Island Sanctuary is being discontinued?

I've seen 2 youtubers say it twice now that Island Sanctuary isn't being developed for in 7.x, where was this said?

It was said a NA fan fest, that there will be a small update in 7.0 and that could be the last.

It'll still exist, but yeah outside of some extremely optimistic thinking they're basically abandoning further development of it in 7.0 as alluded to in some Q&A session, can't keep track of them all.
Saddest part is it really looked like they were laying the groundwork for genuine instanced housing. We got an enormous instanced front yard. There were housing frameworks in the system. And then they just stopped, lmao.

Because if they allowed instanced housing on the island, the money from subs due to forty five day log in or house go boom would drop to absolute zero and people could cancel their subs without fear of losing anything. Yoshi does not respect anyone's time except his own. As if IS was going to have housing.

Good. Not sure why so much effort was put into this to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

It'll still exist, but yeah outside of some extremely optimistic thinking they're basically abandoning further development of it in 7.0 as alluded to in some Q&A session, can't keep track of them all.
Saddest part is it really looked like they were laying the groundwork for genuine instanced housing. We got an enormous instanced front yard. There were housing frameworks in the system. And then they just stopped, lmao.

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To be fair, the moment I saw that datamined area the first thing that immediately came screeching to my game developer experience mind was "QA testing zone". I doubt it was ever anything more than that with players just projecting their hopes onto something it was never going to be. At the same time however, such an instanced system could be categorized entirely separated from Island Sanctuary internally & by the devs, meaning calling the actual IS itself feature complete even if that theoretical instance housing section was still being worked on would make logical sense.

As far as the topic, yes it was confirmed it would be feature complete with a small update in 7.0 in recent interviews in Famitsu & Dengeki - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ws_65_edition/

They said something that implied it wouldn't be continued in 7.x unless there was somehow a lot of demand for it.

This is normal and expected. They do not continue developing a feature like this once the expansion is over. Let me give you some examples...

• Palace of the Dead, released in Heavensward (3.x), did not continue development after 3.5x.
• Eureka, released in Stormblood (4.x), did not continue development after 4.5x.
• Bozja, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.
• Firmament, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.

Sad, because they could’ve really made some quality content if they continued developing it. But then, it’s not like they don’t have a track record for this sort of thing, so it’s not exactly surprising

they have more and new life style content coming up and honestly with how SE does things it will just be IS 2.0 so while yea we won't see much more to this iteration of it the chances of us just getting a new island somewhere else is likely what is actually going to happen.

It brought us some pretty nice glam items and mounts (and a rather quaint scene with a couple of lizard ladies), but honestly I'm cool with it being discontinued.

I'll still chill on my island, regardless.

(Also, I feel like it quickly became an afterthought to the devs.)

It'll come back. A lot of the more casual community liked it, and I assume that if there's enough of them asking they'll bring it back.

It's probably really quick and easy for them to make updates for. They just have to create an excuse as to why they can't expand the housing options there.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

Because if they allowed instanced housing on the island, the money from subs due to forty five day log in or house go boom would drop to absolute zero and people could cancel their subs without fear of losing anything. Yoshi does not respect anyone's time except his own. As if IS was going to have housing.

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the house RMT would drop as well. Crazy, right?

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

It'll still exist, but yeah outside of some extremely optimistic thinking they're basically abandoning further development of it in 7.0 as alluded to in some Q&A session, can't keep track of them all.
Saddest part is it really looked like they were laying the groundwork for genuine instanced housing. We got an enormous instanced front yard. There were housing frameworks in the system. And then they just stopped, lmao.

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They were never going to turn it into instanced housing or anything remotely close. There's a reason all the buildings have very specific spots and only after two full years are getting the option to turn them 180 degrees. They want everything relatively static because it's significantly easier on server strain. Unfortunately, they thought for whatever reason making a sweatshop out of our "island paradise" would somehow excite players. Which has completely backfired. So they're abandoning ship and trying again with another form of lifestyle content. Can't say I'm entirely optimistic given Island Sanctuary was inspired by the dev team playing a lot of Animal Crossing. How they landed on what we got from Animal Crossing remains baffling to me.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

. Unfortunately, they thought for whatever reason making a sweatshop out of our "island paradise" would somehow excite players. Which has completely backfired. So they're abandoning ship and trying again with another form of lifestyle content. Can't say I'm entirely optimistic given Island Sanctuary was inspired by the dev team playing a lot of Animal Crossing.

