1 House 1 FC per DC Only

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Speaking from the point of view of a Canadian, it's a bit more nuanced than what you are suggesting, Jojoya. From my point of view, Capitalism itself is not completely a bad thing. The problem is that American health care is heavily burdened by insurance companies and a culture of massive litigation. Here in my Province of Saskatchewan, we do have the involvement of insurance companies but litigation is highly restricted. In most cases, successful litigation against malpractice returns a payout that more or less just covers damages and cost of rehabilitation. There are no multi-gazillion dollar payouts. That helps keep costs down. We have state-sponsored healthcare (and contrary to popular belief, it's actually really good) that is designed to keep costs down but we also allow fee for services in some areas of medicine. A bit of Capitalism is not a bad thing. Unrestricted Ferengi-style Capitalism on the other hand, well, that hurts everyone in the end.

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From the PoV of an American, who experiences this medical system - it's exactly as Jojoya states.

For-profit Insurance companies lobby politicians to maintain the current status quo, which means high costs for medications, hospital bills, etc
Ferengi-style capitalism is *still capitalism*.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

And those problems ended up fixed.

Servers wouldn't need to handle unlimited instances. If a player is in one instance, they can't be in another. That means at most servers only need to be able to handle the number of instances equal to the number of players online at a given time.

If servers were incapable of handling that many instances, then Trust would not exist. Squadrons would not exist. Solo duties would not exist. All SE has needed to do is make sure content flow is designed so that every player isn't trying to get into an instance at the same time (what happened with Raubahn Ex).


Most of us understand the ongoing hardware problem.

Here's a better question: why choose a system that makes inefficient use of that hardware when it comes to player usage capacity (wards) when you could choose a system that utilizes it much more efficiently (instanced housing). That ward is always sitting there on the server whether players are present or not. Instanced housing only gets loaded when a player wants to enter and the instance is removed when players are no longer present.

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Solved my hardware problem a week back. :D So nice to have my pc back.

I disagree - he is actually totally right....making a bigger boat is actually wasteful because your just kicking the can down the road.

The reality is those databases can be pretty choked already without unlimited housing; and there is a large amount of empty houses or people who frankly have no idea what to do with a home if they ever get one - they will pay decorators millions of gil because they just want to have a nice house to rp in.

Houses need to have a upkeep cost so that people do not just neglect it.
Houses DO need to have rooms like FC houses; if your not a FC then each room has a exponential cost increase to add but you can keep adding - making it a massive gil sink.
All your alts need to have full rights to your house.
1 House per DC; if you choose to make your home a FC house then your private quarters is larger to compensate.
Reality is housing will essentially be a endless problem because there is infinite gil to buy it. The issue we are seeing is because players are not taking gil "out" of the system - this results in multi-billionaires who can easily buy out a ward if they have enough alts.
FC houses need to serve a real purpose - stuff like world transfer from FC houses and glamour dressers would be a good start.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I don't buy the community-invented excuse that this task is impossible because an endless number of servers are needed.

A player should use a fairly steady amount of server resources in terms of CPU cycles and RAM, instanced housing requires disk space. SANs and NASs can be obtained. The shortage isn't as bad there for top name enterprise grade storage solutions.

If I am inside a house, or inside a dungeon - it's still me using my cycles and memory bytes. Instanced housing, needs diskspace.

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This is close to the mark - it actually touches close to the reason we cannot have glamour dressers; database issues and you cannot just tear that down as I suspect that houses/glamour dressers are entities unto themselves as are retainers.

This is why you can select recovery of items for only select things - I suspect your house actually owns you; that's why the permissions are the way they are (this is theory). Instanced housing is likely no so much about diskspace but rather database communication - and becomes even more tricky once you start giving OTHER players access.

Kind of why you cannot make people tenants of your apartment.

And I suspect it would be a inch to a mile - instanced housing becomes a issue once you start the conversation "now where is my yard"; why do I have such a low item limit? I want a bigger home then what I got.

It will just keep escalating.

I mean not sure how big a deal housing "actually" is; I played games since UO (the OG game with housing scarcity). I remember with DAOC got housing which just turned into npc parking spots...AC had catered only to the elite. Wildstar crashed and burned, LOTRO was a nice idea but generally unneeded, Horizion was a gold rush, ArchAge was probably the closest to FF 14 imo.

