Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

I'm fine with the current housing system. I think a huge amount of plots will become available 45 days after patch 3.1, when it finally kicks people who bought houses back in 2013 and then left the game entirely.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I'm fine with the current housing system. I think a huge amount of plots will become available 45 days after patch 3.1, when it finally kicks people who bought houses back in 2013 and then left the game entirely.

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It will be 90 days after 3.1, not just 45. After 45 days, the reclamation starts and then it takes another 45 days to get thrown out.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I'm fine with the current housing system. I think a huge amount of plots will become available 45 days after patch 3.1, when it finally kicks people who bought houses back in 2013 and then left the game entirely.

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Thats just it too. This could be part of a bigger plan to do just that. Sure there may be some who only sub for new content that have a house, then leave, but they don't need one anyways. So after the trash is cleared out it may give them an idea of how much extra housing to add into the game.

They may be thinking, "why add housing now, lets clear out the rubbish and see what is really available" Then lets add more after the fact. Who knows maybe it isn't permanent, just a house cleaning measure.

I guess if you look at it from their point of view, they need to do this first, before adding in new wards.

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Originally Posted by KadajSynthesis

It will be 90 days after 3.1, not just 45. After 45 days, the reclamation starts and then it takes another 45 days to get thrown out.

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See the other topic.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3379215

It's 45 days from 3.1, not 90.

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Originally Posted by Spellbinder

See the other topic.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3379215

It's 45 days from 3.1, not 90.

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Okay sorry then, guess sometimes its silly to rely on German texts..

My issue with this is that it essentially forces you to subscribe or log in to the game to keep your player house... which is actually reasonable, but a lot of people aren't going to like that because RL happens, etc.

I think a reasonable solution for this would be some kind of way for players to pay "advance rent" on a house to prevent it from being demolished, so for example you could pay something like 10%~20% of the house's original cost (depending on land size and original cost) in order to secure and keep the house for an additional month, and allow players to do that as many times as they like up to a cap of like 6 months. That way if someone has to take a long-term break for a military deployment or a hospital visit, they can rest assured they won't lose their house.

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

It absolutely is analogous. Wards are just data on a server. They could just add more availability. The fact is that the math just doesn't work out. No matter how many people relinquish plots, the current system guarantees that there will never be enough for everyone. Not even enough for half. Not even enough for 10%. Not even enough for 1%. That is the fundamental problem.

And just like when there isn't enough gil to go around, the game makes more. Just like when not enough players get gear to progress, the game produces more. Would the game function if only .5% of players had enough gil to repair their gear? No it wouldn't. Would the game function if there was a finite number of armor sets above ilevel 150, and it was only enough for .5% of the playerbase?

No, the game wouldn't function. This is the same thing. This is a digital commodity, and more needs to be produced. If they are unwilling to produce more wards (again, LOTRO has this same system, and it works, SE just needs to copy it) then they should create instanced housing (which they already have all of the assets for, but are now most likely never going to do because having instanced housing would take away the incentive for the .5% of players who own houses to remain subscribed forever, and by proxy eliminating a future feature that would improve the game tremendously). This would be the actions of a company looking to solve a problem with the game.

They aren't doing this because they aren't trying to solve a problem with the game. This is an underhanded way to force people to stay subscribed forever. Very low.

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What you are purposing may seem like a simple fix, but implementing a whole new system to accommodate every individual player and Free Company is, in reality, a monumental undertaking. Bear in mind, until recently, the FFXIV team had little more than a shoestring budget to essentially rebuild one of the largest games the company has ever created. These types of development take time and an immense amount of data. Part of what tanked 1.0 was weight it placed on people's computers as it attempting to render far too much under limited server strength. While they may opt for a better system down the road, this offers a temporary solution that is far more manageable in the interim.

And for those complaining about needing to remain subscribed. You can unsub for a month without any fear of losing your house. If the supposed German translation turns out accurate, the time limit is extended to 90 days overall. I suspect that was a mistake, and they intended 45 days to be the actual cut off point. Frankly, I find that reasonable. They are a business first and foremost. Of course they will implement systems that either cater to their consistent audience or attempt to keep people subscribed. It's just good business. A person who periodically unsubs, is less important to them than someone who actively pays monthly.

