Having played around with both, I feel there’s a balanced way to combine the two while making everyone happy.
The Merchants Guild hasn’t popped off as well as it should have due to the lack of people engaging with the AH. It’s difficult to find an upgrade because it’s so subjective to what people deem worthy of selling. But the strength of economy comes from the amount of people engaged in it, if everyone had access to the AH, then we could get worthwhile results.
Currently with COF its back to hoarding gear in endless stash tabs until you forget what you have. We’ve gone back to beta gameplay but with better loot.
Suggestions;
- Keep the limitation on buying from the AH, the item being rendered non-tradable is enough of a balance point to keep the AH fair.
- Disallow player to player direct trading (this doesn’t really happen, there isn’t a trade chat. This just allows 3rd party trade sites to take advantage).
- Open the AH to everyone, no faction required.
- Favor is now spent on COF prophecies and buying / selling on AH. There shouldn’t really be an excess of favor with 3 ways to spend it, so this may render the favor gambler useless.
- Players who prefer SSF will spend more favor towards prophecies and therefore earning more loot for themselves.
- With the AH open to everyone, there will be a more stable market of items and flow of gold. We’ll more likely find upgrades and provide them to others.