Housing FATEs / Seasonal Content (Possible Chocobo Racing, etc)

Just thought it would be neat to see housing areas have some content in them to encourage their neighborhood feelings (give people a further reason to hang out in the area a bit more). That's not to say I've changed my desire (pipe dream) on an instanced personal zone but I feel if these places are going to be neighborhoods that they could get a bit more stuff into them like that.

So a few ideas:

• Do more of the seasonal events in the housing areas, like the christmas event has been. Perhaps a little lady presentation can be in one of the housing ward stage sets (or across multiple). Finding eggs and such. Although I did quite like the valentine maze and so I'd of course like to continue to see other design/concepts for events (not exclusively now in housing areas, just consider doing it more often there). Another example might be you could add a mochi fate to the shores of Mist or something like that.
  
• Chocobo racing, I think you could plot a functional chocobo racing circuit in the housing areas. Ideally the racers will show up to everyone, so you could enter the zone with a live race going on, but the racers wouldn't see anyone but each other (for quality racing). Set up and queue could be over a few minutes so like when the FATE is announced over 5 minutes the racing decorations are put up and the amount of people in the housing area could add a few more crowds at the corner (to make it feel more dynamic). If too many people sign up then there will be staged starts, so group A starts at 0min and B at 1min and so forth (so it isn't a big mess at the start).
  
• Where's waldo sort of event, except make it a cute creature like a moogle, chocobo, or what have you. The creature will be hidden in the housing area randomly, perhaps based on housing settings also in people's houses. Egg hunt could be using these mechanics too. May need hints or some sort of hot / cold mechanic radar, so it's more than just random luck (easy to turn frustrating if too hard).
  
• Might be too difficult but I could imagine a very loosely balanced "kids just having fun" pvp mode could open up. Like you imagine kids playing forts and stuff in the neighborhood, here there would be powerups, cannons, waves of monsters, fast paced low respawn, not to be taken too seriously. Maybe silly stuff like body cannons even lol (fires you out of a cannon).
  
• Alternatively to PvP could also have a hamlet lite sort of event (crafters/gatherers generating, repairing, and enhancing npc resources while DoW/DoM protect houses and attack the incoming wave). Would have to set it up as perhaps a training exercise though, or the world is really going to Thal in a hand basket... lol.
  
• Snowball fight during winter/season events and squirt gun/water fight during the summer seasons/events. The weather could change suddenly for both like wind chill sweeps in and then suddenly there is snow on the ground and you can now join the snowball fight. These are more simple "pvp" goof offs than above so I think more likely to be possible. Also maybe consider the seasonal / swim wear comes with stat bonuses, just for fun and to get people wearing the outfits (so everyone is in their swimwear for example). Like a certain bikini could give you double the water capacity, the other making them fire faster, or twice the cone, goofy fun stuff (and even if you lose or win it's not as important since it's a FATE where participation is the important part).
  
• Halloween could have to do with visiting houses and placing some haunted item there (if the house is open to the public), trick or treating could be a thing too. An example might be you can either play part of the house team and "defend" the houses from the trick or treaters by giving them bullet hell (aoe city) and the treaters have to get to the door of houses and take candy (and they'll have a few abilities like heal ally, dash forward, etc).

It's not an all inclusive list of course, just some ball rolling ideas. Thought housing should have some random events occasionally to make people hang out a bit more there. If rather than all the time it could be more like seasonal/rotational events, like one week is chocobo week and all the housing areas celebrate chocobo racing (like a reward from the fate race could be double chocobo racing exp at the saucer, and things related to chocobos). Then for the hamlet lite or whatever could be similarly pre-planned events on a longer cycle which might help encourage larger number turnout (rather than 1 every hour), "Limsa will be testing Mist defenses with the assistance of the Sahagin next month!".

Further on the chocobo racing it could be housing kicks off the chocobo week, and each zone (Mist, Goblet, etc) has a day that they host the event and then it goes open world too. I think that could be fun :).

Most of the content should be fine with just a small group of people, AI/NPCs filling out what needs to be but if there is something that just doesn't work without a few more then can also include a way for people to select the more populated wards to do their content in (like the FATE npc or someone who just ports you to a place that has enough people to hang out).

Edit: Another way to consider these events is an NPC Event Organizer that players could initialize an event from, much like some FATEs just hang around until started. In this way there is a greater chance that when it's going there are people there to do it.

Thanks for reading :)

Dyvid - Park/Community Area with construction/Doma rebuild mechanics.

They did an event in the wards with one of the Christmas events, don't remember which year though. But with all the wards it may not be as lively as you think

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Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

They did an event in the wards with one of the Christmas events, don't remember which year though. But with all the wards it may not be as lively as you think

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Yeah I mentioned that one :P. I don't think it'll be hundred of people but it would be nice to see.. people.. lol. For the sake of it supposedly being a neighborhood, trying to enhance that value at least :3.

Edit: It was the 2014 one, wewh that was a while ago xD. https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/w...ebration_(2014)

There are so many people without an house that it'd feel bad for the others.

If they ever find a solution though it would be very nice! I enjoyed the Christmas event at the time

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Originally Posted by Greven

There are so many people without an house that it'd feel bad for the others.

If they ever find a solution though it would be very nice! I enjoyed the Christmas event at the time

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Hmmm I did think that might be an issue... Ideally we dont have housing problems anymore lol.

