playerbase down 25% in 4 months?

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Originally Posted by Platinumstorm

I wouldn't worry much about the population. The game isn't even a "release candidate" yet, so the population means nothing. There's still a year left before Square needs to worry about the population.

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Let's hope they do one hell of a marketing campaign if/when it gets cleared for a PS3 release.

They sure a fighting an uphill battle. Whenever they release a new patch, they get a lot of positive feedback from the community; for about 2 weeks, when that there's nothing else to do becomes evident once again. There simply isn't enough "base goodness" in this game to grow on. It still is in beta a year after its release.

I wonder how newcomers would react to the game world, though. For them, the content we were fed bit by bit may sum up to look like an impresive amount...?

Depends how fast they blast through the ranks. Honestly, if they raised their ranks to the appropriate mark to do missions and quests, by the time they do them all, more content should be out. That's for new players though.

Hmm...was it really necessary to revive this thread, Rinsui? Move from one thread to another, and spark a different argument...

And 2 weeks after the major patch....comes patch 1.18a. Now, it may not be rivetting new content to keep us all engaged, but the fact they release something to the game 2 weeks after the patch says something. Besides, did you honestly expect a patch to really provide enough content to last you months and months and months? That's what expansions are there for, I think.

Newcomers....well, for one, there's at least twice as much content as there was at launch. Not to mention that, if the newcomer decides to participate in quests and missions, they'll have enough harder to view the same amount of content as worthwhile.

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Hmm...was it really necessary to revive this thread, Rinsui?

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I guess: no. Some dogs should be left asleep. Mea culpa.

I also believe that newcomers joining now will already have a much better ride than we; there is quite a bit of content in the game already. In a way, the "loyal" players who never stopped playing are sort of an old mortage SE tries to pay off bit by bit - they will never be satisfied, because for them every patch will bring just a pittance of new stuff. Which would suggest that simply shutting the game down for a few month would have been an interesting solution... but that's also an old, and fruitless discussion.

I, for my part, consider myself a Beta Tester. Nothing more, and nothing less. I belong to an absolute minority of players who, when and if the game has it's re-launch in a few months, will be around to tell a tale of very humble beginnings. I don't really expect to be satisfied with the scheduled updates. Guys like me are way to few in number to actually matter from a business standpoint.

I am just a guinea pig that helps to shape a game. And I'm o.k. with that. I pay nothing, and if I want to, I am free to quit and come back whenever I want. For my "services" as a guinea pig, I just reserve myself the right to suggest, complain and rage whenever I fell like it. Simple.

The way I see it, we are getting a head start before this game is really released. :P We aren't paying because SE have a bigger income than they have a loss from this game. They aren't losing money really, so it's not big deal to them. Enjoy the free ride and when the game is released on ps3, there will be a ton of new players starting from scratch and we will have completed the game lol.

I wouldn't mind have more up to date figures, particularly since last patch.

This will only get worser i believe.. 1 of the reasons is the extreme Mp costs on Cure. People that solo the compplete time they are on are now forced to party. As you would need a mage to get cured.
I played lesser since the 1.18 as it just doesn't seem to be in any use to play solo anymore. And i just don't like to party up.
The way it is now with the Mp.. It kind of is boring as you have to attack weaker mobs.
Guess we all have to wait and see what happens with the next patches.
But completely giving up on FF.. never :) There is still hope.

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Originally Posted by Drunk-Bandit

Square enix... plz shut this game down and just focus on FFXI >.>.... Ppl still actually play that game...

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Or just make this FFXI-2 plz.

Aaah, 2-chan script kiddies that think they can produce valid statistics with an empyrical crawler.

That crawler only tracks accounts that shown a change in the SP totals. Guess what? someone that's at 50 already and does only activities that pertain his maxed classes (NM hunting, dungeons, crafting and so forth) does NOT have any increase in SP.

The more time goes on, the more people get to cap in all the classes they want, and dedicate themselves only to endgame activities (that in this game aren't numerous, but they do exist, and can still fill up someone's time unless he plays a lot), according to that crawler, all those people are considered "inactive".

