Square Enix removed my house when I used it every day, said "oh well"

I have been having a horrible experience with support for over a month now.

As many of us can attest to, the pain of waiting by a house hours, even days, is extremely exhausting. I spent my fair share of time trying to get a house, and poured millions of Gil into the house itself and decorations.

I use my house everyday because I am an active crafter and it is where I can go to lock myself away and get things done. Therefore, I enter and interact with my house every single day, going no more than a day or two without visiting my home.

I received an auto-demolition notice in December while I was sitting inside my house crafting. Odd, but maybe I needed to interact with my house retainers or move furniture around? So I did so.

Nope. When the demolition was up, I logged in, and it was gone. Everything I spent my time and money on just disappeared.

I spent the next month fighting with SE support. They asked me many questions about the situation, and I answered. After weeks of this, they started sending me generic bug report forms. I responded saying that I didn't want to fill this out as I have provided much of this information - mind you, this is a report that literally asks you for every part used in your PC among many other things. It is not a simple form, they used this to divert taking responsibility by having me fill a form out and then closing the issue.

Their response? They resent the bug form again. Nothing else. A slap in the face, really. They continued to send me automated messages.

I have been pouring money into this game for 3 years, and I am so disappointed in how SE handled this and how an issue on their end affected so much of my time and money. They refused to help rectify the situation so my last resort is to come here, hoping someone will hear what I'm saying and fix this issue.

If anyone else has experience with a demolition of their house when they used it daily or had a very bad experience with SE support, please share. I am really discouraged as a couple of their responses could have translated to "oh well" if you really read what they were saying. Now I'm afraid of getting a new house when their system could decide to delete it at any time, and I would get no help from support.

If this really is a bug, which it sounds like it is, you should definitely be filling out those bug report forms so that the proper people can get in touch with what happened and hopefully stop it from happening in the future.

That being said, I don't think support can restore your house? If someone else has already purchased the plot then that'd be unfair to that other player to lose the plot as well. If it hasn't been 30-something days since it was demolished, you should at least be able to get the furnishing and some gil back from one of the housing NPCs. In the future, I've also read that in the timers menu you can see if the demolition warning is still active. If you can't make it go away, it's definitely worth contacting support well before the timer is up.

It's really unfortunate, but I don't think there's very much more support can do for you besides point you to the bug reporting forms.

That is frustrating. While I am sure you did something similar, did you have any records of your being in your house, before and after the notice? Also to you calculate the value of money spent on the house. At least if they can't grant you the house back, maybe they can compansate you for the issue. As frustrating as it is I wouldn't let it ruin your other experiences. Or at least try to not let it ruin them.

I've heard of this happening before. Unfortunately, no matter what you do you'll not get your house back as the plot is already likely long gone. What you can do is fill out the dumb form and request full compensation for everything you lost. Gil, items, ect. They should be willing to work with you. Submit and in-game ticket to speak to a GM about it and see what your options are as well.

Were you on the character that purchased the house, or on an alt? Alts, even those on the same account iirc, don't reset the demolition timer.

First, was it actually your house or was it purchased by a friend that made you a tenant while you contributed to the purchase price and buying furnishings? I know a lot of players who are only tenants but consider a shared house "theirs" because they contributed gil to the costs. As a tenant, you do not reset the demo timer by entering the house. Only entry by the character listed as the owner on the placard will do that. Not even other characters on the same account will reset it.

Second, why did you not contact SE as soon as you received the first demolition notice? You could have opened a ticket and had a GM witness that you were actually in the house without the demo timer resetting.

Finally, GM are not programmers. The bug report is for the programmers who investigate to determine the cause of the problem. They have specific information they need to investigate things, even if some of that information might seem irrelevant to you. Always complete a bug report when requested to the best of your ability.

Instead of arguing with them (which accomplishes nothing), complete the bug report. If SE can determine that the loss of the house was an error on their end, they may choose to give you some form of compensation though you will not be able to get the house back. Your refusal to provide the information prevents them from investigating so they have no reason to compensate you.

I'm sorry but this might have been avoided if you had submitted a support ticket as soon as you got the first demolition notice. Better to take steps to get something fixed when the first signs appear than to wait until the problem becomes too big to be fixed.

Hilarious how every time someone talks about this, they lack any sort of evidence.

I have had nightmares with in game support so I give them 1 option to help now and then call the support center directly. No more messing around. The support center guys have helped me out a time or two.

