Instanced Housing Idea: Island Homesteads

Making this it’s own thread since I saw a few other comments about it elsewhere. :) We have the Island Sanctuary, so how about an Island Homestead?

Picture it… you hit rank 20 (or wherever the final max rank will be) and the mammet has a new quest for you. You follow him down to the water’s edge and he says “See that island out there in the distance? Turns out that’s part of your parcel of land!” You take the ferry over, and land on the side of a private dock, with a placard bearing your name. The island is vaguely rectangular in shape. Large enough to fit a large plot inside with a border around it for scenery. The mammet says “Ok just tell us what you want and we’ll get started!”

https://i.imgur.com/1wCUSna.jpg

From here, you can customize your plot of land. It can fit any size house. If you choose smaller than a large, it will be auto-filled with scenery matching the theme you chose. And since not everyone wants a tropical home, there will be different themes… For example, Woodlands, if you’re like me and love trees and waterfalls, this would be a LB-style. The border around your home will be filled with that kind of scenery, as would the extra yard space if you go with a small or medium. (Or maybe, since it’s instanced, you could just have a small house in the corner of a large yard, who knows?) The themes would be inspired by the existing wards without copying any one plot in particular. (Think how other games have biomes for example.) Far East for Shirogane, Seashore for Mist, Desert Oasis for Goblet, Snowy Mountain for Empyreum, etc. These themes would decide the style of the lamps at your front gate, your front steps and the placard on your dock, as well as your interior walls (if we would still need to worry about such things!), but everything else inside the plot area and house would be customizable just like a ward plot. (Please no glamour system for this, my inventory couldn’t take it!)

Maybe it would be easier to create just one scaleable plot per style than copying the ward plots, or a handful of the popular ward plots, who knows? And since they’re kind of one size fits all, everyone with a “special” ward house can still feel special. lol Those that just want the enjoyment and creativity of personalizing their own space would be thrilled! :D And we can still have each house size cost the same gil as a ward house if needed to make everyone feel equal. So long as it has the same functionality. Call it a building permit or something.

I mean honestly, wouldn’t this make a great “finale” to maxing out the island at whatever point they decide to do it? :) Yes it is gate locked behind EW MSQ, but at least they can say, hey if you get this far in the game you will have an actual house if you still haven’t managed to win a lotto!

FYI the island I’m referring to is in the top center of the image. :)

If instanced housing had to exist, it would have to be somewhere else than on the island, just because of how clunky it would be to invite people over to your house, or there would need to be a direct teleport right to the house, else its just an opening to new complaints about having to go through all these hoops just to go to your house, let alone if someone wants to make a venue out of their house (if larges are allowed as instanced), as for your idea the idea on paper is good, but if there are no instant teleports to it, people will be very unhappy to go through those hoops every single time, instanced housing would be better placed where the buildings are right now, maybe an upgrade to the main building that removes the mammets (god bless i think at this point everyone wants them gone) would be a better idea.

I was thinking maybe there could be a directory type thing next to the guy that takes you to your island now, similar to the apartment directory.

I’d rather see it being a separate instance from the existing sanctuary though. Even if they got rid of the mammets, I don’t want my main house to have tropical scenery, or to be so close to other, non-moveable buildings like the granaries and workshops. And if they did it like I described, and it was designed nicely enough, it would be my main house. I’d let my ward house go.

We have that boat right on the beach. No big deal to add another location to it. And given that we’d like to have the full functionality of indoor and outdoor housing, it might be best from a server standpoint to have it separate from the sanctuary anyway. I’m sure someone more technically knowledgeable can comment on that.

I do get the direct teleport thing… not sure if that could be accomplished, or if getting you to the directory is as close as it can get. I mean you’d think if they’re creating a whole new thing, they could create an idea to give it easier access. Failing that though, they make the multiple scenery options and do them well? There should be more room freed up in the wards for venues.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I was thinking maybe there could be a directory type thing next to the guy that takes you to your island now, similar to the apartment directory.

I’d rather see it being a separate instance from the existing sanctuary though. Even if they got rid of the mammets, I don’t want my main house to have tropical scenery, or to be so close to other, non-moveable buildings like the granaries and workshops. And if they did it like I described, and it was designed nicely enough, it would be my main house. I’d let my ward house go.

We have that boat right on the beach. No big deal to add another location to it. And given that we’d like to have the full functionality of indoor and outdoor housing, it might be best from a server standpoint to have it separate from the sanctuary anyway. I’m sure someone more technically knowledgeable can comment on that.