Good job producing a completely invalid and actually misleading statistic there. May want to apply to write on sankaku complex, lol.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Aaah, 2-chan script kiddies that think they can produce valid statistics with an empyrical crawler.

That crawler only tracks accounts that shown a change in the SP totals. Guess what? someone that's at 50 already and does only activities that pertain his maxed classes (NM hunting, dungeons, crafting and so forth) does NOT have any increase in SP.

The more time goes on, the more people get to cap in all the classes they want, and dedicate themselves only to endgame activities (that in this game aren't numerous, but they do exist, and can still fill up someone's time unless he plays a lot), according to that crawler, all those people are considered "inactive".

Good job producing a completely invalid statistic there.

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Hey umm..

It doesn't track chars with full rank 50s, I built one of these script for network sites a while back and it wouldnt surprise me if they used it (or modded it). I also run a site based on in-game activity (not just SP but everything you do ingame) and things are gradually slowing down, but more like 25% over 8 months.

But we all know you'd defend the game if it gave your cancer.


If you dont want to believe in that, look at the producer letter compared to the last one, dropped 50% in views and NA 33%. (30k/10k respectively), interest is dying.

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Originally Posted by viion

Hey umm..

It doesn't track chars with full rank 50s, I built one of these script for network sites a while back and it wouldnt surprise me if they used it (or modded it). I also run a site based on in-game activity (not just SP but everything you do ingame) and things are gradually slowing down, but more like 25% over 8 months.

But we all know you'd defend the game if it gave your cancer.

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if it doesn't track chars with full rank 50s it's even less valid. Without even mentioning all those people that don't have ALL 50s, but just the ones they want/need, and just do NMs/dungeons/crafting on their maxed clases, without gaining any SP in their lower classes.

As for your site, that'd be a valid statistical source? because you know, "things gradually slowing down" can easily mean that people are gradually stopping to use your site (since it requires manual updates). Thought ever occurred to you?

But we all know you'd bash this game even if it was a perfect 10/10 that made coffee and cleaned your house on top of it. It's called obsession.

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

They sure a fighting an uphill battle. Whenever they release a new patch, they get a lot of positive feedback from the community; for about 2 weeks, when that there's nothing else to do becomes evident once again. There simply isn't enough "base goodness" in this game to grow on. It still is in beta a year after its release.

I wonder how newcomers would react to the game world, though. For them, the content we were fed bit by bit may sum up to look like an impresive amount...?

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That's just it, there's no way to reasonably put out enough content to keep people who have been playing since launch busy for longer than a few weeks at a time. This is because they've done everything else and the new content is the ONLY thing to do. Every bit of content added is important for new players though as it is even more to aspire and look forward to.

I highly doubt the increased mp cost is directly responsible for people not playing or will cause incoming players to turn away. This is just as ridiculous as claiming that anima will cause people to turn away. No single issue of that sort is going to so easily turn away the average player.
As for the notion that 1.18 somehow made it "too difficult" to solo... i havent had any issue soloing. You just have to be smarter than the average mob :p

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Originally Posted by Abriael

if it doesn't track chars with full rank 50s it's even less valid. Without even mentioning all those people that don't have ALL 50s, but just the ones they want/need, and just do NMs, without gaining any SP in their lower classes.

As for your site, that'd be a valid statistical source? because you know, "things gradually slowing down" can easily mean that people are gradually stopping to use your site (since it requires manual updates). Thought ever occurred to you?

But we all know you'd bash this game even if it was a perfect 10/10 that made coffee and cleaned your house on top of it. It's called obsession.

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When my visitor count is increasing every day, no that doesn't occur to me.

If it was a perfect 10/10 and made coffee, infact i dont like coffee but i'd drink it because the game would be a 10/10.

And how would ignoring a straight 50 be less invalid? You think characters with 19x50's overrule every other character? ....... thats retarded if you think it does lol. Less than 0.1% probably have a full 50.

