Auction Houses vs. Market Wards

[xXHalloweenTrixXx]

I said it before and I'll say it again. Market wards = 10 clicks just get put an item for sell:

-Click on menu to go into the market wards
-Choose which market ward your retainer is (if both your retainers are in the same ward, then good for you) if not you have to repeat this step to go to another ward were your 2nd retainer is.
-Wait for loading
-Click on retainer
-Click on exchange items
-Click on item you want to transfer from your inventory to the retainer inventory
-Get out of the exchange menu
-Now click on check bazaar menu
-Scroll through inventory to find item
-Click on item
-Click on quantity of items you want to sell
-Click on price you want to sell item for
-Click submit

AH = about 5 at most, if not less steps, to sell an item.

and to add insult to injury...

To check price trends so you know what price you will have to use to sell an item = a trip back and forward from market ward door to your retainer. AH = 1 window to see everything.

Thank you four outlining the hassle of the Market Wards. I give you my +1.

The people who are claiming the Market Wards isn't complete garbage obviously haven't played a game with a functional working AH or they are simply ignorant. The market wards is far more tedious to work with than a simple auction house, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice.... but you know some people....

[Alhanelem]

Thank you four outlining the hassle of the Market Wards. I give you my +1.

The people who are claiming the Market Wards isn't complete garbage obviously haven't played a game with a functional working AH or they are simply ignorant. The market wards is far more tedious to work with than a simple auction house, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice.... but you know some people....

The wards are not complete garbage. I have played many functional games with various kinds of trade systems. An 'AH' as you've come to call it is not the only possible useable system. The fact is, we already have most of the functionality of an AH. The post you quoted outlines the only real serious problem with the system. Buying items is simple, and works like any AH does. In fact, better than many AHes do. Listing items for sale is the current problem, and they can easily address this problem, compared to the effort required to redesign a new system from complete scratch. What i'd do-

-Add "sell an item" to the auction NPC
-pick item, set price.
-item is automatically placed on your retainer who is automatically placed in the most appropriate location possible.

This retains the added functionality retainers have that an AH doesn't have, yet makes the process as simple as it is with an AH.

The other fact is this is such a polarizing subject, everyone is on one side or the other and neither is ever able to convince the other.

I am fine with not having an AH right at beginning of 2.0 but I hope by the time Ishguard gets implemented an AH will make an appearance and hopefully they can find some other way to utilize the retainer system.

By the time ishgard comes out the market wards will already be so much like an AH (with extra features) that there would be no point in adding one, and in fact adding one would simply making trade more complicated (Do i put my item on the markets, or the AH?). Current generation MMO players are used to an AH, but few realize that not every game (FFXIV isn't the only one) uses that exact system, and in fact most of the early MMOs didn't use it.

Once again: buying items in the market wards is nearly exactly like buying them in any AH, except you have the added option if you so choose to go meet the retainer and save a fee. buying needs to be badly streamlined, but if that happens, there will be no need to add an AH- We will already have one.

[Alhanelem]

All they do is add server clutter and make the zone lag.

actually, they do neither. I don't lag at all in the market wards, and the wards are on their own servers- they don't clutter anything.

but they should really streamline the MW before thinking of doing some sort of interesting hybrid.

That's basically what they're doing. Some things we already know:

-The three cities' wards will be truly integrated, you can search for items from one place regardless of where you are.
- The markets will be accessible directly instead of walking up to a nondescript zone line and picking from a menu.
- You will be able to seperately search for materia-enhanced and +1 items.

[Shougun]

actually, they do neither. I don't lag at all in the market wards, and the wards are on their own servers- they don't clutter anything.

That's basically what they're doing. Some things we already know:

-The three cities' wards will be truly integrated, you can search for items from one place regardless of where you are.
- The markets will be accessible directly instead of walking up to a nondescript zone line and picking from a menu.
- You will be able to seperately search for materia-enhanced and +1 items.

Actually -_-

- Its a whole unimmersive cluster F*ck that takes up server processing power
- I do lag, glad you don't (are your settings turned down? or a beast computer >.> its like 60 guys loading at once (its not really "lag" as much as it is ugly ass popping in of characters and out))



And I know of all those points you mentioned. If its not obvious, I frequent here on the forums.. lol

[Alhanelem]

Every time someone wants to purchase something they enter the market - a whole swath of retainers are pooled.

