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

[kukurumei]

I don't think my suggestions cover the sale of high-end merchandise anywhere close to the true Auction House you proposed. I would love to see that type of AH in FFXIV.

Hmmm, I see what you mean. My reasoning was that those who weren't interested in upgrading their retainers beyond increased storage (due to gil shortage, or general disinterest in playing the role of trader) could go on with business as usual not renting market stands, and selling whatever items they aquired while adventuring in the local markets. Once players purchased/quested to upgrade their retainer and were able to sell on the World Market- I think you are right- they would continue to rent stands. I saw it as somewhat of a mid-game goal for players interested in trading.

Ex: You are in Ul'dah and want to buy 20 Willow Logs to break cut into lumber and grind up your carpentry by pumping out 80 masks. You first check the World Market and find the cheapest listing is for 2000gil each. Coincidentally, the retainer selling those logs is located in Ul'dah (since selling logs on the World Market from Gridania would impose an additional tax the player would likely chose to set up shop in Ul'dah or Limsa Lominsa) and to avoid paying the convienence fee associated with using the instant delivery World Market, you instead use the existing item search. Since you already know which retainer you want to purchase from, you mark only that specific retainer and travel directly to the appropriate Ward.
Same.Yeah, definately. Gil sinks and an AH dealing in high-end merchandise, such as Ami's suggestion, would be great for end-game players sitting on fat nest eggs.

Considering the FF11 evolution, market wards should be high end, and AH should be low end. Because volume of low end (necessities) would be infinitely greater need on efficiency.

Either that or you take it all out of players hands and into NPC hands. Like old school style. (Though with all the talk of "modern" I doubt people would like that)

The higher volume the trade, the more accessible it should be not less.

Why would you need an AH when you sell an item that could provide a month's worth of income. Back room deals more then make up that kind of trading.

What's stifling the economy is that much of the trading is wasted on things people will rarely need, because no one will trade moss grass even if you get a billion of them.

Fantasy like theories and practical theories don't always go hand in hand. If you need eggs, you expect to get it within 20minutes from anywhere. When you need a diamond ring, you expect to search for a good long time.

That's because everyone knows you need eggs all the time. Until there's a device that can do that in MMO, it's pretty much a stone-age mentality. AH should be for the masses even if you associate real like Auction house with elite items.

[Fieros]

I was reading through your post again and just caught your edit. Also kinda glazed over this first point about the unlocks.

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.

You have a good point- the requirements for upgrading (spend gil, do quests) really cannot be viewed as negatives. Using the "a la carte" method reminds me of the other discussion where it amounts to an annoyance such as paying bills every month. I guess it boils down to the truly important upgrades remaining permanent vs. fluff being renewable. I could rationalize buying temporary customization options, and extra retainer bazaar slots.

Regarding increased storage, I concede that increased storage is necessary, and currently increasing retainer storage space seems like the only choice.

While i was rummaging through the "Ask the Dev's" ealier I found a couple relevant statements:

9/29/10

Also, we are now taking steps to increase the number of retainers that a character is able to simultaneously employ.

1/24/11

Q.When will players be able to hire more than two retainers?

A.Currently, we intend to allow the hiring of additional retainers once all planned system changes have been executed. The ultimate date of implementation, however, may change depending on player response to the changes.

Adding one or more hireable retainers would absolutely alleviate storage concerns and the need for the level 1 upgrade I suggested. Furthermore, given enough storage I wouldn't be tempted to purchase an additional charater for storage- eliminating the need for level 5 upgrade. Your "a la carte" system of buying desired customizations and access to the World Market would make an ideal solution with those facts in mind.

Throwing more retainers into the current market system results in Ul'dah bursting at the seems.