Housing Scarcity is manufactured

Unlike Storm I don't give a crap about the "prestige" of housing (I couldn't care less about other players showing off whatever, I'll look at it once and might say "neat" and then forget about it forever), however I completely agree with him that if Square wanted to fix this, they could. It baffles my mind that anyone sees housing demolition at all in a positive light. Sure does suck for those people that have to stop playing for long periods of time due to IRL issues, they might still want their house but oh well! It is an outright predatory tactic that a developer, aka a BUSINESS who's #1 priority is money making (let's not pretend it's not, if it wasn't we wouldn't have viera/hrothgar and healers in the situation they are), tries to put a positive spin on so that the consumers will be distracted by what it really is.

I'm one of the few (apparently) people who actually LIKE Goblet, and I STILL had to settle for a small (after multiple attempts at a small and medium), and I'm really unhappy with it. Someone asked previously something along the lines of "why do you even need a medium" and I'm just floored by that question. Uhh, more room for being creative? You can be as creative with your designing as you want with a small, some designs just flat out will not look all that great in a small. It's extremely cramped. I don't even understand why that needs to be explained, I'd assume it'd be common sense.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Yikes, it's a bit sad seeing people pretending paying a monthly sub to keep a virtual house is some sort of prestige symbol.

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I mean, it's a video game. Some people put a lot of time into getting weapons or armor that will be useless in a matter of months if not weeks. I put a lot of time into decorating a house I can never actually walk around/sleep in.

At the end of the day, isn't it all meaningless fluff/fun? Is it wrong to be happy about finally getting the things we want?

No hate; just saying.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

It baffles my mind that anyone sees housing demolition at all in a positive light..

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Okay, an example:

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There are 20 houses.

Joe buys 5 large houses due to a variety of shenanigans and gaming the system.

Joe stops playing for 3 years.

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Question: With no demolition timer, what happens to those 5 houses?

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Okay, an example:

Question: With no demolition timer, what happens to those 5 houses?

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Wards 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 are added via self-create of wards due to lack of housing, due to all the active houses having an owner, thus leaving the 5 houses available for when Joe decides to come back, and new owners being able to get houses in the new opened wards.

I fixed housing, where's my money ?

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Wards 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 are added via self-create of wards due to lack of housing, due to all the active houses having an owner, thus leaving the 5 houses available for when Joe decides to come back, and new owners being able to get houses in the new opened wards.

I fixed housing, where's my money ?

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Ummm, is ask if servers can handle extra load? Is housings completely gone everywheres? Is need to checks on these things first before addings more.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Ummm, is ask if servers can handle extra load? Is housings completely gone everywheres? Is need to checks on these things first before addings more.

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Oh I'm sorry this is Square Enix a small indie company, nevermind then

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Wards 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 are added via self-create of wards due to lack of housing, due to all the active houses having an owner, thus leaving the 5 houses available for when Joe decides to come back, and new owners being able to get houses in the new opened wards.

I fixed housing, where's my money ?

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I'd be thrilled if they did that, but we both know they won't for one reason or another. Whether Mao is correct and servers are the issue, they simply would rather have it be a scarce commodity for the perma subbers, or they still are clinging to this notion of communities and FCs, I don't know, but they really don't seem to want to add more wards constantly.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Yet you aint getting a welfare shiro 60 as instanced, so obviously they like it that way ; ) Enjoy instanced housing on the island

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To be honest I don't know what's so special on Shirogane plot 30/60 while, IMO, Shirogane plot 7/37 is better because of beach nearby that almost like Mist plot 5/35, private even. The hot spring also need some walking to get through... (Also I owned them plot 37 so a lil bias here :) )

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

To be honest I don't know what's so special on Shirogane plot 30/60 while, IMO, Shirogane plot 7/37 is better because of beach nearby that almost like Mist plot 5/35, private even. The hot spring also need some walking to get through... (Also I owned them plot 37 so a lil bias here :) )

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I mean that's just preferences really, LB41,M35 and S30/S60 are just known as the "OG" plots, it's always been that way, I cant really say why as I have only played for 2 years or so and well housing was way before

I also own an S37 and personally I love it for the sunset, so I can relate to liking that plot, even S46 is amazing as it has sunset too

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Okay, an example:

Question: With no demolition timer, what happens to those 5 houses?

