Ideally, I'd like to see them merge an AH with the wards, and if they did, I think it would surpass the AH in FFXI or any other mmo... Whereas I just don't see the wards ever outright surpassing an AH, although it could offer certain perks.

Basically, take the zoneline to the wards, and replace it with an AH zone.

Retainers would not all be standing around, but there would be spots where you can interact with you're retainers, the bells basically, but maybe with a different coat of paint. And of course a way of interacting with the AH itself, and a way to receive things that you buy, either directly, through your retainer, or with a delivery system.

Those details aside, the main perks over the traditional FFXI AH would be:

- More slots to sell things, and no fees incurred until the thing actually sells, so no listing fees for higher ticket items that sell slow.

- The ability to LIST items by the stack, but to SELL them individually, such as the wards currently allow... That is a drastic improvement over the FFXI system... If you have 99 of something to sell, but the buyers only want 1 at a time, and you only have 7 sell slots.. It sucks, it blows ass, pure and simple. That perk alone would make the whole system worth while.

- You'd still have all the functionality of an AH, and preferably a price history, allowing supply and demand to work it's magic without all the uncertainty that arises when a market dries up for even an hour. Supply and demand is a superior approach, despite what some people say.

- Support for listing HQ versions of items, and have them show up as HQ. The wards don't do that as of now, and it's a real pain when you're selling or seeking HQ items. Poking through the bazaars one by one like people had to at launch is completely unacceptable, period.

- It could be streamlined so as to be quick and efficient... Need to pick up a couple things real quick, and have a party waiting on you? No problem... With the wards, especially pre patched... You had to pick either the party, or hours of shopping. Now it's a lot better, but it could be better still. Would be nice not to have to go ward diving for each purchase, even with the retainer stars. Not bad now and then, but when you're making some stuff for people, and have none of the mats, you could easily end up doing 10 or 20+ dives to get all the stuff you need. It's just a waste of time, and annoying.

Now let's look at the downsides... Oh wait, there wouldn't be any. Well that's settled then, we need a retainer compatible AH to replace the wards. :P