In Regard to Housing in Patch 4.1

I was logging in at 6:00 a.m. EST on the nose, my loading lagged, got hit with a queue; however, I was in the game by 6:03. I couldn't make it to a large plot in Shirogane and relocate and was pretty disappointed by that. This is a feature of the game that means a lot to me, the Eastern themes that do get implemented are also a large draw. So, losing the ability to enjoy the game because of a sluggish login is a shame. But, the more meaningful question is, should I be completely incapable of taking part in my favorite feature of the game because I hadn't secured it within 5 minutes of it going live? I hope things go differently next time around.

Funny thing is, being an owner of a L house in the Goblet, I'd be placated by simply being able to change the exterior/interior of my house to the Shirogane Style. No server bulk-ups, just change the code.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

At the end of the day various MMO's - some of which are older than FFXIV - manage to provide player housing for everybody who desires it without any shortages.

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And thats exactly the most Sad thing in here.

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Originally Posted by Amariel34

It's not greed, since I'm not getting anything out of having houses. It's more I want to get creative with my space and apartments just don't allow enough freedom. Too small. Also monopolizing would be like taking over 50% of the houses for yourself, and I assure you I don't have THAT many alts. I may be slightly mad but I'm not completely insane. xD But fine. I will lock my alts out of "an essential part of the game," as people put it. Is that better?

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It is when there are other fcs that NEED a house to be able to do content. Like airships.. and you are here just wanting to play dress up with land. How about you just take everything down and redo it all? Since you are just doing the same with with another plot? But i digress. Its more than just you. It's many people that feel the need they need more than one house.. its silly. Esp when there's those that have been wanting one for their fc for years.

Here is your make or break fork in the road, Yoshi. Long time coming. Do the right thing.

Personally, I hope they do restrict it to 1 personal and 1 FC house, and for the sales themselves to go in phases, first just to those with houses to allow them to relocate, second phase to be open to just FCs, then finally open to all. I believe that FCs should have first pick as it addresses multiple people at once, there are some not concerned with getting a personal house because the FC has one and there are apartments. Another thing i would like to see implemented is a type of reservation system for plots sizes already sold out.
Basically put your name on the list with an NPC and pay in full, people that want to give up the plot can by talking to same NPC and getting the gil for land from them. Yeah it could be looked at as a type of flipping but it adds an element of control for the buyer. When the plot size is available buyer has 3 days to accept it or it goes to next person on list, those that reject go down the list, while those who don't respond get removed and a refund.

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Originally Posted by RemTsuki

If you guys are looking into how Shirogane houses should be sold fairly, do this: set a criteria who can buy plot:

Large plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all jobs can buy
Medium plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all non-combat job and at least 8 combat jobs, can buy
Small plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all DoL jobs and at least 4 combat jobs, can buy

Doing so, it will make sure that only the truly dedicated players can have access to housing, reduce the dilemma of housing abuse by alts. Not only that, it'll enhance the gameplay experience in every way possible in terms of q time, & enhancing the ingame economy, etc. Please consider it.

This recommendation is for Shirogane only, since it's a premium aesthetic zone, for new player looking into housing, the Eorzea housing zone shouldn't have these criteria.

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Pretty convenient for you huh? Gtfo.

Add 2 new Sub Divisions, Let FC's have a days head start to housing and account bind the housing 1 FC 1 Personal that is Account bounds and accessible, let the personal plots add tenants, and let people with apartments add a tenant or 2.

I managed to get my dream Shirogane plot with an in-game friend, but the preparation on my part that went into getting it was insane - as well as spending a long time earning the gil needed, a week before the patch I was practising routes to see how to get there in the fastest possible time, I lowered graphic quality settings to reduce lag and marked myself as busy so people couldn't trade interrupt me. Now me and my friend have decked out the house together and we absolutely love our new plot. Even with all my prep, I know with the amount of luck I had on patch day I should've entered the lottery. What I had to do to even have a chance of getting a plot was utterly ridiculous. I don't understand how SE didn't think to prepare for this. It seems everyone in the community knew this was going to happen but them, or maybe they just hoped it would be ignorable. The backlash on this forum on patch day was huge, but not exactly surprising. Scores of players have been alienated. So I thank SE for responding, and I seriously hope my fellow players can have what I only just about managed to get.