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Originally Posted by adn

My issue with this is that it essentially forces you to subscribe or log in to the game to keep your player house... which is actually reasonable, but a lot of people aren't going to like that because RL happens, etc.

I think a reasonable solution for this would be some kind of way for players to pay "advance rent" on a house to prevent it from being demolished, so for example you could pay something like 10%~20% of the house's original cost (depending on land size and original cost) in order to secure and keep the house for an additional month, and allow players to do that as many times as they like up to a cap of like 6 months. That way if someone has to take a long-term break for a military deployment or a hospital visit, they can rest assured they won't lose their house.

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I agree I think a 45 day timer is a bit short. Personal life issues can affect whether or not a person logs in. The timer should be at least a couple months in my view.

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Originally Posted by adn

I think a reasonable solution for this would be some kind of way for players to pay "advance rent" on a house to prevent it from being demolished.

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There is! The game can be subscribed to for up to six months at a time, and the account can be set to "recurring payment". No mess, no fuss!

Cant they just make inns work as instanced housing...

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Originally Posted by Dree-Elle

There is! The game can be subscribed to for up to six months at a time, and the account can be set to "recurring payment". No mess, no fuss!

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I'd like a clarification. Does one have to actually enter their house or simply be subscribed to the game to maintain their housing?

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Originally Posted by Kling-Klang

Cant they just make inns work as instanced housing...

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Unlikely, since it would require a full overhaul to allow players to customize it. Because inns render the exact same static environment, it's very easy to load.

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Originally Posted by Dree-Elle

There is! The game can be subscribed to for up to six months at a time, and the account can be set to "recurring payment". No mess, no fuss!

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Unless I'm reading incorrectly, maintaining a sub alone doesn't preserve your house. You have to log in and access the house. I'm talking about situations in which that is potentially not feasible for people.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

I'd like a clarification. Does one have to actually enter their house or simply be subscribed to the game to maintain their housing?

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They have to enter it too. Which can easily be done by letting someone you trust, like a family member, log you in and move you into the house every once in a while if you're physically unable to do it yourself.

I wish people would realize that when you have large housing wards that take a few minutes to run through, from far side to far side, that have can have as few as 30 people in them from all over the world(potentially) with different hours and walks of life... not seeing people does not make the ward "dead". You could have all thirty people online at the same time in the ward and still see no one.

Also, something I've said many times, and will capitalize for emphasis, THIS ISSUE WILL NOT REMOVE ANY HOUSING THAT PEOPLE BOUGHT FOR RESELL. Just in case people have missed that fact or try to bring it up. Just because a plot is actually unused doesn't mean much if a person just bought the house to flip it for a profit. They can still do that, now they just need to log into their alternate characters. They may have to put a house on it to bypass that one rule about property without a home, but what's 500k investment on top of the 5m purchase when you could flip it for 10m+?

Also, to the person who said 1.8% wasn't an accurate number because it didn't include FCs... uh, yeah. That actually works in SE's favor. If we include FCs, the number will go lower, not higher. So yes, it's not taking FCs into account, but if we took FCs into account it would probably be around 1% of the total subscribers that own a personal home. Take the benefit of the doubt on this one.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

They have to enter it too. Which can easily be done by letting someone you trust, like a family member, log you in and move you into the house every once in a while if you're physically unable to do it yourself.

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Except that's a ToS violation. I certainly hope you're not expecting people to violate the ToS to maintain a player house.

3.1 Sharing Account Information. You may not share your account or login information (such as your Square Enix ID and password) with anyone except your legal guardian, your minor child, or Square Enix. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account and login information, even from your friends and family. If you violate this provision, you may unexpectedly lose access to your account to a third party without recourse against Square Enix. Square Enix will not be obliged to credit your Square Enix Account with Crysta or other points or awards, which may have been used by a third party as a result of the violation of this clause.


That said, you are correct, as long as your friend/family don't obviously give it away I suppose that would work too.

