Why further enhancements to market wards?

[Perrin_Aybarra]

Hmm... that's probably why they didn't include the retainer's owner then! :P

Really, my reason was more naive.

"Hey, man! I see you be slangin' them Leather Tool Belts. Can I place an order from you directly for Dodoskin Boots?"

they could make it so, when you search for an Item and there is 0 retainers selling it, you could choose an option "seek craft". Your retainer would then have this extra icon with seek craft.

Crafters cool search the ward in the "seeking craft" menu and see what is requested. Once crafted they can go exchange this item to the seeking retainer for the reward listed by the seeker.

[Draco]

It is not only me that wants this. If tomorrow, another letter from the producer was released that said " With the release of patch 1.19, the new Auction House System and Mog House system, will be making their way to Eorzea" the entire community would completely freak out. You would see posts that said OMFG!!! FINALLY!!! and so on and so on for pages and pages. When I say noone wants something, i look at all of the complaints about this game when it came out and I read reviews, and listen to vent chatter, and I look at the time it would take someone to purchase an entire wardrobe of crafting gear, then I say something like noone wants it. There is alot of competition out there when it comes to an MMO. Any system that makes it harder to do something as simple as purchase a pair of pants will serve to only frustrate a new player. When I talk about things that I would recommend, it is not for me. I have grown accustomed to the wards system and like Final Fantasy enough to put up with it. NEW PLAYERS is what is going to give SE its rebirth that is so desperately needs. Read what I wrote below, if you really consider that a superior system than a simple Select >>> Purchase >>>> Equip system, which is what an AH is, then maybe I am completely out of touch. But I think saving players 20-30 minutes every time that they want to purchase a new set of gear, is absolutely fundemental. I also did not even touch on how long it takes to actually load up your retainer and fill up your bazaar with proper prices.

Walk up to Wards
Select Item Search Counter
Select desired ward
Select desired catergory
Find Item
Select Item
Hit "Yes" button at bottom to track item
Select Market Wards
Select desired ward
Wait for loading screen
Run to desired retainer and select
Purchase desired item from retainer
Run back to the Market Ward window

Rinse and repeat about 5-10 times until you have a complete set of gear

[Chinook]

Market wards system is the most annoying and time wasting feature in FFXIV (well, second to server issues).

That's coming from a fanboy who likes the game.

[Draco]

Because nobody want an AH. They want a Broker house, which the market ward is in some way.

When the 600 thousand + people that purchased this game and left, complained, one of the biggest complaints that has still gone un addressed was the lack of an Auction House and Mailbox. When this game was reviewed, one of the points brought up was the lack of an Auction House and Mailbox system. Every single MMO out right now that has any form of competitive market share for MMO's has a very strong AH and Mailbox system.

When you say noone wants an AH, guess again

[Abriael]

@Draco: Looks like you didn't learn that little lesson. Let me reiterate in simpler terms.

You can't speak for the "entire community". You can't even speak for the majority. You can speak only for yourself.

I find it massively funny that you write that an AH is just "Select >>> Purchase >>>> Equip" (quite conveniently skipping a lot of steps, like walking up to the AH, select the desired category, find item and so forth), while when describing the wards you (again, quite conveniently) putting in every single step.

Looks like someone is trying to distort reality in order to prove a false point, mh? Nice trick, but it doesn't really fly.

It's a fact that the amount of time the wards add to the purchase of any items is minimal, and the time spent buying and selling items in a MMORPG is a minimal part of the whole.

Describing scrapping a system that works and replacing it with a completely different one that allows you save a minimal amount of time in an activity that forms a minimal part of the game as anything near to a priority is completely laughable.

Describing it as something even nearly determining to persuade people to join the game or return to it in any sizable numbers is the whole definition of comedy gold.

If you take "20-30 minutes" to purchase a set of equipment more than what it would take with an AH, I'm sorry, but you must be functionally impaired. Or you're simply using a massive amount of hyperbole to prove a false point, which is more probable.

Try realism next time, it helps making better points.

When you say noone wants an AH, guess again

or maybe you should learn the difference between an Auction House and a Broker system (what you actually want and that some developers erroneously named auction house).

[Draco]

@ Abriael ......... .

Approach AH
Select Catergory
Select Item
Purchase Item
Equip Item

Rinse repeat 5-10 times all without having to move your character from place to place.

Is that what you meant?

[Xenor]

There's nothing to stop the wards functioning as an AH if they allowed you to purchase directly from the item search screen.

[SniperRifle]

I've actually started to warm up to it. However, I definately would prefer an AH. I actually hoped I might see a pinch of info on an AH (or Ishguard) in the Producers letter but no dice. I think the MW have managed to help keep RMT corruption out of the economy due to no AH. I just recently (August 2011) started selling stuff in the MW (first time since November 2010), and I haven't been having trouble selling stuff. I've also bought some gear too. It's nice sometimes randomly looking for a piece of gear or an item to find someone selling it for INSANE dirt cheap, and not having to guess for a buyout price (i.e FF11).

I'll still be very happy if they introduce an Auction House.

[Renshi]

I can't wait for them to make the Market Wards faster and more intuitive so you guys can stop bashing it.

[naaros]

I just wish they would take out having to load up a completely new area and walk to the retainer to pick stuff up, and repeat for every piece of gear you want. If they took out that step, I would be a lot happier. Of course, even going into the market ward to put up your items in your bazaar is a pain because I have to either run back and forth between the "window" to check prices of stuff I wish to sell or open Notepad to write down everything, then run back to my retainer - it's just a complete waste of time compared to an auction/broker house.. While it isn't a big issue to me (I'm used to it now), new players will not like it. I recently got a friend to start playing, and while he enjoys the game as a whole so far, he absolutely hates the market ward system.

Also, I wish they would fix their server as trading my retainer a lot of items takes forever and is very delayed. I'm not even sure if they were expecting a lot of people to play given the fact that most of the Uldah market wards are full as it is with this very small playerbase. I suppose they thought people would (for some reason) spread out to other cities, but has that ever been the case with MMOs? There's always going to be one main city people flock to because it's just easier that way. =/