You're not supposed to stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house in a game..

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Originally Posted by Seleni

There’s no question the current placard-clicking system is terrible for everyone involved. But at the heart of the issue is that people are fighting over a finite resource. There will be winners and losers.

It is not realistic to expect this coveted neighborhood housing to become readily available for all players.

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The neighbourhoods were at first intended to be for fcs only. SE created a system that would have had enough houses for at least most fcs that were in the game at the time, but due to their lack of use SE allowed individuals to purchase houses. However they did not change anything about the housing system itself to adapt to the change in its target audience save for adding tenancy. There are several times more players than fcs. This is why there is a severe shortage. It's not because "oh it's old school" that most players cannot get a house. It's literally because the ward system was not made with individual players in mind. We're stuck with a system that was intended for a far smaller amount of buyers.

And because the player population keeps growing, SE can't keep up with the demand. The housing system is suffering due to its design being unsuitable for its current purpose, and the success of the game bringing new players in faster than SE can keep up with when it comes to houses.

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Originally Posted by Seleni

It’s not a change of tune. For a house decoration game housing would be a requirement. You can’t decorate a house if you do not have access to one. So every player can expect easy access to housing.

In an MMORPG housing is optional; it’s not the core content from a developers point of view. So it’s entirely up to the developers whether they even want to implement a housing system, where they want to place it, and what they want to do with it.

SE’s stance so far seems to be that they want neighborhood houses to be coveted. So that’s how I based my expectation on its availability.

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which I disputed, by referencing old MMO's from over 20 years ago and so you replied:

"Just because it’s done in one game doesn’t mean it’d be done in another. For example, some games have seamless transition between maps while others have to zone in/out.

Either by design or due to coding/hardware limitation, FFXIV has not offered “neighborhood housing” for all of its player. And all indications are that they don’t intend to do so anytime soon. Simply asking for it to happen on a game forum is not likely going to change their mind, or budget, or code.

They have offered apartments as a more available housing option. It’s just that many players are not interested.

And MMORPGs are all massive time-/money-sinks by design anyways; thats how they keep players subscribed/paying for items."

As I've said before, I don't believe the FF14 devs are stupid. I believe everything they do is exactly what they have intended.

And so while I'm having to deal with the worst inventory system I've ever encountered in any game, I'm not thinking kind things about them.

And while I'm not into decorating, I've played games with housing that is a lot more useful than FF14's housing, so I'm not interested at all in FF14 housing at all. But it bothers me that the FF14 devs have convinced so many players to "stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house in a game".

It smacks of Cow Clicker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker, see also http://bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1/

It also makes me sad that the best strategy game I've ever played, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Me...Alpha_Centauri (all Civilization games that followed sucked in comparison), was led by Brian Reynolds, who after its commercial failure, despite SMAC's acclaim, joined Zynga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_...game_designer))

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Originally Posted by Tommara

But it bothers me that the FF14 devs have convinced so many players to "stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house in a game".

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Which Live Letter or announcement did they say "you need to stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house"? I'm having a hard time finding anywhere where they told players or even implied that they had to do that. Perhaps I'm missing it, or maybe it's not SE that did the convincing. I guess we oft forget we can convince ourselves of things too.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Which Live Letter or announcement did they say "you need to stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house"? I'm having a hard time finding anywhere where they told players or even implied that they had to do that. Perhaps I'm missing it, or maybe it's not SE that did the convincing. I guess we oft forget we can convince ourselves of things too.

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Look at the title to this thread.

Then read what I said about Cow Clicker and Zynga.

The fact that you can't rely on devs to do the right thing is pretty much my point.

Edited Note: But yeah, the fact that players fall for it, is also my point, having once been an Evercrack addict, and so I seek to educate new gamers from becoming so.

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Originally Posted by Tommara

Look at the title to this thread.

Then read what I said about Cow Clicker and Zynga.

The fact that you can't rely on devs to do the right thing is pretty much my point.

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I thought your point was that SE "convinced" people that they need to stay up all night clicking the same thing to get a chance at a house. Because that's what you said:

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Originally Posted by Tommara

But it bothers me that the FF14 devs have convinced so many players to "stay up all night clicking to buy a fake house in a game".

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So I asked where you read that. If that's not what you meant, then go right ahead and say that and I'll go on my merry way. That's specifically what I was referring to, so I don't really feel like hopping around reading a bunch of other things that aren't related to what I asked you.

You said SE has told players they have to do that. I asked you how you knew. You then say to read about Cow Clicker? They didn't even make that game, nor does it give me any more detail on your claim. If you want to avoid answering my question, just ignore me altogether.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

I thought your point was that SE "convinced" people that they need to stay up all night clicking the same thing to get a chance at a house. Because that's what you said:



So I asked where you read that. If that's not what you meant, then go right ahead and say that and I'll go on my merry way. That's specifically what I was referring to, so I don't really feel like hopping around reading a bunch of other things that aren't related to what I asked you.

You said SE has told players they have to do that. I asked you how you knew. You then say to read about Cow Clicker? They didn't even make that game, nor does it give me any more detail on your claim. If you want to avoid answering my question, just ignore me altogether.

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You're right about that.

The FF14 players have done that to themselves.

Edited Note: The stuff about Cow Clicker is an attempt to educate new gamers to not fall for it, as I see housing in FF14.

