We need an AH

Retainers are like an Auction House in the same way a unicycle is like a car.

no, a unicycle is faster than market wards

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Retainers are like an Auction House in the same way a unicycle is like a car.

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I agree, both don't utilize the game's currency in some way, nor sell items to people nor hold items as storage if need be.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I agree, both don't utilize the game's currency in some way, nor sell items to people nor hold items as storage if need be.

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Unicycles totally get you from point A to point B and have wheels. Therefore, they're cars.

it is very true that with item search feature looking for an item on sale is really easy but selling is still an hell compared to ffxi ah system (god bless it)

on FFXI AH:
1.hit the counter
2.press sell button
3.select item you want to sell
4.choose the price
done

on FFXIV retainers:
1.press market wards and select a ward
2.summon retainer/or walk toward him
3.click on him and select exchange item
4.select what you want to sell and pass to him
5.go back into menu and select manage option
6.select the item now in retainer inventory
7.choose a price
(8. optional) swear because you are already selling stuff for another ward and now you get overtaxed
9.walk outside market wards
done

now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we need AH even in ffxiv no matter what but we deserve at least something working with the same efficency like the possibility to manage the whole retainer functions from a single counter somewhere and with few simple commands

I wish people would only say "Auction House" if they plan to talk about auctions....


For streamlined and improved experience buying and selling of goods, I would like:

Selling:
- Put item for sale on retainer directly from my inventory (skip the exchange step)
- While managing my retainer be able to get a quick market price check for any item in my inventory or my retainer's inventory
- Allow sellers to use the Item Search Counter to see what item's are being requested
- Allow sellers to post a list items that can be Made to Order on the retainer

Buying:
- Item Search Counter results should show if items are NQ/+1/+2/+3
- Allow me to select a seller from the search results and warp directly to their ward
- Allow me to Seek Item for items that I don't own

Aesthetics:
- The Item Search Counter should be something physical, a bulletin board, a person behind a desk something, not just dead air.
- Put the market wards outside, and put everyone in a stall.

I think the structure of the market wards makes the world feel more real.

If the technical issues and teleport times can be resolved, the market wards are an excellent way to facilitate player to player sales. The MW represent forward progress in game design, but a failure in implementation.

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- Put the market wards outside, and put everyone in a stall.

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So if the game takes off and say we start getting 10-20K players per server, with each a possible 7 retainers, that gives us a maximum of 140K stalls....they can barely fit 140K retainers as is, I don't know what they're planning with player influx but I don't see it working as is today.

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Originally Posted by Mack

So if the game takes off and say we start getting 10-20K players per server, with each a possible 7 retainers, that gives us a maximum of 140K stalls....they can barely fit 140K retainers as is, I don't know what they're planning with player influx but I don't see it working as is today.

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"Barely fit 140k retainers"?

The ward limits are 200 retainers. That's 700 *** different zones just to store these bazaars. I really wish people would realize how ridiculously expensive, complex, and impractical the retainers are.

Thank you moderators. PS: Please add an automatic profanity filter for stupids like me.

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Originally Posted by Lionheart

it is very true that with item search feature looking for an item on sale is really easy but selling is still an hell compared to ffxi ah system (god bless it)

on FFXI AH:
1.hit the counter
2.press sell button
3.select item you want to sell
4.choose the price
done

on FFXIV retainers:
1.press market wards and select a ward
1.5 LOAD THE MW ROOM
2.summon retainer/or walk toward him
3.click on him and select exchange item
4.select what you want to sell and pass to him
5.go back into menu and select manage option
6.select the item now in retainer inventory
7.choose a price
(8. optional) swear because you are already selling stuff for another ward and now you get overtaxed
9.walk outside market wards
done
10. LOAD THE NEXT AREA

now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we need AH even in ffxiv no matter what but we deserve at least something working with the same efficency like the possibility to manage the whole retainer functions from a single counter somewhere and with few simple commands

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Added few points to the process.
Also like I said before there's great symbolic value in an "AH" to the current player base and marketing value to the possible players of this game.