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That's interesting take. I don't want to waste your time but would you mind explaining why do you think it backfired?

just from my head:

I've been in my island but finding it too big with nothing around.
Zone for building is small with just pre-sets ( I don't like designs of some buildings)
If getting mats one by one means tens of thousands of clicking on the same stone to mine it, it does not excite me at all. (Even mobile mining games have upgrades like +1 yield or like +10% chance of getting X more.)
No idea how is the island instance related to server strain. Does it run on same instance server shard as something else? what are the possible issues/implications with too much of the island content?

if they will not keep expanding it with more minions or rewards from dawntrail like alternative way to get glamours, or minions, or furniture, then it's a little bit sad. Reminds me world of warcraft holiday events. They havent been updated for ages since 2015 and people wonder and complain why the queue times are too long.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Good. Not sure why so much effort was put into this to begin with.

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They're just gonna do something else like it.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

They're just gonna do something else like it.

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Maybe the next thing will have a real housing plot on it somewhere. lol

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They said something that implied it wouldn't be continued in 7.x unless there was somehow a lot of demand for it.

This is normal and expected. They do not continue developing a feature like this once the expansion is over. Let me give you some examples...

• Palace of the Dead, released in Heavensward (3.x), did not continue development after 3.5x.
• Eureka, released in Stormblood (4.x), did not continue development after 4.5x.
• Bozja, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.
• Firmament, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.

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Zadnor was literally in 5.55, Baldesion in 4.5, and there was a eureka numbers adjustment last major patch.
And it's funny for you to mention Palace of the Dead, since the Necromancer Title, which is obtained from soloing floor 200, was added in 4.0. And there's even Sage and Reaper weapons from it.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Sad, because they could’ve really made some quality content if they continued developing it. But then, it’s not like they don’t have a track record for this sort of thing, so it’s not exactly surprising

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What quality content?

They've "updated" it twice now and added nothing to the core gameplay.

First stage: Go out into the wilds, bang on rocks to get materials, come back and talk to the mammet to construct a long list of arbitrary items you don't get to keep or use, so one has no practical difference to any other. Interact with your 20 animals and 20 vegetables daily.

Second stage: Build a better tool so you can go out and bang on the same rocks and get new materials from them. Return to the mammet to construct a wider assortment of intangible items you don't get to keep. Interact with your 20 animals and 20 vegetables daily, including some new varieties with the exact same needs as the old ones.

Third stage: Bang on more rocks, now in a cave! Construct an even wider range of pointless items! Interact with your 20 animals and 20 vegetables daily!

Fourth stage: ???


For some reason, I'm not all that excited to see what we get next.

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Originally Posted by ronibosch

It brought us some pretty nice glam items and mounts

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The thing is, we would have got nice glam items one way or another. They would have come through some other content if not through this.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Unfortunately, they thought for whatever reason making a sweatshop out of our "island paradise" would somehow excite players. Which has completely backfired. So they're abandoning ship and trying again with another form of lifestyle content. Can't say I'm entirely optimistic given Island Sanctuary was inspired by the dev team playing a lot of Animal Crossing. How they landed on what we got from Animal Crossing remains baffling to me.

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All of this. I would bet that they wandered off the original vision in increments – needing something to enable crafting for players who didn't level their own skills, thinking of ways to make the content infinitely repeatable – but one way or another, they ended up quite far from the vision and either somehow don't see it or just never thought to evaluate it based on the original idea because they were too focused on how the system would work in the form it ended up in.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

What quality content?

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That was my point. It could’ve been good if they actually developed the concept, but instead we just got a boring sweatshop sim with some archaic material grinding stuff

Am I crazy, or didn't they say they were considering a similar form of content for Dawntrail? They aren't going to continue updating and developing the Island Sanctuary specifically, but that doesn't mean they can't give us a different area along the same lines to explore and develop. I feel like there was a lot of player interest in the concept of Island Sanctuary, having a "cozy farm/lifestyle sim" element, but that the exact form it ended up taking was underwhelming.

