Duplication Bug Hits The Elder Scrolls Onine

On Thursday April 17th Zenimax Online Studios announced they had identified an item duplication bug. Using the guild bank, players were duplicating stacks of items. The most popular of these items were legendary crafting materials such as Tempering Alloy and Dreugh Wax. Because of their high value and that they have a maximum stack size of 100, made these ideal for exploitation. This bug has since been fixed, and the damage looks minimal to the average player. But what does this mean for the economy going forward? How was a bug like this even possible? That, and more, will be explained.

Along with the bug being fixed, many accounts have been banned. ZOS hasn't yet stated just how many accounts have been banned. But they did have a large round of bans earlier this month. Jessica Folsom from ZOS made this statement last Wednesday "Today, we made our first major strike against those who choose to cheat in ESO, permanently banning thousands. This is only the beginning of our ongoing efforts to keep the game free from botters, speed hackers, and gold spammers." I didn't see a large impact in the past week, but I did see a large impact yesterday. Each bank I walked into (both yesterday and today) had about 20-30 less players than before this latest round of bans. It doesn't sound like a lot, but that is only one phase (instance) at a time, not to mention all the other banks I didn't visit. Doing some mental math here, hundreds of accounts were banned, possibly thousands (I halved my estimate on account of this being Easter weekend). I think its safe to say we won't be seeing a large impact on the economy. Anyone who dodged the ban bullet is going to be careful not to attract the attention of ZOS.

So, just how DID this exploit come to pass? There isn't a simple answer. Lets start by looking at the engine used in the Elder Scrolls Online. Originally ZOS used HeroEngine, the same engine used in Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, they used this engine only to help get themselves off the ground. Eventually they made their own engine, from scratch. This way (in theory) they would be able to do much, much more. By using a completely custom engine instead of using an engine built by ENGINE DEVELOPERS there is bound to be a few bugs and glitches. My favorite is falling through the map and landing on a test model for terrain and different objects. Unrelated glitches aside, past Elder Scrolls games have been riddled with bugs and glitches, including item duplication.Bethesda and Zenimax have worked on other games with very few bugs, so what makes Elder Scroll games so special? Well, they almost always change engines, or modify them. If you didn't expect to encounter such a significant glitch in ESO, I have three words for you: Prepare for more.

The other large contributor to how this glitch was allowed to be exploited, lies in when it was originally reported. If you think it was originally reported sometime in April, please sit down. The answer may make you lose your balance. This bug was first reported in February. Yes, February. Some people are claiming it existed in the ALPHA build of the game. It wasn't a widespread or well documented bug at the time, and we have the NDA to thank for that (along with the fact that of course, there were far fewer people playing the game at the time). I wish I had a copy of the NDA to refer to, but I do believe we were bound to be vague in regards to late game content, and prohibited from bad publicity. Don't quote me on that.

The reason it took so long for this issue to be resolved is because it wasn't pressing at the time. Major bugs that have a widespread effect are top priority. Easy fixes and less widespread bugs are secondary. Publicity as well. Anyone else remember that bug where a few players got Veteran Rank over the course of a Beta Weekend? Yeah, well, they fixed that a few days later. While I don't encourage or condone exploiting Elder Scrolls Online, or telling others how to exploit in such a fashion, sometimes a demonstration gets the ball rolling.

Many players are calling for a server wide rollback. While this is a bit of grim news,I don't think such rash action is necessary. Any gold or materials still in the system will either be distributed through buying and selling in the coming weeks, or hoarded for later. Those hoarding for later won't be driving the economy down, and are more likely to spend over the market price for goods (since they have so much money to throw around).

This bug could have been triggered by accident. If you were banned, and feel it was unjust, you can petition an appeal by following the steps found here.

The next article I plan on writing is in regards to alchemy reagents. More specifically, the rarity of them. If you'd like to share your insights with me, drop a line in the comments below, or hit me up in-game (@SoyezFerme). I've also been known to frequent the Tamriel Gold Goblin Teamspeak.

Little bit of history

I woke up one early Summer day, in June, the 6th as I recall. I rolled out of bed, jumped in the shower, and found my Dad sitting out in my Mother's van waiting on me to go to Walmart with him. It was the year 2001, I still remember my Dad's excitement for the release of a game called World War II online. It was strange because my Dad had never been excited about any other game release, nor would he ever be excited for another. You see, my Dad was a business man turned history teacher. He owned his own restaurant for much of my young life, he struggled to keep food on the table while he worked and went to school for his teaching degree. History is really the only hobby he had at the time. Everything revolved around his degree, and for that level of intensity for him to be excited about a game, was thrilling to me.

We headed out that morning to purchase a game. That's a strange concept these days for kids. Now you can just visit a website, enter some credit card information, buy any game you want, and download it. It's even getting now where console kids don't have to leave their houses for a game. When you think back to the long-long ago, to the before time, you need to realize how far we have come. The other day I was reading about how a part of cannabis called (CBD) can heal people with Tonic-Clonic seizures. This treatment was unheard of 20 years ago because of fear. We live in a technology world. Every day, that old saying "Technology ain't what it use to be," is growing ever more clear.

World War II Online's release, was the last time I had played a game for 15 hours straight with no breaks. Until this weekend that is. Although I have had my moments of game marathons, I have always taken a break in between raids, or in between PVP matches. Sunday morning at 5:51am, I sat down to play Elder Scrolls Online, when I stood back up, it was 4:32pm. I had to get some laundry done for work the next day, so I took advantage of that fact, filled my water, and grabbed a few pizza rolls for the road. I sat back down at 5:00pm and played again until about 10:00pm or a little after.

By the time I was done playing for the evening, my back, elbows, butt, hands, feet, neck, all ached, as if I were the one actually swinging the sword, and not my character. I had truly been to battle, rode a horse, hopped off the horse, jumped back on the horse, sometimes involuntarily. I had to decipher German phrases. I had to recall beta experiences to make it through a few quests that were in German too. I grouped, I died, I crafted, I explored. It was a full day. I did find some money loopholes, and I plan to experiment more with those when I reach max level.

I guess you could say I had the full experience. Though, I did not have the full 44 hour experience like some of my apparently unemployed friends did. How those guys made it 44 hours to level 50, without an IV of Red-Bull I will never understand. They must be a lot younger, and must have a lot better computer chair than I.

My experience was good. Like with many other games bugs are many at launch. The game doesn't officially launch until the 4th, so there is still time to hammer out those broken quests, and fix the secondary weapon bugs, where you switch to the other weapon involuntarily in the middle of a fight. There is still time! Right Right!

I leave you now with only one phrase.

As the late, Vipper von Vipperson would say, "Never go full carrot."

-CB

What to Watch For

ESO is soon to launch into Pre-Release in just under 12 hours. We are all going into this thinking we know how we want to play. Whether we want to skip dialogue, or listen/read to every sentence an NPC has to say. Or whether we want to get into PvP as soon as possible, or explore the PvE content as much as we can. Thinking you'll be a crafter? You'll probably be pulled into a different direction. Even your play style for your class. Throughout the PTS beta, nearly every of my preconceived notions on how I want to play has changed.

As skill information leaked (prior to me joining the beta), I made what I thought was going to be an epic build as a sorcerer wearing medium armor and using a two-handed sword. I carefully balanced magicka and stamina usage, as well as balanced out the skills on my weapon swaps. I stuck to this build as long as I could, and eventually figured out that it was going nowhere. After seeking out the advice of others on how my class could beat boss Mannimarco (who has since been nerfed) I realized I had gone in such a direction that my character could be much, much better. After some tweaking, adopting as much advice into my build as I could, I was able to beat Mannimarco. While this seems to have nothing to do with the game economy or making gold, there is a lesson to this story. The lessen is that the wisdom of the experienced can prove to be invaluable. All you have to do is listen.

