2 birds with 1 stone: more storage space + more life to Grid and LL

[Alzelia]

I recently had a wierd idea. Honestly I'm not sure if I even truely like it. But I know that it would easily help the two issues in the title of this thread.

My Idea:
- Allow a player to hire a max of 3 retainers.
- Only allow a single retainer per city's market ward.

This would bring trade and people to grid and LL. I really don't see this being difficult to program. Basically the idea is that a player can have three retainers, and he is able to access all 3 at a summoning bell. However if this player wants to have each retainer running a bazaar, then he will have to place each retainer in each of the three cities. This would actually kill 3 birds, the third being the crowded Uldah wards.

Like I said I'm not sure if I like this idea, but it is interesting.

[Rentahamster]

I'd rather have the player want to place his retainer in all 3 cities on his own accord because it's the best way to do it, rather than have to be forced to do it. Forcing the player to put one retainer in each city doesn't solve the fundamental issue of why the player doesn't want to do that in the first place.

It would be easier to just unify the wards and make it so that the market ward entrance in each city leads to the same instance.

[Alzelia]

I'd rather have the player want to place his retainer in all 3 cities on his own accord because it's the best way to do it, rather than have to be forced to do it. Forcing the player to put one retainer in each city doesn't solve the fundamental issue of why the player doesn't want to do that in the first place.

It would be easier to just unify the wards and make it so that the market ward entrance in each city leads to the same instance.

I really don't see this fixing the problem of the ghost towns of LL and Grid. That's what I really like about this idea. It does use negative reinforcement to force players to travel to the other cities, but it also rewards the players.

I proposed this system to be as simple as possible so it would be easy to implement. However with additional systems added to the game on top of this system, it could get quite effective. Now Im getting a lot more ideas lol!

[AngryNixon]

It certainly is interesting. I'm still not going to LL or Gridania intentionally. Least of all to the wards there.

[Bigglesworth]

I like the problems this would solve, but then a new problem arises -> "Do I really want to spend 3 anima to go by XXX piece of armor/gear?"

[KorPoni]

Yeah, making a starting city the middle city between 2 others, AND a starting city is definitely a design error on SE's part, but I don't know if there's any real way to fix it without just letting Ul'dah overpopulate and charge extra taxes for more largely populated wards (every 5 npcs in a room raising tax by 1% or so, costing the seller not be buyer. Max tax 30%)

[Akuun]

part of the over crowding problem is 1 account = 16 retainers, 2 for each of the 8 character slots
once we have to start paying to play this number will likely drop (at least until they offer addition retainers for some monthly fee), but until then this is a good stress test and problem to tackle before ps3 launch due to the influx of new players and likely returning players.