Central Sales Information is Desperately Needed!

redlink1979 · April 26

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I just spent an hour looking around for Blue Heavy Bolstered Companion gear.
Impossible to find less than 10x more than what TTC says is the suggested price.(...)

Usually the vendors at major cities have a larger variety of items, I tend to search there in the first place.
TTC suggested price is just a pointer, it's not mandatory. Players can list items for any amount, inflating the price or not. If you're willing to buy, that's up to you.
Regarding availability, be aware that anyone who searches in TTC can also be searching for the same items as you are (besides flippers). You will always need a bit of luck to get the items first if their price is appealing. It will always going to be a race against time.

Desiato · April 26

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

Necrotech_Master · April 26

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on is delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

for selling, thats why i prefer the current system, but the OP is mainly discussing the other aspect, as the buyer its harder to find what you want because you have to search multiple times in multiple places and still might end up missing what you want because theres a few hundred guild traders in the game, its virtually impossible to check all of them

its hard to find a good common ground though

current system:
pros:

better pricing due to decentralization
more immersion (more RP than any real effect but still a pro)

cons:

harder to find specific items when your trying to buy

global auction house:
pros:

easier to find items your searching for

cons:

higher prices due to market manipulation

FlopsyPrince · April 26

Desiato wrote: »

If the game had built-in TTC, players would still travel to a destination to find someone else bought it for the best price first. In fact, that result would be more common because everyone would do it.

Then they would complain about that here, not understanding why they just can't buy it within that interface without the legwork.

I preferred trading in ESO before the TTC paradigm, but it is survivable because it's not perfect. Trading still rewards those who go out to find the deals on foot based on their knowledge and intuition. It is a game unto itself.

The key here is that you don't always have to get the best deal. If one lets go of that unrealistic obsession, they can find whatever they want quickly.

But like most posts in this forum, everyone wants the best result for them, even if it's impossible in a multiplayer game. Some people just can't take not getting the best result, and therefore they are impossible to consistently please.

You can do that now and waste a LOT of time even with TTC. Such information would of course not prevent it being sold during travel, but would help significantly.

Some may have mastered this part of the game, to their own satisfaction at least, but it is a huge thorn in our boots for many of us, especially on console!

FlopsyPrince · April 26

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Wildberryjack wrote: »

I tend to prefer a central AH but I do see one advantage in this system. Often you will have one player list an item for way below value then others do the same either from not paying attention to just not caring. The end result is something that was valuable now isn't and you can either sell yours for pennies or just keep it since its value has been destroyed. I see this constantly on WoWs AH and it's plain annoying.

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

the system we have now somewhat prevents this

it would be nice though if they did add some NPC in that you could say "im looking for X item" and they could at least tell you the zones with traders that had one listed, it might make it easier to find the item your searching to buy

The current system is vulnerable to the same things, as I found with the likely relisted companion gear.

I fully agree just having the NPC you note at the end would be exactly what I am asking for here.

wolfie1.0. · April 26

the suggested price in TTC is just that a suggestion. Its an average of all of the items that TTC has recorded being sold.

It is not a guarantee that an item will be sold or listed at that price or anywhere near it.

TTC website does list items that are scanned into the system, and it does get updated but only when scans happen and there is no guarantee that the item will be there when you get there.

If ZOS implemented such a feature into ESO, which they may or may not do, two things are going to be very very likely to be implemented. the first is that there would be a timer between scans, and second is that there would be a cool down on searching the system.

How long each are would be up to ZOS, but its very possible that you are looking at still having data that is 5-20 minutes behind live when it comes to searching for items. One of the reasons TTC works as well as it does is because it exists outside of the ESO ecosystem. ZOS could set it up the same way, but as we have seen historically with TTC itself that comes with its own risks.

FlopsyPrince · April 26

Hamfast wrote: »

While I like TTC and yes, items listed there (more so if prices low) are gone before you can get to them... But @FlopsyPrince , I see from your signature you are on PC and PS4/PS5, if you are talking about the PS Servers, TTC does not report on items on that server, just PC/NA and PC/EU...

I know that of course. That is why I noted the problem even with TTC. It is far worse (for my use cases) on the PS5. I am playing on both now in spite of the loss of addons because I like playing on my large screen TV.

