Lack of an Auction House isn't unique, it's annoying

Chryos · May 2014

SunfireKnight86 wrote: »

Having to go to every zone and spam something to sell if is soooo 1997. Games evolved into what they are for a reason.

Auction Houses have been shown to destroy the economy, by causing undercutting. Undercutting ruins the game for most of the regular players trying to sell stuff. So, I have to disagree. MMOs have gotten into a bad habit of catering to the "entitled" generation ruining a lot of things for a lot of players.

Additionally, Auction Houses are store fronts for the botters and gold farmers. They make it easy to sell virtual gold. You think there is a problem with botters now, wait till there is an auction house then, any of the games treasure really wont mean anything to anyone anymore.

Most of us figured this out during Everquest 1's life. When we went the way of the auction houses, the game world became more empty and everything went downhill from there. Characters need to interact with each other, it's part of keeping a game world "alive".

People are constantly asking for this game to get easier and easier to a point that this isnt going to be ESO anymore, it'll be just like any other MMO.

My last example is this: Wayshrines. We used to run around and explore, we had to, and this made the world bigger. Now we want to be warped instantly everywhere. Theres wayshrines practically right next to wayshrines. There goes seeing a gameworld that "feels" alive.

We could just cut the graphics out and make ESO a menu based text game that we just trade in because no one seems to actually want to play the game as the creators intended anyway.

Linuaxb16_ESO · May 2014

I'm going to guess that most* believe it's hard to sell things because of the lack of an AH. It's really because all those items & materials in zones 1-49 have no value to begin with. Obviously, the racial motifs have value, blue recipes and up have value, maybe certain alchemy ingredients, purple/gold tempers and the rare style craft rocks, all simple enough to sell just in chat. Anything else such as material from nodes, quest/drop gear even blues etc are all so easy to get/craft by yourself or have your guild supply/make it for free.

Nobody buys this junk because that's all it is. Just junk that's there to get your craft levels higher or to equip. It is stupid easy to get lvl 50 Blacksmithing, Clothing or Woodworking. I started on my main at the last zone in my faction because I decided to sell everything to get leveling a 42k horse. Not even at v5, I have 50 in all three, without the inspiration leapfrog trick, as well as provisioning and alchemy done on alts.

AH won't change much of anything, except raise the supply of things. Demand isn't going to go up with it, and since the AH would most likely carry over the taxation from Guild Stores, big price items will probably still be sold in chat anyway.

They gave materials a reasonable sell price, not too much to be farmed, but enough to feel justified in selling it to a vendor.

DMuehlhausen · May 2014

SunfireKnight86 wrote: »

I'm in a few. That isn't solving the problem. Trading Guilds are just small scale auction houses. Why make this decision? It's more convenient in every sense of the word to have a global or even regional AH. I just don't understand the logic behind the decision. Did someone see it in literally every other MMO and say, "That looks like a terrible idea."

Try setting a better price? Stuff is always dropping in price. At launch Motiffs were what 2k a piece. I bought 3 the other day at 500g / motiff. You are probably over pricing your items.

Also when they make the Guild Stores more searchable your sales will go up. Also like somebody else said, the only things truly worth selling are end game items really. Trying to throw up anything other than maybe set items, and the occasional world purple just aren't going to sell. The green and even blue items are replaced so quickly by random drops and quest upgrades why would anybody spend 500-1.5k gold on them

ignoroticb14_ESO · May 2014

There are gold seller guilds where you join and it's just bots and gold sellers in the guild store. Another good one is the "uber" guilds who ask for 5k or 10k gold fee to join. No AH does nothing to really combat the bots and spam, but it encourages the spammers to send tells and in game mail.

They will find a way to circumvent in game mechanics no matter what. The only real solution is zenimax putting in the leg work to pay GMs to focus on banning.

This may sound terrible, but maybe they need to implement some sort of extra authentication process for users in regions known for botting, such as China or India.

Kililin · May 2014

@scruffycavetroll‌ there are no alts in guilds, just accounts. It is 500 accounts = 4k toons, so if you joined a 500 member guild and see mostly inactive members, they are on accounts that quit.

D34thly · May 2014

/signed. What I would like to see is a global AH things are STILL listed though GUILD STORE, but are added to a global auction house and the guild get a cut of profits or some such. So yes guild stores are still used and not a removed feature. Call it Tamriel Trade Commerce or something just don't keep us limited to 2000 people.

Chryos · May 2014

I certainly wont buy from anyone in an AH who has 1000 of the same item verses the honest player who might only have a few. I'm not playing Elder Walmart Online, I'll pay a little more to support the honest player (to the best of my ability).