(This was my character a few hours after fighting Mannimarco and had time for a breather, and the time to take a selfie evidently)

Time is a precious thing. We here at Tamriel Gold Goblin have been saying for ages how time is money. Truth is, money is money. Time is just another currency that we take to the bank and exchange for money (gold). Saving time doesn't always mean saving money. First, you need to spend time learning and understanding before you get the best exchange rate of time for money (gold). Not everything can be read online, some things need to be experienced.

Between level 1 and level 10 I found I was mismatching gear because that is just what I was picking up. If you know what kind of gear you want (light, medium, heavy, or a combination), ask your guildmates and party members to keep an eye out. The same goes for weapons, and this advice isn't limited to levels 1 through 10. If you can get gear for free, perfect. If you can get gear without you or a friend paying a guild store fee, awesome. It's a win-win. Plus, come launch and pre-launch, how many guild stores will you even have access to? Not many.

"Vendor Trash" is typically considered common gear that isn't worth taking the time to sell to players. This is such a dirty word on new servers and for new characters. On the last character I created, I was still using level 4 gear on a level 10 character. Why? Because I hadn't come across anything better. Loot tables may not always be balanced, and nothing is guaranteed. Everyone needs better gear, even what others may consider to be trash. Find something you think is useless to your build? Post it in party and guild chat. If someone wants it, sell it to them for a bit more than the vendor would offer. They get gear, you get gold.

There are also a number of items you will NOT want to vendor. Some of the immediate ones I can think of are Racial Motif Books, Soul Gems, Green, Blue, Purple, and Yellow crafting materials, Blue, Purple, and Yellow Provisioning recipes, Racial Style crafting materials, and treasure maps. Each have their own value, even if its only that you'll end up buying them at some point. Racial Motif Books and their crafting materials are super important to anyone crafting weapons or armor. The books unlock styles, and the materials are used for that respective style. The rarer the style, the rarer the material. The colored crafting materials and recipes are also harder to come by, and are essential for top of the line gear. Soul Gems go like hotcakes in PvP. If you haven't heard, these are needed to resurrect yourself and others in both PvP and PvE. Most bosses in group dungeons prevent you from resurrecting yourself, so it would be nice if your group mates had a few to spare.

So, you think you know what craft you want to do (or have decided not to craft anything). Well, you're wrong. Even if you're already in a guild that has all the crafts covered by various players, you're going to want to gather materials for a craft you're not doing. Namely Alchemy and Provisioning materials. These are consumables that restore resources and temporarily enhance your character. While potions and food drop and can be bought from NPCs, the crafted quality is superior to any drop or vendor item. Some Alchemy and Provisioning materials are rarer than others, and all recipes call for specific ingredients. Anyone crafting these items will always have a shortage of certain ingredients. By picking these up from level 1, you will (eventually) find someone who wants to buy them, or find a crafter that can use them to make you something you want.

In terms of which armor to use, or to craft, there are a few things you should consider (or reconsider). Light armor is designed for magic users, medium designed for stealth, and heavy for tanks. Be sure of which you want to use. Making the crafting switch could cost you months of time in researching traits, and tons of gold in new crafting materials. If you aren't 100% sure (pretty much anyone who wasn't playing PTS in my opinion) then keep your crafts available by researching some of everything. Eventually you may want to respec your skill points towards a different craft. And so if you research some other gear, the time sink will be lessened. There is the trade off of wasting time and energy in performing the research. In my opinion though, it is worth it, even if you think you are 100% sure of what craft you want to focus on. In terms of using armor though, I recommend going all in on what you think is best. Switching what armor you use is a relatively painful process.

Prioritize your expenses. The main things you will need to save gold for are bag/inventory upgrades, and buying a horse. At some point you may also want to re-spec your character. These are the three big sinks of gold. Start saving your septims, and decide which you are saving for. If you have the Imperial Edition, you start with a basic horse. There are even better horses though, and you are allowed to have more than one. I myself would save that even better horse for late game. A budget would also help to manage things like wayshrine fees and vendor purchases. Setting a budget on things like these will help reduce your spending and help you save for those major purchases.

And finally, the most important tip I can give you for your first character: Loot Everything. Especially in the tutorial areas of Cold Harbour. Cold Harbour can leave your character fully equipped and enough gold to upgrade further as soon as you leave. You'll also learn which types of containers provide which kinds of loot, and begin to recognize them from a distance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to head over to the convenience store to stock up on supplies, attend a guild meeting, finish upgrading my computer, then take a nap before I hop on ESO tomorrow. I hope to see you all in game.

Re: Alternative Currency for ESO?

Today I am going to follow up on a previous article I wrote entitled Alternative Currency for ESO?. If you haven't read it yet, you may want to brush up on the subject, but it isn't required reading. Cliff notes from that article is:

Some MMOs have so much in game money floating around that players start using rare items as currency. Think Stone of Jordan in Diablo 2. So I came up with a short list of the most likely candidates, and discussed the probability as each being the Stone of Jordan for ESO. The short list included certain tier of gear, crafting materials, glyphs, and soul gems.

I am proud to say (and glad I am legally allowed to say) that I have been beta testing ESO on the private test server since late last year. Unfortunately this means I was severely limited in what I was permitted to share, and had to feign ignorance. Just like Kyle and Josh from the Shoddy Cast, and Evarwyn from Elder Scrolls Off The Record (among many other people covering ESO content). But now I get the chance to pass along correct information, with very little speculation.

Now that we are all at least vaguely familiar with the topic, lets re-visit that short list of mine.

Will crafting materials become currency in ESO? I really doubt it. On the PTS server even the highest end and rarest materials barely broke 10k gold on average. While 10k IS a lot of gold, plenty of things cost more. A basic horse costs 17.2k. A higher tier mount costs 42.7k (unless they lowered the prices since I last checked). Basic siege equipment costs 450 gold (that adds up quickly if you're saving up alliance points), and re-speccing can reach over 10k as well. Also, the way the loot tables work for those rare materials (improvement/upgrade materials to be more specific) is that you get them through high level deconstruction and refining. It is tilted in favor of the crafter (on account of refining). And having played a crafter in the beta (and not exploiting certain bugs) I can tell you that they are too rare for a crafter to trade away. More likely scenario: Rare crafting materials will be sold/traded/given to friends and guild-mates, while keeping a healthy reserve for yourself.

So will certain tier of gear, or certain gear in general become currency? Not a chance. Sure people will trade pieces of gear, i.e. Chillbilly's werewolf buffing item for my vampire buffing item. But it won't be a regular and consistent occurrence. Looking at crafted gear, they at most have mid value in terms of best gear right now. The best gear is bought with alliance points, and bind on pickup. So then, can you trade alliance points? Not currently. In fact, alliance points can not (currently*) be bought, sold, nor traded, and buy the best gear in the game. Makes me want to PvP. Likely scenario: Gear will be bought and sold like normal. The better and rarer it is will fetch for more gold, as per usual.

Soul Gems? Nope. Sorry.

Glyphs I am less certain about. The way enchanting stood when last I checked (which wasn't recently), is that the skill was hard to level up (but SO worth it). The veteran ranked glyphs (level 50+) weren't dropping correctly, as in they weren't dropping at all. Even after this has been fixed, the PTS server is soon to be wiped and I simply don't have the time to measure the rarity of VR glyphs until post-launch. As it stands right now, VR glyphs do have the rarity potential to be used as currency, especially if the skill line progression isn't fixed. The main issue with the line progression is the imbalance in materials, and low inspiration (exp) rewards. I realize I'm going off topic, but bear with me, it will all tie together.

