<MATERIA> First-Come First-Served AND Lottery Plots

The Materia DC has been anticipating the release of 6.1 housing and in today's Live Letter, it was announced that all plots would initially be lottery-based.

This puts many people in a tough spot and also heavily encourages the use of alt accounts and bots. Many of the Materia community ask the dev team to reconsider this 100% lottery-plot plan and make half of the wards first-come, first-served as it was in the past.

This new system heavily favors numbers. Materia is still a fledgling data center, and with a small community, we'd all like a chance at houses.

I'm sure that within the community there are many personal reasons that people will also have for not wanting a lottery-based system enabled in all wards.

On behalf of the players, I urge you to reconsider.

Frankly, For Materia, I want housing in LB, Mist, Goblet, and Shirogane opened as soon as possible, fcfs.

Then we can do ishgard like all other data centres.

There isn't any sensible reason to keep delaying our ability to buy a house.

We've been open a month and we got 1,000,000g bonus for new characters, and another million gil bonus for transferring over an apartment. With earning over the month, it's more than enough for many people to start buying.

They are giving fresh players a chance to compete with all of you who moved there with gils.
Not my business, just saying.

I agree with OP. Housing in new worlds should at the very least open with the four systems outlined prior to the slide that indicates all will lottery in 6.1.

It makes no sense to run a lottery only system when opening housing on new worlds in a new data-centre, no sense at all.

Many of us left houses on our old worlds to support the opening of the new data-centre, it seems unfair to subject us all to the mercy of RNG only in our attempt to reclaim what we gave up.

Some lottery and some FCFS would be the fairest solution.

Materia likely won't have the same problems with housing supply that other data centres have, so I don't think the lottery serves much of a purpose here.
At best, it should just be an option for those people who might prefer it, even though I think majority FCFS makes more sense for a new DC like ours.

Making all plots lottery-based just delays opening up an entire section of the game that is currently closed off to OCE players.

Other than it taking longer to be able to play a large part of the game, this delays starting up our already slow economy where an entire category of items is unsellable. It delays our ability to build a new community. There is no supply for certain glamour items that come from submarines and airships too.

As a personal side note, crafting without housing merchants is unpleasant and I can't wait to get out of Limsa.

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Originally Posted by Damptoe

As a personal side note, crafting without housing merchants is unpleasant and I can't wait to get out of Limsa.

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I've taken to spending time at the MB in Empyreum when crafting- at least I have a summoning bell and MB right there lol! But I am not doing well as a hobo, not going to lie.

I agree and I am also rioting over an all lottery system.
This is plain unfair to those of us who dislike the lottery system, to those of us who are fine with the effort needed for first come first serve, to those of us who have already given up our houses on other datacenters only to be told we're running on another chance.

It is illogical to go through this lottery system on a low population data center where there are going to be 7200 houses opening per server and there might not even be that many people wanting a house. Hell, there might not even be that many people on the actual server. A couple servers on Materia have populations under 2000 people. Houses greatly outnumber players and those who possibly want a house.
The lottery system is intended for larger servers and datacenters who have an active need for a housing system change.
Some wards being first come first serve makes it easier for those who want their dream house, for an fc that immediately wants to work on engaging content for their community to go get a house and dive into it, for those who want to garden and decorate.
This will just be a hinderance on a player or free companies time to begin what they want to do in this game and gatekeeps content.

Materia should be half first come first serve and half lottery. This way, everyone gets what they want with housing and those who want to immediately do their housing content have the ability to do so.

I agree completely, at least reconsider Materia because it's a completely new data center with new worlds. I left my medium house behind and now I don't want to have to fight a lottery just to even get a small.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

They are giving fresh players a chance to compete with all of you who moved there with gils.
Not my business, just saying.

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Nothing about moving over with gil. I started a brand new character on Materia, from level 1. It's been a month, and there is no need to wait longer.

Certainly not until April. Open the old housing zones right now, FCFS, just as the other regions have, and then so there is no difference, open Emperyum the same as the other 3 regions.

But right now, Materia is being quite disadvantaged should housing be lottery come April.

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Originally Posted by Taitaibun

A couple servers on Materia have populations under 2000 people

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Sophia 30,002
Sephirot 26,935
Ravana 25,881
Bismarck 17,226
Zurvan 12,197

The under 2000 is people who have finished Endwalker. But you don't need this to have earned enough to buy a home, not with Materia X prices how they are. heh.

