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The importance of Trade Guilds
Westcoast14_ESO
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Probably the most helpful thing a new player can do in game is to join a large trade guild, preferably more than one.
These guilds are easy to gain membership to, they can provide new players with the kinds of information needed to make sense of the game, and they can facilitate the kinds of social contacts that can result in joining a more traditional content exploration guild. At the same time, the usual pressures to join in content exploration and other scheduled events are absent, making them a nearly painless type of guild to join. There are really only benefits.
ZoS is not doing enough to promote awareness of and membership in these guilds. They are critical enough to the long term success of the game that I would recommend developing a ZoS maintained guild interface for large trade guilds so they can advertise their presence, collect applications, and grant membership from an interface convenient for guild officers and new players to access.
Leaving something as important to a player in ESO as trade guild membership to the vagaries of zone chat is missed opportunity and one that likely substantially detracts from the quality of life for many new players.
As for implementation:
Ideally, as soon as a player gets out of coldharbor, or at latest by level 6-7 an in game tutorial pops up and says, “Hey 9 out of 10 players say joining a Trade Guild is awesome (the remainder don’t renew their subs)”
Tell the player succinctly what trade guilds/trade guild benefits in a quick to read bullet list and provide a convenient one click interface for submitting an application to trade guilds.
Create a system for trade guilds to specify house rules and the kinds of players they are interested in, then let players specify the house rules they want, how many trade guilds they want to join, and then hit apply.
Then have the system make their application available to all guilds that meet those criteria.
Lastly, the system should prioritize the maintenance of large guilds. Large established guilds can make due with perhaps more selective or restrictive rule sets, smaller guilds can grow by being more open.
Edited by Westcoast14_ESO on June 8, 2014 12:46AM These guilds are easy to gain membership to, they can provide new players with the kinds of information needed to make sense of the game, and they can facilitate the kinds of social contacts that can result in joining a more traditional content exploration guild. At the same time, the usual pressures to join in content exploration and other scheduled events are absent, making them a nearly painless type of guild to join. There are really only benefits.
ZoS is not doing enough to promote awareness of and membership in these guilds. They are critical enough to the long term success of the game that I would recommend developing a ZoS maintained guild interface for large trade guilds so they can advertise their presence, collect applications, and grant membership from an interface convenient for guild officers and new players to access.
Leaving something as important to a player in ESO as trade guild membership to the vagaries of zone chat is missed opportunity and one that likely substantially detracts from the quality of life for many new players.
As for implementation:
Ideally, as soon as a player gets out of coldharbor, or at latest by level 6-7 an in game tutorial pops up and says, “Hey 9 out of 10 players say joining a Trade Guild is awesome (the remainder don’t renew their subs)”
Tell the player succinctly what trade guilds/trade guild benefits in a quick to read bullet list and provide a convenient one click interface for submitting an application to trade guilds.
Create a system for trade guilds to specify house rules and the kinds of players they are interested in, then let players specify the house rules they want, how many trade guilds they want to join, and then hit apply.
Then have the system make their application available to all guilds that meet those criteria.
Lastly, the system should prioritize the maintenance of large guilds. Large established guilds can make due with perhaps more selective or restrictive rule sets, smaller guilds can grow by being more open.
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Cloudtrader✭✭✭✭✭Have to disagree with you about the importance of trade guilds, sorry. They are in no way critical to either a player's understanding or enjoyment of the game. They are nice and all, but I don't really think we need a tutorial tip popup telling people to join them.3 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I do just fine without them. In fact if they've done anything its undermine the entire thing behind a guild in the first place.2 -
Nazon_Katts✭✭✭✭✭Trade guilds are nothing but a makeshift solution, no need to advertise them additionally to in game guild spam. They are of a dying kind, however. But makeshifts last the longest, so expect a few corpse jumps over the course of time."You've probably figured that out by now. Let's hope so. Or we're in real trouble... and out come the intestines. And I skip rope with them!"1 -
Lynora✭It's really personal preference and a player's needs may change over time. I've found my two trade guilds to be helpful, but I'm also the type that picks up a LOT of items and sell them. It has benefits, but I've found trade guilds to essentially mean access to a guild store with 30 slots to sell stuff and another place to search for items. I'm not trying to be offensive, but that's pretty much it for me. A large social guild will have the same benefit. I have three professions and most of my sales from professions are done outside of a trade guild, via zone chat. Zone chat allows me to cater to players of a specific level range. I just use the trade guilds for selling random stuff on the store.