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Just another area where a fully functioning instanced housing system could compliment the existing wards. The wards are permanently loaded, and that does eat up server space. The game has no way of knowing if you’re on a break or if you’ve permanently quit, hence auto demo to ensure that server space is actually being used for active players. (And with the scarcity, ensuring active players get a chance at those plots.)

Now what an instanced system could do, instead of demolishing those plots when the timer is up, they can be converted to an instanced plot. They only take up server space when they’re in use, so better from a space-saving perspective. The ward plots get freed up to give someone else a chance and Joe has his instanced houses on file to enjoy should he ever return. It also opens up the possibility of being able to save layouts, and adding other functions to the housing system that aren’t currently possible.

Heck even if they went with a bare bones generic instanced house, based on neighborhood theme alone rather than existing plot design, having your house converted to that intact would still be a million times better than losing it and having to go through this horrible lotto system. Twelve help you if you lose a medium or large as it stands now!

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Okay, an example:

Question: With no demolition timer, what happens to those 5 houses?

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Okay sure, if we're gonna go hyperbolic with our examples. 45 days though? REALLY? Your defense of 45 days is... 3 years?

And if Joe comes back, since he still by SE's crappy planning didn't do anything technically wrong (even though it IS crappy of him to hog that many houses even when he's actively playing), he is still entitled to those houses he spent money on. Like... I don't see the need to punish players like this?

And I'd like to know how Joe has five houses? Legitimately asking, I know you can get a surprising number of houses, but how does one obtain five?

This is on SE for poor planning, not properly designing housing to begin with, and their bullheaded refusal to fix the situation. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't like punishing players for the dev's screw ups.

Again, everyone is talking about what they SE SHOULD do. The fact is, this is what they did do. The demolition timer makes sense in the context of the current system. Is it silly? Yes, of course it is. But there needs to be a method of allowing new players to get a house as older players leave. they didn't want it to be a first come first serve forever sort of situation.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Again, everyone is talking about what they SE SHOULD do. The fact is, this is what they did do. The demolition timer makes sense in the context of the current system. Is it silly? Yes, of course it is. But there needs to be a method of allowing new players to get a house as older players leave. they didn't want it to be a first come first serve forever sort of situation.

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Okay sure, but no matter how you dress it up, *45 days* is pretty blatantly "don't you dare unsub to take a break or you'll lose your house!" territory. I'll give you your hyperbolic example of 3 years and 5 houses (still waiting to hear how someone has five houses, I legit want to find out how this is possible if this is something people can actually do) might be a bit much to hold on to a house if you're not playing, but defending 45 day timers is ridiculous when we know if SE wanted to they could easily fix the situation.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Oh I'm sorry this is Square Enix a small indie company, nevermind then

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I wouldn't be surprised if the way they set housing up is such a mess that they couldn't afford the necessary servers to give everyone a house even if they wanted to.

This doesn't mean I'm defending the system, simply an observation that it's probably a lot more inefficient than it should be because they never planned for the current player numbers when they made it.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Okay sure, but no matter how you dress it up, *45 days* is pretty blatantly "don't you dare unsub to take a break or you'll lose your house!" territory. I'll give you your hyperbolic example of 3 years and 5 houses (still waiting to hear how someone has five houses, I legit want to find out how this is possible if this is something people can actually do) might be a bit much to hold on to a house if you're not playing, but defending 45 day timers is ridiculous when we know if SE wanted to they could easily fix the situation.

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So:
1) You need 2 accounts, (friend or family, whatever); This friend/family should not be a FC leader with a house.
2) Make 4 new characters between the 2 accounts (2:2, 1:3, whatever)
3) Start a new FC, have the 4 characters join up with FRIEND as leader
4) Level the FC to where it can own a house.
5) Get House (I know, not easy)
6) Pass leadership to your character.
7) Boot 3 non-leader characters, including friend.
8) Make a new 4th character on your account.
9) Go to Step 3, rinse repeat.

The key point is you can't purchase a FC house if your account already has a FC house. there is nothing preventing you from taking control of a FC that already has a house.

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I definitely wouldn't see a 20+ member FC getting a small house but a FC with only 4-8 unique members? A small is plenty of room and the gil saved would give them a very good start on subs. They would have enough gil to buy schematic materials and/or sub parts the moment their sub ranks up enough for an upgrade without having to hope RNG gets them the right schematic materials in sufficient quantity in time.