MidniteOwl1913 · April 26

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

FlopsyPrince · April 26

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

You like it because you have adapted (well I assume) and do well at it. I find it to be horridly annoying when I have to look for something specific or want to know a reasonable price. I suspect even the TTC prices I get on PC are too low, but it is a pure guess on the PS5. I may check the guilds I belong to, but I am not going to spend hours to find the best price.

Having a central source to at least look for something NOW would at least help the first problem and perhaps give input into the latter if it listed several things.

IsharaMeradin · April 26

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Hmm, what platform are you on? I'm on PSNA.
Maybe instead of an auction house, we should have personal shoppers... ;-)

Instacart for ESO? Perhaps something more in-house instead.

Perhaps, one of our companions could be tasked with hunting down a user specified item. They could report on the location(s) where they found the item (i.e. Deshaan, Stonefalls, etc). Or the user could give the companion an amount of gold and the first instance of the item found for that amount or less gets bought.

And just to make things fun, they'll be taken off task (unsummoned) if any other companion or assistant is called or the player is in an area where companions are not allowed.

FlopsyPrince · April 27

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Hmm, what platform are you on? I'm on PSNA.
Maybe instead of an auction house, we should have personal shoppers... ;-)

Instacart for ESO? Perhaps something more in-house instead.

Perhaps, one of our companions could be tasked with hunting down a user specified item. They could report on the location(s) where they found the item (i.e. Deshaan, Stonefalls, etc). Or the user could give the companion an amount of gold and the first instance of the item found for that amount or less gets bought.

And just to make things fun, they'll be taken off task (unsummoned) if any other companion or assistant is called or the player is in an area where companions are not allowed.

It could even end up as a gold sync. Add a 10% Instacart fee!

NoTimeToWait · April 27

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Hmm, what platform are you on? I'm on PSNA.
Maybe instead of an auction house, we should have personal shoppers... ;-)

Instacart for ESO? Perhaps something more in-house instead.

Perhaps, one of our companions could be tasked with hunting down a user specified item. They could report on the location(s) where they found the item (i.e. Deshaan, Stonefalls, etc). Or the user could give the companion an amount of gold and the first instance of the item found for that amount or less gets bought.

And just to make things fun, they'll be taken off task (unsummoned) if any other companion or assistant is called or the player is in an area where companions are not allowed.

A good idea, but unfortunately not all good ideas can be solutions. In your case, this "companion" would be more useful for flippers than for general players, because compared to players, flippers don't spend as much time in activities that could cancel the trader companion. So, if you count average time that the companion will be used by flippers, it would be much higher than for a player, which would make flippers more effective (and this will also exacerbate inflation, because the market bottom price line would be depleted more effectively, which would reduce downward force on market prices)

Anifaas · April 27

Guild Stores in ESO make shopping into some experience that resembles a strip mall hidden in an industrial park: awkward and inefficient. The auction house in WoW and exchange in STO are like shopping in a world class mall: elegant. Without TTC I would ignore the ESO trading experience altogether.

FlopsyPrince · April 27

NoTimeToWait wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Hmm, what platform are you on? I'm on PSNA.
Maybe instead of an auction house, we should have personal shoppers... ;-)

Instacart for ESO? Perhaps something more in-house instead.

Perhaps, one of our companions could be tasked with hunting down a user specified item. They could report on the location(s) where they found the item (i.e. Deshaan, Stonefalls, etc). Or the user could give the companion an amount of gold and the first instance of the item found for that amount or less gets bought.

And just to make things fun, they'll be taken off task (unsummoned) if any other companion or assistant is called or the player is in an area where companions are not allowed.

A good idea, but unfortunately not all good ideas can be solutions. In your case, this "companion" would be more useful for flippers than for general players, because compared to players, flippers don't spend as much time in activities that could cancel the trader companion. So, if you count average time that the companion will be used by flippers, it would be much higher than for a player, which would make flippers more effective (and this will also exacerbate inflation, because the market bottom price line would be depleted more effectively, which would reduce downward force on market prices)

It wouldn't help flippers as much if it was limited to the number of items. Either way it is still a decent solution and something would need to be created if this was ever addressed at all.

belial5221_ESO · April 27

If they did make a central AH,they'd need to bind on sale/transfer to prevent people cornering the market.They'd also need a dedicated bot watcher,seeing it would bring in more to make gold for 3rd party sites,like the free accts already tried to do.That way people only buy what they really want/need,not to continuously circulate in the market.

katanagirl1 · April 28

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

You like it because you have adapted (well I assume) and do well at it. I find it to be horridly annoying when I have to look for something specific or want to know a reasonable price. I suspect even the TTC prices I get on PC are too low, but it is a pure guess on the PS5. I may check the guilds I belong to, but I am not going to spend hours to find the best price.