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Originally Posted by OJtheLIONKing

I'm not surprised. i know the dev team is working their asses off because their jobs likely depend on this game succeeding, but development takes a long time, and players' patience is not nearly as long. I don't want to believe it, but this game may have been doomed from launch even if what Yoshida said about not having to please investors is true. I have trouble seeing how SE will develop enough content that's both quality enough to be fun and sufficient to occupy players, since the game shipped with almost none. It feels like they'd need a whole other development team just for adding content until it gets to an acceptable level, then they could continue with the standard one, but this game's been a big enough monetary drag on SE as is so I doubt that'll happen.

As an earlier post mentioned, the next few patches would probably have to be dynamite to keep this game at a "fair" population even if it is free. Hell, I have more to do on some F2P games than I do on this one right now, and the slow slog to rank 50 doesn't help motivation.

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Sometimes I think it would have been better for them to take the game offline, get player feedback as they did, put the new team in place as they did... and then just dig in and get some serious work done for the next year.

Do another closed beta *only* with those who were shown to provide useful feedback in the previous beta cycle. That is, not people looking to jump into the game so they can play for 10 minutes and then immediately start spamming every forum they know of with "The game still sucks! It's gonna fail!".. because we know those people exist and that their sad little lives revolve around such crap... But I digress...

Do betas in "cycles" with each cycle very specifically focused on specific mechanics and systems. I know they did this in the actual betas, but it wasn't really "focused". It was the same general beta, but with SE asking people to please test "this system" or "that system". Many people were only concerned with making as much progress as they could before the game went retail, playing it as though it were the live release.

During this beta period, *listen* to the feedback - the useful feedback that is (it's always important to distinguish the signal from the noise; to recognize whether feedback is truly helpful for the game, or merely an individual wanting it changed to suit them personally) - and make adjustments. Do *not* go the route of "Well it's working as designed and people will see how it all works out fine in live release..." as Tanaka did.

That was a *huge* mistake on his part, especially considering even after live, people had exactly the same complaints... only there were more of them, and now it was too late to do something about it. The cat was out of bag and the milk was spilt. He assured people the shortcomings we saw were "only because we were seeing 10% of the complete game"... only for us to find out that wasn't true; that what we saw in Beta was exactly what we would see in release.

It was tragic the way he mis-handled the feedback he got in Beta. A lot of it was *very* poignant and *very* good feedback, especially in hindsight. There have been some very intelligent and insightful people in this game's community.. especially during beta.

I think if they were to go back into dev mode and proceed on the path they're on now, with the approach Yoshi's been taking, it would do much better for them.

Some people may disagree because it would have prevented them from playing it in the short-term. I personally believe - and this is just my feeling - that it would have served the game far better in the long term if they'd done that.

Rather than getting burned out on lack of content, repetitive environments and so forth... Anticipation would have built up for it again. People would be more and more curious about what changes they were making, etc. It wouldn't have been "in their face" every moment, so their curiosity would keep them engaged.

Just my two cents though.

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Originally Posted by viion

When my visitor count is increasing every day, not that doesn't occur to me.

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Visitors don't necessarily involve character updates. And if your visitor counter is increasing every day, that's pretty funny how you claim that "things are slowing down". Gotta love when you contradict yourself in your obsessive need to bash this game.

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If it was a perfect 10/10 and made coffee, infact i dont like coffee but i'd drink it because the game would be a 10/10.

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You seem to drink it anyway, considering you continue to post in a forum and even mantain a site dedicated to a game that you obviously hate. Obsession much?

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And how would ignoring a straight 50 be less invalid? You think characters with 19x50's overrule every other character? ....... thats retarded if you think it does lol. Less than 0.1% probably have a full 50.

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You forgot all those people that have maxed all the classes they want/need, and that don't level other classes beyond that. They can still easily do dungeons/NM/Crafting with their maxed classes and not earn a single SP. Oops.

Very convenient to forget them. But it doesn't fly.

