dolmen wrote: »

I think this may be a good idea. Why?

Often while dealing with RL duties, I log into ESO to pass some of the "down" time between duties.

So I Bank Farm. I get a handful of Motif drops as I do. I have all the Motif's that I need or want. So I've been putting the extras into our Guild Bank. I'm not inclined to stand around trying to sell them via Zone Chat.

However, I've stopped doing that since my Guild Mates are selling the same in the Guild Store. I don't want to undercut them.

If there were an Auction House, I still could dump off these extra Motifs, for some gold, without the hassle of Zone Chat selling or the being rude to my Guild Mates by giving them away via the Guild Bank.

And yes, I know, I could sell the extras via the Guild Store. I just don't think that Motif's are all that "special" or that I should profit from them via my Guild Mates. That's a personal position/opinion though, neither here nor there.

-A lot of players filter out zone chat for the reasons above. Or they block players who use Zone Chat as a trade channel.
-If you want to farm items and then sale later, that's what the Guild Store is for.
The items in a server AH would still include your guild mates items.

I don't see any reasons to have a server size AH based on your comments

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

dolmen wrote: »

I think this may be a good idea. Why?

Often while dealing with RL duties, I log into ESO to pass some of the "down" time between duties.

So I Bank Farm. I get a handful of Motif drops as I do. I have all the Motif's that I need or want. So I've been putting the extras into our Guild Bank. I'm not inclined to stand around trying to sell them via Zone Chat.

However, I've stopped doing that since my Guild Mates are selling the same in the Guild Store. I don't want to undercut them.

If there were an Auction House, I still could dump off these extra Motifs, for some gold, without the hassle of Zone Chat selling or the being rude to my Guild Mates by giving them away via the Guild Bank.

And yes, I know, I could sell the extras via the Guild Store. I just don't think that Motif's are all that "special" or that I should profit from them via my Guild Mates. That's a personal position/opinion though, neither here nor there.

-A lot of players filter out zone chat for the reasons above. Or they block players who use Zone Chat as a trade channel.
-If you want to farm items and then sale later, that's what the Guild Store is for.
The items in a server AH would still include your guild mates items.

I don't see any reasons to have a server size AH based on your comments

We do need a trade channel.

I was thinking of the AH being along the lines of what is in GW2. You dump the item in it, take the profit (if any) and move on. Yes my Guild Mates would do the same, but we all would be on "even" ground for the most part. And as I said, I'm not comfortable with profiting directly off my Guild Mates. That is a personal position/opinion. I don't expect the same or condemn those who feel differently.

We can agree to disagree though.

Lets see, the Guild Bank/Store is accessible to everyone in the guild, whatever faction, whatever zone... find a bank, get access to stuff...

First, lets not call it an Auction House, instead, lets call it a "Consignment Shop", it's not bidding, you put an item in, you set your price and pay your fee, if it sells, they take a cut, if it does not, they send it back...

The Drawbacks to an CS would be... gold sellers and bots (or Bot Masters) may use it... well, perhaps if someone named 1rqwefadstt offers 40 stacks of fell scraps it would be an indicator to look at the account closer... in fact if Hamfast offers 40 stacks of fell scraps they should look at him too...

A db query that looks for anomalies like 1 level 1 iron dagger selling for 1.2 million gold... there you have, gold seller and gold buyer... actually, if someone tries to sell an item for way more then it should be worth, the Merchant could ask them if they are sure they want to ask that price, that it will never sell (These Merchants should know the value of items) so if your cat steps on the "0" key just as you try to sell your level 1 Iron dagger for 100 gold and it ends up being 1,000,000,000 you have a chance to correct it... select yes and that sale is already flagged for followup.

An CS allows for Casual players to buy the stuff of people that want to sell it, it allows less casual players to look for that one item that will fit their build, it can allow crafters to get that last trait they need without spamming "Can someone make me a Fire Staff with Crushing for Research?"

