Any word on when we will get an Auction House?

[SumoBear]

Auction House please

[ShinChuck]

No auction House. The Market Wards do everything plus keep players from being lazy. Why would SE put all that work into revising Market Wards repeatedly to make it function better and then give us a AH?

Face the music: Retainers exist. Market Wards exist. They both work. That's all we need.

See sig. Wards do exist - as a fundamentally basic Auction House. Retainers could be accessed in numerous other ways, there's no reason to keep them tied to a dead concept.

[Aldwin]

Noone here has mentioned what the wards would look like if the games population wasn't super micro. Put up 4-5k+ people on your server, not the 400-1200 it has now, and then consider whether a market wards server better than an auction house.

[Rustyhagun]

Auction House please

Market ward,..etc are the AH's. Have you been playing the game? The search feature is practically perfect now. Like everyone has stated you just have to go to npc to buy your item.

..ps SE you should add some background voices to the wards..etc, you know like when you go to a crowed mall and you can hear voices but you can't pick up a distinct person, because the mall is just full of everyone talking. Not sure if you get what I'm saying, but that would add a certain ambiance to the various markets.

[Rustyhagun]

Noone here has mentioned what the wards would look like if the games population wasn't super micro. Put up 4-5k+ people on your server, not the 400-1200 it has now, and then consider whether a market wards server better than an auction house.

That is a good point, it would seem very cluttered and kinda ugly if so many npc's were in the markets like that, plus times it by 2 npc's and that's like 8-10k nps trying to fit in the wards. This scenario I would welcome the old AH system, because I just wouldn't want to walk through all those people

[Waaltar]

Neverrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Please, let the answer be never.

People who want an auction house just want their items/gear right away...but the reason that's an issue has nothing to do with the wards and won't be improved by an auction house.

The wards work great now. All I want is for them to be less buggy so my retainers don't disappear an hour after I log off and I find nothing I put up was sold when I come back; bad for me and bad for players who wanted to get the gear.

Lack of instant item availability (at market) is just low player volume.

And yet you can still get anything you want if you ask people. You'd probably get a much better deal that way too.

[Betelgeuzah]

I'm not even sure what your point is, honestly. The people who are asking for an AH don't want a literal AH with nothing else sufficing ever.

Who are you to talk for them? I can assure you that there are those who want AH system called Auction House separate from the Marketplace and can not grasp the fact that Marketplace is about to be made into one. As well as those who say "they don't want an AH since there is the marketplace" who mean that they want the marketplace improved to be as efficient as AH.

It's been shown multiple times that there's no reason they must be kept together, and anymore are really *unnecessarily* connected. Retainers buying and selling is a concept for the old bazaar-style wards. It is now an outdated relic that only adds *unnecessary work* to the system. That's why they should change it.

Well, if we take that approach then there is no reason why SE can't make this game free forever while updating it regularly for years to come and implementing an expansions worth of content every few months. Except the fact that it costs too much money, it uses all of their resources and manpower and is not financially viable tactic for a company looking to make profit.

Anything is possible as long as we ignore the 'details' above. They can improve the item search but they can also keep the retainers to function as-is. There is no logical reason to take it away from them, it just means more work for no apparent gain.

[Raansu]

Market ward,..etc are the AH's. Have you been playing the game? The search feature is practically perfect now. Like everyone has stated you just have to go to npc to buy your item.

..ps SE you should add some background voices to the wards..etc, you know like when you go to a crowed mall and you can hear voices but you can't pick up a distinct person, because the mall is just full of everyone talking. Not sure if you get what I'm saying, but that would add a certain ambiance to the various markets.

1) They are not perfect. The wards constantly crash, theres no pricing history, so prices on items are all over the place, and there is no way to tell if the item is NQ or HQ. This leads to jumping around all the zones where these items are spread out looking for said items. Its a stupid hassle that no sane person wants to put up with.

2) Yes, lets add more dumb features to an already dumb feature to increase the server loads so the wards can crash even more often.

[ShinChuck]

Who are you to talk for them? I can assure you that there are those who want AH system called Auction House separate from the Marketplace and can not grasp the fact that Marketplace is about to be made into one. As well as those who say "they don't want an AH since there is the marketplace" who mean that they want the marketplace improved to be as efficient as AH.

Most people aren't so unreasonable that they won't use an auction house called "Market Wards" because it's not called "Auction House." Don't you think it's a little absurd saying people wouldn't accept "Wards" that offered everything AHs do but weren't called "Auction Houses"? A rose is a rose by any other name.

Of course they'd be happy if they got everything they wanted from the system, call it an AH or call it the Wards.

Well, if we take that approach then there is no reason why SE can't make this game free forever while updating it regularly for years to come and implementing an expansions worth of content every few months. Except the fact that it costs too much money, it uses all of their resources and manpower and is not financially viable tactic for a company looking to make profit.

Anything is possible as long as we ignore the 'details' above. They can improve the item search but they can also keep the retainers to function as-is. There is no logical reason to take it away from them, it just means more work for no apparent gain.

Er, you're saying cutting Retainers from the Wards would not be feasible financially or in terms of manpower? That big, massive SE and it's brilliant minds couldn't figure out a way to do that? Okay, I'd like to see your financial numbers, and would like to know the name of the dev team member who has told you this.

There's an entirely logical reason to take them away: they're an unnecessary, unintuitive aspect. The Retainers right now are extra work for everyone involved, it's extra maintenance, it would make the game flow better. It would not be hard to move them to another area, and allow people to summon them for banking aspects. Do you really think SE can create gorgeous, ingenious games, but not simply move the locations where NPCs are allowed to be summoned?

[Betelgeuzah]

Most people aren't so unreasonable that they won't use an auction house called "Market Wards" because it's not called "Auction House." Don't you think it's a little absurd saying people wouldn't accept "Wards" that offered everything AHs do but weren't called "Auction Houses"?

That's not really the problem.. The problem is that people don't realize that what they are asking for already exists in-game for the most part. They are giving the devs mixed messages and as can be seen from the letter of the producer already, they seem to think an "AH" called Auction House is needed because people don't grasp that the concept already exists in the game. It is not good for this game that the devs are made to do unnecessary work.

Of course they'll be happy with the end result, but it doesn't help that they don't know it themselves before the end result becomes a reality. Before that they keep thinking AH is an AH and Marketplace is a Marketplace.

Er, you're saying cutting Retainers from the Wards would not be feasible financially or in terms of manpower?

Yes. I'm not saying SE can't do it, of course they can, but they have a limit like any other company in existence. Using valuable resources for a task that doesn't help the game would be bad for this game and thus not feasible financially. Even if they are sitting on a pile of gold, that doesn't mean it is financially or practically feasible to use it all on this game, for features that do not give sufficient return for the investment. It always comes down to "SE can do everything because they're so massive company", but believe me, every company has a limit, and we should not test what SE's limit is by asking for these kind of 'improvements'.

"Do you have he power to do anything?" The answer would be most likely yes. "Do you have power to do everything?" As long as the resources are finite (and they certainly are), the answer is no.

There's an entirely logical reason to take them away: they're an unnecessary, unintuitive aspect.

If they're unnecessary, they won't be used. Why is that a good reason to take it away? What does it improve?

Let's say for example the Expeditionary force content in XI. It was a useless feature that no one ever did, but why would they have taken it away? What's the logic in that? It's not detrimental to the game, it's just there. Does it annoy you or something?

There is no reason to take anything away from this game as long as it's not detrimental to it. That is a waste of resources in the best sense of the word.