Stop "fixing" the MW scrap it

[Anathiel]

No need to explain myself because I agree with what almost every other AH "wanter" has said. I'm not going to copy paste what's been said a thousand times so far.

[Loki_Jortunn]

I would like to point out the major difference between the ffxi AH and the MW that seems to have eluded everyone in this thread so far.

FFXI - you don't see what price people are selling items at, only the history of the last 10. This makes it so people almost never selling for less the the last sale in the history. This keeps sellers listing more items and also makes it quick and easy for them to list them. This is know as a Sellers Market.

FFXIV - you get to seee the price of every item that is up for sale, along with its price. This makes it so that people will always under cut the current price to ensure that people will buy their good, it doesn't matter if is undercutting by 1g or 100,000g, its human nature to want to get the cheapest one. With this system it forces people to constantly push down the price of items the only control is the rareity of the item slowing its decent. As someone on page 2 mentioned with the MW system the process of running to the search counter each time to check the current price makes it a slow and painful system (pen and paper does help). This system is a Buyers Market.

Now i'm not going to complain too much about the MW but personally i've not really sold much on it choosing to just NPC most of the goods i make to save myself the trouble of using the system. I remember from alpha to release they worked hard on speeding up the interface with retainers and even after release it make a huge difference. However in my eyes no matter how much they speed it up or how much they increase the number of retainers per ward its not going to fix the economy. To fix the economy they need to make it a sellers market - this will encourage more people to use, common items will stabilise at lower prices with out massive deflation seen with MW, buyers would have to put in blind bids, some times they might get lucky and get a super cheap item othertimes pay more than the last sale. If SE really loves the idea of retainers they should make it a system that works in tendem with the AH for people looking for very quick sales (but this might do more harm than good).

[Aleya]

Just a small question. Even though the AH makes a lot of sense, but has everyone forgotten what a mess that became with all the bots? They flooded the AH and made everything SO expensive! It was impossible for me to play! I never want that to happen to FFXIV.

[AngryNixon]

lol lets go back to paper and pencil........while playing a mmorpg using a computer in 2011.................oh yeah!

MW SUCKS period

In all fairness, for at least some of us, the CE came with that journal thing to supplement the MW system, just didn't come with a complimentary pencil.. cheap...

Also as a minor supplement to the discussion. The term "AH" does not need to mean "FFXI's AH" or "WoW's AH". The AH is what they make of it and if it were a little closer to EVE's AH or something totally different it might not come with the problems the other ones had. And no, the MW is not a re-imagining of the AH system. If it is, I'd like to know what they were smoking when they thought it was a good substitute.

[vax]

I will like to see an AH implemented but i don't have any problem with market wards, if you don't use it is your problem.

[Gundammeister]

I LOVE the Market Wards. And yes, I use paper and a pen the keep track of prices. I check my prices constantly and I love making sure my retainers have a full supply. That is the best part of the game in my opinion. Yes you have to search the item at the door, then run back to your retainer -- omg, what's the big deal? I think the wards and the retainers give it a much more personable feeling than a stupid auction house. And I like that I have to seek out someone's retainer when I want to purchase something. Maybe it's because I'm an older gamer, maybe it's because I own a business in RL and this is the kind of stuff I enjoy, or maybe all these kids are so used to buying stuff off the internet and not leaving their couches that actually "teleporting" to a ward to buy or sell items is way more work than they are used to.

SE, please keep the market wards... please.

[Xatsh]

Just a small question. Even though the AH makes a lot of sense, but has everyone forgotten what a mess that became with all the bots? They flooded the AH and made everything SO expensive! It was impossible for me to play! I never want that to happen to FFXIV.

Not defending bots, but I keep hearing bots cause massive inflation over and over and it is simply the opposite being true.

Bot did not make everything so expensive, the RMT mass manipulating the market and HNMLS creating monopolies did.

The botters who spammed the market with goods actually did the opposite.

Supply and Demand... if you crank up the supply really high Prices fall due to demand remaining relatively constant.

The botters might causing minor inflation on raw materials because they are consuming so many, but everything else is becoming dirt cheap compaired to the gil coming in with leves. (every 5 days of leves i can almost buy a whole new set of armor for my 50 glad... that is how cheap things are)

[Nipa]

Are you telling me that going into the right ward and finding the retainer is a pain in the neck?

It's annoying enough for me not to go there, yes.

And I believe this represents the majority of the non-F2P MMO market.

You can keep the wards in this state, nothing will prevent you from it. But if you happen to want players, even worse, paying customers, I think it's not the way to go.

[Demacia]

UI based market. Say it with me guys. It doesn't matter if it's called an Auction House or a Market Ward or whatever as long as I can open a window, sort items, buy/sell them, and not have to put up with any retainer bullshit. Stop trying to get technical because we all know what the real problem is.

[Chezen]

I want to post here what I wrote in another thread, in response to a post by Dreamer. I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her.

The current market wards can be fixed - they simply suffer from the same lack of polish that we see in the rest of the game. What people want is speed and convenience, and it's much easier to streamline the current system for speed and convenience than it is to implement an entirely new system.

People don't understand that there is so much more that can be done with the current system than a traditional house. Ever notice that our retainers have levels? The system seems to be set up in such a way as to allow for further expansion. Imagine being able to sort your retainers wares into different categories for easy browsing. The current unused retainer levels could be utilized to modify transaction fees, or even make it so that your company members pay a reduced rate. Imagine being able to set your retainer up with the necessary materials and then place him or her in the Mender's Ward to offer repairs using your own DoH skillset.

Imagine that once your retainer reaches a certain level, your stalls are upgraded to full storefronts that can hold both retainers and offer better customization and name recognition services (I would love to be able to put up a giant banner in front of my stall to let everyone know that the Ardarose Bakery is open for business).

Could you do most of the above with a traditional auction house? Sure. But the market ward lends itself to these types of expansions more naturally, and it's far more likely to happen if they don't have to spend the time to create a new auction house system from scratch.

Like pretty much everything in this game, the market wards DO have potential. I'd much rather see them try their hand with something uniue and potentially more engaging than the systems we already know and are most familiar with.

From the interviews on youtube and my own observations, it's been clear to me that the devs are trying to create a semi-realistic and completely immersive fantasy world. I'm not saying they have been completely successful at it so far, but some people really are too stuck on mmo fastfood to see it. There are some people who really are here to play the DoH and DoL, and, especially if what Dreamer suspects is true, the market wards are especially for them. Those of a battle nature have an expansive world (under construction) to go fight. Those of a crafting nature will have a market to use their imagination with. Is it fair to demand an AH just because it's inconvenient to you?

That being said, I understand the point everyone has about overcrowding, and I do think it's a problem. But I'm more inclined to think that they have further designs in mind to deal with that, than that that they just didn't consider it altogether.

Se is embarking into unknown territory. There is bound to be some bumps, and even major upsets along the way. But I'm along for the ride. Watching this new mmo unfold will be an adventure in itself.