Having a central source to at least look for something NOW would at least help the first problem and perhaps give input into the latter if it listed several things.

It doesn’t take hours to find a good price. I can check all traders in Elden Root, Wayrest, and Mournhold for a specific item in about 5-10 minutes. You might find it cheaper elsewhere but smaller traders have more limited selection. As someone posted above, you see the range of prices and make a selection on the low end and be done with it. Time is money as they say, so don’t waste it or you’re not coming out ahead. While you’re taking an hour to search every trader in Tamreil you could be doing something else and making more gold.

FlopsyPrince · April 28

katanagirl1 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

You like it because you have adapted (well I assume) and do well at it. I find it to be horridly annoying when I have to look for something specific or want to know a reasonable price. I suspect even the TTC prices I get on PC are too low, but it is a pure guess on the PS5. I may check the guilds I belong to, but I am not going to spend hours to find the best price.

Having a central source to at least look for something NOW would at least help the first problem and perhaps give input into the latter if it listed several things.

It doesn’t take hours to find a good price. I can check all traders in Elden Root, Wayrest, and Mournhold for a specific item in about 5-10 minutes. You might find it cheaper elsewhere but smaller traders have more limited selection. As someone posted above, you see the range of prices and make a selection on the low end and be done with it. Time is money as they say, so don’t waste it or you’re not coming out ahead. While you’re taking an hour to search every trader in Tamreil you could be doing something else and making more gold.

Sorry, but you are wrong. I have tried that several times in the past few months and have not found what I am looking for sometimes and not at a "normal" price at other times. Sorry, but that may work for something like Platinum, but not for a rarer pattern or specific trait companion gear, for example. It might, but it also often does not.

katanagirl1 · April 28

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

You like it because you have adapted (well I assume) and do well at it. I find it to be horridly annoying when I have to look for something specific or want to know a reasonable price. I suspect even the TTC prices I get on PC are too low, but it is a pure guess on the PS5. I may check the guilds I belong to, but I am not going to spend hours to find the best price.

Having a central source to at least look for something NOW would at least help the first problem and perhaps give input into the latter if it listed several things.

It doesn’t take hours to find a good price. I can check all traders in Elden Root, Wayrest, and Mournhold for a specific item in about 5-10 minutes. You might find it cheaper elsewhere but smaller traders have more limited selection. As someone posted above, you see the range of prices and make a selection on the low end and be done with it. Time is money as they say, so don’t waste it or you’re not coming out ahead. While you’re taking an hour to search every trader in Tamreil you could be doing something else and making more gold.

Sorry, but you are wrong. I have tried that several times in the past few months and have not found what I am looking for sometimes and not at a "normal" price at other times. Sorry, but that may work for something like Platinum, but not for a rarer pattern or specific trait companion gear, for example. It might, but it also often does not.

What are you saying is a “normal” price? You have to keep up with prices, they fluctuate some but I have been tracking them and know what is reasonable for the items I buy.

I don’t shop for platinum or other mats, I am searching for furnishing plans or motifs.

katanagirl1 · April 28

katanagirl1 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

As an active trader (listing things daily) I like the system as it is. As a player, I sell the items I get from activities that I enjoy and use the gold to buy things I need but don't enjoy the process. Being able to generate enough gold to avoid those things is central to me enjoying the game.

I don't have any trouble finding what I want BTW with rare exceptions (fanged worm motifs comes to mind).

I do like shopping and usually have an idea of where to look for things.

You like it because you have adapted (well I assume) and do well at it. I find it to be horridly annoying when I have to look for something specific or want to know a reasonable price. I suspect even the TTC prices I get on PC are too low, but it is a pure guess on the PS5. I may check the guilds I belong to, but I am not going to spend hours to find the best price.