The thing all those games have in common...
None managed to stay "sub to play" for a decade - though i *think* two might have a premium player option now...

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

From the PoV of an American, who experiences this medical system - it's exactly as Jojoya states.

For-profit Insurance companies lobby politicians to maintain the current status quo, which means high costs for medications, hospital bills, etc
Ferengi-style capitalism is *still capitalism*.

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This is not a black or white situation. The real world is made up of shades of grey. A bit of Capitalism is needed to provide incentive for R&D. Regulation is needed to make sure that costs do not spiral out of control. Capitalism is not bad. Unrestricted Capitalism is.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Speaking from the point of view of a Canadian, it's a bit more nuanced than what you are suggesting, Jojoya. From my point of view, Capitalism itself is not completely a bad thing. The problem is that American health care is heavily burdened by insurance companies and a culture of massive litigation. Here in my Province of Saskatchewan, we do have the involvement of insurance companies but litigation is highly restricted. In most cases, successful litigation against malpractice returns a payout that more or less just covers damages and cost of rehabilitation. There are no multi-gazillion dollar payouts. That helps keep costs down. We have state-sponsored healthcare (and contrary to popular belief, it's actually really good) that is designed to keep costs down but we also allow fee for services in some areas of medicine. A bit of Capitalism is not a bad thing. Unrestricted Ferengi-style Capitalism on the other hand, well, that hurts everyone in the end.

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Not trying to say that capitalism is bad. Just saying that corporations tend to have too much influence over our national policies that end working against not only the public benefit but the corporations themselves in some cases.

Happy, healthy workers are far more productive. They're also in a better position to be active consumers spending what they make to support more business. If people aren't healthy enough to work, they can't make money. If they can't make money, they're not going to spending. People not buying products/services means less profit for corporations.

How do corporations respond? By cutting costs frequently to the detriment of their employees but sometimes also to the detriment of those buying their products. Unhappy workers are less productive. Poor product quality leads to less consumer interest. It starts a downward spiral.

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

Are folks asking for a completely new and separate housing system that doesn't interfere with the current one?

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We're not asking for a completely new system to replace all the housing that currently exists.

We're asking SE to improve the existing one (apartments) so that it will provide the features and options we see in the other games that are missing here. A good instanced system (especially since there's no need for demolition in such a system) will lower demand for the ward houses. That frees up more of those for the players that truly enjoy the ward experience and/or would be active gardeners.

We know these things are possible since we see them in other games. We know SE isn't worried about instance server capacity when they're adding in so many ways for players to experience instanced content solo. A player in one instance can't be in another.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

The issue we are seeing is because players are not taking gil "out" of the system - this results in multi-billionaires who can easily buy out a ward if they have enough alts.

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We can't take gil out of the system when SE isn't giving us interesting and effective ways to spend it. What we're generally left with is buying items from other players and so the currency remains in circulation but in a different player's hands.

Plus of an instanced housing system that we've seen in other games: players are able to buy multiple housing locations without impacting the ability of any other players to also buy. That takes a lot of currency out of the game.

I've noticed that SE has started adding a lot more housing items to the NPC vendors lately instead of adding them all as crafting recipes. There's another good gil sink - if players could buy a house so they had a need to purchase many of those items. An apartment has such a low item limit they don't encourage buying multiples of most of the vendor items unless someone is intent on hiding the default walls. That's still only 14-20 items (depending on whether they're also buying the imitation windows that are added to vendors). Compare that to my medium where sometimes I'll blow 60-100 of my item budget on Stage Panels, Marble Partitions, Fool's Thresholds, etc.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

We're not asking for a completely new system to replace all the housing that currently exists.

We're asking SE to improve the existing one (apartments) so that it will provide the features and options we see in the other games that are missing here. A good instanced system (especially since there's no need for demolition in such a system) will lower demand for the ward houses. That frees up more of those for the players that truly enjoy the ward experience and/or would be active gardeners.

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Agreed. There is no need to blow up the old just to bring in the new. A more robust housing system might be one in which wards are retained while additional housing is introduced in some other fashion.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Agreed. There is no need to blow up the old just to bring in the new. A more robust housing system might be one in which wards are retained while additional housing is introduced in some other fashion.

