Originally Posted by
Jojoya
Oh, I didn't think you were referring to apartments at all. I know how amazing instanced housing can be from experience in other games, including a full exterior experience. It's always been disappointing that we don't have similar here.
People can still garden in house interior and apartments even now using flowerpots. What they cannot do is intercross, a specialized form of gardening. That's a technological hurdle that in the past YoshiP has said they cannot avoid. Have things changed since his statement so now they potentially can? Only they know.
I can't agree there should be no benefits to ward versus instanced housing. Each should have something that makes it stand out from the other. Part of the problem is that one what player considers a benefit may not be a benefit to another. Some players find having a house in a ward beneficial because they feel like they're in a neighborhood and don't want to be isolated in instanced housing. I find it a deterrent because I don't see them as neighborhoods, I see them as ghost towns because I almost never see another player in the ward with my personal house.
I will say there should be no economic benefit to housing and I mean literally no benefit, not just benefit by comparison. Remove gardens from houses. Other ways to obtain the items unique to gardening could be added to the game (put the Thavnairian Onions on a vendor in Thavnair, as an example). Remove workshops from houses and attach them to GC headquarters similar to how our squadron barracks are attached.
If there's going to be economic benefit to having housing, then either every player should be provided with a house that has equal economic features or there should be a recurring cost for retaining the housing to offset the economic benefit only available to the lucky few.