This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.

This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.

https://i.imgur.com/IJwiw8v.png

It is the random timer placed on vacated plots of land to regulate its purchase and stop re-selling.

It is the *WORST* player experience and cannot be justified.

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Originally Posted by GizmoEra

It is the *WORST* player experience and cannot be justified.

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EverQuest 2 had great instanced housing 17 years ago.

Yoshi has done a lot of great things...but his death grip on this housing setup and refusal to change makes him look like an ass.

Virtually no one likes this setup.

(I now await some contrarian mutant to reply that they like it.)

I managed to get a house today...but it took 9 hours of camping an undesirable house in The Goblet, then I relocated to a medium also in the goblet.

Then you, yourself took advantage of the timer setup with the relocation... /Calls system crap then uses said system to get a more desirable outcome. Who’s the ass now?

I've camped about 8 plots for over 8 hours now. Houses are dwindling and now there's competition to buy a house I've sat at for hours. Someone defend this system, I'm in the mood to fight ;)

This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.

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Originally Posted by GizmoEra

I've camped about 8 plots for over 8 hours now. Houses are dwindling and now there's competition to buy a house I've sat at for hours. Someone defend this system, I'm in the mood to fight ;)

This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.
This plot of land is not yet ready for purchase.

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I'm pretty vocal when it comes to my issues regarding housing. Won't catch me defending the system. lol

The timer duration is ridiculous. Having to do this for extended times is just silly bad. Shouldn't be more than 2 hours if that. I understand trying to reduce instance sales to others but the current system does more harm than good.

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Originally Posted by GizmoEra

Someone defend this system

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System's trash. Timer was an awful idea, enormous anti-fun mechanic. Nix the timer, bring back ARR pricing. Buy for no waiting for 40 mil, wait for devalues to pay less.

I'm not completely defending this system but it is a bit more fair then what we had before. I got my house after camping a spot for 12 hours. ddn't get my med but I did get to relocate to a better spot. It still took 12 hours but atleast it didn't cost me risking my account and or losing over 50 mil to someone. those were the worst days T.T

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

I'm not completely defending this system but it is a bit more fair then what we had before. I got my house after camping a spot for 12 hours. ddn't get my med but I did get to relocate to a better spot. It still took 12 hours but atleast it didn't cost me risking my account and or losing over 50 mil to someone. those were the worst days T.T

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Where they, really? I'd prefer paying 50M for a guarantee Medium than waste twelve hours and hope I'm the one whose click registers before someone else's.

They should at least remove this timer from auto-demolished houses. If the owner hasn't been online for ages obviously they aren't trying to resell anything.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Where they, really? I'd prefer paying 50M for a guarantee Medium than waste twelve hours and hope I'm the one whose click registers before someone else's.

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If we exclude new wards being opened, the timer is the only reason most people have even seen plots for sale over the last couple years. Before then, most houses were purchased within a minute of being demo'd - often by RMT-people using a bots to scan the listings for openings and even teleport hacks to get to the placard faster then a real person ever could.

So yeah, the timer sucks. But that doesnt mean before was great.

I support a very simple lottery system:

1) go to the plot u want
2) pay the full price for the plot and you get a lottery ticket
3) if you move away from the plot, your lottery ticket is on hold and frozen until you come back to the plot
4) when the random timer expires, the server draws a random winner for all players with a ticket and next to the plot (aka "YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN!").
5) if you win, and you're next to the plot, awesome
6) all players who didn't win get their money back

What this does is just remove the click fest/bots/macros. It lets you talk, emote, interact with other players, craft, etc. All other rules of the existing system still apply (timers, etc).

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Where they, really? I'd prefer paying 50M for a guarantee Medium than waste twelve hours and hope I'm the one whose click registers before someone else's.

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Yeah it was bad. And yeah, sometimes 50 mil was cheap depending on how limited plots were. 20 mil for a small hurts. I never want those days back. I hate the timer,... but compared to what we had the timer is the most fair. It still sucks eggman dick tho. T.T

That's exactly what it is, the random timer.

But it doesn't change a blasted thing about the situation, because the bots can basically just script a continual accessing of the placard until the timer runs to 0 and the first script hit gets it.