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As long as it is with max 1 house and 1 FC per DC per account, then it is all fine..

And that by lifting the current grandfathering as well, making it even and fair for all in the competetion to get a house or FC house, as it is a huge problem, people think it is ok to exploit current systems and to be protected by previous systems as well, and if these people end quitting over a decission like this that will be enforced by ToS, then just don't sign the additional ToS addition given and don't play the game.

Of course will be given a choice of which, one want to keep, also this would even the ground out quite a bit, it is a trend that people make alts on other servers with the purpose of buying up houses.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

And that by lifting the current grandfathering as well.

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Still pushing this line aren't you. It's not going to happen and you need to get over it. Your continued push to retroactively enforce new rules won't happen and if they took your suggestion and limited it to one house and FC per DC they'd be grandfathering in those who have houses on multiple servers in the same DC.

If someone has a house on Chaos and one on Light they will not remove one of those houses from the person who owns them given at the time they purchased them they were allowed to. They would enforce the new rules on new purchases only which is a reasonable thing to expect. Interestingly enough with the new rules for 6.1 they are still allowing the purchasing of one FC and one private per server so you have an uphill battle to get them to listen to you.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Still pushing this line aren't you. It's not going to happen and you need to get over it. Your continued push to retroactively enforce new rules won't happen and if they took your suggestion and limited it to one house and FC per DC they'd be grandfathering in those who have houses on multiple servers in the same DC.

If someone has a house on Chaos and one on Light they will not remove one of those houses from the person who owns them given at the time they purchased them they were allowed to. They would enforce the new rules on new purchases only which is a reasonable thing to expect. Interestingly enough with the new rules for 6.1 they are still allowing the purchasing of one FC and one private per server so you have an uphill battle to get them to listen to you.

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In short any other MMO would enforce things, that plugs a problem like this, popular one or not... what I suggest would not reflect if you got one on chaos and light, as 2 DC's, it wont be an unpopular thing to remove grandfathering of the past and coming to be, but the right thing, of course compensation of the value of the plots that you dont want to keep would be in place.

Fairplay and equal ground to all is something that 99,99% of the active playerbase would agree to.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Fairplay

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Which is why grandfathering exists. No rules were broken, so why is someone getting punished? What else are they going to take away from you retroactively if they start this?

How long has it been since you played that class? Well after three months you clearly don't remember it, so let's drop you a few levels.

You have a Firmament title on your alt? How dare you take away a limited thing from someone else. That's gone too.

Or you could act like an adult and stop using grossly subjective words like "fair" in your argument as if they actually mean the same thing to everyone. Hey, I play this game three times as much as you do, so it's only fair that I get there bids on a house to your one, right?

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Fairplay

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In short you don't have a clue what that means. The Director and dev team do however.

i have one fc and one privade house so by the rules i am safe till they change the rules again.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

In short you don't have a clue what that means. The Director and dev team do however.

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Fairplay to all to be on common ground, the Director should take a stance against grandfathering, and get over it, there is no way you can justify 3-4-5-6-30 houses on one paid account, and is not fairplay to all other who may only get within limitations now and too come.

It may sound silly in your ears, and not fair, if you fall outside the suggestion range, but not in those 1000s of players who is looking for a roof over their head other than an apartment or FC room it does not.

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Originally Posted by PredatoryCatgirl

Which is why grandfathering exists. No rules were broken, so why is someone getting punished? What else are they going to take away from you retroactively if they start this?

How long has it been since you played that class? Well after three months you clearly don't remember it, so let's drop you a few levels.

You have a Firmament title on your alt? How dare you take away a limited thing from someone else. That's gone too.

Or you could act like an adult and stop using grossly subjective words like "fair" in your argument as if they actually mean the same thing to everyone. Hey, I play this game three times as much as you do, so it's only fair that I get there bids on a house to your one, right?

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We are speaking of a ressource, that is not gone to people, it is a glance over the ToS and then making the public statement, that, that is how it is.

When you speak of event stuff, then it is stuff that is up for a limited time, as for jobs, it is something there is there for all with no limitations, as for housing it is a limited ressource and people exploit or have exploited features to have more than one.