It's probably time for a one-point procurement system. Two persistant flaws are that the best items up on the market don't show up in the searches because they're bumped by 20 NQ trash products of the same kind, and every time an item's market count goes to 0, we have to re-negotiate the item's market value between buyers and sellers all over again. At every old market crash, prices would literally triple then coast down over the next 3 days as people tried to take advantage of those 0-item supplies while they could. Scavenger "entrepeneurs" have taken to buying all the onions from producers in india before anyone else can get to them. Because onions are such a big part of indian cooking, people will pay high prices for the onions that these people are now essentially holding for ransom. It's gotten so bad that the middlemen are doing what online scrubs have been doing for years--buying produce and intentionally throwing it away just to create false demand in their high prices. Producers can't primarily raise prices to cut the middlemen out--the middlemen will still squat the produce and just charge even more, and they can't not sell to middlemen because they can't distinguish who is a real consumer and who just wants to jack the price of onions up.

So people pay for onions what we pay for gasoline. Some people will argue that "that is supply and demand" when no, it's not. That's anticapitalist obstruction of supply and demand.

The huge issue with an Auction house is how easy it is to bot, "play the market", and flip items for profit. Essentially to take a cut for obstructing what would have been someone else's direct-from-seller-to-buyer transaction. Middlmanning is a huge problem with one-point procurement systems because of the massive ease of obtaining dozens to hundreds of transactions in a short time. One needs only to look at the price of onions in india to realize how excessive middlemen hurts economies.

But there's really no way to not eventually have an AH here. I think the market price history needs to come back online, and an AH should be added, with the exception that you can only perform 10 searches in 24 hours. Someone doing more than that is looking to squat the AH, not legitimately use it.

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Originally Posted by Mack

Yes it does work for now but what's your solution for a player influx out of curiosity? Longer tunnels to run through to find the retainer with the star? more wards?

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More wards would probably work since most people are simply searching and then heading to the appropriate ward. For example, Ironmongers Ward I and Ironmongers Ward II. Possible to also restructure the physical shape of the wards themselves. Maybe a square room with the stalls in the middle or along the sides? Maybe wards with 3 floors, basement, middle, top. Upon entering the ward you start in the middle floor with stairwells in the center and along the ends of the halls (retainers cannot be summoned on stairwells). Search function will also tell you what floor the specific retainer is on.

If ever the population gets too high it's probably time for free server transfers, not at all uncommon in any MMO.

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Originally Posted by Hubert

More wards would probably work since most people are simply searching and then heading to the appropriate ward. For example, Ironmongers Ward I and Ironmongers Ward II. Possible to also restructure the physical shape of the wards themselves. Maybe a square room with the stalls in the middle or along the sides? Maybe wards with 3 floors, basement, middle, top. Upon entering the ward you start in the middle floor with stairwells in the center and along the ends of the halls (retainers cannot be summoned on stairwells). Search function will also tell you what floor the specific retainer is on.

If ever the population gets too high it's probably time for free server transfers, not at all uncommon in any MMO.

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the answer would probably be to create a self replicating ward area, basically its as big or as small as it needs to be, of course you might have a large upper limit, so as not to have an infinite loop, but it could be pretty large.

Basically you have it kind of similar to how it is now, in that it has a repetive structure, then you have it expand to fulfill the space, the simplest case would be you make it add additional length depending on the number of npcs, also at a certain point, you cant put any more npcs in a particular block.

a more complex structure would be, say you have a central square, with most of the main shops/stands, and you have the area expand out into retainer only space (no shops) that could theoretically create and reorganize itself as needed. think like you have the main shop area, and then a bunch of side streets.
As an expansion of this idea, extremely populus shopping areas could get an upgrade to their main areas size. say your market area for iron monger hits like 200 npcs, once a week or a month or whatever, it would upgrade the main hall space. this is interesting because it could be like, in gridania there is a bustling woodworking ward that looks visually huge and advanced, whereas in say limsa the woodworking ward is a rinkydink room on the side. (not that i expect this would ever happen, but it sounds like a pretty cool idea, and an extension of the MW idea.)

I still think price history is not a needed function overall, but if i had to do it, id create an npc/counter appraiser, that for a small fee would tell you the overall worth over the last say year, if its on an upward or downward trend, and its minimal worth (npc price (the appraiser may also at the same time offer to buy said items at npc price)) each search would be fairly cheap (like 100-500gil) or you may have as suggested, a limited amount of appraisals

This would put a slight cost on constantly searching, basically giving people who dont have any idea what something costs, a ball park figure, but by no means price fixing, people would remember in general what somethings worth is if they sell it more than once. Since it would just be ballpark, a long with showing a trend, people could price it however they want still, but they can be aware in general of its worth. For scoping competition, you can just use the current search mechanism, but that wont give you any history context.

