Only 1536 apartments per server?

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Actually, no, you are at fault.

You choose to play on the highest population server there is. You KNOW the housing situation is like this. Yes, SE doesn't handle housing well, and I'm not defending that, but you KNOW this. And yet, this is what you choose. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the mass exodus to Bal and Greg isn't healthy, but people still feed it instead of fixing it.

There are servers that STILL have housing. And they would love to have active people who raid come play on them. Everyone's got problems. Deal with it.

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I *CHOSE* to play on a highly populated server, therefore it's MY FAULT that we have NO HOUSING. Yeah, no. But please, continue to live in your own delusion as to what the actual problem is. Because really, if SE actually blamed the players for this ISSUE, we'd actually still be playing this game.

Sorry, I am not falling for your white-knighting tactics for SE implementing this piss-poor housing system nor am I taking fault. You can blame me all you like and you can point fingers at us, but I have been here since 2.0 and we actually had character creation open back then. I cannot be the psychic that you want me to be and predict that in the next several months, or even few years, that this server is going to be "over-populated."

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

SO why have they not made player housing instanced? They knew the failed pre 3.0, they know they are still going to fail going forward into 4.0. Do they not know how to let go a bad idea and move on. The wards are bad idea on a game that doesn't regulate population. Why keep embracing a failure.

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My theory on this, and it's baseless, is that they tried in 2.x, it wasn't going to be ready in time or had serious bugs, and felt that they had to do something related to housing. They shoved out the awful system we have and were surprised when even the JP forums detonated over it (that part is not baseless. They legit seemed surprised by the reaction). Once they had put it in though, there were no take-backs without an even larger expenditure of effort.

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I can't speak for everyone, but reactions on forums are any indication. If they said the wards would be demolished and houses transferred to instances starting in 4.0. With an entrance in each city and vendors near entrance, would be better received then the current system.

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I think you're completely correct.

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Originally Posted by Khemorex

yeh like the people who wanted that unused houses are being demolished after 2 months :P and then coming on the forums and crying coz theyre hard earned gil is gone after a 5 month break :P

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I just mean the wards are gone not the houses. Since they are trying to build a transfer system for houses to go with ishgard. Meaning no more ward but house in a nice shiny instance. Wards are quiet on Balmung feels like half the server afks in Idylshire anyways. Unless they put tomestone and scrip vendors in wards no reason for them to stay.

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Originally Posted by Khemorex

yeh like the people who wanted that unused houses are being demolished after 2 months :P and then coming on the forums and crying coz theyre hard earned gil is gone after a 5 month break :P

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That's another debate and personally I'm in the camp if they're paying their sub they shouldn't lose anything. Relative to over populated servers I think it's time that SE stopped allowing transfers to overpopulated servers period.

The first house that I've seen open in Lamia in 2 months did so the other day. My FC leader jumped on that. We have a house now. :D but I'm poor now.


I should point out that over 2/3rds of the homes on Lamia are owned by individuals verses free companies. That's even fewer players getting access to stables and gardens as you'd need to room with a player that has a house...

I want to have the option to buy the whole building and stick my name on it. Then run for president.

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

Just one apartment building per housing area is a really silly idea!...

I'm pretty sure it's one building per ward, that's 24 buildings per housing area, you'll see!... :rolleyes:

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Uh... that would amount to 36,768 apartments, which is more than Gilgamesh and Balmung's populations combined.

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

SO why have they not made player housing instanced? They knew the failed pre 3.0, they know they are still going to fail going forward into 4.0. Do they not know how to let go a bad idea and move on. The wards are bad idea on a game that doesn't regulate population. Why keep embracing a failure.

I can't speak for everyone, but reactions on forums are any indication. If they said the wards would be demolished and houses transferred to instances starting in 4.0. With an entrance in each city and vendors near entrance, would be better received then the current system.

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No no no. Do not want instanced housing. This is where the people on smaller servers get as offended as those on the busy servers when they are told to stop complaining about housing.

In my opinion we could meet in the middle on this. Future housing (Ishgard possibly) could be instanced but leave the older system alone. It's not fair to take away a feature that many of us enjoy, including those on the busy servers that have houses just to please some players. That's as far as I'm going with that because I don't want to offend anyone with what's already been suggested.

I'm hoping the apartment thing is a hit. It looks pretty cool honestly. Seriously doubt it's limited to that smaller number like others have said. It just wouldn't make sense. If FC rooms can be as plentiful as they are there is no reason that the apartments can't be.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Uh... that would amount to 36,768 apartments, which is more than Gilgamesh and Balmung's populations combined.

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If that's the true number, then it certainly covers their ass for future growth on all servers.

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Originally Posted by Xiomara

If that's the true number, then it certainly covers their ass for future growth on all servers.

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It would also excuse players having more than one room or house.

