I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

Use TTC website.

OP, do not listen to the nay sayers.
An Auction house is coming; after spellcrafting, flying mounts, under water pvp and the full-on Tamriel wide justice system.

Thormar wrote: »

OP, do not listen to the nay sayers.
An Auction house is coming; after spellcrafting, flying mounts, under water pvp and the full-on Tamriel wide justice system.

Erm.... yah. Not. Gave me a good laugh you did!

the system we have is a mini game in and of itself, changing to an auctionhouse system would cause a lot of players to quit.

I'll wait for them to post their stories.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

I've never heard that from the devs, just from players saying they don't like the idea for some bizarre reason. I'm actually interested about when they said this can you point me in the right direction since early in the game after launch I didn't pay attention to patch notes and dev interviews?

*Hauls out the reference list*

(Sorry, I truly mean no offense, but I tend to collect references to what the Devs say for times like this.)

So here's a collection of ZOS' intentions and official comments for Guild Traders.

March 2013: "Will there be an auction house?" asked of Creative Director Paul Sage @5:00 into the video: https://www.buffed.de/TESO-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Spiel-15582/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Creative-Director-Paul-Sage-aeussert-sich-zur-Item-Progression-zu-Mounts-und-zum-Gildensystem-im-Video-1072227/

August 2014: Benefits of Guilds - "The Road Ahead" https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1059

August 2014: Introduction of PVE Guild Traders - Creating ESO: Identity and Update 3 https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1087

May 2014: Lack of an Auction House - Ask Us Anything Variety Pack # 14: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/947

April 10, 2015: ESO Live @ https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3924079#Comment_3924079

April 28,2015 : ESO Live "Ask Us Anything" @37:40 "Player guilds are actually an integral part of our world and trader access is a key benefit to guild membership. We don't have any plans to change this at this time." Also, the transcript: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1760019#Comment_1760019 https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2875274#Comment_2875274



There well may be more. I don't regularly watch ESO Live, so I only pick up those comments when someone on the forums referenced a specific ESO Live.

Are those going to convince the pro-AH crowd? Probably not. Hope springs eternal, and there's all sorts of arguments about "Well, they said they weren't and then they did!" or "But all of those are old quotes!"

Sure. Whatever. If you really want an Auction House, I don't expect the Devs' thinking to convince you. You want what you want. To be frank, I'm pretty sure an updated "Nope, still not doing it" wouldn't stop the debate.

The above links are for the people going "What have the Devs actually said about the possibility of an Auction House?"

So far? A resounding "No."

So while I find the whole guild traders system incredibly annoying, I probably wouldn't even bothering to join a guild with a trader without ttc, I would like to know if there are any comments by the dev team from anytime recent.

8 years is a lot of time, think of all the things that have changed in this game in the last 8 years

VaranisArano wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I believe the "answer" is a total, unreserved, unqualified "no" from the devs.

I've never heard that from the devs, just from players saying they don't like the idea for some bizarre reason. I'm actually interested about when they said this can you point me in the right direction since early in the game after launch I didn't pay attention to patch notes and dev interviews?

*Hauls out the reference list*

(Sorry, I truly mean no offense, but I tend to collect references to what the Devs say for times like this.)

So here's a collection of ZOS' intentions and official comments for Guild Traders.

March 2013: "Will there be an auction house?" asked of Creative Director Paul Sage @5:00 into the video: https://www.buffed.de/TESO-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Spiel-15582/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Creative-Director-Paul-Sage-aeussert-sich-zur-Item-Progression-zu-Mounts-und-zum-Gildensystem-im-Video-1072227/

August 2014: Benefits of Guilds - "The Road Ahead" https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1059

August 2014: Introduction of PVE Guild Traders - Creating ESO: Identity and Update 3 https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1087

May 2014: Lack of an Auction House - Ask Us Anything Variety Pack # 14: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/947

April 10, 2015: ESO Live @ https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3924079#Comment_3924079

April 28,2015 : ESO Live "Ask Us Anything" @37:40 "Player guilds are actually an integral part of our world and trader access is a key benefit to guild membership. We don't have any plans to change this at this time." Also, the transcript: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1760019#Comment_1760019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N17KZ_ZCK0&list=PLZng8hzxXSt6-402bM1G2UuZbtnlrMn0z&index=23

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2875274#Comment_2875274


There well may be more. I don't regularly watch ESO Live, so I only pick up those comments when someone on the forums referenced a specific ESO Live.