Welp, well thank you guys for the replies.

To address some of the things you have said:

Many of you:
Yes, it was my own house! I actually don't have any shared estates. I can see how that could lead to people getting demos though.

It sounds like this has happened to other people, and I guess you guys are right to say ultimately not much can be done even if I did reach some sort of resolution with the GMs. I guess there isn't much I can do in this situation besides fill out a bug report and move on.

Jojoya:
You're right, I could have put a ticket in when I got the notice. I figured I hadn't interacted with furniture, so that was the cause. That was something I could have changed, but it isn't my fault that I received a notice by mistake in the first place. I did my best to fix it as demo notices tell you to go into your house, and I would have never expected to have my house demolished when using it daily.

I think the notion I was arguing with GMs is a bit aggressive, but I can see how it came off that way when I was being stubborn about the bug report. It is true that they are not programming the game though. I had given a lot of information, and it seemed like I went from having a meaningful conversation to them being bored and sending me a standardized, long bug form. It wasn't me just being petty and argumentative, it was a complete wedge in the conversation that began to make slight progress. Sometimes, when conversations don't make progress, support channels throw out large forms to fill out to deter someone from continuing to pursue the issue. In my opinion, it felt that way with how the flow of the conversation was going beforehand. A bug report ends the conversation at that: just a bug report. But I will keep your thoughts in mind, thank you.

Yshtola:
I'm not sure what evidence I can provide, I don't track my everyday activities in a log. Dragging me down when I'm upset about something that happened isn't very nice, and I'm not sure why you'd want to portray this community that way. I was looking for support with this post, but for some reason you wanted to make me feel worse, which is disappointing.

I appreciate everyone who was supportive and offered me meaningful advice! I'll keep it with me when speaking to the GM and moving forward I will try to be preemptive if I see a bug, or whatever it is. I didn't know if I should have expected responses as I don't post here, so thank you to those who came here to make me feel better rather than drag me down.

I'm curious, did the house get auto-demoed 45 days after you purchased the plot or did you have it for a longer period of time? If a longer period of time, were there any changes you can recall making around a month and a half before the server ate the house? Maybe moving plots, connection changes, computer part replacements? Wondering if something somehow locked part of the reset process so that despite you entering the house, it wasn't triggering.

OP, if this happened less than 30 days ago, don't forget to retrieve your items and gil from the housing NPC in the wards. I know it doesn't replace the house you lost, but at least you will not have lost everything. Best wishes!

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

I'm not sure what evidence I can provide, I don't track my everyday activities in a log. Dragging me down when I'm upset about something that happened isn't very nice, and I'm not sure why you'd want to portray this community that way. I was looking for support with this post, but for some reason you wanted to make me feel worse, which is disappointing.

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You see, every single time this "bug" has been reported, it turns out the house didn't belong to the player or they never bothered to share pictures or a video that would clearly display the "bug". No need to keep track of anything. Logic would dictate that when a problem comes up, you take the appropriate measures to document it. All you're doing is perpetuating a myth.

Yshtola:

I've gone through your forum replies, and they are consistently negative and/or aggressive. It was difficult for me to find any posts that sounded like they were good-intentioned, and many were simply making fun of people. Therefore, it's clear to me you are just here to bully people and give non-constructive feedback.

Games have bugs, and unintended things happen. If this is happening, there is a flaw somewhere in the system one way or another. I was simply sharing my story and looking for support, and many great people asked me questions and offered explanations. You have every right to have and share your opinion, but writing everything off that you haven't personally experienced is very closed minded. Please move on, there are plenty of posts you can write rude comments on.

I'm curious did you ever check the Estate tab on the Timers menu? Was the demolition notice there and did it get cleared after you entered/interacted with the house?

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

After weeks of this, they started sending me generic bug report forms. I responded saying that I didn't want to fill this out as I have provided much of this information - mind you, this is a report that literally asks you for every part used in your PC among many other things. It is not a simple form, they used this to divert taking responsibility by having me fill a form out and then closing the issue.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

Their response? They resent the bug form again.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

They refused to help rectify the situation so my last resort is to come here, hoping someone will hear what I'm saying and fix this issue.

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I don't mean to sound insulting, but you're trying to report a bug, and they've asked you to fill in the bug report form and you're refusing to do so. I am sorry to hear of your situation, but they're not going to fix anything if you don't follow the proper procedures.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

I guess there isn't much I can do in this situation besides fill out a bug report and move on.

