Lost House - Question

Hello - I had bad luck last year and lost my job and had to put FFXIV on the back burner.

I think around Christmas I got an email saying they were taking away my in-game house. It was a real downer to get this type of email especially over the holidays.

I recently was able to return and cannot find where to ask for my Gil and house items. I talked to a lot of NPCs and found one that talked about it I think but has no options to actually get my items and Gil. I sunk just about all of my in game money into my house - anyone know where I can get this back?

I contacted a gm and part of the response was do ask other players.

Sorry to hear this happened but bad news :(

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Reclaiming Gil and Items
When an estate has been demolished, gil and certain furnishings will be placed in the care of the resident caretaker for a fixed period of time.

Redeemable from the Resident Caretaker
80% of the price paid for the estate grounds.
Indoor and outdoor furnishings that are not destroyed upon removal.

Not Redeemable from the Resident Caretaker
The construction permit required to build an estate.
Furnishings destroyed upon removal.
Housing exteriors.
Private chambers.
Company workshops and any registered airships in the workshop.

* Players will have thirty-five days to redeem items from the resident caretaker before they are made irredeemable. Items belonging to a free company estate can only be retrieved by members with the authorization to purchase or relinquish land. Items belonging to a private estate can only be retrieved by the owner.

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It's gone. Sorry.

If you happen to get a new house - try PMing me ingame, I can craft you new furniture for free.

:'(

Thank you for the information and also thank you for the crafting offer.

I'm not sure I will ever buy a house again after losing pretty much all the Gil I've earned already but it is appreciated.

Lot of people used this to save their house in December to get more time.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/0be...png?1450334521

Sadly I missed that campaign but I wouldn't have been able to log in that month anyway as I need to buy WTFast to log into FFXIV. I live in California but for some reason I can't log into FFXIV naturally. It's the only game I have this issue with and haven't been able to figure out why.

It's only $6, but it was a very hard year. Happily things are better now :)

I also (wrongly) assumed that the game would have mailed my house items back to me so I could pick them up when I was able to subscribe again. I haven't ever seen a housing system work like this in a game before.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Sadly I missed that campaign but I wouldn't have been able to log in that month anyway as I need to buy WTFast to log into FFXIV. I live in California but for some reason I can't log into FFXIV naturally. It's the only game I have this issue with and haven't been able to figure out why.

It's only $6, but it was a very hard year. Happily things are better now :)

I also (wrongly) assumed that the game would have mailed my house items back to me so I could pick them up when I was able to subscribe again. I haven't ever seen a housing system work like this in a game before.

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That 35 day limit to reclaim your stuff is pretty stupid. If we were on the same server I could help you out a bit. If it was a small house, at least know that it's probably pretty easy to get your gil back. Just need to find the good ways to make gil.

I see you have no crafting or gathering classes. Depending on how your server is, even battle classes have some pretty decent ways of making gil. Most of them are probably at level 60, though. Good luck, and I hope this doesn't dishearten you too much. :)

I'm sorry. I wish it hadn't come to this. If it helps at all, a lot of the community was very vocally opposed to the 35-day holding time for your gil and furnishings on these forums, but it was still implemented that way. If you ever switch servers and find yourself on Diabolos, feel free to look up my FC or me(alt is Myluria Taelaris, and she's the one subscribed right now).

That's really nice of everyone and everyone's reply is why I think this game has such a great community. I hope in the future they decide to mail people's Gil / Belongings rather than just break everything - if I knew this was going to happen I would have thought twice about returning and also buying Heavensward.

That said I am enjoying Heavensward so I am glad I didn't know because I wouldn't have returned if I did. I did only have a small house but Moogle and Carbuncle house items aren't cheap :). Hopefully when I get caught up and learn how to make Gil I can get a small house again. I really do love having a home in MMOs and this system was one of the things I looked forward to and hope I get to enjoy it again someday.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

That's really nice of everyone and everyone's reply is why I think this game has such a great community.