We've all been rather patient in the hopes of getting a house. To find that it will all be a lottery system gives a lot of us anxiety.
As a head of an FC, I am painfully aware that a house is a requirement for a lot of content (workshops, vendors, crafting stations, personal rooms in the FC house, GARDENING - can't grow my Thavnairian Onion anywhere else). We got locked out of this content on the other Data Centers as personal housing competes with the FC housing. Give us a fighting chance!

With a lottery system, it would take a fixed amount of time to know if we have missed out on our first choice before we can look at our back-up alternatives. With First come First served, we can run around and buy an empty plot.

You mentioned in the Live Letter that FCFS may be an option if there is demand. We are all trying to show you that demand is here, now. Please.

I sincerely hope the feedback makes them rethink all lotto purchases. I suspect they will change that soon enough to accommodate the feedback. Still unclear to me if you can bid once on a FC house and again on a private. I hope we can do both.

I hope it's all done via lottery.

If housing is not really in demand Materia as you people insinuate, why would you be scared of not able to obtain a plot via lottery.

I feel that those players who are clamouring for FCFS are being ingenious and just want to take advantage of being the few who are able to login during the initial rush while the rest of us are being caught out due to other real life obligations.

So please keep it based on full lottery to be fair to all players, thank you.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

If housing is not really in demand Materia as you people insinuate, why would you be scared of not able to obtain a plot via lottery.

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"you people" sheesh.

FCFS in Materia Mist, Materia Lavender Beds, Materia Goblet , and in Materia Shirogane is no more than other regions have already. Why should we wait another 2 months for housing and then a a bigger insult do this via lottery from the get-go? How does that effect Balmung?

I am personally happy for Empyreum to be the same on all Data Centres - a mix, or whatever, but as soon as possible and well before 6.1, Materia should be opened on the old housing areas FCFS.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

"you people" sheesh.

FCFS in Materia Mist, Materia Lavender Beds, Materia Goblet , and in Materia Shirogane is no more than other regions have already. Why should we wait another 2 months for housing and then a a bigger insult do this via lottery from the get-go? How does that effect Balmung?

I am personally happy for Empyreum to be the same on all Data Centres - a mix, or whatever, but as soon as possible and well before 6.1, Materia should be opened on the old housing areas FCFS.

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Ok my bad, my use of language may have been inappropriate as English is not my strongest language.

The fact remains that housing in Materia will only be opened up during 6.1 as has been stated since Oceania servers are announced and there has been no indication for SE to do otherwise.

Given that 6.1 is a major patch, it is anticipated that there will be many players returning to the game which will definitely cause a congestion similar to the queues experienced during endwalker release.

Given the case, isn't it more fair and equitable to allow everyone have a fair shot at the plot which they would like to obtain?

A FCFS system will only benefit the lucky few who happened to be free at the exact moment 6.1 is released and the majority of the players would lose their chance at securing the plots they would prefer.

I pretty much agree with everyone else here regarding opening the old/existing housing districts first in Materia (why waiting until 6.1 for those?), then I won't mind the Ishgard housing to be half or all lottery. I suggest the dev can even try the lottery system with Materia first for those old areas, but it should be only a fraction of all the wards, like maybe 5 out of 30 wards will be lottery or something.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

Given that 6.1 is a major patch, it is anticipated that there will be many players returning to the game which will definitely cause a congestion similar to the queues experienced during endwalker release.

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Again, why does a player on Balmung care what happens in Materia?

We won't have many (if any) returners, being a month old, we came after End Walker. Those who zoomed to the end and then unsubscribed are not here. Most players are sprouts, and there are a lot of us.

Releasing Materia Mist, Materia Lavender Beds, Materia Goblet, and Materia Shirogane (the old cities) before 6.1 as FCFS stops any congestion come 6.1

Come 6.1 whatever for Emperyum, all lottery, partial lottery, some personal, some fc only - whatever - same as every other region.

But we have no housing for 2 more months, when plots in the 4 current cities that are empty right now could be put to use immediately.

Materia is in a unique situation right now that needs special consideration outside of NA/EU/JP.