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

Yeah it was bad. And yeah, sometimes 50 mil was cheap depending on how limited plots were. 20 mil for a small hurts. I never want those days back. I hate the timer,... but compared to what we had the timer is the most fair. It still sucks eggman dick tho. T.T

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You've got those days back already, you just don't realize it.

You think these people are actually going to USE these plots after sitting on it for hours and hours and hours on end like an FFXI old-school ground king pop?

Buy it for 3M, find it on your favorite RMT site for 15!!!

It's not that hard. It really isn't. If the site is not available, you don't show the price.

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Originally Posted by blu789

I support a very simple lottery system:

1) go to the plot u want
2) pay the full price for the plot and you get a lottery ticket
3) if you move away from the plot, your lottery ticket is on hold and frozen until you come back to the plot
4) when the random timer expires, the server draws a random winner for all players with a ticket and next to the plot (aka "YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN!").
5) if you win, and you're next to the plot, awesome
6) all players who didn't win get their money back

What this does is just remove the click fest/bots/macros. It lets you talk, emote, interact with other players, craft, etc. All other rules of the existing system still apply (timers, etc).

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That won't solve anything. Again, that's just another way for the RMT sites to plop 50 of them down at each plot and swarm the market.

You have really only one option: If the plot is not available, the price is not visible to anyone. It doesn't matter if the plot is vacant and the random timer is going or if the timer to demolish is going or whatever. For all you know, "FizzWidget Whatsit" still owns it until all timers run out - or whatever the person's name was.

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Originally Posted by Catstab

System's trash. Timer was an awful idea, enormous anti-fun mechanic. Nix the timer, bring back ARR pricing. Buy for no waiting for 40 mil, wait for devalues to pay less.

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Then it just means they go on the RMT sites for 120. Only way you're stopping the bots is to cease all advertisement that a plot is, within the next X period of hours, going on sale.

The only way to make everyone happy is to do away with finite housing availability while maintaining the sense of community that living in a district currently provides (if there even is one nowadays). Currently there is no known practical way to do this.

Adding more wards is a band-aid solution. For all 647,345 active players to have a personal house, there would need to be at least 10,790 wards. This does not include FC houses. There are currently 72.

People have suggested having instanced housing like how we have apartments, but houses are different from apartments in that houses have exteriors. The problem with this solution would be figuring out how to handle per-house instanced exteriors without sacrificing the aspect of being in a neighbourhood with other players.

It's a bad system that many people hate, but it's what people have to live with until some galaxy brain comes up with a better solution. Complaining about a 7 year old problem doesn't help. Instead, think of ways to help solve the problem. Be that galaxy brain.

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Originally Posted by SirBrighton

The only way to make everyone happy is to do away with finite housing availability while maintaining the sense of community that living in a district currently provides (if there even is one nowadays). Currently there is no known practical way to do this.

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Then do away with housing. The FFXI Mog House was actually more efficient in this manner.

The thing is, this kind of stuff is Square-Enix, once again, stiffing non-bot players by basically saying you have four choices to get a real house on the market...

1) Win the race when there IS a patch update.
2) Bot.
3) Buy it off an RMT site for 5X the gil.
4) Forgetaboutit.

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Originally Posted by SirBrighton

The only way to make everyone happy is to do away with finite housing availability while maintaining the sense of community that living in a district currently provides (if there even is one nowadays). Currently there is no known practical way to do this.

Adding more wards is a band-aid solution. For all 647,345 active players to have a personal house, there would need to be at least 10,790 wards. This does not include FC houses. There are currently 72.

People have suggested having instanced housing like how we have apartments, but houses are different from apartments in that houses have exteriors. The problem with this solution would be figuring out how to handle per-house instanced exteriors without sacrificing the aspect of being in a neighbourhood with other players.

It's a bad system that many people hate, but it's what people have to live with until some galaxy brain comes up with a better solution. Complaining about a 7 year old problem doesn't help. Instead, think of ways to help solve the problem. Be that galaxy brain.

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You do not need galaxy brain to figure this out. Off the top of my head after just reading this post, i can think of a few systems way better then current.

1. Instanced Housing Ward- Have a few houses randomly generated around your house that are not actually open and then have your house in the middle or wherever you pick. So basically have 5 open spot you pick one the other four are randomly generated houses, but empty on the inside and locked.

