A massive concern is that this type of market will continue into version 2 and turn away new players.

But its not really the fault of the playerbase.

Granted there are some items where crafters need to up the price to cover cost and time.

But for other items where it seems the crafter is out to ring your pockets dry, there are numerous ways to simplify the making and selling of items which in turn may persuade a crafter or seller to list items at a more reasonable price. For example:

1. Consolidate protracted steps in the making of an item to save time. Instead of making an item. Then colouring it. Then making it an item "of casting" "of toiling" etc. Merge all 3 steps into one so it can be achieved in one synth. Perhaps expanding the item selection menu to "box 1 put your raw materials" "box 2 put your dye" "box 3 select if you want it of casting or of toiling etc" and then bam! its made in one synth. Linked to this is that recipe lists just go on and on whereas its just the same item numerous times in different colours or stats. There are about 50-100 recipes -just at level 1- on weaver for example.

2. Increase the amount of items one can synth at a time again to save time. Let me risk converting 99 cotton bolls into yarn or 99 yarn into cloth or polish 99 raw gems into polished stones at once if I want to. I'm not doing it for xp once i'm passed the level range. I grinded it once why do I have to keep grinding? Decrease this raw material manufacturing process and let me spend time weaving the new robe or new necklace I want to make instead. This can easily be introduced in a lore acceptable way by forcing players to do bulk crafting at forges/crafting guilds.

Of course players may still go through the normal process if they are aiming for HQ, but not everyone crafting or buying is after HQ all the time. Most often than not people are just looking for clothes to wear lol.

3. I was going to say retainer selling limits should be increased, but with 2 retainers, 20 slots is fine, and we have 10 slots in our own bazaar. I would suggest however, it feels like a big hurdle accessing things i want to sell thereby losing time. If I want to sell something it would be nice if I could bring up the inventory for myself and my 2 retainers at the same time and have a universal bazaar. Players could then access my universal bazaar through the markets or through checking my character while roaming around (server structure capabilities pending lol). Also, 2 retainers seem redundant these days. The original plan was to have one in each city, but with the market merges its just unnecessary. Perhaps expand the baggage of 1 retainer and categorize items with tabs so its just not one massive list.

4. To assist low level ranges, perhaps we can make bags of armour sets. For example, one item slot is "Bag of Velveteen Mage set", a crafter can make all the items in that set and put it in the bag for one item slot in inventory and then for one market slot, thereby saving a headache in inventory management. A lowbie can then just buy the armour set instead of having to search each piece, thereby saving a headache in searching for items piece by piece. I'm sure a number of players would just keep bags of armour sets around just for spiritbonding events with their LS's. This is how my guilds in other MMOs have worked, like SWG and Darkfall when our armour broke or we were robbed of our clothes lol ;x so we kept bags of full armour sets in guild banks for ease of access. Another incentive of selling bags of armour is that a player will most likely spiritbond it all at the same time thereby buying another bag to spiritbond with. Of course this really only applies to certain basic gear sets or to lower level as when we get higher level theres a lot of mixing and matching with gear, but its still useful for the low and mid level route.