ESO direly need a central auction house ...

mikemacon · July 2020

To quote HAMLET, Act III, Scene III, Line 92:

“No.”

Anotherone773 · July 2020

Pink_Pixie wrote: »

A central system would be a lot easier, as the 197 guild traders that are out there, are eating up assets. Less assets would help the game run much more smoothly.

A central AH is not less taxing on the servers than localized trading. On a single trader there can be a max of 15k items. So when you query it only has to query a list of up to 15k items. It is limited on a central AH by the number of people on the server but lets just stick with 200 traders worth. That would be a query of 3 million items. except instead of having at most 2 or 3 people query that list, you might have over a 100 queries of the same huge list every min. Storing data on a server ( a bunch of lists) is much cheaper than accessing and processing a constantly changing mega list. Try searching for something on your entire harddrive. then try searching for it in just the documents folder. See how much faster the latter is?

As we know trade systems work in other games, which has been pointed out numerous times.

there is a difference between working and working well. A central AH has never worked well in any game i have played. Also as it was pointed out the games that typically use them has small server populations whereas ESO will have tens of thousands of people logged in on a single server at a time. Just steam logins alone will be more than half a dozen servers of games like Wow.

We don't play EVE, Guild wars, Star Wars, Star Trek and so on. So that holds little interest for me, and for the community no doubt. I have no interest in the trade systems of other games, as we play ESO

Trade systems in other games are used as evidence to prove ones point. They actually are very much part of every single thread on this topic. While it may not hold any interest for you, it will for us because its how we describe what we are talking about. IE: like the AH in Wow or the local economy in Eve. Even down to specific features. When you are trying to describe your point without it actually being in this game, the next best thing is a game that it is in.

However, asking people to join a trade guild only makes the game even slower. As stated, load screens are the bane for many players. As they would rather play, then spend an hour or so staring at load screens.

Joining a trade guild and load screens are not related subjects.

And in the end it won't, items might be cheaper for a while. But eventually they will stabilize as normal markets do over time. Supply and demand won't alter that much in the long run, if anything it'll improve

This is how AHs work outside of how casual non traders think they work. Right now, i could buy all the elegant lining on the market. If we had a central AH, this would literally involve me standing in place and clicking a button for a bit.

I now own all the elegant lining. Im going to relist it but not for the 187 gold average i bought it for. I think you need to pay 500 gold for it.Lets say you decide to list 50 linings for 125 gold. Either someone is going to snatch those. Or i am going to snatch them and relist them for 500.

Even if i cant buy out the whole market, i can buy a large chunk. this allows me to raise the price of goods. So i might be able to get the low price up to what use to be the 187 average. So now the low price is 187 instead of ...100 gold. After i make some of my money back i can get the low price up to 200, and then 300, and then 400, etc.

meanwhile items that are not hot sellers will see a lot of competition. Anything that is not purple or crafting mats will get so devalued that the vendor price will higher. People will stop posting these items. Instead of the one stop shop people dream of it will become a a place of worthless junk posted by noobs and overpriced everything that is useful.

Central AH is REALLY easy to manipulate especially if you cut your teeth in the dog eat dog world of Spreadsheets Online. many pro AH people are mistaken. Im not against central AH because it will hurt my trade income, im against it because i will be one of the few with a trade income. Most other players will be vendoring any loot in their inventories.

And yes, I know I can join a trade guild, but I don't really need more chat clutter in my chat box just to sell items.

You can turn specific chats off. You can also create new tabs that are for specifics. For example i have a zone/say/yell tab, group tab, guild tab. Whisper is active in all tabs. My guild tab has trade guild chats turned off.

Lysette · July 2020

The misconception some might have who want an easier way to list their items on the market is, that listing them isn't selling them yet. They will just sell for as long as they are top of the list and the best offer in the market place. I asked a friend of mine lately, how much she has sold so far - she isn't a trader or any experienced with sales and just thought listing items in a trading guild will get those things sold - well, she said, all her stuff got returned to her mailbox. Of course she never came to the idea that she has to care for her offers after listing them - and eventually cancel and relist them or even check if this stuff she is offering is selling at all and if there are recent trades of her items and at which price.

I just wonder how many of those wanting an AH have the same idea, that easy listing will just get them some extra coin without any more effort or even make them rich. This will be a quite frustrating experience for them, if their stuff gets returned to their mailbox and pretty much nothing sold. Ok, if they heavily under-price it, it will sell, because someone will buy and relist it at a proper price - and care for that these items will be top of the list until they have sold. An AH is not a place where casuals will easily make money, but a shark tank and if you want to trade there, you have to be a shark yourself.

