What Will Become of Dun Scaithe?

There are already places in game that have a different appearance and different NPCs depending on how you've progressed in the game. One easy example is the setting for the Moogle beast tribe quests - that area gets refurbished and built up over the course of the quests. All that really needs to be done is ensure that in "rebuilding" Ishgard, any place that is an obstacle to movement now needs to remain and obstacle after it's rebuilt, so that newer players don't see older players walking around on thin air or whatever. (Giant hole in the ground? After being rebuilt, put a potted plant there so people still can't walk there. That kind of thing.) Stuff like the crawling wounded soldiers are even easier to be rid of.

It basically boils down to how much SE is willing to invest in this kind of thing, and I'm guessing that this kind of thing would be pretty low on their list of priorities.

Housing in Dun Scaith, though, is another matter entirely. Dun Scaith is an instanced area. If they were to make Dun Scaith housing, it would be a separate instance from the raid instance. There'd be no danger of folks running Dun Scaith and passing by a ginormous Piassa-themed mansion with six Christmas trees in the front yard, because the Dun Scaith housing area is a completely different zone from the Dun Scaith raid area. It just is designed to look like Dun Scaith. Consider Haukke Manor. Just because Haukke Manor was involved in last year's Halloween event did not prevent players from continuing to run Haukke Manor for their Main Scenario progression. Folks didn't enter Haukke Manor (Hard) to find it filled with wacky decorations, either - the Halloween instance was a completely separate thing from the Haukke Manor and Haukke Manor (Hard) instances.

I don't actually think that Dun Scaith will become a housing area, but the fact that a raid takes place there is not an obstacle.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

There are already places in game that have a different appearance and different NPCs depending on how you've progressed in the game. One easy example is the setting for the Moogle beast tribe quests

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The difference with those is that they have the same conditions for everyone. Every player that has reached the area can move around in it. Every player can stand on the same things (for example, at the Moogle place you can't stand on the low, crushed foundation of the well, even though it looks like you should be able to - which makes sense, because players that have already done the questline have an entire fountain there).

You can do that kind of thing for a small part, like a pillar or two, or put a different texture on the floor depending on a player's story progress, but rebuilding an entire city while also keeping places that now have rubble have other things of exactly the same height in exactly the same position? That's way more effort than it's worth, which is why places with a lot of remodeling (like Mor Dhona and Idyllshire) grow the same for ALL players, regardless of their story progession.

But having an instance be something completely unrelated, taking all the meaning out of actually running it later on? That's ruining stuff for the newer players.
Haukke Manor was filled with imps and skeletons and all kinds of voidsent, just the way it is during the actual dungeon. Saying "We sneaked around in a haunted house but didn't fight the monsters there" and later returning once you hit lvl..27 or whatever it is, to now actually slay the creatures that during the event you could just sneak past because you were still just a little beginner? That makes sense within the narrative.
The same can't be said about seeing a freed and cleaned up Dun Scaith City being readily available to everyone only to THEN be told "Oh btw, go clean it up, it's this unknown place filled with monsters that no one has ever reached!". See the break in logic?

You can argue that adventurers who have been to that place liked the look of it and tried to recreate it on the ground when they built their new housing area, but the OP asked what will/should happen with the place itsself, not a copy of it or something like that. And people moving into content that will still be relevant to someone down the line does not make for a good..well, anything, really. Because anything that is publicly available there breaks the story if it's available before clearing said content.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

The difference with those is that they have the same conditions for everyone. Every player that has reached the area can move around in it. Every player can stand on the same things (for example, at the Moogle place you can't stand on the low, crushed foundation of the well, even though it looks like you should be able to - which makes sense, because players that have already done the questline have an entire fountain there).

You can do that kind of thing for a small part, like a pillar or two, or put a different texture on the floor depending on a player's story progress, but rebuilding an entire city while also keeping places that now have rubble have other things of exactly the same height in exactly the same position? That's way more effort than it's worth, which is why places with a lot of remodeling (like Mor Dhona and Idyllshire) grow the same for ALL players, regardless of their story progession.

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This... is exactly what I wrote in the second half of the first paragraph... Yes, this is exactly how they'd need to do it, if they were to refurbish Ishgard. Hence my potted plant example. Alexander is another example. Before you get the cutscene where he rises from the lake, there's a rock formation where his hand is going to be planted. Can't walk on it before, can't walk on it after. Ditto his other hand - and before you unlock the Creator, there's a chunk of rock you can stand on up in the shield where his head pops out.

And yes, I also wrote words to the effect of "way more effort than it's worth" (the stuff about what SE's willing to invest). So you and I are in agreement there, as well. The purpose of my writing was to show that it was feasible, not that it was likely to happen. So, yeah, you spent your first two paragraphs agreeing with and repeating what I just wrote.