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Originally Posted by OliviaJ

No no no. Do not want instanced housing. This is where the people on smaller servers get as offended as those on the busy servers when they are told to stop complaining about housing.

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I am shocked people would defend the ward system. Not even if everyone can have a space is a question. Instances can have your own changing weather, minnions moving around in the yard, more customization on the horizon these are actual things in other games with instanced housing. But I guess I stand corrected that smaller servers like the system as is.

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

I am shocked people would defend the ward system.

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The wards make sense for their original intended purposes. Free Company Housing, where it's expected that each home has several people linked to it allowing for a neighborhood a sorts to form. The sad reality is that once they flipped the switch to individual owners you wound up with a few companies with housing and hundreds of individuals owning housing. Diminishing the amount of players active in the wards dramatically and defeating the original purpose.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Uh... that would amount to 36,768 apartments, which is more than Gilgamesh and Balmung's populations combined.

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FC houses can already have 512 private chambers each.

Having an additional 512 per ward across all three districts doesn't seem like such a stretch when you consider that aspect.

Both good points Storm and Jynx. Storm, I love the intended social aspect of the wards as they are and seeing other people's creativity. That's what made me want to purchase my own home in the first place. Now Jynx, had they never made personal housing an option then of course we all wouldn't be discussing this. You can't reverse it now though without seriously angering anyone who has a personal house now though. I remember when it was just FC though. So many wards were ghost towns empty lots on my server. Now they are filled with homes!!! (and still ghost towns because that timer isn't moving).

I heard that a lot of the wards are that way too on your busy servers. What gives people? Use your house. Socialize. It's a MMO :mad:

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Originally Posted by OliviaJ

I remember when it was just FC though. So many wards were ghost towns on my server. Now they are filled with homes!!! (and still ghost towns because that timer isn't moving).

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The crux of the original issue was that housing was insanely expensive even for a free company when it was launched and the prices only started to lax after they released it for individual players. People needed time to save up that cash but they weren't really given the time needed.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

The crux of the original issue was that housing was insanely expensive even for a free company when it was launched and the prices only started to lax after they released it for individual players. People needed time to save up that cash but they weren't really given the time needed.

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Too true. The last update that added wards shocked me. Why they lowered prices even more is beyond me. It should have gone back up so that FC had a better chance of getting them as a group. I'm not complaining, being on a lower pop server because we certainly took advantage of that but as individuals. Housing isn't that much of a problem here, despite it being sold out again. They still pop up occationally.

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Originally Posted by ExKage

All the locations confirm is that the apartments are in the residential districts. It does not explicitly confirm a building per ward and sub-ward.

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*Facepalm* No, really, just pause and think about it for a moment. I'm getting tired of having to point out the same things over and over. I'll just repeat what I said originally:

1. From the screenshots SE published, we know the apartment buildings will be added to the current wards, right down to their exact location.
2. Given that, there's no way SE could add only one apartment building per city in a way that makes sense. They could make the buildings available only in Ward 1 per city, or they could make each building a single instance across all 24 wards - neither of which would be at all intuitive or user-friendly.
3. We know there are 512 apartments per building, so considering that's the limit for private chambers in FC houses, it stands to reason that SE would make use of the data structure and functionality they already developed for that.
4. We know that apartments are accessed via a lobby much like private chambers are via FC houses, so they don't require plots and are therefore not limited by that factor.

It's really not that hard to think about it logically!

To this day people still transfer into balmung and it pretty well known that it overpopulated and no housing available but people still choose to transfer in.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Uh... that would amount to 36,768 apartments, which is more than Gilgamesh and Balmung's populations combined.

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Last I heard Balmung has population of 30,000 by itself.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Last I heard Balmung has population of 30,000 by itself.

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Most recent unofficial census of active characters put the Balmung population at around 21,000, with the Gilgamesh population at just over 15,000.

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

1 building per ward x 24 wards including subdivisions

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I actually don't think they'd include subdivisions (while they are basically additional instances, I get the feeling they work differently than the wards), which leaves us at 12 Wards.

It's still a lot at 6,144 per district and a total of 18,432 if they go the route of 1 apartment building per ward.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Most recent unofficial census of active characters put the Balmung population at around 21,000, with the Gilgamesh population at just over 15,000.

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Keyword there is active (as I assume means being played on regular basis), Pretty sure there plenty of people that have alts regardless of how often they play them to have their own apartment also.

The whole 'limited everything' apparently also goes in line with the especially japanese fixation on 'artificial scarcity'. As seen in the case of Merchandise, with limited amounts actually physically created.

Ironically, this also translates to digital goods, for example, some time ago, when I was still actively modding Skyrim, it was always a hassle to get ones hands on awesome looking mods from Japan. The original creators made them only available for 1-2 days on japanese forums, if you did not have a contact who would then rehost the content on another website, you were out of luck, the mod would be gone after those 1-2 days, only available to the lucky few who got it. In some cases, the mod creators actually went by 'download number' and pulled that mod even faster.

