Guild Store - TESO Auction

It is not a secret that Economy is a very important part of any MMO game. Money stimulates players to visit dungeons, learn professions and trade. The more gold you have the better. What do we know about Economy and market in Elder Scrolls Online? Well, so far there is little information.

ESO will have unusual market. There will be no auctions because of Megaserver. Just imagine what will happen if all players start to use the same auction. The prices will go down and will not stimulate players to trade, craft and explore dungeons. Unique armor, weapon and other items will not be unique any more because there will be hundreds of such items at the auction. Megaserver is a great solution but the economy on such server should definitely have other rules.

I bet TESO developers had to think about the economy many times. It is not an easy task to create new conception that can work on Megaserver. But they did it. There will be no Auctions but there will be Guild Stores (markets). Any player will be able to list his item for sale in a Guild store. Other members of the guild will see the item and will be able to buy it. So there will be a lot of small auctions within the game.

Well, the idea is good but what if the guild is small? Will a player be able to trade if he is a member of small guild? The answer is yes, because any character can be a member of 5 different guilds simultaneously. You can access 5 different auctions and trade there.

Such system allows you to become a merchant. You can buy something on one auction and sell it on the other. This will require deep knowledge of prices and market research. Guild auctions also stimulate players to join guilds, because it is easier to find a buyer for your goods if you have access to the Guild Market.

Will Guild auctions affect relationships between players? I think no. Traditionally a guild is a union of players with the same goals. They play together, visit dungeons and fight against other players in PvP. There will be no problems because each player of the group receives his own loot from any monster. When you visit dungeon you receive your own loot and you can do anything you want with it. So do other members of the group.

Are there any negative sides?

The size of the guild affects the Guild Market. It is obvious that the larger the guild is the more active the market will be. Most of the players may want to enter several large guilds to be active traders.

It is very difficult to predict how players will use Guild Stores. There are many variants for cooperation between players and guilds. For example a guild may specialize on selling Weapons and become famous for that. It is impossible to predict whether Guild Auctions will work in the game. Anyway developers are sure that this will work. They have tested the system and they have reasons to implement it into the game.