You mentioned in the Live Letter that fcfs might be considered if there's demand, there is demand, please reconsider! The lottery system is meant to alleviate the need for players to placard spam to try and get a house, and to a lesser extent, alleviate the housing crisis. On our brand new Materia DC/Servers, this isn't a problem yet, as none of the housing districts are even open, let alone have any problems to require the lottery system.

Waiting 2 more months is a long time, especially if its 100% lottery it'll be even longer depending on RNG :( Also someone mentioned on page 1, that having all 5 districts open on 1 day will be even harder on the servers congestion, than just Ishgard opening.

Can you please consider opening the older districts (Mists, Lav Beds, Goblet, Shirogane) for Materia DC before 6.1 as fcfs, then when 6.1 comes out with Ishgard, Emperyum can be whatever suits the situation then?

If not sooner, can we please have some fcfs? 100% lottery on 100% empty lots that have never been owned just doesn't make sense :(

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Again, why does a player on Balmung care what happens in Materia?

We won't have many (if any) returners, being a month old, we came after End Walker. Those who zoomed to the end and then unsubscribed are not here. Most players are sprouts, and there are a lot of us.

Releasing Materia Mist, Materia Lavender Beds, Materia Goblet, and Materia Shirogane (the old cities) before 6.1 as FCFS stops any congestion come 6.1

Come 6.1 whatever for Emperyum, all lottery, partial lottery, some personal, some fc only - whatever - same as every other region.

But we have no housing for 2 more months, when plots in the 4 current cities that are empty right now could be put to use immediately.

Materia is in a unique situation right now that needs special consideration outside of NA/EU/JP.

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Because I don't just have a character on Balmung? It's simply a character I have retired as I'm playing mainly on Materia now due to time zone difference.

During today's live letter, please correct me if I am wrong but I'm fairly certainly that SE did not reveal any plans or intentions to release housing ahead of schedule for Materia.

Instead, they are asking for general feedback on lottery vs FCFS. With the information we have on hand, we can infer that Materia housing will be released on 6.1 with the rest of the world. Just because a few players complaining on the forums will have little impact on their decision on this front.

Now, with that point in mind, we can debate on whether there should be FCFS wards in 6.1 in general. Whether there is any housing in the next two months is simply a moot point and have no relevance on the exact feedback which SE is asking during the live letter.

Now I agree that Materia is in a unique situation compared to the rest of the world. However, we do not have the actual number of players on hand and those from unofficial sources appear to indicate that the number of players exceed the number of plots including that of Emphyreum. I'm still convinced that lottery is the fairest way to distribute housing plots, especially if the demand for housing outstrip supply which seems to be the case. As I have mentioned, FCFS only appears to benefits the priveleged few who are able to login the moment the server goes up after 6.1.

However, I'm willing to concede that perhaps just a few wards can be allowed for FCFS solely on Materia for those who really desire it although it's a concession I'm still loathe to accept given that lottery imo is still the fairest way to distribute since each player has an equal chance to secure the plot which they desire.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

Because I don't just have a character on Balmung? It's simply a character I have retired as I'm playing mainly on Materia now due to time zone difference.

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Thank you for clarifying you are on Materia.

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During today's live letter, please correct me if I am wrong but I'm fairly certainly that SE did not reveal any plans or intentions to release housing ahead of schedule for Materia.

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No, they didn't but that doesn't mean people can't ask for the old cities to be released right now. Housing is something that a lot of people do need. Reminding SE that it would be helpful to us seems a good use of the forum. Especially if they are here looking for threads on "should Ishgard be fcfs or lottery" and see these.

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I'm still convinced that lottery is the fairest way to distribute housing plots, especially if the demand for housing outstrip supply which seems to be the case. As I have mentioned, FCFS only appears to benefits the priveleged few who are able to login the moment the server goes up after 6.1.

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You are welcome to that conviction. I think more people just want housing now.

Don't forget, lottery will still be there for Emperyum should they open the old cities now so you will still get your chance. People who wish to wait and participate for one of those 1,440 plots will be no worse off, than on any other server in any other region. In fact they could be better off as there will be less competition for those over a server - say on Aether.

But right now, we do need housing opened up. And that needs to be FCFS with maybe a few lottery wards as suggested above to do a production level debug for the rest of the world.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

I hope it's all done via lottery.