1 building in the major city in each zone that has a selection of "Merchants" that buy and sell items on Consignment, they charge a fee of say 5% of the asking price (or 15 gold, whichever is higher), if it sells, they take 10% and mail you the rest, if it fails to sell, they mail the item to you...

If an item or Cash is returned to an inactive player, after a week, or a month, the item/cash is deleted... if a Seller's account is banned, all items being sold by that account are purged with the next maintenance cycle (sort of like the folks on your ignore list).

If you don't want to use the Consignment Shop, stay out of the building.

Another issue is how trade guilds keeps going inactive. It's a pretty natural happening in a new game with loads of nerfs and buggs, people quit. That also seems to include leaders of trading guilds and 50-80% of their members.

I joined several traders (tried 8 already). I manage to buy or sell a few items in the beginning, than nothing. No new items. No one types or responds. No one buys. Goes from 150 online to 10. Guild dies and I have to spend days finding a new one.

So really, we desperately need a better way to trade items. I cant be bothered to search for active trading guilds all day long. There must be a better system for buy/sell.

Makkir wrote: »

@AinGeal Really? Is this why you can walk in to a store and find an item for $150 and then drive to WalMart and find same item for $100? Can you imagine if there was a real life Auction House where all consumers could visit and see product prices by seller? Who wins that battle? Exactly why Mom and Pop shops hate Walmarts coming to their towns.
Now enough with the real life analogies, this is a fantasy game that doesn't have the same rules the outside world has.

First off, I've never come across a case where the same item was 150 in one store and 100 in another. Although I have noticed smaller price difference but they usually fall under one of the four;

-Sales/discounts
-Brand vs No Name placed on the item
-Brand vs No Name of the store
-Corporations vs Home Business

Brand vs No Name being a big one. I could make a watch with all the quality and care that goes into a Rolex but I could never be able to sell it for the price Rolex can. People are not paying more for the item, they are buying the brand. The watch may only be worth 50 but they pay 200 because it's a Rolex. Well, congrats, you just paid 50 for a watch and 150 for the branding that's on it. For what? Prestige purposes.

Then there is the fact that corporations can charge less than a local business. First I'll make the assumption that both have equal business sense. The corporations handle things in bulk (discounts on expenses), has deals, contracts and connections, and may even have the international stage. As already pointed out in a different post, this means cheaper production overseas. All things the local business won't have.

But really out of the four listed, the first three are the biggest reasons. The last one really comes down to the home business trying to compete with the corporation as opposed to dealing with the corporation.

Let's bring that 100 vs 150 price up for an example. Let's say that the corporation charges 100 for an item that costs 75 to sell.
Now let's say that the local business charges the 150 for the same item but it costs them 100 to sell. It's impossible for the small business to compete and earn a profit. So what can they do? They can meet with the corporation and make a deal. The corporation is to raise their selling price to 150 or the small business will drop their price to 100. Should the corporation take them up on the offer? Yes. If you can tell me why the answer is "yes" then we can continue to talk about economics.

Yet these are all real world business concerns that don't really apply to a game.

I was going to reply to the rest until I came to the whole "blind" market comment and then decided to add the above scenario. If you can tell me why, then we can talk further.

The only part I will reply to now is the very last part.

Once you have an economy that centers around player made goods, you absolutely DO NOT want a global auction house. Star Wars Galaxies was an excellent example. There was a terminal that let you browse player made goods, but it was lame and nothing in comparison to modern day Auction Houses (Hell, I don't even remember the name of the terminal it was that un-important). That game revolved around my ability to promote my goods on the official forums, a website, and advertising in game. SWG was another example of a crafter- centric economy.

For starters...

Rumor has it that ZoS did not hire an economist for the creation of ESO's economy. If this is the case, I would not take what they say regarding economics (even in-game ones) with any kind of authority behind it.

