Guilds Need Overhauling - Quickly

arena25 · February 19

First of all, for complete disclosure, I am a staff member for a large, multi-guild community for PC NA (not going to say which specific one due to...recent developments...but I'm sure some in this forum will be quick to call me out), so feel free to take what I say with a bit of healthy skepticism.

That disclosed, it's time to come to terms with the following - guilds need to be overhauled. What do I mean?

1: In order to create a player guild, a potential guildmaster can, should, and MUST prove that they are actually going to stick around and play ESO - not just quest around for 3 weeks before bailing for the next shiny new game. That means minimum player level, minimum hours played, and/or certain achievements earned...none of which should be baby requirements either...before you can create a guild.
Rationale: After the recent sale on ESO, several newbies decided to create their own guild to "take advantage of guild benefits/perks" or "to keep family/friends close". Spoiler alert - guilds, much like everything else in ESO, do not work the same way as other MMOs might. For one, guild membership is by account, not by character. Second, you need a minimum of 10 people to access the guild bank, and 50 people to access the guild store. And finally, did I mention there is no knowledge transfer to/from ESO and other MMOs, and I see way too many new players forget that? And not to put too fine a point on it, but almost every time I see people join/create a "small family/friends only" guild that was created by someone who just joined 2 weeks prior to guild creation, guess what happens 2 months after guild creation? YEP - all the members in that guild have either moved on to new games (all offline, most recent login was 3 weeks ago) or new pastures cos GM has no [snip] clue what a guild in ESO entails.
2: Guild traders - Noble idea, but needs to go.
Rationale: I know some in this community were requesting an auction house for this game long ago - to the point where we poked fun at those people with an "auction horse" meme - but that was back in the days where guild trader competition was fierce, trading guilds were aplenty, and we weren't in the middle of a content drought. That's all changed - we are now 2+ years into a content drought that does not look likely to improve anytime soon (and yes, I say that taking U45's upcoming release into account), I see some non-trading guilds snatch a few "out-of-the-way" traders every now and then "for fits and giggles", and there are too many guild traders and, sadly, not enough actual trading guilds. All evidence that the guild trader idea, while a noble and novel idea, has outlived it's usefulness and is due for a change.
3: Auto-decline guild invite feature - how is this not a thing?
Rationale: Almost every other MMO out there has a feature/setting that lets a player auto-decline all guild invites, duel requests, and friend requests - for the same reason almost every other forum and social media platform has a mute/block button. So why does ESO only have an auto-decline duel request feature? Yes, ignore list is a thing - but we only get 100 ignores, and if we ignore invites from 10 people in one guild, but 10 people for another arm of that same guild invite me, that's 20 ignore list spots already gone. And if we previously have reported gold sellers/bot farms (which automatically add the suspected gold seller/bot farm to our block list), then that leaves even less room on our ignore list unless you clean it out regularly. So, I have to ask - why is auto-decline guild invite feature not a thing yet?

I'll be back later when I can afford to be bothered.

[Edit for profanity]

Kittytravel · February 19

Some thoughts and counterpoints.
1. The issue here isn't really the requirement of the 'making the guild' but rather the 'longevity of the guild'. Guilds should have a mechanic that essentially hands off the Guild Leader role to the next highest ranking member if they do not log in within a year. Then it will just get handed off until SOMEONE in that guild wishes to either disband it and take the resources or get it moving again. Whichever way it is, a year of a leader being offline is MORE than enough time to justify why it was auto-handed off. In the meantime of a leader being absent other roles within the guild can stand up and work on things until the system kicks in. Once there are no eligible players in the guild that have been on within a years time, the guild disbands and the funds and items in the guild bank are simply void and lost to the echoes of time. An auto-cleanup system for guilds seems more worthwhile than a restriction on making them imo.

2. An in-game database of what the traders are holding, but not the cost, would be a better solution. Even in the trading drought the system is still useful it just needs a far better way of finding out where items are being sold so that we aren't trader hopping for 20 mins.

