Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
Strawman arguments? or valid discussion points? Out of proportion? Please enlighten us.
As a result of playing without guild or by having their inventory full some players are spamming local chat with WTB and WTS orders.
Is there any better solution that can be implemented on how to trade without being in a guild in the future?
warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
And you will no doubt deny that that is what your arguments amount to, but I'm sorry you have proposed very little of substance to support your views. And, yes, you do raise strawmen about how all guilds will cease to exist if the trading system is changed in any way, when the tenor of this discussion throughout has been about exploring alternative trading mechanics, rather than removing the existing systems entirely. And if the effect of adding alternative routes for trading *would* be that all people lost interest in the trading guild game, well, that rather blows out of the water the claim that it is a gameplay mechanic a lot of people enjoy, anyway, doesn't it? If they like it so much, what is the threat.
And you blithely assert that illogical comparisons "support" your views, for example that trading is the same kind of gameplay mechanic as trials because, well, I don't know what the because is since as a comparison -- between an underlying system that supports multiple features of the rest of the game and thus borders on mandatory to be able to play the game in an entertaining way (trading) and an isolated and specific gameplay experience that has no effect on anything else and is entirely optional (trials) -- it's preposterous, as if repeating such non sequiturs enough will eventually make them logical and convincing.
warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
And you will no doubt deny that that is what your arguments amount to, but I'm sorry you have proposed very little of substance to support your views. And, yes, you do raise strawmen about how all guilds will cease to exist if the trading system is changed in any way, when the tenor of this discussion throughout has been about exploring alternative trading mechanics, rather than removing the existing systems entirely. And if the effect of adding alternative routes for trading *would* be that all people lost interest in the trading guild game, well, that rather blows out of the water the claim that it is a gameplay mechanic a lot of people enjoy, anyway, doesn't it? If they like it so much, what is the threat.
And you blithely assert that illogical comparisons "support" your views, for example that trading is the same kind of gameplay mechanic as trials because, well, I don't know what the because is since as a comparison -- between an underlying system that supports multiple features of the rest of the game and thus borders on mandatory to be able to play the game in an entertaining way (trading) and an isolated and specific gameplay experience that has no effect on anything else and is entirely optional (trials) -- it's preposterous, as if repeating such non sequiturs enough will eventually make them logical and convincing.
I think it's possible that you're blowing Kargen's comments a bit out of proportion. At no point did I see them claim that all guilds will disband if an auction house is implemented, that seems to have been a question that warlordangel had asked them in order to get clarification on their post. What Kargen is pointing out is that high-level trading *is* an endgame activity for many players and that they participate in guilds to facilitate that gameplay: flipping items, farming for valuable style pages and recipes, purchasing limited-time items to hold and sell at a better price in the future. If the game transitioned to having an auction house instead of local traders, then many of the aspects of this gameplay style cannot be fulfilled by a trading guild--or any guild at all. It would absolutely hurt people who treat trading as a serious game in itself. The social culture of a trading guild can revolve hugely around talking about movements in the prices of goods, how upcoming events and patches might impact hot selling items, and more; auction houses dilute many of these market-like behaviors... and yeah, trading would get a bit boring unless you're one of the people sitting on hundreds of millions of gold, in which cause an auction house would give you exciting new opportunities to corner the market. You can even see this in ESO, albeit in a limited manner, usually for furnishing plans or motifs that are rare and have few listings, where someone buys all of the "Blueprint: Cool Furniture Item" and posts a handful for five times the price. (I definitely don't speak from the experience of trying to hunt down a furnishing plan that had been routinely selling for 50k for a few weeks while some guy is hoovering them up all day, every day and trying to hike prices to 300k).
And to the validity of a comparison between trials and trading as essential features of ESO, I would point out that trials are also a pretty big deal--for people who want map completion, achievement completion (or something approaching that), titles, dyes, furnishings, etc, trials are a "can't-skip" element of play. Trading, on the other hand, has no achievements associated with it. The 'essential' aspect of trading isn't trading itself, but rather its value as a means to earn gold. I wouldn't say that trading & trials are a bad comparison, though perhaps some hyperbole was involved.