IT makes no sense if rules only apply to the mob and not a select few who was fortunate to exploit the system when they could and not fall into line with the current ones, and as for those that has wards...or many houses same ward, it contradicts the Director/Devs ideals of a neighborhood, as can't be two places at once.

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Originally Posted by mauiestlauiest

HAH. When I tell you the dissent you are about to get over this. The people with 8 different FC and 8 different FC houses per DC are going to go after you.

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They can, and they may, as long as they stay within the ToS, do I care? Not really.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

We are speaking of a ressource, that is not gone to people, it is a glance over the ToS and then making the public statement, that, that is how it is.

When you speak of event stuff, then it is stuff that is up for a limited time, as for jobs, it is something there is there for all with no limitations, as for housing it is a limited ressource and people exploit or have exploited features to have more than one.

IT makes no sense if rules only apply to the mob and not a select few who was fortunate to exploit the system when they could and not fall into line with the current ones, and as for those that has wards...or many houses same ward, it contradicts the Director/Devs ideals of a neighborhood, as can't be two places at once.

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Once again, showing that "fair" is subjective. Thank you for proving my point.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

there is no way you can justify 3-4-5-6-30 houses on one paid account

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

1000s of players who is looking for a roof over their head other than an apartment or FC room

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Will punishing people for playing inside the rules really do much when there are "1000s of players...looking for a roof"?

Better to push SE to deal with the real problem, rather than just bandaiding over the real problem more hoping to hide it from view for another 18 days (2 cycles).

Disagree,

No one likes to be punished for following the rules - if you change the rules at a later date you are choosing to punish people if you retroactively enforce rules.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Fairplay to all to be on common ground, the Director should take a stance against grandfathering, and get over it, there is no way you can justify 3-4-5-6-30 houses on one paid account, and is not fairplay to all other who may only get within limitations now and too come.

It may sound silly in your ears, and not fair, if you fall outside the suggestion range, but not in those 1000s of players who is looking for a roof over their head other than an apartment or FC room it does not.

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What if I run 8 FC's with players in them other then myself?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

We can't take gil out of the system when SE isn't giving us interesting and effective ways to spend it. What we're generally left with is buying items from other players and so the currency remains in circulation but in a different player's hands.

Plus of an instanced housing system that we've seen in other games: players are able to buy multiple housing locations without impacting the ability of any other players to also buy. That takes a lot of currency out of the game.

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I agree with you - the item limit is brutal (ever decorate a large house...its brutal has twice as many rooms and only 100 more item budget).

Honestly I would like to see more "home wards" added and a effective method to get there - If we cannot do instances and we cannot do limited housing - then we need to expand the supply significantly AND get rid of the bloat.

As it stands I am not wild about the multiple home ownership - but it is how it is.
+ I would like to see more "wards" added in the other zones...like the Ruby sea or Mhor Drona or Iddlyshire; basically any of the non-capital zones should have 1-2 wards; this would expand the ward idea of a living world. These wards would contain only smalls and mediums...no larges.
+ I would also do away with having more then 1 home per account on a DC - As I've said before this means FC's as well.
+ I would make it possible to add "additional chambers" to all houses - private homes would be a exponential cost increase; FCs would remain 300k as it stands...so if you want to make 20 rooms in a FC - go nuts. If you have a FC house you would need to have atleast 4 different player accounts active in the FC for the last 45 days - or the house becomes a private.
+ FC leaders would get large FC leader chambers in their home.
+ Homes can be put onto the market - there is a cap and any purchase of homes would be audited in the first year or so...and enforced - if your found to be engaging in suspicious activity (like trying to trade resources outside the transaction to upsell) you get punished heavily.
+ increase item limit in homes.

That way you add a significant but manageable housing and allow SE to maintain their resources for housing versus the potential runaway nature of instanced housing.

I suspect the biggest issue would be "now everyone wants a large"
Given how much gil I have seen people give away just for RP...I can safetly say the gil supply is broken.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Fairplay to all to be on common ground, the Director should take a stance against grandfathering

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He already has. Get a clue. It's not going to happen. I'll tell you what you can continue to post your personal view of trying to hurt those who did nothing but follow the rules but I suggest you come back when you see it in the patch notes. Don't hold your breath.