We've seen AH's and Market boards in other big MMO's and it turns into a head-bashing eye-gouging sincerely considering throwing my character against a wall 3,000 times battle of "hehe i undurcut yu by 1 gp so mi itym shuws up 1st". It's seriously a mind-numbing mechanic of constantly changing your own prices to match the now 5gp cheaper price that happened in the last 4 hours of your item being up and I actually prefer the fact that ESO has a live market place that can cause ebbs and flows in value based on not knowing what everyone in the entire world is selling an item for. Every time I look at FF14's market board system I want to smash my head into it, through it, and into whoever's office thought it was a good system.

But yes. A MENU (not a freaking npc) that I can open and lookup whatever it is I'm trying to buy and it tells me "Hello, these 28 guild traders in these 28 zones/towns/etc are selling this item right now." would be great. Doesn't need to tell me the price, I can look when I get there. It'll prevent constant BS market undercutting. But at least I know it's there now. And I didn't have to go talk to a stupid NPC for it. It's just a menu I can always access anywhere I am.

3. Yep. Literally no counterpoint here. If I don't want to be invited to any guilds at the moment; why should they be allowed to randomly invite me and annoy the absolute living hell out of me.

IsharaMeradin · February 19

I agree that auto-decline guild invites should be a thing.

Unsure about the rest of it to be honest. And probably too much of an effort required to change it now. But if they could add an NPC in each zone that could tell you which guild traders in that zone sell a particular item (but not the price), it would at least help cut down on all the running around looking for something specific.

tauriel01 · February 19

I really don't understand the issue with the first point. If someone makes a small guild for whatever reason, then disappears 2 weeks later, I would expect half the small guild to go with that person--since it was friends and family--and the other half to just leave. Are you suggesting there is a plethora of small guilds that people stay in, hoping one day their fearless leader returns? O.o I'd be more concerned about large guilds where the leader disappears. That actually happened in my guild a few years back. Fortunately, one of the officers was in contact with the person IRL and finally got him to hand over the reigns. However, for the unlucky few that don't have that connection, yeah, there needs to be an automatic transfer of leadership, but way less than a year. There's a lot that only a GL can do in the admin of a guild. I'd say like a month.

point 2... GL with that. ZOS is quite happy with the poo poo show we currently have. Other than their recent reduction in posting time (which was 100% to help THEM, not us), they haven't written a single line of code to make that system any better for us in the last almost 11 years. Why would you think they suddenly will now? no. just don't even try.

Point 3 is kinda mind boggling that it doesn't exist. When I read your comment i was like, what? no, certainly there must be one. right? Isn't there? Wait, there isn't! srsly zos?

Heren · February 19

Why would you impose further limits on creating guilds ? What if a lot of new guild die quickly ? How is it of any importance ?

I don't understand your issue with this. Really.

arena25 · February 19

Heren wrote: »

Why would you impose further limits on creating guilds ? What if a lot of new guild die quickly ? How is it of any importance ?

I don't understand your issue with this. Really.

Let's see:

-Others might want a guild name, but it's been taken by a guild whose most recent login from anyone in any rank was 6 months ago.
-No way to pass off guild leadership, no way to delete/free up guild names.
-Dead guilds take up space on a megaserver's hard drive - adding more lines of code that could go wrong (and we've seen plenty go wrong this month).
-If you want to build an online friends and family only community, Discord servers are that way. >>>>>>

If for some reason that alone doesn't help partially understand my issue, then respectfully, you have no clue what you're arguing about.

tauriel01 wrote: »

point 2... GL with that. ZOS is quite happy with the poo poo show we currently have. Other than their recent reduction in posting time (which was 100% to help THEM, not us), they haven't written a single line of code to make that system any better for us in the last almost 11 years. Why would you think they suddenly will now? no. just don't even try.

Sounds like something a nihilist would say (tosses bag of Doritos).

tauriel01 wrote: »

Point 3 is kinda mind boggling that it doesn't exist. When I read your comment i was like, what? no, certainly there must be one. right? Isn't there? Wait, there isn't! srsly zos?

Seriously. It's not like the bones for such a system doesn't exist (auto-decline duel invites is a thing, after all), so at this point the fact a feature does not exist, frankly, boils down to laziness.

