Land Needs Are Unmet on Balmung

[Verdan]

Housing districts being auto-generated when full helps everyone.

Stop trying to make "houses exist" a benefit of a small server instead of a symbol of a system that isn't working and will continue to not work as time goes on. The only way server transfers would be a way to alleviate land concerns would be if they were super easy and you didn't lose anything. Picking up and moving is a hard thing, and there are still legitimate restrictions on where you can go.
An advantage of low population is that you can do a fate with your buddies, or have a challenging hunt, or go to a high level zone and not be surrounded by people. Solitary, small experiences and the sense of wonder and adventure are what a small pop server gives. It isn't the ability to engage in a system, that's a symptom of a failing.

[BreathlessTao]

Land needs are unmet on quite a lot of servers, not only Balmung.

In any case, even if they opened up free server transfers, it would not solve the issue. There's a total of 1mil gil cap on transfers, everything above that you'd lose.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

Not to sound mean or otherwise, but people knew housing was coming when they announced it. If you didn't have the money when it was announced, and lost out, all I can say is I'm sorry. Personal housing does nothing for the player, and I'm going to assume you have an FC with a house, so all the things you have in a personal, you may, or may not have acsess to already through your FC (chocobo stables and gardens). Tough luck, try again later.

[Brynne]

Not to sound mean or otherwise, but people knew housing was coming when they announced it. If you didn't have the money when it was announced, and lost out, all I can say is I'm sorry. Personal housing does nothing for the player, and I'm going to assume you have an FC with a house, so all the things you have in a personal, you may, or may not have acsess to already through your FC (chocobo stables and gardens). Tough luck, try again later.

This doesn't really address new players who joined on high population servers their friends play on, returning players who don't have the extra cash for a server transfer (or who don't want to lose all their hard-earned gil due to the 1mil limit), or players who have seen all the neat seasonal items and decided they want a personal house after all. And not all FCs have a house, or allow their members to just do whatever in their house if they do have one.

I don't think you're being very charitable.

[Aeyis]

Land needs are unmet on quite a lot of servers, not only Balmung.

In any case, even if they opened up free server transfers, it would not solve the issue. There's a total of 1mil gil cap on transfers, everything above that you'd lose.

You can easily carry considerably more then that, assuming there isnt an item transfer cap.
For example you could buy Alagan currency, or high selling, high volume mb items such as MDs or Sealants.

This doesn't really address new players who joined on high population servers their friends play on, returning players who don't have the extra cash for a server transfer (or who don't want to lose all their hard-earned gil due to the 1mil limit), or players who have seen all the neat seasonal items and decided they want a personal house after all. And not all FCs have a house, or allow their members to just do whatever in their house if they do have one.

I don't think you're being very charitable.

High population servers dont have only advantages attached to them, but also disadvantages.
If they joined their friends on that server, shouldn't their friends have told them about the housing prices? I'm a returning player myself, but I started out on a new server, one with more favorable prices but less people.

[BreathlessTao]

Not to sound mean or otherwise

..but you're going to, anyway, right? Understandable, I'm going to assume you either have one of your own or just don't care for it at all. Either way, kudos on the attitude.
As pointed out, there's no addressing new/returning players - or indeed, players who couldn't grind 24/7 for gil. Raids do nothing for the player either, that's as much optional content as housing. Some like one, some the other... I assume the outcry was far louder if SE restricted raiding to 100 players per server, for example.

You can easily carry considerably more then that, assuming there isnt an item transfer cap.
For example you could buy Alagan currency, or high selling, high volume mb items such as MDs or Sealants.

Obviously, but it's quite a gamble. :/ Not to mention it makes your transfer look suspicious, if anyone was ever to take a look at it. (Not saying it's SE's top priority, checking those, but still.)

[Brynne]

High population servers dont have only advantages attached to them, but also disadvantages.
If they joined their friends on that server, shouldn't their friends have told them about the housing prices? I'm a returning player myself, but I started out on a new server, one with more favorable prices but less people.

