Retainer upgrades, Market improvements, and World Market instead of AH

[Amineri]

Fieros,

I'll say again that I very much like the ideas presented here. That said, I'm not sure that I agree with every single suggestion, so here is my $0.02

Retainers
I'm a bit torn about the mechanism to unlock these retainer abilities. In part this is motivated by the lack of good in-game gil sinks, and in part by an aversion to eventually seeing every player have all abilities on all retainers. Just as the 'ability slot' system limits (to a certain degree) the number of abilities a character can have equipped at one time, it seems to me that there should be some negatives to having all of these abilities.

To that end, I would suggest that the quests that origamikitsune suggested be there to unlock the retainer abilities. The quests unlock the ability to purchase retainer licenses that grant the specific ability for a specific time. This makes the retainer abilities an a la carte feature, rather than a package deal. This clearly wouldn't work for some of the abilities, such as increased storage or bazaar space, so these would have to remain permanent upgrades.

Regarding increased storage, I concede that increased storage is necessary, and currently increasing retainer storage space seems like the only choice. Personally, I hope that some form of player housing is eventually added, and that more 'permanent' storage space is made available there (I know it's a dream...).

I'm going to pound my drum again regarding the ability to acquire linkpearls to talk to your retainer (they could go into the NPC Linkpearls menu). A retainer linkpearl could let you:
a) At first allows only viewing of items still in retainer bazaar.
b) Later, allow moving of items between retainer inventory and bazaar via linkpearl.
c) Still later, allow direction of retainer to a specific Market Area without having to "hold their hand".
I just realized that allowing a retainer to travel to a distant market area allows "instantaneous goods travel". Recall retainer at bell. Put item on retainer. Send retainer to distant city. Remote person buys item. Recall retainer at bell. Repeat.
To address this, I'd suggest putting a 15 minute delay from the time that the retainer is sent, to the time that the retainer arrives. It still gets the retainer there, without having to run, but cuts down on the rate of "instant travel goods".

Market Wards
Agree on these wholeheartedly!:
a) Ability to search for items based upon HQ level
b) Ability to search for requested repairs
c) Ability to transport directly to ward of retainer selected from search function
d) Stall changes are necessary, given your proposed World Market concept

Also suggest:
a) Ability to search for items that retainers are requesting to purchase.
b) More stall customization, please !

World Market
This is the topic that troubles me the most, I suppose.

Browsing the World Market is now available by interacting with NPC located in each city
*Players may claim purchased items (immediately) at (no cost)

Currently there is no other function in the game that allows for immediate transportation of goods. There isn't even a mail system, yet. The immediate transportation of goods has repercussions that I feel aren't always well understood, but I'll leave that rant for another time ^_^.

To a certain degree this idea seems attractive, but at the same time it makes me uneasy. As I try to think through the likely outcome of a system, I can see the world market ultimately destroying the current retainer/market system. The incredible gain in convenience of the world market would be in direct competition with the current market system. If more people begin using the world market, the ability to sell through the regular markets could well diminish to the point of dieing completely.

In this scenario, the only viable course of action becomes selling via the world market, resulting in the de facto requirement of getting a retainer with the ability to sell on the world market, and acquiring a stall in order to do so. Given the limited number of stalls, only a limited number of people could even participate in the world market, leaving those people with no effective method to buy and sell.

I'm not sure that this would come to pass, but I worry that it would, and that makes me uneasy.

Finally, thank you for your kind words regarding other auction house options (I view it as only one option among many, yes). I've moved the main thread here, following the forum reorg.