First article about the House pricing.

[Shinebox]

If they don't want land selling out, they add more housing instances. Other MMORPGs with much more complex housing manage it without a hitch. The "everyone in the same house" scenario is simply improbable, as housing has a rather relevant level of customization.

That doesn't make them infallible. The world of game development is chock full of experienced/successful developers that end up doing large blunders. When this level of outrage happens, smart developers start hearing the Priority One Blunder Alarm blaring into their brain.

Some of them listen to their playerbase and correct those blunders quickly.

Some don't, and it normally doesn't end well for their business.

I respect your opinion on this. Honestly. I just think too many people might be losing faith a little too quickly. Also, the amount of people who did not plan for this are now in panic mode because they did not realize how expensive housing would be. I would agree with adding more land but then you run into the problem of a saturated market. Then, eventually you have empty plots of land and housing becomes less noticeable/significant or less of a status symbol.

One thing we wanted to avoid was situations where free companies wanted to build a house but couldn't because the land was sold out. We also examined all of the free companies across all Worlds, how many members there were, and how much gil each member possessed. We've been proactively removing RMT, but there is still a bit of RMT gil left in the economy which we've accounted for when creating the pricing.

In patch 2.1 you'll be able to generate a bit more gil. Battle classes can earn an average of 15,000-18,000 gil per day, and with role bonuses in the Duty Roulette this can exceed 20,000 gil. Doing this several days a week you can save up quite a bit of gil, and if all FC members do the same, it will become a considerable amount. We estimate that by doing this for around three months you should be able to purchase land.

For new users playing on Legacy servers, there were questions about how they would be able to purchase land as it's much more expensive, so moving forward we will be making adjustments to the lower limits. The prices listed in the patch notes are the high prices, and there have been comments that no one will buy them, but again, we will look at conditions and look into reducing the lower limits. We'll be keeping a close on eye on how everyone is making gil and on the economic conditions for each World.

We understand that the initial prices for housing are extremely high, but this is a patch filled with a lot of content, so as you are having fun and enjoying everything the price will come down.

I took note of the land selling out portion. It is the VERY first thing he said. He responded to the community with these statements which is a completely different approach for SE (being a customer of theirs for over 10 years). Like I said I will give them the benefit of doubt on this one. I have not been disappointed thus far.

I also think it would be fair to include their statement at the end of the article. Other sites tend to do this with products so readers can see the developers/business are actually listening.

[Abriael]

I respect your opinion on this. Honestly. I just think too many people might be losing faith a little too quickly. Also, the amount of people who did not plan for this are now in panic mode because they did not realize how expensive housing would be. I would agree with adding more land but then you run into the problem of a saturated market. Then, eventually you have empty plots of land and housing becomes less noticeable/significant or less of a status symbol.

Empty plots of lands don't really hurt the view. You can always add artificial filler if needed. Other developers never had problems with it.

Again, this isn't the first time housing is implemented in a MMORPG. It only is the first time housing is implemented in a MMORPG (at least to my knowledge) with this kind of overinflated prices.

I took note of the land selling out portion. It is the VERY first thing he said.

And that conflicts with everything he previously said on it. Which is part of the problem. Since when housing has been announced he has repeated over and over that when land would run out, more would be added.

I can very well add his statement, and that's a good suggestion, but it won't help much, as it's an extremely unsatisfactory statement for those that aren't happy about the outcome. Not to mention that he completely misses the point, since the lower limits aren't the problem. The initial price is.

[Keyln]

You saying that an argumentation is a bad argumentation doesn't automatically make it so.

True, but building an argument based on anecdotal evidence and logical fallacies is a bad argument. Which is exactly what you're doing.

The voice of the customer is very relevant when talking about a product, and even more so when talking about a product that requires continued payments. The fact that a very relevant area of the playerbase is very dissatisfied by how the feature is being handled is evident to anyone that has eyes, and it goes a lot beyond this forum.

