Things you want XIV to have in the future.

[Leelya]

An "auction house" system is already in place in FFXIV. The question is merely when will they make it available? My guess is in March.

[Priran]

An "auction house" system is already in place in FFXIV.

eh?

[miokomioko]

Because SE is first and foremost a company whose goal is to make money and if the game starts hemorrhaging subscriptions because of their retarded "vision", they will compromise.

I agree, but the key word here is "compromise." There's always a compromise between developers and players for games of this genre. If the developers just handed out everything the players wanted, there would be just two buttons in the game. "Play all cutscenes" and "Get e-peen."

Every MMORPG has some sort of "AH" system that allows the selling of goods without being physically present. Market Wards/Retainers are obviously this game's facade for that system, and it will most likely eventually not function fundamentally different from any other game. They specifically stated that they want (the illusion of) someone selling their crafted and gathered goods to the individual instead of people all standing around a window reading their individual menus.

I suspect the compromise here will be some sort of directory within the Market Wards for where to find what you're looking for within the Market Wards. People will check it, search for what they want, go to the appropriate ward, find that specific retainer/counter and buy. While you're there, check out some other things people are selling along side what you were interested in. I mentioned it allows for more creative selling. Offer stacks of repair materials next to the weapon you're selling, and so forth. Yeah, there's a little bit more time involved and it's going to be an inconvenience for pretty much only people in a big hurry to grab-food-and-run, but really how much of an inconvenience would it really be considering teleporting between wards takes about as much time for XI to populate its AH item lists...

If it betrays the 'concept' to have an Auction house then what is going to motivate them to half-ass an auction house-like system in response to player complaints that market wards are fucking bad and need to be radically changed? How is 9/10ths of a functional auction house any less of a deviation from their grand design, AND how is it an acceptable substitute to an AH system that has worked everywhere else in MMO-space?

... because it's not the concept of selling goods without being there that betrays their concept. It's the idea of people just walking up to a window and being handed whatever they wanted and walking away that betrays their concept. You seem to believe that every other successful MMO has the same "Auction House" system. That's odd. It's just incredibly unrealistic to expect them to scrap what they're doing for what you want, when they can make what they're doing meet the same demands. Give it some time and I'm sure the Market Wards will eventually work in the same basic manner that Windurst/Bastok/Sand'Oria/Jeuno AHs worked during the first half of FFXI's life.

Again, the Market Wards suck, but they have potential to not suck whenever they realize it's not working and dedicate the time/money to fixing it.

[#686578]

Oh oh!
A Market House!

Best compromise.

[Kaylia]

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I think that's the basic premise behind fantasy role-playing. Whether it be table-top, MMO, or what-have-you.

Is FFXIV immersive because it let you do whatever Hyan think you can't do in other mmo? The game being immersive has nothing to do with its social aspect. In fact, most of the social aspect revolve around the grinding nature of the games, and little about the beautiful aesthetics that make it so involving.

I understand what he is saying here, but it's not something that can be done in a large community (i could imagine balancing a game of this nature around a efw hundred players, but if you aim for 100k+, it's just not possible anymore)

[Lucavi]

Because SE is first and foremost a company whose goal is to make money and if the game starts hemorrhaging subscriptions because of their retarded "vision", they will compromise.

Normally I agree with you, but SE is functionally retarded in their one-track mindset towards "purity". While I believe they'll eventually add an AH, I'm not so inclinded to believe it'll be because WoW-2 came out and started kicking their ass royally, again.

Whatever gets me some convenience in this game, though, is good. While I am currently surviving in this game (dare I say thriving), it still doesn't mean I'm not gleefully awaiting an AH. As it stands now, the only benefit I have to not having an AH is the fact that I can buy expensive shit on the cheap from idiots that don't know the worth of it, and I can sell my shit expensive, or haggle prices because people, once again, don't know the worth of items.

I'm gleefully awaiting the 30th. All this fresh meat coming in, eager to make a few bucks, selling me all the craft mats I need for pennies on the dollar. Joy of all joys!

[ascalon]

I would like to see critters. Cattle. Birds in the sky. Insects scurrying along the ground. Lakes and rivers that react with raindrops when the rain is falling. Bushes that do more than sway slightly in gale-force winds across La Noscea.

