Retainer Markets vs Auction House

[Zanfire]

Auction House won via knock-out

end of discussion

yet how many months later and we are still forced to use the market wards, which they keep trying to make better without actually doing what most people seem to want?

hell it doesnt need to be an AH, just let me buy from 1 counter and let me orginize the results (mainly need by class and level) and il be fine, i just dont like the extra step.

[Zemeckis]

Wards are just more trouble then there worth...as a new player i just sell all my items to a npc.It's to much of a learning curve for new players. And i don't think i will sub for this if they don't make the player's happy...they need to hear us!

[MrLion]

Wards are just more trouble then there worth...as a new player i just sell all my items to a npc.It's to much of a learning curve for new players. And i don't think i will sub for this if they don't make the player's happy...they need to hear us!

You mean they don't hear you...right?

[Phenidate]

I vividly and painfully recall, when I started playing this game in October, spending literally near-full days in one giant retainer ward searching for an item and best price. As most know, this entailed literally targeting and clicking on each and every retainer in the ward. Thankfully, these days are long gone. The search function was a giant step in the right direction, and for that I am grateful. However, as this game progresses it's still evident that this current retainer system is generations behind an auction house feature.

The player community was quick to devise a system that allowed visibility of HQ items vs. NQ, with the price suffix of 1/2/3. For a large part, this works fine. However, since the current search feature identifies and lists the 20 lowest priced items, when a particular item for sale exceeds that limitation, items priced 20+ never make the list. If one is selling, for example, a Crab Bow +3 on Istory it doesn't even show up, since there are currently 38 bows for sale. This is a major problem that needs to be resolved. I don't think I should have to stand in town spending my valuable game time shouting around an HQ item for sale because of a system limitation.

Further, with the current system, where everyone can see what's for sale, and at what price, you almost have to literally stand at the market to see who, in the last minute, has undercut your price. With an AH, you had a history of sales, but you couldn't see what the lowest asking price was. So, there was some reasonable element in that system that precluded direct price under-cuts. Overall, this provided for the basis of economic standard, which is not prevalent today with the current retainer system.

I'm sure there are other pluses for an AH that I've missed, but in its current state, the retainer/search function is woefully lacking. What's going to happen if this game ever does take off with the gaming community and the servers fill up? This is only going to be further exacerbated.

I've never seen an official response from SE regarding the reason for their hard stand against an AH. I assume it's a cost/storage issue. I, for one, would like to understand why we have to put up with such an inferior system when compared to a prior generation game ffxi, that worked so well.

To many 'trolls' are dismissing this topic because it 'beats a deadhorse'. Until there is a proper dev response to this I will continue to support similar threads until it is correctly addressed.

The original intent behind no proper 'market' system, AH or otherwise was to stop RMT. What SE failed to realize is that AH's and other ways to move goods are there for reasons OTHER than RMT's use. Ease of use, flow of goods, etc.

This intentional exclusion is one of the hallmark mistakes yet to be righted, and currently even makes the RMT's work easier when it comes to them buying out entire item markets and relisting them at THEIR desired prices. With no sale history or direct way to associate players with retainers, we players have no way of knowing if an RMT group is manipulating a market in this way and more or less making it impossible to make the correct reports to the STF when they do this.

This horsebird needs to be beaten more.

[Cairdeas]

The reason they dont want an AH is because the only two features that are specific to a AH is Timed and Blind Auctions. Which I hope they do not ever intended to implement.

I'd rather they take the time to build a market system that works and doesn't use Blind or Timed Bidding. They both are easily manipulated by RMT's.

[Seif]

AH was voted by the players in the official poll. It's important that players remind SE that we haven't forgotten about that.

A proper AH would boost MANY features of the game. Broken economy hurts everyone.

[Azurymber]

Economically speaking the more information available the better off the average person will be and the better off the economy will be.

So if an auction house has a HISTORY, its better than the current ward system. If they create a ward system with open bidding or implement history than that could match the benefits of an AH.

The only real point to think about in this debate (mathematically proven) is that the more information consumers and producers have, the faster price equilibrium will be reached and the more efficient the market will be. This isn't a debate or a contested theory. Its the foundation of capitalism (the system used in pretty well all of the western world and this game)

[Seif]

Economically speaking the more information available the better off the average person will be and the better off the economy will be.

So if an auction house has a HISTORY, its better than the current ward system. If they create a ward system with open bidding or implement history than that could match the benefits of an AH.

The only real point to think about in this debate (mathematically proven) is that the more information consumers and producers have, the faster price equilibrium will be reached and the more efficient the market will be. This isn't a debate or a contested theory. Its the foundation of capitalism (the system used in pretty well all of the western world and this game)

That still leaves the trouble of zoning into the wards. They're going to redesign the look of the wards which I consider a lot of dev time utterly wasted. No matter how many birds and rainbows they attatch to the wards that's only going to make the load times longer. All people really want is not to zone and to know the price histories of items.

[Azurymber]

That still leaves the trouble of zoning into the wards. They're going to redesign the look of the wards which I consider a lot of dev time utterly wasted. No matter how many birds and rainbows they attatch to the wards that's only going to make the load times longer. All people really want is not to zone and to know the price histories of items.

but at the same time wards double as mog houses. if they make it so ppl can only have 1 retainer selling things per city then they would reduce lag a lot. But yeah it really depends on the programming for that part.

[Visch]

http://images.wikia.com/ffxi/images/d/dd/Ah.png