Anything perfect world makes is shit simple as that, they don't even take care of their games anymore.
I don't think it has to be free myself, just a one time purchase unlinked with FCs. Some players move from an FC more than a few times, each and every time you have to rebuy the room, it happens. Some FCs don't have a house, leaving them SOL when their members want to buy rooms, and then some people just don't want to be a part of an FC. If one FC house can support 512 rooms, I see no reason why they can't be implemented in a similar fashion to the inn rooms, maybe even replace them entirely.
This though. And they keep adding new features, they keep adding dozens of new furniture in each patch, they keep tweaking functions - and for what? A very small fragment of the playerbase.
Oh but at the same time, they advertise it highlighted among features such as FCs and crafting on the "For New Players" PR page.........
Idk. So many thoughts about this, but franklyIwe just keep repeating ourselves time and time again. And personally I've gotten to the point where I'm too exhausted even thinking about it at all. Disillusioned. Don't see the point of wasting energy on even putting anything into words. Game's more than 2 years old. In that time, I've been saving every gil I could to get a house, not being able to enjoy minions, new glamour outfits, whatnots - I have a pile of gil having forfeited a lot of enjoyment, and I still can't have a house. Do the math, SE.
Truthfully they should have coupled this with not allowing personal houses no more. So FCs can get a dam house and an airship and stables for their FC members. Then when people only sub for 2 weeks a year they still have access to the FC house.
If they stop people from buying gil, they would stop people from buying houses so quickly. I just can't believe a person with no crafting or gathering classes having enough money to buy a house is a believable thing.
There are plenty of ways to make gil without a crafter / gatherer
Ex primal mats
Coil mats
Treasure maps
Content sales
Daily/Weekly challenges
Retainer Ventures
Law/Red Scrip mat sales
Playing the marketboard
Spiritbonding / Materia sales
Diadem Materia Sales
I mean the list goes on
Stopping RMT wont put a dent in the number of available players who legitimately have made their gil and are still waiting for open plots.
They would have to make it a player hosted instance. There's no way in hell they are going to have servers capable of supporting that many houses even small ones. They know it, we know it, everyone knows it. They just wont admitt it. White knight chronicles did this system the best way. They can keep their server instances, those houses can be more expensive for it. I just want to be able to host my own instanced house.
As a last alternative, the only way they could do this for everyone "who really wants it," they would have to charge a monthly fee similar to retainers which many people would fuss worse over.
Ultimately best possible scenario is player hosted... if you have terrible internet or live in a third world country, its your problem then.