Stop "fixing" the MW scrap it

[Wolfie]

Platinumstorm, read my reply to Anty above. You losing profit on an item is not the fault of MW or AH or price listing, it's the fact that there's no way right now to remove an item from circulation once someone purchased it. The market is oversaturated with a particular item and the price goes down naturally, not because it was influenced by the trading system. Compare low level items with mid and high level items: I bought an iron chain mail shirt over a bronze one because it was cheaper (because there were 4x the iron chain mail shirts available compared to bronze ones).

[AngryNixon]

Awesome. Not like you brought anything of value to the discussion.

Wolfie, here we disagree in the most serious face of ways.

You totally ignored his use of formatting. It brings not only bolding to the discussion, but also underlining, and best of all, an increase in font size towards the end of his statement. Surely this is the pinnacle of things that add value to discussions. I don't see you bringing a variety of font formatting options to the discussion... [SIZE=5]
Think about that.[/SIZE]

edit: For impact I've changed that last part. See, now there's no denying its value, even the period is underlined. That means I mean business. Serious business.

[Wolfie]

Wolfie, here we disagree in the most serious face of ways.

You totally ignored his use of formatting. It brings not only bolding to the discussion, but also underlining, and best of all, an increase in font size towards the end of his statement. Surely this is the pinnacle of things that add value to discussions. I don't see you bringing a variety of font formatting options to the discussion... [SIZE=5]
Think about that.[/SIZE]

edit: For impact I've changed that last part. See, now there's no denying its value, even the period is underlined. That means I mean business. Serious business.

You're right, I've been a straight up foal. I should cease and desist posting in the bland and boring way of dissecting large quotes and addressing things point by point. Instead, I should focus on posting using bold face and underlines and [SIZE="5"]large fonts[/SIZE] so that it looks like I'm just REALLY REALLY F'ING ANGRY AND SUPER CEREAL SERIOUS.

[AngryNixon]

You're right, I've been a straight up foal. I should cease and desist posting in the bland and boring way of dissecting large quotes and addressing things point by point. Instead, I should focus on posting using bold face and underlines and [SIZE="5"]large fonts[/SIZE] so that it looks like I'm just [SIZE="7"]REALLY REALLY F'ING ANGRY AND SUPER CEREAL SERIOUS.[/SIZE]

Oh, there it is, now I'm taking you seriously. Before I was just staring at the ceiling waiting for something interesting to happen. Thankfully, now it has.

[Platinumstorm]

Platinumstorm, read my reply to Anty above. You losing profit on an item is not the fault of MW or AH or price listing, it's the fact that there's no way right now to remove an item from circulation once someone purchased it. The market is oversaturated with a particular item and the price goes down naturally, not because it was influenced by the trading system. Compare low level items with mid and high level items: I bought an iron chain mail shirt over a bronze one because it was cheaper (because there were 4x the iron chain mail shirts available compared to bronze ones).

That's part of what demand is. Also remember, I stated I was working with items with an incredibly small ward presence [0-4 in total]. There is definitely a lack of demand for the item due to rank requirements and the class attached to it.

Soulbound items takes care of that problem, however that's more of an item problem than the market ward problem.

[Eldaena]

I guess there is no compromising with some of you. I've listed several different ideas for compromising with the MW. People are just going to continue to hate it to hate it until they get something they're familiar with. The MW are not bad, and this isn't 'fanboyism'. Considering the emotional attachment it seems some people in this forum have to an AH I feel it unfair for them to point the finger at players that do enjoy the MW. This will be my last cry for a compromise and I'll list all ideas and thoughts here. Disagree if you want, but I'm at least trying to compromise and be fair to both sides of this debate.

Truth:

There are flaws to the system. As there are with any. Right now we can't see who is buying items/seeking repairs from the search menu, or HQ items. There are plans in the working for the latter and they have been improving the stability and such. I haven't crashed for months and I do not even find that a legitimate reason to dislike the wards anymore. There has been effort put in and steps forward made...I think it's a trend that is likely to continue.


The wards do not take that long to navigate, but it could be faster. I understand zoning can be annoying to some players, and heaven forbid the retainer isn't in the ward the item your looking for should be, but it's only a few minutes at most to find your star. I always have quick transactions in the wards and feel like I'm in and out when I really need something (unless it's not being sold.) This doesn't mean things can't be sped up even with the market wards. I'll touch on this more later.


There are not enough retainer spaces in wards. Mainly because players force themselves to only use the market in Ul'dah. That there are marketplaces in each starting city is completely wasted and they should just combine them all. People will disagree that there just shouldn't be physical retainers at all then, but it's just like a limit of listings too. If there is a limit on how many people can be selling a certain item on a listing, then it's the same as only so many retainers in a ward, but that being said devs had already mentioned they plan to extend capacity. Also, since they allowed retainers to wear the gear you're selling, it's also good advertising for a player's goods. Not to mention the retainers do have levels on them. Perhaps, in the future, they plan to implement a system where you upgrade your retainers which sounds like a lot of fun.