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Originally Posted by GreatLeviathan

This will only get worser i believe.. 1 of the reasons is the extreme Mp costs on Cure. People that solo the compplete time they are on are now forced to party. As you would need a mage to get cured.
I played lesser since the 1.18 as it just doesn't seem to be in any use to play solo anymore. And i just don't like to party up.

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Perhaps massively multiplayer online RPGs just aren't for you. I recommend Final Fantasy XIII, you can solo the whole game.

It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that this game is still dying off. This game will likely not see any true prime until PS3 and after (it's like a broken record around these forums).

I don't know about other servers but the playerbase of Wutai recovered quite a bit with 1.18. It's still low but the increase is noticeable everywhere. There was 4 people sat in the CRP guild just now, it used to be dead at this time of day. And I have seen many players returning who I hadn't seen in months.

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Originally Posted by rainfish

So apparantely someone made a post on the JP forums and made a lodestone crawler to check active players over the last 4 months, they found that around 25% have stopped logging on, even once in the last 4 month period from when they started scanning. Thats a large loss during free mode when they are still updating the game, that means those 25% didn't even bother to log in after updates to check stuff out.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...7781898&page=1

Link to the original JP post in that topic.

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This is because the direction of the game is still poor. I said it before that they should make it like classic ff11 as that would bring out alot of older players who want to re-live it in a new world with new graphics. but they instead increase the size of rats and beetles, still do not offer us an AH, refuse to bring back classic classes, allow gear to be worn by everyone, and make the world meaningless with no death penalty along with copy pasted zones and teleportation. They are still chasing the WoW crowd thinking theu could hit a home run but they will continie to fall flat on their face.

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Originally Posted by Argh

This is because the direction of the game is still poor. I said it before that they should make it like classic ff11 as that would bring out alot of older players who want to re-live it in a new world with new graphics. but they instead increase the size of rats and beetles, still do not offer us an AH, refuse to bring back classic classes, allow gear to be worn by everyone, and make the world meaningless with no death penalty along with copy pasted zones and teleportation. They are still chasing the WoW crowd thinking theu could hit a home run but they will continie to fall flat on their face.

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hey, look! Someone's completely out of the loop!

Funny how some rehash completely obsolete criticism to try and bash a game they don't play and they don't even keep up to date with.

Classic classes -> Coming
Gear -> Lots of it is restricted now
Death penalty -> Increased (and people are whining about it lol)
AH -> The wards now work like an AH.

Conclusion, you don't know what you're talking about, back under the bridge, please.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

I don't know about other servers but the playerbase of Wutai recovered quite a bit with 1.18. It's still low but the increase is noticeable everywhere. There was 4 people sat in the CRP guild just now, it used to be dead at this time of day. And I have seen many players returning who I hadn't seen in months.

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I was kinda thinking the same thing.

Yeah, it was *seriously* quiet in this game, even up to the evening before 1.18 released. I think there were all of 3 people in all of Gridania, including myself.

The day of the patch, however, I already saw a substantially greater number of people... easily a couple dozen. And it's really only increased since then. I regularly see people all over the place in Grid. now, as well as out in Black Shroud. I pass individuals and small groups killing mobs regularly, the aetheryte camps always have a group of people in them...

In my little spot in Ul'dah where I'm sitting right now as I type this, there are at least 30 small white dots showing on the area of the map shown in the compass. People are definitely active.. There are people running aorund, crafting, shouting for groups, etc. etc.

Indeed for the 4 months prior to 1.18, it was steadily losing population... However, since 1.18, I'd say it's definitely picked up... substantially. I'd say it's almost on par with what I saw at launch, overall (though at launch, you saw more people clustered in smaller areas as everyone was starting from scratch...)

It would be interesting to see what those stats show over the next few months as the new patches come out. I'm guessing that, as long as they continue to improve the game as they have been, and overall opinion remains positive as it's been, we'll see an increase.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

AH -> The wards now work like an AH.

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Was with ya up to here...

They're a step closer, but Wards are in no way working like an AH.