Every time someone wants to purhcase something they access the auction house - a whole swath of goods in a database are pooled.

Again- the retainers, on the server side, are little more than a bunch of data entries tied to a name and XY coordnates. The server overhead is not substantially different, and even if it was, the sever load is isolated- it has no impact on anything other than itself, because the markets are handled by a server node that handles nothing else.

well put. a simplified approach would be better in my opinion. not a long list of menus go thru before you can actually get anything done.

It is, but it is not really hard to address. They've condensed and streamlined a lot of menus and windows, and they're continuing to do so for 2.0- we're just not seeing it here because they're working on the new version instead of updating the old one.

AH = 1 window to see everything.

This doesn't have to be just an "AH" feature. There's no reason they can't also do it for the markets, while retaining all the unique features markets have that an AH doesn't, like the ability to request to buy items instead of just sell them, seek repairs while offline/away, and store items and money independent of your desire to sell or buy. I in fact already described how they can make the selling process much simpler without rebuilding a new system from scratch.

[Newton]

I said it before and I'll say it again. Market wards = 10 clicks just get put an item for sell:

-Click on menu to go into the market wards
-Choose which market ward your retainer is (if both your retainers are in the same ward, then good for you) if not you have to repeat this step to go to another ward were your 2nd retainer is.
-Wait for loading
-Click on retainer
-Click on exchange items
-Click on item you want to transfer from your inventory to the retainer inventory
-Get out of the exchange menu
-Now click on check bazaar menu
-Scroll through inventory to find item
-Click on item
-Click on quantity of items you want to sell
-Click on price you want to sell item for
-Click submit

AH = about 5 at most, if not less steps, to sell an item.

and to add insult to injury...

To check price trends so you know what price you will have to use to sell an item = a trip back and forward from market ward door to your retainer. AH = 1 window to see everything.

well put. a simplified approach would be better in my opinion. not a long list of menus go thru before you can actually get anything done.

[Orophin]

I really hope to see an in-depth explanation about how the new market system will work before beta. :/

[PSxpert2011]

Instead of calling them either Auction houses or market wards, let's just have a bulletin board with everything on it!

Updates, special quest, classifieds, help wanted Ads. You know, stuff like IRL.

My conditions are like this... I want to take my retainer out of the building and put her money-maker on the streets or in the field or at camp. Make her move around at-least(well, not actually move, just dance in place) :P

[Zantetsuken]

I want to take my retainer out of the building and put her money-maker on the streets or in the field or at camp. Make her move around at-least(well, not actually move, just dance in place) :P

If they allow that, there needs to be a limited amount of designated spots (like booths) for retainers so we don't end up with:

[Tonkra]

If they allow that, there needs to be a limited amount of designated spots (like booths) for retainers so we don't end up with:

you mean something more like this? ;D (Lineage II)


And these are only playercharacters who opened private shops.. and not market NPC's. (then it would be even more character models)


I see the city zones crashing, and i cant imagine, how a PS3 should handle this, because they cant reduce the graphic settings.

And i dont get at all why we need extra polygon characters, who are only standing around like zombies.. i never will get it.. it just causes server lag and crashes... and uses much server capacity.

It's very possible that an AH would not reduce the number of clicks by much. Besides, it's not like putting something up for sale in the MW is all that inefficient anyway it take a minute or two at most.

Well its very inefficient... you check the prices first at the markethall npc then you run to your market ward and transfer the item to him.


instead of checking price -> sell it directly at the npc.

the market ward system works like this:

check price at market npc -> switch to an other market zone.. -> walk to your market ward -> transfer item and set price..

want to sell more than one item? do the same procedure again or write all prices down on paper before going to your market ward.
wind crystal -> 60k
polearm -> 100k
cole -> 20k
-> transfer to your ward.

not inefficient? ... well i would se its much inefficient and no fun at all to sell items via a second npc... instead of transfering it directly after checking the prices like with an auction house. who needs this? i want to sell stuff on my own.

personally i dont need a personal slave.