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That's nice of you to say, but I'm not sure I would go that far. Like any community, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Just don't forget that it was this same community that decided your house should be taken in the first place, no matter what happens to you in real life.

If you felt like doing some reading on reclamation and how the community responded, here are a few links.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...E!!!-Thank-you!
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...NOT-a-solution.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...sing-announced

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Originally Posted by Neira

That's nice of you to say, but I'm not sure I would go that far. Like any community, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Just don't forget that it was this same community that decided your house should be taken in the first place, no matter what happens to you in real life.

If you felt like doing some reading on reclamation and how the community responded, here are a few links.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...E!!!-Thank-you!
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...NOT-a-solution.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...sing-announced

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I really don't think it was necessary to try to rile up the OP by pointing out that players (yes even myself) agreed with Housing reclaim. It comes off like starting a witch hunt. Just because some of us agree with the process doesn't mean we can't empathize.

Your post implies that anyone who might have agreed with the reclamation system is a "bad" part of the community; which is simply not the case.

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

I really don't think it was necessary to try to rile up the OP by pointing out that players (yes even myself) agreed with Housing reclaim. It comes off like starting a witch hunt. Just because some of us agree with the process doesn't mean we can't empathize.

Your post implies that anyone who might have agreed with the reclamation system is a "bad" part of the community; which is simply not the case.

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"Your house should be taken away."
"Oh, I'm sorry your house was taken away."

You can keep your damn empathy.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

"Your house should be taken away." "Those of us that agree with housing reclamation realize that the current housing model is a finite resource (for numerous factors that some don't agree with) that many players are wanting to take advantage of, so we understand the current necessity of recycling properties from inactive to active users."

You can keep your damn empathy.

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I fixed it for you.

My original point still stands. This shouldn't be turned into a witch hunt against players who agree with Housing Reclamation, nor should we be considered a "bad" part of the community for those views.

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Originally Posted by Syrehn

I fixed it for you.

My original point still stands. This shouldn't be turned into a witch hunt against players who agree with Housing Reclamation, nor should we be considered a "bad" part of the community for those views.

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Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer. I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer.

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While I personally wouldn't mind if the decay timer was extended a bit I don't necessarily think that it's too short. That being said I do think that the item reclaim period should be longer than it currently is so that in the event that a house is demolished the items will still be accessible for a longer length of time.

The purpose of my initial quoting of Neira wasn't to drag the for vs. against argument into this thread. It was to point out that we don't need to start a glorified witch hunt against players that agreed with housing reclamation, nor do we need to imply that they are bad players because their views are different from those who were against it.

Up to page 1 this was such a nice thread....

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer. I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

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The timer is always going to be too short for someone - someone will always show up just after their property is reclaimed.

Just 2 and a half months after the first "Free Login" period we're now having a second one. Between the frequency of that event and the reasonable 45 day timer, it's really difficult to lose a property unless you're just not paying attention to this game anymore - and those are the types of people property should be reclaimed from. Now, I personally feel that there should be more than enough property for every player on the server, but that's not how it works and housing reclamation is one way of making that ugly flaw easier to put up with.

The original poster received advanced notice in December, and that was the same month we had the first "Free Login" event. It would have been simple for him to set three minutes aside to login, walk in his house, and log off. The issue for him was that financial woes made it impossible for him to subscribe to WTFast, and he can't log into the game without it - that's a pretty specific combination of problems, one I doubt most will have as a hurdle in keeping their virtual homes. He also lives in California and shouldn't need WTFast just to connect to the FFXIV servers, and that's what ultimately bit him in the rear - a problem that has nothing to do with housing reclamation and a technical issue that he probably should have resolved long ago (rather than relied on WTFast).

As for placing a limit on how long the Resident Caretaker holds reclaimed furniture - that's on Square. I really doubt any player suggested placing a time-limit on furniture storage. Rather, that's SE's way of encouraging people to sub-up. Still, you're looking at 45 days before someone loses the property, and then an additional 35 days before they lose the furniture.. a total of 80 days to take a moment to load FFXIV up is pretty generous, especially when they're throwing in "Free Login" periods every 75 days.

