We need an AH

[CapnBash]

You're exactly right. Things will hopefully come to them from experience.

[Blarp]

You're exactly right. Things will hopefully come to them from experience.

It should have come to them from experience in XI. RMT ran the economy there for years. SE started making big gil items like O.Kote rare/ex and they had a team dedicated to investigating and banning gold sellers. They used to have huge ban waves. It seems this time around they went with the approach of designing things to directly combat RMT activity, but ignored the fact that if it sucks for gold sellers, it's going to suck even more for legitimate players.

This whole game feels like it was designed and developed in a vacuum where people were sucked into the big groupthink machine. It still boggles my mind how they have a decade of experience and solved problems in XI, yet they still exist in XIV. Where's the forward progress?

[CapnBash]

It should have come to them from experience in XI. RMT ran the economy there for years. SE started making big gil items like O.Kote rare/ex and they had a team dedicated to investigating and banning gold sellers. They used to have huge ban waves. It seems this time around they went with the approach of designing things to directly combat RMT activity, but ignored the fact that if it sucks for gold sellers, it's going to suck even more for legitimate players.

This whole game feels like it was designed and developed in a vacuum where people were sucked into the big groupthink machine. It still boggles my mind how they have a decade of experience and solved problems in XI, yet they still exist in XIV. Where's the forward progress?

You're right, but I forgot to add "from this game". The whole group-think thing has really messed this game up. SE should've done a hell of a lot more research before going about things the way they did. It's like they wanted to make the game better than XI, but they didn't realize that XI had some very good things they could have borrowed from the get go. To all of those people bashing WoW and other MMO's, I can agree with you guys that I don't like all of the aspects of those games, but in order to make great games (or anything really) you need to have good references, and MMO's like WoW and etc. have certain things going for it that make them good in some ways, and SE can learn from them to an extent.

[Mahayana]

It should have come to them from experience in XI. RMT ran the economy there for years. SE started making big gil items like O.Kote rare/ex and they had a team dedicated to investigating and banning gold sellers. They used to have huge ban waves. It seems this time around they went with the approach of designing things to directly combat RMT activity, but ignored the fact that if it sucks for gold sellers, it's going to suck even more for legitimate players.

This whole game feels like it was designed and developed in a vacuum where people were sucked into the big groupthink machine. It still boggles my mind how they have a decade of experience and solved problems in XI, yet they still exist in XIV. Where's the forward progress?

I love this post. Its like when you have to plan defense for hackers hacking into a corporate network, you have to also think how it will effect your employee's and your clientele's ease of use for the system. Following the market wards logic, every time you wanted to get on the corporate wireless internet, you would be required to take a full body cavity search before granted access.

I personally would like the see retainers completely gone and in place a bank and just a simple market menu UI using the players real user name. maybe we can leave high dollar items handled in a more secure way but let common resources be sold in the most easy manner possible.

[Invalice_Vangaurd]

Square has yet to realize you can't pre-emptively stop RMT without ruining part of the gaming experience for the legitimate players. The best way to stop RMT is to make it easy for people to report them and have a strong force of GMs that actively, and promptly ban repeated offenders. Other developers have already learned this; Square on the other hand, hasn't. =/

This^^x1000^10

No matter what ridiculous game mechanics they implement, RMT will still find a way to make and sell gil. The only thing they're really doing is harming the playing experience of REAL players. RMT players do not play the game to have fun (although I'm sure some do but it is merely a byproduct of their "job"), they play the game to make gil for the company they work for to sell; legitimate players on the other hand, are trying to have an enjoyable experience, and all the of these convoluted systems they implement take away from the enjoyment of the game. It seems so damn obvious that I'm not sure how they don't realize it.

[kurokawa]

Market wards are cool, but honestly, Ah would be so much quicker.

Ah would make sense to everyone
Ah would be easy to use
Ah would stimulate the economy
Ah would help me find gear at my level

Go look for low ish level weapons in the markets wards...

Yes, that's right, there aren't any. Why, because it's a pain the arse to buy and sell and at this stage in the game's life, no one can be bothered to work out a good selling price so it's easier to npc and make up your money with leves.

There's no real incentive to sell in the wards unless you're flogging weapons or specific body armor.

I NPC all the basic drops I get, as it's easy.

If we had an AH i'd be able to sell to players.

I don 't have time to sit in a lagfest and exchange crap with my retainer.

Ah makes sense practically, but SE doesn't like the botters, the exploiters, the gilsellers, so we suffer..

But you've heard this one before haven't you....

[Rizon]

I have already voiced my opinions on this subject before as has almost everyone else ad infinitum. The only person from whom we have not heard is Yoshi-P. He must settle this soon one way or another. Community reps and Devs....if you actually do read these please get a solid commitment from him one way or another and end this endless debate. Maybe even him address the subject Tuesday at the live session.

