Personal feelings about personal shops?

The only thing I feel that this game is missing is player made shops. You might think me a loon, but let me explain...

-more likely to find good deals on desired items and more rewarding when you do
- keeps the economy healthy,prevents a constant anemic drop in the MB from underselling.
-some people use personal shops to rp as a merchant
- many sellers take pride in their personal shop


The biggest con of personal shops is no matter what devs try to do in other games to decrease the clutter people always gather around the most lively areas to make a sale. My ideas to alleviate this would be:

-you may not open a PS in any major city (thats what MB's are for!)
- you may only open a PS in the actual 'world' and it may not be anywhere within x amount of space (yalms) within city range (so no sellers creating lag right outside of city gates!)
- you may open a ps on your own property only (if you own a home) <<this would give more purpose to people wanting to buy homes too.

this would force people to get creative on where they offer personal shops. Perhaps they'd like to open personal housing near a lively fishing area for lures. Maybe they could open up a food store in a leveling area.

I have also heard about being able to open up shops in your house but Idk how accurate that is, plus with how dead the housing lots look because of prices that wouldn't be an option right now. I know many people like it, hate it, some could take it or leave it...but personal shops to me always create more immersion and realism. If my character wants to sell baked goods on the side of the road, I feel she should be able to! What do you guys think? Thanks for your time <3

Did you even play 1.0?

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Did you even play 1.0?

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What has this to do with anything?

I am in favor of that.

Bring bet the "market place" from 1.0 for that. That was funny. Also to be able to make your Retainer look sexy was awesome

i loved the retainer player mart system. they needed to refine it better, higher capacity, etc

in 1.0, you could put stuff up for sale that people could buy directly from your character. You could also request things as a buyer. There would be an icon by your name for all those different things. You could be returning from a levequest or something and someone run over and buy stuff, or set up a shop of sorts.

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Originally Posted by Kimikryo

What has this to do with anything?

I am in favor of that.

Bring bet the "market place" from 1.0 for that. That was funny. Also to be able to make your Retainer look sexy was awesome

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What it has to do with things is that I don't want to spend 1 hour looking for that one crafting item I need to craft an item. The market boards are used for convenience.

That, plus the fact that I don't think the server can handle that many entities. In 1.0, you could only see retainers like 2 meters in front of you.

I guess they could re-work the engine to allow for more entities, but its not worth the hassle.


There is a good reason why SE went with the marketboard instead of the retainer shop system.
Yes, it is nice to dress up retainers, set up shops but it causes way too much pain than it will benefit players.

So because YOU did not like it, nobody is allowed to like it?

Nobody said anything about REMOVING the market place.

I also want to be able to sell stuff I carry around with me while on the field.


A way to prevent people from selling stuff inside towns: Taxes. A way to prevent them clogging city exits? It is implemented. 30 Minute auto time out. Now implement that you can't sell stuff while crafting and you won't have this problem.

I did not play 1.0

I kind of like the idea of a personal shop. Maybe make it so that you can only sell stuff you gathered/crafted yourself so it really is *personal* instead of just buying stuff on the MB and reselling it in your own store.

Or maybe it's just because I make my own jewelry IRL and sell it, and I like the idea that I can mimic that in game.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

I don't want to spend 1 hour looking for that one crafting item

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Which I think is the bane of the modern convenience MMOs today. "I don't want to spend (waste) time to do XXX."

Imagine a world without any automatic market mechanism. You would shop around at first but eventually you would settle on a few suppliers who will keep supplying materials you want. That supplier may in turn have a few gatherers whom he depends on for his weekly stock. Every now and then a gatherer finds a rare item and he chimes in to ask if you want it. Or it may be something you've asked him to keep an eye out for.

Adventurers will have a few blacksmiths and armor smiths to whom they always pay for repairs. Alchemists that supply potions and culinarians that supply food. In turn they may sell off the loot they got each time they come for repairs. Those smiths may have a few tailor and gold smith friends and they send clients towards each other when the Paladin mentions in passing, "hey I'm leveling my WHM now", and the armor smith replies, "oh I know this honest tailor you can trust, you should look him up if you need some good robes."

There would be real "merchants" who open up shop at fixed locations. He would have regulars who come over to unload loot and then sell those loot to other players.

You will find it cumbersome. You will find it meaningless. You will find it a waste of time. But that is only if you never put in the effort to find your regular supplier. Once you have, it becomes even more convenient than the market board. And that is how communities are built. It's also why people are often more friendly in the countryside than in big modern cities. And this is not nostalgia. It is right now, happening all over the world.