Blackwidow · May 2014

Chryos wrote: »

I certainly wont buy from anyone in an AH who has 1000 of the same item verses the honest player who might only have a few. I'm not playing Elder Walmart Online, I'll pay a little more to support the honest player (to the best of my ability).

Honest player?

You mean anyone who wants to sell in bulk is cheating?

Are you also saying that not having an AH is stopping bots from selling their stuff?

Is this your first MMO?

Bangstin · May 2014

My guess is there was some techical limitation why they didn't make the game with a normal auction house. Once they realized it wasnt feasible they made the current implementation and made up the 'it's for the social aspect' reasoning to go along with it.

Blackwidow · May 2014

Bangstin wrote: »

My guess is there was some techical limitation why they didn't make the game with a normal auction house. Once they realized it wasnt feasible they made the current implementation and made up the 'it's for the social aspect' reasoning to go along with it.

I would like to believe that, but in all honesty, ZOS has made so many major design choice errors, i think who ever is in charge has never played an MMO.

I'm not for a global AH. I know that can have under cut problems. However, going from 1 million customers to 2,500 (max) is ridiculous beyond words.

There should have been town/city AHs. Each separate.

Bulwyf · May 2014

I also want a normal auction house feature. I am only in one guild and there's not enough members in it to make it viable guild store. I don't see why I am forced to try and join a trading guild just to try and buy and sell items as any normal MMO allows you to do.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

Osi wrote: »

An inefficient economy is better than one ruled by bots flooding an auction house at the lowest price, because they don't care about their bottom line in the game. All they care about is getting gold to sell to someone outside the game, and they can just add more bots if the price of resources falls.

I would rather them have to be in zone chat to try and sell everything and it take them hours upon hours to do so. Also it makes them, either each account individually or the central merchant account everything is funneled to to sell, exposed and more likely to be caught.

Punish real players to inconvenience bots? That's a terrible business model.

liquid_wolf · May 2014

The auction house reveals all resources and items to the entire population at the same time.

Everyone, everywhere has access to the lowest price. It completely removes player interaction, and ultimately creates a stagnant market that never changes.

Having no auction house isn't "better", but the market does seem to be changing multiple times a week. Probably because of how difficult it is to get and sell goods in the first place.

I don't like universal auction houses... they are just lazy. I want a new system... some kind of caravan or traveling merchant.

Something different.

Thechemicals · May 2014

Blackwidow wrote: »

Chryos wrote: »

I certainly wont buy from anyone in an AH who has 1000 of the same item verses the honest player who might only have a few. I'm not playing Elder Walmart Online, I'll pay a little more to support the honest player (to the best of my ability).

Honest player?

You mean anyone who wants to sell in bulk is cheating?

Are you also saying that not having an AH is stopping bots from selling their stuff?

Is this your first MMO?

Thats exactly what he is saying and he has a good point, not my first mmo either. I can tell you that an auction house is a place of manipulation and exploitation which would be disastrous in a game that has reduced data protection (i.e addons) and massive bot spam.

So sell your honest bulk goods in guild/chat/trade site because we arent going to open the gateway to hell for you to sell your honesty.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

scruffycavetroll wrote: »

Kililin wrote: »

scruffycavetroll wrote: »

MollocH wrote: »

ignoroticb14_ESO wrote: »

It's funny, even without an AH, there are more bots in this game than any other mmo I've ever played.

You clearly didn't play any big mmo ....

i'm sure he's never played WoW

troll right next time if you're gonna try.

It was not trolling i believe rather a coming out as being one of the most delusioned fanboys.
The masses of bots are beyond ridiculous.

sounds like one in the same : D

bots are in every game, and no, i haven't played every MMO ever made, but i'm sure they're there, and out of the ones I've played, this is the first time i've ever seen screen shots of bots clumped together like a circle jerk.

I don't want to join a guild because i'm tired of seeing...5 billion members...ok sign me up...4 people online, guild mostly alts.

I have seen more bots in this game in one month then I ever did in WoW, SwtoR, EQ2, and AO combined. It's outrageous.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

Chryos wrote: »

SunfireKnight86 wrote: »

Having to go to every zone and spam something to sell if is soooo 1997. Games evolved into what they are for a reason.

Auction Houses have been shown to destroy the economy, by causing undercutting. Undercutting ruins the game for most of the regular players trying to sell stuff. So, I have to disagree. MMOs have gotten into a bad habit of catering to the "entitled" generation ruining a lot of things for a lot of players.

Additionally, Auction Houses are store fronts for the botters and gold farmers. They make it easy to sell virtual gold. You think there is a problem with botters now, wait till there is an auction house then, any of the games treasure really wont mean anything to anyone anymore.