Creating glyphs need three types of runes. Aspect, Potency, and Essence. Combined, all three types are equally common to other crafting material gathering nodes. On top of that, Aspect types are slightly less common than the other two. And for good reason. Aspect controls the rarity. Of the three, Aspect runes are highest in demand, since there is the least variation, and they affect the rarity of the produced glyph. In a few of my guild banks, you'll find hundreds of Potency and Essence runes, but you'd be hard pressed to find more than 10 Aspect. My point here not clear? If it is, congrats. If not, let me tell you. With hundreds of unused materials (because they can't be used), there are literally hundreds of tiny little inspiration gains that will not happen, hindering Enchanting skill line progression. This doesn't even factor in people throwing these runes away, or hoarding them. Most likely scenario: Enchanting will be the hardest but most profitable of the crafts.


After everything is said and done, I do not think the players of ESO will adopt any form of alternate currency. There are plenty of gold sinks, including horses, potions, respec, gear, crafting styles, and bank/bag upgrades. On top of that, there is no evidence that there is anything rare and valuable enough to become this currency.

*Alliance points cannot currently be bought, sold, or traded. I predict that if ESO ever opens a pay-to-win style cash shop, you will be able to buy these very precious alliance points. This will open up alliance points becoming an elite currency.

Popularity

Hey guys ChillBilly here.

I just wanted to put in a little blog entry about the way things are as it stands. We started just a few months ago. I purchased the domain name on a whim, that if I could get at least 10 viewers, at least I would be able to show the world what I know about game economies. It started slow. At first it wasn't clear if we were going to be a success or not. There were already other websites that were very successful in guides on characters and skills, but none that focused on the economy. It's a little intimidating to step up to bat against the pros. So I released a few videos about World of Warcraft Gold making.

Not long after, we began to get a few followers. I focused more on the newsletters from our site. We obtained a few extra programs to help it along. We now have 90 subscribers to our newsletter, 40 subscribers to YouTube, and over 100 views a day to our website.

Some may not see this as uber successful. I see it as a good start. So we have our topic. We have our support from the community. We just need to refine our craft.

I will be updating the website in the next couple of weeks. Fortunately, I do have a great bit of knowledge on websites, so we aren't too much in the dark. I have been receiving a lot of emails requesting message boards. Our new website will have a forum. That ticker you see reaching across the screen will have a clearer message. All will be well.

I appreciate anyone that takes the time to read what we have written. I especially appreciate the people who have taken the time to sign up for the newsletter. I also especially appreciate our silent sponsors. Without all of you subscribers and sponsors. We would not be able to make this possible.

Thank you again.

-CB

Guild Store Guidelines (Conceptual)

Guild Store Guidelines

This information is intended for all audiences curious as to how the guild stores in game will work, and how to reach the most efficiency out of them. Please be sure to share this information with anyone who may need it or is curious as how to run their guild store.

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Concept 1 - Profit Basis

Concept 1 follows a profit basis for your guild. Since guild stores are considered small markets we will use concept 1 to make the best profit for your guild. In my opinion this is the best guideline when running your guild store.

Members are farmers, they post items in the guild store at the open market price

The Guild or Officers are the crafters, they buy items from the guild store to use in crafting gear, potions, consumables, etc.

The Guild provides these itemized services to the guild for the open market price.

The members in turn buy the items to use or sell.

Concept 1 allows the guild to make money. Money which in turn can be reinvested into the guild store (members). The guild economy grows, and the richer the members become. Concept 1 is a win win at maximum profit.

Concept 2 - Profit Basis (Selfish, but works)

Concept 2 follows a Profit basis for your guild, but does nothing to reinvest into the member's security.

Members are farmers, they post items in the guild store at a discounted price

The Guild or Officers are the crafters, they buy the items in the guild store to use in crafting items or to sell for a profit in the open market.

The Guild provides little service to the guild economy.

The members can buy or sell in this economy, but have little profit margins themselves. (localizes profit for the guild only)

Concept 2 just sounds evil, but in most cases it will be used in guilds that do not care about personal gain or guild stores for that matter.

Concept 3 - Commune Basis (Will most likely be the most common)

Concept 3 follows a Commune basis, it's a free market, people provide services in exchange for services

Members are farmers, crafters, resellers. They sell items at discounted prices to everyone.

The Guild or Officers are exempt as it is a commune, everyone provides service for little to no monetary gain.

Concept 3 allows for a guild to have a limited economy with monetary value it is no more than a price per item guild bank.

-CB

The Floodgates Are Open: ESO

Friday February 14, 2014 marks the day Zenimax lifted the NDA pertaining to content available in the Beta weekends (any additional tests for any other content still have additional NDAs associated with them). And I have to say, even within my own guilds, tons of content has flooded in from beta testers, myself included. In this article, I'm going to quickly cover some aspects about ESO, with as many screenshots as possible.

The armor in the above screenshot is merely a costume (replaces the textures of your equipped gear). Such costumes are obtained primarily through quests. The costume above was optional in a quest, where my character could choose to use to sneak past enemies without having to fight them. All costumes are bind on pickup (soul bound, account bound, etc), and unfortunately cannot be traded.

Any Gold Goblin (or any goblin for that matter) loves chests. I am no different. Like most MMOs, there are chests or similar containers that spawn in certain locations with loot in them. In ESO, these chests feature a lock picking system, similar to what was implemented in TES IV: Oblivion. The contents contain gold and items ranging from a plain white item (lowest rarity) to multiple items of varying rarity.

The difficulty of the chest doesn't seem to determine the contents. I've unlocked master chests in higher leveled zones and received less impressive loot. This chest only had a simple lock (simple being easiest, master being hardest). At present, chests spawn in set locations on any given map. The same is true for gathering nodes for clothing, enchanting, blacksmithing, and woodworking. This could change at any time. Such is the case with alchemy ingredients.

In my quest to unlock all the alchemy effects, I can tell you that chests and plants to not follow the same re-spawn rules. From what I've seen, chests always re-spawn in the same place. This is not (entirely) true for plants. Alchemy nodes re-spawn when another node has been harvested nearby. The type of ingredient that spawns seems to be random, as long as it meets certain conditions. Nirnroot for example only grows alongside water, and some areas only spawn certain types of plants (mushrooms or flowers for example). As for location, there are more possible locations than there are "spawned" nodes. Again with examples, say there are 10 alchemy nodes spawned at any given time, but there are 20 possible locations they could spawn to. This ensures that multiple people can farm these resources at once, but no one person can abuse this mechanic.

While (loosely) on the subject of crafting, lets talk Racial Styles.

There are a total of 14 motif books in total. Books 1 through 9 are the alliance races. These motif books are the most common, but still fetch a pretty penny. Average market price for these have been around 2k in the beta. Book 10 is Imperial, allegedly the rarest. Considering that I found one, I doubt that. Books 11 through 14 are for the non-playable races of Ancient Elf, Barbaric, Primal, and Daedric. The (beta) average market price for these are somewhat harder to determine. I've seen one person constantly trying to buy them for 10k, but people tend to start a bidding war for them. They've gone for 15k, probably higher. That is almost the price of a horse.

So in short, if you can find a way to farm those books, you really, REALLY should farm them.

In the last article I wrote, we took a look at how crafting actually works. What wasn't mentioned, is that you can craft set items. Yup, set items that are typically the pride of dungeon raiders are also craftable.

There are specific locations (some hidden) where set items can be crafted. The ones that aren't hidden are marked with a flame icon with a hammer underneath. Normal crafting stations are marked with a flame with an anvil underneath. Set items (shockingly) have additional requirements in order to craft them. Set items have tiers, and these tiers are dictated by how many traits must be researched to unlock the item. Ashen Grip for example, needs two traits researched (per item) for that item to be unlocked for crafting. When dealing with set items, whether looted or crafted, keep in mind that the set bonus takes up the enchantment slots of that item. So if the set bonus proves to be useless, then the item is worthless.

Have a question? Want to weigh in about the article? Want to learn about something specific? Just want to say hi? Drop a comment below, we'd love to hear from you.

