How to Decentralize Ul'dah

Only way I see a world chat ever working is if they put a timer on it so you can only send a message once every 3 or 5 minutes. That being said, the central city may be Ul'Dah now, and you may not like it... But once ishgard comes out it will be the center for trade and grouping. All the other three cities will likely be reserved only for new players, and people doing class quests for new jobs they're leveling. They'll be ghost towns, kind of like bastok, sandy, and windurst were in jeuno, and then White gate days.

I am in support of a world channel. it's not something I really WANT but something I believe would help the current situation. That being said it should not be just one channel but broken down into a market/LFG/recruitment and possibly Company channels all with options to turn on/off. With it moderators to ensure content stays on the appropriate channels.

For the market wards, and this is just a crazy thought not something I think they will do. I think of putting the importance of the guilds up by putting each appropriate ward with each of the guilds, so if you want woodworking materials you go to the carpenter guild and access the instance there. this would only work for crafts and gatherers and for the sale of weapons and armor there would need to be somewhere you can access everything, like a barracks with all the classes represented. The Crafting/gathering guilds would spread out the population. With the barracks you can link them to all 3 of the cities but identify which city the item you are buying is from and impose a shipping fee to bring it to your city, or possibly even better a small cost reduction from buying from the same city.

Another thought I had, and this takes from my time playing Eve was the ability to post requests to the market system. It seems like the vast majority of the population wants to decentralize ul'da. So if we could put a request for an item with a requested price in each city this would force crafters to look around and fill requests at each city. This is something that would work over some time and pull a good portion of trade from Ul'dah.

Again, I don't expect any of this, just my thoughts and I would rather be constructive in my thinking and not destructive or negative.

my 3 gil.

I have to admit that the congestion in Uldah can be annoying. Okay so its handy when you want something repaired but I know a lot of players who can't get a retainer into the wards there because it's so full.
There are many things that could be done to improve things from altering the taxes paid in the wards in other cities, increasing leve sp in other cities, and yes even opening Ishgard.

What are some other MMOs that a Free and open world chat have worked in?
I have played some dying MMOs that had it added, but I hae never played a highly populated or thriving MMO that had world chat. I mean if 5 people go to shouting in Uldah my chat window fills up. But if there is something I may chose to read or wish to know, I have to let it go so I can read what I want. I can definently see that failing when 500 people serer wide ar doing that. How would that work? (I ask this at the risk that technolust will further attempt to have me put to death, as I have learned, if you speak your opinion and it differs from his on this thread he will utilize his psychic power to tell you what you really mean.)

world chat posses both good and bad points.

at end of the day a world chat is a good idea however it needs to be pretty specific with ALOT of filter option. i dont want to be sat there crafting away and not see "your preserve effect wears off" because i have more junk coming through the chat log than needed. that said i do use both chat boxes.

perhaps being able to add more tabs to the chat boxes so we can have world chat in its own chat tab would be helpful.

i cant see everyone spamming in it. /say is only really used when people are talking cross LS otherwise most people tend to stick within thier ls chat for what i've seen.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

What are some other MMOs that a Free and open world chat have worked in?
I have played some dying MMOs that had it added, but I hae never played a highly populated or thriving MMO that had world chat. I mean if 5 people go to shouting in Uldah my chat window fills up. But if there is something I may chose to read or wish to know, I have to let it go so I can read what I want. I can definently see that failing when 500 people serer wide ar doing that. How would that work? (I ask this at the risk that technolust will further attempt to have me put to death, as I have learned, if you speak your opinion and it differs from his on this thread he will utilize his psychic power to tell you what you really mean.)

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Eve Online does, sort of.

They have server-wide channels that are each dedicated to specific topics, such as trade, manufacturing, price check, and certain regions etc.

The thing is that players have to join those channels manually, so even though there's usually anywhere from 20k to 45k active players on (eve runs on a single shard), those channels aren't all that busy.

Mandatory channels, such as newbie help, local channels at busy trade hub etc, on the other hand, is a spam fest, you'd be hard-pressed to read anything useful through the barrage of spams.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

(I ask this at the risk that technolust will further attempt to have me put to death, as I have learned, if you speak your opinion and it differs from his on this thread he will utilize his psychic power to tell you what you really mean.)

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Really? This again? Stay on topic, their is no need for this in your post. Thought the mods were clear?

I realize I titled my OP incorrectly, but it honestly was the best way to describe what my point was. I understand as with the rest of the players that you can never truly decentralize a hub. I'm not asking for that to happen. What I'm asking for is to allow the players to occupy other city-states without being cut off from the rest of the world. If I want to go hang out in Limsa don't 'force' (Yes, yes we all know I'm not really being forced, but all of you know what I mean) me to have to go back to Ul'dah to sell items or buy items.

