Auction House vs Wards

Devs, leave the market wards in place for melded things. Let the wards become the place to get that double melded electrum scepter or whatnot, and have an auction house for basic sales.

Why ask us search 3X? No one does it, they just use the wards everyone else is using. I like the markets they just need to be much larger and merged together. Everyone knows If you don't get a spot in good market you don't sell anything. If there no room now, what will it be like with all the people that 2.0 aims to bring. It also needs a filter to turn off unmelded gear while searching! I guess we will have to see what they have planed before I say anymore. :)

Who says they cannot link the wards like they finally did with FFXI? Keep the Wards and the retainers. When you search for an item the system brings up the results from all 3 wards. This way people will not crowd into 1 city i.e. Ul"dah and we can keep our retainers for storage purposes.

Yoshi has said in the past that the wards will be linked in 2.0. There won't be a need to crowd in Uldah to sell anymore.

I sell a lot of stuff on an often basis. My issue with the market wards is it's usability. Having to walk back and forth from retainer to wards menu requires much more effort than it should. I shouldn't have to grab a piece of paper and pen to constantly write prices then move my retainer to set those prices over and over to stay competitive with selling my items. It really is a hassle and frustrating when I think of how easy it would be in an AH to look at price then immediately put my item up for sell instead of having to do unnecessary time consuming things several times a day just to sell items. Seems to take me at least triple the time just to put things up for sale in MW than it would have to do the same in a traditional AH.

I can not believe they would be that dumb to keep the wards after every single gaming site on the planet told them it's a horrible system.

Sure they fixed into the direction of an AH but it's nowhere near the AH quality of other MMO's yet.

Seriously stop wasting time on this BS already it has been polled and discussed to death with always the majority wanting an AH every single time.

There simply is no need to discuss this any further in any shape or form. EXCEPT if they are not listening or somehow have missed thousands of replies and game reviews that have been on the internet and are dead set on working on that atrocity?! What the hell?

Can you please use the time more productively and fix the storytelling and add story to quests with better rewards instead?

We should be over this issue 12 months ago.

I dont care about having market wards, what I would like is a centralized search system like they mentioned.. if that happens you can place your retainer in any city and it wont matter

Whatever the final system that comes in play, I just wish it makes it easier to find HQ items and to discourage players who post items for max Gil.

Please no more wards.. just use an auction house.


I refuse to use the system we have now. It's actually that bad, I haven't sold anything to a player ever, because the amount of menus you have to go through makes me want to throw myself out a window.

Creative ideas are nice, but the current system of wards are not working.

Creativity is nice when it works.

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Originally Posted by Yellow

Please no more wards.. just use an auction house.

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They're the same system. Unless you can explain to me why an Auction House would be better WITHOUT stating:

1. A search feature (Market Wards does this.)
2. Listing who's selling (Market Wards does this, only it's the retainers.)
3. Price history. (Market Wards does this.)
4. How many up (Market Wards does this.)
5. Buying from search (Market Wards does this.)

So feel free to explain why an Auction House system would be superior to this, as we already know they're making adjustments to it for 2.0 to separate the HQ/Meld listings from NQ listings. Also don't even lie and say people want to "bid" because when people say Auction House we're not talking FFIX style bidding, we're talking opening an interface and buying flatout, this is what the majority of people are referring to, which the market wards does.

Oh you know what else they do most AH's doesn't? Buy items for you.

Agreed...get rid of the damn Market Wards, I have not been able to sell anything because of this crappy system...I refuse to sit there and battle a system for space for my retainer, only to have them dropped in a week if Im busy with school/life/work.

ABOLISH THE MARKET WARD

I actually have fun browsing, selling, and purchasing from auction houses in other MMO's, the market wards (improvements or not) are simply not entertaining. They're frustrating and an annoyance on all fronts and drive players away.

I really wish I could send a personal plea to Yoshi-P to replace the wards entirely with the traditional AH system. I'll buy him cigs and coffee and everything!

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Originally Posted by Kio

I actually have fun browsing, selling, and purchasing from auction houses in other MMO's, the market wards (improvements or not) are simply not entertaining. They're frustrating and an annoyance on all fronts and drive players away.

I really wish I could send a personal plea to Yoshi-P to replace the wards entirely with the traditional AH system. I'll buy him cigs and coffee and everything!

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Explain the differences between an AH and MW without stating features they both utilize which makes them the same system.

