The Truth About FC Housing (Since SE Refuses to Tell It.)

[Piddles]

I thought they put them very high to combat gold buyers/sellers. Or at least I hoped they did it like that >.>

[YuriRamona]

The real issue is that housing is simply not ready to release yet. Most likely, SE doesn't have the server capacity to allow every FC to have a house. So they instituted the prices as an artificial barrier. That way they could "release" the content without having to make it accessible. It also gives them essentially a closed beta as a few FCs will buy houses and test the systems.

^The true reason why housing prices are so high. SE was unable to meet the demand of the users and chose to deliver an unfinished product as opposed to admitting their failure and postponing FC housing.

People seem to neglect this. I'm glad people finally recognize what's going on.

This is just silly since no one is buying any housing because of the high pricing...

I thought they put them very high to combat gold buyers/sellers. Or at least I hoped they did it like that >.>

All the other reasons (RMT, gil sinks, economy) are not the predominant reason for the high price, although they certainly help those problems. Yoshi even hinted at this by saying it's not "physically possible" to make more plots available. Therefore, an artificial barrier was generated to prevent players from buying land and houses because the servers are very likely substandard or unstable.

Please understand that while we will be adding servers and expanding housing areas as soon as we can, it is simply physically impossible for us to accomplish this easily, in a matter of one or two weeks.

Is this really a legitimate excuse? Months after release, the game is not ready to handle a handful of new instances? I'm having serious concerns about the network infrastructure of this game if we are looking at the need in future patches (and EXPANSIONS) for new instances and the server stress presented by:

• New open areas and cities
• Player housing
• Frontlines
• Main scenario duties
• New hard mode dungeons or Ballad encounters

With months of preparation and rest time following the launch fiasco with the servers, the game couldn't manage a few additional instances and areas? I'm surprised by the lack of outrage in response to this.

[YuriRamona]

To add on, to make it even more stupendously obvious, the housing prices are definitely set to be cut by 50% in 3 months. (With a possibility for deeper cuts in the near future, as hinted at by Yoshi)

Think about that for a moment.

1. FFXIV is a rapidly inflating economy.
2. Your gil right now will decrease in value over time.
3. You will make and accumulate gil at an increasing rate not only due to inflation but the new gil sources of 2.1.
4. You have the option to buy something right now that will be half as expensive in 3 months.

Who in the right mind would make the decision to buy a house right now?

Obviously, only a very select few with immense wealth. And so, we are led to believe that this update was skewed to be a gil sink for the ridiculously rich.

However, when we pair the knowledge that they set a DEFINITE TIME FRAME for players to be able to purchase a home, and Yoshi's explicit emphasis on this fact:

"With battle alone you should be able to earn 15000-18000, little bit over 20000 gil with role bonus every day. If you farm 7 days that’s good amount X number of members. It’s set so players can buy in 3 month time."

The devs are practically BEGGING players to wait to buy a house.

With this pricing scheme, we sought a balance in which roughly 80% of all existing free companies will be able to purchase at least a small-sized plot in three months’ time.

Now it becomes clear that the development of housing was designed to delay purchases while the team scrambles to stabilize and build the actual server-side infrastructure necessary for this to be an actual finished product.

[Lingarn]

With months of preparation and rest time following the launch fiasco with the servers, the game couldn't manage a few additional instances and areas? I'm surprised by the lack of outrage in response to this.

I think it mostly comes down to reading comprehension.

Some people accept the gil excuses without understanding what he actually said about the servers. A lot of people suggest limiting it to 1 per FC to get around the wealthy land grab problem, even though the patch notes already say this is the case -- and did so before his lengthy response.

They say you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time. It is kind of depressing to see it in practice, because like you, I am outraged.

[YuriRamona]

I think it mostly comes down to reading comprehension.

Some people accept the gil excuses without understanding what he actually said about the servers. A lot of people suggest limiting it to 1 per FC to get around the wealthy land grab problem, even though the patch notes already say this is the case -- and did so before his lengthy response.

They say you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time. It is kind of depressing to see it in practice, because like you, I am outraged.

We just expect a little maturity and professionalism on SE's part when they are faced with shortcomings such as this, especially given their usual apologetic and explanatory manners. I had expected a little more honesty that these problems were a direct result of a development and preparation shortcoming, as is evident at this point. Instead, it's given one line in vague terms of "physically impossible".

[Quesse]

We just expect a little maturity and professionalism on SE's part when they are faced with shortcomings such as this, especially given their usual apologetic and explanatory manners. I had expected a little more honesty that these problems were a direct result of a development and preparation shortcoming, as is evident at this point. Instead, it's given one line in vague terms of "physically impossible".

I wonder what kind of outrage there would have been if housing was delayed until 2.2 or 2.1 was delayed until February??

I believe Yoshi sees a gil issue on servers. He saw housing needing to be delayed because of infrastructure. So he came up with this twisted plan to both delay housing and create a massive gil sink to try and correct some of the previous "dawn drop" issues from FFXIV's past. Only thing is it was contrary to everything he had previously said about housing. It was a total fail of a plan.

And here we are.

[ArkhamNative]

Yes, it does look like these initial land prices are a "limited time! prices will never be this expensive again!" deal. The two points are:

• Land prices will start at the figures indicated in the patch notes
• After three months, final land prices will match those of World Group 3

and

... land prices in legacy Worlds will eventually fall to match those of World Group 3. In the event that pricing changes are made to this group, the same will be applied to legacy Worlds.

This means the cheapest house on top tier legacy worlds will go from 40,000,000 gil as a starting price to an 8,000,000 gil starting price in 3 months. It's safe to say that's not related to the state of the worlds' economy, because nobody can predict how much gil will disappear in 3 months. If somebody could, and predicted 80% economic contraction, it's called collapse. (The collapse called "The Great Depression" in the US 1930s was a 30% contraction.) It would also be a hugely contradictory prediction, because SE also admits the game is pumping more gil into the economy than ever before.

To use a familiar metric, US gasoline prices are around $3.50 per gallon. After such a pricing change, the new price would be 70 cents. Or for the UK, that's petrol going from 130 ppl to 26 ppl.

[Nova_Dresden]

This means the cheapest house on top tier legacy worlds will go from 40,000,000 gil as a starting price to an 8,000,000 gil starting price in 3 months.

Prices falling to that of world group 3 (my server, Cactuar, being one of them) would mean that the small plots would be 4 million as prices on world group 3 will fall to 50% of starting prices making them 4 million gil. But this is for current housing which seems to be meant as company housing and not individual player housing.

[Roflcoptorz]

So Yoshi-san or dev team, I'm wondering when/if you ever plan on coming clean and being truthful with the community. Or is the plan to simply ignore your customers and hope for the best?

[Axlle10]

Im rather glad prices were set high. i know my server was the second lowest prices for everything. But to see my entire free company come together and work our asses off to accomplish getting a decent plot and make a home for ourselves was quite a gratifying experience. Yes, i also thought prices were way too high, but after seeing what those high prices made us do. I am happy that SE made prices high. I would gladly do it again if it meant i would get everyone working together again. So instead of complaining that everything is way too high, get out there and TRY to accomplish something great. Like they have said, it is something you should have to work for, not something handed to you on a silver platter like 90% of the other games out there. oh, and btw, we made around 25mil in 10 days with everyone helping out. its really not that hard to get it.