An AH doesn't require you to navigate through menus to first find the item, etc... then back out to a main menu, then select the ward, then teleport... then run to the NPC and buy your items. Then run to an invisible "trigger" in the room, select to either exit or to search for a new item, then warp to that floor... etc.

If the wards worked like an AH, you would do all business at a single location, ideally a counter clearly designated as an Auction Counter (or NPC, etc). You wouldn't be interacting with nothing, teleporting from instanced room to instanced room and chasing down NPCs to get the items once you've found them.

Auction House = No extraneous running and teleporting around to purchase an item once you've found it.

MW's are not quite there yet.

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

Was with ya up to here...

They're a step closer, but Wards are in no way working like an AH.

An AH doesn't require you to navigate through menus to first find the item, etc... then back out to a main menu, then select the ward, then teleport... then run to the NPC and buy your items. Then run to an invisible "trigger" in the room, select to either exit or to search for a new item, then warp to that floor... etc.

If the wards worked like an AH, you would do all business at a single location, ideally a counter clearly designated as an Auction Counter (or NPC, etc). You wouldn't be interacting with nothing, teleporting from instanced room to instanced room and chasing down NPCs to get the items once you've found them.

Auction House = No extraneous running and teleporting around to purchase an item once you've found it.

MW's are not quite there yet.

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The functionality is pretty much the same, with added functions like window shopping and actual visualization of what you're buying on a character.

the time lost by moving into a ward and buying the item (which you already know is the cheapest) from an NPC (that you definitely don't need to "chase down" as it's clearly visible, marked, and rezzes before all the others (but yay for the use of hyperbolic terms to try and make things look worse), is negligible. So yeah, It's basically an AH, and it's laughable to see some screaming bloody murder about it because it's not called "Auction House".

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Originally Posted by Abriael

hey, look! Someone's completely out of the loop!

Funny how some rehash completely obsolete criticism to try and bash a game they don't play and they don't even keep up to date with.

Classic classes -> Coming
Gear -> Lots of it is restricted now
Death penalty -> Increased (and people are whining about it lol)
AH -> The wards now work like an AH.

Conclusion, you don't know what you're talking about, back under the bridge, please.

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Not knowing what you're talking about doesn't make you a troll, it just makes you look dumb.

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the time lost by moving into a ward and buying the item (which you already know is the cheapest), is negligible.

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...
I knew it. For every stupid idea that turns of hordes of customers,
there's a few guys who actually like it.
Must be some sort of natural law.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

The functionality is pretty much the same, with added functions like window shopping and actual visualization of what you're buying on a character.

the time lost by moving into a ward and buying the item (which you already know is the cheapest) from an NPC (that you definitely don't need to "chase down" as it's clearly visible, marked, and rezzes before all the others (but yay for the use of hyperbolic terms to try and make things look worse), is negligible. So yeah, It's basically an AH, and it's laughable to see some screaming bloody murder about it because it's not called "Auction House".

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My biggest problem with the Market wards is how the price list for an item only lists the cheapest 20 of any item so if 33 people list the item you dont see the prices for the last 13. The only reason this is an issue for me is because generally people charge more for the HQ version of an item which means in my senario if 10 of the items were HQ and were the 10 most expensive of the type of item they wouldnt even make it on the list.So I would have to zone into every single ward and run from one end to the other to check for the HQ version of the item. That takes about 15 minutes for 1 item.

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Originally Posted by Benji

Not knowing what you're talking about doesn't make you a troll, it just makes you look dumb.

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Actually, someone that logs in the forum just to bash a game he doesn't even know about is the by-the-book definition of our dearest bridge-dwellers.

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

...
I knew it. For every stupid idea that turns of hordes of customers,
there's a few guys who actually like it.
Must be some sort of natural law.

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LOL, yeah, because having to actually go pick up an item at the market wards "turns off hordes of customers" right?

People with weak arguments need to make massive use of hyperbole to try and get a flawed point across. Must be some sort of natural law.

