Game needs a better marketplace.

Amottica · June 2022

Northwold wrote: »

ForzaRammer wrote: »

I am 100% against auction house, auction house is a garbage system, 0 resemblance of real life shopping.

I don’t go to 1 place buy everything, i shop around, guild traders function similar to amazon, aliexpress and walmart market place. Pay to be a 3rd party seller, sell via their platform.

Current system is significantly more immersive than garbage auction house.

Why does anyone playing a game want real life shopping? It's a game. Not a life simulator. And the more ESO imitates the utterly tedious aspects of real life that people play games to forget, the less appealing it becomes as an entertainment product.

Considering the success of the game it seems the game is well designed.

kargen27 · June 2022

"This thread is not about Auction House, but rather adding something like TTC add-on to the game with an option to but directly from it."

So a different name for an auction house. Same results. A global one stop shop system.

Lysette · June 2022

It is pretty simple - trading is a big part of what is offered in ESO. Running a trading guild is an activity, which is challenging and adds to the flavor of the game quite a lot, because it is guild based. For some that is the actual endgame, running one or more guilds and keep their members happy.

Whoever was able to establish and run a trading guild with a reliable top trader, has achieved quite a lot and can be proud of it. If you doubt that, try to establish one yourself and run it successfully. Good luck with that, though.

Furthermore are the bids on traders a vital gold sink, otherwise the amount of gold in circulation would rise too quickly and hefty inflation would be the result of that. I would say, better such a gold sink than property tax or whatever else would have to replace it.

WiseSky · June 2022

Well TTC is a Service, I don't mind white listing them from my Ad Blocker.

They made and saved me millions.

Freelancer_ESO · June 2022

IMHO, either the addon functions should be made into base game features on the PC, the addons should be blocked from functioning, or a marketplace should be added in addition that takes a larger cut than Guild Traders.

Right now, it feels like the Guild Traders on PC play like an inefficient marketplace that only lets a limited portion of the game sell a limited amount of goods.

I'm not getting to enjoy the convenience of buying things easily and I'm rarely getting a bargain from shopping around because someone with an addon/using a website has scooped most of them up already and most of the items are priced based off an addon which tends to drive the price of goods upwards.

merpins · June 2022

Saw some posts on having a TTC alternative as an NPC you can talk to in-game that lets you search up all listings, which then tells you where they're being sold just like TTC. I think this is a great alternative, but might hit server performance a bit. Plus you cant have a tab open for multiple items this way: it would either be you write down everything you're going for physically, or they'd need a marker system so you can click the listing, and it'll mark it on your map. They'd need to let you mark multiple items, too. The upside is if this is run by ZoS, then all item listings will be in real-time (unlike TTC which is not). But it could cause server issues.

I think a happy medium here would be just having a section for this on the ESO website. TTC is drawing in people to look at a third-party website anyway, I'm sure ZoS would prefer the traffic to be on their website.

Lysette · June 2022

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

IMHO, either the addon functions should be made into base game features on the PC, the addons should be blocked from functioning, or a marketplace should be added in addition that takes a larger cut than Guild Traders.

Right now, it feels like the Guild Traders on PC play like an inefficient marketplace that only lets a limited portion of the game sell a limited amount of goods.

I'm not getting to enjoy the convenience of buying things easily and I'm rarely getting a bargain from shopping around because someone with an addon/using a website has scooped most of them up already and most of the items are priced based off an addon which tends to drive the price of goods upwards.

Prices go up because people are willing to buy at higher prices - mostly because they have more money - the more sources there are to earn or get gold which is not balanced out by an increase in acquiring goods as well, will lead to inflation. We get more and more ways to acquire gold, but drop rates for material and stuff is not increased. This leads to inflation and that is why prices go up, not because of an information add-on, which just informs about listings, prices and actual sales.

prof_doom · June 2022

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

I think a happy medium here would be just having a section for this on the ESO website. TTC is drawing in people to look at a third-party website anyway, I'm sure ZoS would prefer the traffic to be on their website.

That might be a valid way to deal with it. The TTC author/webmaster should be happy to not have to deal with paying for hosting and having to run their own site anymore, assuming that their claims that they need the ads to afford the hosting costs are true.
Nothing changes, other than the URL for the TTC page.