People talk about wanting this game to be realistic and unique. Now, swapping the NPC market system for a single-window AH is not what I call neither realistic nor unique. The Market Wards makes the player part of the world. Having to walk among the retainers to find what you're looking for is part of the gameplay, part of the pretend. And in all honesty: if we can walk from Limsa to Coerthas, we can stroll for a couple of minutes to get our new gear.

However, there are improvements that need to be done, and both we and the developers know this. For one, it is essential to adjust the prizes of items already in the bazaar, without having to remove them and add again. And as already mentioned, linking the wards from each city state into one single ward would be beneficial. As it stands at the moment, Gridania's market is dry, and new adventurers starting out there will have to undertake a long journey early on if they want to upgrade their gear at all. A common market wards would solve that.

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Originally Posted by Leowilde

However, there are improvements that need to be done, and both we and the developers know this. For one, it is essential to adjust the prizes of items already in the bazaar, without having to remove them and add again. And as already mentioned, linking the wards from each city state into one single ward would be beneficial. As it stands at the moment, Gridania's market is dry, and new adventurers starting out there will have to undertake a long journey early on if they want to upgrade their gear at all. A common market wards would solve that.

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Most likely when Ishgard is released the majority of retainers will be parked in the Ishgard ward (assuming there is one). New players would find it extremely beneficial to visit all the cities early on to access additional leves anyhow, and now there are NPCs who sell low level weapons and armor within the wards themselves. Furthermore, linking the wards will bring about overcrowding and shouldn't be done without first restructuring the ward system.

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Originally Posted by Hubert

No AH needed anymore - the system in place works fine. Plus, I actually like the retainers (still want a moghouse though).

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So you want a moghouse, what exactly would the purpose of a moghouse be if you didn't have a moogle (because we have retainers) or we didn't have AH's or mail.

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Originally Posted by Hubert

Furthermore, linking the wards will bring about overcrowding and shouldn't be done without first restructuring the ward system.

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That is a good point.

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Originally Posted by Lerris

I think the structure of the market wards makes the world feel more real.

If the technical issues and teleport times can be resolved, the market wards are an excellent way to facilitate player to player sales. The MW represent forward progress in game design, but a failure in implementation.

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What part of the system is progressive ? the market system EQ2 had was more progressive than the MW.

I can't see how making a system that is slow, clunky and less accessible than an AH is moving forward.

Pretty much anything SE has done in this game has been badly implemented, so that goes without saying.

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I think the market price history needs to come back online, and an AH should be added, with the exception that you can only perform 10 searches in 24 hours. Someone doing more than that is looking to squat the AH, not legitimately use it.

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I think 10 is way way way too low.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

So you want a moghouse, what exactly would the purpose of a moghouse be if you didn't have a moogle (because we have retainers) or we didn't have AH's or mail.

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Just for fun. I'm not the only one who enjoyed decorating my moghouse am I? I kept my starlight celebration trees up year round because they looked nice. And I use the word moghouse to describe the same style housing as FFXI, I don't really care if there is a moogle or not. In fact it might be more fun to have your retainers just kinda chill inside the house when they aren't doing anything.

As for the mail system, I think they will implement it some day. Might be better to have actual mailboxes scattered around the city instead of going to your house every time.

Mog houses did more then house a moogle, and your mail box.

Yeah, bring the mog houses. Bring more useless frivolous stuff and leave the same broken systems in the game. That will surely win back players.

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Originally Posted by Leowilde

People talk about wanting this game to be realistic and unique. Now, swapping the NPC market system for a single-window AH is not what I call neither realistic nor unique. The Market Wards makes the player part of the world. Having to walk among the retainers to find what you're looking for is part of the gameplay, part of the pretend. And in all honesty: if we can walk from Limsa to Coerthas, we can stroll for a couple of minutes to get our new gear.

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You've never heard me ask for something so ridiculous. I want convenience not realism to this level and not something that only really pleases the tiny tiny RP minority. Besides, I thought this game was about making an MMO more casual friendly? Well they succeded with leves, and travel, and class changing. But they failed horribly with crafting and gathering in general, and the repair system, and the MW system.

Give me convenience, or Give me death!

Sorry for the double post but.......... I really love the fact that this is such a big issue both for people for and against MWs, and yet I have not seen a Mod comment to any of these threads about this. This thread alone is up to page 27, and there are other threads dealing with this subject. I have seen Mods comment on threads with many fewer posts. So mods will comment on ridiculous and competely irrelevent things like custom UI modifaction, but not on game mechanics. It just seems to me that they should comment on real issues, before they bother with fluff.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Yeah, bring the mog houses. Bring more useless frivolous stuff and leave the same broken systems in the game. That will surely win back players.

