(PC) My issue with Tamriel Trade Centre!

BigM · August 2018

Just wanted to comment about this add-on, Tamriel Trade Centre.

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1245-TamrielTradeCentre.html

Up until this add-on was introduced in the game I was making major gold in the game. Once this hit and finding my gold making took a major hit and blaming it on Guilds I was involved with turned out not to be the reason. You know thinking people were leaving the game for a different reason and so on. Turns out majority weren't leaving they were using Tamriel Trade Centre!

Now am old school, anything outside the game and being 3rd party was always a no-no. Thinking scams and stealing accounts.

I still have conflicts using it, but I finally installed it because all Guilds am associated with including my #1 best Guild ever http://www.grievancegaming.org/ (Never be without a Guild again, join today) said they were using the add-on.

My feeling is, it seems to be safe, but I would love if Zenimax would break down and run this themselves for security concerns. So am wondering how the majority of players feel about this add-on and should we be trusting any add-on running outside the game?

Right now it does seem to bring back my Gold making back to where it used to be.

So guys and gals what are your thoughts?

Also, anyone on PC NA/EU if you want to make Gold, join 5 Guilds and use this to make Gold. This is also available on Xbox and PS4.

qbit · August 2018

I don't think ZOS is going to comment on the safety of the addon as a matter of policy. You need to determine it yourself. It would be nice if the client.exe was opensource (maybe it is) so you could compile it yourself after reviewing the code.

I have not had issues running the client.exe tool. I understand your concern. I am not at my PC at home to confirm, but I believe the executable is stored in the user profile path and does not require admin rights to run. Those are good indicators it's safe. I may be totally wrong about both those points since I'm not at my PC to confirm. If it prompts for admin elevation when you run it, there is more reason to be concerned but this is still not an immediate cause for concern (but in my opinion, it should never require admin rights for what it does).

One would need to do some wireshark analysis or maybe decompile it to know for sure. Also, the functionality the client.exe provides could probably be done entirely in the LUA. I think other addons are able to upload data to servers without an executable running in the background. It may just be laziness on part of the addon author. Don't know. And haven't really answered your question. It would be nice if we could analyze the traffic from the client.exe. If we see none of it is encrypted and only goes to one server and we can see the data is just benign xml or whatever of item prices, then great. If it's all encrypted going to multiple IPs, etc. then maybe not. I've not checked it.

Probably by now people would be up in arms if there was a security issue with TTC client.exe. But lack of that does not mean it's not got some malicious ability that hasn't been utilized yet. Better safe than sorry.

Normal LUA addons surely cannot harm your system. As long as your not running eso64.exe with admin elevation. But who knows. The client.exe of TTC does concern me, but I still run it.

SlippyCheeze · August 2018

BigM wrote: »

Up until this add-on was introduced in the game I was making major gold in the game. Once this hit and finding my gold making took a major hit and blaming it on Guilds I was involved with turned out not to be the reason. You know thinking people were leaving the game for a different reason and so on. Turns out majority weren't leaving they were using Tamriel Trade Centre!

My feeling is, it seems to be safe, but I would love if Zenimax would break down and run this themselves for security concerns. So am wondering how the majority of players feel about this add-on and should we be trusting any add-on running outside the game?

First, the in-game parts in lua are perfectly safe... or, at least, as safe as any other addon. ZOS have done a good job preventing the lua code from doing something nasty.

The external client executable, which is required to upload data, and download calculated prices, is another matter, but if it really concerns you, you can simply use the web based client to do the exact same data exchange at https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade/WebClient -- which lives happily in the browser sandbox, that you presumably trust enough to have posted this, and where you can inspect the data in the file you upload, and download, at your convenience.

BigM wrote: »

Right now it does seem to bring back my Gold making back to where it used to be.

I'm honestly surprised to hear you say that. Most people seem to be super-mad that they can't take advantage of uneven distribution of knowledge, and sell things at popular locations for way more than people do at unpopular ones.

I'm really glad, though, to hear that you are happy about it.

Meanwhile, my thoughts? I think that it is absolutely inevitable that any game which forces players to use a non-global auction house ends up where ESO is right now: someone figures out a clever way around it, and produces a shittier version of a real global exchange point.