Tandor · June 2022

LikiLoki wrote: »

I see both positive and negative sides of the change in the trading system. The absence of a single auction allows you to sell one product at different prices - this is good, everyone has a chance for a good deal, not just the owners of bots. ZOS will never make changes. They need the player to spend more time on each action. They have never changed such fundamental things in the game. The in-game TTC sounds good, but you need to implement it carefully so as not to violate the big pricing policy, then you need to call it the "guild of trade consultants" and make access to it for a weekly tax in gold

What about the fixed subscription business model, One Tamriel, and AwA? They were all changes to pretty fundamental things, as was the present trading system itself which was a purely an internal guild trading system originally.

If it should happen that the third party websites that make trading on PC reasonably effective should fail to appeal to players then that can only be a good thing as it places PC trading on the same footing as console trading. If that forces ZOS to make changes to the trading system then they are likely to make any such changes across the platforms which can certainly only be a good thing.

Amottica · June 2022

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

I think a happy medium here would be just having a section for this on the ESO website. TTC is drawing in people to look at a third-party website anyway, I'm sure ZoS would prefer the traffic to be on their website.

This would make sense but their actions show otherwise. They do not permit trade threads in the forums. They also abandoned their developed UI that was more akin to a traditional MMORPG UI in favor of players making addons.

In other words, it would be more work for Zenimax to operate such a site and they seem to want to avoid such work.

KitsuneShoujo · June 2022

Definitely do need some sort of index npc that tells you what's available in every market in a certain radius without the tedious nonsense of having to run around everywhere.

belial5221_ESO · June 2022

Vaoh wrote: »

Dark Ether for example.

It's cause they changed it now to use key fragments,so no longer need 60 of special fragments like that.The numbers of them dwindle as ppl use em,so harder to find.They really need to remove old items when they no longer usable,or change them into the new type,though collectors will still pay millions for a useless old version of a rune,or fruit,lol.

If zos did implement a system like MM or TTC even,there would be so much performance issues with 10s or 100s of thousands of ppl constantly needing the data downloaded/calculated.SO as is,the system in place works fine for the game.

guarstompemoji · June 2022

WiseSky wrote: »

Well TTC is a Service, I don't mind white listing them from my Ad Blocker.

They made and saved me millions.

It IS a noble sentiment and worthy of praise...it's the nuance of it. Whitelisting ads causes an instant antivirus ping.

I was made more uncomfortable with their claims that "you can tell Google not to track you" which is functionally not true. Google will find a way to get that data, anyhow.

Ads aren't blocked out of dislike for a site; they're blocked because they contain trackers, viruses, and so on. Advertisers employ "1x1 pixel tricks" and other nasty surprises. Too, many of them are trashy, offensive: one of the last times I unblocked a site I was greeted with a mixture of flashing gambling animations made to look like they were actual dialog boxes from my OS, as well as Russian "bride" services. Gross! I delete data regularly, and...don't visit sites like those, so these are just random results that someone may get.

I've uninstalled the plugin and app; no reason to send TTC any data, and it's greatly decreased time and interest in traders. When teaching trading classes, TTC now only receives a brief mention, if that, and not the focus it once did.

So...just spend more time on other parts of the game.

Options I'd be more comfortable with:
o A banner on the front or search pages featuring a guild + trader location of someone who'd donated
o A Patreon dedicated to server costs
o A list of "promoted" search results to the right of the main search results, neatly placed. If trader @wikihunter75 donated, for example, some of their goods would appear to the right of the search, in a tasteful manner. This might be v popular, so donations would need capped monthly once server costs were reached.

kargen27 · June 2022

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

IMHO, either the addon functions should be made into base game features on the PC, the addons should be blocked from functioning, or a marketplace should be added in addition that takes a larger cut than Guild Traders.

Right now, it feels like the Guild Traders on PC play like an inefficient marketplace that only lets a limited portion of the game sell a limited amount of goods.

I'm not getting to enjoy the convenience of buying things easily and I'm rarely getting a bargain from shopping around because someone with an addon/using a website has scooped most of them up already and most of the items are priced based off an addon which tends to drive the price of goods upwards.

If you are looking for bargains on TTC you are getting scooped before they are ever listed most of the time.

I suggested in the past a central board in each zone. You could search for an item on that board and it would show you the traders in that zone only that have the item. There would be no price listed only the location. You would then need to go to that location to purchase the item.
Bargain hunters still have to visit all the traders with the item listed and people who just want the item now who cares price can go to most convenient spot and get it. Flippers still have a chance to flip and players don't have to visit traders without the item hoping to find it.
Not sure what kind of impact it would have on the server though. I'm guessing there might be a performance hit.