In the meantime those of us who love housing will continue to follow the rules as they are announced. I'm confident that any new rules will never be retroactively applied.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

+ I would like to see more "wards" added in the other zones...like the Ruby sea or Mhor Drona or Iddlyshire; basically any of the non-capital zones should have 1-2 wards; this would expand the ward idea of a

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I suspect we'll see new housing districts as time goes by but until then I seriously hope there are plans for some major ward additions with the receipt of new servers. I was particularly surprised to only see Ishgard announced with 24 wards with no new ones in any of the previous districts. I would have thought the wards would have been expanded to 30 but I'm of the view that did not happen because of the lack of new server resources due to the pandemic.

Adding wards and districts will not solve the problem however in my view unless something is done with instanced housing the easiest of which would be to drastically improve apartments to include small, medium and large with different layouts. Airships and subs need to go to GC and a means to make gardening available for all would help with the demand for ward housing given many want a FC house or personal house simply to get access to that content.

One has to hope that with the advent of real numbers due to the lottery submissions the Director and those with control of the purse strings will actually start to address the issue of meeting demand.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

What if I run 8 FC's with players in them other then myself?

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I will buy you a patch of grass just so you can touch it.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

I suspect the biggest issue would be "now everyone wants a large"
Given how much gil I have seen people give away just for RP...I can safetly say the gil supply is broken.

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"Everyone wants a large" wouldn't be an issue with instanced housing. (sigh)

Personally I find larges too big. Unless you have a huge, active FC, a lot of that space might be decorate but will rarely get used.

I went through this with my old FC (we had 60-something unique members, was about 90 if you included alts in the FC). They wanted a large so we got one in the 5.1 ward addition. They usually left the decorating to me so I'd ask them what type of spaces they wanted for use in the FC house. No answer. So I did the usual vendors, crafting stations, hot tubs, sitting areas, Gold Saucer game room, etc. to see what was getting used. Other than the vendors and crafting stations, they weren't using much of anything inside. One day, I found a member AFK dancing by the door and built an impromptu "stage" around them. That turned out to be very popular so I ended up adding a more permanent stage area that got a fair amount of use. Otherwise they preferred to play around outside, jumping games getting up on the roof, playing with the striking dummies, etc. Made me wish we had a big empty outdoor space with a much higher item limit because they would have enjoyed that more.

Any game tradeable currency system (so gil as opposed to things like tomestones and tribal currency that can't be traded) ends up broken in a MMO if the MMO lasts long enough. Developers need to make certain that new players are getting a good supply so they aren't at too much disadvantage compared to veteran players. At the same time, veteran players are also still getting those gil rewards yet generally have less need for the gil because players start acquiring ways to avoid or at least reduce the cost of the small gil sinks intended to slowly bleed gil from the game (teleports, repairs, melding, even the seller's market tax).

That's why games need a good variety of currency sinks. That's how to get part of that excess gil back out. Housing is the biggest gil sink in the game - and not all that effective if all a player can get is an apartment. It's really surprising that that SE doesn't make greater use of gil for cosmetic gear purchase. That would be a very effective gil sink for the game.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I went through this with my old FC (we had 60-something unique members, was about 90 if you included alts in the FC). They wanted a large so we got one in the 5.1 ward addition. They usually left the decorating to me so I'd ask them what type of spaces they wanted for use in the FC house. No answer. So I did the usual vendors, crafting stations, hot tubs, sitting areas, Gold Saucer game room, etc. to see what was getting used. Other than the vendors and crafting stations, they weren't using much of anything inside. One day, I found a member AFK dancing by the door and built an impromptu "stage" around them. That turned out to be very popular so I ended up adding a more permanent stage area that got a fair amount of use. Otherwise they preferred to play around outside, jumping games getting up on the roof, playing with the striking dummies, etc. Made me wish we had a big empty outdoor space with a much higher item limit because they would have enjoyed that more.

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This is very much true. And believe me, even in an FC with 200+ people, nobody ever uses the interior. With the fact that you get kicked out every time you do a duty it's not very handy anyway. Everybody just hangs outside, does jumping puzzles and all. So yeah, I also wish rather than huge houses with a smaller outdoor, you had the option for smaller houses with a bigger outdoor. Trade interior for exterior.