You state traditional AH system, traditional AH system consists of:

1. Searching for an item.
2. Buying said item.
3. Selling items.

Yes, a traditional AH consists of all of those elements as does MW. The thing is an AH consist of all of those in the same place and window. I sell hundreds of varying types of items per day. When they allow me to put things up for sell from the purchasing window I can see myself supporting the system. But if that were the case, then why even have retainers? To be so adamantly in support of MW you must not sell many items. It really is a hassle spending unneeded time going back and forth between purchasing interface and retainer to put my items up for sell. I feel as though it is a waste of my time that could be spent doing far more productive things. I'm tired of having papers all over my desk with items and their prices. lol

Other than putting items on retainers, the current system is pretty much an auciton house.

You have item searching, buy from the item list. from the buyer's perspective, it's exactly like an auction house. I'm sick of these "ABOLISH THE WARDS GIMME AN AH" threads when

1) The wards really aren't that different from an AH
2) an AH is not the only possible good trade system in the known universe.

All they really need to do at this point is speed up the process of listing items for sale. The buying part of it is fine. We have a sales history, we have searching by name and by category, we have buying directly from the search list, with the additional option of going to the ward where the item is located to save a search fee. This part is just fine- I don't know how anyone can complain about it.

Eliminating some steps would help. I should be able to put items directly from my inventory into the sale list, not exchange them with the retainer, then back out of that screen, go to the bazaar screen, set my prices, and then have to go to still another screen if I want to remove the item from sale. This could really be condensed down a lot without a major rework of the system.

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Originally Posted by SevenNajelith

Yes, a traditional AH consists of all of those elements as does MW. The thing is an AH consist of all of those in the same place and window. I sell hundreds of varying types of items per day. When they allow me to put things up for sell from the purchasing window I can see myself supporting the system. But if that were the case, then why even have retainers? To be so adamantly in support of MW you must not sell many items. It really is a hassle spending unneeded time going back and forth between purchasing interface and retainer to put my items up for sell. I feel as though it is a waste of my time that could be spent doing far more productive things. I'm tired of having papers all over my desk with items and their prices. lol

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They already said due to 1.0's limitations they couldn't add the mercantile houses like they planned to, which was supposed to be the "all in one" spot.

Also:

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To be so adamantly in support of MW you must not sell many items

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My friend I'm sitting at 23.8m from pure sales on MW, what do I sell? Materia, Armorer items, Weaver items and Leatherworker items, so yes I have plenty of sales from MW, and I don't even sell in just 1 ward alone, I have 1 retainer in Limsa and 1 in Uldah, both sell pretty well. I think the people who have issues with MW are the ones with the mentality of "its not an AH, not gonna bother" despite the fact when you break down both systems, they're exactly the same thing, with MW having a feature even standard AHs lack.

Also, how many auction houses let you repair items and how many auction houses let an NPC buy items for you on your behalf?

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Also, how many auction houses let you repair items and how many auction houses let an NPC buy items for you on your behalf?

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Every single one of them, clearly.

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Oh :( Yes MW had issues like everything else at launch but clearly they have faith in the system and for so many people who decided "I have faith in yoshi!" people sure seem to have no faith in what he'll be doing with MW.

You're missing my point... Even if they were at the same mercantile npc I would still have to walk back and forth between my retainer and the mercantile npc. So they, in fact, will not be in the same spot. I will still have the hassle of traveling between and remembering/writing the prices of the 20 items I want to keep competitive with the market prices. I understand that they will improve the system and I'm all for whatever improvements come. I just don't see it solving my issue. I play for 5 hours a day on average. I go to MW 3-4 times, spending about 20 min per visit. That equals out to 20-25% of my play time in the market wards just trying to sell items. If they were to use a traditional AH It would cut my visit time down to around 5 min per visit, which would only be less than 6% of my play time. That is a drastic reduction. Time I could spend doing more crafting, gathering, or adventuring.

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You're missing my point... Even if they were at the same mercantile npc I would still have to walk back and forth between my retainer and the mercantile npc. So they, in fact, will not be in the same spot.

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All we need is a "store remote control" (Maplestory has these, and they let you access your hired merchant without having to physically go to it) or make it so that retainers are accessed from the same NPC that sends you to the search interface, without actually removing them from their current location- bam, problem solved.

Which is already confirmed as an App for ARR, too.

I am all for that Al. That would make my life much easier. Just curious though, if I had that why would I even need a retainer? I'm sure they could also implement a part of an AH allowing you to request items to be bought/repaired also. That being said, if they had such a feature MW would be much more bearable for me personally. I would still prefer it to be in same window so that it would be far more streamlined, but I could deal with it.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Which is already confirmed as an App for ARR, too.

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i'm not aware of this, but I wasn't really talking about a phone app, I was simply referring to something in-game. e.g. the Retainer List allowing you to access your retainers instead of just showing you where you stowed them.

I know what you were saying as I play MS too, which is something they mentioned designing for a phone app for ARR (retainer management.)

