I think they simply don't have the physical means to support the instances.
Remember the launch login problems, or the 3 hours AK queues... they probably forced mister director into limiting access.
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One reason they may have priced it so high to begin with is to give them the opportunity to slow roll out the servers and test them. As they become more confident in the servers and feel they can increase the load they may drop the prices. Considering the server issues they've had so far, it wouldn't surprise me if this was a big reason.
People keep claiming how easy it is to make money with AH, but now that the stupid prices of housing have been released you can expect two things:
1- people wont buy as many things as before because they are saving their gils
2- alot more people will start to craft in hope to make gils and the AH will soon be flooded with underpriced gears.
In my opinion, from tomorrow on, AH will be a dead end when it comes to making gils... we will get very cheap gears tho... who am I to complain.....................
I know you think that the cheapest piece of junk plot is affordable... but for a small family style FC that has spent money leveling crafts and stuff that has focused more on leveling and stuff... it is a lot.
Besides... we are all RL friends... we were all laughing about how dumb this is- "Hey lets all chip in and buy a tiny little piece of junk!"... We actually decided we would rather all chip in and buy a tour bus to live in, rather than an over priced inn room sized shamehole.
Edit: We also laughed at the irony... 8 professional guys that all own their own houses (I have two) play magic wielding, sword slashing superheros in a fantasy world that can't put tiier money together to get a one room shanty. I mean you know times are hard when your superhero lives in the homeless shelter (inn). That's just sad. Although, it is hilarious in a terrible gaming experience kind of way.
The NA Legacy servers have the highest price on the NA side. 312.5m for the biggest house. That is an awful lot of gil. If I spent around 8 hours crafting a day I probably could make 1m a day. But do that for 313 days forget it.
These houses are like similar to a mini game only a really expensive minigame. Did people get that much enjoyment from decorating their mog house in FFXI? Eventually FFXI made it so you can invite others into your mog house so you can show off your decorations. But really that was only fun for like a couple min. Decorating a house with furnishings only appeals to a small number of people and there is no reason it should cost that much.
I just don't see many people buying in to this house stuff given the enormous cost.
The issue is compounded by the fact that it's Free Company housing too. So if you're dropping a couple million, or to put it in simpler terms, over half of your personal funding into what is basically a fraternity house, you better go to bed every night hoping the leaders don't decide to stop playing, or an incident does not occur that leaves them incapable of playing for an extended period of time.
And don't even get me started on the implications of the proletariat members having to know their place and cowtow. Imagine contributing as much money as you can muster, and then somewhere down the pipeline you get kicked for whatever reason. This shit isn't like marriage, you don't get half. You better be on your best behavior if you're only a member of an FC and contributed to the cause.
News flash, it's FREE COMPANY HOUSING. Which means your example of you having to farm for 313 days is nonsense. It's not up to a single person to provide the gil for the plot of land, but the ENTIRE free company. Maybe you should factor that in before you throw out figures.
News flash that's a stupid remark on top of logical failure.
that would mean you would need 313 active members all with top-teir gil production. And since this is againist the AH, you have 313 active members in direct competition with each other on the market board
and this is even assuming they put 100% income, which no member will, so even with a staggering 50% "FC tax" you're looking at ridiculous leaps of faiths.
If you're going to white knight it, news flash, read your own words first.