Because "make trade inconvenient" is never something that players will accept, and it is an analogous problem to network security: the defender has to win every time, the attacker only has to win once. So no matter how hard you make it, people will keep trying to build these things, and succeed frequently enough to make it economically unviable.

This will upset a small subset of users, who liked their ability to abuse uneven player knowledge for in-game advantages, and please another small-ish subset of users who will use that tool. That first set, of course, will never be happy.

Building it into the game core will please almost all your users, once the shock of prices settling on a real market value, rather than an easily manipulated one, passes.

BigM · August 2018

SlippyCheeze wrote: »

Building it into the game core will please almost all your users, once the shock of prices settling on a real market value, rather than an easily manipulated one, passes.

This is what I would love to see and is why I needed to get back on the forums to debate this very issue and hope the developers listen and at least debate this among them self. Sadly I understand also how busy they are in creating and designing the game.

I agree, yes it would please the majority of players. But at least we are talking and debating it. This is exactly what I wanted to do.

This is also not a post to where I wanted the author of the add-on to feel am attacking them over it. In fact am happy they created it too show Zenimax how easy it could be where we also keep the five Guild option. I would just feel safer if Zenimax was the one controlling it.

Easily_Lost · August 2018

OP, if you are on PC just use Master Merchant ( http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info928-MasterMerchant.html ).

danno8 · August 2018

BigM wrote: »

So guys and gals what are your thoughts?

My thoughts are I would never run around Tamriel for hours and hours to save a few thousand gold since you can just make a few thousand gold doing other things for a few hours.

TTC actually lets you find a good price for an item while not wasting your time. That to me is fair and right, even though some people will undoubtedly not appreciate how it bites into their personal profits.

Is the client.exe dangerous? Maybe. Who knows what someone might do with a program. That's true with every program, even with big "trusted" corporations that update their own software to include spying modules or tracking modules, or even social media sites that say one thing but do another, while apologizing over and over and promising to do better in the future, lol.

My AV software says it's fine, and I haven't had any issues with it. I am willing to throw a little trust the authors way since it's been out for a year and a half without issue.

Danikat · August 2018

Easily_Lost wrote: »

OP, if you are on PC just use Master Merchant ( http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info928-MasterMerchant.html ).

Master Merchant is better than TTC for price checks because it goes off sales instead of current listings (which will include insanely over-priced items that will never actually sell). But it can't tell you where to find something.

That's the big advantage of TTC for me. For example this morning I realised my most recent blacksmith research has run out and I don't currently have any items I can research. I checked my guild stores and there was nothing there either (they're not trading guilds so there's never much but I prefer to buy from them when I can).

So now I have 2 options:
1) Pick a location, effectively at random and hope the traders there happen to have what I want and the prices aren't insane, and if not head to another location and start over until I happen to stumble across the items I want.
2) Open the TTC site and search all the traders at once to find all the options then pick the best one/s and head straight there. Yes there's a chance the item will be gone by the time you get there, but if that happens you've got all the other listings to choose from still.

The really nice part is you don't need the addon to do that, you only need it if you want to upload listings automatically. I have recently started using the addon because I thought if I'm using the site I should contribute to it. But I did check it out first to make sure it seemed safe, and I only have it running when I'm actually scanning a guild store.

BigM · August 2018

@Danikat option 2 is exactly why I had to use it, I spend enough time fishing for the Perfect Roe, don't need to be running around to find what I want and should be able to get it faster.

Yet, like I also said my gold incoming went way down couple months after this add-on went live. So competing with players from five guilds went poof and now I was competing with few thousand if not millions.

One thing I would love is not having to put my game ID in so my sales can get uploaded. Which is why I would rather have Zenimax running it.

Oh and yes I also use Master Merchant.

Baertram · September 2018

But isn't MasterMerchant only checking your 5 guilds whereas TTC is getting the data from the TTC servers (via the client.-exe, download->PirceTable.lua file is updated each day if you run the client) and thus has the data from the whole Tamriel world guiolds which participate into uploading their infos via the client, or editong them manually on the TTC website?

So MasterMerchant is a kind of local price from your guilds and TTC a global auction house info.

