Free Login Event completely undermines inactive housing

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Originally Posted by Saint_Angeles

Funny how no one is mentioning the other side of things, where it's a nice (and most than likely unintentional) thing for those of us who do have houses, and may be between subs. They'll be able to continue holding on to their houses a little longer during the holiday season.

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You're right, and I do hope that everyone who happens to be between subs atm /can/ refresh their houses. But there are some really "meh" people who play who /will/ log in just to refresh their timer. So if they don't resub, they'll push back those waiting for housing another 45 days. So while I do support anyone who is between subs, I still believe this is really awful timing for everyone who has been waiting. There are two sides to this, and I'm usually all for looking on the brighter side, but this is a really rude situation.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

I believe if you don't have a paid subscription, the free log-in campaign won't "refresh" your 45 days. I hope I'm right anyway.

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based on the ridiculously rigid programming this game seems to have regarding a lot of things - highly doubtful the game is smart enough to be able to tell the difference between an active vs free login subscriber when it comes to something like walking into a house.

I didn't even notice that. My guess is maybe those who have been gone for long enough will just ignore it and not care anyways. Or, they will not notice it like me? xD

I am worried this will impact available housing, but two upsides:

People that haven't played since HW will not really see much new content, not much incentive there unless you are already 60 (and likely not in the window). Four consecutive days really isn't enough to get very far, especially if you didn't finish the 2.x SQ's.

This will give us another small housing relinquish bump in Feb. For the people who chose family > camping a game for a digital house (on Christmas), it's at least something.

I also an trying to hold out the optimism that they will introduce another solution (new wards, Ishgard, etc) before Feb. But meh.

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Originally Posted by kesha

Four consecutive days really isn't enough to get very far

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Actually, we had, what, three days of early access? And people were level 60 day one and saying "no first timers" for Ravana and Bismark by day two. So four consecutive days is plenty to find reason to resub. Even if they don't resub, however, going into their house will reset the timer and push it back another 45 days. Not to mention /many/ players don't celebrate Christmas or don't have family to celebrate Christmas with, and will thus be on FFXIV if they feel like it*. I've kind of given up hope that SE will do anything to fix the entire housing situation.

(*I say that because you sounded a little judgy about people "camping for a digital house")

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Originally Posted by AnnietheCat

You're right, and I do hope that everyone who happens to be between subs atm /can/ refresh their houses. But there are some really "meh" people who play who /will/ log in just to refresh their timer. So if they don't resub, they'll push back those waiting for housing another 45 days. So while I do support anyone who is between subs, I still believe this is really awful timing for everyone who has been waiting. There are two sides to this, and I'm usually all for looking on the brighter side, but this is a really rude situation.

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Fair enough to that point, I just feel like there's this sense of anger and resentment towards people who own houses from the rest of the community that wants them. There is such a thing as "I have other things going on in life, but I still want to hold onto this thing because I plan on coming back to the game". It's not simply a vindictive\bitter\lazy thing going on.

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Originally Posted by Saint_Angeles

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I don't disagree with you one bit. There is a lot of anger/resentment towards people who own houses, but it's usually the people who've had a house all this time and there's not a single piece of furniture in it or the people who never visit their houses. There are people in my ward in the Mist who haven't logged in for like 8 months now(I used to trade with them for cheaper prices) and all their FC members left the company. There are many houses that are just sitting vacant that have no furniture at all or have furniture from early in ARR(which generally lets people assume that no one has been in that house in a long while). I don't think that this resentment is usually fair, and I feel that it should be directed at SE and not other players. The fact of the matter is that this is a massive design flaw that pits players against each other for no good reason.

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Originally Posted by AnnietheCat

I don't think that this resentment is usually fair, and I feel that it should be directed at SE and not other players. The fact of the matter is that this is a massive design flaw that pits players against each other for no good reason.

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You're absolutely right that the main issue is that SE needs to provide more housing so that everyone that wants a house can get one without having to fight tooth and nail with other players for it.

On a personal level, though, I hate living next to defunct houses. It makes my neighborhood feel empty and depressing to see houses with zero furnishings, outside or inside, and 0/3 members online for months at a time. I'm looking forward to the housing purge so that people can move in next to me who actually play. I'm really hoping that the members of these FCs that haven't been online in over a year don't log on for the free log in campaign just to reset the clock for a house in a game that they don't even play anymore and probably never will again.

I'm surprised I'm not seeing anyone else point out another way to look at it. I'll try to break it down and explain it as well as I can.

Housing Reclamation Opponents: They have been saying this idea won't work. They have been saying it shouldn't be implemented this way or at all. They see the entire system as flawed, with this change not providing any significant improvement. Their expectation is that few houses will open up after 45 days.

Housing Reclamation Proponents: They have been saying this idea will help. They have been saying this idea should have been implemented all along. They see a flawed system that SE is trying to change to provide an improvement. Their expectation is that many houses will open up after 45 days.

Now, we, the players, are already fighting each other over this issue, and few are criticizing SE for the entire personal housing debacle. Consider this whole reclamation experiment to be a 45 day sporting event, with the winner being determined at the end. The problem with that, is, once the winner is announced, we will all be on the same side again. If almost no houses open up, we will all be looking to SE with a big, angry question mark over our heads. If plenty of houses open up, we will all be looking to SE and waiting for the next "step" of the housing fix that they've alluded to, to give us the extra wards we all know we need. So once the timer is up, they will either be dealing with angry subscribers or expectant subscribers, neither of which benefits them or eases their development.

But now they can't lose. If many houses open up, the proponents will feel a significant sense of validation of their belief, given that even with a free log-in period, a large number of plots opened up. Even this topic alone will increase that rift and provide extra resentment between both sides. If almost no houses open up, the opponents will still feel it justified their view, but it will all be blamed on a free log-in period. On top of that, the largest window of houses going up for sale just switched from being within an hour or so on a specific day to nearly a month long. The infighting between subscribers will continue, and there will be no clear answer as to how successful this has all been, because none of us are even able to track each and every reclaimed home during the 25th of December until X date in February.

I don't see how so many of you are surprised by any of this. It was pretty clear from the beginning that housing reclamation was just a player retention mechanism with minimal benefit to a few players as a side effect. Offering a free login event around the time the first wave of houses are set to be demolished seems like the obvious thing for them to do.