Auction House mechanics are abused in every title they have been deployed to and as a direct result have ruined what would otherwise have been a healthy economy. Having a large heard of RMT dooshwaffles buying up the entire economy and reselling it at 5 times the price is in no way healthy. Niether is those same dooshwaffles using the same AH to launder and sell currency to other people so they can afford the newly jacked up prices. The AH debate begins and ends here. The only central economic system to show even a moderate amount of success is from EVE and that is only because they paid an actual economist to manage and maintain the system. And even that is abused and exploited to support a growing RMT based economy.
As to the rest of the game's issues, this game has launched with more polish and in better states than any other MMO, period. This was the smoothest launch imaginable for an MMO. There is lag and there are bugs but they are hardly catastrophic and easily managed. The lag itself was created by the MASSIVE pre-order and beta population and every day another database is optimized and another system become real-time rather than delayed. This game does however rely on healthy latency. If you are playing on a garbage machine over garbage ISP you will not enjoy this title.
FFXIV is not WoW. It will not hold your hand and wipe yer crap cannon. What it will do is immerse you in an MMO experience so deep you feel you might drown, slap you around, spit you out, and hand you the ultimate prize as a reward for your valiant efforts. This is a fully mature title that requires more out of its players than point click and afk.
The majority of QQ comes from children who want everything handed to them on a platter and despise anything that resembles a challenge. FFXIV is a truly next Gen MMO without all the instant gratification mechanics that water down and pollute the experience.
A MOG guru you are not posting that nonsense. If you think loading a city with lots of player shops is progress you have bats in the belfry. Gold sellers manage to sell their wares with or without an auction house. At least an auction house reduces the massive lag you get in cities with individual player stores. Besides searching through tons of stores trying to find the item you want also introduces lag through constant access of the database.
An auction house makes a game that depends on crafting playable. This has nothing to do with making a challenging MMO.
As to polish, the graphics are beautiful and that is about it. The game is in an Alpha state and even the developers recognize this since they are extending to 60 days before the billing starts. The QQ comes from a developer releasing a game in an undeveloped state. It has nothing to do with instant gratification, it has to do with expecting a game that has at least gone through the Q/A process a few times. If one of my software teams put incomplete garbage like this in production there would be some serious repercussions.
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A MOG guru you are not posting that nonsense. If you think loading a city with lots of player shops is progress you have bats in the belfry. Gold sellers manage to sell their wares with or without an auction house. At least an auction house reduces the massive lag you get in cities with individual player stores. Besides searching through tons of stores trying to find the item you want also introduces lag through constant access of the database.
An auction house makes a game that depends on crafting playable. This has nothing to do with making a challenging MMO.
As to polish, the graphics are beautiful and that is about it. The game is in an Alpha state and even the developers recognize this since they are extending to 60 days before the billing starts. The QQ comes from a developer releasing a game in an undeveloped state. It has nothing to do with instant gratification, it has to do with expecting a game that has at least gone through the Q/A process a few times. If one of my software teams put incomplete garbage like this in production there would be some serious repercussions.