Most of us figured this out during Everquest 1's life. When we went the way of the auction houses, the game world became more empty and everything went downhill from there. Characters need to interact with each other, it's part of keeping a game world "alive".

People are constantly asking for this game to get easier and easier to a point that this isnt going to be ESO anymore, it'll be just like any other MMO.

My last example is this: Wayshrines. We used to run around and explore, we had to, and this made the world bigger. Now we want to be warped instantly everywhere. Theres wayshrines practically right next to wayshrines. There goes seeing a gameworld that "feels" alive.

We could just cut the graphics out and make ESO a menu based text game that we just trade in because no one seems to actually want to play the game as the creators intended anyway.

You are confusing time spent with quality of game world. Making me spam up zone chat and run across a landscape doesn't make the world feel more alive to me it makes it feel like a time sink. I don't enjoy time sinking, I'd rather spend my time playing the quests, pvp'ing, and interacting with a social guild rather than ones just made for selling.

Making things convenient isn't "catering to a lazy generation," it's an acknowledgement that people would rather spend time playing the game than spending 3 hours every night walking places and spamming up chat to sell a VR10 Gold set.

Once again- I know I keep making the comparison on these forums- but look at WoW, the big dog on campus. Flying mounts and an auction house didn't chase people away, making the gameplay stupidly easy did.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

ignoroticb14_ESO wrote: »

There are gold seller guilds where you join and it's just bots and gold sellers in the guild store. Another good one is the "uber" guilds who ask for 5k or 10k gold fee to join. No AH does nothing to really combat the bots and spam, but it encourages the spammers to send tells and in game mail.

They will find a way to circumvent in game mechanics no matter what. The only real solution is zenimax putting in the leg work to pay GMs to focus on banning.

This may sound terrible, but maybe they need to implement some sort of extra authentication process for users in regions known for botting, such as China or India.

They just need to hire a few dozen minimum wage workers to be in game GMs like every single other MMO does. It's not hard.

moquerreeb17_ESO · May 2014

Linuaxb16_ESO wrote: »

Anything else such as material from nodes, quest/drop gear even blues etc are all so easy to get/craft by yourself or have your guild supply/make it for free.

Breaking news: you can get epic/legendary tempers refinig low-grade raw material.

Sev · May 2014

There should have been town/city AHs. Each separate.

I don't see that working. Everyone would crowd into one place to get as big a market as possible.

What I think would work: an auction house tied to your PvP campaign. Not in any way requiring PvP, just using the campaign you choose like a server for an auction house. That allows for a decent sized market while still keeping it smaller than the whole megaserver.

And yes, I really do think the game needs an auction house. Especially for low-demand, low-supply items like really expensive gear: things that are worth too much to vendor, but are hard to find a buyer for. An auction house will also benefit people looking to buy such items.

I'd rather be out playing the game than sitting in town spamming WTS.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

moquerreeb17_ESO wrote: »

Linuaxb16_ESO wrote: »

Anything else such as material from nodes, quest/drop gear even blues etc are all so easy to get/craft by yourself or have your guild supply/make it for free.

Breaking news: you can get epic/legendary tempers refinig low-grade raw material.

Yes, you can. I've gotten Dreugh Wax and Lining from refining Jute once I had extraction to 3/3.

Bollerlotte · May 2014

SunfireKnight86 wrote: »

Having to go to every zone and spam something to sell if is soooo 1997. Games evolved into what they are for a reason.

/sign that. guild store is fun, but feels so much way behind else.

Swampster · May 2014

Why couldn't they have an AH/Trader in each zone that:
a) are all limited to faction they are in except for guild stores.
b) are limited to the gear level for that zone (or limited to appropriate level bands), so that stuff gets sold in the right places throughout the world and is available to buy as you level up..

This puts some (although admittedly not insurmountable) barriers on botters and gold sellers... They would have to level up to sell stuff, no lvl1's selling VR10 gear etc.

Making them level up makes life more difficult for them to sell.. not only due to the levelling process, but as they go up in rank they're potentially easier to spot as patterns emerge.. and there'd no doubt be less of them at higher levels.

c) Basic crafting materials could be kept to a guild level store perhaps..

Oh and I really do not believe the current system was designed in any way with 'combatting bots & goldsellers' in mind and nor do I think that it has has ANY measure of success in doing so.. It was simply done in an attempt to be different.. (hence my comparison to FFXIV v1 earlier in the thread) and on that point they've definitely suceeded just as FFXIV did, but in creating a vibrant and useful means of facilitating an economy they've royally messed it up just as FFXIV did.

ChairGraveyard · May 2014

Auction houses are total crap and don't belong in this game.

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO · May 2014

Failed game design.

They tried to be different, at the expense of ignoring what works.

