Any word on when we will get an Auction House?

[ClovenHooves]

AH not needed.

Maybe a way to link all three cities so we can shop wherever we are.

I'd like to see Grid and Limsa functional again. I like them

[Lahru_Hukurou]

Well, I don't see the need of an AH right now. But still, at the moment our main problems are:
- We can't tell the difference from NQ to +1/+2/+3 items in the Ward Search List.
- Three wards(grid/limsa/uldah), and at least on figaro, 90% of the ret's are at Uldah, and people don't even bother using Gridania/Limsa wards anymore.
- Crashes(which are the most upsetting thing from all three, as it wipes all the retainers and we can't search when there's nothing, right?)

Cheers.

I agree with you. I rather like the market wards, except for the issues that you pointed out. It can also be a pain trying to sell things at times. Especially if you have a lot of different types of items. Though, I know all you have to do is sell one type of item at a time.

[Sertis]

Considering other open issues, they really should work on other content, and not a minor improvement over the market wards that will suck up an engineering team for a few weeks. I'd rather see useful or interesting content like activate the coliseum in Uldah, allow crafters to sign their crafts, allow users to trade more than 4 items at a time, or more than 1 stack of any item, etc.

[trinta]

Ward crashes have been FAR less frequent since 1.16. I wouldn't really cite that as a reason for an AH in itself. Its a bug, bugs can and will be fixed in time.

"FAR less frequent" = "still happening"?

[ShinChuck]

For the people talking as if the Wards are all that different from an AH in their current form, could you explain how? Yes, you have to walk to the vendor. But the search menu is essentially the same menu you bring up in numerous other games at an AH. You bring up a menu, search for what you want, look for the lowest price, and make the purchase.

I just don't get all these posts saying, "I like the Wards better than an AH" or "We don't need an AH right now" when that's virtually what we have, just a bloated, unintuitive one. And, that being the case, we might as well streamline the process.

[Peregrine]

Searchable hq would make the wards very close to an ah without a lot of the economic flaws like botting, price flipping and straight spam camping. You can do a lot of damage to an economy with single-point instant procurement methods.

They probably will break down and put one in though. Then the markets are at least a great way to clean up the streets from afk bazaars.

[Toornio]

It's been said before, but I'm glad to see most people in agreement here on this. An Auction House, especially an FFXI-style AH that some people are clamoring for is not only unneeded but could be a detriment. The Wards are functioning at a near perfect level of efficiency and ease of use. The only things I could see needing to be done is linking all three wards and letting us see High Quality items on the item search. Though, as far as linking goes, once we get better ease of travel (cough airships cough) that might not be so difficult of an issue. Square should just call the wards "The Auction House" so we can tell people "yes there is one" and move on to more important issues.

[TheVedis]

Searchable hq would make the wards very close to an ah without a lot of the economic flaws like botting, price flipping and straight spam camping. You can do a lot of damage to an economy with single-point instant procurement methods.

They probably will break down and put one in though. Then the markets are at least a great way to clean up the streets from afk bazaars.

i predict searchable HQ will be the next upgrade to the wards

[ShinChuck]

It's been said before, but I'm glad to see most people in agreement here on this. An Auction House, especially an FFXI-style AH that some people are clamoring for is not only unneeded but could be a detriment. The Wards are functioning at a near perfect level of efficiency and ease of use. The only things I could see needing to be done is linking all three wards and letting us see High Quality items on the item search. Though, as far as linking goes, once we get better ease of travel (cough airships cough) that might not be so difficult of an issue. Square should just call the wards "The Auction House" so we can tell people "yes there is one" and move on to more important issues.

I'm dying for an explanation here. You just described an Auction House, not "Market Wards." Market Wards, in their original concept, are dead, and what we have is a rudimentary Auction House, just with walking. It sounds to me like you're *agreeing* that you like that we have an AH-style system now, and are quite happy to have moved beyond Market Wards in their original concept.

[Caimon]

Since the implemented changes, I find the market wards to be an excellent work in progress. And, I like that I don't have to re-list items when they don't sell within a given time frame.

Simple tweaks will make this system blow away the conventional auction house, imo. If they make everything else in the game fun and eventful, people will not quit playing the game because of the current barter system.