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Originally Posted by RemTsuki

Large plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all jobs can buy
Medium plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all non-combat job and at least 8 combat jobs, can buy
Small plot: only players who have reached lv70 in all DoL jobs and at least 4 combat jobs, can buy

Doing so, it will make sure that only the truly dedicated players can have access to housing, reduce the dilemma of housing abuse by alts.

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This is probably the worst suggestion I've heard so far. Having levels everywhere doesn't equal 'truly dedicated players'. We don't all like grinding levels through jobs we don't like. Having 70 in everything doesn't make you more worthy of a house.

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Originally Posted by ArcheustheWise

There is no social aspect. People decorate their houses and barely even talk. Sure you get some events here or there.. but its not worth having wards. Call it for what it is. You just want it for a status symbol. There IS NO social aspect. At least not in the quantity that demands free open wards. Instanced is going to save alot here.

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I respectfully disagree. I have many neighbours I've met and made friends with around the house I'm tenant at. Also recently got an FC house and have been chilling with nearby people and another FC that was lucky enough to get their first home as well. Tbh I think the biggest problem is in wards with 90% individual houses lol. Ones with more FC density have more active people in them.

On topic: I see a few ideas I like in here. Account locking the houses and allowing your alts to share them sounds great. It would stop people from owning half a ward to themselves at least. :P Also unlocking the new wards to FCs first might be worth looking at. They get a lot more out of the housing than someone just wanting to play dress up with their house and maybe garden a bit. It wont stop shell FCs, but it would help. I have confidence that the devs will come up with something at least, maybe not to satisfy everyone (there's just too many that want a large house for Reasons), but they're going to try and that's something I appreciate.

I am hopeful that they will add 12 new wards (with their respective 12 subdivisions), since otherwise, they would be very few and in fact still few.

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Originally Posted by Yasmina

I am hopeful that they will add 12 new wards (with their respective 12 subdivisions), since otherwise, they would be very few and in fact still few.

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12 is not enough. Even 50 is going to be packed at this point.

These are my suggestions:
1) 1 FC house/lot and 1 Personal House/Lot per Server (NA/EU/JP). This prevents any resellers or alts to have extra unnecessary homes that could be going to an active player
2) Personal Homes are shared with alternative characters on the same server in their account. This will make many people happy for it will give them a chance to have a place to call Home for even their lonely characters.
3) Separate wards for FC homes and Personal homes. (more small/medium homes in the personal Home wards and more large/medium homes in the FC wards). This will help FC so much in the fact that they can finally have a place to call Home and not have to fight with other people to get personal housing. It would have been nice to have stuck with JUST FCs getting Home to prevent the housing crisis we have today but you can’t please everyone.

4) Able to purchase the lot from the list of houses in the ward list. This may help those with really slow internet connection be able to just click & buy from that menu.
5) Instanced housing options with a price reduction bonus. This may give some people the opportunity to buy a home without the hefty price tag in return losing the real-time neighborhood aspect (lots will still have a front lawn,but the scenery is a backdrop). But I’m sure many would be willing to pay that price full well knowing that they may be paying [up to the current lowest price for a lot when left up for sale].This will also prevent the need to open up more wards &hopefully avoid doing the raffle ticket route for purchasing lots (auctions). Doing auctions just creates more competition & adding to the already bad tension between players &upsetting even more people who have been playing the game since before launch who may still not have a home and those who may have returned thinking they have a shot to a house

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Originally Posted by AmaiYasai

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Originally Posted by AmaiYasai

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Just a heads up, since I noticed you are new to posting here. While there is a 1000 character limit when you post there is a way around that to prevent multi-posts.