Ummm ok page 2 is starting to look bad.... To the OP, maybe if you have a friend with a house you could be their tenant you can still get the benefits of a house depending on what they allow you to do.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

The original poster received advanced notice in December, and that was the same month we had the first "Free Login" event. It would have been simple for him to set three minutes aside to login, walk in his house, and log off. The issue for him was that financial woes made it impossible for him to subscribe to WTFast, and he can't log into the game without it - that's a pretty specific combination of problems, one I doubt most will have as a hurdle in keeping their virtual homes. He also lives in California and shouldn't need WTFast just to connect to the FFXIV servers, and that's what ultimately bit him in the rear - a problem that has nothing to do with housing reclamation and a technical issue that he probably should have resolved long ago (rather than relied on WTFast).

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Still would have lost his house, as I did. Thankfully, my personal house was only a small house; my large is an FC house that I asked a friend to take care of for me with an alt. Had my large been the one I lost, I probably wouldn't have had much desire to return.

45 days away from the game is not very long, and is still within the realm of someone who intends to continue playing the game. A longer timer would still clear out houses from those who don't intend to play anymore.

Can we turn this into a 50 page thread like the other ones were? In the great debate of the reclaim is it timer length

I do feel a little bad for starting this nonsense, but I felt worse hearing us, as the community, being complimented when this was all our fault in the first place. I'm not looking for another debate again, especially not with the infallible white knight, but I don't see how anyone can help but feel bad when someone who just lost their home and items in-game is thanking us when it's our fault in the first place. I feel bad, and I was fighting like hell to stop it, because I'm still part of the community. My personal home is still one less home that was available, which made more potential people who were clamoring for houses at any cost.

We were all responsible for making this happen, whether we supported reclamation or not. Even prior to reclamation, I was trying to get new homes added, so with the concept of reclamation being thrown out by some users and other users like myself asking for more homes for the game, I was also in a roundabout way encouraging this system. The most any of us can do at this point is try to urge SE to get rid of the system or try to help those who came back to no home. The first ten posts were good, and I'm sorry if people feel like I ruined the topic with post eleven. It wasn't my intent to fan the flames, I just felt bad reading what they said.

Some may view 45 days as generous but it really is not a long time at all. It's a bit unheard of to me for an MMO to take things from you after that short a time frame and other games I have played just have your house sit there indefinitely (EQ2, Aion if you have a free house.). Even when games had taken things from people, it was under strict circumstances like characters who have not logged in for a year and were also under level 6.

I wasn't following FFXIV news and system updates that closely because to be honest, I had more important and more stressful things going on than FFXIV patch notes when I couldn't subscribe. But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact. The reward for SquareEnix is their return to the game when they start to miss it.

This is the first time in 17 years of MMOs that I lost something in a game for being away for a few months. When I received the email around Christmas, I figured I could at least get my house items back and some of the Gil when I had money to spend on games again. When I learned that was gone too, I was very tempted to petition to refund my subscription and Heavensward purchase.

I understand that the housing system in this game is not well thought out and they want to keep housing as a perk for the most active players only. Well, most presently active - I'm sure that there were newer people who spent less money on the game than I have who also wanted houses. I can accept losing my house but they should mail back your Gil and house items. I see no reason why items and Gil couldn't sit in your mailbox until you can return. I can't honestly believe that SquareEnix can't afford the bandwidth for this when players can already craft limitless number of items to remain in the persistent world.

I'll never forget this experience and it will forever be a black mark on this game for me. I'll never forget that they took pretty much 90% of all the Gil I ever made while simultaneously sending me marketing emails to give them real-life money again.

As for the community - I don't blame people, for wanting a house. I want a house again. I blame SE for coming up with the system it did that created community in-fighting for unnecessarily scarce housing.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

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I'll be blunt, anyone who supports the current housing system is in denial at how bad it truly is.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Some may view 45 days as generous but it really is not a long time at all. It's a bit unheard of to me for an MMO to take things from you after that short a time frame and other games I have played just have your house sit there indefinitely (EQ2, Aion if you have a free house.). Even when games had taken things from people, it was under strict circumstances like characters who have not logged in for a year and were also under level 6.