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Im a one man FC , I run subs and airships solo. You dont need gil either, just a good farming schedule and knowing what comes from where. Gil only comes into the issue when you are talking modified hulls, pure titanium, kamacite, cocobolo are a pain to get, vivianite is easy to obtain via basic missions, deep sea 6 and 7 for example.

( Garlond Steel and Galvanised Garlond steel )

There are PFs where you can get materials at a bargain price, or you can organise trades with other FC's.

So, really, it isnt as hard as it seems.

So, I guess we're not going to discuss that certain people have been lying about the availability of housing by including FC locked wards as proof that it is in fact readily available. Okaaaaay. Moving on then.

An actual defense would be to point out that housing is still somewhat available on Dynamis. I don't really think it's that big of a deal to ask people to move and fill in the gaps over here. You're just going to DC travel and go about your business anyways. I don't consider it reasonable for people to start their own shell FC just to get a house but I do think it's reasonable for people to move DCs in this case.

Aside from that, I think we could at least make some compromises.

On the demolition timer we could at least extend it to around 6 months to a year. SE still gets to hold you on a leash for your house but it's not nearly as obnoxious as "so help you if you ever unsubscribe for more than two months."

Upgradeable apartments. Just let it happen. Let people upgrade their apartment space and let them upgrade to having a balcony that they can plant on. I know they're trying to remedy housing with island sanctuary but isn't that a bit against the spirit of housing since it's instanced? Apartments are a part of the wards and there's plenty of them. It'd be a nice touch.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

but defending 45 day timers is ridiculous when we know if SE wanted to they could easily fix the situation.

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Different players are going to have a different idea of what an adequate amount of time is to have to take as a break from the game without losing a house.

It's rather weird, but right now the demo timer lines up well with the schedule for the content releases (outside of the somewhat longer period between .55 and .0). As an example, x.1 patch is released. Player subs, plays the content for a few weeks then goes to play other things. They just need to remember to log in and enter their house by the day their current game time runs out. Now they have a solid month they can be unsubscribed before the x.15 patch is released with more content. They resubscribe for x.15, again play for a few weeks (remembering again to log in to reset demo timer as their game time runs out) then can unsubscribe the following 5-6 weeks at which point x.2 gets released. It doesn't work for those looking for extended breaks but it works well for those who just want the break between content releases.

As for easily fix the situation, I agree they can fix the situation. I don't agree that it would be easy for them to do in the time/cost sense.

Adding a better instanced housing system would be the best route as it would be a long term solution and they already have the bare bones basis for an instanced solution via apartments. What they need to do is to expand it into larger spaces with a variety of backdrop elements (and those spaces do not need to be the size of Island Sanctuary). Players could enter their instances homes through the wards just as we currently enter our apartments through them. Still it would take time to get these elements developed and test before they're implemented.

If they intend to stick only with the ward system being the only source of houses, they then would have to make long term plans in advance. Adding more wards would mean adding more physical servers to host those wards, and that means the physical data centers they use would need to have the additional space available for them before the need occurs. Physical data center juggling hasn't exactly been a strong suit for SE with the player base getting upset for various reasons (location choice affecting ping depending on where players live on a continent, the ATT/NTT node issue dispute recently, etc.)

But definitely I would like to see SE fix housing one way or another so the availability/demolition drama can go away. It's an annoyance that doesn't do the game experience any favors.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

The key point is you can't purchase a FC house if your account already has a FC house. there is nothing preventing you from taking control of a FC that already has a house.

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Except this isn't true. You can purchase another FC house if you already have a FC house on the same world as long as the account character that originally purchased the first house is no longer in that specific FC. If you're trying to get a second FC house on a different world, there's nothing in your way at all outside of standard get the FC set up and wait out the 30 days.

You could even purchase 2 or more FC houses on the same world in the same lottery period (if you get lucky enough to win that many) by purchasing one house for the first FC, removing the purchasing character from that FC then purchasing the second house with the other winning character. The only thing you would have to avoid doing is using a FC Master character to purchase the first house if there is no other 30 day+ member on your service account in the FC to transfer Master to.