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At the time of writing you haven't actually done this yet and I do appreciate this might be because it's quite a big form and it may take some time, but if you're unsure about how to do this you need to go to the following forum:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/632

Then create a new post about your problem, but you absolutely MUST use the template here or it will be rejected.

CayaLuna:

I did not check that, and I should have. I thought that I may have fixed it by interacting with things more, but I was only assuming. I will be more on top of that in the future as I’m definitely paranoid now haha

Worldofneil:

From the string of replies I was getting from them initially it was definitely a real person with a personalized response. It switched up quick to sending me bug forms that had auto generated responses after they told me they couldn’t do anything. You’re right though, going forward I’ll definitely fill it out if I encounter a bug, it wasn’t really worth it for me to argue especially if the GMs can’t do much in the first place.

I’ll use the template you posted, thank you!

Posts that I have ever witnessed about someone losing their house, usually turned out that they lost it due to some oversight on what the rules were on auto demolition. The estate was either purchased by another and they were just a tenant who's owner (who's name is on the placard, *evidence*) left the game for whatever reason, the tenant(s) using the house as their own. Other posts that owners never walked into the house, but only stepped in the yard, and things like that.

I have never seen a post on someone who has all the I's dotted and their T's crossed, losing a house to demolition. SE's rules, in someway, did apply to the 45 day demolition rules in the end.

If yours is a rare case, then I suggest you take the time to do everything you can to appease SE before the demolition takes effect. If the house is now demolished and you failed to take this up with SE sooner knowing it gave warning both in email and in your "Timer/Estate" menu, then it would rest on your shoulders and would be an oversight on your part if you took action after the fact. There is nothing they can do once it's demolished, maybe compensate you if this was truly a bug , but since you refuse to fill out a bug report, then I guess SE's hands are tied to do anything.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

Yshtola:

I've gone through your forum replies, and they are consistently negative and/or aggressive. It was difficult for me to find any posts that sounded like they were good-intentioned, and many were simply making fun of people. Therefore, it's clear to me you are just here to bully people and give non-constructive feedback.

Games have bugs, and unintended things happen. If this is happening, there is a flaw somewhere in the system one way or another. I was simply sharing my story and looking for support, and many great people asked me questions and offered explanations. You have every right to have and share your opinion, but writing everything off that you haven't personally experienced is very closed minded. Please move on, there are plenty of posts you can write rude comments on.

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Wear the victim hat all you want. You have no proof of what you are claiming to be true, just like everyone else before you. Want to be taken seriously? Get some screenshots in here so you can realize that the house wasn't even yours, if your story isn't 100% made up that is.

Arazehl:

I noticed that a lot of forum posts did end up being some oversight by the user. I’ve gone over every possibility and cannot see how it applies to me. Never had a shared estate, owned my own, went into my own home with my own retainers, never went a day or two without entering and interacting with retainers/vendors/furniture. Just a weird experience I’ve had, but all the responses have really just made me do a big shrug and just move on with this situation as a lesson to document everything and get all up in SE support the second something is fishy. Thanks for the response appreciate it

Yshtola:

Per your aggressive and accusatory response to my reply calling you a bully: case and point. *tilts victim hat* have a good day.

maybe you had corrupt files regarding the house and they were set to read-only so the fact of you setting foot in your house wasn't saved by the computer.??????????

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

Per your aggressive and accusatory response to my reply calling you a bully: case and point. *tilts victim hat* have a good day.

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Just ignore Yshtola. (I recommend using the Add to Ignore List option from their profile.) That account is just one of multiple alts of a player on Gilgamesh who bought out nearly an entire housing ward for themself. They only ever post on the forums either bragging about all their houses or putting down others over their housing complaints or issues. I assume they only post using their various alts on the forums due to reaching their daily limit and/or getting temp bans, because they don't try to hide that they're the same person. E.g. they all use the same signature.

The ignore function truly is a blessing.

It's maybe the 3rd or 4th time I hear about that bug and honestly it really scares me. Do we have any hint as to how this bug occurs and why?

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Originally Posted by Adrameliya

It's maybe the 3rd or 4th time I hear about that bug and honestly it really scares me. Do we have any hint as to how this bug occurs and why?

