Why so much new house content as casual rewards?

[SendohJin]

I think a lot of players don't realize that each ward has a subdivision now. They just look at that main ward and think everything is full.

there are 1440 plots per server, so way less than 10% of the playerbase has use for outdoor furnishing.

[Intaki]

Hmm I just bought a medium sized personal house a week ago on my server. I wouldn't consider myself hardcore or anything. I just had a good way of making gil for a while and was able to save up enough. Maybe it's my server too, there are plenty of plots available still, though most plots are occupied, there are still a good few that aren't. I bought my plot in the 7th ward in the subdivision. There's still an 8th ward with plots available too, not to mention some of the other wards do have land free.

I think a lot of players don't realize that each ward has a subdivision now. They just look at that main ward and think everything is full.

On larger servers like Balmung and Gilgamesh it's not uncommon to look and see that every house in every ward in every subdivision in every housing area is taken.

[Xystic]

Sure. I'm also part of an FC that has one. Consider that no new FCs and no new players can participate.

Most MMOs recommend newer players to lower population servers and newer servers first, where plenty of houses are still available. MMO players are forgetting that if you pick an older or higher population server, you face the chance of having some inaccessibility to features. This is consistent thru out all MMOs, not just FF14.

So you looking for a cookie or something? The average casual player doesn't have 10 mil to blow on housing.. lol doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out or understand the OP's post.

Keep the snippy comments to a minimal please.

If you look at sessurea's post, if you split the price of the FC house between several individuals, its easier to achieve. Most casuals may not have 10 million alone but when you combine your resources with several other casuals, that is different story.

[Intaki]

Most MMOs recommend newer players to lower population servers and newer servers first, where plenty of houses are still available. MMO players are forgetting that if you pick an older or higher population server, you face the chance of having some inaccessibility to features. This is consistent thru out all MMOs, not just FF14.

And then there are other more successful MMOs such as Rift and SWTOR (and the less successful Wildstar) where every single player in the game gets at least one housing zone all to themselves for free.

Heck, even EVE, where time subscribed literally translates to in-game power, has plenty of opportunities for new players to claim their own little piece of the galaxy.

[Shougun]

And then there are other more successful MMOs such as Rift and SWTOR (and the less successful Wildstar) where every single player in the game gets at least one housing zone all to themselves for free.

Heck, even EVE, where time subscribed literally translates to in-game power, has plenty of opportunities for new players to claim their own little piece of the galaxy.

FFXI has an island and mog house, just to add a game that the company itself owns. I get that these big systems take time but I'm not greatly impressed with the current system when it does work, and less so because it's not working well. Other MMOs, for this at least, would be a good place to look and I hope SE does.. (comparing/evaluating in terms of customization, freedom, and ability to meet supply and demand)

[ColorOfSakura]

So, ok, they want housing to be a system for the elite.

Except not really? Maybe when it started out and plots were like...50+ million for smalls.

But now it's just that a system like player housing is difficult to implement with regards to server stability. They've been introducing housing as their servers allow for it. Yeah, there's not enough to allow for all players to have a full house, but I expect that to change as stuff like the Expansion is added.

Housing isn't out of reach for casual players. I'm a casual player and I was able to make almost 10 million gil (without crafting) over the course of a month or so to contribute to my FC's fund to get a Large house. I'd spiritbond gear and also take time to sell crafting materials like Clusters and Crawler Cocoons on the MB. It just took work. I didn't have to spend ALL my time in game doing crafting and being "hardcore" to amass that kind of gil. It's not actually hard to make a million or two a week if you know what you're doing.

You're sadly out of luck because you're on a seriously high population server. But that doesn't mean SE isn't working on making more housing available or that their thoughts is that it's somehow an "elite players only" club.

[Risvertasashi]

Except not really? Maybe when it started out and plots were like...50+ million for smalls.

But now it's just that a system like player housing is difficult to implement with regards to server stability. They've been introducing housing as their servers allow for it. Yeah, there's not enough to allow for all players to have a full house, but I expect that to change as stuff like the Expansion is added.

Housing isn't out of reach for casual players. I'm a casual player and I was able to make almost 10 million gil (without crafting) over the course of a month or so to contribute to my FC's fund to get a Large house. I'd spiritbond gear and also take time to sell crafting materials like Clusters and Crawler Cocoons on the MB. It just took work. I didn't have to spend ALL my time in game doing crafting and being "hardcore" to amass that kind of gil. It's not actually hard to make a million or two a week if you know what you're doing.

My opinion is that a system that denies access to new players, or those who weren't in on it early, is a system for an elite. (They've said they won't be adding new housing for a good long while.)

But...

Honestly I feel like the elephant in the room is doing an awful good job of staying out of site. The OP complained about the surfeit of housing items, but the housing system's implementation isn't the underlying issue of the event, not really...

It would have been real easy for SE to add in last year's outfit, that both old players that missed it (or are on new characters!) could enjoy, as well as those new to the game. If, you know...

[Xystic]

And then there are other more successful MMOs such as Rift and SWTOR (and the less successful Wildstar) where every single player in the game gets at least one housing zone all to themselves for free.

Rift was okay but SWTOR wasn't very successful.

Because another MMO decides to pool its resources so you can have a house, other features become lacking. Your trying to say because these MMOs invested a majority of their resources so everyone can have a house, FF14 should by no means have an excuse to not too. Well sure we could pool all our resources to housing but that means we'll just be like wild star, swtor, rift and etc. A boring MMO in which our house has no value because we decided to give everyone a house by pooling all our subscription money in to maintaining server space for player's houses and not paying for a development team to produce awesome new features, content, vanity and so forth.

There are limitations in each and every MMO. Just because some can do it does not mean others can or should as well.

[ColorOfSakura]

It would have been real easy for SE to add in last year's outfit, that both old players that missed it (or are on new characters!) could enjoy, as well as those new to the game. If, you know...

But SE hasn't repeated holiday rewards at all, not really. The only ones they repeated were the 1.0 items that many players would never have had access to, and it was mostly done as a nostalgia thing. But now that we've started repeating ARR holidays, they're changing the rewards up. That's likely why we don't have an outfit for Valentione's. There wasn't a Barding last year. Instead we had a barding on Hatchingtide. We'll probably see the Spring holidays get the rewards switched up a bit. We have no clue what they're planning.

[Risvertasashi]

Rift was okay but SWTOR wasn't very successful.

Because another MMO decides to pool its resources so you can have a house, other features become lacking. Your trying to say because these MMOs invested a majority of their resources so everyone can have a house, FF14 should by no means have an excuse to not too. Well sure we could pool all our resources to housing but that means we'll just be like wild star, swtor, rift and etc. A boring MMO in which our house has no value because we decided to give everyone a house by pooling all our subscription money in to maintaining server space for player's houses and not paying for a development team to produce awesome new features, content, vanity and so forth.

There are limitations in each and every MMO. Just because some can do it does not mean others can or should as well.

There's one curiously missing example for your list. FFXI is alive and kicking as a subscription MMO. The population is low, but stable.

You do have some points about allocation of dev resources. Thing is, though, they're still pouring those resources into the housing system. Expanding capabilities (which is a good goal) and adding new furniture (As the OP pointed out), but not availability of the system.

All that said I wouldn't complain if, as the OP pointed out, we still got things anyone can use. But we're getting tons of furniture.

In the OPs words, if we don't have a house, what exactly are we supposed to do with furniture? Eat it?

The barding is cool though. Barding, armor/clothes, etc... {Yes, please.}