If housing is not really in demand Materia as you people insinuate, why would you be scared of not able to obtain a plot via lottery.

I feel that those players who are clamouring for FCFS are being ingenious and just want to take advantage of being the few who are able to login during the initial rush while the rest of us are being caught out due to other real life obligations.

So please keep it based on full lottery to be fair to all players, thank you.

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A lottery makes it more difficult to get a specific plot the player might want and increases the length of time before they can own.

We didn't get all the lottery specifics last night but we were told back in November that there would be a "several day" lottery period followed by a "several day" land acquisition period before the next lottery occurred.

As an example, let's say "several day" means one week. That means someone who doesn't win a house in the first lottery period will be stuck waiting at least two weeks before their next chance to win a house. They might again not win, meaning yet another two before the next chance.

That said, I agree that the lottery is the fairest solution for the housing system we currently have.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

We won't have many (if any) returners, being a month old, we came after End Walker. Those who zoomed to the end and then unsubscribed are not here. Most players are sprouts, and there are a lot of us.

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Except you're not truly a sprout. You're an experienced player who knows how to make gil. That gives you a significant advantage, even on a new character, compared those who are truly new to the game.

I also imagine most of the delay is with FCs in mind. They want all the new FCs to have a chance to rank up and earn gil for their house purchase instead of the transferring players with hundreds of mlllions of gil getting a head start by buying up multiple plots with shell FCs.

SE announced before the data center opened that housing would not become available until 6.1. They had also already announced that the lottery system would begin in 6.1 and they were leaning toward all purchases being lottery at first. You should have known what to expect.

If the character populations on the Materia worlds had remained low so that the supply would have been equal to the demand, first come first serve for the initial sales would have made more sense. Instead populations exploded far above the number of plots that will be available. For the sake of fairness, SE really doesn't have much choice other than to go with the lottery.

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Originally Posted by Kirstie

You mentioned in the Live Letter that fcfs might be considered if there's demand, there is demand, please reconsider! The lottery system is meant to alleviate the need for players to placard spam to try and get a house, and to a lesser extent, alleviate the housing crisis. On our brand new Materia DC/Servers, this isn't a problem yet, as none of the housing districts are even open, let alone have any problems to require the lottery system.

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If the population numbers quoted earlier are accurate

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Sophia 30,002
Sephirot 26,935
Ravana 25,881
Bismarck 17,226
Zurvan 12,197

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then it is already a problem. There will only be 7,200 houses per world to split between both FCs and individual players, and the lowest population world is already well past that number.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

But right now, we do need housing opened up. And that needs to be FCFS with maybe a few lottery wards as suggested above to do a production level debug for the rest of the world.

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Don't confuse what you want with being a need. Housing is completely optional in this game - you do not need it.

I do sympathize. I'm considering going to the new NA data center when it opens later this year so I'd be in the same position you're currently in - staring at a bunch of empty house plots when I'm itching to decorate and probably trying to get a workshop up and running for a new FC.

But I also support SE's decision to delay so the playing field is leveled while new player and transferred players both get established on the new worlds.

I really do hope they will reconsider and make some wards FCFS and some lottery, just as they outlined for all the other worlds.
Many of us have sacrificed our houses back in our previous world and have been waiting patiently for 6.1 for housing wards to open up. FCFS still doesn't guarantee us a plot, i know, but at least it's gives those of us willing to compete for a plot a chance to do so.

Those numbers are bloated by the fact that just about every person who transferred an active character there made an alt that used the road to 80 buff to level to 30 for the 1million gil and 2 weeks free playtime, in addition to people from all over who did the same and have no intention of keeping those alts here once their 90 days are up. Everyone I know who brought a character over also made a burner to level. I certainly did- on BOTH of my accounts, and since we are restricted to one house per world per account, that removes a sizeable chunk of the numbers right there.

Sure there are loads of sprouts who are newcomers, my FC is full of them, but there are in no way 12k people actually playing on Zurvan.

At any rate, the fact remains that we were encouraged to up stakes and move from established worlds and many of us left homes we loved (I gave up a large) on the assumption that we would be able to get into new houses when the housing opened in 6.1. At that time only Empyreum was discussed as being all lottery and in all past openings of new wards there has been a free for all with no timers at all.

Which is perfectly fair.

