One free company owns 13 houses in one Empyreum ward on my server.

SE, this thread is for you. Are ya'll even looking? Are you keeping track of the housing developments?

Today, while checking availability for mediums in Ishgard, trying to see how much gil my smaller free company would need to save, I was shocked to find that one free company owned 13 houses in a single ward, many of them mediums. The guild tag marking all of the houses was the same across all 13, and every single house had an identical note next to it. This note directed people to the free company's discord, and claimed the houses as property of their free company (literally, it said this).

I ran over to the houses to check them out, and every house owned by this same FC was built with the same style/template on the outside. Inside, the houses are totally empty.

I can only assume this is RMT, but really? None of the powers that be have noticed this? I don't even care about shell FC's - as in, one person making a FC so they can own (and use, and enjoy) a house. But c'mon. This is absurd.

Obvious scamming aside, I feel bad for the legitimate free companies who have to have these people as neighbors. This is hardly embodying the neighborly vibe the developers were going for.

SE, ya'll need to start watching the wards a little better. There are people lining up to buy these houses. Legitimate players are at each others throats, while scammers sit on hordes of houses and go unpunished.

No one on the dev team reads the English forums. Post this on the official subreddit if you want official eyes on it.

Be ready to get attacked by ppl defending this: "you have to fight the system not the people" they'll Said..well, sometimes It seems your have to fight ppl too..

On a side note: "we" do not know Who theese houses belongs too.. maybe One person bought 8 of them with Shell FCS or maybe they are 13 ppl (still with Shell FCS) or 13 sub. Guilds of a big guild..

Or maybe they are Just ppl taking advantage of the loopholes in the system

Personally i have my own opinion

I'll be pretty surprised if people attack me over one free company owning 13 empty properties (although this IS the internet). I get defending the people to a point. A few individuals opening shell fcs bc they can't get a personal? A husband/wife or a 2-3 friends using a FC so they can get a house? All fine. Cool. I see people defending those. I have no issues with that kind of thing myself.

With this guild, it was pretty in-your-face. I'm actually not sure how they were able to do this. Can any number of FC's use the same <TAG>? All tags on the properties are exact same, although I didn't go through the effort to inspect each individual guild name to check for tiny changes in spelling.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by axetastic

Can any number of FC's use the same <TAG>?

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Yes. Multiple FCs can use it.

Why are you jumping immediately to RMT speculation? In these cases, is usually far more likely it's either a serious raid group and/or market moguls that strongly benefit from running a lot of airship/sub voyages.

It's still pretty shit, but, not everything is illicit activity.

SE invites abuse when it opens a new housing district or server and then restricts FC purchases for a long time to FC wards only without any way to stop the same account from purchasing multiple FC houses. It also encourages the creation of small FC's to get around the fact that the ward is for FC sale only and having plots being bought by essentially private buyers as a result of that exclusivity.

The 30 day attempt before a lead can be relinquished to sort of impede the sale/abuse is a step in the right direction but that exclusivity for FC's wards shouldn't last more than 30 days in my opinion although I do understand many FC's want a shot at that large or medium house but the lottery cycle is 9 days so they would get at least 3 shots at it. Perhaps restrict it to 4 bid cycles. Also not sure why tags aren't unique like a FC name.

FC Lead should be restricted to one FC lead per account. The relinquishment of that lead should prevent the same account from leading another FC for a much longer time. This has been a problem for quite some time now and why they can't do anything about it is beyond me. Private sales have been working for over 4 years now while FC's are still not fixed. It certainly hurts those who want a house and those who actually follow the rules who take flack because of people like this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Garten

Be ready to get attacked by ppl defending this: "you have to fight the system not the people" they'll Said..well, sometimes It seems your have to fight ppl too..

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Not gonna attack anyone but I will say if they are doing things within the rules that SE setup, then who am I to blame them for doing what SE allows. Is it great to see shell FCs take over wards? Not even a little. Will SE do something about it? I don't see a chance at all for that one since they are (probably) following SEs rules. If they are doing shady things like buying up property to sell or whatnot then yeah, that should definitely be punished since it is not within the rules anymore.

i used to have 2 houses a big and a small i gave up the small one and kept the big one so am happy now.

The fact Is this, and you can replicate It if you want:

If you, with One of your 8 characters own a FC guild with a house, and try to bid on a house with another of your 8 characters (that Is leader of another guild) the game stops you.
BUT if the second guild has 3 alts (maybe of a friend helping you, or a second your account that you can use for a month and then trow away) in the same guild, and One of that caracthers bid on a house, they can participate. And your second character will get the house.

THIS imho Is a loophole in the system, something that was not intended to be done by people according to se. The only reason, imho, se lets ppl do this Is because It Is not able to code a more restrictive sistem, but their intention i think Is clear by my First example and by the modification of TOS regarding the management and "selling" of guilds


Sorry for my poor english