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I hate to sound blunt towards the original poster, but there's no evidence this bug even exists at all. Yes we've had people say about it happen to them, but I think they work out what they did wrong because they never fill out a bug report (this thread included, despite me including the links to do so on the previous page).

Title of this thread: Square Enix removed my house when I used it every day, said "oh well"
And going "oh well" is exactly what the OP has done, despite SE telling them twice to make a bug report as well as other players in this thread.

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

I hate to sound blunt towards the original poster, but there's no evidence this bug even exists at all. Yes we've had people say about it happen to them, but I think they work out what they did wrong because they never fill out a bug report (this thread included, despite me including the links to do so on the previous page).

Title of this thread: Square Enix removed my house when I used it every day, said "oh well"
And going "oh well" is exactly what the OP has done, despite SE telling them twice to make a bug report as well as other players in this thread.

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So if I get this right, they're the ones who maybe did something wrong and that whole bug story is a cover up for their mistake?

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Originally Posted by Adrameliya

So if I get this right, they're the ones who maybe did something wrong and that whole bug story is a cover up for their mistake?

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Pretty much as SE can easily just look at the player logs. Check when they lasted entered the house and the date of the demo too see if there is a bug. If there was a bug the time between the entry and the demo would be less then 45 days. SE would have informed the player base about this bug if it existed, especially if they have not been able to resolve it. As poppualr as housing is it would be foolish of SE to leave such a bug too continue randomly claiming player homes.

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Originally Posted by Adrameliya

It's maybe the 3rd or 4th time I hear about that bug and honestly it really scares me. Do we have any hint as to how this bug occurs and why?

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SE came out with investigation results once and said there simply was no bug.
You do hear of it now and then, but like others have said, there's no evidence of it actually existing.

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Originally Posted by Adrameliya

So if I get this right, they're the ones who maybe did something wrong and that whole bug story is a cover up for their mistake?

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It typically ends up being that the person in question didnt actually understand the housing rules. They thought visiting the yard counted(no, you actually need to go inside). Or they were a tenant and thought they could reset the timer(only the actual owner whos name is on the placard can reset a personal house - any FC member can reset an FC house). So when the house goes away without them understanding why, they think its a bug. Then they come to the forums either for answers or sympathy. In actuality, this has never been verified as an actual bug.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

It typically ends up being that the person in question didnt actually understand the housing rules. They thought visiting the yard counted(no, you actually need to go inside). Or they were a tenant and thought they could reset the timer(only the actual owner whos name is on the placard can reset a personal house - any FC member can reset an FC house). So when the house goes away without them understanding why, they think its a bug. Then they come to the forums either for answers or sympathy. In actuality, this has never been verified as an actual bug.

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For Clarification here.

If it's a Personal House: Only the house owner can reset the timer

If it's an FC House: All players who can add/edit furniture placement can reset the timer. (Usually this setting is only kept for trusted people, given the hearsay of people stealing furniture from FCs, due to a lack of monitoring who can do what)

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Originally Posted by Kenky

For Clarification here.

If it's an FC House: All players who can add/edit furniture placement can reset the timer. (Usually this setting is only kept for trusted people, given the hearsay of people stealing furniture from FCs, due to a lack of monitoring who can do what)

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Pretty sure any player in the Free Company can reset the estate timer, even if they don’t have permission to move the furniture around. It just requires entering the estate, not really tinkering with it.

Thanks everyone for the clarifications, I do not need to worry then.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Pretty sure any player in the Free Company can reset the estate timer, even if they don’t have permission to move the furniture around. It just requires entering the estate, not really tinkering with it.

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I had heard otherwise, but if that's the case. Then I apologize for the misinformation!

Around ver. 3.3. I got the demo notice in email with 125 active of 318 members. This was when the crafter utils were still worth while and at least 70% of my FC useed them daily. We had 9 of the FC officers report it and had a gm in 35 minutes and no issues, in fact they still have the house long after I quit and rolled a diff account so I'm not sharing with younger brother. I'm sorry you're going through it, but reactive responses to SE vs. Proactive actions....