What is not fair in the least is to spring this lottery on all the old wards opening on new worlds in a new data centre AFTER people gave up their homes and moved. I can promise you that many people would have made different decisions had this been announced at the outset.

Lottery removes the possibility of establishing neighbourhoods with friends and FC mates, and one would think that developing a cohesive and active neighbourhood environment on new worlds would be something that the devs would choose to encourage for the longevity of the servers.

Lottery may arguably be the fairest way to deal with freshly demolished plots (though imo the issue with timers was the preferential treatment afforded to relocators and the excessive length of the timers themselves rather than the concept) but to do this to people who moved to a fresh data centre in good faith that they would be able to buy back their houses on new worlds with the bonus of creating a neighbourhood of their friends is neither fair nor well thought out.

I choose to believe that lack of forethought is at fault here, as the thought of the devs being so disingenous as to leave the 'by the way all those houses we comped you for? You'll be forced to buy them back through the lottery on the new world for the first time ever' out of their 'move to materia' spiel goes against my experience with the game for 5 1/2 years of playing. But the net result feels the same- important information that would have influenced a lot of people's decision to move was left out of the brief we all got before we moved.

There is absolutely no reason to inflict a lottery system on brand new wards- least of all on a fresh data centre. By all means delay the housing a day or two to enable everyone to get the 'home is where the heart is' quests done if you must. But for the love of the twelve do not subject new worlds in a new data centre to this lottery system. There is simply no need.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I do sympathize. I'm considering going to the new NA data center when it opens later this year so I'd be in the same position you're currently in - staring at a bunch of empty house plots when I'm itching to decorate and probably trying to get a workshop up and running for a new FC.

But I also support SE's decision to delay so the playing field is leveled while new player and transferred players both get established on the new worlds.

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Are you actively playing on Materia now? If so, then you would likely see most people are now established and waiting. You would see the vast numbers of people with crafting jobs advancing fast.

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Except you're not truly a sprout. You're an experienced player who knows how to make gil. That gives you a significant advantage, even on a new character, compared those who are truly new to the game.

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By observation, from the census, and me like many others. It's seems fairly common on Materia for established players to restart at level 1 and leave their old mains behind in JP on NA with friends. Friends are always nice to keep even if one stops playing with them daily.

You can tell this alt and restart at 1, from quality of glamours on level 20s through to how people perform in a low level dungeon when their names are not italic. There are some genuine new players, but then on any server from Lich to Coerl a true new player wont be doing housing for a while anyway.

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I also imagine most of the delay is with FCs in mind. They want all the new FCs to have a chance to rank up and earn gil for their house purchase instead of the transferring players with hundreds of mlllions of gil getting a head start by buying up multiple plots with shell FCs.

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To assist you when you move to a new NA server - which will have DC travel, so won't be as frontier like as Materia - ranks are pretty simple, getting to 6 is a few runs of Shisui, or a bunch of cheap crafting. Most dedicated players can get Rank 6 in a few days. Even casual FCs who only hand in their retainer quick ventures can get there in a few weeks. Anyone who hasn't gotten their FC to 6 in a month is likely not after housing, it's that simple.

Earning gil is likewise a lot simpler on a frontier server. You won't have as much chance of this, as you will have DC travel from all the other NA servers, so could actually transfer your character and not be disadvantaged too much - want to buy something not on your MB, then just world travel to an old server.

There are without doubt gil capped "housing primals" who are likely looking to grab the LB41s, but they are usually one person FCs, and by nature of that won't get all the plots - even during a full day of house buying.

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Don't confuse what you want with being a need. Housing is completely optional in this game - you do not need it.

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Sorry, it's not your place to dictate how people the game and what they find enjoyable to spend their time on.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If the population numbers quoted earlier are accurate

then it is already a problem. There will only be 7,200 houses per world to split between both FCs and individual players, and the lowest population world is already well past that number.

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Try playing on Materia. A lot of those players got their bonuses and split.

A data centre where Alliance Raid Roulette doesn't pop for over an hour on a Sunday morning, most certainly will not have any problems with housing supply.
Even a quick look at Limsa is enough to tell, considering most people will be gathered there at the moment instead of their houses.

I personally think that the lottery system is superior - but only when you are dealing with a full server where housing is at a premium. Making everything lottery there makes it fairer for players to obtain a house.

That's not the situation in Materia.