Never said it was irrelevant, but the customer isn't always right. We players have a very limited access to information, no access to the plans (other than what the devs tell us), so we can't always make good judgements. There are times when a developer has to follow his vision. There are times when it's a good idea to not listen to the .1% player base.

You can keep throwing around dialectical tricks for the sake of arguing as much as you want, but that doesn't change.

Conjure up semantics all you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you're using bad argumentation. It also doesn't change the fact that we're dealing with extremely limited knowledge and facts, and thus, unable to come to the proper conclusions at this time.

[Abriael]

Never said it was irrelevant, but the customer isn't always right. We players have a very limited access to information, no access to the plans (other than what the devs tell us), so we can't always make good judgements. There are times when a developer has to follow his vision. There are times when it's a good idea to not listen to the .1% player base.

The customer may not always be right, but the customer pays for the servers' lights to stay on. There's an enormous difference between going against customer satisfaction when we're talking of relatively minor things like balancing a stat, or nerfing a class, and when we're talking about locking the most hyped and pubblicized feature of the very first content patch of a game that isn't exactly floating in overabundant content away from a relevant portion of the population.

The first requires a deep knowledge of the system to gauge. The second just requires eyes to see that Square Enix dangled the housing carrot in front of our nose for months (actually years) only to replace it with a big hard stick three days before patching. That is, beyond any reasonable doubt, bad business.

Conjure up semantics all you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you're using bad argumentation. It also doesn't change the fact that we're dealing with extremely limited knowledge and facts, and thus, unable to come to the proper conclusions at this time.

The facts are that a whole lot of FC can't afford even the smallest house in the least desirable area on many servers, and that won't change unless SE suddenly pushes an inordinate amount of gil into the game (which would be bad anyway). If you're blind to the existence of many small free companies that have 10-15 members, and to that family-oriented playstyle (that should not be penalized) you're blind to facts.

The facts also are that housing prices effectively punish those that supported the game for the longest time and those that just decided to join legacy servers, even more so because the ratio of income after the patch will be the same between legacy and lon legacy servers, so those on legacy servers are evidently penalized, which is objectively unfair, as people pay a monthly fee whether they play on Balmung or on Lich (or any other server).

The facts are that in every MMORPG that offers housing, an entry level option is always offered, because housing is notoriously a high engagement feature, and it's in the interest of both the developer and the players to grant customers access to high engagement features, even just at an entry level. I shouldn't need to explain why.

The facts are that Square Enix hyped the housing feature as much as possible. As much as having their president and CEO become "uncle housing," and teasing everyone with it incessantly at every possible chance. When you hype something that much and then lock it away from a vast portion of your customers, you're not doing anyone a favor.

Oh yeah. We have plenty facts to draw conclusions.

[Atheena]

I'm thankful I don't make games too. You can't make everyone happy. I'm supporting their decision to make housing expensive to avoid land from selling out. We already have a ton of clones in the same armor, do we want everyone in the same house too?.

Not our fault SE fails to create difference in gear and other stuff! They are capable of doing diversity like in FFXI! We are not a blogger or viewer but a Loyal Customer who voices their opinions! Every other MMO's including older ones who implemetend housing afterwards and allowed day 1 access, The housing is a vanity item that some people actually wanted. SE is trying too hard to control the economy instead of letting it run it's course. I subbed up again trying out tomorrow's patch but if it's not to my liking then i will have no choice but to not only boycott this game with my coin, but also to boycott their upcoming products like Kingdom Hearts and Final fantasy Next Gen!

[Wizzar]

I can see alot of Free Companies closing up to join bigger FC's in the future, just because so an so's FC has a house. This will end some friendships. Members will be leaving there FC's to join bigger etc....

[Keyln]

The customer may not always be right, but the customer pays for the servers' lights to stay on. There's an enormous difference between going against customer satisfaction when we're talking of relatively minor things like balancing a stat, or nerfing a class, and when we're talking about locking the most hyped and pubblicized feature of the very first content patch of a game that isn't exactly floating in overabundant content away from a relevant portion of the population.