With the current system an offer has a good chance to stay on top of the list for hours or even days - in an AH those are just minutes until it gets buried under cheaper offers and without care nothing will sell at a good price - just heavily under-cut stuff will sell pretty much instantly - and that is then the price where casuals can sell stuff, if it is not just junk no one cares for anyway. Especially for newbies an AH is not a good place with level-gated stuff we have in ESO - unrefined raw materials sell, but in a cut-throat AH those are not worth a lot.

VoxAdActa · July 2020

Lysette wrote: »

I just wonder how many of those wanting an AH have the same idea, that easy listing will just get them some extra coin without any more effort or even make them rich. This will be a quite frustrating experience for them, if their stuff gets returned to their mailbox and pretty much nothing sold. Ok, if they heavily under-price it, it will sell, because someone will buy and relist it at a proper price - and care for that these items will be top of the list until they have sold. An AH is not a place where casuals will easily make money, but a shark tank and if you want to trade there, you have to be a shark yourself.

They all have this misconception. This is why I keep asking "What are you trying to sell?" and keep getting back evasive non-answers (or being outright ignored).

The people making the claim that they are "shut out" of the market don't know enough about what's valuable in the market to even make up a lie to answer the question with.

Eifleber · July 2020

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

[Edit to remove bait]

Anotherone773 · July 2020

Eifleber wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

And thus the statement must be false or incorrect? Very logical argument.

Edit: Thought i would elaborate on this since it confuses people who dont really understand how bots work. Lets say i am a bot farmer.

Im going to have a macro that is going to scan the AH for items i want. Lets say all blue improvement materials. I will have it set so that it will refresh randomly between say 30-120 seconds. This makes it harder to track that i am a bot. It is also set to auto buy items below a certain price. All of these items fill my infinite space craft bag. Lets say i run this program for about 4 hours.

At 4 hours i will swap to a new bot with eso plus and they will take over. I will distribute stacks of what i have collected on the bot that just got done farming to seller accounts. These will post the items for sale in full stacks, half stacks, quarter stacks, and smaller random amounts. They will post in varying quantities( slots used) and will appear to compete with each other. There will be items on the market already from other bot accounts that my company owns( yes its almost always a company). You will pay the price i decide if you want these items.

I will do this for most if not all crafting material. A central AH makes it very easy and i can alter my programs a little bit to make me hard to catch. The GMs will catch a few accounts here and there but they will barely make a dent in my operation. I have acquired a lot of wealth in this game and control the AH on many resources. But what do i do with all my gold? I sell it for real money.

So im going to offer you out of game gold packages for a much better deal than the " legal" exchange rate. This is entice to you to use my shady service instead of the legal trade method. Sure we might both get permabanned. Its going to suck for me because i will have to use one of my other accounts. But its really going to suck for you because you will be permanently banned from playing. I dont care much because i got a team of computer geniuses that get me around bans so all i lose is the account. A small set back.

So in game bot farming allows me to make real world money. Now in most developed countries, its not really worth someones time to set up such an operation but in a poorer country where expenses are much cheaper, you can make a killing. And there are a few countries that are known for bot farmers.

How does ESO traders stop this? Well in order to control the price I have to be able to buy a good portion of an items stock. That would mean i would either have to have a bot in every trade guild with a trader ( traders/5) or i would have to run around and check every trader on a single character( in the central AH, my character can stand in one spot). Neither of these are efficient enough for me to make a decent profit on. Even if i did, traders change every week and not every guild gets a trader every week. And you dont have to have a trader to sell your items to guild mates. So this system is a lot harder for me to bot. Which means, i will go exploit easier games with AHs, and leave this one alone.

Botting in games with localized economies is limited to farming bots and leveling bots. these dont have near the impact a trade bot does on a games economy.

r34lian · July 2020

I like how warframe handles trading
They should just scrap the guild trading system and replace it with central trading but make being in guild a requirement to sell through it

Hotdog_23 · July 2020

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

Very weird argument. Even weirder that people actually support such a statement.
You fanatism is a bit scary if I may say so.

And thus the statement must be false or incorrect? Very logical argument.

Edit: Thought i would elaborate on this since it confuses people who dont really understand how bots work. Lets say i am a bot farmer.

Im going to have a macro that is going to scan the AH for items i want. Lets say all blue improvement materials. I will have it set so that it will refresh randomly between say 30-120 seconds. This makes it harder to track that i am a bot. It is also set to auto buy items below a certain price. All of these items fill my infinite space craft bag. Lets say i run this program for about 4 hours.

At 4 hours i will swap to a new bot with eso plus and they will take over. I will distribute stacks of what i have collected on the bot that just got done farming to seller accounts. These will post the items for sale in full stacks, half stacks, quarter stacks, and smaller random amounts. They will post in varying quantities( slots used) and will appear to compete with each other. There will be items on the market already from other bot accounts that my company owns( yes its almost always a company). You will pay the price i decide if you want these items.

