Why not just buy things straight from the item search counter?

It seems to me the easiest fix to Market Wards is to keep the basic system as is, but remove the actual wards. Here's how I see it would work.

1: you exchange items with your retainer at the summoning bell.
2: you go up to an item search counter and check the current rate of the item you wish to sell
3: While in the same menu you select up to 10 items from your retainers inventory to sell.
4: if you want to buy something you search the item search feature and purchase it directly from that menu. They money goes to that players retainer.
5: you pick up your Gil from the retainer bell after your item sold.

this way would keep the market wards working exactly how they already do, just without the constant zoning and without searching for the retainer with the item your looking for. Also you wouldn't have to run back and forth between your retainer and the door to check the prices of what you want to sell.

I don't see how this system would work without a flat tax on all items, or perhaps different tax rates on different types of items at different cities to encourage people to go the LL and Grid more often.

Because the informed masses voted for AUCTION HOUSE instead of "wasting their time on the Marketplace" when the fix is this simple. And SE listens, since communication makes the game so much better.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Because the informed masses voted for AUCTION HOUSE instead of "wasting their time on the Marketplace" when the fix is this simple. And SE listens, since communication makes the game so much better.

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This would pretty much be an auction house without the price history or people's character names in the search. Perhaps I didn't quite get me point across effectively

I actually like going to the retainers rather than straight buying an item from a menu. It gives me the opportunity to look at other items in their bazaar that I may also be interested in buying.

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Originally Posted by Alzelia

This would pretty much be an auction house without the price history or people's character names in the search. Perhaps I didn't quite get me point across effectively

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Yeah, I know. I've been saying this since December. But the players want an Auction House. And now it has been probably in the making for months (since it was mentioned in the first letter of the producer).

Maybe add a 5% delivery tax for buying items this way for the convenience and to remove a bit more gill from the economy, if you don't want to pay the tax then go to the retainer as normal.

With this you are right it is pretty much an AH and that is not a bad thing ^^

At this point I don't really care which way SE goes with MW/AH. But this is the exact same thing as AH. If they did this they should implement a whole AH system and not a cheapy half MW half AH. If you have AH style system, you don't need MW and the retainer bazaar ability becomes obsolete. Retainers will be only good for item storage. Im not saying this is bad or good but DO NOT make some cheap knock off with half MW and half AH style system. If they do implement AH...they should do it right.

I agree with the OP in that they should use what the currently have and alter it so we can buy items from the search counter, SE could remake the MW as a players house zone where we could keep our retainer and adjust them when we need to.

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Originally Posted by Eldaena

I actually like going to the retainers rather than straight buying an item from a menu. It gives me the opportunity to look at other items in their bazaar that I may also be interested in buying.

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^ This.
/10char

Being able to purchase items directly from the item search menu would increase usability, convenience, and encourage more people to participate in the economy.

It would also solve the problem of wards crashing.

Instead, why not make the wards themselves more useful. Open-air outdoor wards that allow you to rent or buy a stand. Allow you improve your stand. Use it for taking orders on goods. Have quests that earn you storage at your stand. Have quests that get you crafting support at your stand. Let's expand the functionality and immersion in the game rather then reduce it to a couple pop-up dialogs.

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Originally Posted by Naylia

Let's expand the functionality and immersion in the game rather then reduce it to a couple pop-up dialogs.

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This would be nice in theory but....

This game is bad and they don't have much time to fix it. They need to implement fixes that will improve functionality and stability in the least amount of time possible. Save time, put the wards into a menu interface, this solves the crashing and the difficulty of and time consuming nature of purchasing items.

Use the time saved to tackle bigger problems like the battle system and lack of content.

Once that's done, come back and rework market wards into something really cool.

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Originally Posted by Eldaena

I actually like going to the retainers rather than straight buying an item from a menu. It gives me the opportunity to look at other items in their bazaar that I may also be interested in buying.

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Then you get to walk back to the door to check the price on the other items in that bazaar and then you get to walk back to the same retainer if the price is actually the best deal. how fun......

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Originally Posted by Enthy

Then you get to walk back to the door to check the price on the other items in that bazaar and then you get to walk back to the same retainer if the price is actually the best deal. how fun......

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I's called an "impulse purchase" and only the cheapest and most frugal amongst us would bother to go back to the door and check the price to see if it's lowest when we see one in front of us at a price we find reasonable. And in a game where we have gil coming out the nose, we can afford to be a little less cheap.