I think it would be better to try and start fresh with a new spin on the idea, rather than try and pile on updates to the old Island Sanctuary location.

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Originally Posted by Connor

That was my point. It could’ve been good if they actually developed the concept, but instead we just got a boring sweatshop sim with some archaic material grinding stuff

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It might be what you meant, but what you said was "if they continued developing it" which implies continuing on with what they have done so far instead of stopping it and moving to something else for Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

I think it would be better to try and start fresh with a new spin on the idea, rather than try and pile on updates to the old Island Sanctuary location.

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This. Island Sanctuary's issues are too deep-rooted in the core gameplay to get rid of them. The best course of action is going to be bringing it to a close, then starting fresh with a similar concept that avoids the less popular elements of what they did here.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

Because if they allowed instanced housing on the island, the money from subs due to forty five day log in or house go boom would drop to absolute zero and people could cancel their subs without fear of losing anything. Yoshi does not respect anyone's time except his own. As if IS was going to have housing.

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So, you projected something onto IS that none of the dev team ever mentioned (it being instanced housing), then use your own projection out of thin air to portray the lead developer as the complete and utter opposite of what he's done. Real nice.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

So, you projected something onto IS that none of the dev team ever mentioned (it being instanced housing), then use your own projection out of thin air to portray the lead developer as the complete and utter opposite of what he's done. Real nice.

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I don't think it's that unreasonable for the poster to do as much, especially when the lack of ready access to player housing has consistently been one of the biggest persistent complaints over the years. I'm lucky enough to own a large house myself, though many players I know are not so fortunate - and more than a few realised that there was a greater chance than not at failing to ever acquire a medium or a large house and so they simply quit the game altogether.

Then there's the simple fact that at least one other MMORPG - namely The Elder Scrolls Online - has a robust housing system that is not only account bound but doesn't lead players losing their homes if they decide to take a break for longer than a month and a half. As it happens, the game occasionally gives away unique houses for free. Some of which are fairly sizeable.

So I think that there's more that FFXIV could be doing on that particular front. If not through Island Sanctuary, then perhaps by expanding the apartment system to allow for larger abodes.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Then there's the simple fact that at least one other MMORPG - namely The Elder Scrolls Online - has a robust housing system that is not only account bound but doesn't lead players losing their homes if they decide to take a break for longer than a month and a half. As it happens, the game occasionally gives away unique houses for free. Some of which are fairly sizeable.

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ESO also sells most of them only in the cash shop for $100+ USD. Add in all the cash-shop only furniture, some of them in loot boxes as well, and some people have spent THOUSANDS USD on that system...

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

ESO also sells most of them only in the cash shop for $100+ USD. Add in all the cash-shop only furniture, some of them in loot boxes as well, and some people have spent THOUSANDS USD on that system...

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Its honestly how theyre able to make the housing so appealing in ESO. Because its incredibly monetized. Although I suppose it can be seen as a small price to pay in order to have an instanced house.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

ESO also sells most of them only in the cash shop for $100+ USD. Add in all the cash-shop only furniture, some of them in loot boxes as well, and some people have spent THOUSANDS USD on that system...

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So did RIFT but RIFT also had options to purchase Dimensions and upgrade most of them using the game's normal platinum currency. I never had to use real money to get anything for my Dimensions while I was playing.

If someone else wants to spend real money to shortcut their way into getting items that take some in-game effort to earn otherwise, I really don't care outside of items that come from the skill-based achievements. But then even those already have a thriving RMT underground in place to assist players in getting them.

There comes a point when you have to decide what you do in a game is for your own satisfaction and enjoyment, not to impress others. No one is going to be impressed that you have something if they also believe you paid someone else to get it instead of earning it as intended.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Its honestly how theyre able to make the housing so appealing in ESO. Because its incredibly monetized. Although I suppose it can be seen as a small price to pay in order to have an instanced house.

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It's monetized because they know players will pay for it.

Considering a lot of the assets used for their housing are assets already created for other game play purposes, the monetization shouldn't be necessary for most of it. If something is unique to the housing system and does not otherwise exist in game for any other purpose, then I can see making it a microtransaction.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

Because if they allowed instanced housing on the island, the money from subs due to forty five day log in or house go boom would drop to absolute zero and people could cancel their subs without fear of losing anything. Yoshi does not respect anyone's time except his own. As if IS was going to have housing.