Back on topic.

I think, for personal shops to succeed, the market board needs to be closed down. And no retainer bots. Real players only. Yes it's so ten-years-ago but that is what makes a real "merchant" game. Add-on auto scanning and posting and 24hr retainer shops is not a merchant game, it's just online trading, which is not the topic for this thread.

Why would someone go out of their way to use a personal shop when the MB is so easy to browse through? Honestly, this would be like going out of your way to some obscure little hole in the wall store when your local walmart has the same item at a cheaper price.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but I just don't see many people using it when we have the MB.

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Originally Posted by AyaneKiwara

in 1.0, you could put stuff up for sale that people could buy directly from your character. You could also request things as a buyer. There would be an icon by your name for all those different things. You could be returning from a levequest or something and someone run over and buy stuff, or set up a shop of sorts.

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Yep, Just as Ayane stated here, it was like that in 1.0. Only, most people used their "Player shops" as storage and had items in there for 9 all the way across. Sometimes they put up items to show off the fact that they had it, most of the time it was for storage. Other times it was just stuff they were trying to get rid of.

In my book, it wasn't anything to really call home about. I, personally, wasted scores of minutes looking through people's shops whenever they were standing around to see if I could get a good 'deal'. Lol. In all of 1.0, I never found that. All-in-all, I'd rather stick with the market boards.

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Originally Posted by Tahldon

Yep, Just as Ayane stated here, it was like that in 1.0. Only, most people used their "Player shops" as storage and had items in there for 9 all the way across. Sometimes they put up items to show off the fact that they had it, most of the time it was for storage. Other times it was just stuff they were trying to get rid of.

In my book, it wasn't anything to really call home about. I, personally, wasted scores of minutes looking through people's shops whenever they were standing around to see if I could get a good 'deal'. Lol. In all of 1.0, I never found that. All-in-all, I'd rather stick with the market boards.

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Yeah. Generally when people were actually selling, it was normally shards that I came across. Thats generally what I used it for.

You know, under the conditions presented, I'd actually be interested.

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Originally Posted by Versiroth

Why would someone go out of their way to use a personal shop when the MB is so easy to browse through?

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there is some misunderstanding about my OP. I dont wish to REPLACE MB's, i only wish to add another option to them.

You would find use out of it, just not on the scale your thinking of. With my restrictions, you would not be near a MB when you find a PS. Perhaps you come across a PS and open it up just to see whats there. You see a bunch of food for a decent price and realize hey! I dont have any food! So you buy a small stack and move on

Yes you could wait until you get into the city, or you could just not buy it, but it made your life just a tad easier when you did. It would not be a serious or extremely competitive way of selling because that IS what the MB is for. It is more for those who want to actually feel like they are working. It would be immersive and realistic as well as beneficial to those who are not in a city and are on the go.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

What it has to do with things is that I don't want to spend 1 hour looking for that one crafting item I need to craft an item. The market boards are used for convenience.

That, plus the fact that I don't think the server can handle that many entities. In 1.0, you could only see retainers like 2 meters in front of you.

I guess they could re-work the engine to allow for more entities, but its not worth the hassle.


There is a good reason why SE went with the marketboard instead of the retainer shop system.
Yes, it is nice to dress up retainers, set up shops but it causes way too much pain than it will benefit players.

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After they have put in a search system it was not so bad anymore.
you could buy your item in the search windown or visit the specific retainer who got marked with a red star over his name.

http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/188117.jpg

Personal shop was amazing because sometimes when you are doing your quest and thru out the quest you find out that certain NPC requires Apple Pie and you don't have it. So you have t run back to MB and by one and travel all the way back to NPC..

But it could be solved by a player standing near the NPC with apple pies for sale, of course the player should charge 10% more for the convenience.

But that is part of the fun of MMO, finding that you missed something and a player have it up for sale there... YESH!

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Originally Posted by Kimikryo

So because YOU did not like it, nobody is allowed to like it?

Nobody said anything about REMOVING the market place.

I also want to be able to sell stuff I carry around with me while on the field.


A way to prevent people from selling stuff inside towns: Taxes. A way to prevent them clogging city exits? It is implemented. 30 Minute auto time out. Now implement that you can't sell stuff while crafting and you won't have this problem.

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Wrong. No one enjoyed it. That's why it was taken out.