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No one is asking for a moghouse right this minute. Everyone is aware there is a lot to fix in this game, hence the discussions. The whole moghouse discussion just kind of went off on its own from one little aside I made in an earlier post.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Yeah, bring the mog houses. Bring more useless frivolous stuff and leave the same broken systems in the game. That will surely win back players.

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Originally Posted by Cairdeas

Mog houses did more then house a moogle, and your mail box.

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Originally Posted by Hubert

No one is asking for a moghouse right this minute. Everyone is aware there is a lot to fix in this game, hence the discussions. The whole moghouse discussion just kind of went off on its own from one little aside I made in an earlier post.

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If we get housing, they're not going to be mog houses. The lore makes that a complete non-possibility. So you should get used to just calling them houses.

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Originally Posted by Amsai

I want convenience not realism to this level and not something that only really pleases the tiny tiny RP minority. Besides, I thought this game was about making an MMO more casual friendly?

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Fair enough. But I am not talking about RP. I am talking about a system that, with more work and adjustments, is more unique and creative than the average AH system. By all means, it's not convenient yet, but come more updates to the MW and hopefully it will be.

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Originally Posted by Amsai

You've never heard me ask for something so ridiculous. I want convenience not realism to this level and not something that only really pleases the tiny tiny RP minority. Besides, I thought this game was about making an MMO more casual friendly? Well they succeded with leves, and travel, and class changing. But they failed horribly with crafting and gathering in general, and the repair system, and the MW system.

Give me convenience, or Give me death!

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You want convenience over the actual home grown look of a marketing community? Go play Crystal Defenders. Not all of us want to stare blankly at a wall for hours.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

You want convenience over the actual home grown look of a marketing community? Go play Crystal Defenders. Not all of us want to stare blankly at a wall for hours.

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Im sorry I offended that 1% of the community. I appologize.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

You want convenience over the actual home grown look of a marketing community? Go play Crystal Defenders. Not all of us want to stare blankly at a wall for hours.

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I don't ever recall standing infront of FFXI's AH for hours >.>; normally I would go buy my stuff and leave, the only real time sink was waiting for the lag in jeuno/whitegate

I'd prefer convenience too I don't have the extra time to be wasting

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Originally Posted by Amsai

Like my other post about the convenience of repairs, this post is in regards to the conveniece of buying and selling goods. But I will make this one short.

Suppose I want a Dr. Pepper, which would be quicker:
1. I go to the store and get it.
2. I send my wife to go get it (nevermind that she'd tell me to go to hell).

I am keeping the argument simple. Its not about how good or bad the market place opperates. It is about convenience to useres. The less steps there are the more streamlined and fast the process. Time is money, and I don't have time to do unnecessary steps. Why make something take 5 min, when it could take 5 sec?

MMOs are by nature a time sink, but lets cut out the time sinks where we can yes?

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O my frick.... no we do not OP. the Market ward will destroy any attempt of gil sellers ruling the market prices. After a while, we will know exactly who's retainers are gil sellers and simply wont buy off them. AH doesnt allow that, get over it. And yes my life sucks, i have idiots in my MMOs :P

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Originally Posted by GreyWolf

I don't ever recall standing infront of FFXI's AH for hours >.>; normally I would go buy my stuff and leave, the only real time sink was waiting for the lag in jeuno/whitegate

I'd prefer convenience too I don't have the extra time to be wasting

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If you were trying to get certain items that fluctuated price hugely no matter what the supply/demand was because of Market Manipulation going on with the price history was easy to manipulate you could end up spending up to an hour trying to buy one item because the price was so drastically different And going from trying to get a item that says its worth 5K based on the price history you end up bidding over and over again at 1k increments till you end up buying it for almost 50k. Each bid taking 10-20 seconds because of lag not to mention the time spent going back into the price history over and over again to confirm that hell. the last 10 were bought for 5k yeah and theres 10 in stock, but every time you bid it comes back sorry your bid failed.

I spent an hour doing this one day. I barely had time to play the game afterwards I was stuck bidding on items that the prices were jacked up on.

Just add a friggin auction house SE, the people who don't want one are just fools >.<

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Originally Posted by Yowyow

O my frick.... no we do not OP. the Market ward will destroy any attempt of gil sellers ruling the market prices. After a while, we will know exactly who's retainers are gil sellers and simply wont buy off them. AH doesnt allow that, get over it. And yes my life sucks, i have idiots in my MMOs :P

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Please tell me how we wouldn't know which vendor isn't a gilseller if we're using an AH.

