We need an AH

[Mack]

are you really hating the time it takes which is about 30 seconds to go to the ward and find the item? Its not really enough of a time dialation to call its a time sink, while it may add to your convienence, it detracts from the actual game, all the people who have retainers dressed up to make people stop and look at them, the shop option (which is mostly dead but hey you can buy and customize a stand)

The fact is there is no actual real world equivalent where i order something and it instantly pops up next to me. you go to the store, and get the item, or you order it online and wait for delivery. Realize that the game isnt only made for your convience in mind, its also for other peoples entertainment. It would be very convienent to hit a get exp button and have the game roll fights and tell me the results, but its not a good game. While it is convienent for you to buy stuff faster than 30 seconds, it is less entertaining for people who want to create items, and shops and play that aspect of the game. 30 seconds is a pretty small price to pay so that other people at least have a ghost of some sort of market customization or shop simulation.

to zavier, AH was seperate for all cities in FFXI there is no reason to think AH would solve cities being under utililized other than to make it even less utilized. Not much was going on in windy AH last i checked.

With the search star system the way it is no one looks at the retainers playing dress up because nobody cares. And you're right about the real world equivalent thing, the fact that there's not real life equivalent of giant yellow birds that we can ride around is also the reason they didn't put chocobos in. You might say but what about magic, well to that I'll invite you to my place so I can show you a few spells you can do in real life. I can for example Raise someone from the dead, or light someone's hair on fire...really cool stuff.

There's much better ways to build a market place, and this isn't one of them. The only reason SE decided not to go with an AH is so they can charge you for extra retainers, simple as that, which wouldn't have been bad had their execution of the MW been any good.