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