gutted

[Renik]

snip

Ok now show us their server structure, if these have an impact on gameplay outside of housing, if they are client-side or server-side and how susceptible they are to hacking.

You may not know, but most MMOs have housing as a pure vanity thing which works client-side and does not affect gameplay at all (so they don't care about hacking), while others have a very limited presets with no place for personalization, in any case these system can't be applied to ffxiv w/o turning housing into a cheesy vanity system with nothing more than boring presets.

Even if housing affects us all, this is a topic that requires a minimum level of knowledge... don't take this as an offense, i'm not an expert but you seem to know very little about how this kind of systems are managed.

Personal housing: Instanced.

Wards don't take server memory, this would do nothing, separate wards for personal hosing would work.

[Callinon]

Ok now show us their server structure, if these have an impact on gameplay outside of housing, if they are client-side or server-side and how susceptible they are to hacking.

You may not know, but most MMOs have housing as a pure vanity thing which works client-side and does not affect gameplay at all (so they don't care about hacking), while others have a very limited presets with no place for personalization, in any case these system can't be applied to ffxiv w/o turning housing into a cheesy vanity system with nothing more than boring presets.

Even if housing affects us all, this is a topic that requires a minimum level of knowledge... don't take this as an offense, i'm not an expert but you seem to know very little about how this kind of systems are managed.

Rift's Dimension system is pretty cool and is definitely server side as it's possible to visit other dimensions. However, he glossed (more like shellacked) over the important bit: Dimensions are all instanced.

FFXIV's housing system is supposed to be communal. That's why the wards instead of just making a Housing instance where your house exists and nothing else. The idea was to create a neighborhood in a natural-feeling setting. Now they've seriously underestimated the demand, which is a major problem as has been thoroughly explored in this and other threads since the system was introduced. And since FFXIV's housing gates other content, the problem is compounded. They had a chance to fix this when they introduced the subdivisions, but opted for a half-measure instead of an actual solution.

That being said, I do think separate wards for personal housing makes a lot of sense, even though you'd still run into the same problem. There needs to be a way for the server to dynamically spawn additional wards after a certain population level has been reached in existing wards. Once again we come back to needing better servers than we apparently have.

Oh btw,

Wards don't take server memory, this would do nothing, separate wards for personal hosing would work.

That doesn't make any sense. Of course the wards require server memory. They are constructs within the game world where interaction is possible. The wards aren't being handled client-side beyond the basic layout of the zone; everything else is populated by the server live.

[Bishop81]

Rift's Dimension system is pretty cool and is definitely server side as it's possible to visit other dimensions. However, he glossed (more like shellacked) over the important bit: Dimensions are all instanced.

Instanced is better than no house at all. FFXIV's current system doesn't scale. There are a total of 8 wards, 60 houses per ward, total of 480 houses per server with population of thousands ...

they've seriously underestimated the demand,

Understatement of the century.

[Renik]

snip

The wards take sever memory but it's the same amount as any other area, even less, because there's no combat nor roaming NPCs, what i mean is that wards are not taking the memory needed to add more housing, it's just a really small portion compared to the data stored for every house, while houses have to save items, positions, permissions... in the case of houses we are talking about physical memory HHDs, and probably a network upgrade as well.

Anyway, neighborhoods are not causing any trouble, and the lack of plot is not in any case related to it.

Also, being able to visit others' dimension on rift doesn't make it server-side, and as i said (and SE said before) being instanced or not has little to do with the amount of data stored, this is very simple, more options and less presets, more data, instance or open it doesn't matter.

They are server-side as people can visit your dimension whether you are online or not.

Now this can make it server-side, unless you have to add the owner as friend or something like that.

[Akuryu]

Ok now show us their server structure, if these have an impact on gameplay outside of housing, if they are client-side or server-side and how susceptible they are to hacking.

They are server-side as people can visit your dimension whether you are online or not.

he glossed (more like shellacked) over the important bit: Dimensions are all instanced.

Of course they are instanced, and that is not at all a bad thing. I would gladly take substantial personal housing for all players over the "here's a few hundred houses for a server with thousands of people" system any day. You won't have next-door neighbors. That's literally all you lose out on. Even then you could have a dimension large enough for multiple houses, then share it with 2-3 friends. There: neighbors.