Honestly, even for personal housing I find interiors tend to be way too big and underused compared to exeriors, unless it's some RP venue or something, but with FCs even more so.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

He already has. Get a clue. It's not going to happen. I'll tell you what you can continue to post your personal view of trying to hurt those who did nothing but follow the rules but I suggest you come back when you see it in the patch notes. Don't hold your breath.

In the meantime those of us who love housing will continue to follow the rules as they are announced. I'm confident that any new rules will never be retroactively applied.

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This discussion happened to often, and whatever devs say. History says diffirent. And history repeats itself. Devs never are capable of infinitely keeping promises.

Devs can change rules. Something previously allowed can be made invalid. And as long as 99.9% of the population in a game is unaffected, the 0.1% that is affected will be forced to live with it.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

This discussion happened to often, and whatever devs say. History says diffirent. And history repeats itself. Devs never are capable of infinitely keeping promises.

Devs can change rules. Something previously allowed can be made invalid. And as long as 99.9% of the population in a game is unaffected, the 0.1% that is affected will be forced to live with it.

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Certainly, no one can stop you from dreaming

I have no problem with the proposal that going forward it's one personal and one FC house per DC per account. I do have an issue with tampering with the grandfathering for the following reasons:

Hoarding is not that big an issue - Demand is so high in comparison to supply that even if we ripped all the grandfathered houses away from their owners and forced them to settle for just one personal and one FC house, then we'd still have the same issues we have today. The problem isn't greedy people hoarding multiple houses, the problem is there aren't enough houses for the playerbase. This is especially true for the EU and NA datacentres.

It might make some people feel better to see other players who broke no rules getting punished, but that is neither fair or desireable. It does nothing at all to fix the actual problem, so why encourage the devs to do something that is basically pointless and spiteful? (I think they've more sense).

I feel enough promises have been broken regarding housing already. I don't want to see it becoming the norm.

I'd rather see a real solution to the problem than yet another band-aid that's just going to leave people bitter and disappointed.
We need to stop turning on each other like this because it is doing nothing constructive.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I have no problem with the proposal that going forward it's one personal and one FC house per DC per account. I do have an issue with tampering with the grandfathering for the following reasons:

Hoarding is not that big an issue - Demand is so high in comparison to supply that even if we ripped all the grandfathered houses away from their owners and forced them to settle for just one personal and one FC house, then we'd still have the same issues we have today. The problem isn't greedy people hoarding multiple houses, the problem is there aren't enough houses for the playerbase. This is especially true for the EU and NA datacentres.

It might make some people feel better to see other players who broke no rules getting punished, but that is neither fair or desireable. It does nothing at all to fix the actual problem, so why encourage the devs to do something that is basically pointless and spiteful? (I think they've more sense).

I feel enough promises have been broken regarding housing already. I don't want to see it becoming the norm.

I'd rather see a real solution to the problem than yet another band-aid that's just going to leave people bitter and disappointed.
We need to stop turning on each other like this because it is doing nothing constructive.

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I don't have a problem with tampering with the grandfathering, it is immature for those that is for, and for those who currently travel to other servers and bid on houses mostly for their own personal greed, it should be stopped, and of course those who will lose houses will be compensated.

It is like Private Pyle getting to eat Donuts... while the rest of the squad is forced to do pushups watching as he goes free, and no matter how you bend it, that is the big problem and SE should not hold a hand over, but do the right thing and cut off the bad branch instead of making a bad example.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

I don't have a problem with tampering with the grandfathering, it is immature for those that is for, and for those who currently travel to other servers and bid on houses mostly for their own personal greed, it should be stopped, and of course those who will lose houses will be compensated.

It is like Private Pyle getting to eat Donuts... while the rest of the squad is forced to do pushups watching as he goes free, and no matter how you bend it, that is the big problem and SE should not hold a hand over, but do the right thing and cut off the bad branch instead of making a bad example.

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Your example is not cutting off a bad branch. It's cutting off a good branch that was allowed to grow where it wanted because the gardener was mad it didn't grow in a different direction.