2. Everyone on each district own the same house- but when you load in it shows your stuff not everyone elses. have a single ward for each district, with one of each type (small, medium, large)

3. my best attempt to fix this system- similar to two have a house that multiple people own but have multiple wards, have 10 wards per district with a few of each type of house. you can buy whatever house you want and thats your house, when you load into the zone it loads your stuff over others stuff. so you still get that community feel of having people around but it limits the amout of overall wards and total housing needed to be loaded at one time. you can even walk up to the placard and pick whos house you would prefer being loaded so others can see your house.

4. accept the fact that you run one of the biggest MMOs in the world and use the about 8 million USD (based on your figure of 647,345 active players) you make a month in just sub fees and pay for more server space and accept it as the cost of doing business.

edit: typos

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

That won't solve anything. Again, that's just another way for the RMT sites to plop 50 of them down at each plot and swarm the market.

You have really only one option: If the plot is not available, the price is not visible to anyone. It doesn't matter if the plot is vacant and the random timer is going or if the timer to demolish is going or whatever. For all you know, "FizzWidget Whatsit" still owns it until all timers run out - or whatever the person's name was.

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this is the current system minus clicking. how does it support RMT anymore than the current system? The timer still applies as it currently does.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirBrighton

People have suggested having instanced housing like how we have apartments, but houses are different from apartments in that houses have exteriors. The problem with this solution would be figuring out how to handle per-house instanced exteriors without sacrificing the aspect of being in a neighbourhood with other players.

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Not everyone cares about being in a neighborhood so it's not a solution that instanced housing needs.

There can be instanced house plots for those who don't care about being in a neighborhood. The existing wards could remain for those who do.

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Originally Posted by blu789

this is the current system minus clicking. how does it support RMT anymore than the current system? The timer still applies as it currently does.

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The key is, and this is where I get a bit frustrated with some of the other people, you don't know the status of that timer.

If the gil number is up there, you know the timer is "sufficiently short" that you can plop a bot there, script the entire process, and hope that, the instant the plot becomes available, your script is the first one to hit.

Without that knowledge, you could be there six months and not know.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I'm pretty vocal when it comes to my issues regarding housing. Won't catch me defending the system. lol

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You certainly seemed to like how the timer system reduces competition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirBrighton

Adding more wards is a band-aid solution. For all 647,345 active players to have a personal house, there would need to be at least 10,790 wards. This does not include FC houses. There are currently 72.

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While I don't disagree about more wards being a band-aid, your math is grossly wrong. Firstly, Kugane has housing too. Four districts times 24 wards equals 96 wards, not 72. Second, that's per server. The game has 68 servers, so that makes for a total of 6528 wards.

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Originally Posted by tdb

While I don't disagree about more wards being a band-aid, your math is grossly wrong. Firstly, Kugane has housing too. Four districts times 24 wards equals 96 wards, not 72. Second, that's per server. The game has 68 servers, so that makes for a total of 6528 wards.

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I was going to reply with some version of this. Reading bad math that no one is correcting was bothering me a little. So to take this a step further. Using his "target number" of 10790 wards, minus the 6528 we have now means we are around 4262 wards short. Divide that by 68 game servers(i acknowlege that player population isnt uniformly distributed), and you get 62 with a remainder. Split among the 4 cities would amount to a little under 16 wards. This isnt accounting for FC housing(about 25% of houses are FC houses as of the last data i saw), but there are also many players who dont care about or want a house. If ishgard ends up just as a "normal" housing ward like the other 4, opening that would add 1440 more houses per server as things stand now(the equivalent of adding 8 more wards per server) - or more potentially if they also increase the overall number of wards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frizze

I was going to reply with some version of this. Reading bad math that no one is correcting was bothering me a little. So to take this a step further. Using his "target number" of 10790 wards, minus the 6528 we have now means we are around 4262 wards short. Divide that by 68 game servers(i acknowlege that player population isnt uniformly distributed), and you get 62 with a remainder. Split among the 4 cities would amount to a little under 16 wards. This isnt accounting for FC housing(about 25% of houses are FC houses as of the last data i saw), but there are also many players who dont care about or want a house. If ishgard ends up just as a "normal" housing ward like the other 4, opening that would add 1440 more houses per server as things stand now(the equivalent of adding 8 more wards per server) - or more potentially if they also increase the overall number of wards.