Today I needed one cotton fent, one velveteen fent, and one canvas fent, I had to go to the battle ward, chigureons ward, and clothiers ward to get the lowest prices for each fent ontop of having to run to and use the search counter twice ontop of the first time when entering the wards (I cant see what other items an individual who is selling something i'm looking for has for sale, which in turn could saved me one or two zonings). What would have taken me less two minutes took me ten minutes of using the item search counter, zoning to various wards and running to these NPCs. The worst is when you search for an item, go to the respective ward and realise the retainer you are looking for is in another ward and that you should have looked more carefully to see which ward it was really in, ontop of that to add insult to injury you have to use the search counter again to find the right ward. Another thing that is really annoying is that when you are searching for an item and you finally see it in the wards only to find out some d-bag only put it up solely because they ran out of inventory space, or are trying to show something off, and set it for 99,999,999 gil.

Over-glorified AH is over-glorified

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Originally Posted by JackDaniels

The worst is when you search for an item, go to the respective ward and realise the retainer you are looking for is in another ward and that you should have looked more carefully to see which ward it was really in, ontop of that to add insult to injury you have to use the search counter again to find the right ward.

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Hate when this happens @_@

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The worst is when you search for an item, go to the respective ward and realise the retainer you are looking for is in another ward and that you should have looked more carefully to see which ward it was really in, ontop of that to add insult to injury you have to use the search counter again to find the right ward.

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I do this all the time and agree its damn annoying.

I would like it if they kept the wards but expanded them to include buying straight from item list but maybe add an extra 5% delivery tax to encourage you to actually go into the ward to pick the item up.

They also need more filter options and a better layout of the item search lists. Filters for thing like rank, class and so on then sort them in order high to low and so on.

Also show +1, +2 +3 items in the search list and so on.

I don't want a price history as RMT's can abuse it like they did in FFXI. I like being able to see what people are charging and if there is none in stock you sell the item for what you think it is worth and then if people think thats a good price they will buy it.

I also want them to add an Item Seek Search so I can have look and see what Items people are looking for and sell them if I have them. I also want my retainers to be able to Seek items that I currently don't have. It seems silly that you can only seek items that you already have as most of the time you wouldn't be able seeking them if you had them.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Because the informed masses some people voted for AUCTION HOUSE instead of "wasting spending their time on the Marketplace" when the fix replacement is this simple. And SE listens, since communication makes the game so much better.

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I like shopping in the Market Wards, it would be a shame to see them disappear. However, I agree that some people just don't enjoy the Market Wards and it's ok. So, for them there could effectively be an option to buy directly at the search counter (make an actual search counter that looks like an auction house counter, if it what it takes) and have the item delivered in their pocket.... for a price (5% sounds like a good idea).
That would add a gil sink in the game, make people in a hurry get their hands on what they want faster, and keep the Market Wards open for people like who like shopping. With that, we don't need an auction house, all you have to do is select which item you'd like and which listed price you'd like.

To lazy to travel to a ward to buy something you want, when your already sitting at the telepoint to any ward you want?? HAHAHA wow some people are frigging lazy. (probably gonna say some 'but players are in a hurry' now) I think players can spend 1.5 minutes to buy something from a retainer. Actual time it took me to buy hempen yarn from a retainer was 1 min 29 seconds (the majority of that time was trying to find 'hempen yarn' from the stupid search). So people are complaining that they cannot take 1.5 minutes out of their time to go buy an item they want....that is laziness not 'players are in a hurry' excuse. laziness is nothing to cater to.

Here's an idea that could work as a compromise to both warring sides here. The only caveat is that it would require a delivery system to be implemented first.

So let's assume they do decide to put a market window just outside the wards. At this window, which acts as the item search counter, you can do all the searching you can already do today, with improvements as SE implements them. After you search for the item you want, you can choose to leave the search counter and go find the retainer selling the item, as normal. Or, for a small fee based on purchase price (as mentioned above) you can 'purchase' an instant-buy service from the NPC at the search counter. Without bothering you to go find the NPC yourself, they will send a liaison into the wards on your behalf to find the specified retainer, purchase the item for you, and send it through the currently unimplemented delivery system. All you have to do then is go to wherever you pick up your mail (probably one of your retainers) and get your item(s).

The net effect is this. Those who don't mind going into the wards and doing their shopping can do so normally without incurring a fee and being able to instantly have their purchased items in their inventory upon purchase. Those who are inconvenienced by entering the wards can have their instant-buy service, and all it will cost them is a small fee and the time it takes to gather their purchases from the delivery system. Having those detriments to the instant-buy feature would still give the edge to going into the wards yourself, but not so much that the instant-buy is more of an inconvenience to those who want it than simply entering the wards.

Thoughts? Flames?