I will do this for most if not all crafting material. A central AH makes it very easy and i can alter my programs a little bit to make me hard to catch. The GMs will catch a few accounts here and there but they will barely make a dent in my operation. I have acquired a lot of wealth in this game and control the AH on many resources. But what do i do with all my gold? I sell it for real money.

So im going to offer you out of game gold packages for a much better deal than the " legal" exchange rate. This is entice to you to use my shady service instead of the legal trade method. Sure we might both get permabanned. Its going to suck for me because i will have to use one of my other accounts. But its really going to suck for you because you will be permanently banned from playing. I dont care much because i got a team of computer geniuses that get me around bans so all i lose is the account. A small set back.

So in game bot farming allows me to make real world money. Now in most developed countries, its not really worth someones time to set up such an operation but in a poorer country where expenses are much cheaper, you can make a killing. And there are a few countries that are known for bot farmers.

How does ESO traders stop this? Well in order to control the price I have to be able to buy a good portion of an items stock. That would mean i would either have to have a bot in every trade guild with a trader ( traders/5) or i would have to run around and check every trader on a single character( in the central AH, my character can stand in one spot). Neither of these are efficient enough for me to make a decent profit on. Even if i did, traders change every week and not every guild gets a trader every week. And you dont have to have a trader to sell your items to guild mates. So this system is a lot harder for me to bot. Which means, i will go exploit easier games with AHs, and leave this one alone.

Botting in games with localized economies is limited to farming bots and leveling bots. these dont have near the impact a trade bot does on a games economy.

Devil advocate

All this sounds easy and great augment against a central AH. The only problem with your logic if it is easy as you say then you would not be the only one doing thus it would quickly devalue what you are doing. My question is how do other games handle this same scenario that you just described? Surely, they are not all run by people that manipulate their economy easy as you describe.

All the augments I have read here is how it would destroy the game economy some way or another. Now I do not play other mmo’s and this is in fact my first, so I am uneducated about how they work. Somehow, they seem to work for them per reports form other here. How is that done? Why would it not work for ESO?

As cheap as labor can be in some countries, I wonder why no one has ever manipulated and took over ESO economy for real money? Sure, there are farmers reported several myself over the years. Even still the current economy is stable. Are they’re not no farmers in other games or is this a unique ESO problem only?

Quote “The only people who steal are thieves, and that’s a very small percentage of civilization. Most people want to have some way to make the economic transaction valid. They want to return the favor, if you will… return the benefit and reciprocate...” Michael Nesmith

[img]Be safe and have fun

[/img]

WastedJoker · July 2020

All I know is that teleporting from area to area trying to find the best value deal is a complete chore 👍 I was looking to buy jewellery and weapons from the Morkuldin set in specific traits and spent about an hour travelling between all the guild areas without success.

A central AH would have saved me that hour.

Khatou · July 2020

There's a simple solution if you're lazy enough to make some kind of teleportation jump, change the game!

There are plenty of other games that already offer that !!!

As for a sales hotel, to monopolize the trade, no thanks, I've already had the opportunity to see a system of this kind and see products selling at $600 million.
or $999,999,999,999 is enough to give you a heart attack and clearly be disgusted with the commerce of a game !!!

Lysette · July 2020

WastedJoker wrote: »

All I know is that teleporting from area to area trying to find the best value deal is a complete chore 👍 I was looking to buy jewellery and weapons from the Morkuldin set in specific traits and spent about an hour travelling between all the guild areas without success.

A central AH would have saved me that hour.

Especially rare items are target items and prone to be manipulated - you would save an hour but pay a fortune most likely. Once manipulated and made even more rare, items like this tend to become collector's items and prices go up or special limited warfare items can as well go up massively in price by this - an example in EVE would be the Gecko drone - they were given out as gifts at certain events and their price moved up hundredfold throughout the years and are traded pretty much just in the major trade hub which is AH-like.

This is one of the problems with a central hub, where most trades take place - common items, which everyone can get quite easily are devalued rather quickly, whereas rarer items are getting even more rare and increase in price by market manipulation.

VoxAdActa · July 2020

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Now I do not play other mmo’s and this is in fact my first, so I am uneducated about how they work.

But you're going to argue with the people who have the experience anyway, and ignore everything they say about the way such system functions?

The fact that you don't believe that it's harder to run 40 automated bots to each of 200ish traders scattered across a game world than it is to sit them down in front of a single trader hub, and therefore if bots existed they'd have taken over ESO by now, is becoming frustrating.

Anotherone773 · July 2020

Tigerseye wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Guilds should be there for high investment / high reward. Not for literally all trading and selling in the game.

Both systems, AH and guild trade, cannot coexist - where would the costumers for guilds come from, if they can just use the AH, it would kill the system ZOS has designed for this game. If there would be an AH I would most likely as well use it and give trading a pass - and an activity I enjoyed would be lost - and immersion gone with it as well - an AH is modern stuff, whereas the guild system fits more into the game's theme. It wouldn't hurt me financially, because I have already enough and nothing really to spend it on anyway. But I would see it as a loss for the game and it's theme in a whole.