Or do you think that the only type of AH in existence is FFXI's blind bid/vendor AH?

Ever since the implementation of the search function i cant say there was ever many major problems once it was possible to find what i want when i wanted it if it was there, i dont think the system is so over the top bad compared to any type of auction where it would add such a significant ammount of time finding one item over another system where it needs to be revamped or warrent the adding completly new systems.

It does however need to fully iron out the crashing , add delivery methods and add a few useful features to make it a little better, the ability to look at all the current item locations after you have already put in a search for an item already, if its in multiple places im going to have to go through the search again look up the ward, the type of item, then the item itself if i do so need to look up the items location a second time for whatever reason.

Ever since the implementation of search to MW I've had less and less hope that SE will ever truly fix the need of an AH and are willing to drown with the sinking ship of the MW with the massive holes of user friendliness only partly patched with cheap, cumbersome menus. Meanwhile people are jumping the ship because the captain isn't willing to do anything about the problem.

Some suicidal people are happy with the broken system but their cries are pretty much worthless since people leaving are still leaving for the lack of hope for a better system.

It's RIGHT THERE... I go to MW, search an item, it even lists it by lowest price. How much harder would it be to just click on that and say 'buy'. Seriously, it's not hard. Fumbling through dozens of NPC's standing there slowly popping in on my screen is in my opinion retarded.

The the originator of this post (Even though it's old); I agree. An AH though not 'required' would be a wonderful addition to the game. Don't need to go through all the crap we did on FFXI, just see the list of wares by lowest price and click on the one we want to buy it from. Done.

To the folks that don't agree, arguing that the MW is better; you're entitled to your opinion just as we are. I see your side of it, and understand it. I just simply don't agree.

To SE (not that they'll read this): Is it really to much to ask?


</end rant>

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Originally Posted by drake2k

To the folks that don't agree, arguing that the MW is better; you're entitled to your opinion just as we are. I see your side of it, and understand it. I just simply don't agree.

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Most people are saying MW and AH are basically the same system -- MW need only adjustments. If they scrap it and put in place an AH they're wasting time and resources compared to if they just adjust what exists now.

Ive left WoW to play FFXIV cause I find it much more enjoyable to play. And one of the things I actually really like, is that there isnt any AHs. But instead Marketwards and people you can buy straight off from looking at what they have for sale.

And I like the more player interaction it brings. Its nice when I am just standing by an Aetheryte and suddenly I see. Player has bought Elm Cane 15k Gil and then the player /bow/wave etc.
I would much rather like SE to upgrade the MW instead of implementing AHs.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I prefer games that does things differently then all other mainstream games out there.

true we need one atm
and the most reason for it is history and Undercutters
hell i'v been trying to sell my black soles,veloydna carps,northern pikes and lots of other stuff
but seriosly some ppl think that by undercutting their stuff will make their items sell faster but in the end all players selling that same item will undercut their item in order to sell it
in wutai black soles have been reduced from 3.5k > 2.4k and its going down

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Originally Posted by Altera

Ive left WoW to play FFXIV cause I find it much more enjoyable to play. And one of the things I actually really like, is that there isnt any AHs. But instead Marketwards and people you can buy straight off from looking at what they have for sale.

And I like the more player interaction it brings. Its nice when I am just standing by an Aetheryte and suddenly I see. Player has bought Elm Cane 15k Gil and then the player /bow/wave etc.
I would much rather like SE to upgrade the MW instead of implementing AHs.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I prefer games that does things differently then all other mainstream games out there.

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I think most the complaints are on the seller side. Buying from the MW is a fairly straightforward and somewhat enjoyable experience. Selling, on the other hand, is a full time job in and of itself. If I could easily flip between Item Search and managing my Retainer's Bazaar, I'd have no issues. At this point, though, I have to write down what I want to sell on a notebook, use the item search to figure out where I want price my stuff, spend a good hour buying out all the idiots undercutting the market by 60%, THEN set up my retainer for selling. It's exhausting and can take a few hours in the current setup.

Albeit, people are probably spoiled rotten by Auctioneer and WoW. Even with the vanilla AH interface, researching and posting items were in one place and I could tear through everything in an hour, tops.

Currently, unless it's something that I can net more than 5,000 gil on, I vendor it, *period*. My time is not worth less than that.

Then again, the system may be designed such that they want selling to be that much work, but it's a bit extreme.