Personally I don't like the wards at all, its very time consuming to do anything, running back and forth, trying to find retainer spot, and most of all, the CREEPY dolls standing around in a room is just not right .... I would love to see the wards scrapped, and just have an Auction house, would be much easier on the players for a faster paste game type and most likely a lot easier on the Dev team, and less Stress on the server trying to load all those creepy dolls into one room....

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Originally Posted by Titans

Thank you SE for keeping the markets wards. Glad that SE stood it's ground about market wards and not switching to an AH. This is not FFXI. If you want an AH take your arse back to XI.

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I wouldn't wish FFXI's Auction House on my most hated MMO.

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Originally Posted by Titans

No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

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False. I may have played FFXI, but it is also a name in a longer list of MMOs with different ways of handling commerce. I'd want something like a real auction house, with post times and a base price that does not instantly sell the moment you place a bid higher than the seller's secret price of the item. A buyout option to expedite things would also be nice.

The design has to put convenience in the forefront, because convenience is what helps move the economy. As it's currently set up, you're not going to be moving people out of Uldah or whatever city players decide is the main hub for everything, and if 2.0 is only looking to alleviate the congestion of this inherently bad system instead of bringing in a new system to correct things, then I can only say I am disappointed.

On retainers: I'd want them to hang out at my residence/estate. Use them to interact with the functions within the estate. Hell, I'd want to be able to gear them up and make them follow me into combat as companions, as a third option aside from the path companion and chocobo and whatever else they're adding on that front.

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I am all for that Al. That would make my life much easier. Just curious though, if I had that why would I even need a retainer?

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You'd still need it for general storage and it would still appear in the market ward it was sent to. The main idea here is to eliminate some of the overhead that really slows the selling process down. The buying process works fine right now (outside of the different cities still being effectively split up)- it's the seller's end that needs improving now.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Explain the differences between an AH and MW without stating features they both utilize which makes them the same system.

You state traditional AH system, traditional AH system consists of:

1. Searching for an item.
2. Buying said item.
3. Selling items.

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Firstly, the way your wrote that is is convoluted and obscure.

I think you were trying to say "Explain the differences between the two". "Explain the differences between an AH and MW without stating features they both utilize" is an oxymoron as differences are exactly that.

Current Differences
Anti-MW
Inability to find anything beyond 20 cheapest items.
Need to check prices, run back to the retainer after writing them down or try to remember. (single worst part imo)
Obnoxious process of handing the items to the retainer, backing out of the menu, going into the manage menu, find the item and place it for sale. (I count 5 steps at least. This is so broken)
Need for multiple zonings to buy and sell items. We don't need more zones... even if they reduce load and lag!

Pro-MW
Being able to store items and sell them from storage.
Less of a cluster f**k at an AH window.

Anti-FF Style
With movement to a drag and drop inventory system we could actually see right-click options as well as ctrl-click, alt-click and shift-click. Hands down one of the best market features in other MMOs is the ability to post a sale with left click, auto complete a search query with right click, split stack with shift-click etc.

While on that subject I really hope they add in chat linking of items too. It's a PITA having to type out "Lighting Brand +1 Tripple melded III,III,IV Int +38" even with auto-translate. And if people don't know what the item is for they have to ask or look it up.

The pros do not in any way outweigh the cons. Scrap the wards and give us an AH please.

P.S. Someone on Hyperion buy my Lighting Brand +1 Tripple melded III,III,IV Int +38 ^-^

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

You'd still need it for general storage and it would still appear in the market ward it was sent to. The main idea here is to eliminate some of the overhead that really slows the selling process down. The buying process works fine right now (outside of the different cities still being effectively split up)- it's the seller's end that needs improving now.

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The buying process does not work fine. Unless your definition of fine is going through every single ward looking for a good meld or even the right Materia.

Personally I'm sitting on the highest potency IV materias simply because it is too much of a paint to go ward by ward to doa price comparison. So shoppers are even missing out becasue there are others like me.

Here's how I see it. 90% of people are going to switch over to the AH when it comes in just because it's infinitely more convenient but the AH will have limits I'm sure just like it did in XI. That's where there MW come in. It acts like a second bazaar if you can't find something in the AH check the MW. Lastly, the MW retainers add extra storage into the game. So, that's a really nice feature imo. If people want to stay in the MWs, let them. They're probably going to be the second choice for most players though so that's something to keep in mind.

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Originally Posted by Xerius

Here's how I see it. 90% of people are going to switch over to the AH when it comes in just because it's infinitely more convenient but the AH will have limits I'm sure just like it did in XI. That's where there MW come in. It acts like a second bazaar if you can't find something in the AH check the MW. Lastly, the MW retainers add extra storage into the game. So, that's a really nice feature imo. If people want to stay in the MWs, let them. They're probably going to be the second choice for most players though so that's something to keep in mind.