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The number game gets worse when you consider anyone with a Standard subscription could get up to 80 houses on their single account if they wanted to go to that much effort. It just takes leveling 40 characters on 40 different worlds to 50 and creating a FC for each, then getting lucky at the placard. That's 79 other players not getting a house because of one player.

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

I'm not completely defending this system but it is a bit more fair then what we had before.

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More fair for whom though? Cheaters (i.e people using macro's/bots) and people who can stand at a sign for more then 5+ hours? Because that how fair it is right now.
For people who work 40+ hours a week, have families, and have other responsibilities... this system is in no way shape or form fair.

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Originally Posted by tdb

You certainly seemed to like how the timer system reduces competition.

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Never said that I liked it at all, but okay. I also never said that the current system was good. It's awful. But as far as that other suggestion in that other thread, it makes a bad situation worse. I would also argue that there should be no need for competition at all, which would mean fixing the system entirely. That is everything I said in a nutshell, not what you think I said. Clearly still trying to get that through that head of yours, but it goes in one ear and out the other, so to speak. I know it's probably not worth the effort. Like I said before, let's agree to disagree and cease discussing this topic any further. We're both very passionate about our points of view and there isn't anything wrong with that. But I'd rather not continue to butt heads with some random person on the forums I don't even know. It's exhausting, and life's too short for that. I have nothing against you, or anyone really on these forums (except TitanMen maybe lol) no matter how much I disagree with them. I really don't. Your opinion? I really do have an issue with it, as I have said numerous times and explained why in great detail. But neither one of us is budging, so it's not worth either of our time. I told you this before and I'm telling you now. Again.

To make the most number of players happy, a fully instanced housing system alongside the existing wards.

The next best solution is apartments which can be upgraded to penthouses for gil with balconies for gardening and workshop access.

If Ishgard housing ends up being traditional wards, it should be clear to every player, the system is working as intended in SE's view.

Ward housing holds subscriptions hostage. And given the limited number of mediums/larges - and out of that, the even more limited number of desirable lakefront mediums/beachside larges etc - a lot of small houses owners remain subscribed in the hopes of getting their dream mediums/larges.

So again, if there are no major changes to housing with Ishgard housing, it's clearly how SE intends.

How many years has it been since housing was released and people have been complaining about this garbage system?

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Originally Posted by TwistedTea

To make the most number of players happy, a fully instanced housing system alongside the existing wards.

The next best solution is apartments which can be upgraded to penthouses for gil with balconies for gardening and workshop access.

If Ishgard housing ends up being traditional wards, it should be clear to every player, the system is working as intended in SE's view.

Ward housing holds subscriptions hostage. And given the limited number of mediums/larges - and out of that, the even more limited number of desirable lakefront mediums/beachside larges etc - a lot of small houses owners remain subscribed in the hopes of getting their dream mediums/larges.

So again, if there are no major changes to housing with Ishgard housing, it's clearly how SE intends.

How many years has it been since housing was released and people have been complaining about this garbage system?

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I think a large part of the question is whether Square-Enix, outside core Japan, actually opposes RMT, or (as I believe NA Community Team, or members thereof, have held the position since XI) that RMT and other forms of cheating are necessary to play the game at a community-acceptable level, and those of us who actually speak out against it are now, in fact, against the Terms of Service because we are now committing Obstruction (which is a GMable offense) against the "good" (read: cheating, account-selling, and/or RMT) players.

When that finally gets back to Japan to a sufficiently-embarassing level, you will see endgame on the NA side absolutely GUTTED, even though SE (at least Japan) tried to make XIV more friendly to a more casual/"lesser" player.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

I think a large part of the question is whether Square-Enix, outside core Japan, actually opposes RMT, or (as I believe NA Community Team, or members thereof, have held the position since XI) that RMT and other forms of cheating are necessary to play the game at a community-acceptable level, and those of us who actually speak out against it are now, in fact, against the Terms of Service because we are now committing Obstruction (which is a GMable offense) against the "good" (read: cheating, account-selling, and/or RMT) players.