I shouldn't miss out on pickup raids, or sp parties, or nm hunts just because I prefer to hang out in an area that is less congested. I think the two options I offered will help make the other two cities more populated then they are currently. I know Ul'dah will stay a hub most likely until Ishgard opens.

So you want the benefits of being in uldah, while not being there... I would suggest cloning your self.

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Originally Posted by Technolust

...Thank you.

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Today... YOU WIN!


Seriously, this must be addressed and I am sure SE is on it. They didn't take years designing LL and GA just to let them go to waste. I am sure they will do whatever it takes. A centralize market ward is definitely one of the most important pieces to making that a reality.

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Originally Posted by Griss

So you want the benefits of being in uldah, while not being there... I would suggest cloning your self.

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Or do like I had to and make a shouting ape-mule.

I think the link/clone wards idea is good as well as making the search function a little more global. Linked markets with the establishment of alliances seems story fit as well as a "linked" economy. Plus the Ul'dahan in me sees prosperous trade as the heart of the alliance yes?

After all, anytime I leave my glorious hometown to head to that stick and tree hovel up north its so inconvenient to have to trot back home to a proper country to grab some spare materials.

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Originally Posted by Technolust

I'd rather them spend less time having to try and create a new AH system, and focus on other aspects of the game that need more attention. Making the market wards so they share one instance is much better then rebuilding an entire AH system.

I like the market wards, I prefer them to auction houses. Yet having an Auction house wouldn't decentralize Ul'dah it would still be an issue.

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Techno, at this point the market system needs to be changed drastically. As of right this minute I could go into Uldah wards on Besaid keep trying to summon a retainer and not be able to do it at all. Its so populated, people have started 'saving' spots for later in the wards by leaving retainers up or putting all their alts retainers up and flooding the wards. Its absolutely ridiculous, the system is a failure.

Whats your next suggestion? Increase the retainer cap in the area? Okay we already did that, so now it takes even longer for retainers to load, once PS3 hits the wards will be a cluster **** and no one will be able to place retainers at all, its hard enough to TRY and do it now on populated servers. The problem here is they keep tweaking the market wards when they should just add in a linked AH system with a better search feature.

As far as world chat goes, sure they can add in a world chat. But we all know whats going to happen. Asshats spamming the crap out of it for trade, RMT spamming gold selling websites and morons arguing in chat, in the end it will be a cesspool of idiots like most MMOs, most people will turn it off. The search feature just needs to be tweaked and the ability to add custom messages for Loooking for members as well as looking for group.

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Originally Posted by kwestro

We just need an AH that's connected to all three cities. Problem solved. A world chat that you can toggle and filter would be great as well.

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Easy solution: Implement an NPC delivery service for buying goods in another city. That solves it.

Also, Ul'dah will get decentralized anyway when they open Ishgard.

Fully support this idea, one massive market ward to encompass all city states would be ideal IMO (assuming they could keep it stable) and agree with the world chat option as well, we need something to help assist in making parties until they decide to update the party search function.

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Originally Posted by Vesper

Techno, at this point the market system needs to be changed drastically. As of right this minute I could go into Uldah wards on Besaid keep trying to summon a retainer and not be able to do it at all. Its so populated, people have started 'saving' spots for later in the wards by leaving retainers up or putting all their alts retainers up and flooding the wards. Its absolutely ridiculous, the system is a failure.

Whats your next suggestion? Increase the retainer cap in the area? Okay we already did that, so now it takes even longer for retainers to load, once PS3 hits the wards will be a cluster **** and no one will be able to place retainers at all, its hard enough to TRY and do it now on populated servers. The problem here is they keep tweaking the market wards when they should just add in a linked AH system with a better search feature.

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Yes I understand the congestion you speak of, I have issues with it as well. With my OP I'm talking about having 3 separate market wards that are linked. Then the issues of everyone putting their retainers in one cities market wards will hopefully be alleviated. Despite what the popular opinion might think there are a lot of us that would love to make Limsa or Gridiana our port of call.

Linking 3 separate wards would be awesome. Hell you could even set it up insofar as this.

Keep the market wards, link all 3 market wards zones to each other, give people the ability to search through the system with current search system but allow people to buy from the search function and have the item either mailed or dropped into persons inventory.

That would solve a lot of issues people seem to have. It wouldn't scrap the market wards, so people can still access them and store their items.

World chat, yeah their will always be idiots who spam world/trade chat black list is an awesome tool to fix a lot of that.

i dont know if this has been pointed out but theres 2 or 3 definate advantages to linking all 3 cities marks

1) allows you to view other cities retainers without having to travel to them first (in some cases only to find it doesnt have what you need)

2) encourages people to place retainers in gridania or LL

3) reduces demand on ul'dah market ward meaning people can actually summon thier retainers there if they wish to.

