Can housing demolition happen now? (or add new wards please)

I know at first it was about the hurricane, and then it was the fires in California. But it's been a long time now, can demolition happen already? If not, can new wards please be added? I like my house very much but there are so many new players who can't get a house and veterans alike.

I understand turning off auto-demolition when there's a natural disaster, and I approve of it, but these things only really affect a very small area when you consider that the NA datacenters basically serve half of the planet.

It'd be nice if they could limit these timer deactivations to the areas most affected by the disaster. For example, a hurricane hits Florida... turn off auto-demolition for a while for players living in Florida, and maybe Georgia and Alabama. Absolutely; that's fair. But there's no reason it should also be automatically turned off for players living in Saskatchewan and Argentina.

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Originally Posted by BiffWellington

I understand turning off auto-demolition when there's a natural disaster, and I approve of it, but these things only really affect a very small area when you consider that the NA datacenters basically serve half of the planet.

It'd be nice if they could limit these timer deactivations to the areas most affected by the disaster. For example, a hurricane hits Florida... turn off auto-demolition for a while for players living in Florida, and maybe Georgia and Alabama. Absolutely; that's fair. But there's no reason it should also be automatically turned off for players living in Saskatchewan and Argentina.

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The problem there is that it would be highly difficult, if not outright impossible, to narrow down auto-demolition in that manner. You'd have to match player accounts to living addresses, and I don't think we're required to give that information to SE to play the game; payment data is encrypted, after all, and that's the only place that information would be required, and using it for non-payment purposes would probably fall into a legal grey area at best (not to mention that you may have accounts with separate billing addresses from where you live). Tracking ISPs wouldn't work either, as people might be using VPNs or otherwise be logging in from elsewhere, and they would likely only be able to track that info while the player is logged in anyways. And it's not like servers are assigned to specific states or countries or even regions beyond NA/EU/JP, so that isn't an option either.

Personally, I'm hopeful that they'll announce the housing demolition reactivation in NA with 4.56 later this month, but they may be holding off until after the data center shift as well, so who knows.

Edit: I forgot, we do have a place to enter our current address on our Mogstation account; that being said, we aren't required to keep it updated, so its accuracy is not guaranteed (I just checked and found my living address from last year, for example, not my current address).

They need to remove the entry into a house routine and make a paying sub the requirement for keeping a house. This current fiasco is off more than it's on and it's simply not fair to those who want houses to not have access to them from those who have stopped playing the game.

Is that so? I thought they did have access to my address. I certainly remember giving it to them, but that may indeed have been when I put in my credit card info to activate my subscription. And if they do keep payment info encrypted and inaccessible, then you've made an excellent point, Seraph.

I thought I was really onto something there, but I guess they'd already be doing that if it were so easy.

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Originally Posted by BiffWellington

Is that so? I thought they did have access to my address. I certainly remember giving it to them, but that may indeed have been when I put in my credit card info to activate my subscription. And if they do keep payment info encrypted and inaccessible, then you've made an excellent point, Seraph.

I thought I was really onto something there, but I guess they'd already be doing that if it were so easy.

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Well, I just edited my post to reflect my error, though since the address you give doesn't have to match your actual living address (I doubt they check it with USPS or a similar organization in the US, let alone other countries), it still wouldn't be a good way to ID current living addresses.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

They need to remove the entry into a house routine and make a paying sub the requirement for keeping a house. This current fiasco is off more than it's on and it's simply not fair to those who want houses to not have access to them from those who have stopped playing the game.

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That would honestly make the situation worse, not better; someone could continue paying their sub without ever actually playing the game, let alone use their house, and they would never have to relinquish it. The only real solutions are to add more wards and/or shift over to instanced housing, but SE's been mum about the issue for a while. Maybe we'll see some of that change when 5.0 drops (though that's certainly not a guarantee).

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Originally Posted by Seraph522

Well, I just edited my post to reflect my error, though since the address you give doesn't have to match your actual living address (I doubt they check it with USPS or a similar organization in the US, let alone other countries), it still wouldn't be a good way to ID current living addresses.

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I think it'd be good enough. If you give them a fake address, or fail to keep it up-to-date, then that's on you.

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Originally Posted by Seraph522

That would honestly make the situation worse, not better; someone could continue paying their sub without ever actually playing the game, let alone use their house, and they would never have to relinquish it. The only real solutions are to add more wards and/or shift over to instanced housing, but SE's been mum about the issue for a while. Maybe we'll see some of that change when 5.0 drops (though that's certainly not a guarantee).

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I agree with this. If I quit an MMO, I don't bother to end my subscription because I could come back. It basically just ends when my credit card expires and I don't bother to log in and enter my new payment info.

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Originally Posted by BiffWellington

I think it'd be good enough. If you give them a fake address, or fail to keep it up-to-date, then that's on you.