They could coexist if one system (the trader system) was for one set of things only, like crafted items and the other system (the auction house system, or a warehouse system) was for non-crafted things, like mats (and perhaps, also, random drops).

This is precisely why I suggested a hybrid system, but let's just pretend no one ever suggested that, right?

By the way, Lysette, 2 million gold is practically nothing in this game.

My latest house, alone, probably cost 10x that to decorate (if you include all the mats and plans).

You may not have anything to spend gold on, but a lot of us do and the current system, although not 100% bad by any means, isn't working for us as well as it should do.

...and if that is "not [your] problem", I don't see why anyone should consider your loss of "immersion" (after 5 minutes of trading) theirs, quite frankly.

I'm not sure how this would be feasible, if you go with the notion that the warehouse would have the cheap stuff and the traders would sell the expensive stuff, then there is no clear cut division, because the game doesn't set prices, players do.

If you say the "warehouse" would sell mats and the trades would sell non-mats, that also doesn't split it in a cheap/easy vs. expensive/rare split.

Raw materials are more expensive than refined mats. Some refined mats sell at traders for less than vendor price already, because they are by-products of people looking for improvers.

So I would really be curious to have you elaborate on what specifically you'd want listed on the "warehouse" as opposed to the "retail traders", other than "the item I want in large quantities"

Now, you seem to be after something very specific (Culanda Laquer would be my first guess). Have you considered putting out a call in your guilds that you will buy all of your required material at a set price and have people C.o.D. it to you?

I didn't, at any point, say I wanted it split in an arbitrary "cheap/easy vs. expensive/rare split.".

That has nothing to do with anything I have said.

No, I am not talking about Culanda Lacquer.

I have over 1K of that (and I had even more, previously) and have had it since Summerset.

Just in case you doubt me:

As I mentioned before, from my own perspective, I am referring to a range of basic furnishing materials, which are required in large quantities for almost all furnishings (even low quality ones).

Which Culanda is not, by the way.

At the moment, I have enough of them, as I don't really need many at the moment, having just finished a project.

However, getting the last lot, in the Spring, was an exhausting process, that took many hours, crawling around traders and sitting through endless loading screens.

In general, I would suggest all materials (and some, or all, drops) could be sold in a warehouse (or a few warehouses, to break them up a little) and then crafted goods could be sold in the current multiple trader locations.

To protect their value somewhat and to make instant undercutting, by 1g, less effective.

If they wanted to reserve certain other (let's say rare, if you want?) drops, for the trader system, I wouldn't be against that.

Although, I think armour/weapons are very hard to find/buy via a trader system, anyway, as TTC doesn't even let you isolate them via traits.

At the end of the day, I speak as an experienced seller, crafter, and buyer.

Not just one, or the other.

I know, very well, the pros and cons of different buying/selling system(s), both here and elsewhere.

Therefore, I think my views are pretty balanced on the subject.

I am aware that most people won't like my views, however.

As most people here seem to hold disparate views on the matter (as either a seller, or a buyer) and so, do not seem to think of it in anything, even approaching, a balanced (and/or truly informed, in some cases) way.

Not much I can do about that - especially if no one is willing to listen without prejudice...

I can't spend the rest of my life repeating myself, to no avail.

Most of you, clearly, don't understand the position of players like me, at all and are simply not prepared to try to think about this subject from any other position than your own.

Oh and in answer to your question, none of my guilds allow buying/selling in guild chat.

In my experience, that is a very typical position for guilds to take.

That is a lot of space. Stackable items are one of easiest to manipulate by a trade bot. Also anything that goes into an infinite inventory bag. So what is this warehouse thing?Like an AH for crafting mats?

Anotherone773 · July 2020

Tigerseye wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Eifleber wrote:

Games that have a central AH don' t seem to have any problems?
At least, not when I played. It's just very easy and requires very little time so I have more time to do PvE content.

Saving time? How?

Games with a central AH are just a race to the bottom for prices of common items. No one goes; “Oh this person has a higher price, but I like their name I will buy from them”.

People will sell things incredibly low and then other people will undercut it be a gold, and the cycle will just repeat. And remember gold sellers won’t care how low a price is.
You will put a furniture plan up for 10 gold, another will put it up for 9. And a third for 8. Are you going to repost it for 7? Do you think you will “win” with that? Was that a good use for your time?

And how hard is it to post things now? It takes zero time. Go to a banker in any town and post things in any of your guilds. It’s super easy how are you saving time on a universal ah, by just be default posting everything for 1 gold?

Why should I care about that?