Now if I really have misunderstood the OP and he/she does NOT want to replace market boards and only add another option. Then yes, I would support the idea. But scrapping market boards for this is just plain dumb.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Now if I really have misunderstood the OP and he/she does NOT want to replace market boards and only add another option. Then yes, I would support the idea. But scrapping market boards for this is just plain dumb.

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Yes, you misunderstood.

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- keeps the economy healthy,prevents a constant anemic drop in the MB from underselling.

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It's implicit here that the suggestion is working alongside the MB.

I love the idea. Not only because I could put up a shop, but because I could walk around browsing other peoples shops. Sure there is the MB I can browse, but it isn't as exciting as looking for deals all around or simply seeing who is selling what and where.

Another thing you could do to avoid over crowding an area is to make sure people cannot open a shop too close to someone elses shop. It might make people "fight" over spots, but that also could be fun. xD

Yeah, I like the idea as well. I would be cool to set up shop in populated town so other players wouldn't have to go all the way back to a major city just to purchase off the market board.

Just for those who don't know or remember what FFXIV 1.0 market system was like.
There was the Market Wards, which went through several iterations.
And the personal player bazaar, which is a shop on your playable character people can shop from.

First the Market Wards.

These were zones within the city where you had to travel between to find a player or their retainer shop.
The advantage to using the Market Wards was lower taxes, and also it was the only place a retainer can set up shop.
There were stalls where a player can also set up their retainer shop and decorate. The stalls became more valuable to the players when the ward would become overpopulated. Making it difficult to distinguish one retainer from another on the ward floor.
There can only be a limit of how many shops can be set up on a certain ward, and also later when searching was adding, you would only see what was being sold in that city, not the entire world.

As for the revisions to the Market Wards, going off by memory so excuse any mistakes here...

• For the first iteration, there were no distinction between any of the wards. Basically, imagine it was a giant flea market with tax deductions for everyone.
• Second iteration, they've changed the names of the wards in hopes that people sell similar items in the correct wards. Incentive was a slightly higher tax deduction of 2~3% difference. This was only partially effective, though people still sold everything in the first ward, which was Battlefield Gear at the time.
• Third iteration, they've added and made the first ward to a normal ward that had no special tax deductions.
• Forth iteration, they've added finally the ability to run a search query on the wards instead of having to explore each shop manually. This will place a marker on the shop that is selling what you want. You now as the buyer had the choice of going into the shop to buy the item, or pay an additional fee to buy it straight from the search query.

This Market Wards from 1.0 was essentially trashed and turned into what would be a global Market Board for 2.0. There are no longer any wards housing any retainers, nor are there any special tax reductions.

Now as for the playable character's Bazaar system.

This was a shop where you could have sold items on your character. You were given 10 slots, and it would move the item from your inventory to the Bazaar's inventory. Quite similar to FFXI bazaar.
The tax that applies to Market Wards also affects player's Bazaar. So a player can take advantage to standing in the ward for a tax reduction.
It was revised to also allow players to request for items or repairs.
However, if you're requesting to buy an item from another player, you first must have the quantity of item(s) you want to buy on hand. Which might sound counter-intuitive, but was useful for mainly people wanting crystal shards.

Now, if you try to return the Bazaar to FFXIV 2.0, there are a few things that comes to my mind.

First, there's no longer a large number of individual dungeon hubs where people gather to form parties.

In other words what used to be gatherings in front of dungeons like Tam-Tara is now completely empty. Thus, it is no longer a viable place to set up a bazaar shop for potions or food

Second, though trivial, there is still an automated AFK system now that logs off the player after being inactive in game for 'X' amount of minutes.

Third and lastly, profit incentives.
Whether if it is tax reductions to get a higher profit cut, or setting up shop in a place where you normally can not find items. There has to be some sort of edge that would make players want to lose all control over their character to become an immobilized shop.

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Originally Posted by Elim

Another thing you could do to avoid over crowding an area is to make sure people cannot open a shop too close to someone elses shop. It might make people "fight" over spots, but that also could be fun. xD

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this is a creative idea and would be interesting to see.

There are pesonal shops in Aion, unfortunately that has devolved into a "which gold seller can make the biggest most obnoxious sign" contest.

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Originally Posted by lackofwords

Second, though trivial, there is still an automated AFK system now that logs off the player after being inactive in game for 'X' amount of minutes.

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The afk system is easy to bypass in a lot of games, in aion for instance, I simply put a tissue box on my left or right arrow kay turned off my monitor and walked away.