TazESO · October 2018

qbit wrote: »

I don't think ZOS is going to comment on the safety of the addon as a matter of policy. You need to determine it yourself. It would be nice if the client.exe was opensource (maybe it is) so you could compile it yourself after reviewing the code.

I have not had issues running the client.exe tool. I understand your concern. I am not at my PC at home to confirm, but I believe the executable is stored in the user profile path and does not require admin rights to run. Those are good indicators it's safe. I may be totally wrong about both those points since I'm not at my PC to confirm. If it prompts for admin elevation when you run it, there is more reason to be concerned but this is still not an immediate cause for concern (but in my opinion, it should never require admin rights for what it does).

One would need to do some wireshark analysis or maybe decompile it to know for sure. Also, the functionality the client.exe provides could probably be done entirely in the LUA. I think other addons are able to upload data to servers without an executable running in the background. It may just be laziness on part of the addon author. Don't know. And haven't really answered your question. It would be nice if we could analyze the traffic from the client.exe. If we see none of it is encrypted and only goes to one server and we can see the data is just benign xml or whatever of item prices, then great. If it's all encrypted going to multiple IPs, etc. then maybe not. I've not checked it.

Probably by now people would be up in arms if there was a security issue with TTC client.exe. But lack of that does not mean it's not got some malicious ability that hasn't been utilized yet. Better safe than sorry.

Normal LUA addons surely cannot harm your system. As long as your not running eso64.exe with admin elevation. But who knows. The client.exe of TTC does concern me, but I still run it.

Ahhhh, You had me at Wireshark. One of my favorite tools (I’m in IT). The packets don’t lie. 😁

friimynd · February 2020

necro... yeah, this is a major fail; i kind of wonder if it is broke for me because someone doesn't like me, or just to make my and everyone's life a bit harder
.
it worked before
just wanted to harp before i go jump off a bridge (in the game)
.
Z needs to put this in the game or get behind it somehow; a bleepin trade listing; call it magic, whatever

what a broken mechanic, fail

Granicus · February 2020

I see this thread has been rezzed but I think the issue is still relevant. I took a look at potentially loading TTC on my system and decided against it after reading their T&Cs and what it wanted to do on my system. Just didn’t feel like a smart thing to do.

And indirectly I blame ZoS. The trading ‘system’ in ESO is just simply awful. From the concept to execution. I understand a lot of people love to make gold off a system that purposely functions with imperfect data, but just as other such games have they should implement a global auction house. I’m really tired of paying 5x the price of something because it’s being manipulated. I’ve seen mundane items being ‘sold’ for millions in gold just to try to drive prices up.

Danikat · February 2020

Granicus wrote: »

I see this thread has been rezzed but I think the issue is still relevant. I took a look at potentially loading TTC on my system and decided against it after reading their T&Cs and what it wanted to do on my system. Just didn’t feel like a smart thing to do.

And indirectly I blame ZoS. The trading ‘system’ in ESO is just simply awful. From the concept to execution. I understand a lot of people love to make gold off a system that purposely functions with imperfect data, but just as other such games have they should implement a global auction house. I’m really tired of paying 5x the price of something because it’s being manipulated. I’ve seen mundane items being ‘sold’ for millions in gold just to try to drive prices up.

As explained above you don't need to use the TTC addon at all for buying items, it's only used to automatically upload listings from guild stores and to embed prices in item descriptions. If you just want to see what's currently available, where, and how much it costs you can do that through the website without using the addon.

It would be much better if ZOS would incorporate this system into the game instead of leaving it for players to do the work for them, but as they don't seem likely to do that we have to settle for a work-around.

butterrum222 · February 2020

You say this is available on PS4, how exactly does that work if it’s an add on?

newtinmpls · February 2020

Granicus wrote: »

I’m really tired of paying 5x the price of something because it’s being manipulated.

On the other hand, when attempting to look for a "rare" item via TTC, when I find that all the versions of that item for sale are basically the same price, we have price fixing by proxy.

Baertram wrote: »

But isn't MasterMerchant only checking your 5 guilds .

There is an option in MM where you can scan prices of traders that you are "visiting" which I usually do a few times, just to increase my accuracy.

