[Suggestion] Seek Item

[Amineri]

The problem with this is that you will have to have a list of every possible tradable item in this world. And that's a pain for the developers to reveal the item ID of everything possible, and it does kill the fun of the surpise.

There's just no way around a system that automates item "requests".

What you can do is do the old in game message system. Some MMOs have experimented with that. Or you bring back FF11's link system. Those in FF11 know what i'm talking about when you can shift click your item name of a view equipment window and have the stats available to link to text.

That's the only way it'll work. If you request an item, you have to first find someone with that item for you to link.

I agree wholeheartedly that SE should not expose the entire in-game database (although YG and FFXIV-Pro to a certain degree have shown that the case is otherwise).

I can see two options to get around this. Clearly the item database is resident on the local machine. The question is how to decide which items in that database are available to a player to "seek to buy".

option 1) Any time a player examines an item either being worn by a player (using check), views an item for sale in a bazaar, or actually obtains possession of an item, the item in the database is marked as viewed. Only items that have been viewed are able to be sought.

option 2) This method is somewhat similar to the autotranslate function, with its limited and ever-so-entertaining omissions (but that is a separate topic). Each player has a 'wishlist' of a limited number of items, say 20 for the sake of argument. When viewing a character with check or selecting an item for sale in a bazaar, and a particular item is selected, a player can add that piece of gear to the wishlist. Only items that are currently in the player's or retainer's possession or on the wishlist can be sought.

*option 1 is more lenient toward players, as everything is automatic remembered, while option 2 is more "realistic" (for those of us without photographic memories). Option 1 may also expose more opportunities for hacks or exploits, while the option 2 wishlist could be maintained server-side to minimize such possibilities.

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On another note, I'm adding

5) Items being sought require two item slots in your bazaar

I believe that this is because the item being sought is transferred (relinked) into your bazaar, taking up one slot, and the item or gil being offered is also transferred (relinked) into your bazaar, thus taking up the other slot. Seeking an item should only take one bazaar slot. Implementing either of the two suggestions would eliminate the need to relink the item into the bazaar, since there is no item, and would thus require only the one slot.

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I'll close by pointing out that many of the economy complaints that I have seen relate to the inability to determine item demand. Requests for price history for items often bring up this point, and I personally feel that while the supply side of the economy is well represented, the demand side is obscured.

By fixing the item seek feature, and making it at least as robust as the current selling system, far more transparency could be added to the demand side of the economy.