When that finally gets back to Japan to a sufficiently-embarassing level, you will see endgame on the NA side absolutely GUTTED, even though SE (at least Japan) tried to make XIV more friendly to a more casual/"lesser" player.

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Can you provide a link to where they've said RMT is a necessary evil? I've only seen debate over the use of 3rd party mods.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

The key is, and this is where I get a bit frustrated with some of the other people, you don't know the status of that timer.

If the gil number is up there, you know the timer is "sufficiently short" that you can plop a bot there, script the entire process, and hope that, the instant the plot becomes available, your script is the first one to hit.

Without that knowledge, you could be there six months and not know.

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With a lottery + timer, each human and/or bot can only register once. The game chooses one person with no reliance on the number of clicks. Just proximity and whoever holds one lottery ticket. It's far better than what we have now.

A plot that is open for 6 months is worse than a 45 day demolition timer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TwistedTea

To make the most number of players happy, a fully instanced housing system alongside the existing wards.

The next best solution is apartments which can be upgraded to penthouses for gil with balconies for gardening and workshop access.

If Ishgard housing ends up being traditional wards, it should be clear to every player, the system is working as intended in SE's view.

Ward housing holds subscriptions hostage. And given the limited number of mediums/larges - and out of that, the even more limited number of desirable lakefront mediums/beachside larges etc - a lot of small houses owners remain subscribed in the hopes of getting their dream mediums/larges.

So again, if there are no major changes to housing with Ishgard housing, it's clearly how SE intends.

How many years has it been since housing was released and people have been complaining about this garbage system?

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At least 4 or 5 years, if not a full 6. sadly.

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Originally Posted by blu789

At least 4 or 5 years, if not a full 6. sadly.

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Yet everyone wants a house in this garbage system... I think the guy above surmised the system best, “if Ishgard housing is released as the current system, it’s working as intended” aka deal with and move on. As a current house owner in a desired plot I’d be pretty irked by taking all that work and making it instanced. Are there better lots? Of course! Working 40 hours, having a family, responsible adult is not something that stopped me from getting one. That’s an invalid excuse imho. Try harder and wait. If playing the placard game is your game of choice then so be it, on YOU! If trying out back alley discord rmt deals is something you’re comfortable with, again on you. Try harder or wait for an opportune time. Taking to the English forums and making a thread on it daily is exhaustive and frankly only the same 10-20 people care. It’s your sub so so you, be a grown adult about it though instead of some child stomping their feet. Truth hurts and anything worth a damn takes work.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Can you provide a link to where they've said RMT is a necessary evil? I've only seen debate over the use of 3rd party mods.

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It's not a link, but it's a long-time history of at least the North American Community Team in league with the likes of The Order of the Blue Gartr and other endgame entities which openly embraced RMT, account selling, third-party programs, etc. and so forth and so on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caitsithhh

Yet everyone wants a house in this garbage system... I think the guy above surmised the system best, “if Ishgard housing is released as the current system, it’s working as intended” aka deal with and move on. As a current house owner in a desired plot I’d be pretty irked by taking all that work and making it instanced. Are there better lots? Of course! Working 40 hours, having a family, responsible adult is not something that stopped me from getting one. That’s an invalid excuse imho. Try harder and wait. If playing the placard game is your game of choice then so be it, on YOU! If trying out back alley discord rmt deals is something you’re comfortable with, again on you. Try harder or wait for an opportune time. Taking to the English forums and making a thread on it daily is exhaustive and frankly only the same 10-20 people care. It’s your sub so so you, be a grown adult about it though instead of some child stomping their feet. Truth hurts and anything worth a damn takes work.

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If they are actually going to do and state this is intended, stop banning gilselling, because it's about the only way to get housing in this game. You're going to have to deal with them one way or the other.

And if you're not going to do anything else if you're Square-Enix, your actual best solution is to take the RMT out of the hands of the gilsellers and assume it yourself: All future player/FC housing goes on the Mog Station!!

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

It's not a link, but it's a long-time history of at least the North American Community Team in league with the likes of The Order of the Blue Gartr and other endgame entities which openly embraced RMT, account selling, third-party programs, etc. and so forth and so on.

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So provide evidence of this. I'm certain that SE would be interested in seeing it.

Also the community teams have zero input over game development. They handle community relations and publicity.