If SE was trying to hinder multiple house ownership under the current system, they did a very poor job of thinking out how players would likely workaround the restriction. It adds in some inconvenience but it's not an obstacle. The hardest part is setting up the FC in the first place (since a second service account is needed whether it's your own or that of a different cooperating player) then waiting out the 30 days for lottery eligibility. Rank 6 is far too easy to achieve now with the current amount of Company credits generated by Expert Deliveries.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

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I haven't bothered doing this in a LONG time, but when I did do it, this is how I did it. If there are other ways to do it, great. He was asking how to do it, and that is a way to do it.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

So:
1) You need 2 accounts, (friend or family, whatever); This friend/family should not be a FC leader with a house.
2) Make 4 new characters between the 2 accounts (2:2, 1:3, whatever)
3) Start a new FC, have the 4 characters join up with FRIEND as leader
4) Level the FC to where it can own a house.
5) Get House (I know, not easy)
6) Pass leadership to your character.
7) Boot 3 non-leader characters, including friend.
8) Make a new 4th character on your account.
9) Go to Step 3, rinse repeat.

The key point is you can't purchase a FC house if your account already has a FC house. there is nothing preventing you from taking control of a FC that already has a house.

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Wow that sounds like a massive oversight on SE's part. I'd say I'm surprised it hasn't been addressed, buuut here we are with several busted things in the game already, so...

I will say that the apartment system is not tenable for instanced housing; it can run out, after all. A true solution would require every character (or at least, account) to be guaranteed a house upon creation. And the problem is that they have said that the current housing system can't scale that way.

The island sanctuary is closer to what we need, but interestingly, it's only outdoors. Given the weird things involving internal housing, I personally believe that's what is holding back housing.

If so, to have instanced housing for the internals as well as outdoors, we would need "Housing Reborn", go scorched earth on the current system and build one up that is built properly. I've floated the idea a few times, and the general consensus is that "the playerbase in general would hate that".

Or maybe we'll get lucky and SE figured out a hack that can give us the golden egg. But would it be worth devoting manpower to that rather than some needed QoL or training new staff or new interesting player facing systems...? Say what you will about Yoshida, but I don't want to be in his shoes.

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Originally Posted by Irenia

If so, to have instanced housing for the internals as well as outdoors, we would need "Housing Reborn", go scorched earth on the current system and build one up that is built properly. I've floated the idea a few times, and the general consensus is that "the playerbase in general would hate that".

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Yeah I think the playerbase would indeed hate that and it's because the playerbase consists of more than Aether, Crystal and Primal. Everyone else can get a private house if they want. Deleting people's existing houses for the sake of a few thousand NA players who won't move to Dynamis is something that would not only be a giant waste of resources but also a great motivator to unsubscribe.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Wow that sounds like a massive oversight on SE's part. I'd say I'm surprised it hasn't been addressed, buuut here we are with several busted things in the game already, so...

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Because they dont care who has a house, as long as it binds people to the game its good enough for them. And 5 houses might bind you even harder - what does suck more, losing 1 house or 5?

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

Because they dont care who has a house, as long as it binds people to the game its good enough for them. And 5 houses might bind you even harder - what does suck more, losing 1 house or 5?

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Oh no I agree, which is why it's wild to me that people either defend the system or say stuff with the gist of "well it's what we got we gotta deal with it" like we can't speak out against the devs' decisions. Which, you know, is how changes are made.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Different players are going to have a different idea of what an adequate amount of time is to have to take as a break from the game without losing a house.

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Classic argument that you've made in a million different forms. But ultimately they're all a clever rhetorical trick.

It's true that different players have different ideas, but that does not mean we can't draw a line in the sand somewhere on the distribution, such as the median.

You always pull this trick, countering every argument you don't like with "some players like this, some don't, some really love this, some really hate it".

And what should we do if 80% of players hate it and 19% dislike it, while 0.9% like and 0.1% love? In your trick they all get represented by the same four categories. In words, they seem commensurably large. In numbers, they don't.

What scarcity?


Housing zones are ghost towns here, there's entire wards just abandoned.



Got my house very soon after I moved to this world (I moved here like 2 weeks after the world was made), I'm at my house daily and I've never ever seen somebody running around here. Except for the 3 times a friend came to see me but that's it.