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SE used to delete FFXI characters if the owner went 90 days without paying a subscription. Think about that.. the amount of effort that goes into developing a character can be pretty significant. I know.. I lost several that way.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I wasn't following FFXIV news and system updates that closely because to be honest, I had more important and more stressful things going on than FFXIV patch notes when I couldn't subscribe. But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact. The reward for SquareEnix is their return to the game when they start to miss it.

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While it makes sense from a retention standpoint to keep non-subscriber character data intact, in reality developers are under no obligation to do so once you stop subscribing to their service. And if you are paying an active subscription, you just need to make sure you log in once every 45 days to keep your virtual home (as that's a required part of the housing mechanics now).

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Originally Posted by Neira

..but I don't see how anyone can help but feel bad when someone who just lost their home and items in-game is thanking us when it's our fault in the first place.

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If you're implying the community should feel guilty about this, I'll be totally honest: I don't. Not even a little, and that's because the developers are grown ups who can make their own decision. If they choose to respond to a complaint from the community.. that's on them. Heaven knows they cherry pick which complaints to respond to.. they've given us everything from flying turtles mounts (who complained about turtles not being able to fly?), yet not a day goes by where players aren't complaining about inventory space issues - funny how that goes nowhere, but thank goodness for those apparently highly-requested flying turtles SE insists the players wanted..!

Point is, SE's mind was made up on this and what the community wants or doesn't want impacts very little. Housing reclamation was less about doing players a favor and more about increasing the amount of subscription fees going into SE's pocket. On "reclamation day" the properties which opened up on my server vanished within 60 seconds. Most people who want a home still don't have one.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I'll never forget this experience and it will forever be a black mark on this game for me. I'll never forget that they took pretty much 90% of all the Gil I ever made while simultaneously sending me marketing emails to give them real-life money again.

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I can certainly understand the frustration there. But at least they did send you multiple notifications via email regarding your housing, despite the fact that you were no longer paying them any money.

It can be worse - for example, long ago I used to play Funcom's "Anarchy Online", and besides my main character and high level alts, I had a lot of low level characters that I used as storage mules for excess equipment/items. I took a lengthy break from the game but continued to pay my subscription fee the entire time - I never let it lapse. When I returned I found all my low level characters had been deleted as part of a name-reclamation inactivity purge (congrats to whomever was looking to free up much desired names like "ArmorAndWeaponStorage"). These were characters filled with items I invested a lot of time in acquiring - data I was paying money to Funcom every month to keep safe.. all gone.

When I complained about it and asked for that data to be restored, I was denied and told that an announcement/warning had been present on the game's launcher for a month. I tried to explain that people don't tend to fire up the launchers for games they're taking a break from, but Funcom's support just didn't see the logic in that. They never even felt the need to send out a warning via email before deleting the characters, although they had no problems with frequently spamming my mailbox with advertisements to try other Funcom products. They got my money and they still screwed me.

And that's why I don't touch Funcom's games anymore. Now, you might feel the same way here, but at least SE made efforts to notify you - and you weren't even paying them to keep you in the loop. So, yeah, as black a mark this might seem for you, that mark has room to be a whole lot blacker.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

SE used to delete FFXI characters if the owner went 90 days without paying a subscription.

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You say used to. As in they stopped doing it? I'm pretty sure they did, since I spent years away without losing my character before. So, a MMO released in 2003(13 years ago), stopped deleting characters who were inactive... when? A decade ago? Longer? Why is that used as an argument as if it's still a valid practice for modern day MMOs? It's about the same as people saying how great our housing is compared to Ultima Online; the extra irony about that one is in my signature.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

SE used to delete FFXI characters if the owner went 90 days without paying a subscription...
...at least SE made efforts to notify you - and you weren't even paying them to keep you in the loop. So, yeah, as black a mark this might seem for you, that mark has room to be a whole lot blacker.