Cutting off the bad branch would be improving the system so everyone get a house of their choice if not multiple houses without impacting the ability of others to get a house.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

I don't have a problem with tampering with the grandfathering, it is immature for those that is for, and for those who currently travel to other servers and bid on houses mostly for their own personal greed...

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Well, from your OP, I already understood you don't have a problem with Square going back on their word but I do.

As to travelling to other servers to bid on houses... are you sure that's even possible?

Anyway, my point is, breaking your word repeatedly over an issue is bad policy and I don't think Square are going to do that. They had to roll back on the 'no demolition' and that upset a lot of people at the time, I don't think they're going to break their word again for something that doesn't solve the problem. Becaue house-hoarding, while annoying, isn't actually that much of an issue.
I mean that, it really isn't a big problem. Removing 'Grandfathering' and punishing people who broke no rule when they bought multiple houses is pointless. It won't get you a house and it won't get a house for the 200+ people on my server who are currently looking for one.
It will free up a few here and there, but where people are using multiple accounts or multiple FCs to buy up entire wards it will do NOTHING.

I don't mean to be rude but you are fixating on a tiny symptom of the actual problem. Housing supply is inadequete. It has been inadequete since HW and possibly even before. We need more houses not more inventive ways to take them away from other people.

Whilst I've railed against Shell FC's before (my current server is especially bad for them though), I do agree that increasing the supply (and reducing the demand) needs to be the main focus.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Well, from your OP, I already understood you don't have a problem with Square going back on their word but I do.

As to travelling to other servers to bid on houses... are you sure that's even possible?

Anyway, my point is, breaking your word repeatedly over an issue is bad policy and I don't think Square are going to do that. They had to roll back on the 'no demolition' and that upset a lot of people at the time, I don't think they're going to break their word again for something that doesn't solve the problem. Becaue house-hoarding, while annoying, isn't actually that much of an issue.
I mean that, it really isn't a big problem. Removing 'Grandfathering' and punishing people who broke no rule when they bought multiple houses is pointless. It won't get you a house and it won't get a house for the 200+ people on my server who are currently looking for one.
It will free up a few here and there, but where people are using multiple accounts or multiple FCs to buy up entire wards it will do NOTHING.

I don't mean to be rude but you are fixating on a tiny symptom of the actual problem. Housing supply is inadequete. It has been inadequete since HW and possibly even before. We need more houses not more inventive ways to take them away from other people.

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I think what he meant by travelling to other servers to bid on houses is that people are already starting to create multiple alts and preparing to transfer them to the new EU servers so that that they can bid on multiple FC plots once housing is available. If a ton of people do that, this would severely restrict the availability of housing plots in the new servers to new players/legitimate FCs who are starting out in new servers for a better chance at housing as they would most likely go to the shell FCs once again if the loophole for people acquiring multiple FC houses is not closed.

This may be a radical opinion but I think it should be 1 personal house and 1 FC house per service account. I don't care if that means someone's alt on another data center can't purchase a house.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This may be a radical opinion but I think it should be 1 personal house and 1 FC house per service account. I don't care if that means someone's alt on another data center can't purchase a house.

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They had the opportunity to do that but choose not to. Interestingly enough the only changes were rules limiting the ability of transferring a house instantly and the attempt to limit FC abuse which doesn't seem to have been that successful. I think people are prepared for new rules as long as they don't make them retroactive.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's really surprising that that SE doesn't make greater use of gil for cosmetic gear purchase. That would be a very effective gil sink for the game.

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They'd rather have a real money shop in a box price+ monthly sub game, since managing an in game economy is less profitable than selling cosmetics, mounts, extra retainers etc. for real money.
In conclusion - the real money shop is your main antagonist here

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

They had the opportunity to do that but choose not to. Interestingly enough the only changes were rules limiting the ability of transferring a house instantly and the attempt to limit FC abuse which doesn't seem to have been that successful. I think people are prepared for new rules as long as they don't make them retroactive.

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I have to wonder if it's more of a coding limitation. The game isn't exactly consistent when it comes to recognizing characters being part of the same account. It shouldn't have been that hard to say "You already have a character on your account in a FC that has a house. Your other characters are therefore not eligible to enter the lottery on behalf of their FC." It shouldn't stop the FC from being able to get a house since the characters for other players in the FC could still enter.