Tamriel Gold Goblin Trade Network

When I was 12 years old, I was climbing through the barn when I found a cardboard display of collapsible sunglasses. The idea behind these folding sunglasses was the ability to snap and fold the glasses small enough to fit into your pocket. There were a few design flaws however. Many of the places where the sunglasses were to fold were poorly made and while wearing them your hair would always be pinched and tugged. Comfort is a strong point in any type of body accessory. They were utterly uncomfortable. I dug the cardboard display out from underneath a few boxes and hay. I went to my father immediately to ask permission to set up a sales stand. He agreed and I was on my way. I grabbed the nearest folding picnic table, a chair, and a Dukes of Hazzard magazine. I headed outside to the road. I setup my stand, and my business was born. In the South it is not uncommon to find many different tradesmen on the side of the road. Some of them setup mini flea markets, and yard sales. I was a sunglasses salesman. Of course at the time I wasn’t aware of style. My sunglasses were 1970’s styled, it was ’97. It was definitely an oversight on my part. I sold very few.

Three days of very small amounts of sales, I decided to pack it up. I look back on that day now and I am excited for the amount of sales that I had. I had made over 20 dollars, and sold only 4 pairs of sunglasses. I had no overhead, no investors, and I was able to make a 100% profit.

I was no millionaire, but deep down, I was becoming a Gold Goblin.

When I first started in World of Warcraft it was 2006, I was in Houston Texas working for the government. I remember running through Stranglethorn Vale to Booty Bay, on a 100 gold bet that I couldn’t make it all the way as a level 17 paladin. I won the bet and was 100 gold richer. I immediately flew back to Stormwind and began scanning through the auction house for things to buy. (This was before Auctioneer mind you, or at least before my knowledge of it) As I scanned each page for cheap items I ran across a stack of Mithril Ore posted for only 10 gold. I purchased it immediately. That stack of mithril ore sat in my bag for at least 2 more levels. Since I couldn’t use it quite yet, I posted it back on the Auction House for 20 gold. This story sticks out in my mind of being the first time I had ever made any profit in a video game. Sure I had posted things before and they had sold, but it was the first time I ever used the flip technique. Not 2 hours after I posted the mithril ore, it had sold. It brought me 10 gold in profit, and I then invested that profit into more stock. My adventure as a Gold Goblin had begun.

Let’s backtrack. The Flip Technique, is a common technique used by anyone who has ever played a player market. Sometimes a player does this without even thinking about it. They buy an item from the market, and turn around and sell that item either because they didn’t need it or needed it and didn’t use it. This is considered flipping an item. Even unintentional flips are considered flipping. So if we are to buy a large investment, let’s say 250,000 gold worth of materials, and we repost and make only 1 gold, we are still in profit, and we have still flipped an investment.

Flipping is not a hard concept to grasp. We fall back to the phrase, “Buy Low, Sell High.” This is the essence of flipping. Never should we ever take a loss using this technique, if it appears we will take a loss, we do not sell.

I would just be telling you something you already knew if I didn’t throw in my own advice. Often times we make poor decisions. We are human. We make poor investments and often times we lose because of these poor investments. All is not lost, but we lose big time when we know little about our investment.

If you do not know everything about the item you are about to invest in, DO NOT BUY IT!!!!

Product Research is very important, without it, we know nothing about the market in which we are about to enter. We spend more time worried about the dollar sign instead of the signs of the market. It takes a long time to get at the level of knowing all about the market niches. Until then, we start small. We start small, and we learn. We learn, and we profit. ‘Simple in Concept, Simple in Action. Always simple.’

 After we have established a proper knowledge of an item, its value, and its use, we can then move on to establish an Average Market Price.

In the Elder Scrolls online, we do not have an Auction House to reference our prices. We only have what is currently going through trade markets and chat. We are responsible for knowing these prices. We are the sellers.  Through what I call the trade union proposal, I have written a set of steps to prepare ourselves for evaluating and obtaining an Average Market Price:

• ·         Supply and Demand – What items are in good/bad supply, what items are in Demand
• ·         Player Income – What is the average amount of money a player makes in one play session (4 hours)
• ·         Class Warfare – Some players will be better at hording items than others, some will be more frugal with their money. Find the Balance.
• ·         Popular Professions – At launch, we expect a large amount of people to be leveling their professions. They will pay what they can.
• ·         Sell Small – Remember, you are starting a new game, the first month, you focus on you. Do not focus on making money just yet.
• ·         Document, Document, Document – If it’s useful information write it down.

The first month is blown, do not expect to get in a good routine in the first month of release. Do not worry with prices, or even selling for that matter. The market will eventually sustain itself. For now, we worry only about our own progression and professions.

In order to calculate the Average Market Price, we will need to take all of the above things into account.

Example:

ChillBilly makes 1000g per hour each play session. He has 4000 gold. During his play time he accumulates 60 iron ore, 60 wood, 60 Capon Meat. He is low level, under 17.

He is attempting to build his skills in Blacksmithing. He immediately burns through his supply of 60 iron ore, and after crafting and extracting he is off to the market to obtain more Iron ore.

“WTB 100 Iron Ore, willing to pay 100 gold” (of course I get trolled)

So ChillBilly has evaluated that 1 iron ore is worth 1 gold. His potential sellers troll him for this evaluation.

So ChillBilly retorts with “WTB 100 Iron Ore” A seller comes online and offers ChillBilly 100 Iron Ore for 300 gold, an increase of 2 gold per iron ore, set at the price of 3 gold per Iron Ore

ChillBilly agrees and makes the deal.

ChillBilly immediately writes down his transaction of 3 gold per 1 iron ore, maximum investment of 300 gold.

Later down the road, ChillBilly needs 100 more iron ore, he goes to the trade channel “WTB 100 iron ore”

A seller approaches him with a 5 gold per iron ore proposal. This puts the total value at 500 gold for the transaction. ChillBilly Agrees.

Later he needs another 100 iron ore, and a seller proposes a 4 gold per iron ore proposal. 400 gold for the 

transaction. ChillBilly Agrees.

ChillBilly Farms Iron Ore only for about an hour and comes up with 100 iron ore.

From his previous transactions he adds together the Sum of each transaction.

3+4+5= 12

He divides the number of transactions from the sum of the transactions.

12 divided by 3 = 4.

He now has his Average Market Price for his transactions. He begins to sell his items judged by this Average Market Price per item.

These numbers will change due to sources of information. A good Gold Goblin, is a good listener. Listening to transactions across trade channels and trade communications centers allows a Gold Goblin to calculate what he or she should be selling their items for.

My suggestion:

In order for these values to be assumed, we must find where players are trading. With any luck, a large amount of players will use a teamspeak like mine to do their trading.

In other terms, players will be found in certain locations. Either in main cities or at Wayshrines. You can fast travel to players. However, you will not fast travel directly to a player, rather you will travel to the closest way shrines.

It will not be uncommon for players to be found selling items around these wayshrines. In fact, I would expect to see many player markets spring up in local chat around these wayshrines.

We may even go so far as seeing live auctions right before our eyes in game. Unfortunately, the chat will not be seen above our heads as we have seen previously in games such as World of Warcraft. Instead chat will remain in the chat box, and it will be much more difficult for players to locate you. Venues will most definitely help this problem. Keep your eyes open for highly traveled areas. These will be your venues of trade.

Tamriel Gold Goblin Trade Network Teamspeak:

199.68.232.126

Looking for responsible staff for this server. It is preferable that you are the leader of a guild or an officer in a guild.

You can email me with your interest

tamrielgoldgoblin@gmail.com

-CB

Quick Links:

Skill Builder for ESO

Tamriel Gold Goblin YouTube Channel

Waste minutes of your life with my personal YouTube Channel
Tamriel Gold Goblin Website

TGG News and Announcements

Hello Gold Goblins!

ChillBilly here bringing you some news regarding Tamriel Gold Goblin and Elder Scrolls Online!
Our last installment of our newsletter has said to have been the best one yet. If you have not signed up for the newsletter please do it now! Lot's of good information in that newsletter.