As beautiful as FFXIV is, I still think it is a dead world. I know WoW has such low poly count that it can render more on screen at once, but I have to wonder what the people of Eorzea eat. Marmots? Everyday? Maybe some antelope on Sundays? I hear birds screeching in the sky and look up and see nothing. I run across La Noscea and I see nothing moving.

Eorzea looks great, but it FEELS wrong. It feels shallow and unimmersive. They've obviously put SO much effort into the aesthetic of the world that I'm surprised they didn't go the extra mile and add some real LIFE to the locales.

And yes, I know the game has greater fundamental problems than this, but come on, how many of you have ran across Thanalan and not seen a single other 'living' thing for 10 minutes? Or taken the ferry ride and seen no islands, no birds in the sky, no dolphins following the boat. Hell, the boat to Popornurgo Isle had more life to it than this...

[Priran]

Normally I agree with you, but SE is functionally retarded in their one-track mindset towards "purity". While I believe they'll eventually add an AH, I'm not so inclinded to believe it'll be because WoW-2 came out and started kicking their ass royally, again.

Just because they wait to blink until irreparable damage has been done to their game's reputation doesn't mean they don't blink. See: Every expansion pack after CoP, PW after the 18-hour fight.

[miokomioko]

Hey, there's butterflies in the Black Shroud, fireflies in Gridania, birds flying around in Thanalan... but I do know what you mean.

There's a number of graphical things that make me wonder why they didn't just go one extra step to make it complete. My brother works in 3D rendering hardware/software (mostly for rendering houses) and some of the things that games like this skimp out on make him pull his hair out and go "come on, that shit is so easy..." Even in FFXIII they didn't bother making reflective surfaces (smooth floors, water, etc) reflect any PCs/NPCs, only reflecting the environment. Water in XIV doesn't even reflect the environment on top of that. There's just one, pre-rendered panoramic image in each zone that every body of water reflects from. Buh. Couldn't they borrow some algorithms from Source?

[Lucavi]

I would like to see critters. Cattle. Birds in the sky. Insects scurrying along the ground. Lakes and rivers that react with raindrops when the rain is falling. Bushes that do more than sway slightly in gale-force winds across La Noscea.

As beautiful as FFXIV is, I still think it is a dead world. I know WoW has such low poly count that it can render more on screen at once, but I have to wonder what the people of Eorzea eat. Marmots? Everyday? Maybe some antelope on Sundays? I hear birds screeching in the sky and look up and see nothing. I run across La Noscea and I see nothing moving.

Eorzea looks great, but it FEELS wrong. It feels shallow and unimmersive. They've obviously put SO much effort into the aesthetic of the world that I'm surprised they didn't go the extra mile and add some real LIFE to the locales.

And yes, I know the game has greater fundamental problems than this, but come on, how many of you have ran across Thanalan and not seen a single other 'living' thing for 10 minutes? Or taken the ferry ride and seen no islands, no birds in the sky, no dolphins following the boat. Hell, the boat to Popornurgo Isle had more life to it than this...

GB2WoW. You knew someone was going to say it. Immersion, to the SE crowd, is fluff; unncessesary, pointless tripe that belongs in games with, just as you said, low poly counts.

This game is all about admiring high quality water effects, tree textures, and beautiful skies. This game is a painting; a stiff, cold painting that, while certainly beautiful, still feels lacking.

WoW is a seedy, low-cut, grisly bar, but it feels real in the sense that it isn't a still-shot in time like FF's are. It's something alive - pulsing with its own life, even if that life is sometimes ugly and doesn't smell so good.

Two different beasts altogether, and while I agree with you that FFXIV (and FFXI as well) could use a bit more natural life in it outside of Environment/graphics/mobs/NPCs/PCs, you'd better have a great big flame shield ready, because the pain is coming.

[miokomioko]

^ lol, you have got to be kidding me.

u b trollin now

[Lucavi]

Most would say you're the mistress of trolling, not I. FFXI looks wonderful, but its just as flat as XI when you get down to it. There are butterflies in Grid, but what else? What's in the black shroud? Mobs? Trees? Is that it? Where's the life? Oh, right. In the cutscenes. Then its back to flat ground and empty spaces again.