Carlos93 · February 19

There should be buildings that players can purchase in the game's cities.

Businesses that generate some resources to do export missions (mines, farms, etc.), warehouses, buildings that generate gold for players that need to be supplied by resources that the player can buy or generate (taverns, forges, tailor shops, etc.), merchant headquarters to do export missions, buildings called "clan house" where players belonging to a clan can meet, etc.

These buildings would be purchased with in-game gold and crowns.

ganzaeso · February 19

As a guild leader of 2 guilds that participate in PvE and Trading:

@arena25

1) ESO's current system of guild formation and leadership is fine as it is. A guild is determined by its members and most of the guild that have inactive members is due to players dropping the game due to lack of content and interest. Members can freely choose to stay or leave a guild and I see this all the time on my rosters; some players actually return after awhile. Placing requirements on who can run a guild is entirely unnecessary as members are in complete control of the guild's existence by means of participation and will desert the guild, if it is being poorly managed and they have not already quit the game. I do not see why we would need to abandon the absolute freedom we enjoy with the current guild system for one that has restrictions.

2) The change ESO trading system from a Point of Sale Market to an Auction House debate has been extensively discussed on this forum. I do not think we need to start that here.

3) I could see this being useful; I thought it already existed, but have been in 5 guilds for so long I have never had to worry about being invited to one.

@Kittytravel

1) I do not support automatic management of a guild, especially the Guild Manager rank. There is already a system in place through support for taking over the Guild Manager rank and it is how I became the GM of Iron Bank of Bravos. Support will try to contact your current GM and ask them if they want to continue as the guild leader or hand it off to someone else. Thankfully, I was the raffle officer for Iron Bank of Bravos and was able to keep it running as a trade guild due to my permissions, even though the GM had been absent for a year before the officers decided to take action.

2) I like the idea of a Trade Index that tells you where specific items are being sold, but information such as price and quantity should definitely be excluded form that. As a trader, I can already see what I would do if I could know the exact position and cost of a specif item on the entire set of markets available.

Soarora · February 19

I don’t think theres anything wrong with people making personal guild banks for added storage. They’re buying the extra accounts, I don’t think free trial accounts work anymore.

Elvenheart · February 19

Soarora wrote: »

I don’t think theres anything wrong with people making personal guild banks for added storage. They’re buying the extra accounts, I don’t think free trial accounts work anymore.

I agree. In fact, this was something I was planning to do once, before I found out that you need 10 different accounts, just not 10 different characters. It’s still in the back of my mind to do for the guild bank storage, but I’ve just never gotten around to going to the trouble.

I keep hoping that ZOS will do something about the storage issue some of us have instead. I mean, in the pain points thread it is consistently one of people‘s top five mentions, and I bet there’s lots of things that ZOS could do that would be better than just simply giving us a few more storage spaces.

Heren · February 19

arena25 wrote: »

Heren wrote: »

Why would you impose further limits on creating guilds ? What if a lot of new guild die quickly ? How is it of any importance ?

I don't understand your issue with this. Really.

Let's see:

-Others might want a guild name, but it's been taken by a guild whose most recent login from anyone in any rank was 6 months ago.
-No way to pass off guild leadership, no way to delete/free up guild names.
-Dead guilds take up space on a megaserver's hard drive - adding more lines of code that could go wrong (and we've seen plenty go wrong this month).
-If you want to build an online friends and family only community, Discord servers are that way. >>>>>>

If for some reason that alone doesn't help partially understand my issue, then respectfully, you have no clue what you're arguing about.

I can see the correlation, but respectfully, your point seems more about inactive guilds than new guilds. Yeah, sure, imposing restrictions on creating guilds would certainly lead to less guilds being created, but not to guilds being more easily disposed of.

Rather than imposing restrictions ( utopist ones by the way, how can someone prove that they will, as you say, actually going to stick around and play ESO ? Your suggestions of criterias prove only that a player HAVE played ESO some time, not that he WILL CONTINUE to play ESO on a regular basis. Heck, your criterias don't even prove that a player play regularly, nor that he is actually playing ESO. It's hollow ), maybe ways to end inactive guilds would be more appropriate. Still highly debatable, but more realistic to begin with.