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Originally Posted by TonyMontana

My biggest problem with the Market wards is how the price list for an item only lists the cheapest 20 of any item so if 33 people list the item you dont see the prices for the last 13. The only reason this is an issue for me is because generally people charge more for the HQ version of an item which means in my senario if 10 of the items were HQ and were the 10 most expensive of the type of item they wouldnt even make it on the list.So I would have to zone into every single ward and run from one end to the other to check for the HQ version of the item. That takes about 15 minutes for 1 item.

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They're already implementing HQ search.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

The functionality is pretty much the same, with added functions like window shopping and actual visualization of what you're buying on a character.

the time lost by moving into a ward and buying the item (which you already know is the cheapest) from an NPC (that you definitely don't need to "chase down" as it's clearly visible, marked, and rezzes before all the others (but yay for the use of hyperbolic terms to try and make things look worse), is negligible. So yeah, It's basically an AH, and it's laughable to see some screaming bloody murder about it because it's not called "Auction House".

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"Yay for hyperbolic terms to try and make it look worse"? I was describing the steps required to purchase an item once you've located it.

Seriously... get off the defensive.

Not every response or disagreement with something you say is a personal attack. Not every description of something you personally are fine with is "hyperbole". In fact it's hyperbolic for you to characterize it as such.

FFS.

Whether it's "negligible" or not is completely subjective. The fact remains, it's extra steps required to do something that could otherwise be done with one or two simple menu clicks. Search Item > Select Item > Purchase Item.

Now go ahead and get all bent out of shape because I disagreed with you again.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

LOL, yeah, because having to actually go pick up an item at the market wards "turns off hordes of customers" right?

People with weak arguments need to make massive use of hyperbole to try and get a flawed point across. Must be some sort of natural law.



They're already implementing HQ search.

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When? Its been 10.5 months since I started playing retail.

Pretty much that. At least for me, the time spent shoving my way through ever-spawning zombie retainers is not negligible.

And,

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They're already implementing HQ search.

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is not true either. The English post is just a poor translation of the Japanese original, which basically says that "server problems first have to be sorted out, but we know about the problem". I would be seriously astonished if we get a HQ search before October. And that's just a frickin' search functionality. Nothing more. So don't tell me that the wards are *almost* as good as a real Ah.

And yes, I think that not having a proper AH was the final nail in the coffin for many potential players. Hordes of, if you like. And a good number will not even have tried the game because "LOLZ it doesn't even have a AH", a point which is rightfully stressed in all the reviews I am aware of.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

The functionality is pretty much the same, with added functions like window shopping and actual visualization of what you're buying on a character.

the time lost by moving into a ward and buying the item (which you already know is the cheapest) from an NPC (that you definitely don't need to "chase down" as it's clearly visible, marked, and rezzes before all the others (but yay for the use of hyperbolic terms to try and make things look worse), is negligible. So yeah, It's basically an AH, and it's laughable to see some screaming bloody murder about it because it's not called "Auction House".

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An auction house lets a player place bids on an item, not simply buy it. Also, auction houses typically aren't separated into dozens of rooms, filled with multiple people (retainers) through which you much search to find the items you've 'won'. There is something wrong with this in regards to flavor - it's a market ward, and not a functional auction house. If functionality was the same, so many people wouldn't be so quick to point out that they are, in fact, quite different.

Something feels off about it to a lot of players (as vocalized on the forums multiple times), so it's probably not yet correct to call it an AH. We'll know when this changes because, when it does, people will stop complaining that there is no AH, and instead start complaining about how much the AH sucks. ^^

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

"Yay for hyperbolic terms to try and make it look worse"? I was describing the steps required to purchase an item once you've located it.

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"chasing down" -> irrealistic hyperbole to make the process look more difficult than it is. You pop into the ward. The character is already there, clearly marked. It doesn't run away. There's no "chasing"

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Whether it's "negligible" or not is completely subjective. The fact remains, it's extra steps required to do something that could otherwise be done with one or two simple menu clicks. Search Item > Select Item > Purchase Item.