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Originally Posted by adn

Unless I'm reading incorrectly, maintaining a sub alone doesn't preserve your house. You have to log in and access the house. I'm talking about situations in which that is potentially not feasible for people.

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You would be correct. In order to cancel the timer, you must log in and enter your house. FCs could get around this by having another member do that, but individually owned houses mean either you get on or you lose it.

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Originally Posted by adn

Except that's a ToS violation. I certainly hope you're not expecting people to violate the ToS to maintain a player house.

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Oh I know it's against the rules, but it's one of those "non-rules" that SE can't (and by extension wont) enforce if you don't tell them you're doing it. I don't necessarily encourage the active breaking of rules, it's more to illustrate that there is indeed an option for people who are forced away for extended periods instead of being completely SOL.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

1 - Everyone having a house in a dynamic system would require thousands of times the current server capacity, unless you greatly change what a house is, ex snap to grid furniture and 90 degree rotations. It would require a substantial downgrade to what housing is.

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Actually, fifty-four times the amount of current server capacity if we're going by the figure of 5m subscribers and discounting FC houses. However, even five times the server capacity(five times what we have now) would put a decent dent into the housing issue for quite a while. Not quite sure where you're getting "thousands", but if we had even one thousand times the wards we currently do, that would be 92,160,000 houses, which is pretty much overkill. Ten times our current wards would put us at 921,160, which would potentially cover every player who even wants and can afford a house.

Finally, SE you have my full support, don't back off because of a few people who log in once in a 3 months and want to have their house safe. :)

Yes no more of people taking 2 month breaks for a patch I guess. They will lose their house. Glad this is finally being implemented.

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Originally Posted by Neira

Also, to the person who said 1.8% wasn't an accurate number because it didn't include FCs... uh, yeah. That actually works in SE's favor. If we include FCs, the number will go lower, not higher. So yes, it's not taking FCs into account, but if we took FCs into account it would probably be around 1% of the total subscribers that own a personal home. Take the benefit of the doubt on this one.

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My FC provides a house to 37 players. So, a single house plot is giving the benefits of housing to 37 people.

Why would you exclude that fact and only take individual housing into account? You are basically saying that only individual houses counts as "housing". It doesn't make any sense.


Besides, these (inaccurate) numbers can very much be used as "so it only impacts a very small part of the community. Meh. Not a big deal."

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

They could have added instanced housing plots.

They could have added apartments in the city states.

They could have done what LOTRO did and create an expanded system of plots that would actually function in a way where everyone will get one.

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LOTRO did have severe problems with the more populated servers running out of free houses until they introduced a similar model where people could lose their house if they did not pay the upkeep.
After introducing that (and waiting the required number of days) a lot of houses became available again.

The 1.8% number people keep tossing about assumes a few things that are patently untrue.

1: 100% of the player base can even afford housing. What's the percent that can? 10%? 50%? If 1.8% of the playerbase can get homes but only 10% can afford it, for instance, that means we'd 'only' need 5x the current housing to meet needs. If, on the other hand, 50% can afford it, you'd need 25x. And, of course, if only 2% can, well that's only 1.1x the housing needed.

2: 100% of the player base WANTS personal housing. Personal housing isn't that big of a deal. It's a status symbol that does very little for you--many of the people annoyed at the dearth of housing want FC housing so they can participate in airship building/ventures. For most of the player base a personal room is plenty. So what if 1.8% of the player base can have homes, 10% can afford it, and of those 10%, 90% only want FC housing? That means only 1% of the player base would need personal housing. It has a huge effect on demand.

3: That all the housing bought is personal. Feeding into the point above, if the average FC size is, say 20, if even half the 1.8% (.9% of housing) was purchased as FC housing, that effectively provides housing to 18% of the player base, not 1.8%. If the average FC size is 50, that's 45% of the player base. Etc. etc.