That said, your 'pooled trader'/'pauper's guild' idea from a few pages back is a super, super good one, and one I've thought would be worthwhile in the past as well. The taxes would need to be higher, and perhaps item posting limits lower, but having access to some form of kiosk would make a huge difference for players who don't participate in guilds. The points made about how out of proportion NPC merchant prices are to the guild-trader value of items in-game are also great. Why are reasonably valuable items only selling for a few hundred gold to NPCs? And the lack of any kind of base-game price checking tool is one of the most frustrating elements of the ESO economy. I have really good data on NA from my guilds, but on EU I have practically no idea what things are selling for, and though TTC is wonderful, it's hard to comb through that many pages of listings to see what prices look like in different hubs and the 'price check' summary often leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you to warlordangel for putting together a thread on the ESO economy that has generated such constructive discourse. Looking forward to seeing if any more ideas emerge!
wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
warlordangel wrote: »wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
Answer: something else. Buy gear for new builds, run trials, buy furniture or plans, maybe play the game, dabble in in the new card game.
People who assert that the system "isn't broken" do need to bear in mind that not every player plays the game the same way they do.
One particular problem that the current trading system brings up is that it cuts solo players off from any sensible mechanism to sell stuff (no, spamming zone chat is not a sensible selling mechanism).
These people do not want to join guilds and will not join guilds. They want to play solo, they want to play casually. It's completely irrelevant that you don't understand why they won't join guilds; they won't.
No, this does not mean they are "lazy". They may spend a lot of time in the game. They may grind resources. They may spend ridiculous amounts of time stealing to make gold.
This is not a negligible proportion of players, although solo players are very underrepresented on this forum. As you might well expect, given that this forum is full of people who are very hardcore ESO players indeed.
Three problems, really, arise with how the system is set up.
1) Guilds must bid for trading spots. There are no general trading spots for guilds that don't pay rent, such as pooled traders for "pauper" guilds, at which sellers are charged a high tax so that they're not in competition with sales by the "hardcore" guilds (although at that point the only reason for linking the pooled traders to guilds at all would be to appease fanatical players who simply refuse all change -- guild membership would become even more of an artificial and completely unnecessary gate).
Because guilds must bid, guilds often have to charge dues to their members to be able to afford the bids. That necessitates an active membership and means guilds need to kick people who dip in and out. Even if a solo player were willing to join a guild in principle if it were a mere formality, that need for activity effectively makes guilds a non-starter for them.
2) The very low guild member limit, again, necessitates guilds weeding out players who are relatively inactive. Again, that alienates more casual solo players who will find themselves spending all their time applying to guilds. And they won't, because that is not how they want to play.
3) The prices in the player economy, particularly on PC, are ludicrously out of line with the prices you get for selling things in the game world itself. That 100 gold sword that you could sell for 20,000 at a trader. That crafting material that sells for 5 gold in the game but 2,000 gold at a trader.
So solo players have no way to keep track with the kinds of prices that are a feature of the player economy. They are effectively cut off from buying from other players with any degree of regularity because they cannot make enough gold. (And to those who say "well make 18 characters and do crafting writs", go have a look at reddit or steam and see how many people actually do that. When account wide achievements came out, the reaction there to people running multiple characters was overwhelmingly "why would anyone be so ridiculous", *not* "oh yes I run crafting writs on all my 18 characters every single day, don't we all?" Much as these forums might make you feel otherwise, you are in a minority and honestly it is pretty strange to take such a mechanical and repetitious approach to a computer game.)
And fine, you might think. It doesn't matter that they can't keep track with player economy pricing because they play solo and so don't really need anything that they could get from the player economy, anyway.
Well, no, actually. Because various parts of the game that are very obviously solo nonetheless depend on being able to access the player economy -- to buy stuff -- to be playable. Stuff that is ridiculously, ridiculously expensive to solo players because player economy pricing is so out of whack.
Nowhere is that more obvious than with housing, the ne plus ultra of ESO solo activities. You are not going to get very far with housing, unless you want to spend literally two years furnishing every house or spend hundreds or thousands of pounds / euros / dollars in the crown store, if you cannot buy furnishing plans, crafting materials, and so on.
There is a real problem with the way trading is set up that makes playing parts of the game actively unpleasant for solo players who will not join guilds. These players exist, whether you like it or not -- and your judgment on their personal virtues is neither here nor there (indeed, if you derive a sense of pride for being more hardcore than anyone else in a video game it might be better to keep that to yourself) -- and represent a significant proportion of the player base.
It really needs to be addressed.