Materia should be primarily FCFS in 6.1, and then add more lottery as the patches go forward and housing becomes rarer.

So...you want to return to a system that heavily favors botters and RMT gold sellers because the new system may favor botters and gold sellers

I wonder if there are any naysayers that are actually in OCE. Would probably be more constructive.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

So...you want to return to a system that heavily favors botters and RMT gold sellers because the new system may favor botters and gold sellers

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They've done what they can by combatting it with the removal of instant relocation and the incoming free company changes. Lottery will still allow this behavior seeing as those people can also access this system. The changes to relocation and free companies are to deter those acts.
We want to return to this system so the active player base of Materia may enjoy their free company content, gardening content, private roleplay etc etc.

A further issue with the lottery exclusive model on Materia is the one ticket per player concept.

I am hoping this is a translation error because it seems incredibly unfair to open all the housing on a world in one go and not allow a player to bit on a personal and an FC house. They can't be serious about this? So I can bid on a place for my 40+ member FC OR I can get a ticket in hopes of replacing the house I lost when I moved, but not both?

Why?

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Originally Posted by Taitaibun

We want to return to this system so the active player base of Materia may enjoy their free company content, gardening content, private roleplay etc etc.

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Onions wold be nice. Right now it's a case of relying on that one person who brings over hundreds of onions every three days. I wonder how many hundreds of millions of gil they have made? It would have to be a lot.

(Aether being locked for new characters means I have 1 mule left, and I don't want to use him up yet to do the same)

Until then - have a level 3 alt on another data centre... buy up cheap onions and mule them over please :) you make good profit and my Choco can level more.

heh.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Onions wold be nice. Right now it's a case of relying on that one person who brings over hundreds of onions every three days. I wonder how many hundreds of millions of gil they have made? It would have to be a lot.

(Aether being locked for new characters means I have 1 mule left, and I don't want to use him up yet to do the same)

Until then - have a level 3 alt on another data centre... buy up cheap onions and mule them over please :) you make good profit and my Choco can level more.

heh.

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I mean give me the gil on another server and I'll do it? None of my alts really have gil or anything, I only play my main which is on Bismarck. Oooor wait until 6.1 for your onions. I'd offer to buy onions for you but I'm keeping my housing hoard fund.

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Originally Posted by Taitaibun

I mean give me the gil on another server and I'll do it? None of my alts really have gil or anything, I only play my main which is on Bismarck. Oooor wait until 6.1 for your onions. I'd offer to buy onions for you but I'm keeping my housing hoard fund.

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Or release the old cities now. And we can get started.

They definitely is not going to release Materia wards until 6.1 and go live with lottery system. This is their only way to prevent/reduce the possibility of RMT obtaining plots.

RMR will not be able to use leaks of current system to their own advantage. They will need to go through lottery system like normal players

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

They definitely is not going to release Materia wards until 6.1 and go live with lottery system. This is their only way to prevent/reduce the possibility of RMT obtaining plots.

RMR will not be able to use leaks of current system to their own advantage. They will need to go through lottery system like normal players

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I don't really get what you mean with leaks. Currently everyone has to click for a house for hours, days, weeks, if not months to even get one. It's all random, just depends on who clicks buy first after the hidden timer goes off.
Plus if you're in a house/fc sales communities they don't allow RMT, so that eliminates that chance.

I did think of a way that SE could initially roll out wards on a FCFS basis while retaining some measure of fairness - stagger the release of the wards (assuming that is possible with their programming).

Example: if servers come up at 3am, ward 1 + subdivision become available immediately. Ward 2 + subdivision would be available at 5am. Ward 3+ subdivsion available at 7am, etc.

It staggers the opening the wards so those not able to be online when the servers come up from maintenance would at least have some small choice of wards at a time they can get online.

Then once everything is sold out or after a preset period (which ever comes first), change wards to lottery. That way there's no massive waiting period for getting a house but there's also no unfair advantage to those who are able to get online at a single specific time.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

They definitely is not going to release Materia wards until 6.1 and go live with lottery system. This is their only way to prevent/reduce the possibility of RMT obtaining plots.

RMR will not be able to use leaks of current system to their own advantage. They will need to go through lottery system like normal players

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There's no way to prevent RMT from getting into the system unless they ditch the wards and go full instanced, or they remove FC housing. As long as players have some way to transfer control of a housing location, RMT will exist when the supply is smaller than the demand.