Are those going to convince the pro-AH crowd? Probably not. Hope springs eternal, and there's all sorts of arguments about "Well, they said they weren't and then they did!" or "But all of those are old quotes!"

Sure. Whatever. If you really want an Auction House, I don't expect the Devs' thinking to convince you. You want what you want. To be frank, I'm pretty sure an updated "Nope, still not doing it" wouldn't stop the debate.

The above links are for the people going "What have the Devs actually said about the possibility of an Auction House?"

So far? A resounding "No."

Thanks, Varanis. I didn't have all the referents myself. So I'm really glad you "brought home the bacon".

If ZOS moved to a centralized AH from the current guild trader setup, the exodus of guilds would probably be likened to a tsunami....

i can understand your irritation with how things are now, however, it's not that time-consuming to use the TBS site.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade
https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade

You check for what you want, see when it was listed, and for how much. You can pretty much judge when something is likely not to be there anymore, based on when it was listed.

Granted the site isn't updated live, and can be a bit behind, however, it's much better than running around blind from trader to trader trying to find what you are looking for.

There are many other MMOs who use an AH thing, if how things are in this game isn't to your liking, checking out one of the others may be a potentially good option for you. Seems guild traders are an integral part of this game, making it unique, and not going to be going anywhere any time soon.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Bleakz wrote: »

So while I find the whole guild traders system incredibly annoying, I probably wouldn't even bothering to join a guild with a trader without ttc, I would like to know if there are any comments by the dev team from anytime recent.

8 years is a lot of time, think of all the things that have changed in this game in the last 8 years

I don't believe ZOS has said much, but as I said, I don't watch ESO Live, so its possible I've missed something. Though for what its worth, nobody who's in favor of Auction Houses has brought up any quotes to the contrary that I haven't listed. If you find any, I'd be delighted to add them to the list.

However, I also think its worth looking at what ZOS has done since then. ZOS has substantially reworked how the Guild Bid works to allow guilds to bid on multiple traders. ZOS has introduced Guild Finder. ZOS has limited the ability of popular trading addons to quickly/repetitively call on the server for sales and pricing because it was causing performance issues.

So instead of moving away from the Guild-centric model of trading when they had the chance, ZOS worked on making that model work better for guilds. Something to think about.

I would also add that this is a very common topic on the forums. Enough that Zos could fill an entire subforum with the conversation that comes up every 3 to 6 months.

The concensus seems to be that while many like the guild set up, many Also hate it, but reality indicates that zos doesn't have the resources needed to make the needed changes to account for it. Not unless players are willing to sacrifice some features they love to free up bandwidth.

Thormar wrote: »

OP, do not listen to the nay sayers.
An Auction house is coming; after spellcrafting, flying mounts, under water pvp and the full-on Tamriel wide justice system.

I'm still hoping for a trip to Akavir first.

People who keep citing TTC, do remember that it essentially doesn't work for consoles. If you don't believe me run a search on the console side of the site and you'll see the problem : there's virtually no data there.

I do think the decision to go with guild traders was a very bad one, for a couple of reasons. But there are advantages and many, many people really like it. Personally, I think some steps need to be taken to find a compromise because this is one of the most polarising topics in the game. It aggrieves as many players as it pleases.


Disadvantages of guild traders

1. It makes it very difficult for players to find what they're looking for. And, yes, if it's something like tempering alloy, that's less of a problem. But if you're presented with a master writ that requires you to do shoulders in the style of Bogadoodoometh High Priest, for example, and you don't have the motif, you're stuck. You are unlikely ever to find it using the game's trading system.

So you end up with the really peculiar situation where everyone on PC is using a third party indexing website, without which a fundamentally important system in the game is effectively broken.


2. Flipping -- that is, players picking up everything that is cheaply priced and immediately putting it back on sale at a much higher price -- rather undercuts the point of having decentralised traders in the first place. Although such activity is made easier with TTC, it is still a problem without it.

Flipping means that you end up with the same problems as a central auction house, namely homogenised prices with very little price competition, but with all the disadvantages of having to go from trader to trader to hunt for things. It makes ESO's trading system the worst of both worlds.