Methinks you overstate your claim by a wee-bit. But let's not digress here. I'm not saying that customer satisfaction is unimportant, but it does have to be balanced by game balance as well as developer vision.

The first requires a deep knowledge of the system to gauge. The second just requires eyes to see that Square Enix dangled the housing carrot in front of our nose for months (actually years) only to replace it with a big hard stick three days before patching. That is, beyond any reasonable doubt, bad business.

Did not Yoshida say on numerous times that housing would be expensive? Why act so shocked when he actually keeps his word?

The facts are that a whole lot of FC can't afford even the smallest house in the least desirable area on many servers, and that won't change unless SE suddenly pushes an inordinate amount of gil into the game (which would be bad anyway). If you're blind to the existence of many small free companies that have 10-15 members, and to that family-oriented playstyle (that should not be penalized) you're blind to facts.

Anecdotal. For every story you can give of a FC not being able to afford the cheapest lot, there's a story of a FC that can, as of now, afford a first class slot.

The facts also are that housing prices effectively punish those that supported the game for the longest time and those that just decided to join legacy servers, even more so because the ratio of income after the patch will be the same between legacy and lon legacy servers, so those on legacy servers are evidently penalized, which is objectively unfair, as people pay a monthly fee whether they play on Balmung or on Lich (or any other server).

People who have been on Legacy servers and playing since 1.0 generally have more gil than those who started with the release of 2.0. Even after the number slash, players from 1.0 are still gillionaires.

The facts are that in every MMORPG that offers housing, an entry level option is always offered, because housing is notoriously a high engagement feature, and it's in the interest of both the developer and the players to grant customers access to high engagement features, even just at an entry level. I shouldn't need to explain why.

I'll admit that FFXIV is going into new territory by offering guild housing first, and then personal housing. With that said, I think calling it "high engagement" is an over-statement. Housing is a feature, but not the main point and part of the game.

The facts are that Square Enix hyped the housing feature as much as possible. As much as having their president and CEO become "uncle housing," and teasing everyone with it incessantly at every possible chance. When you hype something that much and then lock it away from a vast portion of your customers, you're not doing anyone a favor.

Hyped? Again, over-statement. A quick look at the topics on Lodestone, Housing was featured only once, along with every other main addition in 2.1. Lightning Returns got more coverage. As far as "vast portion", I think that's not taking into account that there are more gil fountains in 2.1, that prices will fall over time, and that personal housing isn't in yet.

Oh yeah. We have plenty facts to draw conclusions.

If by facts you mean over-statements and anecdotes, then sure, you have plenty of facts.

[Mogi]

I think the facepalm post was good and it be better if it were done by lvl how bout at 25 you can get a small home at 35 a med and at 50 you get the bigest it be fair fun for all and not 100% easy i mean at this point it's fair to say you will have to buy a lot for the home space as is right? most mmo games with homes sell em for cheap or go by lvl just saying

[KHShadowrunner]

All I ask is that for every reference of Majority and Minority in posts be referred to, implied as, and understood to be 'Vocal'. As in, the Vocal Majority and Vocal Minority. As there is what.. over 600,000 people subscribed? I'm fairly confident majorities and minorities are simply not there, just the vocals.

Also, I personally find saying that 'everyone should have access to housing as it is (part of the game)/(a main feature)/(something promised)' give me the right as a 50 miner to say 'I deserve to see the story quests after bahamut and bahamuts head, cuz I pay and it's a main feature of the game (the story)'.

Let's see how today plays out. If you find that people are buying houses, it means people wanted to drop more dosh than others to get what they want in a game.

EDIT: and by dosh i mean in game currency. I'm not touching anything related to RMT or the likes)

[alhandra]

the best way for a small FC or group of people to make money is sell carry runs. seriously. i know to many its a distasteful practice but lets face it, some people just need to be carried, and if they will cough up gil to make that happen then all the better. a friend and i alone have managed to rake in just over a mil in just a couple of days of doing this. think outside the box people