Also, did you read that? They claim SWG terminal system was "lame and nothing in comparison to modern day auction houses" and use that as an example as to why they shouldn't use a modern day auction house? LMAO.

Instead they went with a guild store system that is lame and nothing in comparison to a modern day auction house. Lol.

Krayor wrote: »

RakeWorm wrote: »

Krayor wrote: »

I can't believe that some of you are still hanging on to the laughable "gold seller" arguments. Even after being literally disproved by the gold sellers. Although just about every argument against a better trade system has been laughable... You sound like broken records at this point.

And yet you guys are the ones that can't let these threads die, but continue to say the same things over and over in new threads.

At least the points being made by those wanting improvements aren't laughable at best, but are very good points. It gets tiring shooting the irrational arguments of the "No AH" crowd down left and right. When your argument is debunked, it's stupid to keep regurgitating it. I'm losing respect for you.

Threads about issues shouldn't die because *you* don't have an issue with it. You don't like it, don't be stupid enough to click on it then. I know that's probably an incomprehensible idea for you.

Oops I'm sorry, I thought forums were for conversations and opinions. silly me.

or perhaps inversely, you shouldn't level handedly condemn those who voice their opinions that contradict your own.

Makkir wrote: »

AinGeal wrote: »

"Econ 101 in grade 11"

How ignorant can you be really?

First off, you are looking at university for the study of economics. They sure didn't have it when I was in high school (grad of 2000). Second, if they were to put a code to the course like that, on a high school level (another thing I didn't have in high school), then 101 would indicate a first year course. I don't know of any high school that starts at grade 11.

Anyway, since you didn't answer it, then it's safe to assume that you can't answer it. It's not too much to expect that if a person is to talk about economics (whether it is about in-game economics or not), that they have something of a background on the subject matter. Simply going deny, deny, deny to someone who does just makes you a troll when you are not willing to listen or learn from someone who clearly has more knowledge on the subject matter than you.

Look, literal man. You really don't need to focus and rant about the little things that don't pertain to the argument in this thread. When people point out an obvious fact, they commonly say "That is "subject matter" 101." You really don't need to pick that apart from face value...I bet you're just a thrill on dates.

Look little man, you say it's an "obvious fact" but if it were obvious to you then you wouldn't have made the post you did. You'd be singing a different tune which brings me to the 'fact' part. One that you insist on denying. Denying in the face of facts...yup, a definite troll sign.

I had economics in 11th grade. I also graduated in 2000, went to school in Pennsylvania. We picked "elective" courses in our junior year. But I thank you for expertise on the matter. I must be confused about my high school experience.
Here, a quick google search of my old high school since I couldn't have possibly taken economics in high school, http://www.wsdweb.org/uploaded/schools/WHS/Documents/Guidance/Plentus/WHS_Profile_2013-2014.pdf

Different places, different schools different curriculums. "You really don't need to focus and rant about the little things that don't pertain to the argument in this thread". Perhaps you should listen to your own advice.

You want my background on MMO Economics? I ran a successful armorsmith business in SWG until the NGE went live and I quit. I broke countless server records (Valcyn server) with armor stats and quality. In Warcraft I played the Auction House on two high populated servers and sat on like 600k in gold before I stopped playing a month or two ago. I had 900k gold over 3 toons at one point earlier this year. I have been playing MMOs actively since the Kunark expansion in EverQuest and that covers about 20 different MMOs.

LOL you had me on the armor smith business until you said SWG. So none... That's all you had to say really. None. While I haven't played the market in WoW, I was in a guild with someone who past 1mil and that was 4 years ago. As for the records. How do you know unless the company actually had some system in place. If so, show me the proof. Simply getting high "armor stats and quality" (which has little to nothing to do with economics, even in-game ones) that you've never seen before by anyone else doesn't mean you "broke countless records". Talk about blowing smoke.