1) Write your full post.
2) Copy the entire post then reduce it to a few lines.
3) Select "Edit Post" and replace the post with the full body of what you copied.

On the phone version of the website there is no edit button I can find

I tried that with the copy paste thing, it wouldn't let me. Still stuck to 1k wordage.
So I guess we have to
(steven Colbert trump voice)dot dot dot

dot dot dot (/steven Colbert trump voice)
continue our post in another post.

"...and though we are pleased to see so many players enjoying this area..."
that made me chuckle xD
Thank you for the quick response, can't wait!!!

What I would like to see is 1 personal house and 1 FC house per account per server. That would take out the people that want to have a personal house in every housing area making it impossible for the ones of us who don't have a house. Also would be nice if the ones that do have multiple houses get their extra houses removed and the plots put up for sale once more. More Wards is something I'm happy about but once again it will be a race to get a plot. It sucks that people on more popular servers have to race and fight just to have something bigger than a tiny room in an FC house or apartment building.

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Originally Posted by Emily_Quinn

What I would like to see is 1 personal house and 1 FC house per account per server. That would take out the people that want to have a personal house in every housing area making it impossible for the ones of us who don't have a house. Also would be nice if the ones that do have multiple houses get their extra houses removed and the plots put up for sale once more....

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So some players managed to get several houses but for others it´s impossible? You see that there is quite a flaw in that logic?

Players who own several houses have worked for them (btw. I only own one). They have leveled characters, earned gil, leveled GC and FC company ranks. You would like to take their houses away just because SE isn´t willing to provide enough wards?

Housing is already instanced, it´s called wards. How many duty instances do you think are running at the same time? More wards shouldn´t really be any problem (and it isn´t as they now after the big backslash are suddenly providing more wards with 4.2).

SE is just deliberately holding this resource in scarce supply (to save money for server infrastructure or to keep people playing, who knows).

So in my point of view the whole discussion how to solve the housing problem is futile and the anger and envy shouldn´t be directed to fellow players but to SE.

I have few suggestions:

• FC should have a separate types of house to be bought, depending on the FC level but located in ward together with everyone. (Imho large houses should be FC specific but it would be bad for ppl owning one right now)
• FC house should somehow indicate that its made for more people.
• There should be a limit of 1 home for FC/private/appartment per account/server.
• To buy a mansion as FC you should have 8lvl FC and spend 100k Company Points
• Application for home should be done via Mogstation with simmilar options like with the wedding plan. (a bit pay to win but if it only speeds up the proces by a week or so who cares)
• A new ward should be added one week after the last one got filled in 90% via Mogstation.
  

See i had a few ideas for this, to start off i do agree on the idea of 1 house per account, only it should be 1 house per server (this doesn't include FC housing) because there are people who play on different servers. In addition to only owning 1 house per account, per server, all characters on that server should gain access to that house.
Now onto what ideas i have.

Private Housing for Medium and Large houses should be taken away, these should be left for FC's. Now i know people will hate that idea, i personally would love to have owned a Medium for myself and a few friends, but i understand that it's just greedy, and owning a mansion to yourself is even greedier.
That being said though people want more room, so why not add an upstairs to the small houses, giving players a little bit more space without going overboard.

Next would be the Apartments, they aren't really much to desire, they are the same size as an FC private room but costs 200k more? Why?
I feel to justify that price they should perhaps add a second floor, or maybe even add little garden area like a balcony. This would tackle the problem of players buying houses just for gardens.

Adding housing instances, i.e Free Companies get like a ward sized area to build what they want, it would have 1 large plot for the guild hall, mediums and smalls for building anything else like shops, cafes, personal housing, etc. Players outside the FC's would still be able to visit, using the same rules as apartments/housing, FC leaders can choice to open their ward to other players or keep it private and only for FC members.

Another idea would be to have plots were we can decide on the size of housing (restricting single players to perhaps smalls and mediums).

