Market Wards vs AH

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Originally Posted by Abriael

And who exactly said that a consignment system cannot be implemented in the market ward system? You sure lack imagination, my friend. Ain't it lucky that you aren't a developer?

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hehe im in my final masters year to become a developer .. well game programmer actually but close enough to counter your point "friend".

To answer your once again flawed point, I was not talking about simply adding a consignment system, which of course could be implemented (but then one would never walk into the market wards, apart from to transfer items to your retainer) and that would make them redundant.

So what you are saying is that they should morph the Market Ward system, so far away from a Market ward that its no longer a Market Ward?

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Originally Posted by JackDaniels

Once PS3 launches, and we start paying for a subscription, how many retainers do you think the average person will have, I know I would want at least four, 20 items isn't enough to sell at once, 40 slots should cover the mess that is NQ,+1,+2,+3. There's no way in hell Ul'dah will go more than 12 hours without crashing.

I for one vote for AH, I'll take convenience over immersion any day. It wouldn't be that huge of a sacrifice anyway, and tbh I wouldn't miss the retainers Adolf and Hitler at all.

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Well articualted points and I agree wholeheartedly.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

You'd rather. I'd rather not, simply because I enjoy previewing the item I'm going to buy before actually paying. Also, as a seller, I'd rather have the possibility of getting people to buy something from my retainer just because they walked in front of her, saw something they liked, and bought it. It's called "impulse purchase", it's a very important part of any prosperous economy, and it's completely excluded in Auction Houses.

There's still some walking involved, also Auction houses normally involve scrolling between long lists of items which isn't less time consuming thanm "walking to someone with a star on his head".

Convenience is an absolute term. "I'd rather" is a completely different cup of tea.

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Out of the hundreds of retainers I've purchased from. I've impulse shopped once and regretted it.

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Originally Posted by Spellstar

Well articualted points and I agree wholeheartedly.

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Thanks

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Originally Posted by Abriael

... It's called "impulse purchase", it's a very important part of any prosperous economy, and it's completely excluded in Auction Houses.

There's still some walking involved, also Auction houses normally involve scrolling between long lists of items which isn't less time consuming thanm "walking to someone with a star on his head".

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Impulse purchases are not excluded from an AH they can be browsed just like a retainers little list can be browsed.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

1: Bigger wards. More efficent code.

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This creates loading issues, especially for slower machines. Current wards that are full are already fairly slow to load, and only a few retainers load at a time. It places a heavy load on the server, because now it must account for an increased amount of retainers in the ward, and depending on how well SE's code is optimized, load times don't necessarily increase in a linear fashion.

This also creates a problem where, if you're searching for a popular item, you can end up with 30, 40, 50 retainers that are all selling that item, leaving you to manually sift through them, almost as if the search function wasn't there.

More efficient code is a noble goal, but not always doable without making some sacrifices somewhere. You can optimize some code only so far before you start having to ditch certain features.

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2: Multiple wards of the same kind, divided by level (exactly like the current tailors wards, I cannot really fathom why they did that only for tailors, it works wonders and there are other kinds of items that would need that more, see battlecraft)

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Further brings out the problem of people being penalized for selling multiple types of items.

If it was made so that there was no penalty for selling level 50 armor in the level 10 ward, retainers would be lumped into the first ward on the list. If it was made so that there was a penalty, then people trying to sell both a level 10 armor and a level 50 armor would have to take a penalty on one of the sales.

Creates a problem on the shopper's side as well; if someone is trying to buy a level 10 armor and a level 50 armor, they would need to go through a loading screen.

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Last but not least: 3: phase out by-wards search and implement Centralized search.

I search for an item and i'm told Retainer, price, and ward where it is.

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Good feature, would improve wards without creating additional problems.

All in all, you sort of solved one problem, which is overcrowding, but introduced 2 new problems and exacerbated an already existing problem (that you offered no solutions to).

Ain't it lucky that you aren't a developer (like me)?

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Ain't it lucky that you aren't a developer (like me)?

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I call bull sh**
Lulz everyone with an opinion is a developer apparently.

They just need to give us an AH, why fight server stability with thousands of people crowding uldah and putting their stuff in retainers. The wards are stuffed to the seam and crashing because of it. With an AH that would be a lot less stress on the servers.

I vote for an Auction House after the main fixes to the game are addressed.

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Originally Posted by JackDaniels

I call bull sh**
Lulz everyone with an opinion is a developer apparently.

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Nice counter argument. Give me a real retort to my analysis.

I work for Novartis, NIBR division, Software A&S department, btw.

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Originally Posted by Spellstar

Impulse purchases are not excluded from an AH they can be browsed just like a retainers little list can be browsed.

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Not really. "browsing" is a very different kind of action from just walking around a shop, and seeing stuff worn by mannequins. "browsing" is an active search effort, and to "browse" you have to stray from what you're initially searching.

This is not what impulse purchases are.

When you walk into the market ward, with your search already done and displayed, and you randomly see that nice piece of armor worn by a retainer and pick it up because it happens to tickle your fancy. That's an impulse purchase.

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Originally Posted by Spellstar

So what you are saying is that they should morph the Market Ward system, so far away from a Market ward that its no longer a Market Ward?

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If you want to really work on gaming development, you need to think a tad more out of the box. Who cares if it revolutions the system and turns it in something different? The key point is that, instead of scrapping a whole system that you already have in place and forcing yourself to develop a completely new system using resources that quite obviously, at the moment, are needed elsewhere. You just evolve on one system using much less resources and freeing them up for improving other aspects of the game that need more and urgent work.
The evolved system includes both the features of market wards (eyecandy, windows shopping, more personal approach to shopping) and of an AH, everyone wins. Only close-minded people will care about the system's name.

In any case they are NOT going to scrap the retainer system, they made that clear in quite a few occasions. The best (from your point of view) you're gonna get is that they keep the market wards (not really improving it, because having an AH gives them an excuse not to) and put an AH on it's side, fragmenting the economy further, with people selling stuff in the AH and people selling stuff in the wards (exactly like, in FFXI, people sold stuff in the AH and others sold it in their personal bazaar). Evolving the market wards including functions from a regular AH would keep the economy unified in one place, giving everyone the best of both worlds without having to go check both features to try and find the best prices, which is extremely cumbersome.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Good feature, would improve wards without creating additional problems.

All in all, you sort of solved one problem, which is overcrowding, but introduced 2 new problems and exacerbated an already existing problem (that you offered no solutions to).

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Not really. Try using solution 3 in tandem with solution 2. Solution 2 may indeed penalyze people selling several different kinds of items, but add solution 3 to it (and that's why I said last but not least, it's the whole key of the issue), and that penalty disappears. If you're talking about taxes, come on, that's a pittance (and centralized search would make taxation difference between wards obsolete anyway).

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Originally Posted by JackDaniels

Out of the hundreds of retainers I've purchased from. I've impulse shopped once and regretted it.

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I'm sure you're aware that systems can't be just tailored over you and your habits. I purchase stuff by impulse all the time. And basic statistics say that if one does, there are others around him that do the same. Money isn't exactly in short supply in this game.

I would like to see an Auction House in the game. I do not like the retainer system.