And at the end of the day, anyway, who actually likes this system in the real world beyond the people on this forum and the tiny minority of players who have made guild trading their in game life? The purported premise for guild trading of having to shop around is plain silly in the first place -- why would anyone consider running around the entire continent one painful loading screen at a time looking for a rare item fun -- and plain doesn't work on PC since Tamriel Trade Centre arrived.
So what on earth is the point of it? To force the bulk of your player base to go through a pointless hoop so they spend more time in the game? Is that really desirable when the reason they're spending more time in the game isn't that they're *having fun* but because they are having needless mechanics that are actively irritating thrown in their faces? "How do i fancy spending my Sunday? Hmm, I know, why don't I spend three hours visiting every trader in Tamriel and running the same database search over and over again. That sounds like fantastic fun."
Look around, Google it. When people talk about which MMO to play, ESO's guild trader system is regularly cited. As an annoying negative of ESO compared to everyone else.
warlordangel wrote: »wolfie1.0. wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »warlordangel wrote: »Even if an auction house were a good idea I doubt there is any possible way to do it right at this point in the game. To do it right they would have to take a lot of gold out of the game and that means taking gold away from players. Not something that is going to be popular.
Change isn't scary. Change is necessary. Needless change often equates to bad change. Again people are trying to fix what isn't broken. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea.
Totally agree. An auction house would break a lot of existing structures. What would the devs do with the present guilds === Disband them forcibly? How about all the effort the GMs put into the game? What about the guild members in the existing guilds?
This would require a lot of development resources that would be more valuable in improving performance IMHO
What systems would break and how? How would an auction house cause guilds to disband? It is to my understanding other MMOs have guild too. There are other things in the game besides playing market maker. The effort GM's put into the game would not suddenly disappear there-are-other-parts-to-the-game.
There are entire guilds based on the trader system. Some of the most active guilds in the game from my experience. There are many players that consider high level trading to be an end game feature of ESO. There are guilds based completely on running trials. How do you think members of those guilds would react if ESO said hey we decided trials was a bad idea and we are going to replace trials with more solo arenas. Same thing. What you are failing to see is how extensive the trading community is and how important the current system is to that community.
You're free to blow things as far out of proportion as you would like with straw man arguments.
A real honest question for you. You are the GM of a trade guild. You have between 100million and a billion gold war chest that you have built up over the years to combat other guilds. You find out that in 6 weeks that ZOS is swapping to a central AH system and that you no longer need to fight other guilds for traders. Just players for sales. What do you do?
Answer: something else. Buy gear for new builds, run trials, buy furniture or plans, maybe play the game, dabble in in the new card game.
I get it, change is scary. At the same time though, a little trust would be much appreciated.
If an auction house were to be implemented, have faith the the dev team will do it right
FantasticFreddie wrote: »People who assert that the system "isn't broken" do need to bear in mind that not every player plays the game the same way they do.
One particular problem that the current trading system brings up is that it cuts solo players off from any sensible mechanism to sell stuff (no, spamming zone chat is not a sensible selling mechanism).
These people do not want to join guilds and will not join guilds. They want to play solo, they want to play casually. It's completely irrelevant that you don't understand why they won't join guilds; they won't.
No, this does not mean they are "lazy". They may spend a lot of time in the game. They may grind resources. They may spend ridiculous amounts of time stealing to make gold.
This is not a negligible proportion of players, although solo players are very underrepresented on this forum. As you might well expect, given that this forum is full of people who are very hardcore ESO players indeed.
Three problems, really, arise with how the system is set up.
1) Guilds must bid for trading spots. There are no general trading spots for guilds that don't pay rent, such as pooled traders for "pauper" guilds, at which sellers are charged a high tax so that they're not in competition with sales by the "hardcore" guilds (although at that point the only reason for linking the pooled traders to guilds at all would be to appease fanatical players who simply refuse all change -- guild membership would become even more of an artificial and completely unnecessary gate).
Because guilds must bid, guilds often have to charge dues to their members to be able to afford the bids. That necessitates an active membership and means guilds need to kick people who dip in and out. Even if a solo player were willing to join a guild in principle if it were a mere formality, that need for activity effectively makes guilds a non-starter for them.
2) The very low guild member limit, again, necessitates guilds weeding out players who are relatively inactive. Again, that alienates more casual solo players who will find themselves spending all their time applying to guilds. And they won't, because that is not how they want to play.
