twesterm said:
I really can't believe they thought the market wards were any kind of acceptable solution. I had originally thought that they were better than no solution but then you have to wonder all the man hours it took to create the retainer system. Someone had to design it and then people had to implement it. That is time they could have spent making an actual aution house. |
The thing about creative/artistic people, Twesterm, is that they think their shit dont stink and I am guilty of that myself being a musician/fashionista. The designers at Square Enix probably thought that having market wards, no General Chat, no mailbox is revolutionary in MMOs and I can picture the devs high-fiving each other, eating sushi and making out with hot japanese porn stars in the work room.
Even if you play Free To Play MMOs in the past, like, 2003 (Mu Online), where there is no functioning auction house, character toons could be parked in the main city and they could ADVERTISE what they were selling, and the simple procedure of checking what someone has for sale only takes 2-3 seconds.
For FF 14 , when you enter the market wards, you enter the area and you walk in and wonder "Whoa? Where are all the retainers?" and then you realise the game is still loading the retainers (LOL). And you check out what someone has for sale, you
1)Click on them
2) Click on that icon on the top of the screen to open up the menu
3) Click Browse
4) Wait for the UI Lag
5) See what they have for sale, and IF YOU DO NOT FIND WHAT YOU WANT, YOU
6) Move on to find the next guy and see what he has for sale (and repeat ad infinitum)
And here comes the problem, sometimes you forgot whether you've already searched that guy before or not becuz theres nothing that really distinguishes one retainer from another! (All the names are random gibberish!), and you move slightly and the area loads, suddenly more retainer loads and you see someone with the name SELLINGSHARDS only to find them selling a Shriekshroom for 999999999 gil, so you move back to your original position to begin looking for shards again and you FORGET who you've searched before because like I said, theres nothing that differentiates/distinguishes one's retainer from another.
One more thing that is going to hurt FF 14 is the fanboys. They forgive the game developers for their mistakes. They go "Oh its ok I'll just play with my friends we're having fun together I don't care what people think"
The thing is that you have to care about what people think. It's like a Sony Yobnaf who goes "Oh Lair is PS3 exclusive i dont care its got 3/10 cuz I love it, you M$ fans can play on yr shooterbox"
If you really love the platform (PS3/360/Wii), MMO (FF 14/WoW) or any game and you're really supporting it, you have to be somewhat concerned about its sales and how the developers are going to support/improve on it, and not just think that "Oh me and my friends are enjoying it so its ok i dont care if it sells only 2 copies or gets 1/10 for reviews".