[Cicatriz]

Market wards, in their current form, still take too long to get basic tasks done compared to the standard AH system. To list items I have to: 1) run to the search function and look up market price; 2) run to the ward I wish to sell in; 3) call retainer; 4) place item in retainer bazaar. That's too much dilly dallying for something so simple, as Tifa would put it.

Same thing for buying - why not make it so we can just buy it from the search rather than have to run to the specific retainer for each item we wish to buy?

I know the new devs are trying to work with what is already in place but this is an integral part of an MMO and needs to not turn players off. Someone should shoot the previous devs for their horribad ideas, especially the whole retainer/market wards nonsense. Hopefully the new devs are working on the servers to allow for more changes to this system.

[Takinagi]

I honestly wonder what the original team was thinking when designing the market wards. The idea itself is stupid comparing it to a auction house. Not to mention right now the wards are mostly full already, can't wait until PS3 Release when no one can get there retainer in any ward.

[Tsuga]

While I like the idea of AH because it cuts out the whole "middle man" of traveling into the wards to find your items (I liken it go getting something from a vending machine, vs. going to the store to get something), that is not the main reason I would prefer an AH over Market Wards.

My main problem with the market wards is that we are limited by:

a.) retainer capacity of each ward, and
b.) the abysmal draw distance in regards to character models in this game.

The search function solves point b.), in regards to going in and picking up a single item from a starred NPC, but if that was the true intention of the market wards all along, then why wasn't an AH installed in the first place? It's the same system, just more streamlined. The market wards exist because the devs assumed that we would like to browse through a mob of NPCs to find an item, and that entire mechanic is undermined by the flawed draw distance.

Point a.) is my biggest problem with the market ward system. Nearly every time I want to go to set up my retainer to sell something in a ward, it is filled. I'm a weaver, and the tailor's wards are ALWAYS full. Every time I want to get repairs the Menders Row is full. Sure you could argue that I could send my retainers to Limsa, or Gridania, but those wards are empty for a reason. NO ONE IS THERE. Even if someone was there to buy my shit, what's going to happen when this game theoretically relaunches and gets hundreds of thousands more subscribers? The wards will be IMPOSSIBLE to get into if you don't have a macro running to reposition your retainer every time it gets booted, or if you can't spend the time to refresh it every damn day.

The solution to all of the flaws of the market wards would be a linked Auction House between all of the cities. It may not be absolutely necessary now, but when it comes time for relaunch, I don't think the flaws of the current market wards will be any more acceptable as they were at launch.

Edit:

No we do not.

Current Marketward Transaction

Enter wards
Search for Item
Find Seller
Go to ward
Pick up Item

The quickest you can do it is approximately 30 seconds. The longest I've ever searched for a specific item is less then 2 minutes.


FFXI > Blind Auction
Run to AH
Search through item lists for item you want
Find item you want (100 Listed)
Check Item History
Bid for item 10% lower then item history:
wait 5 seconds
Fail
Bid for Item 5% lower then item history:
wait 5 seconds
Fail
Bid for item same as last item History:
wait 5 seconds
fail
Re-check Item History, Recent item has been sold since last checked. 15% more then one before it.
Bid for item same price as new last one sold :
wait 5 seconds
Fail
Bid for item 5% more then last one sold:
wait 5 seconds
Success, Item delivered to inventory.


WoW
Go to Auction House.
Filter through items you want. See that everything in your level is posted for prices that are way above your characters possible gold at your level.
Find one that is decent. Bid on it.
Wait 2 days. Lose Bid.
Look again
Find new item. Bid.
wait 4 hours. Win Bid.
Wait hour for item to deliver to mail box.
Find mailbox to pick it up.


Auctions Fail. The only difference between the Marketward and an Auction house is the marketward has no Auction. Blind or Timed.

Now for WoW they do have a buy it now but guess what.

Search for item
Buy It Now
Go to Mailbox
Pick up Item

YOU STILL HAVE TO GO PICK UP THE ITEM.

Your entire argument is based on the assumption that anyone wants a system exactly like the ones present in the games that you listed above.

I don't see how anyone could argue that being able to BUY the item that you're searching for right from the search menu would not be faster than starring it, zoning, running to the starred NPC, selecting it, looking through their menu for the item at the price that you want it at, and then buying it.

Edit 2:

Last point -
There's no reason the Market Ward couldn't exist along side an AH. Similar to the "Rolanberry Market" in XI, there will always be mules standing around. imo, the market wards are the perfect place for that to happen. If people want to shop and vend that way, or certain goods are sold that way more frequently, then it can exist along-side an AH. Hell, the AH could be taxed more than mule vending as a price for convenience or something (just throwing that out there, not as a point of debate for some all problem solving system that I have in mind or something).