Another Housing screw-over.

[OdinEon]

Eorzean time is the only time that matters... what's EST anyway? Surely not Eorzean Standard Time.

[Illya]

Balmung is not the entire game.

If people so much about personal housing that it overrides every other thing, they could always transfer off Balmung to the many other servers where housing isn't in such high demand. I mean it's basically Balmung and the most overcrowded Legacy servers where housing is even remotely an issue. The other servers are all confused about what the fuss is.

[polyphonica]

(This sort of ties in to the post above as well, but...) I wonder if SE should consider some sort of emigration promotion to encourage people to move from super-busy servers like Balmung to the other servers that have plenty of housing availability. I think they do have to add more to the busy servers, but completely meeting demand would be difficult and just continue to encourage over-population. From a load balance perspective they probably so would prefer if people could spread out more. So to me, other than continuing to add more land (which I expect they will do) this would be another step that could help with this problem.

(As a point of reference, tons of free plots in all districts still on Midgardsormr; heck one of the Mist Wards 31-60 is still entirely empty.)

And by the way, to address an earlier comment in the thread, the reverse auction is still in effect, even though the note about it is hidden in the updated UI.

[Felis]

I got a small house in Laverder Beds on Ragnarok 8 hours after patch and there were still many plots free

[Kinseykinz]

Balmung is not the entire game.

If people so much about personal housing that it overrides every other thing, they could always transfer off Balmung to the many other servers where housing isn't in such high demand. I mean it's basically Balmung and the most overcrowded Legacy servers where housing is even remotely an issue. The other servers are all confused about what the fuss is.

The problem with this thought is:

1. House vs. Friends/established connections-you can leave and get the house of your dreams, but at the cost of everyone you know and have made friendships/connections with.
2. Laundering all of your gil so that you can keep a good chunk of your savings, esp if you have been saving to buy on one of the large-pop worlds, takes time and energy....and will likely, unless done very slowly and carefully, still net in taking a large loss.

So you can be poor, and lonely but have a pretty house....or you can be homeless, but rich and surrounded by friends.

PS: I was able to buy the exact house in the exact plot/ward I wanted today in Excali. But it happened to be the last one of that specific plot available, and about 14ish hours after patch, all smalls in my ward are sold. Also, I fought the servers hard for a little over an hour starting at 4am EST even to get the chance to log in....when I saw my plot, I almost cried because I sooooo thought it would be gone. (It's a darn good plot). I am assuming, based on the love affair people on Excali have with the Mist, people who were hoping for a beachside shanty who only logged in when I did, were out of luck (I did not check the other wards today...and avoided LL at all costs due to the 'sea of ROG's').

But basing whether or not someone can own a house in the game based on their ability to login at launch and not get 'world is full' errors for too long is not the best approach. I understand SE is having issues supporting the housing areas...but really, couldn't that have made it so higher demand servers have more wards, lesser demand worlds less? Wouldn't that still eat up the same server space but offer a better service to the customer?

[Fatestorm]

But basing whether or not someone can own a house in the game based on their ability to login at launch and not get 'world is full' errors for too long is not the best approach. I understand SE is having issues supporting the housing areas...but really, couldn't that have made it so higher demand servers have more wards, lesser demand worlds less? Wouldn't that still eat up the same server space but offer a better service to the customer?

This is a man who gets it. Thank you. I understand that Balmung is not all servers; that's why I keep flagging my observations as *on Balmung*, and providing specific housing counts and numbers so as to avoid all sorts of sweeping generalizations. However, if you want to make a valid generalization about all this, it's that crowded servers are selling out hours after launch; less crowded servers aren't selling out at all.

I think that SE's approach to housing problems should not be to foist it off on the players. "There are too many of you on this server, pay more for the exact same content than other servers; or else move your ass off your server and sever all your friendships, and by the way pay us a fee for the service."

But, even if that IS the option that you want to go with, you have to remember, at least in the case of the Legacy servers (I know there are crowded servers that are non-legacy too), that for a long time we were completely prohibited from transferring to other servers. Either keep us all together or spread us all around, but make the message consistent.

[LilRedAlchemist]

Really? I play on Behemoth, logged in 2.5 hours after the patch (the time I normally wake up for work), and there were still a bunch of small plots available. Not only that, but that was just the first ward of the subdivisions. I didn't even check the other wards... And that was The Mist. Didn't check Lavender Beds or The Goblet. No interest in either.

Same, I checked at like 6pm est and there was a boat load of S plots left in Mist (where I want to buy) so I'm gonna wait a few more hours before I pick up my preferred plot.

It sucks though for people on way more populated servers.

[Seif]

This is just dumb programming through and through.

Fact: we're already instantly transfering servers for duties.

Fact: there are still empty plots on the lowest pop servers

Am I the only one who wonders why the heck they didn't dedicate the housing it's own damn server where people would go just like in duties?!
That way the land would be distributed evenly regardless of what server you're on.

[MomomiMomi]

Am I the only one who wonders why the heck they didn't dedicate the housing it's own damn server where people would go just like in duties?!
That way the land would be distributed evenly regardless of what server you're on.

The economies of the servers are vastly different. You can't price things fairly if we all shared the same plots. The richest servers would get all the houses and everyone else would be left with none.

[Kyros]

For the record, last patch Balmung sold out in 13 minutes. I mean as in, there was not a single S house available at all in 13 minutes. I watched people literally race each other on their mounts to grab the next available plot.

It wasn't much different this time around, but from what my friends told me it was a race as well.