The Elder Scrolls Online does not have an in-game auction house. Its developers have decided to omit the system from their recently released MMORPG, reasoning that an auction house would severely impact the game’s economy in a negative fashion.
“You don’t necessarily want to do a global auction house for a game with one giant server because that generally leads to all the best gear being available at very, very cheap prices,” wrote gameplay designer Nick Konkle. (via Shoddycast, via Massively) “A lot of times that can trivialize the game.
“You cannot have a healthy economy when there are no restrictions on getting the best stuff in the game.”
That being said, the studio isn’t making it impossible to trade for items and is instead implementing an online marketplace outside of the game. Players will be able to trade, buy, and sell goods and services through the system, which consists of little more than a forum where users will type WTB (want to buy), WTS (want to sell) and WTT (want to trade). Details of the forum can be found in this post.
Our take: In all, it sounds like the developers ran out of time before they could implement a proper working auction house and decided to put a bandaid on it by setting up the forum. It makes you wonder how console gamers will have to deal with trading when the game is launched on the Xbox One and PS4 later this year. Check out our review here.