Having a central source to at least look for something NOW would at least help the first problem and perhaps give input into the latter if it listed several things.

It doesn’t take hours to find a good price. I can check all traders in Elden Root, Wayrest, and Mournhold for a specific item in about 5-10 minutes. You might find it cheaper elsewhere but smaller traders have more limited selection. As someone posted above, you see the range of prices and make a selection on the low end and be done with it. Time is money as they say, so don’t waste it or you’re not coming out ahead. While you’re taking an hour to search every trader in Tamreil you could be doing something else and making more gold.

Sorry, but you are wrong. I have tried that several times in the past few months and have not found what I am looking for sometimes and not at a "normal" price at other times. Sorry, but that may work for something like Platinum, but not for a rarer pattern or specific trait companion gear, for example. It might, but it also often does not.

What are you saying is a “normal” price? You have to keep up with prices, they fluctuate some but I have been tracking them and know what is reasonable for the items I buy.

I don’t shop for platinum or other mats, I am searching for furnishing plans or motifs.

Also, there will be times when a certain rare item or even a particular trait in companion gear is just not listed for sale. I am not sure you have taken that into account.

Dawnblade · April 28

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

I'm not so sure - I play a number of very large games with various forms of centralized markets, and the interesting thing I've noticed is the more accessible and unlimited the market, and the more transparent the sales data, the more pricing of the majority of items is consistent and stable (as stable as possible given every ongoing game suffers some amount of inflation as game currency inflows over time are always higher than ongoing sinks).

WoW has no (or very, very few) restrictions or limits on selling items - anyone can post anything as often as they like, and full market data is available via an API, yet items do not see crazy price swings and no one is buying out commodities and relisting them for crazy multiples of average prices.

FFXIV has limits in that players only have a set number of slots available for selling (which interestingly can be increased by paying more each month), but anyone can sell on the market and the market itself will display the most recent sales (including pricing) of any item, and again I don't see commodities being bought up and relisted at crazy multiples. I do however see larger swings in pricing, especially as items tend towards less commodity and / or actually rare.

ESO has the worst of all systems I've ever seen, selling requires joining a guild, and for a reasonable chance at making a sale, requires the guild to secure a limited trader slot, then restricts the player to 30 selling slots while providing no information at all about recent sales absent running add-ons.

ESO's guild trader system itself, before anyone else gets involved (bots, scalpers, whatever), already drives prices up by artificially creating scarcity. Add in bots, scalpers, flippers and whatnot, and it is easy to see why prices are so high and so variable (look at the range on many items and it is absurd - same item might be 70-8000 gold, or 4K to 45K).

Anyways, I don't have a magic ball but I imagine (not that it is ever going to happen) that a central marketplace WITHOUT all the restrictions and limits imposed by the current system and WITH transparency of data would have mostly stable prices for most commodities and reasonably-available items (actual rare items would vary wildly in prices - though they already do today so no real change).

Northwold · April 30

Dawnblade wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

I'm not so sure - I play a number of very large games with various forms of centralized markets, and the interesting thing I've noticed is the more accessible and unlimited the market, and the more transparent the sales data, the more pricing of the majority of items is consistent and stable (as stable as possible given every ongoing game suffers some amount of inflation as game currency inflows over time are always higher than ongoing sinks).

Yes. Price transparency and price discoverability are among the key indicators used to work out if a market is functioning properly as a competitive market.

Too many people trot out "auction houses cause inflation" as an argument without, I suspect, understanding how ESO's system makes "normal" pricing impossible to discern and concentrates trading on a very small number of traders in a very small number of geographic locations (Mournhold etc). Those locations in effect set the market conditions for the vast majority of users in the entire game.

The bidding race for getting a trader spot in those locations and the cost of doing so then drives prices even higher (this is one reason why the suggestion that the trading system is some kind of "vital" gold sink is also paradoxical -- if it addresses any inflation at all, it is the inflation the trading system itself creates because of its design!).

THAT setup is much more easy to use to corner markets (notably by flipping from more obscure trader locations) and push prices to the sky than a game-wide market (in whatever form) on which everyone can see the prices everywhere and, importantly, everyone can also sell at whatever price they like.