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Originally Posted by Tommara

You're right about that.

The FF14 players have done that to themselves.

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Alright then. Thread over, I suppose.

I agree the choice to stay up is my own, but I will selfishly ask for a small update to the timer system. For example, a plot has been on the timer for 6 and half hours in a highly populated. In that time, no one else but me has come to the Placard. On a highly populate server, 6 and a half hours is a long time for only 1 person to pop in for a peak (me)(havent left at all since it started, so can confirm). I believe that at the very least, the timer should shoot it self forward by like 5%-10% if only one account on the entire world seems interested. Not asking for a freebie, but I mean come on, at least take the number of accounts per an hour showing interest into account. Highly populated server = only 1 account period clicking on the placard should = a small fast forward of the timer at least, cause you know, the supply is currently outweighing the demand for this particular plot.

There is no need for the timer to be this long in the first place.
2-3 hours would be more than sufficient to discourage reselling of plots.
Or just have a fixed and visible timer of i.E 5 hours where no one can make a purchase(to discourage reselling during times of low server population), and have a random hidden timer of 1-2 hours afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

There is no need for the timer to be this long in the first place.
2-3 hours would be more than sufficient to discourage reselling of plots.
Or just have a fixed and visible timer of i.E 5 hours where no one can make a purchase(to discourage reselling during times of low server population), and have a random hidden timer of 1-2 hours afterwards.

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Your filed of vision is narrowed
There is time zone and longer CD is to give everyone a fair chance to see this empty plot

Yeah, the randomness of it is made so you don't have a pile of people at the last second clicking fanatically.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Your filed of vision is narrowed
There is time zone and longer CD is to give everyone a fair chance to see this empty plot

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This is exactly where my second suggestion comes into play, right?
Have a fixed visible timer of i.E 5 hours(or make it... 20 hours or whatever!) where no one can make a purchase. And have a short random hidden timer of 1-2 hours(or 3? Or 4 or whatever) afterwards.

The longer visible timer is there to prevent house flipping, and also to show everyone who is interested, when the actual - hidden - purchase cooldown starts. So they can even plan ahead, if they want to.
The second hidden timer is there to keep the randomness in place that we currently have.

I don't see how this would be any different than our current situation, the only difference being that camping time for people would be reduced from 1-30 hours to whichever timespan the hidden timer would have. People are rightfully complaining that the timespan is too long. This would alleviate the issue, without losing any benefits from longer timers.

Or am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

This is exactly where my second suggestion comes into play, right?
Have a fixed visible timer of i.E 5 hours(or make it... 20 hours or whatever!) where no one can make a purchase. And have a short random hidden timer of 1-2 hours(or 3? Or 4 or whatever) afterwards.

The longer visible timer is there to prevent house flipping, and also to show everyone who is interested, when the actual - hidden - purchase cooldown starts. So they can even plan ahead, if they want to.
The second hidden timer is there to keep the randomness in place that we currently have.

I don't see how this would be any different than our current situation, the only difference being that camping time for people would be reduced from 1-30 hours to whichever timespan the hidden timer would have. People are rightfully complaining that the timespan is too long. This would alleviate the issue, without losing any benefits from longer timers.

Or am I missing something?

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Instead of a dozen people camping the plot because most players don't have the ability to sit around 8-16 hours, you'd have a few hundred camping it because waiting 1-2 hours is far more easily done when the player already plans to be online for that length of time or longer.

Ever been part of a hunt train the first week after a major patch is released? That would pale in comparison to the mess that would be created in the housing wards with your idea. Two to three hundred players all crowded a very precise spot for 1-2 hours instead of somewhat spread out for the 15 seconds it takes to kill a hunt mark with a group that size. Latency for everyone skyrocketing, assuming the ward server doesn't outright crash from the strain.

No doubt some trolls will manage to get in and will start spamming combat actions at the placard just to make things even more difficult for those trying to purchase. Disabling combat effects helps a little but not enough. With the way the game starts culling objects when there are too many players present at a location, some may not be able to interact with the placard at all.

Current house and apartment owners in that ward would not be able to enter if the ward hit the capacity limit and that would deny the ability for them to enter their own housing (which had evidently been a real problem when housing was first added until SE changed things).

We need to stop presenting ideas that only serve to sustain a bad system and start pressuring SE to fix the real problem - supply. If there were enough houses for every player and every FC who wants one, we wouldn't need timers or demolition or any of the other crap people keep suggesting.

Other MMOs with housing don't have a problem providing a house for every player that wants one. Some of those games even allow every player to have multiple houses per character.

Why does SE continue to insist on shortchanging their player base when it comes to housing?

If their decision to make a horrendously long random timer is the result of technical limitations, then I guess the system we currently have is as optimal as it can get. Up until now I thought their current solution to be something they did not care to put more thoughts into, seing how they needed a quick fix against house flipping.

In that case, hoping for instanced housing is my best option then >.<.

Personally I don't like Instance Housing... I've had it in a lot of other games and I never cared about them. The one I was most attatched was in Monster Hunter World and even then I barely collected half of what I could on it.

I like the idea of owning a piece of land, I want to have an obnoxious Placard with my name on it. I like giving people an adress that people have to sort among some other people. I don't mind that the place gets empty, it's not like I want to be friendly with the neighbors anyways.

That's why I just want a good way for more people to get a house they will care for.