But still, I don't really see dead guilds being a big issue, and more importantly - I don't see your suggestions really solving the problems of dead guilds.

Sure I understand that you want to solve this - or rather you want this solved. And I guess dead guilds can be... inconvenient some times. For taking names. That's it. The 'but it overload the servers' argument, sorry, I don't really buy it.

Anyway, your other points are quite valide I think.

kargen27 · February 20

ganzaeso wrote: »

2) I like the idea of a Trade Index that tells you where specific items are being sold, but information such as price and quantity should definitely be excluded form that. As a trader, I can already see what I would do if I could know the exact position and cost of a specif item on the entire set of markets available.

I've suggested a central trade board in each zone that would show the items each trader in that zone has but not the prices. You would have to go to the trader to see the price and make a purchase. This way players just wanting an item quick and don't care the cost can go to the most convenient and purchase. Players wanting a bargain will be able to find them by hopping from trader to trader and it shouldn't have to much impact on players that like to flip items looking for a bargain and not being real particular on the item.

Northwold · February 20

On point 2, the guild trader system, the system constantly attracts complaints, and when it is defended the points seem overwhelmingly to be presented from the perspective of people who have been selling via guild traders for years.

A system that depends on addons that are not even currently usable on console for people to be able to find what they want is very obviously flawed and, I agree with the OP, has got to go.

But in response to this we always see suggestions to tinker around the edges of the system in a way that wouldn't actually change much. They might make it marginally easier to find things for buyers, but that's about it.

So a few points on guild traders:

1. In its present form, selling (which in almost every other MMO that isn't sold as a trading MMO is treated as a universally accessible and necessary side activity) is gated behind guild membership (which is *not* a universal activity and has no logical reason to be necessary *except* because it is required for selling). Why? What logic is there to that? It runs counter to everything we are told about the game being accessible to all types of player.

2. Despite past protestations that the guild trader system prevented high prices and inflation, the current round of dissatisfaction seems on the whole to focus on prices now being too low. Rather suggesting that the arguments to keep the existing system on inflation grounds were made up and self-serving, given that the same voices now complain in the other direction.

3. It would be really, really, really helpful for ZOS to have a sit down and think through selling and trading from the ground up. What is selling for in MMOs and this MMO in particular? What is buying for? What are guilds for? What is the benefit of atomising sales by making individual store fronts and distributing them in hundreds of different geographical locations? Do players, on the whole, actually *like* that?

I don't, personally, think the guild trader system has ever worked the way the fantasy idea of it worked. My guess is that it was conceived because it would recreate the experience of going shopping down a street. You could look at shop A, shop B, shop C, window shop, find bargains, compare prices. (Note that, even then, there is no obvious reason why this would have to be linked to guild membership from the selling side.)

But a videogame is not a high street. It would take literally hours to go through every trader in the game, and where a real world shop offers the experience of browsing physical items, in ESO you are literally browsing loading screens and text lists. What is the supposed gameplay appeal of this? In reality, not the nice idea that originally lay behind it?

My own view is that the guild trader system fails the wider player base -- *it makes the rest of the game more tedious, grindy and far less enjoyable properly to engage with, in everything from gear acquisition to furnishing a house* -- purely to satisfy a niche of players. Buying and selling are too important in an MMO to be set up in a way that is both not universally accessible and incredibly convoluted in use. The link between guilds and trading needs to be broken. And very possibly the whole idea of micro-geography based trading needs to be broken too.

It's just silly. It always has been, but the protests now that selling prices have dropped have exposed the whole thing as a system that serves essentially no one at all and plain gets in the way of what the broader game is supposed to be about.

the1andonlyskwex · February 20

Northwold wrote: »

On point 2, the guild trader system, the system constantly attracts complaints, and when it is defended the points seem overwhelmingly to be presented from the perspective of people who have been selling via guild traders for years.

A system that depends on addons that are not even currently usable on console for people to be able to find what they want is very obviously flawed and, I agree with the OP, has got to go.