Danikat · February 2020

butterrum222 wrote: »

You say this is available on PS4, how exactly does that work if it’s an add on?

TTC is mainly a website, used by players to advertise items they have for sale and to find items others are selling. The addon makes it quicker and easier to upload items which are in your guild store, but it's possible to upload items manually instead. Console players only have the manual upload option, but can still use the website: https://www.tamrieltradecentre.com/

However it seems like it isn't nearly as popular on consoles, probably because it takes longer to upload things, so there isn't as much on offer there.

Back in ye olde days of MMOs when automated trade systems hadn't been invented and the only way to trade was to spam chat and hope a buyer/seller was in the same place at the same time I used similar websites to find trades, but I'd only bother to do it for hard to find (or hard to sell) items, it wasn't worth the hassle for most things, and I imagine it's the same for console players using TTC.

Granicus · February 2020

Danikat wrote: »

Granicus wrote: »

I see this thread has been rezzed but I think the issue is still relevant. I took a look at potentially loading TTC on my system and decided against it after reading their T&Cs and what it wanted to do on my system. Just didn’t feel like a smart thing to do.

And indirectly I blame ZoS. The trading ‘system’ in ESO is just simply awful. From the concept to execution. I understand a lot of people love to make gold off a system that purposely functions with imperfect data, but just as other such games have they should implement a global auction house. I’m really tired of paying 5x the price of something because it’s being manipulated. I’ve seen mundane items being ‘sold’ for millions in gold just to try to drive prices up.

As explained above you don't need to use the TTC addon at all for buying items, it's only used to automatically upload listings from guild stores and to embed prices in item descriptions. If you just want to see what's currently available, where, and how much it costs you can do that through the website without using the addon.

It would be much better if ZOS would incorporate this system into the game instead of leaving it for players to do the work for them, but as they don't seem likely to do that we have to settle for a work-around.

I was aware and actually do use via the website. I should have added that bit, but thank you for clarifying that point. I use the website but I wish it had better sort levels. You can sort on Price or you can sort on Last Seen but you can’t do both unfortunately. I’d like to see the cheapest price with the most recent update, for instance.

Danikat · February 2020

Granicus wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

Granicus wrote: »

I see this thread has been rezzed but I think the issue is still relevant. I took a look at potentially loading TTC on my system and decided against it after reading their T&Cs and what it wanted to do on my system. Just didn’t feel like a smart thing to do.

And indirectly I blame ZoS. The trading ‘system’ in ESO is just simply awful. From the concept to execution. I understand a lot of people love to make gold off a system that purposely functions with imperfect data, but just as other such games have they should implement a global auction house. I’m really tired of paying 5x the price of something because it’s being manipulated. I’ve seen mundane items being ‘sold’ for millions in gold just to try to drive prices up.

As explained above you don't need to use the TTC addon at all for buying items, it's only used to automatically upload listings from guild stores and to embed prices in item descriptions. If you just want to see what's currently available, where, and how much it costs you can do that through the website without using the addon.

It would be much better if ZOS would incorporate this system into the game instead of leaving it for players to do the work for them, but as they don't seem likely to do that we have to settle for a work-around.

I was aware and actually do use via the website. I should have added that bit, but thank you for clarifying that point. I use the website but I wish it had better sort levels. You can sort on Price or you can sort on Last Seen but you can’t do both unfortunately. I’d like to see the cheapest price with the most recent update, for instance.

That would be a vast improvement.

My solution is to sort by price and then pick a 'cut off point' for last seen, usually about 24 hours but it depends on the item. If it's older than that I don't bother checking.

I don't entirely understand how TTC works. I've noticed sometimes I've bought something, then used the addon to scan the entire guild store and uploaded the data, but hours later the item I bought will still show as available. It's easy to spot with relatively rare items, the one I remember was a dawn-prism. I bought one on Friday night and kept checking back on Saturday, because I wanted another one, and the guild store never had one, but it still showed on TTC. I guess it's hard to know if somethng is gone or just wasn't scanned, but it's frustrating.

Another problem that could be fixed if ZOS gave us a decent trade system.

friimynd · February 2020

the immersion is nice, but mostly inconvenient