Why don't I find a site on Internet that explains what items are for?

[Krotoan]

I have played MMO's since the time of Meridian 58 (or was it 59) - since Internet became available, more or less - and in most games there are several ways to store your items. Normally you don't have to carry them around, but can use banks or, if you have a house, a chest or similar. This game has retainers (which I have 3 of), a sadel pack, and your own inventory. To have to subscribe to additional retainers to be able to store your gods seems a bit wrong to me (since they have to fill different roles, like selling stuff on the market (an auction house would be great) gather stuff, and be your personal inventory. SO, basically, why have they made storing items so crazy in this game? I know it's a different game, and that it's made by Japanese people, who might not have been brought up in MMO the way westerners have, but it just seems such a crazy way of doing things. But that was NOT how this discussion began, it began with there not being any explanation online, that I can easily find, that explains what a chest (in FFXIV) is for.

Retainers used to be sort of a manageable NPC. You gave them stuff to be in their inventory which they could then go sell in a giant marketplace you actually had to visit with your character to buy from. There were HUNDREDS of peoples retainers standing in a giant hall and you had to check each one to buy stuff from people.

Luckily this was revamped to what we have now where there's a GUI (the marketboard) and they also added some fun functions to the retainers like giving them jobs and "ventures" or quests to go on which might reward you with random items. However the old system is STILL THERE, buried under what they've layed on top. This is why our storage is linked to them. It's not a great reason and surely could use some redoing, but that's why.

What you can assume when looking up housing items is that if it doesn't SAY it does something in the description, it's decorative. Item descriptions are very specific about what they do and just for future information no item you can buy for your house/apartment/FCroom adds storage space.