I do get the direct teleport thing… not sure if that could be accomplished, or if getting you to the directory is as close as it can get. I mean you’d think if they’re creating a whole new thing, they could create an idea to give it easier access. Failing that though, they make the multiple scenery options and do them well? There should be more room freed up in the wards for venues.

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An easier way would be to simply put a boat in Moraby Docks that acts like the apartment list, but with instanced housing instead, showing the entire list of instanced houses and if they are closed or open, that would fix the whole "having to go to the island then tp again to the house", however as for the location I still think having it in the middle of nowhere would feel... off ?

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

An easier way would be to simply put a boat in Moraby Docks that acts like the apartment list, but with instanced housing instead, showing the entire list of instanced houses and if they are closed or open, that would fix the whole "having to go to the island then tp again to the house", however as for the location I still think having it in the middle of nowhere would feel... off ?

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Yeah that could work. :) I was thinking of both: being able to ferry there from your island or from Moraby. And who doesn’t want their own private dock? lol

But as far as its location, theoretically, it would be that large island off the coast of the sanctuary so it would technically still be in the Cieldalaes. As for the different scenic/climate options, lore-wise they can just say the Calamity did crazy things to weather patterns. lol

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Yeah that could work. :) I was thinking of both: being able to ferry there from your island or from Moraby. And who doesn’t want their own private dock? lol

But as far as its location, theoretically, it would be that large island off the coast of the sanctuary so it would technically still be in the Cieldalaes. As for the different scenic/climate options, lore-wise they can just say the Calamity did crazy things to weather patterns. lol

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Just say some Allag technology was buried there that allows for weather control in a localized area such as the island you're describing. That would help explain why some islands look like they belong around Ishgard to desert to temperate forest and more.

Ahh I love this idea~! I think if we combine that along with the others' suggestions in here, it could work both lorewise and gameplay wise ^-^

I am not a fan of using the allagans to patch plot holes. But I'd have a seperate idea.

Each GC would offer you a plot, and you could only accept to live on one of them. I think the savior of the universe deserves a place to live at the very least, and who would not want the WoL living in their nation? Give the player the choice of a nice closed off location to build what they want, how they want, where they want.

Though the ability to get people to visit your house who aren't on your friends list would prove more difficult, and its likely you won't be making a venue out of instanced housing for the time being.

Honestly at this point, I don’t care how they do it lore-wise. lol I just want a plot that works the same as a ward plot, inside and out, and be able to choose the scenery theme from already existing residential areas. Just make it pretty and I’m happy. All I want to do is decorate, I don’t need to have anyone but friends visit.

I have been a fan of housing in Island Sanctuary ever since Island Sanctuary was introduced, and this is a good "how to" for it.

I'd disagree; if your going to go with instanced housing you'd have to make it in the capital cities - otherwise your just going to spread the playerbase even thinner; especially given IS depends on significant MSQ progress (vs being able to walk to most housing zones at lvl 3)

The reality is that it would still be less resources to add more wards. The fact is instanced housing becomes a nasty monster because in the end the resource use can spike hard and limit availability. The problem being however that everyone wants to skip a beginner house and move into LB 46. I think there does need to be a realistic management of expectations vs what is expected of SE. As mentioned before - there has been houses available on ALL DC's every lotto cycle it seems.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

As mentioned before - there has been houses available on ALL DC's every lotto cycle it seems.

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Available? Yes, in small quantities. Winnable? Meh. I’ve been trying for a small since last October. I’m the rare bird trying to downsize from a medium. lol I’ve lost popular and unpopular plots. I’ve lost on plots with 3 bids and plots with 15. I’m sick of going through this endless cycle of nothing to show for it.

It’s beyond depressing… we actually had a nice round of auto-demos this lotto cycle, so we had 12 smalls up in LB. The most we’ve seen since new wards in January. So far next round is only going to have 4, unless some of tomorrow’s winners are relocators. And I doubt I’ll be one of them. I’ve pretty much given up hope. I still bid, but I don’t feel like I’m ever going to actually win. Granted I am picky about the neighborhood, but not much else. If we didn’t have auto-demo on, there would be nothing. But that will dry up sooner rather than later. And with new people entering every round, the competition keeps going up too.

Because I see other people mentioning it, here’s a way that instanced housing could be tied to the island, but non-tropical and mammet-free! lol

You had me sold at mammet free. Curse that island.