3) The prices in the player economy, particularly on PC, are ludicrously out of line with the prices you get for selling things in the game world itself. That 100 gold sword that you could sell for 20,000 at a trader. That crafting material that sells for 5 gold in the game but 2,000 gold at a trader.
So solo players have no way to keep track with the kinds of prices that are a feature of the player economy. They are effectively cut off from buying from other players with any degree of regularity because they cannot make enough gold. (And to those who say "well make 18 characters and do crafting writs", go have a look at reddit or steam and see how many people actually do that. When account wide achievements came out, the reaction there to people running multiple characters was overwhelmingly "why would anyone be so ridiculous", *not* "oh yes I run crafting writs on all my 18 characters every single day, don't we all?" Much as these forums might make you feel otherwise, you are in a minority and honestly it is pretty strange to take such a mechanical and repetitious approach to a computer game.)
And fine, you might think. It doesn't matter that they can't keep track with player economy pricing because they play solo and so don't really need anything that they could get from the player economy, anyway.
Well, no, actually. Because various parts of the game that are very obviously solo nonetheless depend on being able to access the player economy -- to buy stuff -- to be playable. Stuff that is ridiculously, ridiculously expensive to solo players because player economy pricing is so out of whack.
Nowhere is that more obvious than with housing, the ne plus ultra of ESO solo activities. You are not going to get very far with housing, unless you want to spend literally two years furnishing every house or spend hundreds or thousands of pounds / euros / dollars in the crown store, if you cannot buy furnishing plans, crafting materials, and so on.
There is a real problem with the way trading is set up that makes playing parts of the game actively unpleasant for solo players who will not join guilds. These players exist, whether you like it or not -- and your judgment on their personal virtues is neither here nor there (indeed, if you derive a sense of pride for being more hardcore than anyone else in a video game it might be better to keep that to yourself) -- and represent a significant proportion of the player base.
It really needs to be addressed.
And at the end of the day, anyway, who actually likes this system in the real world beyond the people on this forum and the tiny minority of players who have made guild trading their in game life? The purported premise for guild trading of having to shop around is plain silly in the first place -- why would anyone consider running around the entire continent one painful loading screen at a time looking for a rare item fun -- and plain doesn't work on PC since Tamriel Trade Centre arrived.
So what on earth is the point of it? To force the bulk of your player base to go through a pointless hoop so they spend more time in the game? Is that really desirable when the reason they're spending more time in the game isn't that they're *having fun* but because they are having needless mechanics that are actively irritating thrown in their faces? "How do i fancy spending my Sunday? Hmm, I know, why don't I spend three hours visiting every trader in Tamriel and running the same database search over and over again. That sounds like fantastic fun."
Look around, Google it. When people talk about which MMO to play, ESO's guild trader system is regularly cited. As an annoying negative of ESO compared to everyone else.
Your argument is that a SOLO player in an massive MULTIPLAYER online game, one that is REFUSING to join any guilds, is who we should be catering to?
Well then. Why don't we just make all trials so they can be completed by a solo player too?
I am COMPLETELY ok with some things in an MMO being out of reach to an unreasonably stubborn solo player.
PVP is a way to make gold. Grind AP. Rewards from the worthy come with gold, buying stacks of potions and selling them in zone. Or, you can farm your own mats.
It's unreasonable to think that a huge chunk of a multi-player game would be totally accessible to a player that doesn't want to work with other people ever.
warlordangel wrote: »Did that. Did that through the whole thread. The "valid discussion points" are nothing more than no I like the current system. he last post was some inane rambling about how trading will suddenly go poof. How? Where? Who is saying that we should get rid of trading? All I did was suggest another system. I listened to the concerns of others and tried to work out solutions that could be up for consideration. But what do you have? Nothing. Just fear mongering. I was watching this thread rolling my eyes saying "oh how original, I like the system as is" or "Oh lookie here a real critical thinker all right, changing the system will be so much worse!"
I tried to actually come up with something concrete. Maybe I did a good job of it, maybe not. But it was a whole lot better than these weak arguments of forcibly disbanding guilds, or its not broken, or oooh trading is considered end game content as if trading would just disappear.
wolfie1.0. wrote: »Along with that imagine this. You go to an auction house portal you search for worms because you are out and you want to go ocean fishing. The search attempts to retrieve 200k results and you get booted because the search results were too big. Or you have an addon that auto searches and you get booted. Or it takes 10 to 30 minutes to load the search results? Would such conditions be acceptable to the player base? What happens if more players login at the same time and all conduct trades and the system goes down for several days ( this happened with guild history addons remember) What in game features would the player base as a whole be willing to give up to support the change? Both permanent and temporary?
