Wards full again

[Preypacer]

Frankly, I'm steadily moving to the side that believes the MW was an interesting concept that probably worked out wonderfully on paper, but is not working out well at all in practice.

I came back to the game after some time away and, while I notice that it's definitely more manageable to work with the Wards at this point, thanks to them placing stars over the NPCs heads, etc... The entire system is just pointless, bloated and completely unintuitive.

It's so strapped up and held together with duct tape and band-aids at this point, I really don't know why SE is so desperate to cling to this system anymore.

In the current system you have to:
1) Go to the market area in a given city. An arbitrary search interface pops up out of thin air. No counter, no physical structure, no NPCs to interact with. Somehow you're able to interact with thin air and find what you're looking for. So, the system is already feeling unfinished and sloppily conceived.
2) Bring up the search interface which basically requires you to know the exact category/sub category of the item you're searching for. I used to think FFXI's categories could have been better optimized. I'd take that system back in a heart-beat over what is in XIV now.
3) Find the item you're after and select the option to place stars over the NPCs heads. Select the correct ward to go to, and teleport there. Locate the NPC you need and run up to it, interact with it and purchase the items.
4) Teleport back out if you're done.... or...
5) If you need more items, run to a designated spot in the ward where, once again, a pop-up window appears out of thin air allowing you to search for more items.
6) Repeat process from step 2.

Drawbacks to this system:
- Unnecessary and unproductive steps between locating items you want and purchasing them
- Inefficient and poorly conceived and implemented search system
- Limited space in each Ward, limiting how many players can have their NPCs stationed there to sell stuff.
- Under-cutting can still take place, since players can see what others are charging via the search function; people "camping" the MW have the same advantage they'd have in an AH system over those who don't check prices regularly.

Now, by comparison, in a well designed, central Auction House:

1) Go up to the Auction House and interact with a physical counter or NPC to begin transactions
2) Select whether you want to buy, sell or manage existing listings; we'll go with buying.
3) Select the Search function and either locate the item you want manually (if you know where it is), or use a very handy text-search function to enter key terms, or partial terms for what you're looking for. Checkboxes are made available to fine-tune your search.
4) If the cost is agreeable, purchase the item. Otherwise, press 'Cancel', or press Esc (on PC)
5) An option to "Search For Something Else", "Sell Items" or "Exit Auction House" is presented.
6) If you want to buy something else, select "Search For Something Else". If you want to sell something, select that. If you're done, select "Exit Auction House".

Similarly, for selling stuff, all transactions and auction management takes place from a single location.

Benefits of this system:
- All interaction takes place from a single location; no extraneous and time-wasting warping/running around from floor-to-floor, NPC-to-NPC.
- No extra digging through poorly organized categories/sub-categories to find the item you're even looking for
- No limit on how many people can sell items, as everything is handled "behind the scene"; no physical character models required.
- For sellers, no concern about whether or not you're "selling your items in the correct ward". Everything is automatically categorized when it's sold.

- Drawbacks of this system...
Beyond "AH Campers" being able to control prices via undercutting, etc... which they can still do with the current MW search function, I honestly can't think of any.

I was rooting for the Wards system at first and thought it could really be an interesting take on how a player economy is handled... however... With the way it was realized... no. All the fixes/patches/adjustments/duct-tape/band-aids being applied only serve to further show just how poorly conceived the entire system was to begin with.