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Originally Posted by Taitaibun

I don't really get what you mean with leaks. Currently everyone has to click for a house for hours, days, weeks, if not months to even get one. It's all random, just depends on who clicks buy first after the hidden timer goes off.
Plus if you're in a house/fc sales communities they don't allow RMT, so that eliminates that chance.

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Why people use script bots to do the clicking - they can go do other things on a different account or outside of the game.

Those communities have no way to prevent RMT. Additional arrangements can able be made outside of their specific discords with no one the wiser as long as no one says anything. They can't police member behavior outside of the discord.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I did think of a way that SE could initially roll out wards on a FCFS basis while retaining some measure of fairness - stagger the release of the wards (assuming that is possible with their programming)..

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Stagger opening was one of the first things I thought of for Materia old cities, but it's likely not going to work as they seem to need to always need to bring down the servers.

Plus of course, the vast bulk of Materia players who will be after housing don't have the housing quests done yet (they are locked). Those need to be collected and then travel and go in from the overland to enter the wards and buy. Staggered wards through opening, mean it's possible the ward could be full and people can't enter to complete the quest.

My thought after, for people stuck in the queue, and people playing from NA, where a release is likely to be 3am or so, was how it could be nice if they can set all houses placard timers to an exact time, but stagger them, rather than staggering opening up the wards.

All wards open (so the housing quests can be done 4 times over) but Ward 1 opens up as fcfs immediately... Ward 2's placards are open and clickable, but will be purchasable from hour 1... Ward 3's placards are open and clickable, but will be purchasable from hour 2... up to ward x-y are going to be half lotto solo and lotto fc.

Or do it over 12 hours, with 2 wards popping open each time.

I personally like lottery : if you work full time, it's impossible with the old system to have the free time to 'camp' and its a system that favours faster connection / PC / etc and it's also unhealthy. As it is now, I am personally against FCFS.

But I think the staggering idea would stop a lot of issues with the FCFS system and this needs more attention / upvotes. I am for lottery, but staggered FCFS would be just as good and in some cases better.

The positives of staggering and reducing the windows and have different wards at different times seems - people generally play with those in their zones, would reduce tedium and bots can click forever so I feel it would improve the chance for a RL player to get it. it would allow people that work etc to time their purchases as well.
Especially with bots. The larger the window, the more a human would tire or have commitments to attend to.

I wish we could fix the issue with supply : Bots don't seem as regulated yet on Materia as on JP servers from my experience - the same gil sellers have been running around and the Uldah aetheryte has a chunk of bots inside, regardless of reports.

I can both understand the delay, and somewhat dislike it : It is nice to give fresh players a chance, however I've personally been sitting on house gil since about HW. So I can appreciate both arguments : Some people have been waiting 'in line' for longer than it takes to raise a child and have them go to school. but content should be available for everyone.

Would be great if they implemented some of the great suggestions people have had, but it's always going to come down to more wards. We are dealing with disruptions while they expand things : Hopefully they've taken extra wards into account....

The point everyone seems to be missing is that when new wards are released there is NO TIMER.

First come, first served means literally that. You log in and run for your plot. If you miss one you dash to an aethershard and try for the subdivision or a different ward. You have multiple options and everyone is on a level playing field, I won a large in a new ward drop back on NA when I missed my first choice and ported to the subdivision immediately.

Fresh world FCFS is fair for all and on top of that you have multiple chances to get a plot on the night, lottery removes all the positive aspects of fresh wards.

The lottery is horrible for fresh wards. You have one shot and if you miss that one shot- you might not get another.

I don't think there is a single soul who would argue that the timer on demolished plots was a good thing, but new plots in fresh wards have never had a timer. So why people are all acting as if we were going to be fighting bots in a click war in the new wards is beyond me. It was never going to happen that way.

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Originally Posted by LunaFancy

The point everyone seems to be missing is that when new wards are released there is NO TIMER.

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Exactly. The lottery just makes the process of getting a house painfully longer for very few benefits when we could be kickstarting our economy and community instead.

There is no RMT problem for fresh housing districts and we're getting all 5 of them at once. I also fancy a real player's chances in a foot race against a dumb bot in a multiboxing situation, but I don't see a need for cheaters to use bots in the first place given how many plots will stay available for a long time anyway.

