[DEV 1018] The addition of a "Show other cities' Market Wards" option

An idea popped up in my head just now about the current state of the market ward system.

It is widely known that there is a glaring issue with how almost everyone seems to use only the Ul'dah wards. This causes problems for people who wish to place their retainers in the Ul'dah wards but there is no space left (I realise they are increasing capacity soon, but won't the same thing happen again when the wards get full under the new capacity?) and causes the other two cities to be almost dead in terms of economy, which leads to a lower population.

My idea to fix this problem would be to include an option, when a player hits the item search option at the wards entrance, which would allow the player to view the wards of the other two cities.

With this feature in place, people would not have to worry about lost sales and slow earnings if they placed their retainers in the other cities, because a player would easily be able to view the results of retainers in other cities. All that would leave to the player looking to buy the item they found in the other city is to teleport there and purchase it from the respective ward.

Here is a scenario of how this would work out:

Player A cannot place their retainer(s) in the Ul'dah market ward and has no choice but to place them in one of the other cities. Therefore, he teleports to Gridania and places their retainer(s) in the market ward there.

Player B is looking to buy Green Glass Lens from the Ul'dah market wards because their alchemy rank isn't high enough to make them and would rather make his Silver Magnifiers (Green) now instead of having to rank up alchemy. Unfortunately, he cannot find the lens he's looking for anywhere in Ul'dah.

As a result, Player B goes to the "Other cities" option after selecting the item search option from the main wards menu and views Gridania's market ward. He spots that Player A has a Green Glass Lens for sale on their retainer in Gridania, teleports there and makes the purchase.

I believe this feature will encourage many more people to use the other cities' wards and potentially increase the population of that city because they will know that their retainer will be seen and not ignored just because they're in a different city.

There is also the idea of merging every city's market wards in to one huge one, but with the current issues with have with the servers I'm not sure whether this is a feasible option or not.

The other alternative is to implement the Auction House system which is currently in place for FFXI, which links all the AHs from every city to Jeuno's but if SE is serious about keeping the market wards as a priority for player transactions, they'll need to improve the market wards in a way so that people won't feel their retainers are being ignored due to Ul'dah.

Thanks for taking the time to read this idea of mine.

Far from the first time this has been raised. Might help divert a percentage of retainers to other cities as "overflow". Provided the item in question is of enough value to the person searching that they care enough to teleport to that other city. It's still predicated on a few ifs but as you mention, at the very least people who place their retainers in other cities have the potential to be seen. Being seen is the most important first part.

If you give an option for players to place retainers somewhere else, you will need an option for players to buy items from somewhere else; otherwise, there will still be a single dominant market located in the city with the most prospective customers.

I imagine the problem people would have getting their good purchased in the other two cities, even if it could be seen from any city, would be the stigma one might have over the cost of anima to teleport (or time to travel) to the other city. The best solution I can come up with to counter that would be to remove the anima cost to teleport between the cities. That in itself might prompt people to spread out a little, especially with the upcoming leve adjustments.

In fact, it may just negate the need to have the option presented in the OP. By allowing a zero-cost teleport between cities, the OP's scenario would then become something like this: Player B can't find item in Ul'dah, teleports to Gridania (expending no anima), then find's item on Player A's retainer.

We need to dump the wards as a physical place. All retainers should be placed in a "ward" that is accessed from all three cities, like the item search window. We should be able to scroll through the item search window and just purchase items from there, would be so much easier.

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Originally Posted by CainaMalebolge

We need to dump the wards as a physical place. All retainers should be placed in a "ward" that is accessed from all three cities, like the item search window. We should be able to scroll through the item search window and just purchase items from there, would be so much easier.

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In other words - we need an AH. I agree - the wards have failed in their intended function.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

In other words - we need an AH. I agree - the wards have failed in their intended function.

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Haha the more features they add to the wards the more like an AH it feels, honestly dont know why they dont just cut out the middle man, and give us an auction house, simple, effective and not in the least bit intimidating for new players.