Housing exposes a fundamental flaw in institutionalized ethics.

I really dont know why OP didn't just title this "Im salty I dont have a house", would have been a lot more apropos.

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Originally Posted by Saint_Angeles

I really dont know why OP didn't just title this "Im salty I dont have a house", would have been a lot more apropos.

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the OP has been posting all over any housing thread about how anyone with multiple houses should be punished and they are greedy selfish players who steal from babies and trip the elderly.

He actually thinks that the only reason people don't have houses is because everyone else owns multiples, even though there are over three times the amount of players than houses spread across the servers.

I have a house. I just wanted a fun discussion while the server was down.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I have a house. I just wanted a fun discussion while the server was down.

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So fun for you is calling anyone who has multiple houses prior to 4.2 unethical and greedy because they played by the rules?

real fun discussion.

Now why did you have to respond like that?

You can't tell me that Square-Enix intended the rules to allow people to have more houses. In fact, Square-Enix now have to enforce their intentions with an iron-fist to prevent people from specifically owning more than 1 house.

In addition to that, yeah, that is greedy. Hoarding a limited resource for minor gain. As if people really need to have a house on their alt. And for what? Some random RP bullshit? really? That's worth screwing over a FC from having FC rooms, a garden, and an airship? Some random RP? Get real. Play Sims instead.

It was a fun discussion. If you want it to end, don't reply.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

total bs

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Again, unless you consider calling people unethical and greedy fun, this is a debate not a "fun discussion".

The few people who own multiple houses do so because they played the game by the rules. Instead of being mad at them, how about you have an actual "fun discussion" and talk about how to fix it, not find a passive aggressive way of getting your frustration out.

They are unethical and greedy. You can't deny that. So why defend them? I'm not saying they can't be greedy. I'm saying they shouldn't pretend they're not. Just take some ownership.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

They are unethical and greedy. You can't deny that. So why defend them? I'm not saying they can't be greedy. I'm saying they shouldn't pretend they're not. Just take some ownership.

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You have no moral ground to stand on when you own a house others want.

The whole discussion should be "how do we fix the housing issue" not "how can we blame the players for the issues SE created".

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

Play Sims instead.

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Statements like this instantly make me disregard everything else you have to say.

You like housing? Play the Sims.
You like the CUL job? Go play cooking mama, or bake IRL.
You like glamour? Go play with barbies.
You like raiding? Go play WoW, they have more raids to do, and have been doing this whole mmo thing longer.
You like Chocobo racing? Go raise a racing horse.

It goes on, and on. You can't make an argument like that, simply because the games are not the same. If someone wanted to play Sims, they would. They want to play ff14, and they have, perfectly within the rules of the game.

Also, just to state it again: There is more than RP value to owning more than one house. I've seen posts about it before: Some people own more than one house, especially smalls, just for another garden plot. If they removed the garden plot limit on the smaller houses, so every house type could have three, I imagine that would change things a little.

I didn't say owning a house was wrong. I saw owning two houses is wrong.

The problem with using ethics in any argument is that there's a million viewpoints. However, that hopefully leads to honest debate and more solutions than problems. A few issues are gardening, decorators, RP'ers, flippers... all with a limited supply. There's a lot to address with housing and this move feels like a stop gap measure to placate the protests and buy time till they come out with what hopefully is a genuine improvement.

The ethics part of this is basically saying you can only buy and live in homes/apartments in the state of New York as its borders are now for the whole population of the USA. Look at it like that and owning more that the 1/1 limit dosen't make any sense for anyone besides the house hoarders/flippers. Yes it sucks to restrain yourself while facing a shortage situation, but when you allow more people to enjoy the good stuff everyone benefits in the end.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I didn't say owning a house was wrong. I saw owning two houses is wrong.

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owning 2 houses is completely with in the rules.

How about we expand the ethical rules and say anyone owning a private house while FCs are looking for a house is ethically wrong. I mean, "ethically" shouldn't you put the group ahead of yourself considering you can not access airships and subs in a private house?

So Jack, is your house an unethical private house owned by a selfish individual refusing to give up their house to an FC in need?

You're not worried about ethics or even fixing the problem, you are more interested in stirring up drama for entertainment.