As someone who sells a lot of stuff, I've had to be very careful about what I've put up there and for how much. I've had to take down many items while learning which things will sell there and which are better to sell in zone chat and without a deposit. My point being, the pop-up idea could very well be turned into a longer version... "How to use a trade guild for max benefit" guide somewhere on the forums, if there isn't one already.1 -
Hilgara✭✭✭✭✭You are far better off advertising in chat. (give us a trade chat!) People have given up on the clunky, badly designed, banking system. Most of the time people are just using them to dump crap so of the 500 slots you will have 450 useless items.2
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jeevin✭✭✭✭✭I'm currently in three trade guild and can safely say they are dying fast. Trade guilds are full of junk and are just plain difficult to find anything of use. Selling is far more effective over zone chat where it is faster and can reach target customers. Although I'm finding in recent days I'm struggling selling most of my materials even in zone chat.1 -
wrlifeboil✭✭✭✭✭Amazing the crud that people try to sell in trading guilds. Even quest drops!
Trading guilds are useful for buying and selling mats or to get a piece of a gear set that you can't craft. Not much else. And talk about prices that you can't trust are fair. The prices are all over the map for the same item depending on the guild.0 -
Kulrig✭✭✭The searching interface is awful. By broad, poorly defined category and by rarity color, that's it. Want to find Alchemy components? They're right there alongside all the rest of the "Materials", which apparently includes weapons, armor, and sweet rolls.
While trade guilds are certainly helpful, they are by no means a proper substitute for an auction house and their interface needs serious work. As for the following...Westcoast14_ESO wrote: »“Hey 9 out of 10 players say joining a Trade Guild is awesome (the remainder don’t renew their subs)”
I've been known to exaggerate, but that's a bit much and makes a whole lot of baseless assumptions.0 -
Zabalah✭✭✭I've found that trade guilds are merely a device for the founder to increase his own bank slots. Most trade guilds have very little activity in them. The game needs an auction house, which would help in inventory management (another topic entirely).0
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Alphashado✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I am sad to hear all of these poor reviews of trading guilds. I am an officer in an outstanding trading guild. I won't mention the name because it would be a shameless plug. But we have a full roster of active members. Our guild store is very usefull and full of anything you might need up to VR 12
We are friendly and well run. Very seldom do people leave our guild because they like it and we take care of it. We do have to recruit regularly in order to replace the alarming number of in active accounts though.
I am also in 2 other trading guilds that maintain nearly full rosters of active members. So I have close to 1500 people to trade with. I also use a good addon that scans all three stores and it comes with a search bar.
It may not be perfect, but it's far from all the doom and gloom I'm reading on this thread. There are great trading guilds out there.Edited by Alphashado on June 9, 2014 11:58AM1 -
Zabalah✭✭✭Alphashado wrote: »I am sad to hear all of these poor reviews of trading guilds. I am an officer in an outstanding trading guild. I won't mention the name because it would be a shameless plug. But we have a full roster of active members. Our guild store is very usefull and full of anything you might need up to VR 12
We are friendly and well run. Very seldom do people leave our guild because they like it and we take care of it. We do have to recruit regularly in order to replace the alarming number of in active accounts though.
I am also in 2 other trading guilds that maintain nearly full rosters of active members. So I have close to 1500 people to trade with. I also use a good addon that scans all three stores and it comes with a search bar.
It may not be perfect, but it's far from all the doom and gloom I'm reading on this thread. There are great trading guilds out there.
Your trade guild is the exception, not the rule (based on my experience). I too, belong to a relatively active trade guild, but it by no means is a substitute for a server wide auction house. I also belong to 4 other trade guilds, each with 500 members... the guild banks are full capacity... but no one has access to these banks accept the Guild Owner. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why.
I'd be more than happy to dump one of the trade guilds I am in and join yours. If you have an opening, shoot me an invite.
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Alphashado✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Keep in mind that with 500 people, security measures have to be in place to protect it. Many guilds have been robbed blind because of lenient guild bank access.1 -
Westcoast14_ESO✭✭✭Since ESO lacks an AH (and will for the foreseeable future) joining trade guilds is going to be essential for most players in ESO. Unfortunately, if the Curse Whitepaper on guild membership is to be believed, in general, only 50% of players in MMO's join guilds. If this statistic holds true for ESO, it's a disaster for the game.
Additionally, Trade guilds are for the most part painless to join or leave due to the light nature of the social interaction and commitment required. They are potentially a fantastic way to get players new to MMO's or guild shy players to actually try joining a guild. In addition to this, they are a gate way to content exploration guilds.
So not only are they likely essential for most ESO players, but they can ease the transition to a more socially engaging and involved PvE, PvP, or RP guild.
In my case I'm a member of 3 trading guilds, each with ~ 500 members and two guilds for PvP and PvE content. Originally I was a member of one PvP/PvE guild. Once I took advantage of the ability to join more than one guild (in particular trade guilds), the game really opened up. And one of the trade guilds led to membership in my second content exploration guild.0 -
alphawolph✭✭✭I hate the guilds. Way to destroy what is supposed to be a group of people helping each other and turning it into a group trying to make a buck of each other.0