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

In case of an AH it takes me 1 minute to buy whatever I want and be done with it.
If it's not for sale I know immediately and I don't have to search 30 provinces.
*

Because you being a buyer is irrelevant when all the sellers stop posting goods. There will be nothing for you to buy except some over priced end game stuff and a few trinkets that a newbie tried to put up that with either expire before no one wants them or gets hoovered up by someone who controls the market for that items that repost it for 10x more.

You want to be able to buy any unbound in game item like you currently can, then central AH needs to stay out of this game.

Sellers are not all going to "stop posting goods".

If the prices fall too low and some sellers do stop, temporarily, there will then be pent-up demand (for anything, even vaguely, popular) and so, the price will rise again.

...and once the price has risen sufficently, if one seller has "stopped posting" permanently, some other seller will seize the opportunity and take their place.

Rinse and repeat.

Having said all that, as I have said repeatedly already, I would still prefer a hybrid system, as a compromise.

However, even a pure auction house system would be better than the current one, for most players.

You obviously dont understand how trade bots work, I point you to post #487 and #493

Tigerseye wrote: »

...and you know what did make me, as a seller, "stop posting" furniture for about two years?

The fact I could no longer get furnishing mats at a reasonable price, if at all and had to go around searching multiple traders and still end up with very little.

That forced me to prioritise my own furnishing needs and end my little furnishing business.

There are over 100k of every furnishing crafting mat on PC NA. And they are pretty cheap. Sometimes the prices get a little ridiculous but thats because ZOS created extremely high demand for crafting mats like heartwood with the New Life Festival but didnt increase the drop rates which led to price gouging. it normalized within a couple of months after the festival ended.

FlopsyPrince · July 2020

Lysette wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I have no idea which of my 150 items I should try to sell? Which are likely to sell and which are just going to come back in 30 days? Which are in demand? No easy way to tell.

I can help with it - the guild UI has an activities panel - choose "sales" there and you see the actual trades happening in your guild, who has sold what to whom at which price. This way you can see what is actually selling in your location or guild and at which prices - those are not listed prices, but what customers where actually spending on these items - actual trades, not just wishful thinking - and based on that you can more easily decide which of your items to sell in that location or guild shop.

I was not aware of that, though it is quite lacking for this purpose. It does show me a list of things that were bought (I assume from the guild trader), but it is just a list and not a way to really see which items are worth selling and what price is good. It would need a lot more data for that.

The one I checked was for Thalmor Nation, a larger trading guild, but still too much noise to get much value from it.

How should I know if the latest pants drop I got is worth selling? I end up just deconstructing most for mats and I am probably losing out on gold I could make, though almost all my listing spots are full and thus I don't have room unless I cance; a listing, but I have no idea which one would be worth canceling for which item. That problem remains.

But this is always in business like that - you have to try and see if it sells, if you can't find it in the list of trades, where it was sold in the recent past. Just like I do with treasure maps currently, even I have selected the time to check this out really badly, with the event still being on. Still, I sell about a couple of them several times a day, so I will get rid of them, even they are just slowly selling in a whole compared to other items.

I could use those slots better for something else, but I really want to get rid of these treasure maps, because I'm not doing them anyway, and they are said to be good for those who are into the antiquity system - I sold them at a variety of prices (and strangely enough they sold better at higher prices) - in the end the mix will bring in my target average price - but I will take them off my listing before the weekend, because I need those spots for something what really sells quickly and like hot cakes - and eventually put those maps up in the coming week during normal weekdays again.

You need to experiment a bit - there is no way of knowing without trying, if something isn't in high demand and you can't find entries of this item in the guild activities sales panel.

Very difficult to experiment a lot with 150 max slots.

Unlimited listing which a central AH would provide would (and does in my own experience) allow much more flexibility here. I know that because I did exactly this in WoW. Playing the AH was an entire game for some, if not me. It was still much better than this system.

If you really can keep track of what is going on with your 150 slots and keep them stocked pretty much all the time, you are already good - if you of course just list them and then don't care for a while, this will not help you a lot. And any empty slot is not earning you anything - unlimited listing is not going to happen though - an AH full of junk is not in the interest of ZOS.

And with keeping track I mean control if someone else has under cut you and how likely it is that this is sold and you are again top of the list - if you just list it and then don't care, a lot of people will put their items on top of yours and your stuff just sits there not selling. To do that for 150 slots is work, but if you don't do it, it can well happen that you sell like nothing at all.

Unlimited listing worked fine in WoW, Tera and other games.

I could dump gear I gather on playing the game, possibly at a price that made it worthwhile for someone, even if they just decon it.

Much more flexibility for users with that approach than the current one.

I am having enough trouble keeping up with all the needed skillpoints for all my alts and then other aspects of the game. I am not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the sales with only 150 slots. This is especially valid if you are not sure where your trader is.

Listing in a central location would let me experiment more, but now I don't know if something didn't see because it was not worth listing, was too expensive or something else. That is because I also face the factor of whether the right buyer happens to stumble upon my items. That may not happen even if I massively underprice things.

