Bazaar
I have, on occasion, taken an hour or so and just browsed the Market and enjoyed it. On one or two occasions I was looking for a specific this or that but generally I was just poking around. It has a much more... authentic feel to it than visiting an AH. About the only change I'd like SE to implement (that I could see having any chance of happening) would be limiting the number of retainers in each zone. Currently everyone crowds into the first zone on the list and it becomes difficult to even move around inside the Market. The retainers are packed so densely that the "render cap" is reached within a couple yards of your character. You wind up moving 4-5 times just to get all/most of the retainers in a single room to render.
I would very much like to see some sort of sorting mechanism as has been suggested, but I can't really see SE implementing one. I could see the player community adopting some sorting standards eventually (e.g. East Wards for Gear, North Wards for Crafting, West Wards for consumables, etc) but there'd need to be some maturing before that happens. At a guess, the AH would likely be fully implemented by then.
Mouse/Gamepad/Keyboard
After going through all the necessary fiddling to get a PS3 controller working on my PC I gave FFXIV a shot with the Gamepad for a few hours and then went back to the keyboard. Anecdotally I seem to be the only one who prefers the keyboard to the Gamepad, but the latter just felt awkward and cumbersome. Particularly with all the menus that are pervasive throughout the entire interface. The mouse would handle these menus pretty well but for some reason there's a noticeable mouse-lag anytime menus or panes (like inventory) are up.
Combat Speed
I noticed they sped up the combat animations and stamina bar with the last major update and that's made battle flow even faster and I've found it to be quite enjoyable. I think any more fiddling would just throw it off though.
Guildleves
I think I can understand why SE has the 48 hour cooldown between guildleves, but I don't see it (in and of itself) encouraging any partying. People will party if they were going to anyway, but not just to accomplish leves. It does have merit in "encouraging" people to do more than just regional leves (battlecraft, fieldcraft, or factional) or localleves (crafting, has a separate cooldown from regional leves) to enjoy the game. Things such as browsing the markets, exploring the terrain, grinding, working on gathering/crafting, or maybe even RPing. But while there may be merit for the existence of the cooldown, I wouldn't say that the length of it is justified. I'd like to see it halved to 24 hours, or even taken down to 12 hours if necessary. I'd wager this would eventually happen, but probably not until some months after launch.
I have, on occasion, taken an hour or so and just browsed the Market and enjoyed it. On one or two occasions I was looking for a specific this or that but generally I was just poking around. It has a much more... authentic feel to it than visiting an AH. About the only change I'd like SE to implement (that I could see having any chance of happening) would be limiting the number of retainers in each zone. Currently everyone crowds into the first zone on the list and it becomes difficult to even move around inside the Market. The retainers are packed so densely that the "render cap" is reached within a couple yards of your character. You wind up moving 4-5 times just to get all/most of the retainers in a single room to render.
I would very much like to see some sort of sorting mechanism as has been suggested, but I can't really see SE implementing one. I could see the player community adopting some sorting standards eventually (e.g. East Wards for Gear, North Wards for Crafting, West Wards for consumables, etc) but there'd need to be some maturing before that happens. At a guess, the AH would likely be fully implemented by then.
Mouse/Gamepad/Keyboard
After going through all the necessary fiddling to get a PS3 controller working on my PC I gave FFXIV a shot with the Gamepad for a few hours and then went back to the keyboard. Anecdotally I seem to be the only one who prefers the keyboard to the Gamepad, but the latter just felt awkward and cumbersome. Particularly with all the menus that are pervasive throughout the entire interface. The mouse would handle these menus pretty well but for some reason there's a noticeable mouse-lag anytime menus or panes (like inventory) are up.
Combat Speed
I noticed they sped up the combat animations and stamina bar with the last major update and that's made battle flow even faster and I've found it to be quite enjoyable. I think any more fiddling would just throw it off though.
Guildleves
I think I can understand why SE has the 48 hour cooldown between guildleves, but I don't see it (in and of itself) encouraging any partying. People will party if they were going to anyway, but not just to accomplish leves. It does have merit in "encouraging" people to do more than just regional leves (battlecraft, fieldcraft, or factional) or localleves (crafting, has a separate cooldown from regional leves) to enjoy the game. Things such as browsing the markets, exploring the terrain, grinding, working on gathering/crafting, or maybe even RPing. But while there may be merit for the existence of the cooldown, I wouldn't say that the length of it is justified. I'd like to see it halved to 24 hours, or even taken down to 12 hours if necessary. I'd wager this would eventually happen, but probably not until some months after launch.
![[Image: sig_Garaf.FF.jpg]](http://randirim.org/img/sig_Garaf.FF.jpg)