By the way, I ignored responding to your question because I don't feed trolls. Your short story on economics is not really pertinent to the debate over in game Auction Houses, so I don't know why I am required to answer it. I have a lot of experience with in game economies, probably more than you, but I never claimed to work on Wall Street. The answer to your question, is because the Corporation has brand recognition and a profit of $75 with a lower cost to sell compared to your Mom and Pop example ($100), whereas in your first scenario the Corporation only has a $25 profit. Which by the way, if your Mom n' Pop lower price to $100 with a $100 cost to sell...that's $0.00

So what if the local business would make 0.00. The correct answer is that they gave an ultimatum that is mutually beneficial if the corporation agrees but will hurt them both if they don't. It hurts the small business because they won't make an economical profit [prices are based of economic profits, something most small time business owners don't really know, which is not the same thing as an accounting profit] but they are willing to do so. By doing so (by matching prices) they will cause the corporation to lose profit. In fact the corporation will end up making less profit if the small business drops their price, than if the corp raises to match. So if the small business will drop their price, the corporation is left with the choice of either losing a small amount of profit if they agree or losing a larger amount of profit if they don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

I think someone said the word economics and you got an e-*** and decided to start flexing all your real life knowledge on the matter which isn't exactly practical in the MMO world. So then, what exactly have you accomplished in an MMO that makes you any kind of authority? Exactly...
If anyone is a troll it's you, so if you post/ask one more question that isn't related to the topic at hand (in game auction houses), you're not getting a response from me. Because I am not feeding the trolls.

I'm not a troll for being passionate about this topic of Auction Houses.

When on the topic of auction houses, it quickly involves the in-game market and economic well being (rightfully so since they are connected). "Real life knowledge on the matter isn't exactly practical in the MMO world", again, wrong. It is quite practical. So practical, in fact, that economist do get hired on to help with in-game economies during the development of the game. I believe GW2 and EVE did just that (or so I've read, heard, been told, possibly all three). Just as I've read/heard/been told that ZoS didn't and this hasn't been the first time I've said so and they haven't corrected me as of yet.

I never said you were a troll for being passionate about this topic. However you are calling me a troll for being passionate about economics, both in-game and real. No, I called you a troll that despite being presented with statements that are backed by both education and experience, you insist on being ignorant and not willing to learn. As in you are not willing to admit wrong or fault when it has been very much established that you are.

I don't play games to play the market. I play games to actually get away from that. However, regardless if I pvp or do quests, interacting in the game's market is inevitable so I would very much like one that is at least half decent.

1. It's well established that a competitive market is the best kind. It ensures the prices of goods and the quantities being bought/sold are where they should be based on supply and demand. It also ensures consumer and producer surplus is maximized.

2. Simply put, a trading house is the best way of establishing a competitive market. I would even call this an "obvious fact".

It's as simple as combining these two (true) statements.

Makkir wrote: »

"1. It's well established that a competitive market is the best kind. It ensures the prices of goods and the quantities being bought/sold are where they should be based on supply and demand. It also ensures consumer and producer surplus is maximized.
2. Simply put, a trading house is the best way of establishing a competitive market. I would even call this an "obvious fact"."

@AinGeal but you have to put in to perspective the type of MMO being played.
How would you classify ESO? Don't you think Trade Houses or Auction Houses might work better in one type of economy (game) versus the other?

Basically MMOs are either player/crafter-centric economies which means the best gear are consumables and player crafted, or Loot-Centric economies which means end game is raiding for the best gear. I didn't "invent" this, it's something I first saw/read about in 2003 when SWG launched.

Why does an Auction House have to be the end all solution? I think it would be cool to set up shops like we did in SWG, or even a trade zone/bazaar like EQ had.

I loved the ah in SWG I made millions farming ore and selling it.

i personally don't think an ah would benefit anyone, the guild trade is just the right balance, but I would support a trade channel for individuals that are new and not yet in or have a guild. the trade in zone cant be helped as they are mostly ppl that are not in guilds yet and want to trade.