WARNING! This is a long post. Also, this thread is related to improving the Market Wards. If you do not want to improve Market Wards, or want to talk about Auction Houses, I would politely ask that you post in many of the other threads on that topic.
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So Rentahamster started a discussion thread on how best to encourage the redistribution of player populations among all the cities without hitting Ul'dah with a nerf-hammer. The link to that thread is below.
One of the steps was the unification of all the Market Wards in all the cities into a single instance. One ward. All cities.
Not a bad idea. Such a zone would have to be massive though. Almost a city in it's own right. It will be a Unified Market Ward. But how do we explain how players from three different places can walk into the same zone?
The Hamster responds, "They teleport, like they do now, silly Sorel".
That's what he said, word for word. :p
And he was right. Even though the game currently implies that we walk into the Market Wards, we really know that we teleport into them.
So why don't we drop the pretense in-game that we are walking into the Market Wards and build an Aetheryte Crystal at the point where we would normally zone into a city's Market Ward. That way we can explain in-game how players in three different cities can all end up shopping for items in the same zone.
But wait, there's more. This Aetheryte Crystal isn't like the other City and Camp Aethrytes. Those are "Light" Aetheryte Crystals. They are there to help you complete levequests, tell you general information, attune you to you guardian deity, and restore your HP, MP, and consciousness if need be. They're nice.
The Aetheryte Crystal that teleports you to the Unified Market Ward isn't "nice". It won't restore your HP or MP, you can't set it as a home point in case you are KO'd, it doesn't care about your standing with your guardian, your faction, or your momma. It's there for one purpose and one purpose only. Business. It's a "Dark" Aetheryte Crystal.
The Dark Aetheryte Crystals will visibly look different than the normal Light variety (to avoid confusion) and will perform the following functions.
- Search for Retainers selling specific items in the Unified Market Ward and place markers on them (multi-colored so you can search for more than one item at a time).
- Summon your Retainer out of the Ward, or place your Retainer in a specific area of the Ward (e.g. Tanner's Area, Mason's Area, etc).
- Teleport your character to a specific area of the Unified Market Ward.
The Unified Market Ward itself would be a single zone of concentric circles of vendor stalls divided by straight roads that radiate North, South, East, West, NW, NE, SW, and SE. In the center of this zone would be a larger version of the Dark Aetheryte Crystals in each city. It would be able to perform all the functions of it's smaller cousins, plus be able to return your character to the aetheryte that teleported you into the zone. We can also have the player be able to use the Return command from the menu to do the same thing, if that player doesn't wish to walk back to the central aetheryte.
The Unified Market Ward will have designated areas which would serve the same purpose as the individual Market Wards (are supposed to) do currently. That is to organize the Retainers so that they can be more easily found by shopping players.
All things being equal, 3 rings of vendor stands multiplied by 8 roads radiating from the center of the zone equals 24 areas to represent Masons, Tanners, Carpenters, Blacksmiths, etc.
The key thing with the areas is that they can expand and contract depending on the number of Retainers assigned to an area. For example, if more than half of the Retainers in the zone are assigned to the Mason's Area, that area could very well include every stall north of the central dark aetheryte crystal.
Another key thing about the Unified Market Wards is that every Retainer placed in it will be given a vendor stall and placed in that stall in the area that you assign. Not only does it make things more orderly and reduce the appearance of overcrowding, it allows the system to know empirically when it need to expand or contract an area (i.e. when it runs out of stalls in a particular area).
Overall, I think the Unified Market Ward would both help aid in dispersing the player population to all the cities, as well as improve the Market Ward experience as a whole.
BTW, "Unified Market Ward" though technically, accurate, is a bit of a mouthful and not terrible poetic. I was thinking of calling this zone "Midian" since it's almost going to be a commerce hub. But the name is too biblical so I'm hoping someone else can come up with a better one.
One Ward To Rule Them All ...
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07-01-2011, 08:18 AMSorelOne Ward To Rule Them All ...