4: That nothing else will be done. More housing wards have been announced, as needed. However, removing inactive housing is necessary in order to make this a plausible solution to ever meeting demands. Further, doing this allows them to know how many wards they actually need. How many people are getting just FC housing, how many are getting personal, what percent of the player base actually ends up with access to personal rooms and airships, how much of the player base does each house actually, on average, house, and what percent of the people this doesn't serve could afford a house otherwise, and how often do houses get demolished (i.e. what's the churn rate)? Knowing all of these things will allow Square to know how many more wards they need to add to the game to create healthy housing churn, and an actual market that allows everyone to have a chance at housing while allowing it to maintain its status as something not EVERYONE can own.

It's an important first step to fixing things, and there's no way--short of completely tearing down the current system and rebuilding it from the ground up as something much less robust and social--to fix without doing this.

I'm not sure why there's even any issue with it, unless you have a house and regularly unsubscribe for months on end. In which case, congratulations, you're part of the problem.

This was a much-needed change, and I'm glad SE is finally doing it. It won't completely solve the housing problem, but it's something that was long overdue, nonetheless!

There are people who quit the game, after all, and having their house lie abandoned when others could make use of it is a terrible waste. I'm a little leery at the whole "must access" thing, though for reasons others have stated, such as military personel on deployment who might be happy to maintain their sub but simply have no way to access their hosue until they return home. I hope that SE provides some method for these individuals to keep their house.

Even so, I'm glad to know that my ward will never become a ghost town full of barren homes. Even if my neighbors jump ship, eventually someone new will move in next door!

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

I wouldn't imagine a pile of pixels to be on your list of worries if you've got real life sh×t like those going on.

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I spent time in the hospital, and looking forward to playing again was one of the things that helped me through.

And how is a broken console/pc more of a worry than being able to play (and maintain your house)? They are quite intricately tied.



I do support a system that vacates the plots of players who have left, however I do not approve of the requirement of needing to go into the house. I also think the timer is too short, but having it tied to subscription rather than going into the house would make it more acceptable. I guess all I can hope for with the timer is that it eventually gets extended after the system has been in place for a while.

I really don't understand why everyone is so butt hurt. If you enter your house on the last day of a sub, you can unsubscribe for 44 F'ing days, then, if you don't-- you get 80% of your Gil back... Oh no... -.- this should've put this in place day 1 of housing if they were going to go with this archaic form of housing anyways

I'd been loyally subbed since 2.0 beta, and only just recently unsubbed for a month, but would have been considered "inactive" for 2 months. I took this break as a palette cleanser, a chance to enjoy other games and really give myself the luxury of sinking time into something other than FFXIV. I've since come back refreshed, but only after a period of inactivity that would have forfeited my house. Had I taken this break around the new reclamation rules, I'd have had to log in on the last day of my sub just to walk into my house, then resubscribe in no later than 44 days to ensure I kept my house. The point of taking a break is to refresh yourself, not to feel the clock ticking down on your virtual estate's demolition.

I'm glad that people have the chance to get housing from others that have legitimately become inactive. I've vouched for reclamation in the past, as a homeowner, but having experienced just how short 45 days is, I don't think it's an appropriate amount of time to consider for demolition.

45 days is too short because it basically enforces you to maintain the monthly subscription. 90 days would have been much more reasonable because you can safely take a month or two off from subscription and still get a lot of use out of your house. The distance between patches and expansions is far too long to enforce a monthly subscription imho.

Maybe now I'll actually see some of my neighbors about...

Thank you SE! It is nice that you have listened to our wishes and are trying to do something to help us get houses. You can't please everyone but the fact that I might be able to get a little house now and farm a little garden gives me something to hope for!

It should be upped to 70 or so days for private housing, 45 days is a little short for private, fine for inactive FCs though.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

My FC provides a house to 37 players. So, a single house plot is giving the benefits of housing to 37 people.

Why would you exclude that fact and only take individual housing into account? You are basically saying that only individual houses counts as "housing". It doesn't make any sense.


Besides, these (inaccurate) numbers can very much be used as "so it only impacts a very small part of the community. Meh. Not a big deal."

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And my FC has three active players and four personal houses among those three, on top of a FC house. So that's five plots consumed by three people. The reality with statistics is always a lot murkier than the theory behind it. Without access to the knowledge that SE has, we can't say exactly how many people own personal homes, how many own FC homes, and how many without either have money for a home.

