Refund for lost housing items?

Hello, I purchased some items off the FFXIV store for housing. Due to an unfortunate situation, I have lost my in game home and it has been more than 35 days since I was able to log on. I created a support ticket, and I received a stock message saying "
we are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused you."

Is there a way I can get my housing items back, or refund my purchases without any issues?

Happy gaming everyone.

Unfortunately, no. All housing items listed on the store carry a warning that you may lose the item under specific circumstances, including demolition of your estate. They do not issue replacements or refunds when that happens.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Unfortunately, no. All housing items listed on the store carry a warning that you may lose the item under specific circumstances, including demolition of your estate. They do not issue replacements or refunds when that happens.

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To be honest, if you bought those items for real money, there definatly should be a way to get them back.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

To be honest, if you bought those items for real money, there definatly should be a way to get them back.

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Perhaps, but it is what it is. You agree to the terms when you buy the item and it reminds you when you place it. If you don't want to "lose your money" then your only choice is to not buy it at all in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

To be honest, if you bought those items for real money, there definatly should be a way to get them back.

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The way is "go and talk to the Resident Caretaker within 35 days"

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Originally Posted by Arohk

To be honest, if you bought those items for real money, there definatly should be a way to get them back.

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Since when are we entitled to free replacements of things we neglect?

There is a warning before we even purchase. When we fail to heed that warning and then lose the item, it's our responsibility.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Since when are we entitled to free replacements of things we neglect?

There is a warning before we even purchase. When we fail to heed that warning and then lose the item, it's our responsibility.

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And a further warning when placing items that tenancy or demolition could cause their loss.

Warnings or not it is a pretty screwed up system. Things that are bought for real money should be tied to the account in such a way that they cannot be deleted or could be recovered through the Mog Station. So while the potential is there to lose stuff as players are warned the right thing to do on SE's part is to allow items purchased through the store to not be deleted in the first place or recoverable by some automated means in the second.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

Warnings or not it is a pretty screwed up system. Things that are bought for real money should be tied to the account in such a way that they cannot be deleted or could be recovered through the Mog Station. So while the potential is there to lose stuff as players are warned the right thing to do on SE's part is to allow items purchased through the store to not be deleted in the first place or recoverable by some automated means in the second.

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I guess the thinking is "Why waste developer money and server space on a system that can restore these items when we can just tell players they'd better hang on to what they paid for, and if they don't they will buy it again"

The idea both saves money and makes money at once. Pretty smart move. Remember, SE is a business.

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Originally Posted by Catstab

I guess the thinking is "Why waste developer money and server space on a system that can restore these items when we can just tell players they'd better hang on to what they paid for, and if they don't they will buy it again"

The idea both saves money and makes money at once. Pretty smart move. Remember, SE is a business.

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Or they don't buy it again and leave the game with SE losing reliable monthly revenue from a subscription. It is a poor business risk for a company that relies on a constant revenue stream from subscribing customers.

I don't expect SE to change this anymore than I expect them to resolve the design flaws in housing but that doesn't mean I consider it a good business decision.

Lets say you buy a house.

You leave it unattended for SO LONG that it was condemned, and a city cleaning crew comes in and takes out all the furniture. They graciously hold that furniture, but they don’t have a lot of (server) space for whatever reason, so they let you know, IN ADVANCE, hey, we can only keep this for 35 days.

You have 35 days to pick up the furniture. What are they supposed to do after that? Typically the city will auction off that furniture for really cheap. It doesn’t matter what happened in real life, what matters is the facts: you left the house unattended for so long it was condemned, and didn’t pick up the furniture afterwards.

Best case scenario is that you left the house, and therefore your furniture, alone for 80 days. With a warning that your furniture would be GONE if this happened, at purchase.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

doesn't mean I consider it a good business decision.

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So you think the better business decision is to pause development of the main game to build a mogstation receipt database that would remove server space from dungeons/housing wards/etc? Seems like an awful lot of resources and work to replace a warning label that works just fine 99% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Catstab

So you think the better business decision is to pause development of the main game to build a mogstation receipt database that would remove server space from dungeons/housing wards/etc? Seems like an awful lot of resources and work to replace a warning label that works just fine 99% of the time.

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Too many players, such as yourself, think there is one little group of people working on everything. That is not the way product development works. You also seem to have a misunderstanding of how release content and work is scheduled. In this case the people who handle the Mog Station and licensing aren't the same folks who work on the playable content.

If SE didn't want to automate recovery they could at least allow their customer support to validate the loss and ownership then take appropriate action. It should be a reasonably straight forward change to allow a player to recover their purchased items and is the right thing to do. No I have not seen the code but with close to 40 years of operating system and middleware design and development it has given me a pretty good feel for what it is or is not a complicated change. I've been down the road where legally a message is all that's needed but ethically and from a customer perspective the right decision was to do more. If it makes things better for the customer and keeps them satisfied then it becomes a business decision which for a situation like this should favor the customer.

We don't know that the message covers 99% of the cases as the forums tend not to be close to representing the larger player base. Many players quit without creating and "I'm quitting" post. Even so I know of other players who due to personal events were not able to log in to the game for long periods of time all while being subbed. Anecdotally based on what the forum presents it is not an uncommon situation. Therefore I posit that the message does not cover 99% of the players who lose houses.

As I've said I doubt SE will ever do anything about it. They've had plenty of time to resolve the issue just as they have the dysfunctional housing system. I feel if SE was interested in resolving many of the game's long running problems they would have done it by now. None of this means I think it is the right thing for SE to do.

If I were the type that bought into conspiracies I'd say the housing shortage is being maintained on purpose in order to keep players from unsubscribing. And, maybe even devious enough to have purposely made a purchase system where you can lose your items in order to sell them to a player more than once. ;)

Well I have more important things to do, such as get my cranberry muffins out of the oven, than decide the world for SE. Take care.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

Too many players, such as yourself, think there is one little group of people working on everything. That is not the way product development works.

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SE has a staff. That staff has tasks. To give them a new set of tasks you must:
A) Divert current tasks from current workers
B) Hire people for money
C) Outsource the work for money

I understand how production works. But there is no way to produce something such as the requested system without investing time or money. SE doesn't appear to see a need to invest either here. Hopefully that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

Or they don't buy it again and leave the game with SE losing reliable monthly revenue from a subscription. It is a poor business risk for a company that relies on a constant revenue stream from subscribing customers.

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Is someone who already left long enough to not only lose their house but also their chance to reclaim the items really a "reliable" subscription? I agree that it sucks to lose something(whether earned or bought), but a change to something like this actually is more complicated and involved then it might seem.

While speaking to a tech guy in my state about an issue, the guy said that the company that tends these boards is separate and hired to do so by SE. I wonder how many of their other areas are farmed out?

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Originally Posted by Besame

While speaking to a tech guy in my state about an issue, the guy said that the company that tends these boards is separate and hired to do so by SE. I wonder how many of their other areas are farmed out?

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Just look at the amount of third party studios that do work for the game in the credits. that will tell you.

if you lost your items it means that you
1: didnt entered your house for over 45 days and
2 : after that timer you had extra 35 day to RECOVER lost items
we're talking about 2 month and half here ! you had PLENTY of time to do something about it its just that you forgot/didnt care, result system deleted it,
and now your mad because it was an actual thing that could happen, you chose to ignore it, take responsability for it .