BretonMage · June 2022

kargen27 wrote: »

I suggested in the past a central board in each zone. You could search for an item on that board and it would show you the traders in that zone only that have the item. There would be no price listed only the location. You would then need to go to that location to purchase the item.
Bargain hunters still have to visit all the traders with the item listed and people who just want the item now who cares price can go to most convenient spot and get it. Flippers still have a chance to flip and players don't have to visit traders without the item hoping to find it.

I'd be happy with this,though I don't see why we need to hide prices. I'm assuming flipping will happen anyway even with a transparent price system, because isn't it just a case of a person making the right search at the right time?

The primary goal should still be to make it easier for players to find fairly-priced items. Since the guild trader system was set up, how many new towns and zones have been added, and how many new guild traders have been added? Without TTC it would be a nightmare to find items, and now that TTC is unusable to many, I would welcome a ZOS-driven alternative. I'd even pay for one to hep with server costs. How about a guild trading assistant or houseguest that helps centralise searches?

Lysette · June 2022

I want to add something from a different perspective - which is not abot convenience, but about shopping as a relaxation activity - like strolling through a shopping mall with no specific idea what to buy or buying something at all. If you don't know beforehand, what is on offer, this can be really fun, to find out, what a guild trader has on offer and just browse through the offers - sometimes I find something, where I would never have thought of before - shopping as an actual exploration activity rather than looking for specific items, is something what can be done in ESO - an auction house would not offer this.

wolfie1.0. · June 2022

GrizzlyTank wrote: »

As some might have noticed the website that is used to reliably use the marketplace in this game has turned to quite aggressive anti-adblocking and as a result renders it effectively useless unless you disable everything, in some cases even your anti-virus.

Which pushes players to rely on the old way of using the games market or markets which is to run around like an idiot checking every guild trader there is unless you want to buy something at a grossly inflated price.

The current system is archaic and does nothing but waste peoples time. It's not immersive nor engaging since everyone just warps between waypoints and the added travel time/placement of vendors just adds frustration.

Ideally it should be changed to a more unified marketplace which is the standard for mmos. Keep the guild's as "tabs" or listed under the seller but don't make us run all over the place to find what we want or to get a reasonable deal.

Genuine question here. But what are you willing to sacrifice to have the system change?

wolfie1.0. · June 2022

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

Oh wow, another Auction House thread!

Not going to happen.

This thread is not about Auction House, but rather adding something like TTC add-on to the game with an option to but directly from it.

Personally I think that adding TTC to the base game client & opening an in-game menu instead of a 3rd party website is a good idea.

On the other hand I think that we should not be able to directly buy from that menu and we should still "manually" go to the trading vendor & buy stuff there. Otherwise different trading spots will become meaningless.

But you are right - "It is not going to happen". Any changes (whatever qol change or major overhaul) to Trading System are not going to happen. One reason is a very "hermetic", close environment of Trading Guilds. They seem to be afraid of any changes. All of potentially good ideas are met with a hard "no". The other reason is maybe ZOS who doesn't seem to be interested in improving Trading System as it could, potentially reduce their $ income in some way.

I would be surprised if zos rolls this out at all or anytime soon. In my above post I asked the op what they would sacrifice to get this. I meant that.

Its been confirmed that real time guild history queuries can and will cause the servers to crash. Nothing zos has done nor said has indicated otherwise. TTC is allowed to function as it does because it exports that data to a third party site where you can query its logs to your hearts content. Doing that in the games ui will very likely cause serious problems. The ads are there to keep the site running as it costs irl funds to run.

Zos implemented faster skyshards and skill lines by adding them to the Crown store. They implemented AWA at the cost of individual achievement tracking.

Zos won't do this type of action without taking something away that uses similar resources. So what are you willing to sacrifice for it?

GrizzlyTank · June 2022

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Its been confirmed that real time guild history queuries can and will cause the servers to crash. Nothing zos has done nor said has indicated otherwise. TTC is allowed to function as it does because it exports that data to a third party site where you can query its logs to your hearts content. Doing that in the games ui will very likely cause serious problems. The ads are there to keep the site running as it costs irl funds to run.

If they can export the data, then they should be capable of importing data too which would mean that zos would be able to establish it's own server dedicated to managing the market.

