Stop "fixing" the MW scrap it

[Eldaena]

Remember how the wards used to crash often? That's because of the NPC density. Notice how they're about to allow more NPCs into the now-stable wards? Get ready for crashes again.

Stability = No denial of access due to the system being down.
Scalability = The ability of the system to grow with the population.

With NPCs being rendered, you basically get to choose one of those two options.

So, you're telling me if the wards never crashed again and people could put as many retainers in an area as they liked, Wolfie and you would be satisfied? (Alongside insta-purchase from a menu.)

[Airlea]

Funny thing is, we're all arguing to keep the "MW." We're just arguing at this point whether or not to render the NPCs.

Funny thing is, the title of the thread is "Thread: Stop 'fixing' the MW scrap it."

Some of you are debating that NPC rendering is the primary source of frustrations with the MW on the most current pages, but that doesn't dictate that current posts must be of the same topic. I disagree with this quite a bit as well as taking away the NPCs simply makes it a slightly inconvenient AH.

[Wolfie]

I blatantly said having an AH feature on top of the MW one could work and be good for players wanting that. That is what Airlea practically said as well. They didn't say get rid of the physical rendering in the wards at all.

Also. can you tell me what is unstable with the system in it's state now? Also, what sort of scalability are you looking for?

I apologize then, I skipped that section. Yes, an AH/counter/text/whatever-based system in addition to MW would be great. But if SE and others insist on sticking with just MW, then we can't have rendered retainers.

The system was massively unstable a few weeks ago because of overcrowding. That should be a good hint of what will happen when and if this game ever becomes more popular. This system is not designed to be able to take even 1000 retainers in a particular city; that's support for a max of 500 players. There's no way in hell this system is going to be able to take retainers from 2000+ people, which is on the LOW END of server populations for MMO's. The average now for MMOs is like 6000+ per server.

And here comes the scalability issue.

The MW sits on a (or multiple) separate machines that -- in addition to processing item transactions and storing inventories, posts, etc -- need to process and store graphics information, zones, and a bunch of other stuff from both retainers and PCs. It's an extreme amount of overhead, which is why wards are limited to 200 retainers (and even though they're increasing the retainer limit, there will still be one). They CAN add more zones, but that means you either place a bigger load on a machine, or you acquire additional machines, which quickly become expensive to purchase and maintain.

The more zones and retainers you have, the harder it is to be able to organize the MW. You CANNOT force retainers to sell only what their ward is for, or to limit where you place retainers based on the items they sell, because practically everyone sells 2 or more items from different categories. If these retainers were never rendered, there would be no need to organize them based on zone; all organization would be done on the buying end through the interface.

[Airlea]

So, you're telling me if the wards never crashed again and people could put as many retainers in an area as they liked, Wolfie and you would be satisfied? (Alongside insta-purchase from a menu.)

Precisely! If anyone thinks that the real beef that everyone has with the MWs is the instability, they're looking through a keyhole.

[Viridiana]

So, you're telling me if the wards never crashed again and people could put as many retainers in an area as they liked, Wolfie and you would be satisfied? (Alongside insta-purchase from a menu.)

I would be. Can't really speak for others, of course. Ideally, it also wouldn't experience the drop in fps that I get in the busy wards now, but, hey. . .

Fact is, though, I just don't see this happening.

Funny thing is, the title of the thread is "Thread: Stop 'fixing' the MW scrap it."

Some of you are debating that NPC rendering is the primary source of frustrations with the MW on the most current pages, but that doesn't dictate that current posts must be of the same topic. I disagree with this quite a bit as well as taking away the NPCs simply makes it a slightly inconvenient AH.

Okay, so we've all gone off-topic.

Anyway, an actual *Auction* House would imply, y'know. . . auctions. No auctions means it wouldn't be an AH, just an interface that lets you buy items from a menu. I guess at that point you couldn't really call it market wards, either, though. . .

[Ceons]

I would love an auction house (details up for another debate...)
It would make it much easier to sell things.

[Airlea]

Anyway, an actual *Auction* House would imply, y'know. . . auctions. No auctions means it wouldn't be an AH, just an interface that lets you buy items from a menu. I guess at that point you couldn't really call it market wards, either, though. . .

I still feel that an auction system needs to be implemented. It would help tremendously with price stability.

SE's idea was that this system would prevent RMT from monopolizing prices. It completely, utterly, backfired. Now instead of prices slowly rising or falling (as they would in a normal economy) the prices change dramatically from day to day. i.e. if an item has been selling for 350k, then someone list one for 90k on an AH, more than likely it will be sold for around 200k or so since ppl will try to underbid, but more often than not by a tremendous amount. It may even go for 340k, helping retain the items value. This gives crafters time to adjust to the new trend of pricing. In the current system, if someone decides to start listing them for 90k, they're 90k. You have the choice of undercutting even further or NPCing the item.

Basically, the problem is knowing how hard people are undercutting. It allows others to undercut even further, resulting in these dramatic changes in value.

[Eldaena]

I apologize then, I skipped that section. Yes, an AH/counter/text/whatever-based system in addition to MW would be great. But if SE and others insist on sticking with just MW, then we can't have rendered retainers.

The system was massively unstable a few weeks ago because of overcrowding. That should be a good hint of what will happen when and if this game ever becomes more popular. This system is not designed to be able to take even 1000 retainers in a particular city; that's support for a max of 500 players. There's no way in hell this system is going to be able to take retainers from 2000+ people, which is on the LOW END of server populations for MMO's. The average now for MMOs is like 6000+ per server.

And here comes the scalability issue.

The MW sits on a (or multiple) separate machines that -- in addition to processing item transactions and storing inventories, posts, etc -- need to process and store graphics information, zones, and a bunch of other stuff from both retainers and PCs. It's an extreme amount of overhead, which is why wards are limited to 200 retainers (and even though they're increasing the retainer limit, there will still be one). They CAN add more zones, but that means you either place a bigger load on a machine, or you acquire additional machines, which quickly become expensive to purchase and maintain.

The more zones and retainers you have, the harder it is to be able to organize the MW. You CANNOT force retainers to sell only what their ward is for, or to limit where you place retainers based on the items they sell, because practically everyone sells 2 or more items from different categories. If these retainers were never rendered, there would be no need to organize them based on zone; all organization would be done on the buying end through the interface.

Just like SE isn't giving up on ffxiv as a whole, I don't think they're going to give up on their rendered retainers. That being said, I think there is work to be done and it also has come a long way since the beginning. I think a bidding/auction system should be placed on top of the wards. I think that a Ward's Master to buy directly from the search menu is a good idea. I think they need to figure out placement/organization/congestion as well. Maybe they should combine all the marketwards on each server. Maybe they should get rid of wards and just have 3 bazaar rows for ALL retainers. 1 for selling, 1 for seeking, and 1 for repairs. I'm not sure but I agree they need to figure that stuff out.

[Viridiana]

I could live with an AH. God knows I never had a problem using it in WoW. . .

[MartaDemireux]

Looks like 31 pages of arguments by skimming. I'll just add that I think MW would be fine if they added the option to do it all via outside menus. Essentially a remote auction house/mog house combo. Stand at the entrance, choose to drop items into X retainer and sell for X price and buy items OR enter the wards and hand the items to your retainer yourself. It'd only take some extra coding and would leave both options open.