(The selling gate is a distinct but important point. If people want, as they claim, a dynamic market for trading, then it's hard to see how that can happen when supply is artificially strangled. Those players who do not sell because they do not want to go through the selling gate of guild membership are a giant supply source that is simply not accessible to people buying gear and supplies.

That drives prices higher than they would naturally be, including because people who don't sell can still buy, using gold obtained, not by selling stuff to other players (which would be gold that was *already* in the player economy just moved to a different player's hands), but using gold that has been *created* through *in-game means* such as master writs, public dungeon farming, etc. So, gold magicked out of thin air. Ergo, gating players from selling using ESO's trading system ALSO drives inflation and indeed actively causes the kinds of activities that create new money from nothing.)

katanagirl1 · April 30

Northwold wrote: »

Dawnblade wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

I'm not so sure - I play a number of very large games with various forms of centralized markets, and the interesting thing I've noticed is the more accessible and unlimited the market, and the more transparent the sales data, the more pricing of the majority of items is consistent and stable (as stable as possible given every ongoing game suffers some amount of inflation as game currency inflows over time are always higher than ongoing sinks).

Yes. Price transparency and price discoverability are among the key indicators used to work out if a market is functioning properly as a competitive market.

Too many people trot out "auction houses cause inflation" as an argument without, I suspect, understanding how ESO's system makes "normal" pricing impossible to discern and concentrates trading on a very small number of traders in a very small number of geographic locations (Mournhold etc). Those locations in effect set the market conditions for the vast majority of users in the entire game.

The bidding race for getting a trader spot in those locations and the cost of doing so then drives prices even higher (this is one reason why the suggestion that the trading system is some kind of "vital" gold sink is also paradoxical -- if it addresses any inflation at all, it is the inflation the trading system itself creates because of its design!).

THAT setup is much more easy to use to corner markets (notably by flipping from more obscure trader locations) and push prices to the sky than a game-wide market (in whatever form) on which everyone can see the prices everywhere and, importantly, everyone can also sell at whatever price they like.

(The selling gate is a distinct but important point. If people want, as they claim, a dynamic market for trading, then it's hard to see how that can happen when supply is artificially strangled. Those players who do not sell because they do not want to go through the selling gate of guild membership are a giant supply source that is simply not accessible to people buying gear and supplies.

That drives prices higher than they would naturally be, including because people who don't sell can still buy, using gold obtained, not by selling stuff to other players (which would be gold that was *already* in the player economy just moved to a different player's hands), but using gold that has been *created* through *in-game means* such as master writs, public dungeon farming, etc. So, gold magicked out of thin air. Ergo, gating players from selling using ESO's trading system ALSO drives inflation and indeed actively causes the kinds of activities that create new money from nothing.)

It can’t be the fault of the guild trading system. We have the same system on PS and we don’t have the problems you have on PC.

Some people there also prefer zone chat for buying and selling too, though I personally don’t understand why.

Necrotech_Master · April 30

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Dawnblade wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

I'm not so sure - I play a number of very large games with various forms of centralized markets, and the interesting thing I've noticed is the more accessible and unlimited the market, and the more transparent the sales data, the more pricing of the majority of items is consistent and stable (as stable as possible given every ongoing game suffers some amount of inflation as game currency inflows over time are always higher than ongoing sinks).

Yes. Price transparency and price discoverability are among the key indicators used to work out if a market is functioning properly as a competitive market.

Too many people trot out "auction houses cause inflation" as an argument without, I suspect, understanding how ESO's system makes "normal" pricing impossible to discern and concentrates trading on a very small number of traders in a very small number of geographic locations (Mournhold etc). Those locations in effect set the market conditions for the vast majority of users in the entire game.

The bidding race for getting a trader spot in those locations and the cost of doing so then drives prices even higher (this is one reason why the suggestion that the trading system is some kind of "vital" gold sink is also paradoxical -- if it addresses any inflation at all, it is the inflation the trading system itself creates because of its design!).

THAT setup is much more easy to use to corner markets (notably by flipping from more obscure trader locations) and push prices to the sky than a game-wide market (in whatever form) on which everyone can see the prices everywhere and, importantly, everyone can also sell at whatever price they like.