But in response to this we always see suggestions to tinker around the edges of the system in a way that wouldn't actually change much. They might make it marginally easier to find things for buyers, but that's about it.

So a few points on guild traders:

1. In its present form, selling (which in almost every other MMO that isn't sold as a trading MMO is treated as a universally accessible and necessary activity) is currently gated behind guild membership (which is *not* a universal activity and has no logical reason to be necessary *except* because it is required for selling). Why? What logic is there to that? It runs counter to everything we are told about the game being accessible to all types of player.

2. Despite past protestations that the guild trader system prevented high prices and inflation, the current round of dissatisfaction seems on the whole to focus on prices now being too low. Rather suggesting that the arguments to keep the existing system on inflation grounds were made up and self-serving, given that the same voices now complain in the other direction.

3. It would be really, really, really helpful for ZOS to have a sit down and think through selling and trading from the ground up. What is selling for in MMOs and this MMO in particular? What is buying for? What are guilds for? What is the benefit of atomising sales by making individual store fronts and distributing them in hundreds of different geographical locations? Do players, on the whole, actually *like* that?

I don't, personally, think the guild trader system has ever worked the way the fantasy idea of it worked. My guess is that it was conceived because it would recreate the experience of going shopping down a street. You could look at shop A, shop B, shop C, window shop, find bargains, compare prices.

But a videogame is not a high street. It would take literally hours to go through every trader in the game, and where a real world shop offers the experience of browsing physical items, in ESO you are literally browsing loading screens and text lists. What is the supposed gameplay appeal of this? In reality, not the nice idea that originally lay behind it?

My own view is that the guild trader system fails the wider player base purely to satisfy a niche of players. Buying and selling are too important in an MMO to be set up in a way that is both not universally accessible and incredibly convoluted in use. The link between guilds and trading needs to be broken. And very possibly the whole idea of micro-geography based trading needs to be broken too.

It's just silly. It always has been, but the protests now that selling prices have dropped have exposed the whole thing as a system that serves essentially no one at all and plain gets in the way of what the broader game is supposed to be about.

I agree 100%.

I don't really understand the OP's other points though. It sounds like they're either getting an obnoxious number of invites to guilds that don't really pan out (not something that has happened to me), or they're just annoyed about a guild name they want being unavailable and are trying to make their annoyance sound like it arises from a more general problem (that doesn't seem to exist, in my experience).

Kittytravel · February 23

Northwold wrote: »

On point 2, the guild trader system, the system constantly attracts complaints, and when it is defended the points seem overwhelmingly to be presented from the perspective of people who have been selling via guild traders for years.

A system that depends on addons that are not even currently usable on console for people to be able to find what they want is very obviously flawed and, I agree with the OP, has got to go.

But in response to this we always see suggestions to tinker around the edges of the system in a way that wouldn't actually change much. They might make it marginally easier to find things for buyers, but that's about it.

So a few points on guild traders:

1. In its present form, selling (which in almost every other MMO that isn't sold as a trading MMO is treated as a universally accessible and necessary side activity) is gated behind guild membership (which is *not* a universal activity and has no logical reason to be necessary *except* because it is required for selling). Why? What logic is there to that? It runs counter to everything we are told about the game being accessible to all types of player.

2. Despite past protestations that the guild trader system prevented high prices and inflation, the current round of dissatisfaction seems on the whole to focus on prices now being too low. Rather suggesting that the arguments to keep the existing system on inflation grounds were made up and self-serving, given that the same voices now complain in the other direction.

3. It would be really, really, really helpful for ZOS to have a sit down and think through selling and trading from the ground up. What is selling for in MMOs and this MMO in particular? What is buying for? What are guilds for? What is the benefit of atomising sales by making individual store fronts and distributing them in hundreds of different geographical locations? Do players, on the whole, actually *like* that?

I don't, personally, think the guild trader system has ever worked the way the fantasy idea of it worked. My guess is that it was conceived because it would recreate the experience of going shopping down a street. You could look at shop A, shop B, shop C, window shop, find bargains, compare prices. (Note that, even then, there is no obvious reason why this would have to be linked to guild membership from the selling side.)