We are moving forward as scheduled in a whole mess of activities. The NDA has finally dropped so be on the look out for some cool informational videos on trading in ESO! Mostly Harmless, a guild for the Daggerfall Covenant has invited me to talk in a podcast February 22nd at 7pm EST. You can find that podcast here:

http://www.twitch.tv/mostly_harmless_gaming

Come out and support me! I greatly appreciate it!

Before we move any further, I would just like to thank all of my followers. You have been extremely supportive, and the comments and messages I have received are heart warming. I am so glad that this service is not a complete waste and people are finding it helpful. I appreciate the wonderful feedback and look forward to more and more of it in the future. Good or Bad! :)

Moving on, A new service for Tamriel Gold Goblin is a free trade network teamspeak. You guys are more than welcome to use this free of charge. I have set it up personally on one of our servers for the time being the address is just a static public address but it should change over into a domain soon. If it updates I will update you. You should be able to access it through the IP at any given time.

That information is here:

Tamriel Gold Goblin Trade Network
199.68.232.126

Go ahead and bookmark that today. We will be holding live auctions and much more.

In further news, I have finished the first part of the sql server that will replace the ticker information on the website. It has been a long complicated process, but soon it will showcase the Average Market Price of the Commodity items throughout Tamriel. We look forward to more of that now that the NDA has come to close.

Are you in a guild? Run a guild? Officer in a guild?

Be sure to comment with your guild information below. I want to come interview you. I want to know what you are about. I won't be joining, but as a spot filler until release, I have been doing some guild reviews and posting them in several places. Let's get you some exposure.

Some New things:

New YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChillBillysauce

Entertaining videos made out of shear boredom.

-CB

Interviews and playthroughs Oh My!

One of the major problems as a writer is coming up with new material each time to write about. Writers and content creators spend hours upon hours researching, interviewing, and experimenting. Often times we as these content creators get to spend a few hours a day playing games. Although, what you may consider playing, is not what we consider playing. It is always preparation. From the moment we log in until the time we log out, we are constantly stopping and starting.

It usually begins with us following the "Ooo - Shiny" as we jot down a few extra notes concerning the location of an ore vein, or a wood source. Nearly often enough, we spend more time writing these notes than we actually get to enjoy what we are doing. This does not necessarily mean it is all that bad. We get to meet people, the average player does not. We get to enjoy upper tier communities, that many normal players do not. We get invited to betas that other people strive to get invited to. The reason for all this is simple. We are not here to play, we are here to study. I overheard a conversation the other day with a few players who have not been invited to a certain game with a certain "open all the time" beta. They were complaining that only people with certain clout were allowed into "these types" of betas. That only the people who knew someone or had popularity were allowed in.

I wanted to enter and hijack the conversation to tell them they were wrong. I realize now that even if I had, it wouldn't have changed their opinion one way or another. Sometimes you just cannot convince people of your thinking, because of their stubborn ways. I guess the same can be said about myself as I am as stubborn as they come. "Fear not! For the people whom you show jealousy for, are not having fun, but are working, and working for free for that matter!" I wanted to scream in their channel locked all to themselves.

Betas are always viewed as some sort of demo for the real game. That is not the case. Betas are to test, and only testing shall it be. You should never take knowledge from a beta, to insert your own opinions of disgust.

To put it into a bigger perspective:

IT IS THE BETA, THERE ARE GOING TO BE BUGS.

I feel that some people do not quite grasp this fact. Yet here we are again, explaining the over explained. 

-CB

Americans Are Boring

So this weekend, as many readers are aware, is Elder Scrolls Online's biggest beta weekend yet, with over 500,000 beta keys being given away by Curse.com. After combing through leaked footage, and footage recently released by various media outlets, I have come to the conclusion that Americans are boring and predictable. All of the English speaking videos I've seen depict Questing, PvE, and PvP, with a strong focus on the first hour of gameplay. The only videos I have found depicting crafting come from outside North America, from our Spanish and German speaking friends. Unfortunately the German video I found also has a German UI, so I can't really comment on what is going on in the video. The Spanish video (also embedded below) is using the English UI, so be prepared for my breakdown on the crafting system!

Before I begin on my analysis on the video, I would just like to say sorry in advance if the videos linked are leaked gameplay footage. I respect ZOS, and respect their NDA. With that said, let us listen to some very fast speaking Spanish.

So the first thing you'll notice is that both the Clothing and Blacksmithing stations are located near each other. This is somewhat of a standard in MMOs, to have different crafting stations within close proximity. I for one am glad to see this. I find it a huge time sink to run all over town to work on my different crafts, especially if you need to craft components from one craft to make something in another. If you haven't experienced this, I envy you.

We can also get a glean into the crafting skill lines. They are: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Clothing, Enchanting, Provisioning, and Woodworking. In the video we see some of the Blacksmithing skill line. Metalworking lets unlock new materials to craft higher tier items. Keen Eye: Ore makes it easier to spot ore gathering nodes (probably some sort of graphic appears on screen). The Miner Hireling will send you crafting materials and possibly "other items" everyday (I suspect these are additives, tempers, or style materials).

Now let us take a look at the crafting interface. On the Creation tab we see Type, Material, Style, and Trait. Also note that there are check boxes for 'Have Items' and 'Have Knowledge'. These will let us filter out what we can't craft, and help us plan how to progress in our crafting skills. The Type and Material toggles are pretty standard for MMOs, so we'll all feel at home with those. As would be expected (espcially if you've played past TES games) the material used affects the look of the item. But here is where it gets interesting with Style. We can craft items in the different racial styles (Dunmer, Altmer, Orc, Nord, etc), which also affect the appearance of the item. Spoiler: Ancient Elf, Reach, Primitive, Daedric and Imperial are also craftable styles. We've already been introduced to the (easiest) way to unlock Imperial. The rest however are not playable races, so there is probably a lot of grinding and opening sacks involved in finding these racial styles. Rest assured, there will be money to be made if you can craft Ancient Elf or Daedric armor. Moving along then, Traits. Traits as we can see are the "additive" ingredients we have long heard about, but never seen. They add effects to crafted items such as Precise which increases weapon and spell critical values, and Defending which increases total armor and spell resistance. We don't get to see all the traits in this video, but I would bet you a sweetroll some traits that are more useful than others. So keep an eye out for Traits.

The next tab we see is Improvement. Pretty straight forward. Select item, toggle quantity value, press Improve. Moving on. Extraction is another common theme in MMOs that we should all be comfortable with. Select item, press Extract, get crafting materials. Moving on.

Research. From what we see here each piece of gear needs each trait to be researched. if we flip back to 0:58 in the video, we see a skill called Metallurgy. I'll bet you TWO sweetrolls this skill has something to do with research. If you're in the beta and have an interest in crafting, I encourage you to check out that skill to learn more.

At 3:18 in the video we get a look at Alchemy, one of the three consumable types of crafting (the others being Provisioner and Enchanting). The interface here is much different than Blacksmithing, which I suspect is why they are showing it. After selecting a Solvent (base liquid, Natural Water in this case) you can select two Reagents. Sadly they didn't have any Reagents to show us in this video. Reagents are things like Mountain Flowers, Imp Stool, Nirn Root, etc. These are harvestable flowers and plants you can find in game.

We also get a look at a blacksmith vendor, where you can buy Style materials. I can't say I'm a fan of this. One of the (what should be rare) materials needed for crafting can be bought from an npc for 21 gold, including the ones for the rare styles (Ancient Elf, Reach, etc). This will severely reduce the value of crafted gear.

Now that you've watched the Spanish video, and understand what they are showing you, I recommend watching the German video. They played a higher level character and better show the Extraction and Improvement process.

Guild Hunting

     For the past several days, I have been multi-faction guild hopping. I have in turn met several wonderful people, and it certainly seems that the Elder Scrolls Community, is more of an adult being. Now when I say that I am not necessarily meaning all players will be over the age of 18. For the most part, the guilds I have visited have all been professionals. They emphasize less on the skill of a player, and more on the individualism of the player themselves.

