Can you explain the decision to make FFXIV housing so bland?

With such a rich history of FF titles that had some very peculiar housing structures - most notably Airships- why was the decision made to offer such a banal and simple housing system? It's been widely held in every ff title that the "home base" for the travelling adventurers was their airship. It feels like the FC is that group of travelling companions, and it would have been such a wondrous and perfect fit to help give that sense of individuality that FFXIV is sorely missing from the mmo market. And i'd bet most people would not have minded paying 600 mil for an airship fc home. It seems like such a missed opportunity.

And if not not stick to your ff roots, at least give us something to match the hype that was placed on fc housing from the start! Give us SOME autonomy to build our own housing structures...why can't you do something other than the most simple, least thought out approach? With every new addition to this game, it seems like you're just going backwards in terms of what video games have accomplished throughout the years.

At this point, I know it's not going to change either way. I'm just a little confused at your choices for the whole housing system in general. You've pretty much established a cookie-cutter gated community style housing system, where we get to choose from 3 skins to "customize" our rectangular block. ...And we get ticketed for having our lawn more than 5 inches long, and no wire fences, only wooden ones...

The bottom line: what you've spent so much time and energy on is proving to be much less desirable and much more costly than anyone previously expected. You got the exact opposite response you were hoping for because you oversimplified something that should have been an engaging and complex addition to the game (Pay xx amount to get xx sized rectangle). You've given those of us who care a lot about FC housing, and taking part in activities other than killing big boss monsters ALL day, very little to enjoy.


/endrant

I hope you feel better after having vented because no community manager in their right mind would respond to this flame bait.

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Originally Posted by Sinth

I hope you feel better after having vented because no community manager in their right mind would respond to this flame bait.

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I don't think the OP has posted a flame post at all,the fact that he is just saying .....that the housing has not lived up to,or met many players expectations of what the housing could have been.I Believe the OP is just stating his let down is all

Although some of the prices do not live up to what you will get for your gil,i love the housing and think they look great.im sure as time goes on things will be added,automated etc.

I agree that it looks beautiful, but I could look at photos of amazing houses on Google. I was hoping to be able to interact with this part of the game, not just take screenshots of a pre-constructed house with the 3 options I got to choose for skinning it.

This isn't meant to be flame bait. I'm not the only one in hoping against hope that they'll scrap this housing altogether and start anew with some decent ideas. But because that's so far-fetched, yes, this will just be a flame bait post.

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Originally Posted by Halloween

I agree that it looks beautiful, but I could look at photos of amazing houses on Google. I was hoping to be able to interact with this part of the game, not just take screenshots of a pre-constructed house with the 3 options I got to choose for skinning it.

This isn't meant to be flame bait. I'm not the only one in hoping against hope that they'll scrap this housing altogether and start anew with some decent ideas. But because that's so far-fetched, yes, this will just be a flame bait post.

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I feel your pain and do understand what you were getting at.i also thought we'd see some of your ideas as well

People aren't interested in housing because it's too expensive. This is one of the features that many people, at least the 1.0 players, were looking forward to. Everyone I've talked to is in pretty sour spirits about it now because of the price tag. Once it's actually affordable I'm sure people will be a bit more enthusiastic about it.

Just to give a small anecdote, someone from another FC I commonly do things with was browsing through another FC's house that they left open to the public. He was having a field day going through it and sitting in their hot tub and stuff like that. I can tell he's very eager to get a house. Right now it's just not economically feasible.

I think the current housing is great for a start, but I agree that more unique housing options would have been well appreciated. Ultimately, though, they have to decide where to spend their resources and it's probably for the best that they didn't devote too many resources to a part of the game that most will not experience.

I do, though, really hope that future expansion packs make housing more relevant and interesting.

It does make sense that their resources were probably spent in other areas, they needed to get endgame a bit more beefed up.

I personally don't see that as a good reason to spend SOME resources on half baked housing and then try to rob people of any gil they may have accumulated for that travesty. It should have been delayed and had some creativity and effort put into it. I don't believe that they can add to the system they have in place, it would need a complete overhaul. It doesn't allow for more than a very basic, shallow re-skinning of a static building... sigh