gold farmers and would be commodities monopolists who would seek to fix prices or price gouge.
* If you want regional markets tied together then you should also have regional currencies that have exchange rates dictated by market forces or that are potentially manipulated to some degree by regulation from local governments (from an RP perspective) . This could make trade REALLY interesting albeit much more complex and difficult for average players or folks without an MS in international finance.
4. Recommendations (My Opinions In light of the above....):
(1) An AH is probably the best to let trade really take off by creating a true market that represents all players in the game and is amenable to both hard core and casual players.
(2) Create a trade channel. Zone chat is unusable at present. I turned it off weeks ago.
(3) Consider creating a market area or instance that is not in Cyrodiil where guilds could have their stores setup. Think of this as a swap meet (aka: flea market) where guilds that show up can have a stall. You could even charge them a fee for access to the market to keep guilds honest and make them really consider what they want to put up for sale. The zone chat in such a zone could be used as trade chat. If you want to keep competition among guilds that exists with keep stores then limit the number of stalls. ...Maybe even use total alliance points earned by a guild in Cyrodiil as a way to justify who gets the opportunity to have a stall at the market with a small number set aside for smaller guilds on a lottery.
Thoughts?

- Susitna.

Parting thought: Good job taking out those gold farmers and exploiters ZOS. Keep it up!

Susitna wrote: »

(2) Create a trade channel. Zone chat is unusable at present. I turned it off weeks ago.

I haven't had enough coffee yet to comprehend your entire post, but I am curious how a trade channel would be any more usable than zone chat? The same people would have access to it and the same thing would, therefore, happen to it as has happened to zone chat.

Have to agree, a 'global' auction house is needed to make the economy in this game more dynamic and provide players with a better/wider option for the sale of goods.

I vote for neither a global AH, not a guild AH....but instead one of the below:

Factional specific economic system
The players would have to travel either to the other faction (in the case of factional AH system) or perhaps have the item delivered (e.g. if the player can't go to the other faction yet). That "delivery cost" could replace the "guild tax" that the current system has. Alternatively, if a player wanted to negate the cost, then they could go and get the item from the other economy system themselves.

Zone specific economic system
Same as above, however, there wouldn't be any factional issues. Players would either still need to travel to the "originating" zone for the item. Or opt to have it delivered in the mail (delivery cost).

Player "Shop" system
Same as above, except that players have to visit the actual player "shop" to get the item, or have it delivered at an additional cost (as per above). Such a system could be connected with player housing, and/or utilise some form of UI in the cities.

User interface
"Auction Broker" npcs could exist in the towns / cities which grant players access to a list of items being sold, where they are being sold from and the price. In the case of the first two suggestions, Auction Brokers in the "originating zones" for the sales would hold the items for sale. In the latter, there could be a servant npc that can be the "interface" for the player housing shop.


Notes
There are a number of good reasons to have "splintered" economic systems. Of course, such economies aren't as convenient as a global AH system. However, they have their benefits. One of the advantages of the above is that an optional "delivery cost" provides a good mechanism to get people to travel and so it allows for regional / factional economic systems. Something that cannot be done in a global AH. With a global AH you must pay the tax regardless.

And...if they implemented a locked dye system (once applied, can't be changed), and the ability to find rare recipes (not just the books).....NOW you're talking about a good crafting / economic system

Honestly, I haven't missed an AH in this game. I used to play the AH game in other MMOs but I'm perfectly fine with it the way it is, not that anyone cares. With the number of bots farming dungeon bosses, gold sellers, botters farming nodes, and other hacks they're using, I think it would just benefit the Gold Sellers more than any one else playing the game.

A Trade Channel may not be a bad idea. However, from what I've seen on Zone Channels: petty bickering; mindless arguing about inane topics and general complaining about every aspect of the game, I can see that spilling over to a Trade Channel and thus becoming just another channel I have to disable.

Perhaps if we had a more mature community, a Trade Channel would work. I won't hold my breath.