Apartments in Balmung: new players need not apply?

Two players, two hours, 96 apartment buildings (Mist and Lavender): no luck.

Wait until FFXIV drops in popularity?

Is housing now a "thank you" for early adopters?

What's it like on your server?

(p.s.: highly unfun. logged off. tomorrow, will vet usefulness of checking Goblet.)

I'm a (relatively) new player on Aether/Midgardsormr. Have never had or bothered with housing so far.

On a whim, I checked out the Goblet residential area by Ul'dah last week. Looked into a random sector, walked into the Apartment Building there, and inquired about getting an apartment. No luck, there were no vacancies. I went into another sector, checked the Apartment Building there again, Boom, there were available ones, I immediately put down 500K Gil, and became the proud owner of a brand, spanking new, albeit empty living space.

I checked other sectors in Goblet later, and there were plenty more apartment vacancies. So there you go, if you just one a place to call your own, it ain't hard, at least in my own experience.

Now, if it were a House you wanted, that's a totally different story. :D

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Originally Posted by Brennus

I'm a (relatively) new player on Aether/Midgardsormr. Have never had or bothered with housing so far.

On a whim, I checked out the Goblet residential area by Ul'dah last week. Looked into a random sector, walked into the Apartment Building there, and inquired about getting an apartment. No luck, there were no vacancies. I went into another sector, checked the Apartment Building there again, Boom, there were available ones, I immediately put down 500K Gil, and became the proud owner of a brand, spanking new, albeit empty living space.

I checked other sectors in Goblet later, and there were plenty more apartment vacancies. So there you go, if you just one a place to call your own, it ain't hard, at least in my own experience.

Now, if it were a House you wanted, that's a totally different story. :D

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Unfortunately your experience is irrelevant when comparing it to Balmung. There is indeed no apartments left due to its highly dense population. And if there are any it’s like only a meager handful. I actually made a thread addressing this issue when I looked a few months prior.

Balmung is one of the more popular servers that also happens to be biggest one where all the RPers gather, and RPers seem to be more into housing than other types of players so it makes sense that apartments would be all full up on that server.

You'd definitely have more luck on literally any other server in the game except perhaps Tonberry. If you're still into RP, then perhaps Mateus has room? Or any other world on Crystal.

Just a curious thought, but how many apartments are used as extra storage, do you think? I mean I know several people buy them to drop overflow of the storage from their private or FC house in them. SE needs address both the lack of slots for housing items, as well as the lack of storage too. All those event, seasonal events, crafted items and mog station items add up.

I am guilty of using my apartment for storage. I am the FC decorator (and for hire), and try very hard to use what I have with every build I make. However, not even just the fact we have so many limited time reward items, but big ticket/headache and a half to make items which makes it really hard justifying throwing it out. Just about everyone I know has an apartment, and it feels mandatory if you do decorating.

It's even becoming a problem on Hyperion. I can't recall a time when I actually saw full apartment buildings until now. I went to buy my alt an apartment in the ward my house is in (because god forbid this one house per account system tags alts as being tenants), and it was.. full.

It makes me wonder about the apartment system in the long run. What makes them so valuable is their permanence: you have no demolition timer for your apartment. It will remain there for as long as your character exists, and so you can have apartments that have not been touched in 3-4 years still holding that spot. Like I said before, it was rare that I saw both main and subdivision apartments full on my own server. Now it looks like they are slowly starting to block people out.

My guess is that a lot of those apartments are owned by alts. Balmung is known as a role-playing server and rp is one of the main reasons why players make multiple alts.

Also, wait a second. New player... Balmung? I thought that server was locked and the only ways in were mythical 5am Tuesday character creation and transfers.

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Originally Posted by Bredbeddle

Two players, two hours, 96 apartment buildings (Mist and Lavender): no luck.

Wait until FFXIV drops in popularity?

Is housing now a "thank you" for early adopters?

What's it like on your server?

(p.s.: highly unfun. logged off. tomorrow, will vet usefulness of checking Goblet.)

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Apartments is barely being used on my server. In my personal housing wards there is like 3 apartments taken.

If you are in a FC that has a house, you can get a Private Chambers there for less and I believe it's about the same amount of space, if not more. It costs less because you could lose the room if you get booted from the FC. Also, with Endwalker there will be a new housing area in Ishgard, so you can try for your apartment there.

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Originally Posted by Bredbeddle

Is housing now a "thank you" for early adopters?

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I'm pretty sure this is a Balmung only thing. It's a very populous server with a lot of RPers, who have a lot of alts, who want a housing location for them. With the total lack of of availability of house plots, apartments were the next best thing and got bought up pretty quickly from what I hear. I believe every other server has apartments available still.

People on Balmung are just going to have to wait until new housing opens up then rush, rush, rush to get it. If they end up adding new apartments with 6.1 I'd suggest grabbing one of those first then doing the plot lottery as there's a window of time where people can buy a ticket for plots so you won't have to worry about people immediately purchasing those plots. On top of that, the chances of actually getting a house plot on Balmung are going to be tiny; you'll have a better chance of getting an apartment if you're there right when they open.

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Originally Posted by Arazehl

Just a curious thought, but how many apartments are used as extra storage, do you think? I mean I know several people buy them to drop overflow of the storage from their private or FC house in them. SE needs address both the lack of slots for housing items, as well as the lack of storage too. All those event, seasonal events, crafted items and mog station items add up.

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Mine is completely storage overflow, and I also have a retainer absolutely full of furniture lol... A lot of it is outdoor furniture and seasonal stuff that you can't just make or buy again (outside of what's on the cash shop anyway...), and since you can't even fully use the house storage itself if you want to be able to relocate, well...

I did take it as a fun challenge to try to decorate and make it look livable even with the absolute disaster of clutter though. So now it's a very cozy, very messy apartment. With like six beds and a wild amount of plants and ice platforms.

Anyway yeah. On super populated servers, even apartments are hard to find. They make things better for getting access to housing at all, but they're still another limited resource. One of the many bandaids on a system that will never fully meet demand as it stands currently.

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Originally Posted by LisSquid

Also, wait a second. New player... Balmung? I thought that server was locked and the only ways in were mythical 5am Tuesday character creation and transfers.

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The day my sister and I signed up, it was one of three preferred servers. By the time my son tried to create a character, Balmung was closed.

Problem with SE is they seem to take their time to address issues like the lack of apartments on Balmung. I suspect they'll fix that issue when 6.1 hits but I wouldn't hold my breath that they do anything before then.

Edit: An as an additional note apartments do open up given my friend got one on Balmung so someone had to transfer off server to free it up. It's about the only thing I suspect one can do there not is to check the wards occasionally to see if one has freed up.

Are apartments the same size as personal rooms in FC's?

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Originally Posted by ShizuruLux

Are apartments the same size as personal rooms in FC's?

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Yes, they are just more expensive then FC rooms and obviously are not connected to you being in a FC.

My guess for SE's solution for the Balmung problem is waiting for 6.1 and the opening of the Ishgard housing as this also include 2 new Apartment buildings in all the new wards.