     This has come as a bit of a shock to me actually. While I am sure there are many guilds out there, whom are unprofessional, and non-courteous to new players, and with all games you are going to have those secular guilds whom are elitists. From my experience of over 30 nameless guilds. Each in their own way have been kind and sincere in meeting and engaging with new prospective members. 

     What this means for the average newbie to any MMO is there are many different opportunities for you to meet like-minded individuals. I encourage all of my readers to experience all the guilds that you have read about in any Elder Scrolls Public Forum. Meet the other people whom you will be interacting with in the future. 

     Do you know any cool guilds who might be recruiting new members for Elder Scrolls Online? Post their names and a link to their page in the comment section below. I would love to check them out.

-CB

Another Wasted Day

I think that part of waiting for a highly anticipated game, is the shear boredom of things. I have sunk low in troubled times such as these. There are only so many ways a gamer can keep himself or herself occupied before a big game release. Let's list a few shall we?

• Play another game.

Sometimes this one helps. It keeps your mind off the fact, you are still waiting for your MMO or new game to arrive. Picking another game similar to the one you are preparing to play is the best idea. It allows you to up your skills before release. More or less, it keeps you occupied in gaming and nothing else. Including keeping you away from unnecessary things like cleaning your room / house, doing laundry, or replacing the weather stripping on your back door because the rainwater from the no gutter system off your poorly built house is leaking in and destroying your door and floor.

• Endurance training

Old people, like myself and a few others that fancy themselves readers of blogs such as this one, prefer endurance training. We aren't young anymore, and quite frankly, we cannot stay up past 12am. For that matter I pulled a muscle this morning putting on a sock. So we must train ourselves to be able to keep up with you young whippersnappers. It's not exactly the easiest thing to do considering games don't captivate us as well as they used to. We have to find a totally addictive game or an activity that keeps us staying up past our pill / bed time.

• Character Creation

Before we launch full steam ahead, a good majority of us, will begin to create our characters in our minds. We will even have names picked out, so that we aren't searching randomly for a named item on our desks at launch time. (I literally have a character on WoW named Aqualibrium for that very reason.) We will make sure we have made a final decision on whether our characters will be Female or Male. We will decide if we want to start as Argonians or Redguards. We will write long roleplaying stories on our characters. We will be prepared.

• Guilds

For the more nerdy of people, we will find other people to align with. This is a tricky one. Since there is no current game to play, boredom runs rampant. I have seen only a few guilds this go around that have not 100% went to the dark side. I joined a guild before the launch of SWTOR and they were hardcore. As memory serves, they kicked me out, because I said if SWTOR releases on Thanksgiving day, I would spend my free time watching football.  I guess I got kicked out for having a life? No idea..

• Forums

Joining Forums is the greatest thing you can do. Forums often times have a lot of news and like-minded people talking about the game you are about to play. They even have some developers come in and do private interviews which is kind of cool. As long as the information doesn't violate the NDA, most websites, including this one, will discuss things from videos and other official sources. Forums are a great source of information, and should never be overlooked. I like Enjin's forum over others because its straight and to the point. You don't have to wade through a trough of useless garbage to read what you want to read.

• Writing

Sometimes you just feel like writing. I like writing because it is a form of stress relief. With a generous amount of time, you can have a plethora of information waiting for you at launch. Dust off that old Microsoft Word program you got back when you were flunking out of college, playing video games instead of going to class, and write something useful. Or don't and spend your time playing internet spades with a guy that never covers your nils! Either way, enjoy yourself before launch. Be sure to friend me on Enjin, and we shall play, oh yes. We shall.

(Original Version on ElderScrollsForum.com)
Thanks
-CB

Alternative Currency for ESO?

As we all know, The Elder Scrolls Online uses a megaserver. I don’t know the technical jargon behind this, but the end result will be every pc and mac user being able to interact and trade with each other. In other MMOs with such a large player base, gold sometimes becomes a useless currency for high tier items. This is primarily due to the lack of ways for gold to leave the game economy. In these instances, the new currency (such as Chaos Orb in Path of Exile) is valued equally to each player.  Other games such as Guild Wars 2, have had almost no inflation, and players haven’t adopted an alternative currency. With Guild Wars 2, there is a tax on certain player transactions, removing gold from the game’s economy. It also doesn’t hurt to have economists on staff to help maintain the game’s economic balance.

I don’t think Zenimax Online Studios has, or is currently looking for any economists unfortunately. After an extensive search, I found a few LinkedIn profiles, dozens of job postings, even Matt Firor’s phone number (don’t worry Matt, I won’t be prank calling you). But not a peep on if they have anyone qualified to monitor and manage ESO’s economy.

If ESO does end up having a ton of worthless gold, what items should you look out for? From what we’ve heard so far, and provided that the in-game items and crafting system is similar to past Elder Scrolls games, speculation is possible.

Certain tier of gear? Possibly. Without hands on experience in deconstructing equipment, we have no way of knowing the nature of the items you can acquire this way, their abilities, nor their rarity.

Crafting material? Possibly. Additives are these mysterious items that are an optional ingredient to craft gear with, but we effectively know nothing about them. There have been interviews with Nick Konkle and Paul Sage talking about them in the past, but no updates on how they might have changed, or the specifics on the items themselves.

Other crafting materials? Not a chance. The normal ingredients such as ore, or alchemy ingredients are going to be those things you trip over every ten feet. They’re also the kind of item gold farmers will find a way to exploit and sell for gold, and then sell for money.

Glyphs? Not likely. In case you’re not up to speed on what glyphs are, glyphs are the items crafted in the Enchanting skill line. They are items with an enchantment on them, and when used, transfers the enchantment onto a piece of equipment. While glyphs are a crafted item, giving them potential to become a currency, enchantments can be recharged (at least in past TES games) using a soul gem. With that in mind, soul gems are much more likely to become a currency item.

Soul gems? Likely. If soul gems are indeed used to restore charges onto enchantments, they gain value since everyone will desire them. With the exception of glyphs, everything else listed do not have equal value between each player. Soul gems in past TES games such as Skyrim also have a very high gold to weight ratio, making them highly valued as loot.

I thought about adding horse feed to the list, but decided not to. When Matt Firor talked about horses, and feeding them at E3 2013, he made it sound like there are only have two or three different types of food to feed your horse. It is possible, even probable, that there will be different rarities for these items with increased effects, yet I am not convinced there is a chance they could become a currency in ESO.

That brings my speculation on the subject of alternative currency to an end. If you’d like to weigh in on this topic, please post in the comments below.

I’ll leave you gold goblins for now, with a quote to ponder:
"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

5 Possible Events After Launch

Based off the information we are given from the Elder Scrolls Online staff, we can expect a few spring up ideas that will make life a little easier in ESO. Here are 5 ideas you can expect to spring up at ESO Launch.

1. Trade Guilds - Players can join up to 5 guilds in ESO, this means you can almost guarantee to see some Trade Guilds to spring up, almost over night. These trade guilds will most certainly have a guild store, multiple members of all levels, and even though traders are not the most violent people in the world, they will have a PVP division as well. 

2. Mercenaries for Hire - With the need for trade guilds, I would expect to see mercenary groups spring up as well. These mercenary groups will most likely join trade guilds to maintain keeps, and without any doubt, get paid generously for their service and protection. 

3. Player Auctions - Yes, we will be kicking it old school. Several trade guilds will not be able to maintain a guild keep, hire mercenaries, or PVP. They will have to turn to alternative methods. In Ultima Online there was no Automated Auction House and no trade chat. If you wanted to sell your materials and items, you had 3 basic options. Place a vendor on your door step, sell your items in populated areas, or sell your items at one of the various player auction houses. I realize that the pampered players from WoW will find this a problem. Your old school players on the other hand, find it awesome and are eager for its arrival. 

