You are incorrect in so many ways. I'm not responding anymore after this response. You get to reply next with another witty retort and pat your e-back.
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Oh, i completely agree with everything you said.
I should have been more clear. I think it still needs a vast amount of improvement.
My only point is that the current system can be a suitable replacement for an AH.
And if your current stance is, in fact, that the AH is the better way to go then I'm inclined to agree with that as well.
=)
Heres how AH would help FFXIV.
It would help server people wouldn't be afking all damn day and night. It would also make selling items from everywhere easier.
Honestly dude. I've never heard bout AH bots. IF RMTs speculate they do it on rare, very expensive items - dont really need bots for that. When it comes to more common items (but still quite expensive) they rather farm a lot and sell stuff for lower price cuz of competition (many suppliers) and that usually results in huge deflation.
You didn't play FFXI much then. They tended to stand in Lower Jeuno right next to where they could easily target the far right AH node and the Delivery NPC at the same time. IF you did a search for their names on FFXIAH.com you'd see tons of buys from them for items like Leaping Boots and Utsusemi as low as they could then a month down the line selling them for 10-50x more then they bought them, trying to wipe the buy history out in game by flooding it with sells to themselves.
When the game first came out I really wanted a AH (like FFXI). But now that the wards are a little more stable and have some search functions, I am leaning towards the wards more now.
Likes:
1) Retainers can stay up selling your items and not return them to you after a few days because nothing sold. Again this varies with up time in the wards, but I have had retainers on as long as two weeks with no crashes.
2) You can model your wares on retainers. I have seen some neat looking gear for sale that I may have ignored until I some a retainer similar to my character wearing it.
3) With multiple retainers you can focus on the types of items being sold or have up for repairs.
Dislikes:
1) The ward crashes. Granted it has been less lately.
2) The search feature. It's not complete and I know that. SE has plans for improvement and I am patiently waiting for them.
3) The tax on certain floors for selling specific items. The floors should all be the same tax rate until we can get more retainers. but most of us i think sell a variety of items at once, not just one kind.
Would like to see:
1) A global search of all cities. But limit purchase to just the city you are in. Another idea is you can pay a "delivery fee" to purchase from a city you are not currently in.
2) Use of the Silver & Golden Bazaars as an actual AH of some sorts. This may be used for either placing or purchasing special type items only. Not the everyday items we find in the wards. Maybe Beastmen type currency would be used instead of gil. All these new coins we find on special leves but have no use for yet.
3) Sold item alert sent to chat log or a message / mailbox.
4) An increase in the amount of items to sell, preferably the same limit as you can carry (like in FFXI).
5) No slot penalty for reward when placing and item in Bazaar or Retainer for repair. At this time we are limited to only 5 repairs and unless you have all your crafts high enough to fix all your gears, this can be unnecessarily restrictive.
So personally, I don't think we have to push for a AH like FFXI had, instead some modifications to the wards and other ideas will make it more unique.
only thing i'm afraid of is the re-listing fees since items sell so slow
I don't want an AH
The current Market Ward system does everything an AH needs to do while avoiding a lot of the negative aspects of AH.
AH is not necessary nor useful at this point.
Unless it can provide functionality that doesn't or won't ever exist in the market wards. As long as we are talking about an auction house that is more like a garage sale (you pay the listed price, you get the item) then I agree totally. But there are some types of auctions (like actual auctions with actual bidding and no set price limit) that might potentially have a place if done right. Especially for rarer items.