Add more Mansions into wards, or perhaps make Personal Housing Wards and FC wards. This way players can still buy a personal house and there would be less complaining... i hope.

And my final idea, Remove personal housing all together, only give individuals the option of FC Private Rooms or Apartments (again though make the Apartments more to desire)

So there is my ideas, i know some are going to upset/annoy people, but u can't make everyone happy, all u can do if find a happy medium =)

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Originally Posted by DarkAngel5100

many split posts

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A friendly note: You can post more than 1000 characters in one post, just post the first 1000 or even less, then EDIT it afterward and It will let you post as much as you like.

I would combine the instanced housing with ishgard housing and the mog station.

You buy a ticket on the Mog station to own an island in an area similar to the sea of clouds and can build a house there. The size of the plot/island needs to be paid with gil just as for normal plots.
An airship brings you from ishgard to your own housing island then. (remember the chocobo air garden in ff9) :)

The garden and house size depends on the island size you bought - you're always able to up or downsize if you just have the money for it.
Its just like a small, medium or large plot.

- Beside your house will be a market board and a summoner bell. (maybe only for a fee or make it even a craftable item?)
- You can live in your house together with 3-5 friends.
- The island will get lost if you dont enter for more than one year.
- If the island owner is gone for more than a year but not a friend that lives there he will be the new owner. (similar to owning a FC)
- Other people can only come to the island with an invitation that allows them to use the airship to the island for 24 hours.
- Invitations can be obtained by a moogle on the island (up to 50 or so?) and split between the house owner and his friends (like wedding invitations)

You pay with real money for the server storage you'll need with your house, thats why I'd suggest it for Mog station.

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Originally Posted by Gnorok

Housing is already instanced, it´s called wards. How many duty instances do you think are running at the same time? More wards shouldn´t really be any problem (and it isn´t as they now after the big backslash are suddenly providing more wards with 4.2).

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The problem is that they are not truly instanced at all. The wards are always there no matter if someone is using them or not, kinda like a city. This way they probably need a lot of resources to always stay up. Only the houses for each player are instanced. A truly instanced housing would only exit when someone goes to that house/instance, thus its way easier for the servers. This is why I cant understand why they chose it that way..

One suggestion that I think is pretty important to change is the cost of housing. It should cost way more than it does now, why on earth have the base prices not raised since housing was first released? The more time goes on, the more gil players acquire. This would also hopefully help discourage house flippers because they wouldn't be able to make as much of a profit.

With that said, I'd love for there to be a way that anyone who wants a house can get just get one at some point but if that's not possible then raising the price at least allows players who really want housing to work for it.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

The problem is that they are not truly instanced at all. The wards are always there no matter if someone is using them or not, kinda like a city. This way they probably need a lot of resources to always stay up. Only the houses for each player are instanced. A truly instanced housing would only exit when someone goes to that house/instance, thus its way easier for the servers. This is why I cant understand why they chose it that way..

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Unfortunately, I believe it's due to the neighbourhood concept. Since they have to assume someone will always be there, the wards can never close. It may also be 1.x coding since they did salvage a lot and repurposed it.

More immediate things:

1. ===ONE HOUSE PER ACCOUNT=== ... With housing being such a finite resource, I'd even go as far as saying only one per account, period, but at least one house per account per server. Also can have an FC house, but again only 1 per account.
2. Wards that are DEDICATED to FC's ONLY. On top of that, have house sizes restricted by how many people are in the FC. Having a large house owned by an FC of 4 people is almost as bad as being owned by a single person.
3. Stagger the release of new houses throughout the day. And never right after the servers coming up.

Down the Line:

1. If people have more then one house per account, then they get to pick which one they get the keep, and the rest will be refunded back 100% of starting value (only fair way to do it). Items in house will be stored for awhile. If you don't choose, then the game automatically sells off all houses except the biggest, best ranked one. This would happen with several months notice, (3-6) with emails sent out.

