Auction House vs Wards

[Elexia]

Which is already confirmed as an App for ARR, too.

[SevenNajelith]

I am all for that Al. That would make my life much easier. Just curious though, if I had that why would I even need a retainer? I'm sure they could also implement a part of an AH allowing you to request items to be bought/repaired also. That being said, if they had such a feature MW would be much more bearable for me personally. I would still prefer it to be in same window so that it would be far more streamlined, but I could deal with it.

[Alhanelem]

Which is already confirmed as an App for ARR, too.

i'm not aware of this, but I wasn't really talking about a phone app, I was simply referring to something in-game. e.g. the Retainer List allowing you to access your retainers instead of just showing you where you stowed them.

[Elexia]

I know what you were saying as I play MS too, which is something they mentioned designing for a phone app for ARR (retainer management.)

[AdorraEloom]

Personally I don't like the wards at all, its very time consuming to do anything, running back and forth, trying to find retainer spot, and most of all, the CREEPY dolls standing around in a room is just not right .... I would love to see the wards scrapped, and just have an Auction house, would be much easier on the players for a faster paste game type and most likely a lot easier on the Dev team, and less Stress on the server trying to load all those creepy dolls into one room....

[Duelle]

Thank you SE for keeping the markets wards. Glad that SE stood it's ground about market wards and not switching to an AH. This is not FFXI. If you want an AH take your arse back to XI.

I wouldn't wish FFXI's Auction House on my most hated MMO.

No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

False. I may have played FFXI, but it is also a name in a longer list of MMOs with different ways of handling commerce. I'd want something like a real auction house, with post times and a base price that does not instantly sell the moment you place a bid higher than the seller's secret price of the item. A buyout option to expedite things would also be nice.

The design has to put convenience in the forefront, because convenience is what helps move the economy. As it's currently set up, you're not going to be moving people out of Uldah or whatever city players decide is the main hub for everything, and if 2.0 is only looking to alleviate the congestion of this inherently bad system instead of bringing in a new system to correct things, then I can only say I am disappointed.

On retainers: I'd want them to hang out at my residence/estate. Use them to interact with the functions within the estate. Hell, I'd want to be able to gear them up and make them follow me into combat as companions, as a third option aside from the path companion and chocobo and whatever else they're adding on that front.

[Alhanelem]

I am all for that Al. That would make my life much easier. Just curious though, if I had that why would I even need a retainer?

You'd still need it for general storage and it would still appear in the market ward it was sent to. The main idea here is to eliminate some of the overhead that really slows the selling process down. The buying process works fine right now (outside of the different cities still being effectively split up)- it's the seller's end that needs improving now.

[Synfrag]

Explain the differences between an AH and MW without stating features they both utilize which makes them the same system.

You state traditional AH system, traditional AH system consists of:

1. Searching for an item.
2. Buying said item.
3. Selling items.

Firstly, the way your wrote that is is convoluted and obscure.

I think you were trying to say "Explain the differences between the two". "Explain the differences between an AH and MW without stating features they both utilize" is an oxymoron as differences are exactly that.

Current Differences
Anti-MW
Inability to find anything beyond 20 cheapest items.
Need to check prices, run back to the retainer after writing them down or try to remember. (single worst part imo)
Obnoxious process of handing the items to the retainer, backing out of the menu, going into the manage menu, find the item and place it for sale. (I count 5 steps at least. This is so broken)
Need for multiple zonings to buy and sell items. We don't need more zones... even if they reduce load and lag!

Pro-MW
Being able to store items and sell them from storage.
Less of a cluster f**k at an AH window.

Anti-FF Style
With movement to a drag and drop inventory system we could actually see right-click options as well as ctrl-click, alt-click and shift-click. Hands down one of the best market features in other MMOs is the ability to post a sale with left click, auto complete a search query with right click, split stack with shift-click etc.

While on that subject I really hope they add in chat linking of items too. It's a PITA having to type out "Lighting Brand +1 Tripple melded III,III,IV Int +38" even with auto-translate. And if people don't know what the item is for they have to ask or look it up.

The pros do not in any way outweigh the cons. Scrap the wards and give us an AH please.

P.S. Someone on Hyperion buy my Lighting Brand +1 Tripple melded III,III,IV Int +38 ^-^

[Synfrag]

You'd still need it for general storage and it would still appear in the market ward it was sent to. The main idea here is to eliminate some of the overhead that really slows the selling process down. The buying process works fine right now (outside of the different cities still being effectively split up)- it's the seller's end that needs improving now.

The buying process does not work fine. Unless your definition of fine is going through every single ward looking for a good meld or even the right Materia.

Personally I'm sitting on the highest potency IV materias simply because it is too much of a paint to go ward by ward to doa price comparison. So shoppers are even missing out becasue there are others like me.

[Xerius]

Here's how I see it. 90% of people are going to switch over to the AH when it comes in just because it's infinitely more convenient but the AH will have limits I'm sure just like it did in XI. That's where there MW come in. It acts like a second bazaar if you can't find something in the AH check the MW. Lastly, the MW retainers add extra storage into the game. So, that's a really nice feature imo. If people want to stay in the MWs, let them. They're probably going to be the second choice for most players though so that's something to keep in mind.