There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
No it's not an assumption. It's that some people do not want to join guilds. Full stop. Clearly a lot of people round here have a problem with that. Too bad. Because those players do exist, their tastes are not yours, and they have a problem with being required to join a player administered guild: they won't. This is not unique to ESO, although it is a section of the playerbase that ESO has courted more than any other MMO.
And yes, people can glibly state that those people should just go elsewhere. But I really think people in this forum don't wholly appreciate how many people do not want to join a guild. It's pretty common.
And quite frankly, there is no sensible reason why the game should not accomodate them since, as I've pointed out above, there are ways of doing so that would have minimal to absolutely no effect on the people who do want to trade via guilds anyway (except to make them richer), and would preserve the system's uncentralised nature. Faced with compromise solutions like that, objections to changing the system start to feel more dogmatic and reactionary than grounded in any recognisable reality or logic.
There are broadly two issues that the current system throws up:
1) Inability to search all traders at the same time. On PC you can get round that by using TTC. On console, obviously, you can't, and I think for that reason ZOS really ought to come up with some solution that doesn't doom console players to having to run the entire continent one guild store at a time to find things. It's utterly bonkers and alienates players -- ESO becomes literally "the game where you spend your entire afternoon running the same database search over and over again".
It could be a zone-based database search, perhaps. But the current setup, as it was designed to be played, simply is not viable and console players are stuck having to play it as designed.
2) The ability to sell in a sensible, non zone chat way is gated behind guild membership.
The latter point does not actually call for a centralised auction house necessarily. It calls for NPC traders that are accessible by *anyone*, guild member or not.
To some extent ZOS has made guild trading the hill they want to die on, for reasons I don't understand (I just looked up launch reviews of ESO that describe the guild trader decision as "baffling", "irritating", etc, and also recent guides to which MMO to play which say much the same -- I found only one that had anything good to say about the traders).
But even if we assume the overall shape of the system is here to stay, there is nothing to prevent them adding traders that are accessible without guild membership that charge higher fees, have a lower number of items that can be listed at once, or whatever. Those handicaps would fend off complaints that it would kill the existing guild-based system.
I don't personally see why it should be necessary to deliberately handicap a better, more open system in that way, because I personally believe the number of players who genuinely *like* the current trading system is being overstated, and I don't think keeping a minority of players happy at the expense of making the game a better experience for the wider playerbase is healthy for the game's evolution. The player economy is a fundamental system that affects most of the game, not some niche minigame.
But if we must go that way, compromises are available.
I'd argue that your first point isn't an issue, it is a feature.
Console players do just fine with the market, and experience far less market manipulation, because the trader system is functioning as it was intended to function, without the use of add-ons.
This idea that console players are so poor off because we don't have addons is a fallacy. And it is only repeatedly perpetuated in threads like this by players who cannot fathom playing a game without convenience addons.
For point 2, the assumption is that guilds are some difficult thing to join. Literally you could log into the game right now and request to join a trading guild, with access to a trader, and be in one by the end of today, if not sooner. The only gating mechanic right now are players refusal to join into the trading system we have. Joining a guild, of which MANY are looking for members to expand their rosters and increase their ability to sell items in traders, is incredibly accessible for all levels of trading.
No it's not an assumption. It's that some people do not want to join guilds. Full stop. Clearly a lot of people round here have a problem with that. Too bad. Because those players do exist, their tastes are not yours, and they have a problem with being required to join a player administered guild: they won't. This is not unique to ESO, although it is a section of the playerbase that ESO has courted more than any other MMO.
And yes, people can glibly state that those people should just go elsewhere. But I really think people in this forum don't wholly appreciate how many people do not want to join a guild. It's pretty common.
And quite frankly, there is no sensible reason why the game should not accomodate them since, as I've pointed out above, there are ways of doing so that would have minimal to absolutely no effect on the people who do want to trade via guilds anyway (except to make them richer), and would preserve the system's uncentralised nature. Faced with compromise solutions like that, objections to changing the system start to feel more dogmatic and reactionary than grounded in any recognisable reality or logic.
A player not wanting to join a guild is not a problem with the system. That is a problem with the player. Yeah, players do have problems with that, because those players want to torpedo the whole system because they refuse to participate in it for nonsense reasons.