2. INSTANCED HOUSING. Start with something like an apartment. Then make it so you buy additions. Buy a yard. Buy more rooms. Buy a bigger yard. Buy a basement. Buy bigger rooms. Buy a swimming area. Have it be something that a person can work on over time without having to go through the pain of transferring to a bigger house. Let's face it, having the neighborhoods we have now is nicer atmospherically, but it just isn't a system that can keep up with demand. Maybe even make them top off even larger then what current houses get as a little incentive to go the instanced housing then the static housing.

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Originally Posted by Tigber

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They changed the prices so that they were the same across all servers. upping the prices would put servers that were at lower Price "ranges" prior to the standardization of housing prices at a disadvantage. You have to understand that they streamlined the prices on servers/data centers quite awhile ago and it was met with positive reviews from players. they won't change that. not with the current....issue with the housing.

Anyone placing bets yet on Yoshi actually listening to your ideas? Seems like we've all done this song and dance before 4.1.

we can hope, there have been some good ones..and with the fact that the EU and JP communities have displayed 'displeasure' (i'm going with that...JP players are very polite about it, even when they're upset) with the current state of housing, i think something will...be adjusted...i'm just not sure *what* as of yet.

What gets me is people sayin take houses away from people who own them,..I do have multi houses but i bought them before this free transfer BS. Our server was small there was 200-400 empty houses for over a year that ive been here ... i payed $18 to move here just to have houses, wile some payed $18 to move to busy servers like balmug then took the free transfer and now are yelling foul. I broke no rules crafted my butt off to earn the money for each house and its deco. They are used weekly my wife and i split our time between each char. they have there own styles so one houses dosent fit my dark dragon or my female kitty..

There is a problem we need more wards period. but taken away from people who did not break any rules and work there butts off to own a couple houses when servers were dead is silly now that people got a free ride to low pop servers

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Originally Posted by Siniztor

There is a problem we need more wards period. but taken away from people who did not break any rules and work there butts off to own a couple houses when servers were dead is silly now that people got a free ride to low pop servers

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That's awesome and you deserve the stuff you earned. I doubt they would ever take things away from people, unless maybe there was huge compensation for doing so, but still I doubt it. That's why it's also hard to see them locking housing to 1 per account, since it wouldn't be fair that some people already bought multi homes before the change but everyone else can't. Soo... it's a pickle to come up with a workable solution. Nothing is going to be perfect.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

. Soo... it's a pickle to come up with a workable solution. Nothing is going to be perfect.

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Id be fine if they change it to 1 per account from here on out. But they can't make it retro thats not fair to people who honestly worked hard for the houses they have when our servers were dead to the point hundreds of houses sat empty at rock bottom prices and no one wanted them lol As someone said just make it so people who own cant buy another.. but the greed of some to say take away from people who have them so now that i took a free ride can have one now..cause i can tell you the people who want houses on my server 99% of them are free transfers and maybe 1% might be someone who finally got to level cause for year + we had plenty for all

tl;dr: YoshiP and SE don't care about you, or your suggestions.

Everyone is naive. It amazes me, after reading through this thread, that people are actually thanking YoshiP ... for what? Saying the same sh**uff for the past 4 years? FFXIV has a well known history of botching releases, and the subsequent "fixes." Every time the player base comes out en masse, good ol' Yoshi hops on and spews some garbage about how they care, and are going to fix it. When has that ever actually happened?

To believe SE was ignorant of the results of 4.1's release, you have to suspend some pretty major disbelief. SE knew exactly what would happen with the release of 4.1. Believing otherwise is just stupid. Consider:

1. The Economy. There are 10 million subscribers across 65 servers. Assuming SE's efforts to ensure an even distribution of players, that's just north of 150k people per server. Only counting gil made from doing the Main Story Quest, every player should gain about 3 million gil (that's just SB btw). This alone amounts to 461+ billion gil per server. The total value of all 720 plots in Shirogane was 7.8 billion. Not even counting money players already had prior to SB, or players that didn't do MSQ, it should be quite obvious there was enough money floating around to buy up every plot on Shirogane many many times over.