(The selling gate is a distinct but important point. If people want, as they claim, a dynamic market for trading, then it's hard to see how that can happen when supply is artificially strangled. Those players who do not sell because they do not want to go through the selling gate of guild membership are a giant supply source that is simply not accessible to people buying gear and supplies.

That drives prices higher than they would naturally be, including because people who don't sell can still buy, using gold obtained, not by selling stuff to other players (which would be gold that was *already* in the player economy just moved to a different player's hands), but using gold that has been *created* through *in-game means* such as master writs, public dungeon farming, etc. So, gold magicked out of thin air. Ergo, gating players from selling using ESO's trading system ALSO drives inflation and indeed actively causes the kinds of activities that create new money from nothing.)

It can’t be the fault of the guild trading system. We have the same system on PS and we don’t have the problems you have on PC.

Some people there also prefer zone chat for buying and selling too, though I personally don’t understand why.

PC has addons such as TTC, which is like a pseudo central market, as it at least helps buyers find the items, but because you can see more listings, or players with a lot of time, could still make an effort to corner the market on items

the main reason i see people doing WTS spam in the chat is because they are trying to avoid losing money on listing/sales fees for high value items (or they plain dont have a guild but still want to sell something valueable)

wolfie1.0. · April 30

based on ZOS's changes on the PTS for both guild listings and mail system...

I dont think that this is likely to happen anytime soon or at all

katanagirl1 · May 1

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Dawnblade wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive seen the opposite happen with a global auction house

ive seen people corner the market and have seen the price of an item rise to 10-50x what it was worth overnight because there was none others for sale, because the cheap ones are always bought and relisted

Of course! That's the norm. With a global auction house, price manipulation and pump and dumps are MUCH worse and more common.

If ESO had a GAC, someone would write an app like the TTC to scrape the data from the client which would notify them when there's a deal and feed a custom addon that would allow it to be purchased with one click. Such a system could then be combined with a 3rd party automation tool to completely automate the process without a human presence.

Those thinking a GAC would allow *them* to get the best price they are currently missing out on are delusional. They would never even get an opportunity and prices would go up without them realizing it. They would be poorer as a result.

I'm sure there are people who have attempted this and may already do it with bots, but at least that is far more detectable and therefore actionable, and much less fool proof than it would be with a full blown GAC.

I'm not so sure - I play a number of very large games with various forms of centralized markets, and the interesting thing I've noticed is the more accessible and unlimited the market, and the more transparent the sales data, the more pricing of the majority of items is consistent and stable (as stable as possible given every ongoing game suffers some amount of inflation as game currency inflows over time are always higher than ongoing sinks).

Yes. Price transparency and price discoverability are among the key indicators used to work out if a market is functioning properly as a competitive market.

Too many people trot out "auction houses cause inflation" as an argument without, I suspect, understanding how ESO's system makes "normal" pricing impossible to discern and concentrates trading on a very small number of traders in a very small number of geographic locations (Mournhold etc). Those locations in effect set the market conditions for the vast majority of users in the entire game.

The bidding race for getting a trader spot in those locations and the cost of doing so then drives prices even higher (this is one reason why the suggestion that the trading system is some kind of "vital" gold sink is also paradoxical -- if it addresses any inflation at all, it is the inflation the trading system itself creates because of its design!).

THAT setup is much more easy to use to corner markets (notably by flipping from more obscure trader locations) and push prices to the sky than a game-wide market (in whatever form) on which everyone can see the prices everywhere and, importantly, everyone can also sell at whatever price they like.

(The selling gate is a distinct but important point. If people want, as they claim, a dynamic market for trading, then it's hard to see how that can happen when supply is artificially strangled. Those players who do not sell because they do not want to go through the selling gate of guild membership are a giant supply source that is simply not accessible to people buying gear and supplies.

That drives prices higher than they would naturally be, including because people who don't sell can still buy, using gold obtained, not by selling stuff to other players (which would be gold that was *already* in the player economy just moved to a different player's hands), but using gold that has been *created* through *in-game means* such as master writs, public dungeon farming, etc. So, gold magicked out of thin air. Ergo, gating players from selling using ESO's trading system ALSO drives inflation and indeed actively causes the kinds of activities that create new money from nothing.)

It can’t be the fault of the guild trading system. We have the same system on PS and we don’t have the problems you have on PC.