4. Guild Politics - I would expect there to be some sort of player driven political system. Even now before launch, you have guild alliances springing up left and right. This will bring the political campaign to a start. I would even go so far as to see cross faction guild alliances as well. This is great for maintaining control of a keep, maintaining guild relations and such. What does it mean for traders? Opportunity. It gives them an opportunity to capitalize off of such politics. 

5. Spies - With politics, you will always have greed, deception, and spies. Spies can be agents, or double agents for that matter. It will take a unique player to pull this off. Given the information we have received about guilds, this is an extreme possibility. They will exist. So look out. 

Have something you want to add to the list? Leave a comment below. 

-CB

These 5 ideas are mere opinion, and are based off of information given from official sources.

Comments should follow the rules of the NDA. Any information using beta knowledge will be deleted.

Trade Unions

     After discussing this topic with some of my new friends, I decided to put a little piece together. Trade Unions are not a very popular subject in the world of MMOs. Not because of the pros or cons, but because it's not an idea very well acquainted with the community. Generally, people consider themselves loners in the marketplace. They are out to get the 1 or 2 gold for their trinkets and affections. What if they could have 3 gold, and a gold standard for currency though? This is no place for rhetorical questions, only facts. Facts may entail a large consumption of quality over quantity. I do admit that my own judgments of Unions come into play. I have yet only experienced one instance of an MMO player-run Tradesman Union.

     It was a foggy afternoon, as I was cinching up my last sack of rotten goods, I saw a shady deal go down right before my eyes. A player was confronting another player about a transaction he had made to yet another player. In full RP these gentlemen played out a somewhat humorous collaboration of rule statements and creeds. They fired back at one another with quips and clever expressions. One of these players had evidently betrayed his tradesman union. He had purchased an item from a non-union player, and was paying his debt by being publicly ridiculed for all to see. I inquired about this from a fellow guild member as I was new to the scene. My guild mate replied with an explanation that these two gentlemen were in a trade union, and it was against their laws to trade with another player other than ones in their union. I felt this was queer, so I decided to get answers from the source. I made my way over to the gentlemen after their dispute had settled to laughs. I asked them if they could involve me into what had just occurred. They refused me.

     Apparently the first rule in Trade Unions is, you don't talk about Trade Unions. These gentlemen had assigned themselves to a creed. They did not want others to compete, as they were the one, and only.
It wasn't long before the little wooden gears and hamster balls in my head started turning. I had to know more about this. I didn't flake it off as a sudden flash mob of role play. There was something more here. I just didn't know how, or where to start. I began to dig. I spent most of my time where these particular players were trading. I noticed that they would buy from other players, not just ones from their union. The prices had to be low though. Lower than average. The market price on a 100 bundle of wood was 1000 gold give or take. I began approaching them with 2 or 3 bundles a day. Only not at the full market price, but at 2 - 300 gold per bundle. I was an immediate success. Not long after I had staged this coup, I was being approached by more and more union representatives. Five days of this endless streak of business, dealing only with union members, I was approached. Not only by a member of the union, but by 3 of the union board members. They asked to speak with me in private. I agreed and met with them on their voice communications server. For two hours, they discussed the possibility of my supplication. To provide with them, a large quantity of freshly cut woods ranging from high to low qualities. I humbly agreed and so began my journey of endless farming and building. I was allowed a guild standard, a work bench to work from, and an endless forest for my axe to never dull. There is somewhat of a literary value here, as I speak so passionately about my experiences. It truly was, the most drawn out chapter of my online life. By the third week of this endless struggle, they had put to my table an offer. Join the Union, and earn for yourself. You have earned our respect. Now you may see, just how far, and just how big this thing is.

     It took me a month. A month of mule work. As my eyes were opening to this underground world of trades, I began to see a series of patterns. Players from one side of the map, moved fluently from one side to the other. They never stopped, they were never brought to the sword. No one robbed them, no one murdered them, they were impervious. The untouchables.
It was a labyrinth of information, but as the dust settled I could see the clear vision. These men, had set together a list of rules to follow and to trade by. In a server of over 3000 traders, 2900 of them were union members.

     Make no mistake, they were not a guild. Guilds control what a player does in certain cases. Unions organize players. They organize what the market price is going to be. If that market price is gouged or undercut, there are penalties for disloyalty. You did not want to be banned from the Union. If that was the case, your trading days were over. You would have to pack up, and sell to yourself, farm what you needed. You no longer had the option of buying in bulk. You were the proverbial stain at the bottom of the swimming pool.

You were the unwanted and the unneeded. Luckily, I never experienced that side of the Union world.

Pros of a Tradesman Union:

There were many microperks to a tradesman union. Here are a few to list them out.

• Guaranteed Sale - Your goods were always going to be purchased through orders given through the union network. You filled the order, and you were paid the full standard market price.
• Protection - The union had determined trade routes, these trade routes were cleared of brigands and highway robbers. Often times caravans had military protection, but the trade routes were often patrolled by Union guards. No one wanted to kill you for fear of total war. Guilds would often times have a union representative. If a guild killed a union member, they sometimes had to pay for their mistakes with tribute or with free trade. They always followed this. None in my time of membership ever broke the rule. There had only been one incident before my arrival. It was declared as being the last. To sum the last war up. Over 50 guilds versus 1, it wasn't long until everyone involved in that 1 guild resigned. 
• No fear of Undercuts - No one in the union would ever undercut you on your price. There was no haggling or discussion, they paid you for the item. They also were required by union law to purchase first from a union member. The market price was set by day, only a 1 to 2 ratio could go up or down from that. 
• Insider information - If a guild merger or guild event such as war or contest, the union knew about it first. Union members were often contracted to provide materials. Some members of the union even could sponsor the events depending on the situation. 

Cons of Tradesman Union:

As with the pros, there were many reasons you did not want to join a Union. Here are a few of those reasons:

• Monopoly - If a union member had a monopoly on a certain item, you literally could not contest his business and compete with him. You had to have 2x his stock to even try, even then it was risky. If the member was good with the board, he could have you banned from the union for any reason. 
• Corrupt - Anytime you put together a group of players, motives will be flown and sowed together. Majority rules as they say. If you became the black sheep by a cross trade or disagreement, your removal was imminent. However, board members could also be bought to swing one way or the other.
• Sub-unions - If the Union board had any off time, Sub-unions would emerge, little leaders as we called them. It was a foundation to tear apart the Union as a whole. If it wasn't stamped out, a player could arise with an idea that could destroy the fabric of the society.
• Dictatorships - Though I never saw this happen, I had heard of this happening in the past. If a union was structured poorly and  one person was to lead this organization. That one person often times became a dictator over a majority rule.

Concluding with one last summary to wrap this thing up. The Requirements of Membership. I have only a few of them written down here. They are the ones that stick out.

1. Never discuss politics outside of the Union.
2. Never trade with an outside player if a member has informed you of the same item listed.
3. Trading with previous union members is forbidden.
4. Trading with previous union guilds is forbidden.
5. The market price is set once per day, You are allotted a 1 - 2 % raise or decrease from this market price.
6. Going above or below the 1 - 2 % is forbidden.
7. Killing or robbing union members is forbidden.
8. If a player asks for your union id, respond with (enter keyword here) 
9. If you ask a player for his or her union id, and they do not respond with the correct keyword, record their name and report to the union board. 
10. Never give out the daily keyword to anyone.

Now some of those rules are paraphrased. Others, are rules written exact. I can see how a lot of these rules had a purpose. The last though seem more like a cult to me than anything. There were a lot more but I felt it was redundant for this entry. A keyword would allow a player to enter the union halls without appropriate tags. I can understand, but report the player to the union hall? Sounds kind of cultish to me. Leave a comment if you agree or disagree. 