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I get what you are saying, it could certainly be a lot worse. However, that doesn't make this right or fair.

It's great to see other players coming forward to offer help but it is also pretty sad they have to.

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Originally Posted by Neira

You say used to. As in they stopped doing it? I'm pretty sure they did, since I spent years away without losing my character before. So, a MMO released in 2003(13 years ago), stopped deleting characters who were inactive... when? A decade ago? Longer? Why is that used as an argument as if it's still a valid practice for modern day MMOs? It's about the same as people saying how great our housing is compared to Ultima Online; the extra irony about that one is in my signature.

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I think SE stopped regularly deleting inactive FFXI accounts roughly 8 years ago (although past that date they still made no guarantees your data would be kept intact beyond 90 days).

Even to this day many MMOs will delete data (namely names - consider how crazy players can be about retaining those) of inactive users to free them up for active players. Blizzard just finished a purge in WoW towards the end of 2015. So, yes, it's still a very valid practice.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

I get what you are saying, it could certainly be a lot worse. However, that doesn't make this right or fair.

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I don't think "right" or "fair" are the proper terms to use here. That would be like me saying that I don't think it's right or fair that (insert undesirable FFXIV mechanic here) exists. If they didn't call it housing reclamation, they could have simply had a very reasonable system where characters were required to pay property taxes on their land every 45 RL days (that's about every 2 1/2 years in Eorzea time) - that would still require you to log in every 45 days to keep your house. We could call it it "inconvenient" or "annoying", but it's no less "right" or "fair" than anything from DPS-checks to dungeon penalty lock-out timers.

There are plenty of things in FFXIV that are not "right" or "fair" - like not being able to send mail or share a house with your alternate characters, or the fact that a major feature like housing is not available to every subscriber that wants one. I don't count the 45 day activity requirements as part of that, though. Just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I think SE stopped regularly deleting inactive FFXI accounts roughly 8 years ago (although past that date they still made no guarantees your data would be kept intact beyond 90 days).

Even to this day many MMOs will delete data (namely names - consider how crazy players can be about retaining those) of inactive users to free them up for active players. Blizzard just finished a purge in WoW towards the end of 2015. So, yes, it's still a very valid practice.

I don't think "right" or "fair" are the proper terms to use here. That would be like me saying that I don't think it's right or fair that (insert undesirable FFXIV mechanic here) exists. If they didn't call it housing reclamation, they could have simply had a very reasonable system where characters were required to pay property taxes on their land every 45 RL days (that's about every 2 1/2 years in Eorzea time) - that would still require you to log in every 45 days to keep your house. We could call it it "inconvenient" or "annoying", but it's no less "right" or "fair" than anything from DPS-checks to dungeon penalty lock-out timers.

There are plenty of things in FFXIV that are not "right" or "fair" - like not being able to send mail or share a house with your alternate characters, or the fact that a major feature like housing is not available to every subscriber that wants one. I don't count the 45 day activity requirements as part of that, though. Just my opinion.

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I don't think using WOW as an example is really that strong, so let's provide more information about this example why don't we. I don't play WOW, but Googled World of Warcraft Name Purge and saw a post from Blizzard, in 2015, warning people who had not logged in since 2010. That is not a typo. That is not "a couple months earlier in 2015." It's literally after nearly 5 years of inactivity.

Also you don't want to use words like "right" or "fair" while simultaneously putting words into others' mouths like "obligation." It's not about "obligation" or requirement, it's about doing right by your customer base so they remain customers. And while it's great that they sent me an email warning me about the imminent removal of my house, let's not do cartwheels with applause here - the message was actually quite clear - "you better pay a subscription, and pay a subscription every other month, or we'll be taking something from you."

This is far different than WOW's "hey you haven't logged in for 5 years...we are going to assume you moved on and release your old names."