Why is it not unethical to own a personal house before all FCs on the server have been put into housing? Players who fulfilled certain requirements could purchase a personal house under SE's rules. But they knew that there were FCs out there and in the future that might use that house. Why were they not being selfish and greedy? When you keep changing the bar of what's "ethical" or not, then it turns into a slippery slope where no one should be allowed to ever buy any luxury item in this game because we're taking it out of another person's hands.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I didn't say owning a house was wrong. I saw owning two houses is wrong.

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According to you.

I find it funny how your world view of how things work is what is ethical. You discount those that RP and actually pay extra to have that ability through a higher subscription. They are in fact separate characters in the eyes of SE, just look at the mogstation items that go to a specific character. Why shouldn't that extend to housing then? How is a person that pays for the service unethical then? There are so many holes in your logic that it sinks immediately. You should just stop trolling immediately and admit that you are just salty.

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Originally Posted by Flashgordon1975

They are in fact separate characters in the eyes of SE, just look at the mogstation items that go to a specific character. Why shouldn't that extend to housing then?

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Considering SE JUST changed it to be 1 personal and 1 FC per account per world, obviously they think it shouldn't extend to housing. I really don't think they intended for people to make multiple characters to bypass that limit and probably didn't realize how many people would buy multiple houses.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Considering SE JUST changed it to be 1 personal and 1 FC per account per world, obviously they think it shouldn't extend to housing. I really don't think they intended for people to make multiple characters to bypass that limit and probably didn't realize how many people would buy multiple houses.

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Considering you can do everything except have all the specialties on one character and that (unlike most MMOs I've played) they have an option for 1 character per server that you pay for, I think it would be more likely that they didn't consider that people would play multiple characters. Locking houses behind level 50 and GC rank (before boost books) meant quite a bit of time would be spent on a character before it could buy a house.

I doubt it was because of people legitimately playing an alt. Remember what they say about squeaky wheels and oil? The hyperbole in these housing threads is indicative of our society now. Two people on Mateus own a ward through house hunting over the course of a year+ has turned into lots of people doing it. The sensationalism and sense of entitlement in these threads is hilarious.

I own a personal house on one character and I own a medium and small on another that is a completely different character. I had no interest in upgrading until I saw these dumb threads, now I am going to upgrade to larges for the character that owns two. Just to spite you snowflakes.

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Originally Posted by Flashgordon1975

I doubt it was because of people legitimately playing an alt. Remember what they say about squeaky wheels and oil? The hyperbole in these housing threads is indicative of our society now. Two people on Mateus own a ward through house hunting over the course of a year+ has turned into lots of people doing it. The sensationalism and sense of entitlement in these threads is hilarious.

I own a personal house on one character and I own a medium and small on another that is a completely different character. I had no interest in upgrading until I saw these dumb threads, now I am going to upgrade to larges for the character that owns two. Just to spite you snowflakes.

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They bought most of those houses in the space of a few weeks right when transfers were announced. Don't exaggerate lol. Considering you seriously used the word snowflakes, however, that shows about how much value there is in debating anything with you.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

They bought most of those houses in the space of a few weeks right when transfers were announced. Don't exaggerate lol. Considering you seriously used the word snowflakes, however, that shows about how much value there is in debating anything with you.

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You really have no clue what you are talking about. This was over the course of a year+ and they let others use those spaces for events.

Just because your server is overcrowded does not mean that the same issues were faced by all other servers. The real reason that there is so much outcry is because housing demolitions stopped which stopped the small turnover that did occur and people being on over populated servers (which is a choice). Then there were transfers to smaller and medium sized population servers, these refugees snapped up the available housing. Now the people that had multiple house on these worlds, which I might add are the majority of worlds are being demonized for nothing that they did wrong. When I got my houses there were tons available for purchase. I did not flip houses and if you look on the reddit forums for house sellers there are a few servers that do it constantly (yours comes to mind). So ya I get tired of hearing about how bad of a person I am for playing the game as intended. Do I feel bad for people that don't have a house, sure. Is it my fault they do not have a house? Absolutely not, how were we supposed to know there would be starving refugees coming from Gilgamesh and Balmung?

So yes, you are a snowflake. Go argue ethics and greed about stuff that has some sort of basis in fact. Not because it is something that inconveniences you.

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Originally Posted by Flashgordon1975

Is it my fault they do not have a house? Absolutely not, how were we supposed to know there would be starving refugees coming from Gilgamesh and Balmung?

