Auction House vs Wards

[Aleyah]

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.

Just do a Auction House and have the items on consignment! Instead of the whole bidding crap. You set your own prices and there should be a annoymus mailing system for example: I want +50Str Bracers. I go too a market house and type in "Felt Bracers" It pulls up all Felt Bracers currently being sold in every Eroza market house. It has a page system where I can flip through and see all the Felt Bracers not only the cheapest ones. I find a pair listed for 99,999,999. It gives me 2 options: Buy or Message Seller. With message seller it sends my message to the seller to work out a better price but keeps the sellers info a Secret "Prevents Targets for Hackers/Phishers" I offer 30mil he accepts. Seller then mails me item with a 30mil COD Attached to my mail box. I go to a mail box it takes my 30mil and gives me the Bracers.

[Griss]

Once they centralize every thing they just need to have a little tutorial quest that runs new players into the mercantile and runs them through the search function.

The thread title is redundant the wards are an ah now. there is no verses.

[Tahldon]

Guess I'm the only one who doesn't mind checking all Merchantile Houses for items. They all basically do what an Auction House would anyway. But everyone seems settled on this "Let's do everything in Uldah" kick and call it a hub, but it's not even the "center" of anything. No one is walking from Uldah to Lim-Lom or Grid, they weren't even doing it in the first place.

People only started huddling there because the population was a little sparse way back when, but now we have multitudes of people and everyone still wants to hang out in one city. SE doesn't seem to want people to do that this time around, so they're trying to get people to, in a way, represent themselves in their own city-state.

So yeah...

[Mujen]

Seriously like someone said... you guys who LOVE this system, take your retainer out Uldah and start putting them in Grid wards.. then come back and talk.. Until then you rly shouldnt talk.

[Elexia]

Seriously like someone said... you guys who LOVE this system, take your retainer out Uldah and start putting them in Grid wards.. then come back and talk.. Until then you rly shouldnt talk.

Which is what a lot of people already do, you can even get better deals outside of Uldah at times.

[PSxpert2011]

What??? not everyone disliked the game because it didn't have an AH. It fail because of the lack of content. If you want AH, stay with 11.

Would there be a problem if people were able to place their retainer anywhere on the field besides the darn market wards?
- I would like this done, as long as there's a barrier to where you cant place them(etc. in front of entrances, trails, aetherytes, NPCs...)

besides, servers don't get congested with retainer data inside the markets? Spread them out!

FFxi had mules basaaring the streets and anywhere they felt like it. What was forgotten was a nice bulletin board listing the bazaars in the area and their wares on sale. That would be a cool little feature!

[Felis]

Seriously like someone said... you guys who LOVE this system, take your retainer out Uldah and start putting them in Grid wards.. then come back and talk.. Until then you rly shouldnt talk.

You will see, we do it
But after the ARR relaunch with the better market ward

[Alhanelem]

"bid feature:"

You know what? I don't want bidding. I'd rather have everything stay buyouts. I want to buy an item and receive it right then and there, not wait hours for the auction to finish.

[Pooky]

As long as item search is segregated, Uldah will always win. And as long as there is a limit to the number of retainers in a ward, people not in Uldah are at a severe disadvantage. When I'm looking for quick items like ingots, or leather, or even food, I'm not going to spend the time to shop around the wards. I'll check Uldah and just buy from there.

I don't get the point of retainers in wards anymore anyway. Does anyone actually go to the physical retainers to shop anymore? Just let us use our retainers as storage instead of forcing them to stay in wards. And let us just have an auction house.

[Alhanelem]

I don't get the point of retainers in wards anymore anyway. Does anyone actually go to the physical retainers to shop anymore?

Yes. I do, to save the search fee. I'm not rich and I don't like being wasteful, so unless I'm in a hurry, I'll take the time to go to the retainer to avoid the search fee. And on one or two occasions, I've actually bought other stuff sold by the same retainer. Funny how that happens sometimes. The retainers offer oppertunities for secondary sales.

I also really like the anonymity the retainers provide, as their name appears in the history, not the player's name.