SE has not change the way it does business since the days of XI, so the stuff they do in XIV does not surprise me. SE can be ruthless.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I don't think using WOW as an example is really that strong, so let's provide more information about this example why don't we. I don't play WOW, but Googled World of Warcraft Name Purge and saw a post from Blizzard, in 2015, warning people who had not logged in since 2010. That is not a typo. That is not "a couple months earlier in 2015." It's literally after nearly 5 years of inactivity.

Also you don't want to use words like "right" or "fair" while simultaneously putting words into others' mouths like "obligation." It's not about "obligation" or requirement, it's about doing right by your customer base so they remain customers. And while it's great that they sent me an email warning me about the imminent removal of my house, let's not do cartwheels with applause here - the message was actually quite clear - "you better pay a subscription, and pay a subscription every other month, or we'll be taking something from you."

This is far different than WOW's "hey you haven't logged in for 5 years...we are going to assume you moved on and release your old names."

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Is it? The very first thing I said in this thread was "The timer is always going to be too short for someone - someone will always show up just after their property is reclaimed.", and that applies here. 45 days, 5 years.. to the player who decided to return to the game the result is the same - something of theirs is gone, something they felt should have remained safe despite not paying the company a dime in the interim to keep it so, and they're going to be upset and less excited about the prospect of returning to said game.

I also already said "While it makes sense from a retention standpoint to keep non-subscriber character data intact, in reality developers are under no obligation to do so once you stop subscribing to their service.", meaning I get where you're coming from about keeping a product appealing to potential returning customers. However, your statement was "..But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact..", and I disagree with that. It's certainly your right to take a break, and you can hope your data will be kept intact while you're gone, but developers are not obligated to do so once you decide to stop paying them. If it was a system that required paying property taxes in-game every 45 days instead, would you be looking at it any differently? Either way you'd still be required to log in every 45 days.

For the record, "Landmark" (aka "Everquest Next Landmark") required upkeep every month or your plot would be deleted - and getting a desirable plot in that game could be pretty hard. And that's a game that started within the past two years. It didn't start with that feature, but it was added after they realized a) space was limited and b) having inactive neighbors made the game less fun for active players.

Look, I'm with you on the 35 day time limit on retaining your goods at the Resident Caretaker. It stinks that it's not much, much longer than that. Then again, this is the company that can't spare any more storage space for the inventories of paying subscribers, so I'm not sure what we can honestly expect here. But let's be realistic about this - rough period of time or not, it would have taken you three minutes of your time to log in and save your property during the "Free Login" event. You didn't/couldn't because a) you weren't aware of the event (let's call that Square's bad, as they should probably be sending out emails about those) and b) your connection relies on (for whatever reason) WTFast - a technical issue that exists on your end, one I hope you have since resolved rather than just relying on paying for third-party software as a fix, and one that would have prevented you from logging in even if Square had mailed you an advertisement regarding the "Free Login" event. So, there's plenty of blame to go around here if you're being honest about it.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Then again, this is the company that can't won't spare any more storage space for the inventories of paying subscribers, so I'm not sure what we can honestly expect here.

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Fixed that for you.

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For the record, "Landmark" (aka "Everquest Next Landmark") required upkeep every month or your plot would be deleted - and getting a desirable plot in that game could be pretty hard. And that's a game that started within the past two years. It didn't start with that feature, but it was added after they realized a) space was limited and b) having inactive neighbors made the game less fun for active players.

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Required; past tense. From what I just read about that game, you only need to log in to keep it, and it gives you up to 90 days. This is far more reasonable than 45.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Required; past tense. From what I just read about that game, you only need to log in to keep it, and it gives you up to 90 days. This is far more reasonable than 45.

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Actually it's more complicated (and far less reasonable) than you're letting on. Initially upkeep in Landmark required the gathering and donating of resources, but that system has since changed. Now it's more akin to a time bank.