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07-01-2011, 08:27 AM_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_
Aether Ward. After all, this kind of magical ward doesn't seem like it exists in a traditional city, so why not exist inside some kind of alternate dimension, inside the dark aetheryte?
Do you propose that stalls and retainers be coerced into carrying only one type of item like they are now? I have an alternative suggestion:- Quantum stalls
It's all magicky and teleporty to begin with, so why not use an organizational scheme that matches it?
/2gil -
07-01-2011, 08:35 AMFrisqueThis made me LOL so hard!Quote:
It won't restore your HP or MP, you can't set it as a home point in case you are KO'd, it doesn't care about your standing with your guardian, your faction, or your momma.
I'm kind of weird and rather enjoy the fact that the wards aren't connected >.>
Then I can leave Ul'dah, go to other cities to sell wood/ore/alch mats and feel like i'm the Donald Trump of Copper Ore!!!!
But seriously, if SE decides to connect them all, I could get on board with this idea. -
07-01-2011, 08:41 AMVerecund
inb4 Limbo Lominsa
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07-01-2011, 04:43 PMEruantien
just to add im all for one ward in some fashion. I was actually in limsa wanting to do some grinding but had to warp back to uldah to buy a weapon. This wouldnt have happened if the wards were one in the same
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07-01-2011, 09:53 PMSorelAether Ward does have a nice ring to it, and I don't think it's being used yet in MTG. Existing in an alternate dimension doesn't sound bad either, but I'm not 100% on that. But it wouldn't be without precedent. FFXI was loaded with alternate dimensions.Quote:
Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_
Actually having the zone be inside the aetheryte crystal is kind of mind-bending though because it implies that all aetheryte crystals can hold worlds, which means Eorzea could be inside an aetheryte crystal and all our characters are really just retainers that became self-aware, and there's a real world outside of Eorzea with real characters (i.e. The Twelve Guardians). The metaphysical implications are vast. Like FFX dreams of the Fayth vast. We may not want to open up that door.
That would mean that your retainer can somehow make multiple copies of himself. If retainers are real NPCs, that wouldn't be possible. We'd have to make them holograms or magical constructs of the dark aetheryte crystal in order for that to work I think. That may be taking things a bit too far out.Quote:
Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_
I think just allowing players to have their retainers sell whatever they want in whatever area they want without restriction would be OK. The only requirement is that the player has to assign the retainer to a stall in one area, for system administration purposes. -
07-01-2011, 09:56 PMGath
Market wards won't matter when they put the AH in, the wards will die after that's done, they should just turn the MW into a giant item storage facility....
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07-01-2011, 10:30 PMZanfire
you mean an AH? XD
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07-01-2011, 10:37 PMSephr
Honestly, I just hope they put in a global auction house, I really don't care enough about the market wards system. It's not fun. It really isn't.
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07-01-2011, 10:39 PMSorel
So that we are clear.
I apologize for being a hard-ass in regards to this, but we already have over a dozen threads on those subjects. This thread is not intended to re-argue the points made in those other threads.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorel
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07-01-2011, 10:48 PMGathAs much as I agree on there are a whole lot of other threads about this, it still pertains to the MW system and how it WILL die off when they put the AH in, there's no argument, it's just the facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorel
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07-01-2011, 10:51 PMChezen
I'd rather the wards work as three seperate markets. It makes for three possible places for a market-oriented player to be successful, opening up more opportunity.
Yes, the game needs the player base to make it work. :)
It's not that your idea is a bad one, I think it's cute. But the way it's set up has more potential I think. It's just a matter of getting the population to spread out... which is kind of the problem, no? lol. The reason I go to Uldah is because I can't buy or sell anywhere else. -
07-01-2011, 10:52 PMAnima
Good Job Sorel! :D Finally someone who is not full of himself, repeating arguments, and all negative! I like the things you mentioned and thought of some myself XD like Retainer being in stalls only, circling position, etc. But I never really liked posting in forums, especially in this EN forum, unless I liked the topic :P Keep it going, and Good Job to Hamster too! I've seen her trying to make a lot of cool suggestions for the game to improve!