I'm sorry to the OP, this is horrible. But If I were crafting in my personal or FC house and received a demo notification, I'd be lighting up helpdesk the second I got it in game and waiting out a GM. This let me meddle with things that clearly aren't properly working, I'm sorry but that's insanity. You know do the things that didn't keep me off the list and no human interaction until after the fact and expect a different result. I hate to sound this way, but you waited for the bad thing to happen instead of reaching out for help ahead of time. On demo you get 70% of your gil back if you claim it in 45 days post demo, and also, ALL of my fixtures were at the Item NPC in that zone. My Lamps My floors, my Carbuncle Mansion walls all of it. My younger brother had no issues signing up for 8 retainers so we had enough room for the old house we shared under my character. I'm just sad I couldn't buy the plot back on this toon. Something doesn't add up with OP's post.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

[U]Their response? They resent the bug form again. Nothing else. A slap in the face, really. They continued to send me automated messages.

I have been pouring money into this game for 3 years, and I am so disappointed in how SE handled this and how an issue on their end affected so much of my time and money. They refused to help rectify the situation so my last resort is to come here, hoping someone will hear what I'm saying and fix this issue.

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After skimming this thread, I observe three options:

1- Ignore the situation, and trust that bug does not reoccur.
2- Quit the game
3- Report the bug clearly and succinctly

Production and Q/A staff have specific workflows in order to avoid confusion, and reduce wasted effort. I would encourage people to use option (3), and hopefully enjoy the overall game.

On one hand: If I were OP, I would have immediately taken screenshots of the auto-demolition message. Screenshots of my character's ownership of the house in the Housing Menu. Screenshots of my character INSIDE the house at that moment. The fact that I have not seen any mention that OP did this, makes me suspicious that this is just a lie. Everyone knows how to screenshot. It's been a part of gaming for more than a decade.

On the other hand: If I'm experiencing a GAMEPLAY BUG involving in-game items, inside the game while the game is running, and the developers send me a request asking me what model motherboard and hard drive I am using. I'm going to call somebody a twit. That information is 100% irrelevant and just wasting everyone's time.

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Originally Posted by ronubonu

I received an auto-demolition notice in December while I was sitting inside my house crafting. Odd, but maybe I needed to interact with my house retainers or move furniture around? So I did so.

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I'm sure you know this already but in case it hasn't already been said:

This should have been when you first contacted SE. Had they known about this before the demolition took place they could have completely prevented it from happening.

There are two main reasons why they would be disinclined to help you after the house is gone. First of all their customer service isn't known for being great. Secondly, I think they want to avoid the mess that is taking away someone else's plot so you can get your house back. The first one is obviously not forgivable. The second, I can easily see how that would be a tricky situation to navigate and impossible to solve without making someone very unhappy. Whatever they do in that situation, they look very bad.

However if they're contacted about a demolition malfunction before the demolition itself takes place, then they can do something without making another player unhappy. SE have proven many times already that they have systems in place to pause demolition.

Sigh I thought these rumours about demolition bugs were done many months ago but it seems they're back again. I wish SE would change the housing system so that demolition would no longer be necessary.

OP I hope that you can find a new home soon. I'm very sorry to read that you lost something you obviously loved to have and used very often. This shouldn't happen to anyone.

I didn't believe you until it just happened to my friend and I. We were both in it interacting with furniture just a few days ago last week, but logged in to play today and I was shocked to see that our Shirogane house was suddenly not on the teleport list and is now gone and someone else had already bought the lot. I wasn't expecting the auto demolish timer to just be 5 days instead of the 45 that it's supposed to be......? We've submitted a report but there's obviously no way we can get our house back. ._.

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Originally Posted by Asheran

I didn't believe you until it just happened to my friend and I. We were both in it interacting with furniture just a few days ago last week, but logged in to play today and I was shocked to see that our Shirogane house was suddenly not on the teleport list and is now gone and someone else had already bought the lot. I wasn't expecting the auto demolish timer to just be 5 days instead of the 45 that it's supposed to be......? We've submitted a report but there's obviously no way we can get our house back. ._.

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As was mentioned earlier in the thread, please go to this section of the forum and report the incident (using their template and with as much detail as you can provide): http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/632

Don't forget to have the owner of the house (unclear if it was you or your friend based on your story) retrieve the gil and furnishings from the resident caretaker in the housing area, too. If those are not available, include that in your bug report.

Best of luck!

I'm sad how you were treated. If I was with SE I'd refund your losses two fold since you lost your interior and your time invested. I hope you can have this issue solved nonetheless.
Not sure if you currently have a house but if you are on cerberus and you want to use my house, I have one slot left to share. Just hit me up in game under the name Guardian Angel.