I guess I'm not seeing the part where being locked out of content should be a consequence for wanting to play with friends? To me, that sounds like a flaw in the system. Also, many returning players already have existing characters they want to play with, and would probably prefer not to either pay a transfer fee or start all over on a new server just to access housing. Those are the players I was referring to.

We will have to agree to disagree that 'you can't ever get a house' should be a disadvantage to being on a high population server. However, if this is the intention of SE, then I think they should be up-front about it so that new players who are interested in housing know that they need to choose low population servers due to limited supply (you shouldn't have to scope around the forums to find this kind of stuff out before picking a server to play on).

I just think that if you have to do sneaky not-intended things like buy up a bunch of Alagan coins and then pay SE an additional fee for a transfer just to access content that you should've been able to play with just your subscription (and some gil farming), it's a sign that something is wrong.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

..but you're going to, anyway, right? Understandable, I'm going to assume you either have one of your own or just don't care for it at all. Either way, kudos on the attitude.
As pointed out, there's no addressing new/returning players - or indeed, players who couldn't grind 24/7 for gil.

I do have my own, I was also ready when they announced it, and it was a struggle to raise 5mil for a small personal. I did it, bought the plot I wanted, I was up right after the server went live, cause it was a mad dash on balmung for plots, and I almost lost the one I wanted. But you know what, I was prepared. I'm sorry you weren't around for when it was released, and I'm sorry newer players can't get land, but you know what? They have personal rooms in your FC house for 300k. I assume you have an FC with a house yes?

This doesn't really address new players who joined on high population servers their friends play on, returning players who don't have the extra cash for a server transfer (or who don't want to lose all their hard-earned gil due to the 1mil limit)

The 1 mil amount is to keep huge gil influxes off of otherwise, low pop servers and destorying their market. As I said above, Personal rooms in FC's are a fraction of the cost and give you the chance to actually decorate something.

[Brynne]

I do have my own, I was also ready when they announced it, and it was a struggle to raise 5mil for a small personal. I did it, bought the plot I wanted, I was up right after the server went live, cause it was a mad dash on balmung for plots, and I almost lost the one I wanted. But you know what, I was prepared. I'm sorry you weren't around for when it was released, and I'm sorry newer players can't get land, but you know what? They have personal rooms in your FC house for 300k. I assume you have an FC with a house yes?

This still doesn't address anyone who either a) doesn't have a FC with a house, b) wants to play around with outdoor furnishings like the new seasonal items but doesn't have permission to do so with their FC, c) wants to play around with gardening on their own, or d) just plain wants their own house for any other reason. I'm sincerely happy that you got the house you wanted, and I admire your dedication, but I find your attitude of "sorry, you're just SOL" towards anyone who doesn't have your good fortune to be a little on the callous side.

The 1 mil amount is to keep huge gil influxes off of otherwise, low pop servers and destorying their market. As I said above, Personal rooms in FC's are a fraction of the cost and give you the chance to actually decorate something.

I won't deny that the 1 mil amount is there for a reason. That doesn't make it less of a deterrent to the idea of transferring in order to get housing. I don't think that transferring is a good solution to "there are no houses available on my server", and that's one of the reasons why I feel that way. I addressed the FC room argument above, but to add to it, I'll say that my understanding was that personal rooms in FCs are supposed to be for players who don't want to put the full financial investment into buying a house but still want a personal space to decorate, not for players who want houses of their own but can't get them due to limited supply.

[stoxastic]

Real world analogies aside, the downside of adding more and more districts to satisfy demand is of course the increased server load. SE may or may not have the resources to feasibly do this (if they did this with Balmung, they'd need to do this for every server). It's only fair that each server is identical in housing plots.

It may actually be a conscious design decision by SE to intentionally limit the number of available housing plots. For those that really want a house, it's a great incentive for players to choose less populated servers (house prices on lower pop servers are also lower). Balmung players have the privilege of playing on one of the largest communities in FFXIV (When was the last time character creation was not restricted on Balmung?). There is so much upside of playing on a large server, don't be surprised that there may be some downsides.

There are some sacrifices Balmung players need to make in order to play the game optimally in such an overpopulated server.