FlopsyPrince · July 2020

BlueRaven wrote: »

I would be shocked if you find 150 slots to be too limiting. Normally I have less then 30 items up for sale across all of my guild's traders. (I am a bit of a packrat.)

Then be shocked.

All 150 of my slots are now full. And I believe I have removed all the yellow motifs from the previous event that I was listing for 3K each.

I have deconned a lot of gear, including Cyrodil gear, in the past few days because I am out of slots. I am pretty much only listing jewelry now, some weapons if I find space.

I had listed a bunch of gear, but that does not sell quickly, though neither does jewelry, unless the moon and stars align. Ironically the really odd things will often sell when I least expect it. That doesn't happen often enough to clear things out, but enough to indicate they could sell if people could find them and I could list more.

idk · July 2020

Eifleber wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

Very weird argument. Even weirder that people actually support such a statement.
You fanatism is a bit scary if I may say so.

The bot issue with a central trading system is far from illogical. Bots in MMORPGs are very real. Their speed, efficiency, and ability to notice trends with central trading is far superior to what a player can accomplish. TTC is not effective for them because it does not take into account the full market and is not very accurate since items can appear listed on TTC well after they have sold.

This is the reality of the situation as we already know for a fact that bot farms already exist in this game.

However, the primary reason Zos is highly unlikely to even consider a central trading system is the impact on server performance as that is already a problem. I addressed this in the following post. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6847465/#Comment_6847465

FlopsyPrince · July 2020

AlienMagi wrote: »

I completely agree with the OP and their idea for implementing an auction house is pretty cool.

All of the arguments against it so far have been pretty bad and the pros of having an auction house are way better than the cons.

That is the norm for these threads. Stick around for quite a while and you will see the same arguments, especially in favor of the current system. Those who love the current system are very passionate. I expect they also very benefit from it in most cases.

The inconvenience and hassles of the current system don't matter if you benefit from it after all!

aenax · July 2020

I see some people arguing about performance, request may be linear (in cost) if they are not structured.

There are way to mitigate the burden of database queries.

First, one can simply use 3 database, one per alliance; one per reion may be a bit to restrictive. Of course you will be able to buy from any alliance but for that you will have to go into one city of that alliance.

Each banker will also be used as a broker for its alliance.

Second you can forbid white card queries. As example armor, weapons will be stored in different subbase and you will only be able to query (at a given time) for armor (or whatever category). You may also truncate the result to some number of matching items. As example if a query returns more than 50 items, it probably means that the query should be refined.

Many properties can be used to split the database, quality, level, price, type etc .... One may imagine request to be limited in price range (using predefined ranges) or to be about only one quality etc ...

Another completely different way would be to query by name, name filtering will be performed by the client and the user will be assisted with auto-completion. Then queries will be about a given item id (regardless of quality) and the load will be very light.

Third you should forbid bot-queries, that mean blacklisting database queries from the API available to add on or at least to restrict it.

I m not pretending to provide the best solution or even a good one but clearly there are way to address perfomance issues, and currently TTC and master merchant probably induce quitesome "useless" load on the database anywy.

idk · July 2020

aenax wrote: »

I see some people arguing about performance, request may be linear (in cost) if they are not structured.

There are way to mitigate the burden of database queries.

We already see the lag in guild trader searches when there are only 500 people able to post and you seem to be suggesting that the search will be much improved when searching through the listings of thousands of players (actually tens of thousands). That seems to ignore logic.

SirAxen · July 2020

Console you don't have addons and I've never once struggled to find something I needed.

FlopsyPrince · July 2020

knightblaster wrote: »

What players don't understand is that you are not supposed to "casually participate" in the trading system. The trading system is designed as a full-blown playstyle system that requires a good deal of time and effort -- not as a general marketplace system. ESO doesn't support a general marketplace system -- it supports a time and effort intensive trading-as-playstyle system. The developers fully expect that everyone else who doesn't want to play that playstyle is to vendor their items and move along.

Then it a huge failure in the game. Things in the game like this should enable players, not gate it only for the "serious players".

Gate Trials and such, don't gate trading. Is that so hard to understand?

VoxAdActa · July 2020

Tigerseye wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

Very weird argument. Even weirder that people actually support such a statement.
You fanatism is a bit scary if I may say so.

You said you don't care about the sellers

Yes, well seeing as most of the sellers here don't appear to care about buyers, at all, what exactly would you expect in return?

You only get what you give.

A hundred sellers have tried to tell you how an AH would hurt them, and you've spent numerous posts basically saying "I don't care about you". So I guess we're at an impasse.

Sellers are not all going to "stop posting goods".

So you expect us to spend hours and hours of playing time harvesting and crafting so we can sell you stuff at penny-war vendor prices... out of what, altruism? When you and your other compatriots have been insulting us and giving us the middle finger throughout this whole thread?