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You might have miscounted the clicks. With one or two clicks you don't even get to see the item list in all auction houses. Oh my god, there are "extra steps!"
It's negligible because it doesn't add a sizable amount of time to something that takes a minute (and on top of it gives additional functionality that an AH lacks). If a minute buying an item is such a big problem to you, so important that you think that a developer should waste development resources to completely scrap a system that most definitely works to implement a redundant one to save you a few clicks, sorry if i dare to laugh.

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If a minute buying an item is such a big problem to you, so important that you think that a developer should waste development resources to completely scrap a system that most definitely works to implement a redundant one to save you a few clicks, sorry if i dare to laugh.

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If a minute of turning a crank to start the engine of your car is such a hassle, then...
dang.

Btw: It doesn't matter what you believe or what the producers believe. People hate the wards. That's been proven by endless, countless numbers of polls, reviews, re-reviews and ragequits. We don't need to be convinced or proselytized. We are not small children, and neither you nor SE are our mommy. We don't like it, and we clearly stated why we don't. Whether you consider our arguments valid or not is completely unimportant. People simply leave.

And a hint for your life: sometimes when a girl tells you that she doesn't like you because you are fat, have greasy hair and smell of rotten cow dung, trying to convince her of your "natural charm" may be less effective than simply working out and taking a shower once in a while.

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Originally Posted by minihalcyon

An auction house lets a player place bids on an item, not simply buy it.

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No, that's ONE kind of auction houses. There are tons of games that have auction houses that involve no bidding at all.
Mind you, it's funny that you bring this up, as actual action houses that involve bidding are actually SLOWER than the market wards, as they involve more work in price checking and bidding.

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Also, auction houses typically aren't separated into dozens of rooms, filled with multiple people (retainers) through which you much search to find the items you've 'won'.

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You search through them in exactly the same way you do in an auction house -> Functional auction house.

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There is something wrong with this in regards to flavor - it's a market ward, and not a functional auction house. If functionality was the same, so many people wouldn't be so quick to point out that they are, in fact, quite different.

Something feels off about it to a lot of players (as vocalized on the forums multiple times), so it's probably not yet correct to call it an AH. We'll know when this changes because, when it does, people will stop complaining that there is no AH, and instead start complaining about how much the AH sucks. ^^

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MMORPG players are notoriously set in their ways, so much that you could define them fossilized. This is a clear proof of that. No matter how the market wards will become, people will whine because they're not named "auction house", which would make them feel that they have "won" by pressuring SE in scrapping a system that works to implement a redundant one.
Juvenile to say the least, but that's some MMORPG gamers for you.

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

If a minute of turning a crank to start the engine of your car is such a hassle, then...
dang.

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Apples to oranges. You aren't turning a crank (repeatitive, meaningless action), you're walking to a clearly market shopkeeper to buy an item.
By your logic, there should be no walking at all in the game.

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Btw: It doesn't matter what you believe or what the producers believe. People hate the wards. That's been proven by endless, countless numbers of polls, reviews, re-reviews and ragequits. We don't need to be convinced or proselytized. We are not small children, and neither you nor SE are our mommy. We don't like it, and we clearly stated why we don't. Whether you consider our arguments valid or not is completely unimportant. People simply leave.

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Translation of above: "I don't like the market wards (because they're not named Auction House, how dare they!), and since there are some people that post that they agree with me, I will assume everyone does. "

Sorry, but:
you =/= Everyone
you =/= People
you =/= The majority
you =/= HORDES of customers lol.

But since you're the one that posted the misrepresenting and misleading statistic that started this thread, I'm not surprised that your ideas of statistics are skewed.

Anyway, that misleading and meaningless statistic based on a false assumption has been debunked. There isn't much else to discuss to this thread. I'd advise considering the basic premises of a statistic next time you want to post one. Spreading misleading data isn't really the best idea.

I'll ignore the juvenile personal attack, just because it ain't worth my time.