Some people there also prefer zone chat for buying and selling too, though I personally don’t understand why.

PC has addons such as TTC, which is like a pseudo central market, as it at least helps buyers find the items, but because you can see more listings, or players with a lot of time, could still make an effort to corner the market on items

the main reason i see people doing WTS spam in the chat is because they are trying to avoid losing money on listing/sales fees for high value items (or they plain dont have a guild but still want to sell something valueable)

Yeah you could save some gold spamming zone chat to sell things. I am sure people do that.

I used to do that until I found a trading guild, now I love the fact that I can list things and go do something else and they sell by themselves. Nothing like logging in first thing in the morning to collect all the gold from what sold last night while I was sleeping.

LaintalAy · May 1

Oh my. Where to start?

TTC. I don't use this. The server, as I understand, is in a country that I do not trust. I'm not giving my personal details to them. Use it at your own risk.

The Trader system that ZOS gave us consists of three concepts:

Trading between players within a guild after membership reaches 10.
A Guild can hire a kiosk for a week to allow non-guild members access to items for sale, after membership reaches 50.
A default price for most items.

Everything else about the current trading system, good, bad or indifferent, is player-driven.

If you only sell what you find lying around, then everything you make is pure profit (after the listing fees).
So the price you sell for is actually irrelevant.

Whilst I despise this practice, the most efficient players are out there, milking furnishing mats from base nodes and selling them cheaply. They get fast, reliable cash flow. They don't worry about listing fees or getting the 'best price'.

With that in mind, the real problem can be perceived as 'people who make furniture'.
Keep that in mind when someone offers you a free house...

FrancisCrawford · May 1

Dawnblade wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I just spent an hour looking around for Blue Heavy Bolstered Companion gear.

Impossible to find less than 10x more than what TTC says is the suggested price.

One of the normal claims against this is that someone would lock the market on things, when this is exactly what is being done now!

I am fairly sure we will never get a central auction house, but at least let me find who is selling something NOW even if I have to rush there to get it. At least then I could not waste my time either randomly looking or relying on what an addon (PC only) tracks. Neither is working well now nor is it making for a good experience!

Would be nice - though doubtful something ZOS could pull off without a massive re-write of the system.

Heck, they can't even keep the PTS database from bleeding into the live database, mail still sometimes fails to arrive without zone swapping or relogging, and current guild history (including sales data) consistently breaks.

A bigger issue IMO is the highly limited number of trading slots available. They should increase the supply of slots by increasing guild account limits, increasing trade slots per account per guild, and maybe even adding more traders or allowing more than one guild per trader.

All of the above would increase the supply which would have an indirect effect on the ability to find items (more people would be able to list more items) without changing the underlying mechanics of individual guilds with traders spread throughout the game world.

But again, this is ZOS and ESO - who knows if adding more supply to the system is even possible, most likely it would just overwhelm the servers and cause more issues.

Agreed re the trading slots.

I have 100s of pieces of gear stashed away people might like to buy -- PC and companion alike -- but almost never sell it, due to a shortage of slots.

Ditto recipes and so on.

This tight constraint on supply probably keeps prices a lot higher than they otherwise would be.

That said:

1. Due to their technical challenges, the last thing ZoS wants to do is expand the amount of stuff for sale.
2. If there were an expansion in trading slots, it might work better if the slots were assigned to different categories of merchandise. Frankly, if I had 50% more slots available, I still might almost exclusively sell mats ...

FrancisCrawford · May 1

By the way -- one reason I'm so unimaginative in what I sell is that Master Merchant stopped working for me quite a few months ago. Is it just me, or is the add-on generally obsolete?

(Yes, after waiting for a long time for the Update that would trigger the changes in Libhistoire, I reinstalled via Minion. That didn't help.)

FlopsyPrince · May 1

LaintalAy wrote: »

Oh my. Where to start?

TTC. I don't use this. The server, as I understand, is in a country that I do not trust. I'm not giving my personal details to them. Use it at your own risk.

It is possible the addon pulls something, though I would think ZOS would not allow addons to do that.

You don't need to enter anything personal to search via the TTC web page. Your items may get listed there if someone else scans them on a guild vendor.

Though it has marginal use in my experience (the website).