I wish I had an option to add players to some kind of embargo list, because that attitude turns my stomach. I don't know how to explain to you that it's generally a good thing to care about people who are doing extra work so you don't have to.

Tigerseye · July 2020

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

It surprises me that people can not stop arguing form a sellers point of view.
I guess it's very hard to imagine how ESO trading works form the pov of someone that just wants to buy something.

Oh, ok, I see this argument now. An AH is cool, because you can buy a stack of cornflower for 100gp from a 24/7 botfarm; anyone who actually plays the game and wants to sell things is utterly irrelevant in your calculations.

I honestly don't see the relation between AH or in-game TTC and and botfarms.
Implictely you say that the moment ESO gets an AH o rin-game TTC, botfarms will be abundant.
Which seems very unlikely an illogical.

Very weird argument. Even weirder that people actually support such a statement.
You fanatism is a bit scary if I may say so.

You said you don't care about the sellers

Yes, well seeing as most of the sellers here don't appear to care about buyers, at all, what exactly would you expect in return?

You only get what you give.

A hundred sellers have tried to tell you how an AH would hurt them, and you've spent numerous posts basically saying "I don't care about you". So I guess we're at an impasse.

Sellers are not all going to "stop posting goods".

So you expect us to spend hours and hours of playing time harvesting and crafting so we can sell you stuff at penny-war vendor prices... out of what, altruism? When you and your other compatriots have been insulting us and giving us the middle finger throughout this whole thread?

I wish I had an option to add players to some kind of embargo list, because that attitude turns my stomach. I don't know how to explain to you that it's generally a good thing to care about people who are doing extra work so you don't have to.

I never said I didn't care about sellers, because (as I DID say, repeatedly!), I am a seller, too.

One of my main problems is buying stuff to craft with, at a reasonable price (not a stupidly low price), when I need 10 per item, so I can then sell my crafted goods.

...and not in batches of one, or two (or even 10), materials at a time, in 50 different locations, through 50 different load screens.

...and not to find they have all sold when I get there.

The recipes for the crafted items cost me a fortune, so I'm basically running at a loss, most of the time, anyway.

At least do me the dignity of reading my posts, before you try to put words in my mouth.

But, no, just say you want to to ignore me - when you already have, completely, so far -and libel me, into the bargain...

Wolf_Eye · July 2020

This topic is still going on. I'm not very interested in an Auction House per se, but it seems a lot of people are.

A Global Auction House is not the answer, I think.

What I'm hearing is that players who aren't in guilds want some ability to sell things, but don't have enough things to sell to justify being part of trade guilds.

I'm also hearing some players saying how it can be difficult to find items; that's fair and I think that's easily solvable by having some sort of built in functionality similar to TTC (which is NOT an auction house, merely an item list that tells you where you can go to buy something specific)

As for the previous point, allowing non-guild players to sell things, I propose a localized auction house. As in, you have to go to a location in the game in order to access it (similar to how you have to go to a guild trader in order to access and buy their wares).

Let's say there are several auction houses located throughout the game (for example, let's say there's an auction house in Shimmerene). If you want to list an item or bid on an item, you have to go to Shimmerene, then talk to the auction NPC.

In order to make this work, some things would need to happen.

There will be no instant buy price that sellers can list their items at. In other words, buyers cannot pay a bulk sum in order to guarantee they get their item; everything is a bidding auction and any one buyer can be outbid. This would make it difficult for bots to set a whole bunch of items at low prices if buyers have the ability to keep jacking up the prices by keep on bidding and raising the bid price.
The auction will always last 7 days and during that time anyone can bid on these items. Buyers cannot get items "early" nor can sellers get their money "early". Everyone has to wait out the 7 days.
Sellers only have 3 slots per account to place items up for bid. They can purchase an additional 2 slots from the NPC auctioneer (similar to bank upgrades). No more than 5 slots per account.
Winning bidders get their items automatically mailed to them, but sellers will have to travel to the auction house NPC in order to get their moeny.
Anyone can list items even if they are not in a guild, but there will be a percentage fee similar to the listing fee of guild traders. You can list a minimum price but not a maximum price (or instant buy price) for your item

Maybe this will give people outside of guilds some ability to sell things. But the listing fee, the fact that you have to travel to a specific location, the small amount of slots, the fact that sellers cannot list a maximum price, and the fact that you have to wait 7 days will ensure that guild traders are not devalued and will make it difficult for bots to use this as a money making scam.

It might even become a weekly thing to check, like the luxury vendor; everybody go to Shimmerene to see if there's anything interesting to bid on this week. Buyers might come away with nice deals, like maybe they managed to win a bid on a bunch of gold mats for a price less than their usual value. But the fact that anyone can raise the price just by bidding on it would ensure that the prices would never be consistently low.

