Any word on when we will get an Auction House?

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

The "Wards" are a basic Auction House. You open a menu, search, find the lowest price, and buy, just with some random walking added in. The *concept* of "Market Wards" was a bazaar-style marketplace of random searching. That concept died the moment search was implemented. Call it Wards, call it an AH, "A rose is a rose by any other name."

The concept of random searching died, but the bazaar-style marketplace is still the same. I can search for something but still come across something I didn't search for that I want to buy in that person's retainer. Also I rather just buy my item than bid over it.

[Shika]

If they scrapped the Market Wards and retainers, maybe they would bring back moogles to hold your stuff instead? ^^ "~Kupo"
If they keep the current Market Ward system of course there are improvements that they need to make (e.g. differentiating between +1, +2 and +3 items to name just one of many), which I'm sure they are thinking of and working on anyway. It is a work-around system for now, but as long as we end up with an easy way to search for and buy equipment/items I don't really mind whether it is a static Auction House or the Market Wards.

[ShinChuck]

That's not really the problem.. The problem is that people don't realize that what they are asking for already exists in-game for the most part. They are giving the devs mixed messages and as can be seen from the letter of the producer already, they seem to think an "AH" called Auction House is needed because people don't grasp that the concept already exists in the game. It is not good for this game that the devs are made to do unnecessary work.

Of course they'll be happy with the end result, but it doesn't help that they don't know it themselves before the end result becomes a reality. Before that they keep thinking AH is an AH and Marketplace is a Marketplace.

I think you're just not giving people enough credit on both sides. The players are smart, so are the dev team. They know the score and what's being said. The dev team isn't so stupid to think that a Marketplace that acts as an AH, just isn't called one, won't be good enough for people, and people similarly would be happy given all the standard options asked for.

Yes. I'm not saying SE can't do it, of course they can, but they have a limit like any other company in existence. Using valuable resources for a task that doesn't help the game would be bad for this game and thus not feasible financially. Even if they are sitting on a pile of gold, that doesn't mean it is financially or practically feasible to use it all on this game, for features that do not give sufficient return for the investment. It always comes down to "SE can do everything because they're so massive company", but believe me, every company has a limit, and we should not test what SE's limit is by asking for these kind of 'improvements'.

"Do you have he power to do anything?" The answer would be most likely yes. "Do you have power to do everything?" As long as the resources are finite (and they certainly are), the answer is no.

I'm sorry, I just don't believe it would be some crazy financial drain, nor do I think that's a reasonable line of thought. I've seen smaller companies make bigger changes without a problem, and removing Retainers from the equation is a relatively small issue.

If they're unnecessary, they won't be used. Why is that a good reason to take it away? What does it improve?

Let's say for example the Expeditionary force content in XI. It was a useless feature that no one ever did, but why would they have taken it away? What's the logic in that? It's not detrimental to the game, it's just there. Does it annoy you or something?

There is no reason to take anything away from this game as long as it's not detrimental to it. That is a waste of resources in the best sense of the word.

But it is unarguably detrimental to it, and that's the point. Unlike Expeditionary force content, which I could avoid and still function in-game, Retainers are an unavoidable - and entirely unintuitive, unnecessary - aspect of buying and selling. The process could be accomplished without them.

As for benefits, numerous ones have been mentioned. It would be quicker buying and selling, it would reduce server load, particularly if population went back up, it would be easier to manage sales, it would be a lot less time consuming, it would be less longterm maintenance SE would need to focus on, they wouldn't crash and kill sales, they wouldn't be yet another bloated menu system to deal with, it would make inventory management more streamlined, no more having to stop selling to summon a retainer to manage stuff.

I'm not sure why you keep saying there are no benefits, when many people have posted potential gains - none of which you have argued, even.

Simply relegating Retainers to act as mules would have numerous benefits to the banking, economic, server, inventory and other issues, and it really shouldn't be particularly hard to do.

[Abriael]

I'm also in the camp of the ones that think that, with the current implementation (and future evolutions) of the market wards an AH would just be redundant.

What we need is stable servers for the market ward and a centralized search system. With that the market wards would have every single feature of an AH, with windows shopping and a better opportunity for impulse purchases added.

The development resources need to be spent more effectively, IMHO, than in implementing a redundant system just because some people think that since a system works well in some MMORPGs, EVERY MMORPG should implement the same system without variations.

[viion]

I dont think we need one, add in "History" and all is good. Some kind of global search be nice so you can view retainers from other cities.

[ShinChuck]

But we have a basic AH, and nobody is asking for a redundant system. Really, if the Ward Auction House was upgraded to offer the same benefits of any other AH, people would be fine with them. People asking for an AH are not asking for a literal second redundant system, they are asking for equivalent functionality, whether from a new system that replaces the Wards entirely or a WAH that is adjusted to be as smooth as any other AH.

It doesn't matter if we want or don't want an AH, we have a very simple, unintuitive one - we're just asking to improve it to meet the reasonable standards of an AH.

[Gath]

I dont think we need one, add in "History" and all is good. Some kind of global search be nice so you can view retainers from other cities.

It would be awesome to have history in place of current prices, stops the gay undercutting game. The best thign about the XI AH system is that undercutting really didn't happen. Also made it easier to control a certain items(s) on the AH.

[Lebannen]

There is already a building in Limsa Lominsa assigned to be an auction house. It still isn't open though, but you can see from the insignia on the door that it will be an auction house. If you want to see it, it is near the docks in Limsa Lominsa. I stumbled upon it yesterday.

[Aldwin]

I still don't see people considering what the market wards would be like if more than the mere few hundred at most people were playing on your server. If this game was poplular, which is the goal of course, how would it look zoning into the battlecraft wards with 10,000 retainers in that tiny zone, waiting for the marked retainer to actually show up on your screen, and then trying to target him among the 10,000 surrounding him. I don't believe the market system could, or was ever designed, to support a large playerbase.

Personally I want an auction house. If se wants to try something different, maybe try making an auction house that is not only linked to all cities, but across all servers as well.

[viion]

It would be awesome to have history in place of current prices, stops the gay undercutting game. The best thign about the XI AH system is that undercutting really didn't happen. Also made it easier to control a certain items(s) on the AH.

Yeh undercutting is a bitch, for people with not a lot of money they love it, and when you see a bargin its like wooo, but then you try to sell things to make money you're like ".... okay WTF"