New players can only be offline for 7 days before losing their claim on a piece of land. For everyone else, for every 2 days you log in you'll get 1 additional day of protection against land reclamation (up to a maximum of 90 days). So, you actually have to log in every day for 6 months to protect your claim for 3 months. That is a LOT more inconvenient than just requiring someone to enter their home once every 45 days.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Actually it's more complicated (and far less reasonable) than you're letting on. Initially upkeep in Landmark required the gathering and donating of resources, but that system has since changed. Now it's more akin to a time bank.

New players can only be offline for 7 days before losing their claim on a piece of land. For everyone else, for every 2 days you log in you'll get 1 additional day of protection against land reclamation (up to a maximum of 90 days). So, you actually have to log in every day for 6 months to protect your claim for 3 months. That is a LOT more inconvenient than just requiring someone to enter their home once every 45 days.

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Point still remains that you can have up to 90 days. We have no such option here no matter what we do.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Point still remains that you can have up to 90 days. We have no such option here no matter what we do.

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Yes, in Landmark you can accrue up to 90 days of time banked provided you are willing to log in every day for 180 days prior. Where as here you must log in once every 45 days. Pick your poison - 180 days of logging in for 90 days of protection, or 1 day of logging in for 45 days of protection. I definitely prefer the latter.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Yes, in Landmark you can accrue up to 90 days of time banked provided you are willing to log in every day for 180 days prior. Where as here you must log in once every 45 days. Pick your poison - 180 days of logging in for 90 days of protection, or 1 day of logging in for 45 days of protection. I definitely prefer the latter.

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The 90 day option.

I'd maybe be okay with 45 days if you didn't lose furniture that can't be removed, and if your items and gil were held for at least 180 days.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

The 90 day option.

I'd maybe be okay with 45 days if you didn't lose furniture that can't be removed, and if your items and gil were held for at least 180 days.

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Like someone said before the time will always be short for someone, hold if for 180 days (6 months) a person comes back in the 7 month and be unhappy that all their stuff is gone. 45 days may be too short yes but I still would only bump it to 60 days.

Just a few quick points:

1. WTFast - I don't really want to get much into an argument about WTFast. There were numerous threads in 2014 about this problem from multiple users, and I participated in some of those threads. The end result was that SquareEnix would tell people to contact their ISPs and then the ISPs would tell people to contact SquareEnix. It was a loop resulting in no solutions. Some said they were leaving the game, I just accepted I needed to keep buying WTFast to play this. Other games I can log into without WTFast: Everything else. (EQ, EQ2, Aion, Tera, The Secret World, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, any steam game, etc.) I also changed computers since 2014 and the issue remained with FFXIV (and only FFXIV). It's not that relevant to this discussion though to the greater issues at hand.

2. 45 Days v. 5 years. Are you really arguing that these are the same? This is ridiculous to me. There is a huge difference from someone taking a break of a few months and someone who showed no interest in logging in for 5 years. Yes it's a slippery-slope type argument but this argument is clearly a throw-away as written.

3. Obligations. I'll agree again that they aren't obligated or required to do anything. They can shut the game down tomorrow if they felt like it and we wouldn't have anything we could really say about it. But they should have thought this out much better. I've been a Square fan since Final Fantasy I on the NES and have purchased pretty much every game in the series, in addition to other products they sell. I even just bought the collectors edition of heavensward for $60. How they choose to handle their good will is on them. If I knew what was really happening before resubbing I would have walked away and not returned. (I'd probably still buy FFXV though...we'll see.)

4. Landmark: Is this really relevant? The game isn't even officially released yet and comparing expectations for Betas isn't comparable to games that have been released for several years. Also we all know that Daybreak has a huge mess on its hands right now with the cancellation of EQNext and is pretty much not a company to look to if you are trying to avoid PR nightmares.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Just a few quick points:

1. WTFast - I don't really want to get much into an argument about WTFast. There were numerous threads in 2014 about this problem from multiple users, and I participated in some of those threads. The end result was that SquareEnix would tell people to contact their ISPs and then the ISPs would tell people to contact SquareEnix. It was a loop resulting in no solutions. Some said they were leaving the game, I just accepted I needed to keep buying WTFast to play this. Other games I can log into without WTFast: Everything else. (EQ, EQ2, Aion, Tera, The Secret World, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, any steam game, etc.) I also changed computers since 2014 and the issue remained with FFXIV (and only FFXIV). It's not that relevant to this discussion though to the greater issues at hand.