So yes, you are a snowflake. Go argue ethics and greed about stuff that has some sort of basis in fact. Not because it is something that inconveniences you.

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The moment anyone who already had multiple homes purchased more houses AFTER servers began to fill (like your favorite pair!) negates anything previously said about how "we didn't know there would be transfers coming! My server was dead!" And again, you ignore new players who never had a chance.

Is it solely your fault? No. It's not. It's actually mostly Square's. I think anybody can see that. But yes, I do think people who own multiple houses are selfish. People who flip houses are worse. (Also, please don't try to pin "oh you're from Balmung" on me; what idiots do on my server is regrettable, but doesn't speak anything about me.) By the way, nobody cares if someone magnanimously allows someone else to use their house for events and RP because it's not theirs. And again, I have to stress that I have a house. I literally don't have a horse in this race anymore. I just think it takes some serious mental gymnastics to think that this somehow isn't being selfish. What's the point of owning multiple houses? To have more spaces to decorate? For RP? As someone who both loves decorating in this game and RP, I think that's a pretty weak reason.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

They bought most of those houses in the space of a few weeks right when transfers were announced. Don't exaggerate lol.

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Iirc, they took a while to do that. But this is not an issue when they've made it easy to level as the expansions come and houising requirements are rather easy at this point.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Considering you seriously used the word snowflakes, however, that shows about how much value there is in debating anything with you.

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How is countering a fallacy with another fallacy helping in any matter? So the bes recourse is a fallacy-ception? The real issue is that SE didn't plan things through with housing, and now Housing is going to be a much bigger "social" and "ethical" issue to some. Since like Flash replies to you, those who are granfathered now can just upgrade to the biggest and best option and the rest can fight for scraps.

First come, First served.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Is it solely your fault? No. It's not. It's actually mostly Square's. I think anybody can see that. But yes, I do think people who own multiple houses are selfish. People who flip houses are worse. (Also, please don't try to pin "oh you're from Balmung" on me; what idiots do on my server is regrettable, but doesn't speak anything about me.) By the way, nobody cares if someone magnanimously allows someone else to use their house for events and RP because it's not theirs. And again, I have to stress that I have a house. I literally don't have a horse in this race anymore. I just think it takes some serious mental gymnastics to think that this somehow isn't being selfish. What's the point of owning multiple houses? To have more spaces to decorate? For RP? As someone who both loves decorating in this game and RP, I think that's a pretty weak reason.

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So, bottom line, you disagree because under your "ethical" view its selfish and any reason outside of that is wrong? Huh, interesting.

Your world view is not shared by everyone. You talk about selfishness without knowing me or others in the community. I donate 20+ hours a week to coaching and my community, what do you do? Does the RP'er who slows down a dungeon and not break character become selfish because they ruin other players experiences?

What I do know is that I paid extra to have additional toons on my world. Why do you suspect I and others would do that? Could it be that we wanted completely separate characters? Do you think that SE did not foresee that some of these players would also obtain housing? Blame SE for the issues. Blame the few flippers that profit off the scarcity of housing. Do not blame or demonize people that legitimately bought their house(s) when there were no issues. There was no outcry 8 months ago, people like you want to retroactively label people as greedy, immoral and selfish slime bags.

To answer your question on what is the point of having multiple houses? Yes some people really like to decorate AND be part of an MMO, that is why they pay their sub. Just because you are a certain way does not mean others are the same. There is no mental gymnastics involved, i paid extra so I also had the ability to get another house. Please walk through a more affluent neighborhood and tell all the people with bigger houses than you that they are greedy and selfish, the same logic applies. Let's see how that works out for you.

I'm probably repeating myself, but why on earth are we even entertaining a discussion on right and wrong and ethics? If player A owns 5 houses, and player B cant find a plot to purchase, whose fault is it? It's SEs fault for not adding more damn wards. And why shouldn't they? Every single one of us is a paying customer, do you really believe it takes 5 subscriptions to support the data requirements of 1 plot of land? First of all, no it doesnt, because its 2018 and thats crap, and even if it did, then they should have fixed that as soon as they realized it was a problem.

Here's an analogy. Say you go to an all you can eat buffet for a meal, only to find the serving trays are all empty. The manager tells you "sorry, those fat guys over there ate all the food", then charges you anyways. Sure, at this point fair enough hating on those fat people. But then you go back the next day, and the day after and the day after, for about 3 years, and every day, its the same story. At some point, you have to question why they don't just serve more food. Reality is that they don't because it would cost them more, and because you've been coming back day after day and accepting their lame excuses.