They could also implement a system that makes it so the afk is turned off when youre selling. It kind of is already in the game as we speak. Try talking to your retainer and walk away while his text is on, you will not afk out.

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Originally Posted by Tahldon

Yep, Just as Ayane stated here, it was like that in 1.0. Only, most people used their "Player shops" as storage and had items in there for 9 all the way across. Sometimes they put up items to show off the fact that they had it, most of the time it was for storage. Other times it was just stuff they were trying to get rid of.

In my book, it wasn't anything to really call home about. I, personally, wasted scores of minutes looking through people's shops whenever they were standing around to see if I could get a good 'deal'. Lol. In all of 1.0, I never found that. All-in-all, I'd rather stick with the market boards.

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Not to mention in 1.0 people where shouting for a Marketboard style set up instead of looking on every retainer..

Oh the irony XD

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Originally Posted by lackofwords

There has to be some sort of edge that would make players want to lose all control over their character to become an immobilized shop.

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besides avoiding taxes from the MB and the rewarding feeling of selling items yourself they could always add the commendation system or a similar system into personal shops. whereas if you really enjoy a shop you could rate it. The more 'stars' you have in your store the better it will look to 'customers'

Now if SE really wanted to do something original with shops they could make it so you may personalize it with skins (similar to warding on your chocobo) that can only be achieved by crafting or reaching rating ranks.

for example: I own a food store so I choose a skin that makes the market look like i exclusively sell foods which is more eye catching to someone looking for a food item. I just reached 50 positive ratings, so now I can choose an even better food store skin with brighter colors and animations.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Wrong. No one enjoyed it. That's why it was taken out.

Now if I really have misunderstood the OP and he/she does NOT want to replace market boards and only add another option. Then yes, I would support the idea. But scrapping market boards for this is just plain dumb.

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Actually once they added the sort feature, I did enjoy it. You could see what gear looked like if the retainer selling it had it equipped. It was not difficult to find the character with a big red star over there head, unless you want to qq that you had to walk around a zone for, god forbid, 20 seconds until the character appeared. Thank you however for assuming everyone who played 1.0 shares your feelings, but all do not.

Now for replacing the current system in ARR, I would be against that. I would however not mind it as an additional way of buying/selling materials.

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Originally Posted by Moheeheeko

There are pesonal shops in Aion, unfortunately that has devolved into a "which gold seller can make the biggest most obnoxious sign" contest.

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This mostly. Also, in 1.0 before i quit (around the time they made them searchable), i totally gave up searching them. That was when they even had zones they would be in for whatever. It was just too much hassle to go through them, to the point where i would just figure it would be easier to get on my own. Player shops all feel like spam to me, always overcharging (since you are really unable to see it for less at the time) and always feels a bit hinkey to me, like they are trying to get around something by not using the MBs, or are bots. I get some people like them, but i'd rather not see the spam they cause.

Personally not a big fan of personal shops, mostly because people always tend to overprice things you could find on the market board/trade broker for many times less, and in more amounts. Market board is convenient for this, and it also prevents all that gil seller spam we'd likely see happen if personal shops were treated similar to how they were in Aion. (Still have nightmares about that, Pandaemonium was laggy as all hell because so many gil sellers camped in front of the Temple where the trade broker was at)

However, with the suggestion to make it unavailable in major city-states, I'd be slightly more interested. I doubt it would see much use, since the MB is still far too easy and convenient compared to searching all over Eorzea for a player shop selling what you want, but it would be a nice little thing to sometimes come up on a personal shop out in the world. I like shopping around at backwater and hidden specialty shops, they always have a little charm to them you can't find in places like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or whatever. I don't go to them when I'm looking for something specific, because who has time to do that? But, when I want to just browse around and maybe find a hidden treasure, small shops are wonderful and cute.

I'd feel about the same way towards personal shops.

Everquest 2 offered this where you could buy from the market board for a premium or visit a shop and save on the premium.

I liked it- it made personal housing a bit more functional, as you could set it up as a shop/showplace.

I'd really like to see this implemented. While Ragnarok Online had these and it often ended in the center of Prontera being filled to the brim with merchants (there was a good screenshot of it a while ago), I played on much smaller private servers that had general rules about opening up shops--stuff like "you must place your shop on the sidewalk or next to the fountain". It added a lot of order to how the markets were set up, and it always felt nice to see dozens of merchants lined up along the main road trying to one up each others deals, or displaying a certain name so you'd always know what sort of stuff you were getting. Sometimes you could check some of the other cities and find certain guilds selling items for a lower price, or selling specific items for a class.