Thanks for reading

-CB

Time is Money

In virtually every MMORPG, from Everquest to Defiance, there is something called “farming”. And no, it has nothing to do with milking cows or harvesting wheat (although in Mabinogi you get to do just that). The concept is pretty straight forward, and closely resembles working on a farm in real life. Farming in an MMORPG is a process of repeatedly killing monsters and/or using gathering nodes (such as mining iron ore), the goal being to get lots of loot to sell, or materials to make lots of loot to sell. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. It’s also one of the most effective ways to make money in any RPG, MMO or not. No ESO specific content this time guys, sorry.

In case you’ve never farmed before, or not entirely sure what I’m talking about, let me run you through it. First you need to figure out what it is you want. A specific crafting material? Better gear? Valuable gear? Any random old thing you can sell? For example, let’s say you want iron ore to make a bad-ass sword. The second thing you need to do is figure out where you will go farming. Typically, this will be where the monsters (more commonly referred to as mobs) that drop the item spawn the most, or where the gathering nodes tend to spawn the most. There are two ways to decide where to farm. Either you check the internet, probably on a wiki for the game, or you use your own experience in-game and memory of what was where. I myself find it more satisfying to figure it out on my own, rather than use the wiki as a crutch. But to each their own. Now that we know we want iron ore, and where to find it, it becomes a matter of how to get it. You might be thinking “What do you mean how? I just go get it, right?” Well yes, and no. At low levels, or playing in a zone with mobs far below your level, yeah, just go get it. At higher levels though, they tend to throw big nasty mobs in the areas with the higher tier materials. Depending on the zone, you might need to organize a farming run with some friends or guildmates. The same applies for farming loot off mobs; if you can handle them on your own no problem, excellent. If not, partner up with someone, and split the loot. Once you’ve done farming for a while, or your bags are full, you of course sell it to a vendor, or auction house.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let me share some tips and tricks with you. First, check the market on items you know you can get your hands on. If it sells for a good price and/or moves quickly, then you’ll make a ton of dough farming it. In LotRO I farmed a specific jeweler material because it had the best sell price for how many I could farm in an hour. This brings us to the golden rule: time is money. The quantity you can farm in an hour greatly affects your profits. If you can farm 100 units of iron ore in an hour, and only 50 coal, the obvious choice of item to farm would be iron ore, right? Not necessarily. If the iron ore sells for 500 gold, and the coal for 300 gold, you get the following ratios: 5:1 and 6:1. This means each iron ore is worth 5 gold, and each coal is worth 6 gold. Therefor the coal is more worth your time than the iron. Supply and demand plays a big part in the prices (crafting materials in particular). The higher the demand, the more people are willing to pay. The lower the supply, the more people are willing to pay. These are the items that will roll you in coin if you find a good place to farm them. Items in low demand and high supply sell for almost nothing to other players, and you’re probably better off selling them to the vendor. Whether you’re farming a specific item, or just random stuff, spawn times matter. A lot. The faster something re-spawns, the faster you can kill it or gather from it. Sometimes you’ll find something that re-spawns instantly. Odds are, that is worth farming the hell out of. A common tactic to farm as much as possible is to farm in a circular pattern, so that there is always something in front of you. If someone else if farming in the same area as you, and you find yourself one node behind them, I find it best to turn around, and go the way I came. Otherwise the two of you will be constantly “stealing” from one another, and you will not farm as many items. The last tip I got for right now is to get a mount ASAP, and use it whenever possible. Time is money after all.

I’ll leave you gold goblins for now, with a quote to ponder:
“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know it is.”
- Oscar Wilde

A WoW Economy

It's not a very easy thing to do, posting a blog per day that is. It's hard to stress that my methods will work for any game. Not just for one in particular, but any game. That is not to say that it isn't work. This line of things is not for everyone. It's not given to you like cheats would, or like hacks or bots. These guides allow you to achieve for yourself, but with help. It's just like these blogs, I am not at this alone. I have help. Help, from individuals whom have proved themselves worthy of the Gold Goblin tag. I look forward to reading what they have to say, as I am sure you look forward to that as well. Hopefully, with any luck, you are reading this now, and are excited, like I am, for the things to come.

I got my start with gold economies from World of Warcraft. The name now, makes me cringe. I realized that I really have no photo evidence of my success on World of Warcraft. I only have my word. Seeing is believing so to speak. So over the course of the "waiting 3 months."  I will show, and explain my methods in depth, via YouTube. Unfortunately for me, this means either resubscribing to World of Warcraft, or "borrowing" an account from someone who already plays. Most likely what I will do is create an entirely new account, using the basic World of Warcraft game. I will not need the expansions to show that my methods work. I will attempt to show you each week, my progress, from limited to no leveling, and moderately all auction house transactions, that it is possible to show a large increase from start to finish, in a few days, if not less. 

As I have mentioned before, becoming a Gold Goblin, is not for the faint of heart. It takes work, a LOT of research, and time. You may find yourself getting up at 6 am to get in on those auction house deals, or those early market trades. Like anything else, including real life work, none of the work matters, it's the pay day that counts. Yes, it may suck, and yes, it is boring. People pay good money for tips like these. Here, you pay nothing but your time reading the blogs. Your success, is our payment. 

Share us, follow us. More to come I promise you.

-CB

Auction Houses? Guild Stores.

Hello Internet! Happy New Year.

For those of you following ESO (Elder Scrolls Online), you probably know that there is no Auction House. Instead, there are Guild Stores. This changes the nature of economy and trade in ESO. Most MMOs go with a system of being able to buy from any player, and being able to sell to any player, and being able to view EVERYTHING currently on the market. With Guild Stores, your market is now limited to a maximum of 1500 players. PLAYERS. You see, each account gets to join 5 guilds. And unless I missed something, the guild cap is 300. It has been said the guild cap will probably rise, I’m guessing to 500. Even still, this puts your market up to 2500 potential buyers.

If you’re a crafter, you’ll have to manage your guilds very carefully. If you’re not a crafter, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. I don’t mind. As a crafter, you’ll need to make sure you’re in active guilds with a ton of people in them. Preferably with no other crafters. You’ll need active and full guilds to maximize that 1500-2500 player base, and have characters that are leveling up and need new gear, more potions, or more food. So if you haven’t yet, check out some guilds, join one or two. Going back a bit, I said “Preferably with no other crafters”. I really meant to say “with almost no other crafters making the same stuff as you”. By being one of the only people crafting a certain item in your guild, say, heavy armour, you’ve now got a niche market. Niche is kind of a funny word, isn’t it? Sounds a bit like quiche. To maximize this niche, you should only focus on the one craft. If you want to craft more than one type of item, that’s cool too. More people will buy your stuff if you’re selling more than one thing!

Even if you’re not crafting, it is still wise to select your guilds carefully if you want to make a buck off the Guild Store. If you like to buy things cheap, and re-sell them for a higher price, you’ll want to be in guilds outside of the Six Degrees of Separation (it’s ok if you need to google that or niche). What I mean is you want to be in guilds with as few people in common as possible. Because if someone is doing the same thing and is in the same guild as four of yours, you’ve got some serious competition. If you’re more of a PvPer or raider, consider joining some non-pvp or raiding guilds too. There will be less chance people are putting up the same items to the Guild Store. Of course, size and activity are also key to making money off any Guild Store. You won’t make any money off guilds with 20 people, and you only ever see yourself online.

As an afterthought, I remembered how Cyrodiil plays into this. I almost even clicked send to Chillbilly to post this article.
Cyrodiil (PvP) unlocks a whole new element to how Guild Stores function. If your guild owns a keep in Cyrodiil, anyone who visits that keep can browse your guild’s store. And likewise, you can browse the Guild Store of any keep your faction owns. So ideally, you want to be in five guilds that each controls a keep. If possible, at least one in each three alliances. If you can achieve this, then you can now sell to everyone playing the game.

I’ll leave you gold goblins for now, with a quote to ponder:
Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
- Andy Warhol


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