LikiLoki · June 2022

Lysette wrote: »

I want to add something from a different perspective - which is not abot convenience, but about shopping as a relaxation activity - like strolling through a shopping mall with no specific idea what to buy or buying something at all. If you don't know beforehand, what is on offer, this can be really fun, to find out, what a guild trader has on offer and just browse through the offers - sometimes I find something, where I would never have thought of before - shopping as an actual exploration activity rather than looking for specific items, is something what can be done in ESO - an auction house would not offer this.

I heard an interesting idea here about shopping for pleasure. It's not really in the subject, but it would be amazing to arrange a location "Bazaar" where you can put your goods on display for a certain price, armor on a mannequin, furniture on a stand, a non-combat pet in a cage. It would be beautiful, even if not everyone could afford to put the goods on the market

LalMirchi · June 2022

GrizzlyTank wrote: »

As some might have noticed the website that is used to reliably use the marketplace in this game has turned to quite aggressive anti-adblocking and as a result renders it effectively useless unless you disable everything, in some cases even your anti-virus.

Which pushes players to rely on the old way of using the games market or markets which is to run around like an idiot checking every guild trader there is unless you want to buy something at a grossly inflated price.

The current system is archaic and does nothing but waste peoples time. It's not immersive nor engaging since everyone just warps between waypoints and the added travel time/placement of vendors just adds frustration.

Ideally it should be changed to a more unified marketplace which is the standard for mmos. Keep the guild's as "tabs" or listed under the seller but don't make us run all over the place to find what we want or to get a reasonable deal.

Actually, no thank you.

The game works fine as it is. It does do trading differently from other games and it does combat differently too.

The trading system works in ESO but as always you have to know the extents and limitations of the game you are currently playing and not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, ie other games solutions.

Every game has their own mechanics due to their own implementations.

I for one do not use the TTC at all and am quite successful in trading my hard won loot in my five guilds.

Lysette · June 2022

I don't use TTC or any such tool as well - 4th day in a trading guild, 800k sales - I guess, I am doing just fine. It is not even the cheapest offer for my gold mats - just competitive to local guild traders, not the cheapest offer their either, but I sell in convenient stack-sizes with cascading prices - a few are comparably cheap, most of them are above average - and in the end I achieve prices which are quite good - because people will keep buying, if they started buying and need more - they aren't that likely to check out the other local traders first, if they have the money - they want it right now, even at higher prices.

cheeseaddict · June 2022

TaSheen wrote: »

WraithCaller88 wrote: »

I was having the same problem with TTC on Chrome, but it worked fine when I started using it on (of all things) Microsoft Edge.

But not if you have an ad blocker on Edge - then it's the same situation as Chrome or Firefox.

i tried edge with an ad blocker and it worked fine like it used to on chrome

TaSheen · June 2022

cheeseaddict wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

WraithCaller88 wrote: »

I was having the same problem with TTC on Chrome, but it worked fine when I started using it on (of all things) Microsoft Edge.

But not if you have an ad blocker on Edge - then it's the same situation as Chrome or Firefox.

i tried edge with an ad blocker and it worked fine like it used to on chrome

Hmm. Would you tell me which ad blocker you are using? I use adblock plus, my go-to extension for all browsers.

LalMirchi · June 2022

I use uBlock Origen on all my browsers (Mac OS) and it works on TTC as well, no nags in my test.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en

TaSheen · June 2022

LalMirchi wrote: »

I use uBlock Origen on all my browsers (Mac OS) and it works on TTC as well, no nags in my test.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en

Guess I'll give that a try then, thanks!

Ondolemir · June 2022

GrizzlyTank wrote: »

As some might have noticed the website that is used to reliably use the marketplace in this game has turned to quite aggressive anti-adblocking and as a result renders it effectively useless unless you disable everything, in some cases even your anti-virus.

Which pushes players to rely on the old way of using the games market or markets which is to run around like an idiot checking every guild trader there is unless you want to buy something at a grossly inflated price.

The current system is archaic and does nothing but waste peoples time. It's not immersive nor engaging since everyone just warps between waypoints and the added travel time/placement of vendors just adds frustration.

Ideally it should be changed to a more unified marketplace which is the standard for mmos. Keep the guild's as "tabs" or listed under the seller but don't make us run all over the place to find what we want or to get a reasonable deal.

Completely agree.
Another thing you haven't mentioned is how several guild traders are hoarded over by a cabal of guilds who coordinate to corner the market on who gets what traders. Rather aggressively I might add.

Freelancer_ESO · June 2022

Lysette wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

IMHO, either the addon functions should be made into base game features on the PC, the addons should be blocked from functioning, or a marketplace should be added in addition that takes a larger cut than Guild Traders.