Guilds don't work. They need a global marketplace badly.

Chat is the Auction Hall.

Every second line is WTB, WTS, WTB, WTS, WTB, WTS,

Disgusting. Put everyone on ignore and fix the damn game.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

I see a lot of what they were trying to do. Make a game with a vibrant feel to it, unique combat, Elder Scrolls lore, and play your own way. In an attempt to design a game that catered to everyone- hardcore and casual alike- they have just kinda ended up in this middle ground where they have pleased neither.

The game needs an AH, and it needs real endgame content. (Although that is a different topic)

GrundelWolfe · May 2014

Oh look their listening to us... They decided to implement a Guild Kiosk that the guilds can bid on, and then the winner can have a Public Store that lasts a week... How is this supposed to be helpful when the guild doesn't actually get a cut of the profits that are labeled as such in the tool tip?

So this means that Guild owners will have to put up their own gold in order to bid on a kiosk that only lasts one week. How in the hell is anyone supposed to profit from that? Especially guild owners!

All I see is that this will drive yet even more players to purchase gold from the gold sellers so that they can dominate the Guild Kiosks, not allowing anyone to outbid them so that their store remains on top every week.

Or better yet, the gold farmers themselves will be outbidding everyone for the public kiosks so that no real guild will stand a chance at bidding for, and winning a kiosk. Which will just increase the amount of gold all the gold farmers get, while isolating the actual player based market from participating.

@ZOS_AlanG , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom This is really just an implementation of a very poorly thought out "fix" to the very poorly thought out guild stores.

I'm excited for changes in this game, but some the changes are turning out to be absolute game breakers for a lot of people.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

GrundelWolfe wrote: »

Or better yet, the gold farmers themselves will be outbidding everyone for the public kiosks so that no real guild will stand a chance at bidding for, and winning a kiosk. Which will just increase the amount of gold all the gold farmers get, while isolating the actual player based market from participating.

This will almost certainly be the case. They have near unlimited funds to purchase with, and they undercut the sellers in /zone by almost 50%. (Selling Dreugh Wax for 1-1.5k and Lining for 500) Yet another case of the devs making odd decisions that are ostensibly put in to combat gold selling and only hurt real players.

Really all the guild store does is make people more likely to buy gold/mats from gold sellers because its easier. If they had good GM oversight with a regular auction house they could find people who put up 5,000 Dreugh Wax for half price and check the accounts for signs of cheating.

The lack of in-game oversight is really hurting the community- More so than the lack of a AH. (Although that is hurting it pretty badly too)

At this rate I predict only hardcore ES fans (myself included) will be subbing the game within six months, much like happened with SWTOR. I feel like they are banking hard on getting sales with consoles, but MMO never sell as well on consoles as they do on PC. (Granted, few have attempted it) Maybe ESO will break that trend, but I tend not to think so.

GrundelWolfe · May 2014

@SunfireKnight86 I agree. I'm willing to stick with them for a while longer. I really had high hopes for this game, and really would like it to do well. But it seems that every important decision they are making is a test to how far I'm willing to go with them.

I know they want us to think that they are listening to us, and implementing changes based on our input, but it seems that they only partially have an ear open making knee-jerk reactions that lack any foresight, which only exacerbates the issue(s) at hand.

SunfireKnight86 · May 2014

They can't really be listening to input if they already had a 1 year plan before the game came out. Look at all the stuff they've said they're going to add. If they're busy working on those things do they really expect us to believe that they are going to break from their schedule to add the things we want? To fix the things we disagree with?

The only online game I have ever seen do that was Marvel Heroes. Those devs are not only active on their own forums, but they add characters and content based on the demands of the community. That game is much smaller and much cheaper- It's the only reason they CAN do it.

Look how long it took ZOS to fix PvP Vampire problems: An entire beta+ 1 month. Why? Because they were busy making the things they'd already committed to. That's fine- great even. I love new content in MMOs! Bring it on! But let's not pretend that the development of a multimillion dollar games is in the hands of the players. It's never going to happen.

I like talking with other players about it, that's the only reason I've bothered to bring it up on the forums. I don't actually expect ZOS to listen to a word I say here. I can't even get a response to legit bugs and game breaking issues.

oxygen_boarderb16_ESO · May 2014

Lets just make it so you can post auctions from your inventory, no need to do anything else but farm farm farm. Every thread on this forum is someone complaining that they actually have to put in effort, to get some kind of reward. "I don't want to have to try and sell my wares, I just want them to sell themselves". Vendor your items then, and lose out on max profits and gain more in experience/questing/fun factor. Or sit there and try to nickle and dime every mat you collect.

I personally like the guild houses. Power trade guilds have a purpose now as opposed to just being "casuals".