Don't accuse me of trolling; not with the reputation you have.

[el_tio]

I'm gonna say that I'm one of the few that hopes they never add an AH or a full-functioning search.

What I'd like to see is take the retainer idea further, allow a limited # of market ward searches per day or per hour even. It'll be like sending your retainer on an errand.

If your retainer sells a shitload of stuff s/he'll "level", tho of course there'd have to be something to prevent exploit, like retainer fatigue maybe? lol

The more levels your retainer gets the more she can search / do other mysterious things etc. Maybe even take your gear to the town repair? Idk

I just see how AH systems send prices to shit. Of course if you were resourceful you can still find needs that aren't being met (sometimes) but overall it's just shit, shit, shit, leveling a craft in almost any MMO.

[Jimbobson]

Not sure where all this "AH would be the death of SE's vision" stuff is coming from. Auctioning didn't kill bazaaring in FFXI and it doesn't have to entirely replace market wards. Most of the posts seem to be in agreement that the wards need to change somehow. Rather than turning them into a less convenient AH, SE could turn them into a superior version of the bazaar to work along with an AH. If they're worried about needing to nudge people towards the wards, they could make AH fees more significant on certain items or simply make certain items impossible to list on the AH as they did in FFXI.

[miokomioko]

Retainers already are superior to Bazaaring in the fact that you don't have to pay for a mule or sit your own character to sell shit. Additionally, standard bazaaring is still in the game in almost the exact same form. All they added to the standard bazaar system is want-to-buy and repair requests. The downfall is the crowded first two wards.

It's obvious that they wanted the Market Wards to replace the Auction House by reading what they said about it.

Not sure where all this "AH would be the death of SE's vision" stuff is coming from

Their vision was literally to have crafters/gathers sell their goods directly to people via retainers instead of just throwing shit on an AH and walking away. They said that.

Most would say you're the mistress of trolling, not I. FFXI looks wonderful, but its just as flat as XI when you get down to it. There are butterflies in Grid, but what else? What's in the black shroud? Mobs? Trees? Is that it? Where's the life? Oh, right. In the cutscenes. Then its back to flat ground and empty spaces again.

Don't accuse me of trolling; not with the reputation you have.

Come onnnn~ You blanket FF games as having no immersion other than pretty pictures. Have you even seen Gran Pulse? Did you see the wildlife in XI (dolphins, whales, owls, fish, gusgen ghosts, ducks, the elusive wyvern)? I agree that XIV could use little touches like that (hell, even an NPC mentioned hunting small game like foxes... what foxes?) but I think the blanket statement about FF series lacking life in their environments was a big exaggeration. The only thing I've seen that is "full of life" in WoW is the fact that the color palette is always oversaturated and everything looks like a cartoon. I like a little bit of realism in design/color, as "dull" as people find that to be.

[Jimbobson]

Their vision was literally to have crafters/gathers sell their goods directly to people via retainers instead of just throwing shit on an AH and walking away. They said that.

Except as you just said, you're throwing your shit on the retainer and not realistically selling it any more directly to the player than if you were throwing it on an auction listing. If direct producer/consumer interaction was their exact vision, we wouldn't have market wards either, we'd have a mess of crafters lining the streets trying to haggle with buyers.

[miokomioko]

Except as you just said, you're throwing your shit on the retainer and not realistically selling it any more directly to the player than if you were throwing it on an auction listing. If direct producer/consumer interaction was their exact vision, we wouldn't have market wards either, we'd have a mess of crafters lining the streets trying to haggle with buyers.

Your retainer is supposed to represent your buddy, employee, etc. It's the illusion of setting your own shop. Semantics. They just wanted more thought and creativity put in to how you present your goods to the public.

[Jimbobson]

Your retainer is supposed to represent your buddy, employee, etc. It's the illusion of setting your own shop. Semantics. They just wanted more thought and creativity put in to how you present your goods to the public.

Semantics is exactly the problem, it's a semantical approach to having interaction between buyers and sellers. It's the same sterile process of placing an item onto an automated sale system as an AH, but extremely inconvenient to the buyer. I'm not going to pretend to know what every player thinks, but I doubt most sellers are going to care that they're placing the item on their NPC representative vs on an AH NPC by the 20th time they list an item, let alone the 200th.