Right now, it feels like the Guild Traders on PC play like an inefficient marketplace that only lets a limited portion of the game sell a limited amount of goods.

I'm not getting to enjoy the convenience of buying things easily and I'm rarely getting a bargain from shopping around because someone with an addon/using a website has scooped most of them up already and most of the items are priced based off an addon which tends to drive the price of goods upwards.

Prices go up because people are willing to buy at higher prices - mostly because they have more money - the more sources there are to earn or get gold which is not balanced out by an increase in acquiring goods as well, will lead to inflation. We get more and more ways to acquire gold, but drop rates for material and stuff is not increased. This leads to inflation and that is why prices go up, not because of an information add-on, which just informs about listings, prices and actual sales.

The thing is, console prices have not risen as much as PC prices which suggests that the differences between the the platforms is the primary impact on the PC price surge.

TTC and the other economic addons are one of those differences between the platforms.

People that use TTC and other economic addons can more easily find an accurate value of how high you can sell the good for and still get a buyer as well as find cheaper goods more easily compared to people that don't. This in turn leads to them having more money which in turn means they can spend more money on the things they really want which allows the price of goods to go higher and still sell provided the good is rare enough/the supply is limited enough relative to the demand. The Guild Trader system cuts many people out of the market and puts a damper on the amount of goods for sale at a given time which limits the supply of goods.

You'll notice that the price isn't up by the same amount universally and isn't always up. Stuff rich players don't want is either dirt cheap or isn't even listed frequently.

Most of my money in ESO comes from Guild Traders and I suspect that's true for most of the players that are earning millions per month.

It's possible that one of the other platform differences is causing the discrepancy in prices but, with the data that is publicly available TTC and other economic addons appears to be one of the most blatant gaps which touches an area where much of the games money moves.

proprio.meb16_ESO · June 2022

Oooh the monthly "we need an auction house" post... pass the popcorn!

Pevey · June 2022

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

IMHO, either the addon functions should be made into base game features on the PC, the addons should be blocked from functioning, or a marketplace should be added in addition that takes a larger cut than Guild Traders.

Right now, it feels like the Guild Traders on PC play like an inefficient marketplace that only lets a limited portion of the game sell a limited amount of goods.

I'm not getting to enjoy the convenience of buying things easily and I'm rarely getting a bargain from shopping around because someone with an addon/using a website has scooped most of them up already and most of the items are priced based off an addon which tends to drive the price of goods upwards.

Prices go up because people are willing to buy at higher prices - mostly because they have more money - the more sources there are to earn or get gold which is not balanced out by an increase in acquiring goods as well, will lead to inflation. We get more and more ways to acquire gold, but drop rates for material and stuff is not increased. This leads to inflation and that is why prices go up, not because of an information add-on, which just informs about listings, prices and actual sales.

The thing is, console prices have not risen as much as PC prices which suggests that the differences between the the platforms is the primary impact on the PC price surge.

TTC and the other economic addons are one of those differences between the platforms.

People that use TTC and other economic addons can more easily find an accurate value of how high you can sell the good for and still get a buyer as well as find cheaper goods more easily compared to people that don't. This in turn leads to them having more money which in turn means they can spend more money on the things they really want which allows the price of goods to go higher and still sell provided the good is rare enough/the supply is limited enough relative to the demand. The Guild Trader system cuts many people out of the market and puts a damper on the amount of goods for sale at a given time which limits the supply of goods.

You'll notice that the price isn't up by the same amount universally and isn't always up. Stuff rich players don't want is either dirt cheap or isn't even listed frequently.

Most of my money in ESO comes from Guild Traders and I suspect that's true for most of the players that are earning millions per month.

It's possible that one of the other platform differences is causing the discrepancy in prices but, with the data that is publicly available TTC and other economic addons appears to be one of the most blatant gaps which touches an area where much of the games money moves.

I believe the primary reason prices are higher on PC is that there is vastly more “old money” on PC. Not all but many players who start out on console and get very interested in ESO end up switching to PC. Console accounts don’t stick around well after outlasting all the gold sinks (inventory upgrades, bank upgrades, horse training, manors) and stick around to generate vast amounts of gold with nothing for them to do with it.

That’s not to say there aren’t those players on condole. Just that there are many fewer than in PC, which means leas money supply sloshing around. This happens as MMOs age. It is more relevant to PC because that’s where more of the longest time players are who have accumulated vast sums of gold.