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But having an instance be something completely unrelated, taking all the meaning out of actually running it later on? That's ruining stuff for the newer players.
Haukke Manor was filled with imps and skeletons and all kinds of voidsent, just the way it is during the actual dungeon. Saying "We sneaked around in a haunted house but didn't fight the monsters there" and later returning once you hit lvl..27 or whatever it is, to now actually slay the creatures that during the event you could just sneak past because you were still just a little beginner? That makes sense within the narrative.
The same can't be said about seeing a freed and cleaned up Dun Scaith City being readily available to everyone only to THEN be told "Oh btw, go clean it up, it's this unknown place filled with monsters that no one has ever reached!". See the break in logic?

You can argue that adventurers who have been to that place liked the look of it and tried to recreate it on the ground when they built their new housing area, but the OP asked what will/should happen with the place itsself, not a copy of it or something like that. And people moving into content that will still be relevant to someone down the line does not make for a good..well, anything, really. Because anything that is publicly available there breaks the story if it's available before clearing said content.

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Since you apparently think that the Haukke Manor example wasn't enough, how about Hullbreaker Isle? You know how new players running Hullbreaker Isle are all confused because this lost island has all kinds of Maelstrom-built fortifications on it, and training areas for battling wild beasts right? Of course you don't, because that doesn't happen. New players running Hullbreaker normal don't see these things. Hullbreaker normal and Hullbreaker (Hard) are two different instances. They exist comfortably side-by-side.

This game's Hard Mode dungeons show that SE is willing to update places to show what has become of them after the players initially ran them, and as far as I know, no players have any issue with this. Players find it perfectly acceptable to go back to Halatali and find that it's been cleaned up and converted into a gladiator-style training area and arena. There's no break in logic, because no one can see the clean Halatali until they've seen the dirty one. The same would be true of Dun Scaith.

So, the insistence that the OP must mean that they need to set up houses RIGHT THERE in the same area that newer adventurers are adventuring through is nonsense. A new instance patterned on the old dungeon, accessible only after the old dungeon is completed, is perfectly fine, and something that has already been done in this game time and again with EVERY hard mode dungeon. The only change in this case would be that the new instance is a housing area instead of a new dungeon.

The fact that you'd only be able to access Dun Scaith housing after completing Dun Scaith is the biggest reason why I don't believe it would happen. That's too restrictive a requirement - and if they simply ignored the requirement, and let folks march into Dun Scaith housing at level 5 (the same point in development where they could access the other housing areas), it would be simply ridiculous, just as you say. I don't think ANYONE asking for housing in Dun Scaith is suggesting you should be able to enter it at the same time you can enter any other housing area.

Seriously, though, housing that you can only access late in the game may be just what the doctor ordered for many of the problems facing housing. Folks complain about players buying houses with their low-level alts - well, now, they'd need to get their alts most of the way through Heavensward before they could buy up the properties. Ditto for RMT buying houses, if RMT buying houses is even really a thing.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

So, the insistence that the OP must mean that they need to set up houses RIGHT THERE in the same area that newer adventurers are adventuring through is nonsense. A new instance patterned on the old dungeon, accessible only after the old dungeon is completed, is perfectly fine, and something that has already been done in this game time and again with EVERY hard mode dungeon.

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You appearently do not understand me.
I never once said it should be the same instance, nor did I assume that's what the one who suggested making it a housing area meant.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

The only change in this case would be that the new instance is a housing area instead of a new dungeon. The fact that you'd only be able to access Dun Scaith housing after completing Dun Scaith is the biggest reason why I don't believe it would happen. That's too restrictive a requirement - and if they simply ignored the requirement, and let folks march into Dun Scaith housing at level 5 (the same point in development where they could access the other housing areas), it would be simply ridiculous, just as you say.

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THIS is what I say is the problem. So congrats, you also just spent several paragraphs agreeing with me? xD

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I don't think ANYONE asking for housing in Dun Scaith is suggesting you should be able to enter it at the same time you can enter any other housing area.

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Housing areas are not exclusive to house OWNERS, though. Should non-Stormblood-ready players in your FC not be allowed to enter the area their FC house is located in until they eventually beat Heavensward?
That's completely ridiculous. Making them unable to participate in FC events taking place there, unable to use housing perks like crafting buffs and free chocobo feeding, unable to even meet up with FC members unless they specifically come to meet you in scrub city because you can't come to them?
No, I can never see that kind of thing happening. Especially not with SE's heavy focus on new players and their enjoyment.

(Btw, you already need to be lvl 50 and fullfill several other requirements - like rank 2 in your GC and so on - to buy houses right now, so people who say low-level alts are buying up all the housing plots are lying or oblivious to that requirement. If those requirements should be raised is debateable, but I'll consider that a topic for another day :))