Playing as a trader/crafter in ESO unfortunately doesn't seem viable from what I know so far, I'm making the following assumptions:
- Any player can master all of the trade skills
- Trading is only face-to-face or in a Guild-wide stores
- Players can roll alts on the same account, in the same alliance
The reason I don't see it as viable is that with every player able to make the same items at the same quality there is little reason to trade with other players. I understand their reasoning for allowing mastery of all trade lines - that players would otherwise just train the other crafting skills on their alts, but I think there needs to be other restrictions in place or the world with have no economy.
How could this be fixed?
I don't agree with a global 'auction house' system for a game. That generally leads to the best items being available at very, very cheap prices. You cannot have a healthy economy when there are no restrictions on getting the best stuff.
What I'd like to see it something like Trader Skill lines which used the same skill points as other skills and for example might lift a limit on the number of items you can have listed for sale, allow setup of an NPC trader, allow trading in enemy territory, distance trading, trade taxes which can be lowered by the skill line etc. and/or tiered requirements (make higher level 'craftables' require other crafted components from other skill lines (E.g. potions require some glassware))
I'll finish by saying my opinion is based on my experience playing EVE (VERY strong economy) and by the original Star Wars Galaxies' take on trading (before WoW was released and they stupidified everything), trading and player housing was better in SWG than in any MMO that has come since and I'd like to see similar in ESO.
I'm sure some of you will say either (I) "It will make it too difficult" or (II) "I like being self sufficient" and I'd like to give my opinion on both these points -
(I) Personally I think getting back to difficult but more rewarding mechanics like old MMO's had is a good thing, it keeps out all the WoW kids that are the reason the current generation of MMO's are all simplified to the point of being clones of eachother and it's certainly done EVE no harm.
(II) Being self sufficient is fun for a while, but it limits interaction, stunts the economy and eventually makes the experience dull - I remember having queues of people waiting for buffs in SWG and the community spirit amongst everyone was what made the game so much fun, everyone talked and emoted at eachother, dancers (class) danced and everyone talked for a bit. and you could 'hear' eachother because the dedicated crafters had shops so people could find what they needed without millions of WTB spam messages.
What are your opinions on the subject?