3. The requirement to join a player-managed guild gates players' ability to sell things behind the actions of other players. Which, in a really hardcore MMO, would be fine. But this is ESO; the game that from its inception has been marketed just as much to solo Elder Scrolls fans as to people who want to play with other people and, to this day, is still marketed as absolutely great for solo players unless and until they want to do non-solo content.

The result is that players who do not want to and will not join a guild -- and there are many of them, even if they are relatively underrepresented here -- cannot sell in any sensible way and so can only access the buying side of the player economy.

If they cannot access the sell side, they are limited in how much they can buy of anything from guild traders because the price they get from selling items in the normal shops in the game is out by a factor of hundreds, and often thousands, from the price players sell things for at guild traders. And this problem will only get worse because prices in the player economy keep inflating, but the prices paid by in-game shops, and the value of loot and rewards in the game, largely stay the same.

Gating of who can sell also creates problems in terms of the amount of items that are available in the player economy. In other words, supply is artificially restricted. A player who gets that rare motif but who doesn't belong to a trading guild and already has it, will trash that motif. All those raw materials they don't need? They sit in the craft bag or get junked. So materials that other players want go unused (and prices stay higher).


Advantages of guild traders

That said, the other side of it is that the trading system clearly has -- or has in principle -- some advantages that many people enjoy, and for those reasons ZOS does not appear minded to change it.


1. You cannot bargain hunt with centralised or highly concentrated regional auction houses. Because everyone can see the prices in near real time, price competition is less likely. Prices tend to settle to the same level everywhere.

By having a trading system with lots of little traders, it is possible to find unexpected surprises at reasonable prices. For a time, before TTC picks it up if you're on PC and/or before the flippers swoop.

So the system does, imperfectly, encourage more price competition than an auction house, which in practice would lead to none.


2. Some players (although I have to say it can't be that many as there aren't many guild traders in the game, and their importance as a segment of the player base tends to get overemphasised in this forum because hardcore players are over-represented) have made the trading game and running trade guilds *their game* in ESO, and enjoy it.


Possible changes

So where does that leave us? Clearly, I see a lot of problems with the game's trading system and would like it changed. But I come at it from the perspective of a solo player. Other people like it a lot. Some ideas that might strike a compromise:


1. ZOS themselves should maintain a website like TTC.

It doesn't have to be live. Indeed, it should not be live because then bargain hunting and price competition will never happen. Perhaps such a site on a one-hour delay would satisfy the need for a central index of where to find stuff while maintaining the peculiar charms of the guild trader system.

But there really is a problem if the only way the trading system can be made to work as players expect is through a third party website. And there is an even bigger problem if people cannot do that at all on consoles. The only people who can get the store listings data on console are ZOS themselves. They should do so.


2. Restrictions on flipping need to be introduced.

I'm not saying that flipping should be banned. But there does need to be some thought into how flipping can be toned down a bit because it does make the economy behave as if there were an auction house when there, quite deliberately, isn't. Perhaps a time delay on reselling items via traders, or similar, just to stop flipping happening too quickly and at too-high volumes.


3. For solo players who do not want to join a guild, the introduction of NPC traders that are automated, rather than managed by player guilds, that anyone can use, but with conditions that make them less beneficial to use than guild traders. For example, higher fees or a lower number of selling slots.

If such traders could be introduced, solo players would have access to the economy who otherwise would not, but there is no incentive for players who do use guild traders to switch over. You don't destroy guild traders, in other words, but open up the player economy to a different set of players.


I think it's clear that there is no appetite at ZOS to move the system to an auction house model. But there are ways to make the existing system better that would help more players than they damage. The economy at the moment is very far from perfect.

Cheveyo wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

If ZOS moved to a centralized AH from the current guild trader setup, the exodus of guilds would probably be likened to a tsunami....

I doubt that. Nobody plays MMOs to rack up billions of in game gold that's worthless outside of the game.

That is very incorrect. A lot of people play MMORPGs for the purpose of collecting gold. It may be worthless outside of the game, but that pretty much applies to everything in the game. Even Achievements are worthless once you get away from the server that stores them.

I am a strong proponent of guild based local commerce. I see no need for Amazon in the game, and I agree with Varanis in that I don't think the ESO server could handle such a thing.