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I'm too tired to think of a great way they can implement the ward system, but none of the posts have given me a good enough reason to remotely entertain keeping it. I'm gonna chalk this up as Retarded Idea #1, followed by Gear Sets IF they require "multiple items"... that'd be Retarded Idea #2.

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The buying process does not work fine. Unless your definition of fine is going through every single ward looking for a good meld or even the right Materia.

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The buying process absolutely works fine. Search for an item > Type in item name or search by category > Buy item if any are for sale.

Going to the ward with the retainer is optional, and serves two purposes: Save the search fee, and possibly see what else the same person might be selling.. Please don't tell me you've been shopping manually in spite of the search feature all this time?

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Personally I'm sitting on the highest potency IV materias simply because it is too much of a paint to go ward by ward to doa price comparison.

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uhm... you might try looking at the sale history to see what people have paid recently as well as the sale list to see what people are currently selling for?

AH as main market system.

MW as Rolanberry fields bazaars.

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Originally Posted by Mujen

I'm too tired to think of a great way they can implement the ward system, but none of the posts have given me a good enough reason to remotely entertain keeping it. I'm gonna chalk this up as Retarded Idea #1, followed by Gear Sets IF they require "multiple items"... that'd be Retarded Idea #2.

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The closest thing I've got is anonymity but that was shot down almost immediately when they brought up mules in the very next post.

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Originally Posted by Arkine

AH as main market system.

MW as Rolanberry fields bazaars.

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MW as main market system. MW has all the features of an auction house plus more. It just needs efficiency improvements. Clearly nobody complaining about the MWs have ever used the search interface, because that pretty much works the same as any auction house.
Listing stuff for sale however does need to become a lot simpler. All they have to do is address that and it will be a fine system.

Nothing as rolanberry fields bazaars, because that sucks even more than the MW.

This debate has become so silly because people just scream "AH! I WANT AH!" without really being analytical of the situation at all or realizing just how close the two systems really are at the present time.
hell, most people don't even seem to realize XIV's system lets you search for items by name, where FFXI only had the category search.

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Here's how I see it. 90% of people are going to switch over to the AH when it comes in

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AHes are not coming in. Improvements to the market wards, which are already very much like an AH, are what's coming in.

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Originally Posted by Xerius

The closest thing I've got is anonymity but that was shot down almost immediately when they brought up mules in the very next post.

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Haha that was me, and yeah I agree the anonymity is great. With mail system muling will probably become popular for those who can afford it, $3 extra/mo?

I mean if they wanna make the item market a more unique experience I think there are many different ways to go about it. How about the Qirqin (sp) are all about "clank clank" I don't see why they couldn't implement a market system around them or something. Ya know? utilize some story behind it..

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

AHes are not coming in. Improvements to the market wards, which are already very much like an AH, are what's coming in.

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I see. Well, I guess there's really no point in complaining then. I was under a false assumption that there would be an AH.

Although, I would like it if people would get off the "this isn't FFXI, go back to your own game" band-wagon. FFXI was a very successful mmo in it's own right. I see nothing wrong with FFXIV borrowing many of it's core ideas but centered around a different story. Now more than ever considering they're adding elements from a lot of the other Final Fantasies.

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Originally Posted by Mujen

Haha that was me, and yeah I agree the anonymity is great. With mail system muling will probably become popular for those who can afford it, $3 extra/mo?

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This is a good point. But anyone with Legacy (unlike me, missed it by a week /pout) will be able to get 2 characters for the price of one. Not trying making an argument, just shining light on an option a lot of people will have.

Just do a poll for the love of god if hundreds of threads and polls on the net haven't given you SE a clue what the public wants.

Also every single review of XIV ever went to great lengths to ridicule the MW system as onee of the biggest flaws in the game. So you might want to think abou maybe?!


Also get some non-legacy players in your alpha and beta!!!!!
I'm legacy but looking at how some people have no critical opinion whatsoever of your product makes me think that old players shouldn't be trusted too much. Just make a good game.

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Originally Posted by Seif

Just do a poll for the love of god if hundreds of threads and polls on the net haven't given you SE a clue what the public wants.

Also every single review of XIV ever went to great lengths to ridicule the MW system as onee of the biggest flaws in the game. So you might want to think abou maybe?!


Also get some non-legacy players in your alpha and beta!!!!!
I'm legacy but looking at how some people have no critical opinion whatsoever of your product makes me think that old players shouldn't be trusted too much. Just make a good game.

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There's enough common-sense here to kill a dozen men. O_o the forums need more of this!