Originally Posted by
Akira-Niji
I think everyone knows an auction house system is coming. I think everyone wants a more intuitive way to make market translations more quickly without taking up our main time of adventuring either. Whenever the auction house system arrives, it will no doubt become the main use of transactions when implemented and the current market ward system will more or less fall back to being secondary--an instanced area to place your bazaar than lagging up zones like in XI. Hints of an auction house already exists in XIV and within posts from development and production teams, so it's not like it will never arrive.
It's clear one of the core tenants behind building XIV this time around was designing ways to curb RMT from exploiting and taking over the player's market. Releasing and refining the market wards first allowed the player's to establish control over the economy. Sure, it was both risky, unintuitive and revolutionary for an MMO. But an auction house system first would have allowed RMT to exploit, inflate, and control the economy from the start.
It has been stated that the upcoming auction house system will work in conjunction with the market wards. So I can understand the challenge they are facing in figuring out ways to implement something that RMT will inevitably exploit with minimal impact on players. For example, players are complaining now that they have too much money. This is a better situation to be in than having RMT inflate and control a market that pressures players into buying their own currency so that players can pay for their inflated prices. This is their cycle of control that you feed into if an auction house system fails just as XI and most MMO's have. So I commend them on creatively experimenting new ways to allow player's economic control.
Players should be supporting and helping SE with ideas and ways to implement an auction house system that will minimize this damage than just demanding one to be rushed out.
Personally, I've not had an issue with the market ward system in its current state. Is it more intuitive than an auction house? No. But would I rather afford things in game than feeling pressured into the cycle of an RMT controlled economy? Yes.