But a videogame is not a high street. It would take literally hours to go through every trader in the game, and where a real world shop offers the experience of browsing physical items, in ESO you are literally browsing loading screens and text lists. What is the supposed gameplay appeal of this? In reality, not the nice idea that originally lay behind it?

My own view is that the guild trader system fails the wider player base -- *it makes the rest of the game more tedious, grindy and far less enjoyable properly to engage with, in everything from gear acquisition to furnishing a house* -- purely to satisfy a niche of players. Buying and selling are too important in an MMO to be set up in a way that is both not universally accessible and incredibly convoluted in use. The link between guilds and trading needs to be broken. And very possibly the whole idea of micro-geography based trading needs to be broken too.

It's just silly. It always has been, but the protests now that selling prices have dropped have exposed the whole thing as a system that serves essentially no one at all and plain gets in the way of what the broader game is supposed to be about.

I won't deny that it isn't tedious; but I will refute that it doesn't help control prices to a degree.
A localized market board always causes hefty price crashes when pack mules unload. The guild trader system does help prevent that to a degree. I know I personally in the past (World of Warcraft) have tanked the value of resources or materials to nigh-nothing using a large amount of it only to buy it all myself and flip it for higher costs by trickling it in. (Primarily with mid-level mats that people used to speed level professions, it only took 5 players to pull it off and we made millions of gold controlling it for a few months during Cataclysm).

To a degree the GT system deters this because I can only know an average of what people are selling it for and I can't really guarantee that the entire player base knows I'm selling it for cheaper nor can I easily create a forced market price the way I could in games with central trade boards. Instead half the player base that doesn't use Addons doesn't know where things are being sold at what price and if it's a good price or a bad one. It is in this way that the system does prevent high prices to some degree; because it wholeheartedly does prevent market manipulation to the degree of which I was doing it on WoW.

Onto the idea of traders being gated behind guilds: that one I think is more sensible than most might believe. At the end of the day playing with people is what incentivizes someone to continue in an MMO. Small things like idly chatting with guild members is enough to achieve that 'breakaway' from the tedious gameplay of every MMO. This is just an inherent function in ensuring more people get into a guild just for the sake of trading if nothing else and to force that social interaction. I know many people personally that would be in 0 guilds if Guild Traders weren't required; but they would have likely also never done dungeons, trials, or any other content that wasn't overland as they never wanted to ask for help, etc. Instead they got asked on a trading guild dungeon/trial night "Hey do you want to come with us to Cloudrest? It's really easy don't worry!" and they relented and said yes. Now they run content with guildies.

Was this the intended feature of gating Guild Traders? Of course not! But a byproduct can still be good.

The intended feature of Guild Traders were likely as massive gold sinks in the games economy to which it has succeeded. There are weeks that trade guilds do lose money on it.

I will say I'm biased; I loved the original vendor system in the days of Ultima Online and I have always abhorred market boards for how terribly they manage the economy. Thus why the only feature I would want is a real method to find where something is being sold but not the quantity or price.

VoxAdActa · February 23

Kittytravel wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

On point 2, the guild trader system, the system constantly attracts complaints, and when it is defended the points seem overwhelmingly to be presented from the perspective of people who have been selling via guild traders for years.

A system that depends on addons that are not even currently usable on console for people to be able to find what they want is very obviously flawed and, I agree with the OP, has got to go.

But in response to this we always see suggestions to tinker around the edges of the system in a way that wouldn't actually change much. They might make it marginally easier to find things for buyers, but that's about it.

So a few points on guild traders:

1. In its present form, selling (which in almost every other MMO that isn't sold as a trading MMO is treated as a universally accessible and necessary side activity) is gated behind guild membership (which is *not* a universal activity and has no logical reason to be necessary *except* because it is required for selling). Why? What logic is there to that? It runs counter to everything we are told about the game being accessible to all types of player.

2. Despite past protestations that the guild trader system prevented high prices and inflation, the current round of dissatisfaction seems on the whole to focus on prices now being too low. Rather suggesting that the arguments to keep the existing system on inflation grounds were made up and self-serving, given that the same voices now complain in the other direction.