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Garbage. If you want to stop playing the game why would you care or expect the game to hold a house for you till you get back. Entitled to the end, eh?

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

ESO also sells most of them only in the cash shop for $100+ USD. Add in all the cash-shop only furniture, some of them in loot boxes as well, and some people have spent THOUSANDS USD on that system...

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Right, though they're entirely optional and you can secure some pretty sizable homes simply by playing the game and never touching the cash shop in the first place.

Exclusive cosmetics are unfortunately just part of the industry as a whole at this point to the degree that even many single player/co-op games are indulging it. A few rare exceptions exist here and there but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

I fired up Dying Light 2 for the first time in months earlier today and discovered that there's now a new paid currency for cosmetics.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Garbage. If you want to stop playing the game why would you care or expect the game to hold a house for you till you get back. Entitled to the end, eh?

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Not everyone stops playing a game with zero intention of returning. Sometimes it's real life causing conflicts and they'd still like to play again when those are resolved.

Under the limited ward system that FFXIV is currently using, it might feel like unreasonable entitlement.

In other MMORPGs with instanced housing, it's not. I stopped playing RIFT around 2017 (and stopped paying Trion real money before that) yet even now with Trion owned by Gamigo, I've been able to log into RIFT and visit my housing there. Everything was intact outside of some small changes to appearances because they adjusted how some of the items that leave visual special effects worked. I honestly didn't expect the housing to still be there - yet it was. I could also pop into a Dimension that was owned by one of my friends who also stopped playing RIFT without him being online (something we can't even do with Island Sanctuary).

Player housing doesn't have to be a punitive system for those who want to take breaks from a game, nor put newer players at a big disadvantage.

Good. It is a bit of a flop. It was fun at first but as usual, the dev team can't allocate the resources to create new and unique rewards nor does it have any decent multiplayer component. The team needs to stop wasting time on things that don't have both.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Garbage. If you want to stop playing the game why would you care or expect the game to hold a house for you till you get back. Entitled to the end, eh?

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The game forcing your sub to keep a house because of their artificially restricted housing is what’s truly garbage here

I’d love to see how many extra players they would lose if housing didn’t hold on to people teetering on the edge of taking a long break

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Originally Posted by Astrahime

Zadnor was literally in 5.55, Baldesion in 4.5

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Exactly what I said (that's what 5x means).

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there was a eureka numbers adjustment last major patch.

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Doesn't count as that is merely a nerf or general stat squish. These are normal and not real updates or new additions.

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And it's funny for you to mention Palace of the Dead, since the Necromancer Title, which is obtained from soloing floor 200, was added in 4.0. And there's even Sage and Reaper weapons from it.

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An achievement isn't a real change to the content itself. They usually don't add weapons for old content below the level of the job, but for a deep dungeon weapon that has a single color texture over the entire thing, it's about the easiest old weapon to add because all they would have to do is get a random sage/reaper weapon, open MS paint and save a blank white canvas as the weapon texture and they are done.

You know exactly what I mean here. We didn't get new areas, new floors, new enemies, new levels or ranks or abilities for any of this content after the expansion was over. Likewise, it's very unlikely that Island Sanctuary will get new ranks, new visions, new areas, crafts or crops from 7.0 or after.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

A lot of the more casual community liked it

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I'm amazed if that is true... I mean it's something to do but it's not social and once you rank up it's just clicking things a bit each day/week. It's nothing as exciting as eureka/bozja and it's not particularly fun.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

Am I crazy, or didn't they say they were considering a similar form of content for Dawntrail?

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They intend to develop a brand new "lifestyle" content, unrelated to Island Sanctuary.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The game forcing your sub to keep a house because of their artificially restricted housing is what’s truly garbage here

I’d love to see how many extra players they would lose if housing didn’t hold on to people teetering on the edge of taking a long break

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It's cute the way you think a member of the ff defense force would even conceive of people unsubbing without the housing restriction. Their logic will auto correct itself into bizarro world i.e. no one has ever wanted houses or cares about them.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

It's cute the way you think a member of the ff defense force would even conceive of people unsubbing without the housing restriction. Their logic will auto correct itself into bizarro world i.e. no one has ever wanted houses or cares about them.