Even if everyone, without restriction of housing status, could join in that it would still salt the wounds? Personally wasn't sure it would but I did consider it might be on some minds, though I still also felt like we've stuck so hard to this neighborhood system despite it's limitations that perhaps we should at least encourage it's uniqueness (neighborhood).

We need to hurry up and get Yoshida an infinity gauntlet XD. Snap us in some limitless FFXIV memory :D.

With a total of 144 wards (including subdivisions), it would never be possible to make them all feel like active and lively neighborhoods. Players online would be too spread out over the various wards, assuming they're even participating in the event and not doing other things.

You could set up an event to take place in a particular ward/subdivsion but that's going to leave all the other wards feeling that much emptier. It just won't work.

Better for players to organize their own events for the times when they will be in their ward and not doing other things if they want their ward to feel active when they are there.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

With a total of 144 wards (including subdivisions), it would never be possible to make them all feel like active and lively neighborhoods. Players online would be too spread out over the various wards, assuming they're even participating in the event and not doing other things.

You could set up an event to take place in a particular ward/subdivsion but that's going to leave all the other wards feeling that much emptier. It just won't work.

Better for players to organize their own events for the times when they will be in their ward and not doing other things if they want their ward to feel active when they are there.

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I may have painted the vision wrong if people were thinking I meant hundreds of people in the houses at all times. However I did want to see people running around doing things in the districts, at least occasionally lol.

I also considered if they happen on interval 24/7 that it might not get too much attention which is why I said more seasonal suggestions too like having once a month a chocobo event, or things like that. Where it would draw in more people than if it was on all the time.

1st of every month excursively goblet wards have a chocobo race, so on and so forth.

I suppose in another way if these neighborhoods are supposed to be all neighborly then I think adding encouragement to that could be helpful. Perhaps rather than scheduled by SE or entirely random they can be "started" by the player at the housing organizer (like how some FATEs just stand around until someone starts them). Might get some natural groups together around that then, /shout "hey guys NPC Organizer has X available, anyone want to get the swimwear reward?" (worst case scenario they play around in the housing area with some other npcs but at least they hung out in the housing shared space lol).

In the end I guess when I read "Can't have neighborhood events, no one will do them/not enough interest for the neighborhood" I think then okay.. Why do we have neighborhoods or care for this system again? If the greatest strength of the system isn't even that "strong".. doesn't lend a lot of confidence. I guess you can say you like looking at someone's house from your lawn.. but if that's the big sell point, dunno- leaves me scratching my head (because there are a lot of costs to that, as everyone is familiar with- the limited choices and such). Of course people can meet up on your lawn manually and that can be quite cool (pre-planned get together), but that isn't really a special feature of this neighborhood system because you can do that in pretty much all the other housing systems too (most housing systems in MMOs allow you to hang out in that space together when preplanned). So it can't be that, imo- since that's not special to this system. What's special to this system is that shared housing space with other people, friends and not yet friends, and the possible connections from it (neighborhood); therefore, I think to myself that we can utilize it more.

Made the thread in attempt to encourage the neighborhood's potential vs.. dunno.. just feeling empty to me. Although I did start the thread out being honest that I preferred a personal zone since the neighborhood pinnacle value just felt like "I see your Paissa from my balcony" (not counting preplanned visits since that isn't something unique to this system), but I had thought I might be wrong if there were systems to hang out together and particularly within this shared housing space (hence point of the thread).

I have thoughts on this as well but need the time to write it. For now I'll give you a like.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I have thoughts on this as well but need the time to write it. For now I'll give you a like.

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Please expand, add new, and fine tune! :D If you think it should be in another / new thread give me a toot and I'll check it out :). I tend to be pretty good at seeing new stuff given a few hours at least but I'll be sure to notice if.. noticed lol.

So what I was wanting to see is a common area for each residential district, maybe a park. Every ward in the district would share that ame common area. Then add a system similar to Doma Rebuild that when a certain level is reach, new items would be added to that area; playground items, beach attractions, vendors, cookout, bonfires, Auction House, a stage for concert or shakespeare in the gardens, etc...

In order to rank up you would need to do Ward Active Time Event, W.A.T.E. They could be vermin control for DoW/DoM, Landscaping for DoL, or item creation for DoH.

The concept it to add more to the Housing District concept and give its residents, homeowners and apartment owners, more ownership in it's creation.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

So what I was wanting to see is a common area for each residential district, maybe a park. Every ward in the district would share that ame common area. Then add a system similar to Doma Rebuild that when a certain level is reach, new items would be added to that area; playground items, beach attractions, vendors, cookout, bonfires, Auction House, a stage for concert or shakespeare in the gardens, etc...

In order to rank up you would need to do Ward Active Time Event, W.A.T.E. They could be vermin control for DoW/DoM, Landscaping for DoL, or item creation for DoH.

The concept it to add more to the Housing District concept and give its residents, homeowners and apartment owners, more ownership in it's creation.

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Sounds awesome :). I've added it to the OP as an example of the community feature concepts.

If I get to making the FC zone concept I've vaguely referenced sometimes I might call some areas park or do something around that idea in inspiration of what you were describing here, I like that. I owe Penthea an appartment/instanced housing thread first though lol.