Instead, they went with making the restriction "owned as buyer" to leave the gaping loophole for people to step through if they want to go to the effort to get multiple houses.

There are always going to be those fighting against rules changes if they see those changes as opposing what they want personally. Look at all the players unhappy with the lottery itself because they preferred FCFS even with the placard camping.

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Originally Posted by Shazzinoth

They'd rather have a real money shop in a box price+ monthly sub game, since managing an in game economy is less profitable than selling cosmetics, mounts, extra retainers etc. for real money.
In conclusion - the real money shop is your main antagonist here

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It doesn't need to be, though. Almost everything on the cash shop is NPC cosplay, seasonal event or "import" of the glamours created specifically for the KR/CN markets at the request of the local publishers for those countries.

There's plenty of room for more glamour outside of that, such as cosmetic versions of popular role gear that players would like to see unlocked for use with other jobs. That's close to zero effort for gil sinks since those models are already in the game, and highly unlikely to be items that players would be willing to spend real money to purchase.

(sorry for the derail)

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I have to wonder if it's more of a coding limitation. The game isn't exactly consistent when it comes to recognizing characters being part of the same account. It shouldn't have been that hard to say "You already have a character on your account in a FC that has a house. Your other characters are therefore not eligible to enter the lottery on behalf of their FC." It shouldn't stop the FC from being able to get a house since the characters for other players in the FC could still enter.

Instead, they went with making the restriction "owned as buyer" to leave the gaping loophole for people to step through if they want to go to the effort to get multiple houses.

There are always going to be those fighting against rules changes if they see those changes as opposing what they want personally. Look at all the players unhappy with the lottery itself because they preferred FCFS even with the placard camping.


It doesn't need to be, though. Almost everything on the cash shop is NPC cosplay, seasonal event or "import" of the glamours created specifically for the KR/CN markets at the request of the local publishers for those countries.

There's plenty of room for more glamour outside of that, such as cosmetic versions of popular role gear that players would like to see unlocked for use with other jobs. That's close to zero effort for gil sinks since those models are already in the game, and highly unlikely to be items that players would be willing to spend real money to purchase.

(sorry for the derail)

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Anet almost completely funds its support for GW2 on Gemstore purchases, most of which are cosmetics. Gems and in game currency are interchangeable at variable rates based on the market. SE could do well for itself by taking a page out of Anet's business practices with regards to these sorts of things.

All of my alts are on my server this would never affect me, but I don't get the DC restriction. If I had an alt on my DC but on another server, that alt is not an extension of my main. That alt exists on her own. I would build her up entirely from scratch. She would be her own entity. So I don't know why it would make sense that she couldn't partake of what my main could on my main server. DCs are collections of servers but each server is its own community. Yes, we have world travel now, but that doesn't make all servers on a DC a single shared entity.

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

Something i haven't ever seen commented on is how is the interior decorating of tbe housing in these other games? Are you as free as in ff or do they have as much or more furniture?

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Elder Scrolls Online housing makes XIV housing seem very, very basic. You can collect every house in the game, and no demo timers because it's instanced. People can visit your house. You can permit friends to move your furniture around, but you have to put it out for them--they can't take things, or add things. Furniture can be placed any angle, anywhere, no tricks needed. They come in all sizes--there was a recent ingame event "house" that was basically just a vast demonic plane, with giant NPC mobs fighting in your lava moat. We're talking bigger than XIV mansions big. In plots like these, you can use furniture to build whatever structures you want, but I've seen people do crazy things with even the more traditional houses. Their housing community seems very active.

There are furniture limits, but having a subscription doubles it.

The houses themselves aren't generics like XIV, either. Each one is themed, each has its own unique shape, and a lot of them have a yard. My favorite is a cash shop one that my friend got me for my birthday--a two story steampunkish fantasy called The Orbservatory Prior. If you're familiar with The Dark Crystal, it's like Aughra's place, but huge--and it's not even the biggest house you can get. It also has big moving gears and two huge outside decks overlooking the zone. (ESO houses are blended into the game zones, there are no "housing wards".

ESO as a game has its own issues, but housing design isn't one of them.