There was an "outcry" 8 months ago. People have been mad about people owning multiple houses for a while. This is nothing new. And let's not use the real world dynamics of real estate to apply to the overly simplistic system we have in place here in FFXIV.

Regardless of the case as it was in the past, SE apparently agrees that people should only own one house, at least as of now that they've seen how things have gone. They have merely said that there were issues preventing them from taking houses back from multiple owners. We do not know if this will change.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

There was an "outcry" 8 months ago. People have been mad about people owning multiple houses for a while. This is nothing new. And let's not use the real world dynamics of real estate to apply to the overly simplistic system we have in place here in FFXIV.

Regardless of the case as it was in the past, SE apparently agrees that people should only own one house, at least as of now that they've seen how things have gone. They have merely said that there were issues preventing them from taking houses back from multiple owners. We do not know if this will change.

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Don't use real life dynamics? You are the people that brought up real life morals and standards people should be held to. Does this mean that all this talk of morality and selfishness is then invalidated because it is a video game. You can't have it one way and then say the person you are speaking with can't use the same logic.

Enlial is correct. Blame SE, not the people that work within the parameters of the game rules. I also emphasize the word game.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

T<snip>

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I think they made themselves pretty clear.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4753/3...446794c8_h.jpg

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

I think they made themselves pretty clear.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4753/3...446794c8_h.jpg

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Yes, I saw that (and commented immediately after that). In the Live Letter, they stated that existing housing would not be lost due to "issues on their end" so it's seemingly not because they agree with people owning multiple houses.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

so it's seemingly not because they agree with people owning multiple houses.

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That statement is very clear. There is no ambiguity about it. The fact that it doesn't satisfy you is irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Regardless of the case as it was in the past, SE apparently agrees that people should only own one house, at least as of now that they've seen how things have gone. They have merely said that there were issues preventing them from taking houses back from multiple owners. We do not know if this will change.

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Just because they changed their policy on housing doesn't mean they agree that people should only own one home. It just means they've realized that they can't support more than one home with the current housing system. Especially with how huge the gap is between active players and FCs versus the number of houses in game. And you can just keep holding your breath on them taking houses back from multiple owners. There aren't enough to make a difference with a very few exceptions and it definitely wouldn't be worth the resources put into making it happen.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

That statement is very clear. There is no ambiguity about it. The fact that it doesn't satisfy you is irrelevant.

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The statement in the live letter was also very clear. I don't know what you want out of this.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

The statement in the live letter was also very clear.

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You're right, it was. This is from the official translation of the live letter. It seems pretty clear.

"Players will be permitted to own only one private and one free company estate per World per service account. Please note that if you currently own several plots, you will not lose those plots. This restriction will be applied per World, so owning a plot in one World will not affect the purchase on another World. Owning an apartment won’t be considered as owning an estate, so you may purchase without any concerns."

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Originally Posted by Elamys

The statement in the live letter was also very clear. I don't know what you want out of this.

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There's plenty (and I do mean plenty) of times when Yoshi-P says something that is significantly or totally different than what we end up getting. Iirc, he even came out on an interview saying to not be quoted because the dev team can't always keep what he promises. So, I wouldn't fixate myself too much on anything unless its "printed" on full patch notes.

Also, just realizing they are keeping this per world, so the argument that they want people to only own one house is still out the window. You can still buy multiple houses, you just have to put in even more effort to play them on different world.

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Originally Posted by MizArai

Also, just realizing they are keeping this per world, so the argument that they want people to only own one house is still out the window. You can still buy multiple houses, you just have to put in even more effort to play them on different world.

