Retainers, good idea? bad idea?

now I know XI isnt XIV but thinking about it in XIV they added the retainer(you can hire 2 to start) system that allows you to have an NPC do some tasks for you like selling things or holding on to things such as items you desire to keep(they can hold up to I think 175 items each) as well as holding onto Gil(no idea the limit on this).

if done right this could be a beautiful thing. I for one think they should consider something similar to this for XI.

agree? disagree? please give your reasons for either response and please keep it civil and please keep the "no because its not this game" argument out of it. those arguments are absolutely rediculous

FFXI has been doing retainers for 11 years. They're called mules. The only difference is we have had to pay for them, and I guess work for their storage capabilities. I guess I should be fair and mention the extreme ease of using retainers compared to FFXI and mules, but whatever. I don't see a need for it here. Whether it's a "retainer" or another inventory bag, it's all the same to me. I need the space. But I strongly believe the retainer thing in 14 is designed the way it is so as to avoid paying for mules or at least not as many, and maybe hide your main character from undercutted items on marketboards. That's really the only reason. It's basically the same exact thing as FFXI's AH and FFXI's storage system. It's just a different way of handling business. They could have just as easily decided to cut out the "middle man", gave you the storage however they saw fit, and using your own name to sell your goods on the market board.

So that's basically what you are suggesting at best for this game, is free mules to store items and sell product. I want that. You'd be a fool or a troll to say you don't want that. I'm not sure how likely it'd happen though in any form. They are struggling to give us more free space as it is. Why cut out mule profits at this point? It's not any meaningful large amount of money they are making, but it's still a measly couple million dollars a year, maybe, if everyone playing has 1 to 2 mules on average as has been suggested many times.

So, for FFXI, the age old money cow that keeps on giving, there isn't a lot of incentive to say yes to this suggestion when FFXI has been paying for their game development for 11 years. But even if we did get it, I'd still need my mules anyway thanks to how the crafting system works so I won't ultimately benefit from this. Dammit.

retainers are a wonderful thing, no muling between chars just summoning them and going direct inventory to inventory and its oh so wonderful to be able to put 40 items on the ah at once. for us crafters and gatherers, that is so much appreciated.

but I do not see them adding this feature unless it could be done quickly. ffxi seems to be declining into memory and I would rather the devs put effort into a single player version of the game so I never truly have to leave vana'diel