EDIT: Trading Union would be cool, but I do agree we need to do something about it that will spread people to Limsa and Grid. Like maybe special privileges if you're in a city? I.E Grid would give benefits to CRP, BOT, TAN, LNC, ARC Items, etc. -
07-01-2011, 10:52 PMtrinta
It's cute how people create public threads, and then try to dictate who can post in them and what can be said.
This is just one step closer to a unified AH, it's like all the inconvenience of a Market Ward, but without the inconvenience of three different cities. I ask, why? -
07-01-2011, 11:02 PMSorelThe population will be hard pressed to spread out to other markets while the Ul'dah Market Ward still holds the majority of goods. Short of the Development Team shutting it down, there is very little that will move commerce away from Ul'dah of it's own accord.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chezen
Making the Unified Market Ward eliminates Ul'dah's commerce advantage by leveling the commerce playing field. It's also very scalable. When Ishgard and Sharlayan come online they won't need their own separate ward systems and databases. -
07-02-2011, 12:40 AMAuctionGirl
The best idea... is to actually not have wards at all, but retainers that you summons from the bells only, and when you search (from any atheryte, or summon bell) you can purchase items directly from there and its delivered to the retainer of choice and you can pull the item off the retainer.
All worlds can be connected with this retainer thing, and this prevents a "maximum" amount of players in a certain area, while fulfilling the feel of an AH, reducing the time needed to search, market wards crashing, and more... -
07-02-2011, 12:42 AMAlhanelem
As much as I like the idea, a single ward for everything is completely impractical, it would increase the stress on the server drastically.
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07-02-2011, 03:55 AMSorelFair enough. But you realize at that point, we would just be making Retainers into bank tellers with customized skins for each player. At that point, for the sake of efficiency, we'd be even more better off just having one NPC that performs the Retainer duties for all the players. This logic only leads us further and further down to an EVE online system of spreadsheets and transactions, instead of shoppers and vendors.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuctionGirl
Server issues are a valid point, though. A massive cluster would be required to pull the vision in the OP off. -
07-02-2011, 05:02 AM_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_Alternately, I was thinking it could be called Burt Ward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorel
Well, there is that. I was thinking that because it's organized in concentric rings of variable size, it isn't likely to exist in any man-made structure. Though when I said inside the dark aetheryte, I didn't mean inside the crystal itself but inside the aether that crystal's attuned to/made out of. Like, timeless space. Or a quick teleport to the TARDIS.Quote:
Actually having the zone be inside the aetheryte crystal is kind of mind-bending though because it implies that all aetheryte crystals can hold worlds, which means Eorzea could be inside an aetheryte crystal and all our characters are really just retainers that became self-aware, and there's a real world outside of Eorzea with real characters (i.e. The Twelve Guardians). The metaphysical implications are vast. Like FFX dreams of the Fayth vast. We may not want to open up that door.
Not exactly. It's not that the retainer is copied or moves, they'd actually stay in one absolute position the whole time. The individual "areas" would be more like a quantum tunnel that only goes from stall to stall depending on what type of stall it is. So a shopper who enters the "hat area" actually enters the "hat quantum tunnel" that teleports him from hat stall to hat stall but from his perspective it's all just one long hallway.Quote:
That would mean that your retainer can somehow make multiple copies of himself. If retainers are real NPCs, that wouldn't be possible. We'd have to make them holograms or magical constructs of the dark aetheryte crystal in order for that to work I think. That may be taking things a bit too far out.
I've always had an issue with this. I'm fine with letting people sell whatever, but unless you only sell one type of thing, some of the stuff you're selling is going to be overlooked by people looking to buy it. Like, if you're selling 5 hats and 5 stacks of dyed cloth, you can be in the right area for one or the other but not both; shoppers can find your hats, but they'll never see your cloth. The only way around it currently is to have a different retainer for each item type, but this is a non-solution.Quote:
I think just allowing players to have their retainers sell whatever they want in whatever area they want without restriction would be OK. The only requirement is that the player has to assign the retainer to a stall in one area, for system administration purposes.
Hence my quantum suggestion. But that might be a little too Doctor Who.