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It could also probably be abused by people; if you hear about a major disaster, and know this system is in place, you might go in and change your address to take advantage of it and avoid the demolition timer. Not to mention the number of complaints that would come from people affected by the disaster who just forgot to update it (who would be understandably outraged, especially if they discover that down the line) and people miffed about data privacy and the like. It's a good idea in theory, but I think it would create more problems and work for the development team than it would benefit; they're better off just shortening the period it remains turned off (it probably would have been fine to turn it back on back when 4.55 dropped, but they didn't for some reason).

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Originally Posted by Seraph522

It could also probably be abused by people; if you hear about a major disaster, and know this system is in place, you might go in and change your address to take advantage of it and avoid the demolition timer. Not to mention the number of complaints that would come from people affected by the disaster who just forgot to update it (who would be understandably outraged, especially if they discover that down the line) and people miffed about data privacy and the like. It's a good idea in theory, but I think it would create more problems and work for the development team than it would benefit; they're better off just shortening the period it remains turned off (it probably would have been fine to turn it back on back when 4.55 dropped, but they didn't for some reason).

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Honestly? People would complain the time NA Demo was paused wasn't as long as the JP Demo, throw a fit, and say "Were just 2nd class citizens, SE hates Na, WAHH"

Happens anytime they do something over there that doesn't make it over here.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

They need to remove the entry into a house routine and make a paying sub the requirement for keeping a house. This current fiasco is off more than it's on and it's simply not fair to those who want houses to not have access to them from those who have stopped playing the game.

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And what about someone like me, who has taken a month off now and then to take a break from the game, but I have a housing plot with my fiance that I stayed up for to get when the housing was relinquished. I don't want to lose my house because I need a break from the game for a month and don't want to pay for just that alone.

I can't imagine having to take off auto-demolition for more than three months after a natural disaster. This is coming from someone who lives somewhere with horrific flood seasons.

I totally appreciate the concept, but as global warming happens, there's going to be more and more natural disasters and there is going to be more and more disruptions to access of services. The pause on auto-demolition has to be much shorter than they have it now. Alternatively, for account holders with active subscriptions, maybe let them halt auto-demolition with the Companion App. I can 100% understand not being able to have access to a PC or PS4 during difficult times; been there myself. Though we also need to be more pragmatic and realistic.

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Originally Posted by Seraph522

It could also probably be abused by people; if you hear about a major disaster, and know this system is in place, you might go in and change your address to take advantage of it and avoid the demolition timer. Not to mention the number of complaints that would come from people affected by the disaster who just forgot to update it (who would be understandably outraged, especially if they discover that down the line) and people miffed about data privacy and the like. It's a good idea in theory, but I think it would create more problems and work for the development team than it would benefit; they're better off just shortening the period it remains turned off (it probably would have been fine to turn it back on back when 4.55 dropped, but they didn't for some reason).

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A few people would probably abuse that, yeah, but not very many. If you don't care enough to log into the game anymore, you probably also don't care enough to monitor all incoming natural disasters on this side of the planet and quickly log into the website to input a new fake address, either.

As for the people who actually moved and just didn't update their addresses, again, that's on them. Maybe a blurb could be added to the ToS to cover this.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

And what about someone like me, who has taken a month off now and then to take a break from the game, but I have a housing plot with my fiance that I stayed up for to get when the housing was relinquished. I don't want to lose my house because I need a break from the game for a month and don't want to pay for just that alone.

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I could see them being fine for 90 days or so. Anything after that, the plots should become available.

Honestly I'd be fine with more wards. Though I wish we could either have instanced housing, upgradable houses/apartments or something changed. It sucks that it's such a rat race to even go from a small to a medium and if you wanted a mansion.... forget it. (and that's if your lucky enough to get a house)

I went to a medium plot that just came up a while back and it was swamped by people all waiting like hungry sharks all waiting to be the fastest taker in the Goblet.

I wish the demolition would be started up again. It seems almost impossible to find any new houses anymore. Perhaps a change in the time - instead of 45 days, at 45 days send out an email, and if you don't address it within 2 weeks, your house is gone (so total 60 days).

Yes, please allow demolition. When they do, demo the houses that should have been demoed immediately.

I want my medium plot and I want it now lol. :p

In all seriousness I do want a medium to open up, which I think (hope, pray to the gods in charge ... etc.) will happen with the world transfers.

I do feel for those involved in natural disasters, and they should be given a "brief" reprieve from having to worry about logging in. After 6 months though, it is time to bring back the demo's.

I understand rebuilding a home takes longer than 6 months, but finding access to the internet/game and taking the 2 minutes to log in and get into the house can be done while waiting for insurance/contractors and what not, to do their thing.

Adding Instanced housing would also fix the issue. I am not tech savy to know how this works, but I do not understand why they have not implemented instanced housing yet.

Or we could stop asking for demolition and instead demand a better housing system that wouldn't require players to essentially pay rent with a sub and entering their house. If there was proper instanced housing none of this housing drama or grief would exist.