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Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IX Q&A Summary (10/30/2013)
Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: In older MMOs, such as Ultima Online, there was a house maintenance fee you had to pay weekly, but in FFXIV: ARR we decided against this system. Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.

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God I love that quote, thank you Fhaerron, it did not age well

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

What scarcity?


Housing zones are ghost towns here, there's entire wards just abandoned.



Got my house very soon after I moved to this world (I moved here like 2 weeks after the world was made), I'm at my house daily and I've never ever seen somebody running around here. Except for the 3 times a friend came to see me but that's it.

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Did you transfer to a dead world? I don't know Phantom's population, but that's not the case for every world. I also wouldn't use the number of people you see running around in housing wards as proof of anything lol.

Also, not everyone is in a position to world transfer for a house, I've seen that thrown around multiple times on this forum, "Just server/data center transfer if you REALLY want a house!" Yeah, because that's totally a fair compromise...

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

God I love that quote, thank you Fhaerron, it did not age well

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I giggle every time someone brings this up, it's so funny and sad at the same time. It absolutely did not age well lmao

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Did you transfer to a dead world? I don't know Phantom's population, but that's not the case for every world. I also wouldn't use the number of people you see running around in housing wards as proof of anything lol.

Also, not everyone is in a position to world transfer for a house, I've seen that thrown around multiple times on this forum, "Just server/data center transfer if you REALLY want a house!" Yeah, because that's totally a fair compromise...



I giggle every time someone brings this up, it's so funny and sad at the same time. It absolutely did not age well lmao

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Phantom is the new Chaos world that was created along with Sagittarius, Phantom is pretty high pop having (from the look of it) the same pop as other older worlds, while Sagi is the one that a lot less people went to, housing is absolutely wide open on Sagi, while pretty much saturated on Phantom except Goblet/Empy

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Phantom is the new Chaos world that was created along with Sagittarius, Phantom is pretty high pop having (from the look of it) the same pop as other older worlds, while Sagi is the one that a lot less people went to, housing is absolutely wide open on Sagi, while pretty much saturated on Phantom except Goblet/Empy

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Gotcha, thanks. Still, my point stands, using the number of people running around a housing district as any sort of reliable metric seems disingenuous.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Gotcha, thanks. Still, my point stands, using the number of people running around a housing district as any sort of reliable metric seems disingenuous.

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Yeah no that makes 0 sense, even on Balmung most wards are empty of people so it means absolutely nothing

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

The demolition thing is probly the most scummy thing i can think of with ff14, i hate that they tell us to take breaks but if you have a house, you better not if you want to keep it :)

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Im used to scummy practices and usually dont even care about them to stay sane but people defending such an obvious scummy design like this annoys me so much. What's the point of defending every single thing a billion dollar company does???

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Originally Posted by Minarisweet

Im used to scummy practices and usually dont even care about them to stay sane but people defending such an obvious scummy design like this annoys me so much. What's the point of defending every single thing a billion dollar company does???

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They unironically feel personally slighted when someone criticizes SE.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

The other thing with most forums is that there is an expected base level of people liking the thing that the forums are intended to discuss.

In a well moderated forum there's going to be a point at which a moderator says "you've done nothing here but attack the game". And then the person would have the choice of being more civil or leaving.

There's no control over negativity.

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Many such cases.

Change housing to instance housing.

Problem fixed.

Island Sanctuary became a thing, so its clear they can do it.

Downside is it will destroy all the Housing Wards, so we lose some zones in exchange for instance housing.

Unless they get creative.

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The alternative solution would be is allowing the same size map as Island Sanctuary, but allowing people to build their houses onto your map if you choose to want to have neighbors or none at all.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Change housing to instance housing.

Problem fixed.

Island Sanctuary became a thing, so its clear they can do it.

Downside is it will destroy all the Housing Wards, so we lose some zones in exchange for instance housing.

Unless they get creative.

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No thank you, you can have your instanced housing on the island and wards stay as they are, ward housing is fine.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

No thank you, you can have your instanced housing on the island and wards stay as they are, ward housing is fine.

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Then the problem will never end.