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In general I like to give people I don’t recognise at least a few chances before I write them off as a Stan either way, I honestly don’t know this persons stances on the issue

I personally enjoyed the Island Sanctuary, but I don't think it makes sense to continue it into the next expansion. This sort of content is designed to be standalone, such that you aren't obliged to work through it in sequence. Players are less likely to want to engage with 7.0 additions if it's gated behind 20 Sanctuary Ranks. I was surprised that they even mentioned the extra 7.0 content as a possibility.

Perhaps they will eventually add an instanced area to showcase indoor housing items as well as the outdoor ones. Who knows.

Either way, if the content type has been popular, you'd be more likely to see parallel zones with their own progression systems in subsequent expansions.

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

That's interesting take. I don't want to waste your time but would you mind explaining why do you think it backfired?

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I said something like this when it first came out: IS feels like something that was conceptualized by an environmentalist or therapist, but the execution is given to an oil baron. Like ... I feels it boggles the mind how almost 180 contradicting the original concept was to what we actually have. And I know I wasn't the only one thinking like that.


It was supposed to be our "get away", a "natural paradise". Like, I know the "quests" we get on each update (whenever an NPC come to visit) try to "push" that idea really hard into us, trying to make us believe it's "our private resort" but not for a single moment I feel that way. We're 100% just a manager running Tataru's network of sweatshop, that's it.

- There is literally nothing we build that is for us.
- They are all accommodation built for the slaves ... eh I mean a bunch of sassy mammets.
- We're given a pristine, untouched piece of nature. And we proceed to strip mining, deforestation and deface the landscape for profit, and with a smile when we're doing it.

Seriously, in all of my 10 years of playing this game, IS is probably the most confused piece of content I think I've seen like. Don't get me wrong, I think the technical aspect is fine, in term of effort/reward and such. It's just ... at least I would make sense had our venture is something like building a natural reserve, or R&R resort, or a dwelling. But a full blow industrial area ... like ... wtf!?!?

I'm glad to hear they gonna stop putting in resource in IS. Like don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind if they revisit this content again, but next time I hope the implementation will be somewhat consistent which what is on the label.

So basically island sanctuarys turned out to be like wow garrisons after all
hell even came in the expansion with the least amount of content too

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They said something that implied it wouldn't be continued in 7.x unless there was somehow a lot of demand for it.

This is normal and expected. They do not continue developing a feature like this once the expansion is over. Let me give you some examples...

• Palace of the Dead, released in Heavensward (3.x), did not continue development after 3.5x.
• Eureka, released in Stormblood (4.x), did not continue development after 4.5x.
• Bozja, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.
• Firmament, released in Shadowbringers (5.x), did not continue development after 5.5x.

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I like how this list forgot diadem from HW which was so underwhelming and disliked it even got deleted from the game. R.I.P. diadem...

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

In general I like to give people I don’t recognise at least a few chances before I write them off as a Stan either way, I honestly don’t know this persons stances on the issue

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What I am saying is the dismissiveness towards housing is utter bs. You have to spend possibly tens of millions of Gil or hours and hours of time crafting to attain and furnish houses. That's before you spend time furnishing it. Not to mention setting up the exterior and gardening. A lot of time, Gil and effort goes into getting a house and holding it hostage with subscriptions is theoretically unfair because someone could easily be bored with the game right now but still wait to retain their house.

It's not fair and solutions exist, but people on this forum generally don't care about anything that could possibly paint the team as exploitative when they absolutely are in this regard.

An example I've used elsewhere is imagine if Genshin erased your unused characters. Look at Destiny 2 and vaulting. Players universally hate content removal and only in FF will people condone it. It's crazy. There can be real reasons someone needs to unsub for measly 45 days.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I like how this list forgot diadem from HW which was so underwhelming and disliked it even got deleted from the game. R.I.P. diadem...

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It didn't forget Diadem, but Diadem was redone for 5.0. But this was mainly because it was failed content that they didn't want to be a failure. You can argue about the success or failure of Eureka, Bozja, Island Sanctuary all you want but at least people could actually get to it solo rather than needing to use an FC airship or a party of 8.