Auction House vs Wards

[Mujen]

Q: Will you improve the stress related to retainer placement in the markets and the constant Ul’dah crashes?

A: We completely rebuilt the servers from the ground up, so we’d like to have everyone stress test during the Alpha test to see how many people we can put into a single server and determine how we should split up the server. In regards to the market, we are also revamping this completely. Since there were difficulties making all of the retainers visible, we are planning for large scale improvements so you can search more specifically and also make it so you can display only the things you are interested in within a ward.

Letter from producer III Q&A (above)...

Basically, what's the point??? Anyone serious about making gil via public sales: Ul'dah wards is the ONLY place you want to put your retainer. IMO waste of developmental time, scrap the wards & retainers.

Centralize the market system into 1 market with global server access from major cities.

Pros:
Promotes competitive pricing.
Prevent headaches of getting retainer into wards.
Makes items more likely to sell for more current pricing.
Easier on developers.

Cons:
QQ by people who says "just like all other MMO, not original!"


Why current system fails:
3 major cities... but you have access to all markethouse from each.. if you had only access to markethouse of the current city would make more players sell in that city but since there is access to uldah market from LL/Grid why not conveniently access and sell/buy there where have more items posted.

Scrap this crap - AH is just for gil/items. Spend more time on real game content.

[Ludicrous]

Unfortunately I'm inclined to agree. There will be people who come back to this game to give it a second shot, after having had a horrible taste from launch, see that retainers and wards are still in the game and immediately quit.

[rubina]

Cons:QQ by people who says "just like all other MMO, not original!"

Also there is nothing "original" about the market wards. The Devs just borrowed that idea from EQ1 and EQ2. It's been a very long time, but I want to remember EQ1 had a market ward where you stand your character in to sell your stuff. You had to purchase a special bazaar bag and load it up with what you want to sell. Other players can search for items and they are spun in your direction if they want to find you. EQ2 had that AH & market board/crate system. Players can search for an item and they can avoid additional fees if they went and visit the seller's apartment/house. Also sellers can reduce broker fees if they use certain player crafted selling crates.

Well if they continue using the current market ward system, maybe they can institute a broker fee to encourage an even population of retainers across all the cities. If one city has more then 40% of all active retainers in the game, then force an insanely high broker fee to encourage players to place their retainers in the less populated cities. Maybe offer no transaction fees at all for the city with the least amount of active retainers.

[Mujen]

Also there is nothing "original" about the market wards. The Devs just borrowed that idea from EQ1 and EQ2. It's been a very long time, but I want to remember EQ1 had a market ward where you stand your character in to sell your stuff. You had to purchase a special bazaar bag and load it up with what you want to sell. Other players can search for items and they are spun in your direction if they want to find you. EQ2 had that AH & market board/crate system. Players can search for an item and they can avoid additional fees if they went and visit the seller's apartment/house. Also sellers can reduce broker fees if they use certain player crafted selling crates.

Well if they continue using the current market ward system, maybe they can institute a broker fee to encourage an even population of retainers across all the cities. If one city has more then 40% of all active retainers in the game, then force an insanely high broker fee to encourage players to place their retainers in the less populated cities. Maybe offer no transaction fees at all for the city with the least amount of active retainers.

Srsly tho why put so much work into a system that isn't the main focus of the game? Your idea is a good one btw, I just see it as a waste of time that could go into better & bigger parts of the game.

Thank you SE for keeping the markets wards. Glad that SE stood it's ground about market wards and not switching to an AH. This is not FFXI. If you want an AH take your arse back to XI.

You sir, suck.. Developers spending more time on wards or more time on content... Hmmm... which is better? TOUGH CHOICE! (obvious sarcasm)

[Titans]

Srsly tho why put so much work into a system that isn't the main focus of the game? Your idea is a good one btw, I just see it as a waste of time that could go into better & bigger parts of the game.



You sir, suck.. Developers spending more time on wards or more time on content... Hmmm... which is better? TOUGH CHOICE! (obvious sarcasm)

What? No sir you suck. No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

[Mujen]

What? No sir you suck. No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

My good sir, I put an item in LL last night and did not sell, meanwhile.... back in ul'dah AH 5 such items sold, for even more than I put it for..
Yeah 2yrs and the game system sucks.. which is why they've been constantly working on it. You can't even say 2yrs.. cuz in the beginning it was crappy I heard, also the old players could lvl DoH/DoL via exp parties... leves gave lot more gil.. game was broken, reviews were resounding terrible, game had to go into F2P (free to play) mode.. what does that say? Speaks Volumes.. "If it aint broken don't fix it" does not apply my good sir! Cuz it's VERY broken lol

[xXHalloweenTrixXx]

What? No sir you suck. No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

Market Wards is the worst system I've seen, its just an unnecessary and time consuming system to get things sold. There is a reason why FF14 1.0~ didn't do well, and this was one of those things. Every other MMO pretty much has one centralized market where people can buy and sell their goods easily to widespread of costumers in different regions in-game. That's how it should be. Not the whole waste of time of putting up a retainer, and finding a place to put a retainer (And if your retainer isn't placed up in Uldah, fat chance getting things sold)...


Hope they change their mind on Market Wards and put up an Auction House.

[Kam]

What? No sir you suck. No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

if the system works so well, why dont you move your retainers to another city and let someone else place theirs in uldah?

oh thats right.. you wouldnt do that cus no one uses the other wards.

broken poorly thought out system is broken and poorly thought out.

[Searious]

This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it.

With that mentality why do with bother to fix the game at all. Yeah lets not even bother with 2.0 since the games been like this for 2 years.

[Griffster]

What? No sir you suck. No one complains about the wards but you FFXI players. This game been around for 2 years with the wards in it, why change it. "I can't get my retainer in Ul'dah". So put them in another city why don't you?

Do you have retainers up in a different city? Just curious. If not, your statement fails. And auction houses are in use in games other than ffxi. And even in ffxi they were still segregated by city. Jueno AH, Sandy AH, etc.