When we asked SE for instanced housing, fans of the status quo (hereafter referred to as "certain people") said that giving every player an instanced zone would be too hard due to the game's technical limitations. Something something 1.0. Something something console limitations.
Then SE gave every player a private island, and "certain people" said "yeah, sure, everyone's got an instanced zone. But we still can't get instanced HOUSING. Because an instanced island lacks customization, and that's where the real size limitations are at. The customization. Storing everyone's unique customizations is too much."
Then SE let every player with a private instanced island customize their private instanced island with outdoor furniture much like a front yard only with a higher furniture cap and the ability to basically clone furniture. And "certain people" saw what was essentially square giving every player a better instanced front yard than the actual houses get, and finally, at long last, they wondered why on earth we couldn't just slap a house in that bitch and call it a day. I am loving how the island now invalidates every technical-limitation argument against instanced housing. I think it's safe to say that the reason we don't have full blown housing on the island is either because they're in process of implementing it, or they really really want to keep homeowners chained to their sub.

Anyway, OP's take is lukewarm as hell. Anyone who doesn't see the demolition system as just an obvious way for SE to keep a minimum amount of assured subscribers is huffing copium. I suppose you can also make the argument that demolition is needed to keep the current housing system tenable, but now that island sanctuary has flexed its technological prowess, one could say that the current housing system doesn't need to exist at all. Get rid of it!

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

When we asked SE for instanced housing, fans of the status quo (hereafter referred to as "certain people") said that giving every player an instanced zone would be too hard due to the game's technical limitations. Something something 1.0. Something something console limitations.
Then SE gave every player a private island, and "certain people" said "yeah, sure, everyone's got an instanced zone. But we still can't get instanced HOUSING. Because an instanced island lacks customization, and that's where the real size limitations are at. The customization. Storing everyone's unique customizations is too much."
Then SE let every player with a private instanced island customize their private instanced island with outdoor furniture much like a front yard only with a higher furniture cap and the ability to basically clone furniture. And "certain people" saw what was essentially square giving every player a better instanced front yard than the actual houses get, and finally, at long last, they wondered why on earth we couldn't just slap a house in that bitch and call it a day. I am loving how the island now invalidates every technical-limitation argument against instanced housing. I think it's safe to say that the reason we don't have full blown housing on the island is either because they're in process of implementing it, or they really really want to keep homeowners chained to their sub.

Anyway, OP's take is lukewarm as hell. Anyone who doesn't see the demolition system as just an obvious way for SE to keep a minimum amount of assured subscribers is huffing copium. I suppose you can also make the argument that demolition is needed to keep the current housing system tenable, but now that island sanctuary has flexed its technological prowess, one could say that the current housing system doesn't need to exist at all. Get rid of it!

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All they have to do if they want to fix it is create self-creating wards on overpopulated worlds up to a certain limit of course, but it literally is the solution, I and I am pretty sure a LOT of other people dont want a house on the island, a lot of people, me included once again worked hard for their houses and waited for years to get our favorite plots.

As for

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Anyway, OP's take is lukewarm as hell. Anyone who doesn't see the demolition system as just an obvious way for SE to keep a minimum amount of assured subscribers is huffing copium.

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This so much, the fact some people deny this and say that it's for the players because houses HAVE to be demo'd, while in reality the problem is created by SE, is laughable

Yeah not gonna happen. Island Sanctuary proves that they could, but simply dont want or cant. Seeing the incentive to keep players engaged and pay their sub to not lose their house, I'd tend that they dont want to. Sure all of Island Sanctuary could stem from the basic idea that they have been building instanced housing all this time in the background, but that would lead to the point of losing money.. hmm. You never know with Squeenix. The current housing demolition system is also similar to how this game is structured, they get tons of tons of cash simply by all the passive income stream, the housing system is one way, the other one is through the patches where a lot of the playerbase actively comes back and Yoshi P telling people to go and play other games underlines their current working system (go play other games, but dont unsub), a lot of people have a reason to stay through housing alone. It's daunting how much money they make through means like this alone, but add the expansions, retainers and especially mogstation and they swim in all the money. Scrooge McDuck would turn red from all the envy.

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Originally Posted by SilversLyu

Island Sanctuary proves that they could, but simply dont want or cant.

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Yes and no. I still remember that when Island Sanctuary released it completely fried the housing interiors because both run on the same server.

So while IS proves that they can do instanced housing, I'm not so sure about it working in practice when a massive amount of players try to get into their house at the same time, which would be a lot more common if they gave fully fledged houses to everyone.