With the current population, houses will likely remain unsold for months potentially, with Ravana probably being the only exception. Unless there's a massive migration of people who held out until housing released.

Sephirot feels near or below early Stormblood Kujata's population, when there were still houses for sale with only 12 wards and no Shirogane yet. I know Zurvan and Bismarck will have absolutely zero problems getting houses.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Stagger opening was one of the first things I thought of for Materia old cities, but it's likely not going to work as they seem to need to always need to bring down the servers.

Plus of course, the vast bulk of Materia players who will be after housing don't have the housing quests done yet (they are locked). Those need to be collected and then travel and go in from the overland to enter the wards and buy. Staggered wards through opening, mean it's possible the ward could be full and people can't enter to complete the quest.

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Agree that it's something that SE might not be able to do but it's an idea thrown out in case it is possible.

As for not having the housing quests done - I don't think that's going to end up an additional bottleneck. Someone who's doing one of those quests when the servers come up will likely be doing it because they intend to be buying a plot or purchasing their lottery entry immediately. They would in the wards regardless and that crowd is going to be broken up between the 24 different wards. Most players do not care what ward number they are in, they care about the plot location. If they try to get into ward 3 and it's full, they can always choose ward 19.

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Originally Posted by LunaFancy

The point everyone seems to be missing is that when new wards are released there is NO TIMER.

First come, first served means literally that. You log in and run for your plot. If you miss one you dash to an aethershard and try for the subdivision or a different ward. You have multiple options and everyone is on a level playing field, I won a large in a new ward drop back on NA when I missed my first choice and ported to the subdivision immediately.

Fresh world FCFS is fair for all and on top of that you have multiple chances to get a plot on the night, lottery removes all the positive aspects of fresh wards.

The lottery is horrible for fresh wards. You have one shot and if you miss that one shot- you might not get another.

I don't think there is a single soul who would argue that the timer on demolished plots was a good thing, but new plots in fresh wards have never had a timer. So why people are all acting as if we were going to be fighting bots in a click war in the new wards is beyond me. It was never going to happen that way.

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Don't think that many are expecting the timers to be there (unless they're new to the game and haven't experienced a ward release).

What they're concerned about is getting locked out of housing because they couldn't log in the exact second the server came online so by the time they're able to log in, what they want is gone with no chance to get it (and everything else might be gone as well if they can't log in until after work).

Lottery gives them a chance to get a plot if they can't log on right away. FCFS without timer would not unless the supply is so much larger than demand so plots are still sitting open days later.

That leaves the question of how much demand there is. The number of characters currently on a world doesn't mean much when a lot of those characters were created solely for free game time and the patch itself looks like it won't be until mid-April. A census at the end of March will probably give a much better estimate as it could check to see how many players have completed the 2.0 MSQ by that time.

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Originally Posted by Damptoe

Exactly. The lottery just makes the process of getting a house painfully longer for very few benefits when we could be kickstarting our economy and community instead.

There is no RMT problem for fresh housing districts and we're getting all 5 of them at once. I also fancy a real player's chances in a foot race against a dumb bot in a multiboxing situation that just slows them down, but I don't see a need for cheaters to use bots in the first place given how many plots will stay available for a long time anyway.

Given the current population, houses will likely remain unsold for months potentially, with Ravana probably being the only exception. Unless there's a massive migration of people who held out until housing released.

Sephirot feels near or below early Stormblood Kujata's population, when there were still houses for sale with only 12 wards and no Shirogane yet. I know Zurvan and Bismarck will definitely have no problem getting houses.

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Housing is a nice tool but it's not needed to "kickstart" a community (not to mention that wards inevitably end up dead unless there are a couple of free companies present with members coming and going, or running the RP venues.

While it's got an economic role it can play via sale of housing furnishings, what your economy really needs is an infusion of players ready to spend gil on your marketboards. You're not going to get much of an economic boost if the only players who can afford to buy are the ones who are also doing the selling. All those level 30 characters getting a million gil aren't helping much if they were abandoned as soon as they hit 30 because the player was really after the free game time.

The housing process is already painfully long. The lottery isn't going to make it any worse. The real obstacle is players needing to wait for 6.1 when they're ready to purchase now.