In both cases, the intention seems to be: 'Make our creation more worth and appreciated'. That might maybe fly in Japan, but in the West, it isn't. At least not regarding digital assets.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

I actually don't think they'd include subdivisions (while they are basically additional instances, I get the feeling they work differently than the wards), which leaves us at 12 Wards.

It's still a lot at 6,144 per district and a total of 18,432 if they go the route of 1 apartment building per ward.

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I'm sure subdivisions are just the same as primary wards, if they weren't it would be a cheap mistake from Square Enix!...

The only difference between primary wards and subdivisions is that the latter are flipped 90º counterclockwise!...

Primary wards and subdivisions work exactly the same so I don't see why they shouldn't include apartment buildings in all of them, it would just make the housing experience inconsistent!... :(

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

The first house that I've seen open in Lamia in 2 months did so the other day. My FC leader jumped on that. We have a house now. :D but I'm poor now.


I should point out that over 2/3rds of the homes on Lamia are owned by individuals verses free companies. That's even fewer players getting access to stables and gardens as you'd need to room with a player that has a house...

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Unrelated to the apartment talk but I to just got a house two nights ago. A friend's FC member spotted it and told them and they immediately told me so I could get it. Me being on Gilgamesh...that's rare. I'm Wondering if the timer is on or if someone really did just relinquish their land and walk away

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Originally Posted by RayneLittlewinkle

Unrelated to the apartment talk but I to just got a house two nights ago. A friend's FC member spotted it and told them and they immediately told me so I could get it. Me being on Gilgamesh...that's rare. I'm Wondering if the timer is on or if someone really did just relinquish their land and walk away

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That makes me wanna check the ward's ever so often I would prefer a House over an apartment. What size was the house you got?

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Originally Posted by RayneLittlewinkle

Unrelated to the apartment talk but I to just got a house two nights ago. A friend's FC member spotted it and told them and they immediately told me so I could get it. Me being on Gilgamesh...that's rare. I'm Wondering if the timer is on or if someone really did just relinquish their land and walk away

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Probably just someone that relinquished it. Maybe the previous owner bought a plot from someone else?

So with all the people complaining that 1,536 isn't enough...

1,536 per server. There are 64 servers.

That's 98,304 apartments. They need to ensure server stability and not put too much strain on the servers all at once. When you consider the amount of housing we already have, that tenancy exists and that there is FC rooms for those who are in a housed FC that they are happy with, I think this is more than reasonable. At first we were expecting only apartments in Ishgard - they went and gave us apartments in the Mist, Lavender Beds AND the Goblet instead. I think we got better than we at first expected yet people are still complaining it's not enough.

Granted, this is across all data centers and servers but they need to manage the overall stability of them all at once.

Some opinions now here - not everyone is entitled to a house. It's a competitive market and if you miss out, you miss out. If you have alts, you especially aren't entitled to housing for them.

I do think they need a better system to prevent against flipping of houses - perhaps a time limit between purchases and relinquishing of property, to make people be extra careful with purchases and it significantly more difficult for players to try to flip houses. I knew someone who bought and sold 5 small houses in one day - which is wrong on so many levels.

I think they're giving housing enough attention and they need to add new housing in waves rather than all at once to ensure they don't give the servers too much stress. This isn't going to be the end and be all of new housing - buckle up and get one or wait and be patient. Game development isn't as easy as many players think it is. There is a reason they go about things the way they do, they're not trying to be unfair to you.

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Originally Posted by Luxyn

1,536 per server. There are 64 servers.

That's 98,304 apartments.

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You're making it sound like a big deal when it really isn't. 98k apartments across all servers is a tiny figure when you consider that having 512 apartments per ward per server is ONLY the equivalent of adding ONE FC house per ward per server. Granted, apartments will be more readily available than private chambers since they won't require membership in anything, but the point is there's already HUGE capacity when taking private chambers into consideration.

36k apartments per server is a tiny figure on the scale of things and it's not like they'll immediately require a vast amount of data considering they'll only exist as people buy them, just like private chambers, and even the most populated servers are not going to reach 36k occupied apartments any time soon.

My entire point is, considering the amount of housing already available, it's a decent number.

Edit: Also to be considered is the fact that non-FC rooms are FAR more likely to be all bought up as they're not dependent on FC membership, SE will want to gauge the effect it has on the servers for rooms to be bought up so much, and they also want to analyze demand for rooms versus more divisions before they put more resources into it.

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Originally Posted by Blackcanary

That makes me wanna check the ward's ever so often I would prefer a House over an apartment. What size was the house you got?