Organization is Needed. Taxation was brought in for selling items in the wrong wards, yet people ignore this. (Just like they ignore the other markets in other towns.) Even though it's not hard to find an item, if you've marked retainers, and it's in a different ward, it's still a little confusing because often things you are searching for are not where you would expect them to be. Maybe they should not have named wards anymore, like before. Maybe we shouldn't have so many wards anymore, and maybe just one large area for more of a bazaar feel. I don't know the best idea for this, but I'm also not a developer. They need to fix this and make it easier and more organized for everyone and I think we can all agree to that.

However, destroying the physical manifestation of an area with your retainer I think would be bad because of no longer being able to advertise your products, no longer being interactive with the retainer, and overall no longer being interactive with the wards (save for a menu.) I think it is an elaborate idea that can still work and be wonderful for it. They can make this a lot better and fun for players, and I hope they will.

No instant gratification for impatient or time-strapped players. I never feel that the wards are such a drain of time that I'm not enjoying the game, but I guess some people do and will sometimes believe their time is much more important than other people's. That being said, it would be nice if they had a Ward's Master that allowed you to search and buy straight from the search menu. I suggested this earlier that you could pay him a small fee to go into the 'cruel labyrinth of retainers' a player does not wish to navigate, and bring about the item you were seeking. This would benefit those who want their item asap, as well as benefit those who still wish to browse. I make this suggestion knowing, I too, would use the Ward's Master for instant purchases if I was too busy to go to a retainer, tax included. I think it's a fair trade-off. You do the legwork or you pay the small fee, either way you pay with something.

No auction house as of yet. That's not to say bidding on items posted by players cannot be. In fact, I support this. I feel wards should be the 'buy now' function of our ebay, and there should be timed 'bidding' as well for people that want to move items fast and be more interactive with the market. I think BOTH should be a part of our economy. And some players would probably enjoy only using the 'bidding' feature, and some would like to only use the 'buy now' options only.


This system can be FFXIV's Ebay. Ontop of these ideas, I think there should also be the ability to want to seek items from your retainers and have people see that. People can put up they'd like to buy 3 iron ingots for a set price or for individual prices and people should be able to search for that. This would be a fantastic feature for gatherers and crafters that could just browse what people are buying, gather or craft the item, and then go make a little gil. It's similar to doing repairs for gil too (which I also feel should be available for the search feature.) Sometimes people will just browse the menders ward trying to make a bit of gil by fixing things. Why couldn't we do the same with seeking items?


The search feature is still a work in progress. They need to let us search for more. Specifics, items seeking, items repairing, HQs, etc. And being able to type in the item you're looking for would be great (as long as people can spell =p) and even faster for the search engine. Maybe even by colors. =p

There is SO much that can be done to the market wards that make it fair and fast for everyone. People are impatient with this game as a whole and I feel like they gang up on the market wards because it's an easier target that everyone thinks they know the best way to fix it. But more often than not, it's just what they themselves want without consideration to other people. I have been listening to those of you who post complaints about the system, and those of you who want to better what we have. I have been doing my best to make fair suggestions and plausible solutions that would try to satiate everyone. I'm not naive enough to think I can accomplish this alone, but I'm trying. Trying to be fair and listening to all sides of this argument.

If you are a player that is going to hate the market wards no matter what (even to the point where it's borderline exactly what you want), my posts aren't for you, and I'm sorry for that. I realize there is no pleasing everyone, but these bashing contests need to stop. It's unproductive and it just makes us look like a bunch of children.

Suggest ideas. Complain, but offer solutions that are actually negotiable. Don't take out your frustrations on players that are opposed to your ideas. Personal attacks just make you look like a bad person in general, and no one will take you seriously. It's best for one to remain quiet and appear dumb, then to open their mouth and prove it.

Our helpful suggestions could be taken seriously, why wouldn't you want to help?

[Wolfie]

There is no compromising when a design is fundamentally flawed. No amount of compromising and patching will fix MW's scalability, usability, and stability at the same time if they insist on rendering retainers.

I repeat again: rendering retainers is what's causing every problem that the MW has. It's a bad aspect of the Market Wards as a whole and cannot be fixed; it needs to be scrapped.

[Seif]

There is no compromising when a design is fundamentally flawed. No amount of compromising and patching will fix MW's scalability, usability, and stability at the same time if they insist on rendering retainers.

I repeat again: rendering retainers is what's causing every problem that the MW has. It's a bad aspect of the Market Wards as a whole and cannot be fixed; it needs to be scrapped.

This sums up the core of the problem nicely. Anybody who has any fond feelings toward the zombie 3d models in these rooms is just plain creepy.

Even the NPCs without names are more likable because they're at very least real characters.

[Demacia]

I think we're just going to continue repeating ourselves to an audience that won't listen.

[Wolfie]

Maybe I haven't been detailed enough. I'm about to go make a Power Point presentation and do some math on this s***, because apparently nobody understands my vocabulary or what are the concepts of scalability, usability, stability, fundamental design, and rendering.