Quote Originally Posted by Amineri View Post
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'm still in agreement that these are great ideas.

Also suggest:
a) Ability to search for items that retainers are requesting to purchase.
b) More stall customization, please !
More good suggestions in my book. An example for "a" was added when I updated the OP to new forum.

Ex: You want to buy a +1 Iron Saw for 95,000 gil. The only one for sale in Ul'dah is posted at 250,000gil. You rent a market stand and set your retainer to seek purchase of a +1 Iron Saw for 95,000 gil. Two days later someone searching purchase orders sees your request and grabs their +1 Iron Saw that hasn't sold off their retainer. They fill your purchase order and recieve 95,000 gil. The saw is waiting for you on your retainer.

As for "b", yes! Kinda follows the same reasoning as allowing more retainer customization. More than three stand types would be nice. Not necessarily NEW designs, but simply adding the other NPC stand types already displayed around the cities would be great. Currently, renting a market stall gives no benefit since buyers look for goods using the search tool as opposed to the old grazing method. In the old system renting a stall would give help you stand out from the crowd, but this benefit has vanished. My thinking revolved around restoring the original benefit by helping your retainer gain increased exposure, world-wide.

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

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 ^_^.
Definately agree, I left those factors in parenthesis hoping for discussion since I saw both positive and negatives. I settled on immediate delivery at no cost figuring it would be the least annoying and didn't want one bad assumption on my part of what the majority of players want to keep people from considering the other aspects of my suggestions. I wouldn't mind having to travel to pick up the goods I puchased, but only if new travel options were implemented (airships, chocobos).

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.
I have no intention of destroying the local city markets. If you check my diagram on the right side under Market Stands, the third point states "Allows trading on the World Market in addition to local city". My goal was to give sellers incentive to renting stalls around the world based on what they were selling. I figured if they were dealing with high volume or valuable merchandise the proposed tax system would spread them out. Anything they are selling on the World Market would still be available on the local city market as well.

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.
Theres about 600 available stands in the current world. That doesn't seem too limiting, but there would be fierce competiton for stands in certain wards within certain cities- sure. I think the current system is effective for buying and selling, my proposals are meant to increase that effectiveness and increase utility of underused areas (not used because they currently provide no benefits ie. market stands and LL/Grid wards).

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.
Ok, I see that now. I'll update the link. I like many of your ideas and wanted any readers to be well-informed.

Another issue I am awaiting is information on the Grand Companies as they could very well solve some of the problems I was attempting to address.