Also, you cannot "take back" your bid. Once you place a bid, you're committed to giving up that money. If someone outbids you, you will get a refund of your bid in the mail. But at the time of the bid, you have to give up the money right then and there.

So this would give players outside of guilds the ability to sell things and also act as a supplement to those who are in guilds too (they could possibly list a few high end items on the side). Thoughts?

Tigerseye · July 2020

By the way, I would suggest that any seller, who thinks it is a horrible chore to have to gather and sell materials, just stops.

Unless their real life income depends on it, of course...

In which case, we have far more important things to worry about than buying and selling in a game and I was right to cancel my ESO+ two days ago, because I do not wish to be involved in, or encourage, that kind of exploitation.

idk · July 2020

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

This topic is still going on. I'm not very interested in an Auction House per se, but it seems a lot of people are.
A Global Auction House is not the answer, I think.

What I'm hearing is that players who aren't in guilds want some ability to sell things, but don't have enough things to sell to justify being part of trade guilds.

I'm also hearing some players saying how it can be difficult to find items; that's fair and I think that's easily solvable by having some sort of built in functionality similar to TTC (which is NOT an auction house, merely an item list that tells you where you can go to buy something specific)

As for the previous point, allowing non-guild players to sell things, I propose a localized auction house. As in, you have to go to a location in the game in order to access it (similar to how you have to go to a guild trader in order to access and buy their wares).

Let's say there are several auction houses located throughout the game (for example, let's say there's an auction house in Shimmerene). If you want to list an item or bid on an item, you have to go to Shimmerene, then talk to the auction NPC.

In order to make this work, some things would need to happen.
There will be no instant buy price that sellers can list their items at. In other words, buyers cannot pay a bulk sum in order to guarantee they get their item; everything is a bidding auction and any one buyer can be outbid. This would make it difficult for bots to set a whole bunch of items at low prices if buyers have the ability to keep jacking up the prices by keep on bidding and raising the bid price.

The auction will always last 7 days and during that time anyone can bid on these items. Buyers cannot get items "early" nor can sellers get their money "early". Everyone has to wait out the 7 days.

Sellers only have 3 slots per account to place items up for bid. They can purchase an additional 2 slots from the NPC auctioneer (similar to bank upgrades). No more than 5 slots per account.

Winning bidders get their items automatically mailed to them, but sellers will have to travel to the auction house NPC in order to get their moeny.

Anyone can list items even if they are not in a guild, but there will be a percentage fee similar to the listing fee of guild traders. You can list a minimum price but not a maximum price (or instant buy price) for your item

Maybe this will give people outside of guilds some ability to sell things. But the listing fee, the fact that you have to travel to a specific location, the small amount of slots, the fact that sellers cannot list a maximum price, and the fact that you have to wait 7 days will ensure that guild traders are not devalued and will make it difficult for bots to use this as a money making scam.

It might even become a weekly thing to check, like the luxury vendor; everybody go to Shimmerene to see if there's anything interesting to bid on this week. Buyers might come away with nice deals, like maybe they managed to win a bid on a bunch of gold mats for a price less than their usual value. But the fact that anyone can raise the price just by bidding on it would ensure that the prices would never be consistently low.

Also, you cannot "take back" your bid. Once you place a bid, you're committed to giving up that money. If someone outbids you, you will get a refund of your bid in the mail. But at the time of the bid, you have to give up the money right then and there.

So this would give players outside of guilds the ability to sell things and also act as a supplement to those who are in guilds too (they could possibly list a few high end items on the side). Thoughts?

I think it is more a case that some people are. Most people have not commented on these threads. Even most that have commented in the forums while this thread has been active have not commented here.,

VoxAdActa · July 2020

Tigerseye wrote: »

By the way, I would suggest that any seller, who thinks it is a horrible chore to have to gather and sell materials, just stops.

Unless their real life income depends on it, of course...

I would say the same about any buyer who thinks finding materials to purchase is a horrible chore.

Tigerseye · July 2020

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

By the way, I would suggest that any seller, who thinks it is a horrible chore to have to gather and sell materials, just stops.

Unless their real life income depends on it, of course...

I would say the same about any buyer who thinks finding materials to purchase is a horrible chore.

That's exactly why, as I have already mentioned, I stopped selling furniture, completely, 2 years ago.

I currently have two types of furnishing items up (after not having had any up for those 2 years), as I had some excess mats and these items were actually somewhat worth selling, for once.

Once again, you should really read someone's posts before assuming things.

The difference is, I sold furnishings for fun, not because I was being exploited.

If you are being exploited, you need to find a way of joining with others and making it stop, before it gets even worse.

Wolf_Eye · July 2020

idk wrote: »

I think it is more a case that some people are. Most people have not commented on these threads. Even most that have commented in the forums while this thread has been active have not commented here.,

That's fair. I fully realize that the forums do not represent even half of the game's population.

I guess I just wanted to put more ideas out there