3. It would be really, really, really helpful for ZOS to have a sit down and think through selling and trading from the ground up. What is selling for in MMOs and this MMO in particular? What is buying for? What are guilds for? What is the benefit of atomising sales by making individual store fronts and distributing them in hundreds of different geographical locations? Do players, on the whole, actually *like* that?

I don't, personally, think the guild trader system has ever worked the way the fantasy idea of it worked. My guess is that it was conceived because it would recreate the experience of going shopping down a street. You could look at shop A, shop B, shop C, window shop, find bargains, compare prices. (Note that, even then, there is no obvious reason why this would have to be linked to guild membership from the selling side.)

But a videogame is not a high street. It would take literally hours to go through every trader in the game, and where a real world shop offers the experience of browsing physical items, in ESO you are literally browsing loading screens and text lists. What is the supposed gameplay appeal of this? In reality, not the nice idea that originally lay behind it?

My own view is that the guild trader system fails the wider player base -- *it makes the rest of the game more tedious, grindy and far less enjoyable properly to engage with, in everything from gear acquisition to furnishing a house* -- purely to satisfy a niche of players. Buying and selling are too important in an MMO to be set up in a way that is both not universally accessible and incredibly convoluted in use. The link between guilds and trading needs to be broken. And very possibly the whole idea of micro-geography based trading needs to be broken too.

It's just silly. It always has been, but the protests now that selling prices have dropped have exposed the whole thing as a system that serves essentially no one at all and plain gets in the way of what the broader game is supposed to be about.

I won't deny that it isn't tedious; but I will refute that it doesn't help control prices to a degree.
A localized market board always causes hefty price crashes when pack mules unload. The guild trader system does help prevent that to a degree. I know I personally in the past (World of Warcraft) have tanked the value of resources or materials to nigh-nothing using a large amount of it only to buy it all myself and flip it for higher costs by trickling it in. (Primarily with mid-level mats that people used to speed level professions, it only took 5 players to pull it off and we made millions of gold controlling it for a few months during Cataclysm).

To a degree the GT system deters this because I can only know an average of what people are selling it for and I can't really guarantee that the entire player base knows I'm selling it for cheaper nor can I easily create a forced market price the way I could in games with central trade boards. Instead half the player base that doesn't use Addons doesn't know where things are being sold at what price and if it's a good price or a bad one. It is in this way that the system does prevent high prices to some degree; because it wholeheartedly does prevent market manipulation to the degree of which I was doing it on WoW.

Onto the idea of traders being gated behind guilds: that one I think is more sensible than most might believe. At the end of the day playing with people is what incentivizes someone to continue in an MMO. Small things like idly chatting with guild members is enough to achieve that 'breakaway' from the tedious gameplay of every MMO. This is just an inherent function in ensuring more people get into a guild just for the sake of trading if nothing else and to force that social interaction. I know many people personally that would be in 0 guilds if Guild Traders weren't required; but they would have likely also never done dungeons, trials, or any other content that wasn't overland as they never wanted to ask for help, etc. Instead they got asked on a trading guild dungeon/trial night "Hey do you want to come with us to Cloudrest? It's really easy don't worry!" and they relented and said yes. Now they run content with guildies.

Was this the intended feature of gating Guild Traders? Of course not! But a byproduct can still be good.

The intended feature of Guild Traders were likely as massive gold sinks in the games economy to which it has succeeded. There are weeks that trade guilds do lose money on it.

I will say I'm biased; I loved the original vendor system in the days of Ultima Online and I have always abhorred market boards for how terribly they manage the economy. Thus why the only feature I would want is a real method to find where something is being sold but not the quantity or price.

The bit about market manipulation was what I was going to say. A central AH makes that super easy to do manually, and insanely easy to do with bots (which we know this game already has a heck of a time with) and scraping software. It'll be great for a few people, and push everyone else out of trading altogether. Cartels, price fixing, and commodity monopolies go from "nearly impossible" to "standard operating procedure". And a cartel with a throat-lock on the market doesn't even take a hundred people to do; it takes about a dozen, or 3–4 using bots.