[ChocoFeru]

IMO, Bazaar syetem is a great idea, BUT we need commands.

We need a command like /whosell "item", for example:

/Whosell Potion

An then a Window appears, or a line text, showing the NPC names and their actual location, sorted with the best prices or quantity.

This will allow players find items easyer, and sellers will get a chance to sell extra items, because the buyers will browse their entire bazaar, getting a chance to sell additional stuff.


Making you browse over 1.000 bazaars without any information about what you'll find, is just stupid and waste time.

[ascalon]

GB2WoW. You knew someone was going to say it. Immersion, to the SE crowd, is fluff; unncessesary, pointless tripe that belongs in games with, just as you said, low poly counts.

This game is all about admiring high quality water effects, tree textures, and beautiful skies. This game is a painting; a stiff, cold painting that, while certainly beautiful, still feels lacking.

WoW is a seedy, low-cut, grisly bar, but it feels real in the sense that it isn't a still-shot in time like FF's are. It's something alive - pulsing with its own life, even if that life is sometimes ugly and doesn't smell so good.

Two different beasts altogether, and while I agree with you that FFXIV (and FFXI as well) could use a bit more natural life in it outside of Environment/graphics/mobs/NPCs/PCs, you'd better have a great big flame shield ready, because the pain is coming.

Oh I have no problem with people flaming me for playing WoW. I play both, and still log into FFXI now and again. I can appreciate all 3 games for what they are and what they do differently, and if anyone with a smaller mind wants to argue semantics with me about that, that's fine -- though I suggest doing it via PM rather than shitting up the forums :D

The thing about the fluff though -- FFXIV is mostly all fluff at the moment. They seem to have spent most of their creative time creating the fluff: the backstory, the cutscenes, the world... and they've let slip key game systems in order to do so.

Those high quality water effects were nice, but they're no different to Aion's from last year. The trees are pretty cool. The skybox is okay, but its really jerky (ever watched the stars move in the night sky? It's like they 'tick' across every second or two).

Come onnnn~ You blanket FF games as having no immersion other than pretty pictures. Have you even seen Gran Pulse? Did you see the wildlife in XI (dolphins, whales, owls, fish, gusgen ghosts, ducks, the elusive wyvern)? I agree that XIV could use little touches like that (hell, even an NPC mentioned hunting small game like foxes... what foxes?) but I think the blanket statement about FF series lacking life in their environments was a big exaggeration. The only thing I've seen that is "full of life" in WoW is the fact that the color palette is always oversaturated and everything looks like a cartoon. I like a little bit of realism in design/color, as "dull" as people find that to be.

Gran Pulse was in many ways a very beautiful place, but it also felt much smaller than some of the zones in FFXIV. I haven't played in a while, but I do remember a certain greater amount of life to it! If only FFXIV has something more like this: places with smaller areas but more visual distinction and a greater range of flora and fauna.

As for the "life" of WoW, I don't think either of us were referring to the sometimes garish colour palette. We were referring to the details. The details that you so helpfully summed up in your point about the fauna in FFXI. WoW has critters and cattle and fish. FFXI had many incidental monsters too (boy did I freak when I saw the dolphins for the first time!) But FFXIV also doesn't have any areas like Popurnogo Island (yes, I spell it differently every time. I'm so glad FFXIV has gone for slightly more pronounceable names) -- think how awesome a lush tropical place like that would be in FFXIV!! Especially with the new beach and water texturing!

But I digress. People can hate on WoW for its lack of realism, it's oversaturated palette, its lower resolution textures... but there is MOVEMENT in the world. Wisps in trees. Birds in the sky. Crocodiles in the sewers... FFXIV can't even render 20 models on the screen at once, but I find myself wishing that they had sacrificed some of the astounding visual quality for some extra life.

Maybe this is the wrong forum for such wishful thinking, but if people are playing Final Fantasy games just for the crunchy game mechanics, then I think we've missed out on what has always made the FF series great. I didn't play FFIV to see how fast I could get Cecil to the top of that mountain to become a paladin. I played FFIV to lose myself in the story of these characters and explore their world. There wasn't a lot you could do with 8-bit graphics, but with today's HD gaming, I don't see why people wouldn't want that extra bit of realism in their world.