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Originally Posted by Technolust

Yes I understand the congestion you speak of, I have issues with it as well. With my OP I'm talking about having 3 separate market wards that are linked. Then the issues of everyone putting their retainers in one cities market wards will hopefully be alleviated. Despite what the popular opinion might think there are a lot of us that would love to make Limsa or Gridiana our port of call.

Linking 3 separate wards would be awesome. Hell you could even set it up insofar as this.

Keep the market wards, link all 3 market wards zones to each other, give people the ability to search through the system with current search system but allow people to buy from the search function and have the item either mailed or dropped into persons inventory.

That would solve a lot of issues people seem to have. It wouldn't scrap the market wards, so people can still access them and store their items.

World chat, yeah their will always be idiots who spam world/trade chat black list is an awesome tool to fix a lot of that.

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This seems like its just a single step away from being an AH house and at that point, may as well go the distance and make it an auction house. If with an AH people can still use their retainers at bells for storage.

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Originally Posted by Vesper

This seems like its just a single step away from being an AH house and at that point, may as well go the distance and make it an auction house. If with an AH people can still use their retainers at bells for storage.

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Honestly if it were that simple to create an Auction House interface they might have already done it. It seems to me that the way this game was coded, did not allow for drastic changes. I've discussed this with other programmers, and some of us have come to the conclusion that SE did not think ahead with coding changes.

My response to your previous post was merely a simpler fix in what SE could do without overhauling the entire market wards/auction house system. Yes the market wards do need to be revamped. Yet it's been beaten to death, my OP is about making stuff easier with the current system.

Thank you for the intelligent discourse! =)

I would prefer the linked market wards over an AH system. Reason being that I don't like the system of bidding and trying not to overpay for an item that an AH would bring. I like the simple listing of items for prices.

The thing is, I wouldn't mind being able to just buy from the item search interface. The walking around to each retainer who has your items is such a waste of time for no good purpose.

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Originally Posted by Technolust

Honestly if it were that simple to create an Auction House interface they might have already done it. It seems to me that the way this game was coded, did not allow for drastic changes. I've discussed this with other programmers, and some of us have come to the conclusion that SE did not think ahead with coding changes.

My response to your previous post was merely a simpler fix in what SE could do without overhauling the entire market wards/auction house system. Yes the market wards do need to be revamped. Yet it's been beaten to death, my OP is about making stuff easier with the current system.

Thank you for the intelligent discourse! =)

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Coding... yeah I am not a coder, but the coding in this game has to be an absolute nightmare, everytime they announce a feature that is coming its "but its hard" or "very complicated". Maybe with their next mmo they will finally get this stuff down...

But again I am still pro-auction house, even if it takes 6 months to implement. I standbye my thought that once PS3 launches wards are going to be an even bigger mess, even if people spread out a bit.. Just increasing caps again is going to be no help in the end as wards MAY start crashing again, at the very least the lag will get worse, especially on people who are not running the game great rigs.

They have already taken steps to decentralize Ul'dah. One dungeon in Coerthas, one in the Black Shroud, and guild marks only given with leves taken from the city which houses the guild you're trying to earn marks with. The only zone relatively unused is Mor Dhona. It will probably not be decentralized more until the grand companies take shape and SE finally gets around to releasing a global auction house.

global chat only makes sense in games with fewer players

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Originally Posted by Echo

They have already taken steps to decentralize Ul'dah. One dungeon in Coerthas, one in the Black Shroud, and guild marks only given with leves taken from the city which houses the guild you're trying to earn marks with. The only zone relatively unused is Mor Dhona. It will probably not be decentralized more until the grand companies take shape and SE finally gets around to releasing a global auction house.

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Its not doing much, people still gather in Uldah to shout and form their parties for this THEN move onto those places lol

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Originally Posted by Echo

They have already taken steps to decentralize Ul'dah. One dungeon in Coerthas, one in the Black Shroud, and guild marks only given with leves taken from the city which houses the guild you're trying to earn marks with. The only zone relatively unused is Mor Dhona. It will probably not be decentralized more until the grand companies take shape and SE finally gets around to releasing a global auction house.

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Sorry that in my mind doesn't work towards decentralizing Ul'dah. You still have to gather in the most populated area to put groups together, and you still have to go to Ul'dah to sell stuff.

My vote would be to add the ability to search all markets regardless of location, and then give users the ability to buy from the search list... But if the item is placed in another city, there would be a small "delivery" fee for not having to run to the retainer.

This along with a global chat channel, and a player search, and seek party flag would really open up the world so players won't feel like Ul'dah was the be all end all.