2. The Servers. Whenever a flying f'ing f'up occurs, SE simply blames it on server load. They've done it more times that I can possibly count. Not even counting FF11, SE has 7 years experience running an MMO. And yet, can't seem to fix server congestion. After so many years, does anyone really believe they are unaware of their hardware limitations?

3. The Company. SE has released housing this way before. With similar results. To think this release was going to be any different is the very definition of insanity. I knew housing on my server was going to be gone in minutes. I stayed up all night, updated my client, watched the server status, and smashed the big green button the second it lit up. And got a lobby error. Next try: an SSL error. By the time I got in, I was in queue with 1800 other unlucky people. SE either has the dumbest programmers on the planet, or just don't care about connecting subscribers with their service. Which leads to:

4. The Players. After all the colossal f'ups, starting with 1.0, this game has continued to grow. To the point they offer a discount in their cash shop for idiots to buy sh*t at 30% off. Why? Because people DO. At the end of the day, SE and YoshiP don't give a flying f'ck about you, or me. It's lip service so you keep paying the subscription. It's US that pay their bills, and it's US that make this game possible in the first place. But nothing at all will happen as long as so many people think that travesty Yoshi posted signifies actual change.

SE is just going to bandage this sh*tstorm like always. And people are going to suck it up. It's already happening. Like always.

You aren't fully wrong. Most of us are just holding grain of salt.

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Originally Posted by Ashanto

tl;dr: YoshiP and SE don't care about you, or your suggestions.

Everyone is naive. It amazes me, after reading through this thread, that people are actually thanking YoshiP ... for what? Saying the same sh**uff for the past 4 years? FFXIV has a well known history of botching releases, and the subsequent "fixes." Every time the player base comes out en masse, good ol' Yoshi hops on and spews some garbage about how they care, and are going to fix it. When has that ever actually happened?

To believe SE was ignorant of the results of 4.1's release, you have to suspend some pretty major disbelief. SE knew exactly what would happen with the release of 4.1. Believing otherwise is just stupid. Consider:

1. The Economy. There are 10 million subscribers across 65 servers. Assuming SE's efforts to ensure an even distribution of players, that's just north of 150k people per server. Only counting gil made from doing the Main Story Quest, every player should gain about 3 million gil (that's just SB btw). This alone amounts to 461+ billion gil per server. The total value of all 720 plots in Shirogane was 7.8 billion. Not even counting money players already had prior to SB, or players that didn't do MSQ, it should be quite obvious there was enough money floating around to buy up every plot on Shirogane many many times over.

2. The Servers. Whenever a flying f'ing f'up occurs, SE simply blames it on server load. They've done it more times that I can possibly count. Not even counting FF11, SE has 7 years experience running an MMO. And yet, can't seem to fix server congestion. After so many years, does anyone really believe they are unaware of their hardware limitations?

3. The Company. SE has released housing this way before. With similar results. To think this release was going to be any different is the very definition of insanity. I knew housing on my server was going to be gone in minutes. I stayed up all night, updated my client, watched the server status, and smashed the big green button the second it lit up. And got a lobby error. Next try: an SSL error. By the time I got in, I was in queue with 1800 other unlucky people. SE either has the dumbest programmers on the planet, or just don't care about connecting subscribers with their service. Which leads to:

4. The Players. After all the colossal f'ups, starting with 1.0, this game has continued to grow. To the point they offer a discount in their cash shop for idiots to buy sh*t at 30% off. Why? Because people DO. At the end of the day, SE and YoshiP don't give a flying f'ck about you, or me. It's lip service so you keep paying the subscription. It's US that pay their bills, and it's US that make this game possible in the first place. But nothing at all will happen as long as so many people think that travesty Yoshi posted signifies actual change.

SE is just going to bandage this sh*tstorm like always. And people are going to suck it up. It's already happening. Like always.