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Originally Posted by GreatLeviathan

This will only get worser i believe.. 1 of the reasons is the extreme Mp costs on Cure. People that solo the compplete time they are on are now forced to party. As you would need a mage to get cured.
I played lesser since the 1.18 as it just doesn't seem to be in any use to play solo anymore. And i just don't like to party up.
The way it is now with the Mp.. It kind of is boring as you have to attack weaker mobs.
Guess we all have to wait and see what happens with the next patches.
But completely giving up on FF.. never :) There is still hope.

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Why are ppl playing MMO's if they want to solo all the time??? You know, MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER = lots of peeps to join with. Why don't you go play offline single player RPG's instead??

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Apples to oranges. You aren't turning a crank (repeatitive, meaningless action), you're walking to a clearly market shopkeeper to buy an item.
By your logic, there should be no walking at all in the game.

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Well, let's see.

1. Open search menu
2. Find your item.
3. Mark your item.
4. Confirm.
5. Close menu.
6. Choose appropriate ward.
-- Loading Screen --
8. Wait for the zombies to pop up.
9. Search for the right combination of name and red star.
10. Shove your way through the ever-spawning hordes of zombies.
11. Mark the respective retainer.
12. Confirm.
13. Scroll through its menu.
14. Confirm.
15. Select yes.
16. Confirm again.
17. Close the menu.
18. Head for one of the ends of the ward.
19. Shove your way through the ever-spawning horde of zombies.
20. Reach the end of the ward and wait for the menu to open.
21. Select leaving the wards.
-- Loading Screen --
22. Yay! I just bought a fearie apple!

(I'll skip steps 23-77, which deal with buying a stack of +3 twigs. No need to be mean.)

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Originally Posted by Abriael

No, that's ONE kind of auction houses. There are tons of games that have auction houses that involve no bidding at all.
Mind you, it's funny that you bring this up, as actual action houses that involve bidding are actually SLOWER than the market wards, as they involve more work in price checking and bidding.



You search through them in exactly the same way you do in an auction house -> Functional auction house.



MMORPG players are notoriously set in their ways, so much that you could define them fossilized. This is a clear proof of that. No matter how the market wards will become, people will whine because they're not named "auction house", which would make them feel that they have "won" by pressuring SE in scrapping a system that works to implement a redundant one.
Juvenile to say the least, but that's some MMORPG gamers for you.

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Well, if no bidding is involved, the semantics are incorrect. Auction Houses without bidding are more correctly called 'stores' (or, in the market wards case, 'bazaars"), and people should be clear in asking for such when arguing for them. I agree that the process of bidding is a longer process than simply buying an item - it's just another option that has been used in RPGs in the past.

Reading between the lines of some of the posts here, I'm gathering that the real issues in regards to the market wards are as follows:

1. There are several menus to navigate through. Problems with the clunky UI make this process as painful as it is in any other part of the game. It's probably not the number of clicks, but the delay between each click. This is relived once you find the retainer you've marked, since you have to again work through somewhat clunky targeting and sidebar menus to browse the retainer's items, and then a clunky purchase interface. These are mostly issues with the UI, and not the MW. The "stay in one place to do all of your shopping" mindset does alleviate some of these issues, but the UI would still make the experience a bit annoying. I believe UI fixes have been investigated and implemented (albeit in small doses) with each patch, so it may just be a matter of time before the bigger issue is tackled.

2. Once a desired item is found in the item search counter, the player must enter a new area to purchase it. This involves an awkward loading time and a transition to the same room that composes each section of the ward. For the bit of travel necessary to fetch the item, and the loading time involved, there is very little flavor or reason for things as they are.

I would like to mention, however, that there still is the issue of the AH in games like WoW, in which purchased items are placed in a Mailbox, and must be retrieved from there. This adds some travel time in the same fashion (and if many items are purchased at once, many items must be retrieved from the mailbox). Again, I think the issue is the slowness of the menus, and the loading time required to render a new room when travelling between market ward locations. They're just small annoyances that add up when executed in succession.