6months and no AH?!

[SydeBeheln]

The market ward is pretty much the same thing as an AH, but with functions that prevent/slow the process of RMT. It's actually new and refreshing compared to the copy&paste AH we see in every single MMORPG. People complain because they have to walk to the retainer selling the item, but that's just being lazy. People seem to think that just because the system had a rough start out it's all the sudden a "failed feature, or not fixable" yet that's obviously NOT the case. Look at how far the system has gone, and look at how many less people talk about this subject. Keep in mind, that the original market ward system, was not a finished product, and even now still has room for improvement. Regardless, the MW's are better and more interesting.

[zaviermhigo]

I'd be okay with the wards if I didn't have to travel to Uldah to get everything (unless its a new shield LL has those), the way they released the class quests and made Gridania and LL almost deserted is wrong, I wonder how they did not know everyone would want one COMMUNAL place on a server like Jeuno, we don't have ishgard so everyones in Uldah. If Ishgard was out we'd have everyone be in Ishgard that is over a certain level and lowbies would be in starting three cities.

[Jinko]

An AH system actually has some negative aspects in such a complex economy.

With the interdependence of crafters in the game, the retainer system allows people to leave items on their retainer without having to constantly repost them, or manage an insane log of auctions.

And why do you think that just because you call something an Auction House it has to work like every other Auction House out there, you could quite easily have an AH system that allows you to set an item and leave it until it sells or you wish to remove it, the fee would be taken from the sale of the item much in the same way when an item is sold using the marketward.

One problem with an auction house system is that many of the items will simply never be posted, similar to how in other games you see plenty of low level items, no mid range items, and then level cap items on AH's.

Item with no value are generally sold to NPC's anyways so this is a moot point.

A better solution than an AH is to increase the number of items retainers can post to 1,000, give each player 4 or 5 total retainers (because crafters need retainers for all sorts of wards), and add a text search feature to the item search.

How would saturating an already over-saturated economy benefit anyone ?

It would also be nice to clean up the wards to make them more organized, and to remove the price search feature, since too many items are greatly undervalued in the current game due to gil wars, or players offloading items onto the market.

Agree that it would be nice to clean up the wards if they stay and organise them a bit better, removal of the price search is a terrible terrible idea, its there for a very good reason so we don't spend hours looking for the best priced item amongst a sea of NPC's.

A completive economy is by no means a bad thing.

And I have to agree RMT are the problem and SE keeps trying to find in game methods of inconveniencing/thawarting them without realizing or conceding that RMT do EXACTLY what regular players do except on a larger scale. When they try to stop the RMT they end up hurting the players as much if not more. They need to police the game more not rely on their gimmicky anti-RMT bot scripts. By the same token... (not to say I love them... I just don't think there's any way to get rid of them) Whey RMT is 'controlled' rather than 'out of control' it's not bad. I mean shards/crystals would probably still be 300+/3000+ gil if it wasn't for them.

Couldn't agree more.

The market ward is pretty much the same thing as an AH, but with functions that prevent/slow the process of RMT. It's actually new and refreshing compared to the copy&paste AH we see in every single MMORPG. People complain because they have to walk to the retainer selling the item, but that's just being lazy. People seem to think that just because the system had a rough start out it's all the sudden a "failed feature, or not fixable" yet that's obviously NOT the case. Look at how far the system has gone, and look at how many less people talk about this subject. Keep in mind, that the original market ward system, was not a finished product, and even now still has room for improvement. Regardless, the MW's are better and more interesting.

The only reason the MW now work is because they have basically rewritten it to act like an AH with NPC's.

There is little reason at this stage why they shouldn't go the whole hog and replace it with a complete AH.

Just because something is new and different doesn't make better either.

[GreyWolf]

The market ward is pretty much the same thing as an AH, but with functions that prevent/slow the process of RMT. It's actually new and refreshing compared to the copy&paste AH we see in every single MMORPG. People complain because they have to walk to the retainer selling the item, but that's just being lazy. People seem to think that just because the system had a rough start out it's all the sudden a "failed feature, or not fixable" yet that's obviously NOT the case. Look at how far the system has gone, and look at how many less people talk about this subject. Keep in mind, that the original market ward system, was not a finished product, and even now still has room for improvement. Regardless, the MW's are better and more interesting.

Less people talk/complain about not having an AH or market system that is enjoyable because they quit long ago >.>;

[Reika]

The market ward is pretty much the same thing as an AH, but with functions that prevent/slow the process of RMT. It's actually new and refreshing compared to the copy&paste AH we see in every single MMORPG. People complain because they have to walk to the retainer selling the item, but that's just being lazy. People seem to think that just because the system had a rough start out it's all the sudden a "failed feature, or not fixable" yet that's obviously NOT the case. Look at how far the system has gone, and look at how many less people talk about this subject. Keep in mind, that the original market ward system, was not a finished product, and even now still has room for improvement. Regardless, the MW's are better and more interesting.

People like copy/paste tho. New is bad.

[AngryNixon]

If you build it, they will come.

[Wolfie]

I still don't know why everyone is defending the retainer system.

Everything the devs will do with this system to make it more user friendly or intuitive will turn out to be extremely roundabout or awkward, because the base design of "NPCs selling your stuff in a separate zone like bazaars" is a bad design. There is nothing that this system does, that a system without retainers couldn't do better, easier, and for cheaper in terms of development costs.

Just because you can work with a system doesn't mean it's a GOOD one. SE pretty much spent extra effort to make a system that's WORSE than systems already available on other MMOs (including their own).

[zaviermhigo]

My main problem with the market wards is, they can go down. Countries would fail if they're economy went to a complete halt the amount of times the wards in Eorzea do, of course this is caused by the massive amount of retainers in Uldah, which is caused by everyone being in Uldah, which is caused by the main storyline leading to Uldah, and the fact that players need a communal space, especially when population is low.

[Jinko]

^ I think they solved that issue in the last patch, retainers are now saved to their location so if the wards crash they should reappear at the same spot when they come back online again.

I do agree though, that an AH would almost never crash because there is less data being transferred.

[AngryNixon]

I still don't know why everyone is defending the retainer system.

Everything the devs will do with this system to make it more user friendly or intuitive will turn out to be extremely roundabout or awkward, because the base design of "NPCs selling your stuff in a separate zone like bazaars" is a bad design. There is nothing that this system does, that a system without retainers couldn't do better, easier, and for cheaper in terms of development costs.

Just because you can work with a system doesn't mean it's a GOOD one. SE pretty much spent extra effort to make a system that's WORSE than systems already available on other MMOs (including their own).

Ok let me see if I can summarize the main complaints against AHs. If I miss any let me know.

1) An AH will have price histories and price histories will bring about the robot unicorn apocalypse.

2) The system we have now is PERFECT because we can now search for items, and any argument to the contrary automatically implies you are lazy.

3) AHs, because they are so simple and efficient, allow RMTs to thrive because when RMTs are confronted with a retainer ward (seeing as they aren't as intelligent as the next 10 year old that can figure out an MMO market system) they burst into flames of confusion, since they cannot possibly find out how to effectively thrive in a market ward system, and are forced back to the nether-dimension they came from.

4) AHs hurt my immersion? a.k.a. alienating me from my fantasy land with the horrors of quick, straightforward, efficient, informative and competitive global commerce. I don't know if that's even a real one but I figured it might be on Besaid.

5) Hmmm... ran out. Any other perfectly valid suggestions as to why the AH is the devil himself reincarnated as a fuzzy bunny reincarnated as a post office box ?