However, to the point, I only take personal housing into account because the only numbers we can go by are subscribers and number of homes. It isn't exact by any means, and I'm not trying to pretend it is. However, it does reflect the maximum potential number of homes necessary to give everyone a personal house(5,000,000) and the number of houses currently in the game(92,160), to give us an approximate figure to work with.

Also, since personal housing is the system that has been botched since inception by SE, the system they decided not to actually design and instead just lump it on top of FC housing, and the system that is causing the shortage of homes, I think it is also the best point to address. If they took away every personal house in the game right now, FCs could live happily in the wards without a lack of plots for a very long time I would imagine.

Finally, all three of us have homes that look dead as we're rarely at them and mostly use them for gardening, or not at all in the case of the person who owns two, and I'm the only one that has any potential of quitting and losing it(because I'm tired of SE). Just thought I'd point this out since I'm sure a lot of people will be upset to read that first paragraph, since, in a nutshell, nothing in this change is going to stop three people from legitimately owning five homes, and that's five less plots any of you will be able to use. Go ahead and thank SE, they don't care, they just want your money.

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

I'm glad that people have the chance to get housing from others that have legitimately become inactive. I've vouched for reclamation in the past, as a homeowner, but having experienced just how short 45 days is, I don't think it's an appropriate amount of time to consider for demolition.

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I think it would be fine initially. Right now the priority should be demolition those abandoned plots, the ones which have potentially just been sitting empty for up to a year, and a shorter countdown facilitates that nicely. Actual players will presumably be enjoying 3.1 when this comes into effect, so stopping by their land during that time shouldn't be a problem. In the long run though, I agree, 45 days is too short, I think 3.11 should perhaps come 45 days after 3.1 and should bump the countdown up to 90 days, or something like that.

That way we get the benefit of a nice timely eviction for all the non-players who've potentially been using up entire Wards worth of plots, without the long term implications of a fairly short eviction timer.

This sounds like a completely reasonable implementation (80% refund is a surprise)with the exception of the timer - it should be increased to 90 days - 45 days is too short although it does keep people subscribed (meaning houses stay in the hands of regularly paying customers,) but I guess that is the point now, isn't it. Time to make more alts! :cool:

On a positive note at least, there's someone in the Lavender Beds Ward 2 Subdivision on Excalibur who bought a plot and never built on it. It's been that way for a looooooong, long time.

https://puu.sh/kR2k0/351a228e5b.jpg

With any luck nonsense like that will be cleared up with this. Next to my FC's house is a house that has been inactive for at least a year as well. I am glad these plots will be freed up for people, I just hope this is the first step of a bigger fix as well.

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

I'd been loyally subbed since 2.0 beta, and only just recently unsubbed for a month, but would have been considered "inactive" for 2 months. I took this break as a palette cleanser, a chance to enjoy other games and really give myself the luxury of sinking time into something other than FFXIV. I've since come back refreshed, but only after a period of inactivity that would have forfeited my house. Had I taken this break around the new reclamation rules, I'd have had to log in on the last day of my sub just to walk into my house, then resubscribe in no later than 44 days to ensure I kept my house. The point of taking a break is to refresh yourself, not to feel the clock ticking down on your virtual estate's demolition.

I'm glad that people have the chance to get housing from others that have legitimately become inactive. I've vouched for reclamation in the past, as a homeowner, but having experienced just how short 45 days is, I don't think it's an appropriate amount of time to consider for demolition.

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You do realize that, to prevent it, all you have to do is log in for 5 seconds during your sabbatical? And you'll get emails reminding you if you forget.

I wonder if they will factor house sharing into private properties? Would be only fair if they did.

I find it funny that not a single complaint has been raised in the JP forums, yet over here people are absolutely seething.

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

I wonder if they will factor house sharing into private properties? Would be only fair if they did.

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Just thought I'd point this out for you.

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Originally Posted by SquareEnix

Estates Subject to Demolishing
Private housing that has not been accessed by the owner within forty-five days.

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