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It was a small. The fee was around 3.1mil

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Originally Posted by Luxyn

Some opinions now here - not everyone is entitled to a house. It's a competitive market and if you miss out, you miss out. If you have alts, you especially aren't entitled to housing for them.

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Curious, but why do you feel that not everyone should have equal chance at a house/apartment in this particular game?

Pardon me for bringing up everyone's favorite comparison (:P), but XI managed to give housing to everyone, and that game is now 13 years old. Obviously the styles/uses are a bit different, but the mog house does give access to gardening, monster rearing, fishing holes, mining spots, decorating, a patio, special buffs, etc.

I'm personally not overly fussed about owning a home/apartment as I really only like them for their function (stable, garden, etc). I think a decent placeholder with housing would have been to simply expand basic function of the inn room. Give access to a public stable of sorts and some flowerpots for starters. I doubt I'm alone in the desire to have some function without the need of a full house.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Curious, but why do you feel that not everyone should have equal chance at a house/apartment in this particular game?

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The thing is, everyone does have an equal chance at a house/apartment as far as where the developers giving it to them is concerned - if you don't have an equal chance due to your connection being slower than others or something so everything is sold out before you get a chance to buy anything, it's not SE's fault because it's on your end that your odds were affected. SE does give everyone a fair chance at what they release. It's not that I don't feel everyone should have an equal chance, just that I feel not everyone is entitled to actually obtain a house. You're entitled to your chance but if you miss it for whatever reason it's tough luck.

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Originally Posted by Febby

You're making it sound like a big deal when it really isn't.

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Also want to go back and address this point. I'm not making it sound like a "big deal". What I am saying is it's big enough of a deal. It's a perfectly okay number to start with for apartments. SE' s mentality when adding things like this is baby steps, and as a game developer myself I totally understand that approach, I don't blame them for it and it's the right thing to do. Apartments in this style are new - they want to dip their toes in before they go all the way, and players need to be patient and let them do that.

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Originally Posted by Luxyn

Also want to go back and address this point. I'm not making it sound like a "big deal". What I am saying is it's big enough of a deal.

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Same difference as far as I'm concerned - it's not significant at all.

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Originally Posted by Luxyn

SE' s mentality when adding things like this is baby steps

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Not really, no. They rolled out private chambers for ALL FC houses in a single patch - that was an instant addition of up to 512 rooms per house, and I'm pretty sure there was more than one FC house per ward at the time (not to mention personal housing wasn't even a thing until a later patch). While it's true that apartments will be much more readily accessible, we're also only talking one building per ward. In all other respects, it's a similar thing and not at all unrealistic to expect. SE has enough data by now to make an educated guess at what will happen anyway.

So no, 1536 apartments per server is not a "perfectly okay number to start with"; 36k is. But now we're once again ignoring the fact that we practically have enough evidence to assume we'll get the latter.

At this point it's going to be down to opinion I suppose, we'll have to agree to disagree. I think it's perfectly fine when also considering they're adding a new raid tier, dungeons, etc. Also not considering what other plans for housing they may be planning, they might have residential districts in 4.0 that are only purchasable as private housing in mind for all we know, which is why it's good to keep in mind that patience is a virtue. I understand for some it wears thin sooner than others but hang in there, see what comes of it. The thing is each major patch adds significant new stress to the servers and IMO it's perfectly acceptable to give what they have to the apartment system as they have right now. Overall, I think SE should be given a bit of slack on this - they did give us 24 new districts per server a couple months ago, which was a very nice increase. They're trying IMO and we should be appreciative they're giving this the amount of attention they are in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Blackcanary

That makes me wanna check the ward's ever so often I would prefer a House over an apartment. What size was the house you got?

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You should absolutely check often. I recently upgraded from a small to a medium doing this. Checked every morning and every night consistently. Somehow lucked out with it popping up next door to my FC of all places. I didn't even realize it until I ported to the ward that had the price on it and as I was running up to it my FC leader was at the MB.

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Originally Posted by Luxyn

They're trying IMO and we should be appreciative they're giving this the amount of attention they are in the first place.

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That I can agree with. Personally I'm not even knocking them though, I'm actually putting faith in them because I believe they can pull it off, considering they've performed greater feats. Either way, I think it's almost indisputable that we'll get more than one apartment building per city state.

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Originally Posted by Febby

That I can agree with. Personally I'm not even knocking them though, I'm actually putting faith in them because I believe they can pull it off, considering they've performed greater feats. Either way, I think it's almost indisputable that we'll get more than one apartment building per city state.

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Yeah I understand and I agree. No way of knowing how much they're adding right now - I just think if it's only 1,536 in 3.4 that's pretty okay, if more, all the better, who knows if that's gonna happen. But I have absolute faith they're doing what they feel they can with it and they'll pull off something most people will be happy with eventually. And that's the best you can do honestly with an MMO - they will never make everyone happy, the best they'll be able to do is please a majority.