One Ward To Rule Them All ...

[Sorel]

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.

-------------------------

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.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-How-to-Fix-It

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.

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.

[_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

Since the concentric rings expand or contract based on the number of stalls in them, why not have each stall exist in a quantum space that is only observable when a customer enters the appropriate ring? That is to say, if my retainer is selling both hats and shields, then her stall should be in both the hat ring and the shield ring. If she then also starts selling jewelry, the stall will also appear in the ring ring.

It's all magicky and teleporty to begin with, so why not use an organizational scheme that matches it?

/2gil

[Frisque]

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.

This made me LOL so hard!

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.

[Verecund]

inb4 Limbo Lominsa

[Eruantien]

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

[Sorel]

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?

Aether 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.

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.

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

Since the concentric rings expand or contract based on the number of stalls in them, why not have each stall exist in a quantum space that is only observable when a customer enters the appropriate ring? That is to say, if my retainer is selling both hats and shields, then her stall should be in both the hat ring and the shield ring. If she then also starts selling jewelry, the stall will also appear in the ring ring.

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 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.

[Gath]

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....

[Zanfire]

you mean an AH? XD

[Sephr]

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.

[Sorel]

So that we are clear.

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.

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.