If we could set these sorts of shop up in a ward (maybe turn one of the five housing wards into a market ward, since I doubt most servers will easily fill all five up) and remove the taxes from goods sold there, I think that'd be nice. I know I'd like to make that lost 10%--or however much it is--back on some of my higher priced items, and I can't imagine anyone disagreeing that that would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

I like shopping around at backwater and hidden specialty shops, they always have a little charm to them you can't find in places like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or whatever. I don't go to them when I'm looking for something specific, because who has time to do that? But, when I want to just browse around and maybe find a hidden treasure, small shops are wonderful and cute.

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this is exactly the sort of appeal I would want personal shops for. Not a main way of obtaining items but a great way to find hidden treasures or rping as a merchant. As someone else pointed out in here, imagine having to obtain a quest item and right next to the npc you hand it in to, are 4 people with competitively low prices trying to outdo each other with the exact item you need to hand in. You buy the item you need, hand it in, and it saves you time and rewards everyone. It would be a cute aspect of the game. I hope they consider adding it with the restrictions I posted.

Personal shops dont work. the sad truth is that they dont tie into a marketplace. This was what 1.0 initially had. unfortunately due to how assets work, the more people there are the higher the strain sustaining this system. not to mention. the lack of a common price for an item. how would you like to have to go searching for items just to then look further to find something at a reasonable price. This is actually a popular idea that many MMO's have tried. however due to the issues of varying prices and hard to find products every MMO that initially had this has moved to a marketplace. I personally love the idea of your own shop, the issues associated however make it a bad idea.

Consolidating the market to one (well, two if you count general chats) location is a good thing. Personal shops would just fragment it and create a huge hassle for buyers. No thanks.

I'm perfectly content with the market board and found the market ward system in 1.0 to be nothing but a huge time sink and hassle. While I agree that you should be able to have a personal bazaar (similar to ffxi and some other games) I would never want that to become the primary point of sales again like it was in 1.0.

Additionally in other games that supported this the reason was generally to avoid market taxes and/or have the ability to put more than 5-10 items up for sale at a time. Given that you can have 40 items up on the market and eliminate tax by traveling to the city which is selling the item on the market, I don't think they should spend important dev time on a feature like this right now. To me there are much more important things they can spend their time doing and personal shops would only please a handful of RPers at the end of the day, in my opinion.

This sort of reminds me of the Bazaar system from FFXI. The Bazaar system in FFXI is TERRIBLE. You have to be logged in to sell anything by bazaar. There's no way to tell who is selling the items that you want except by individually examining people one by one until you find the item you're interested in - and then KEEP ON examining people until you verify that it's not being sold cheaper by someone else. If you're trying to SELL something, it's just as aggravating, as you need to examine everyone to get a rough idea of what your product could be selling for, lest you let a valuable item sell far too cheaply or completely fail to sell because you priced your item way too high.

A personal shop system doesn't solve any of the problems that this game has, and DOES introduce new problems... If it accompanies the MB, then it won't be used unless some items can't be sold on MB (as was the case in FFXI), and if it replaces the MB it will infuriate players due to being a WHOLE lot more cumbersome.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

A personal shop system doesn't solve any of the problems that this game has, and DOES introduce new problems... If it accompanies the MB, then it won't be used unless some items can't be sold on MB (as was the case in FFXI), and if it replaces the MB it will infuriate players due to being a WHOLE lot more cumbersome.

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I think making it so that only certian things cannot be sold on the MB is a little drastic and unnecessary. Do you think even if it were something to be used outside of a city it would not be helpful? I remember playing games where if I saw a random shop on the sid eof the road I would always stop and look a tthe items even if I didnt need anything. If it had good prices I would probably buy something. Again this isn't supposed to be something wide scale, it would just be nice to add to the economy, not COMPETE with it.

Although I like the Marketplace, I like the thought of being in the middle of nowhere and a player has a shop there and then and when you go back to the area the player isn't there and you never see them again.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Wrong. No one enjoyed it. That's why it was taken out.

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No, *you* didn't enjoy it. Other people preferred it. As with XI, I prefer selling my stuff wherever and whenever I choose an not having to even go to a town. Sure I had a dedicated stock in 1.0 and sold lots, but I did most of my sales from my personal shop, not the old market wards.