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I understand the rage, but it doesn't justify using false informations to back up your thoughts. First of all - it happened multiple times that they improved their stuff and listened to community. It's just wrong and unfair to claim that they never do. I'm not sure if you were around, but I remember ARR when we didn't even have a party finder. Almost every patch bring improvements to this game. Some big ones that come to my mind : token system for loot, cross world partyfinder and friends list, ultimate mode (coming next week), revitalising pvp (which was nearly dead back in a day), making raids more accessible for midcore groups, european datacenter, cooldowns reset, wondrous tails, improvements on timeworn maps, POTD as an alternative for leveling, Doubling the amount of futrnitures you can have. Many things that people diskliked were simply abandoned - red scrips capping, favours system, introducing more features to gold saucer. On top of that, add countless amount of quality of life changes people been asking for. Upon checking your lodestone, I don't think you've been here when ARR started. While SE does lots of things wrong, claiming they don't listen to community and that they never fix things is just false. Sure thing, sometimes they fail - look diadem or LoV. It's a natural process of every single game though. They experiment with stuff, and based on community reaction they adjust it accordingly. They officially apologised for patch 3.1 and mistakes they've made and guess what, since 3.2 this game has been getting better and better.

1) There is no 10 milions subscribers. There is 10 milion accounts made in the lifespan of this game. Actual active players number is not even 10% of that. As such, your entire math is just completely inaccurate and its pointless to discuss with it.

2) I've yet to see a company who'd handle server congestion flawlessly every single time. I played many other online games and I've honestly yet to see one smooth launch of a game/major patch outside of Heavensward which was nearly flawless. They messed it up with Stormblood and its famous Raubahn extreme. You can be sure though, that they did learn from this. I can bet money that similiar stuff won't happen when next expansion launches. As for major patches I somehow don't see a 'server congestion issues' that you're talking about. It was really bad when SB launched (remember 1 hour + queues ?) but they managed to fix that relatively quickly. I don't recall similiar situation since day 1 of ARR. There is way more active players now though. I'm somehow quite sure that they didn't fully expect so many players given how many active players Heavensward had.

3) Following your ridiculous logic, every ddos attack should be easily preventable right ? I mean, come on, internet has years of experience in handling it, yet it still happens somehow. I myself got pwned by the queue in the exactly the same way that you did. Yeah I hate it, but yelling at dev team and insulting their programmers is a childish approach and it brings you nowhere. I myself was bit surprised in how many people were suddenly interested in housing. I realise that shortages has always been a problem but it feels like community has never been as angry and vocal about lack of housing. Result is that Yoshida comes to announce new wards and some potential changes to how they're handled. I don't recall situation like this before. Sure, there were some angry folks here and there, but never on such a scale as right now.

4) That's a typical argument just for the sake of raging. I get it, I myself don't have a single mogstation item. I find some of their pricing to be a little off, but when you look at other mmos and gaming industry these days, it's like nothing. I highly recommend you to check other mmos cash shops. Focus specifically on biggest players on the market - WoW and GW2. Also check some "F2P" mmos where you often end up dumping twice as much. A lot of single player games have microtransactions. Countless DLC's on top of that and adding RNG mechanics in order to increase players addiction (Fifa FUT mode, countless "Loot boxes" in various games). Oh and how about that Assassin's Creed Origins Collector edition for 800 USD ? It's just wrong to blame SE for how majority of gaming industry looks these days.

Now, I don't claim that they will magically fix housing and in 4.2 everyone will be happy. I'm bit sceptical myself. They did manage to fix and improve many things in past though, and that's the reason why I'm trying to remain positive. Raging in a way you did won't make them improve nothing. Community that is vocal but also reasonable in it's feedback will.

Majority of my friends want to be in same ward and decide on which houses to get. We also kind of want to buy multiple plots if possible and no, we don't want to house flip or sell or whatever you call it. We just want to roleplay and enjoy decorating while crafting together.

But that said, in order for this to ever happen would be purchaseable private ward or lucky to get into one of 200 wards.