If they add a feature to buy directly from the retainer in the search window they need to make it so you do it from a window that shows all of that retainers items as well. One of the things I've noticed that I enjoy doing is when I find a vendor that has an item I'm searching for I end up buying one or two other items from them as well because they have whole sets up.

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Originally Posted by Cairdeas

If they add a feature to buy directly from the retainer in the search window they need to make it so you do it from a window that shows all of that retainers items as well. One of the things I've noticed that I enjoy doing is when I find a vendor that has an item I'm searching for I end up buying one or two other items from them as well because they have whole sets up.

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I noticed your other thread after making my previous post. I would agree that those ideas should be included in these future ward improvements.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

Here's an idea that could work as a compromise to both warring sides here. The only caveat is that it would require a delivery system to be implemented first.

So let's assume they do decide to put a market window just outside the wards. At this window, which acts as the item search counter, you can do all the searching you can already do today, with improvements as SE implements them. After you search for the item you want, you can choose to leave the search counter and go find the retainer selling the item, as normal. Or, for a small fee based on purchase price (as mentioned above) you can 'purchase' an instant-buy service from the NPC at the search counter. Without bothering you to go find the NPC yourself, they will send a liaison into the wards on your behalf to find the specified retainer, purchase the item for you, and send it through the currently unimplemented delivery system. All you have to do then is go to wherever you pick up your mail (probably one of your retainers) and get your item(s).

The net effect is this. Those who don't mind going into the wards and doing their shopping can do so normally without incurring a fee and being able to instantly have their purchased items in their inventory upon purchase. Those who are inconvenienced by entering the wards can have their instant-buy service, and all it will cost them is a small fee and the time it takes to gather their purchases from the delivery system. Having those detriments to the instant-buy feature would still give the edge to going into the wards yourself, but not so much that the instant-buy is more of an inconvenience to those who want it than simply entering the wards.

Thoughts? Flames?

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I could edge towards this but one thing I do not understand is the persons that ARE inconvenienced by MW are probably in the same boat still as they STILL have to travel to a different destination to obtain their goods. If they are going to pay a fee then they should get top notch service and have the item delivered to them personally and fast without a hassle to travel to another destination - which is why they paid the fee in the first place?. If they have to travel to another destination then they might as well just travel to the MW to get their goods. Only thing I can think of is have the item delivered to the Loot list or have the item transferred directly to their inventory...if they do not have space then the whole transaction is cancelled with a message saying inventory full.

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Originally Posted by Smokie23

I could edge towards this but one thing I do not understand is the persons that ARE inconvenienced by MW are probably in the same boat still as they STILL have to travel to a different destination to obtain their goods. If they are going to pay a fee then they should get top notch service and have the item delivered to them personally and fast without a hassle to travel to another destination - which is why they paid the fee in the first place?. If they have to travel to another destination then they might as well just travel to the MW to get their goods. Only thing I can think of is have the item delivered to the Loot list or have the item transferred directly to their inventory...if they do not have space then the whole transaction is cancelled with a message saying inventory full.

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I can understand your view. It may seem like no difference when they're only purchasing one or two items. The real difference is when they buy 5, 6, 10, or more items at once. They only travel to pick up their items once, as opposed to each and every different retainer they wish to purchase from. I figure if they want a higher level of service, then the fee would increase proportionally. It's a trade-off, really. Gain a little, lose a little. Gain a lot, lose a lot. Besides, I feel a fee in this economy isn't enough to keep the instant-buy method from becoming the highly-preferred buying mechanism. The purpose is to balance the two.

Oh thank god. FINALLY.


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...811-24-2011%29

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1.20-NEW-
Buying via Item Search-NEW-
Enabling direct purchase of items via Item Search

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I like setting up shop for specific item and stylizing my booth. I just wish I can have my retainer's lease for longer.

there was a hint in the letter from the producer, yoshi said the hardest thing the programmers are dealing with is the market system, that would suggest this server just is not up to the job of a decent market place, i can only guess if it was as easy as OP wants that would be in place and programmers would be having easier time

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Oh thank god. FINALLY.


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...811-24-2011%29

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This has been known for months ... but yes great news.

And thus the days of actually going into the wards to make a purchase are coming to a close.

Both the sales history and the direct purchasing of items. The AH slowly emerges from the ashes anyhow. Another victory for common sense and convenience.

I'm looking forward to this more than the moogle fight.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

This has been known for months ...

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Err..

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1.20-[SIZE=5]NEW[/SIZE]-
Buying via Item Search-[SIZE=5]NEW[/SIZE]-
Enabling direct purchase of items via Item Search

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We never knew when.