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I find it fairly relevant as it's ultimately what stopped you from logging in and saving your house during the "Free Login" event. You're in California.. not the moon; you shouldn't need WTFast to log into Final Fantasy. I can understand using it to help with latency issues, but simply logging into the game is something you should be able to do without it. If the problem persists through multiple computers the issue may either with your ISP or your network hardware (e.g. router, modem, etc). It's your call whether you're interested in chasing down a real solution or allowing yourself to be dependent on WTFast, however the latter is obviously one more thing that can (and did) get in your way.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

2. 45 Days v. 5 years. Are you really arguing that these are the same? This is ridiculous to me. There is a huge difference from someone taking a break of a few months and someone who showed no interest in logging in for 5 years. Yes it's a slippery-slope type argument but this argument is clearly a throw-away as written.

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Again, I'm saying that whether it's 45 days, 90 days, a year or 5 years the time limit will always be too short for someone's taste. A lot of players returned to WoW for the latest expansion, even after being gone for many years.. so yes, people do return (even in droves) after extended absences and want to find their characters intact. Heck, I returned, found my character had become bugged during my absence, and Blizzard was unwilling/able to fix it because of the amount of time that had passed. That was the last straw for me and I said "bye-bye" again for good.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

4. Landmark: Is this really relevant? The game isn't even officially released yet and comparing expectations for Betas isn't comparable to games that have been released for several years. Also we all know that Daybreak has a huge mess on its hands right now with the cancellation of EQNext and is pretty much not a company to look to if you are trying to avoid PR nightmares.

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Landmark was mentioned (and relevant) because it's a very recent example, and some are implying that deleting character data/content is a relic of the past that companies simply don't do anymore. That obviously isn't accurate.

Anyway, SE is about to add new wards again and it should be easy to get a house provided you're ready to pounce on them. There still won't be enough for everyone, though, and that continues to be an unacceptable problem (I feel). In your shoes I would honestly be much more upset with and focused on the 35 day timer for furniture storage of evicted landowners - that's really what set you back more than anything.

Quick responses:

WTFast: You haven't lived with the problem and people already wasted many hours of their lives "chasing a real solution" to no avail. Some left the game and others like myself just pay the $6 surcharge on accessing only this game whereas every other game in existence works fine. What actually stopped me from logging in was losing my job, burning through my entire 401(k), maxing my credit cards, having a tax bill on my hands from withdrawing my 401(k), my landlord increasing the rent $400.00 a month mid-year, needing to move from the city I lived in for 11 years because I can no longer afford it, and hoping to scrounge some way to buy token gifts for the children in my life for Christmas. Responding to what felt like a mean-spirited email over the holidays from SE about taking my in-game house was not a priority. Anyway this is not really relevant to housing so moving on.

Timing: You yourself wrote that your experience with WoW was your last straw and you won't be returning. And this was after an extended absence. This type of behavior becomes increasingly unreasonable the shorter the absence, and game companies should think more carefully when making these decisions. I'm pretty sure that 45 days is the most punitive system amongst it's peers.

Landmark: Still disagree - I don't find it relevant. Landmark is not a released game and purges/wipes are a common practice for pre-release games. This is not so common for paid subscription games that are post-release, and not without very careful and usually very generous requirements that need to be met before losing things.

New Housing: I'm angry with the entire system. I was left with pretty much nothing. The very last thing I did before taking a break was adding more decorations to my yard and buying rugs for the interior. I have 100K Gil and I doubt I will have enough for a house when the new wards come. I'm sure by the time I do, they will be gone. I was only able to afford a house by selling every single quest reward / materia I got my hands on, and this took a lot of time for me.