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And honestly on some servers that's not difficult to do. Resell vendor items on the MB for a little while and you can easily get enough for a small, at least that's what I've been doing. Extremely low effort.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

Right, the system was built that way, but you could argue that the original system built was flawed.
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Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

The flaw in the system was, and remains, the number of houses available, not the ability of someone to buy more than one. When SE built the housing system they made the deliberate choice to allow players to own an FC house and a personal house on each character; this was not a loop hole, this was a purpose built feature of the system.
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The root of the problem is the number of houses. SE refuses to put in enough houses to meet demand and creates an artificial scarcity because of it. The ONLY solution to this will be to release more houses, anything else is a bandaid that really doesn't fix anything, it just changes who's going to be upset about it. The ethical solution is for SE to create more wards or instanced housing, not taking it away from others.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

There's plenty (and I do mean plenty) of times when Yoshi-P says something that is significantly or totally different than what we end up getting. Iirc, he even came out on an interview saying to not be quoted because the dev team can't always keep what he promises. So, I wouldn't fixate myself too much on anything unless its "printed" on full patch notes.

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Originally.
Housing was for FC's only.


They planned for personal housing that would be seperate and cheaper than the FC housing.
They did not deliver on that until the recent apartments...
Those apartments should have been the original implementation of personal housing.


They went with the quick and easy implementation of just allowing singular players to purchase FC housing.
That mistake has haunted the housing system ever since.


It's not just that there's too little housing...
But that the personal and FC housing was mixed together and both are limited resources.

If the apartments had been the inital implementation of personal housing, then we probably would have been in a better situation at this time.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I love ethics, because they can change so wildly between person to person. What one person views as right may be wrong to another. To cut it short, housing exposes how obvious it is that some people's ethics are based on whether they system or rules allow them to behave in such a way. An action isn't inherently right or wrong, unless the rule say so.

For example. A lot of people think it's ethically ok to own multiple houses. Not because of any ethical reasoning, but because the rules say it's ok. "I'm not breaking any rules, therefore my behaviors are correct."

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Ethics can be extremely tricky to define, but I like to think on them. When I think of the housing issues. I don't think about "What I can get away with according to the rules," but rather, "what would be the most ethical way to handle this situation? How should I behave as a person in society."

The truth of housing is that it is limited. It's a limited resource. So ethically speaking, could I really justify having additional houses for alts? Is it "the right thing to do?" When you get down to the black and white of it--there's no logically way one can reason owning more than one house other than pure selfish greed.

And I think that's what really bothers me about all the people trying to defend houses for their alts. I don't think it's the act itself, but rather that these people have disillusioned themselves to believing their behavior is ethical simply because the rules say "it's ok."

It's s a dangerous thought-path to have. To base right and wrong based on what the rules tell you rather than taking the time to think-critically on the matter. It wouldn't bother me so much if people just owned up to their selfish desires and admitted that they're taking houses away from other people, and they're greedy and they want to keep what they worked for. You know? That's fair, right?

But I think it's morally wrong to be greedy, and then pretend like it's not wrong.

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Thanks for the laugh. Now go do the ethical thing, stop being greedy, and release your house so a homeless FC can use it already.

In the mean time tell SE to stop being unethical and get their stuff together to release unlimitied housing for everyone already. Games much older than this one managed to pull that off no prob and their communities don't have to fight over housing.

I'm surprised everyone kept this post up the entire week. I only expected it to last the weekend.

Given how much emotional investment everyone seems to have in this issue it's amazing that Square-Enix has turned a blind-eye to the problem for so long. If anyone has handled this whole catastrophe wrong--it's certainly Square-Enix.

Gonna take the bait.

Stop playing Morality Police and get over it. It's a pixel house in a video game. Save your gil, wait for a plot to open and seize the opportunity like literally every other prospective buyer and stop demanding the system be changed because you came in at the end of the queue and think you've somehow been wronged.

This constant "what about me" whining from part of the community over housing is getting really tedious.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I'm surprised everyone kept this post up the entire week. I only expected it to last the weekend.

Given how much emotional investment everyone seems to have in this issue it's amazing that Square-Enix has turned a blind-eye to the problem for so long. If anyone has handled this whole catastrophe wrong--it's certainly Square-Enix.

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Not really a blind eye, because they are aware of it. The situation right now is at a cross point that whichever road they take.... someone won't be happy.

Their best course of action would be to remove wards all together and make housing instanced with a few generic backgrounds to add some flavor.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

Not really a blind eye, because they are aware of it. The situation right now is at a cross point that whichever road they take.... someone won't be happy.

Their best course of action would be to remove wards all together and make housing instanced with a few generic backgrounds to add some flavor.

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An instanced housing system alongside the ward system would be nice, although I imagine server limitations would be given as the reason that can't be done. I'd rather not replace the current system as many people enjoy the community feel of non-instanced housing.