The Housing Situation

[Natsuno]

OK, so I'm getting that graphic limitations restict the size of the wards, but that doesn't affect the number of wards.

[Renik]

Well i know they can't increase the number of plot in a ward, they are already complete and making it larger could cause FPS fall (not that big tho), but the client has a countermeasure for this, we can chose how far we can see, and make far areas less detailed, but anyways we are not talking about adding more plots on existing wards that's out of question, the solution is adding more wards and subdivisions with more small houses.

As i said, when you talk about resources you're talking about memory, not performance, it sound like if they wanted to reduce the weight of the stored data (in this case graphic resources) to release more memory in order to add more wards with their corresponding plots without having to upgrade the servers.

[Bishop81]

OK, so I'm getting that graphic limitations restict the size of the wards, but that doesn't affect the number of wards.

I never said they did.

That said, the wards are probably "hosted" like any other zone in the game and are "persistent" - i.e. loaded in server memory, running, regardless whether there are people in them or not. In comparison, houses and FC rooms are killed the moment they are empty, like dungeon instances. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part.

One way or another, I want a house. If neighborhoods are what is holding the availability of houses back, and SE can't provide enough wards without going broke, I say we scrap the whole neighborhood system. It's patently unfair for players late to the party to never be able to get a house - just because a minority 480 players want their neighborhoods.

[Natsuno]

Yeah, sorry. I wasn't following the conversation close enough on that point. Just as this whole thread is about housing shortages. It would make sense that the wards are kept running 24-7, while (I've read somewhere before that) the houses are killed while vacant. I'm thinking there's always one lurker in a ward most of the time anyways.

[Renik]

I never said they did.

That said, the wards are probably "hosted" like any other zone in the game and are "persistent" - i.e. loaded in server memory, running, regardless whether there are people in them or not. In comparison, houses and FC rooms are killed the moment they are empty, like dungeon instances. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part.

No no no, this is so wrong, instances are inactive when they are unused, that's true, but houses are different instanced or not, you can't kill it, because you're not creating an instance when you enter, you're loading player choices, and this mean persistent memory, when you enter a dungeon you're creating on a empty and inactive instance a copy of the area where the players will play, but houses are not copies, every house must be stored individually, so houses do exist in the servers no matter if you are there or not.

[Bishop81]

No no no, this is so wrong, instances are inactive when they are unused, that's true, but houses are different instanced or not, you can't kill it, because you're not creating an instance when you enter, you're loading player choices, and this mean persistent memory, when you enter a dungeon you're creating on a empty and inactive instance a copy of the area where the players will play, but houses are not copies, every house must be stored individually, so houses do exist in the servers no matter if you are there or not.

Proof?

I don't see why player constructed means it has to be persistent in memory. Yes, it's stored individually ... on secondary storage, i.e. multi-TiB hard drives. When you enter, they load the set up into server memory and processing begins, when you leave they dump it back out to secondary storage and all processing stops.

[EdwinLi]

I still think they should consider Personal Apartment Housing since Apartment rooms have less limits than the personal/FC Housing with their wards.

Heck NPCs in the game can buy their own Personal Apartment Housing (like we saw in Allied Beast Tribe Quest) so I don't see why Players can't obtain their own Personal Apartments when it would have less demand for wards.

They can even include different sizes for Personal Apartments. After all there are different types of apartments from Studio style, convetiable style, Garden Aprtment style, and etc.

[Renik]

Proof?

I don't see why player constructed means it has to be persistent in memory. Yes, it's stored individually ... on secondary storage, i.e. multi-TiB hard drives. When you enter, they load the set up into server memory and processing begins, when you leave they dump it back out to secondary storage and all processing stops.

I'm not sure what are you trying to prove... seriously, i don't know what to tell you, a server is a machine with stored data, nothing else, if something is save it's there forever with exception of instances (dungeons, raids and trials) and i'm not even sure abut if they are an exception or they have just a number of persistent but inactive instances...

Talking about machines and technical terms is a waste of time, too much speculation, but i will tell you something, if they were to introduce instanced housing (i doubt it) you can expect 1 year or more to develop the system and prepare the servers, and no more housing in between, but if you just wait 3 months you will have several wards and subdivision added, and if that is not enough to cover the demand they will release more with the next update.

Now you can ask them for something they have already dismissed.

I'll stop it here because i think i have been wasting some precious time of life...

[Bishop81]

Talking about machines and technical terms is a waste of time, too much speculation,

Wow. Talk about pot calling kettle black. I'm not the one talking like he/she knows for sure how SE operates.

but i will tell you something, if they were to introduce instanced housing (i doubt it) you can expect 1 year or more to develop the system and prepare the servers, and no more housing in between, but if you just wait 3 months you will have several wards and subdivision added, and if that is not enough to cover the demand they will release more with the next update.

Again, talking like you know ...

For heaven sakes, at least when I conjecture, I base it off something - e.g. there are no limits as to the number of FC rooms, enough for one per player character, unlike houses.

Now you can ask them for something they have already dismissed.

Again, without proof. When did they dismiss it?

I'll stop it here because i think i have been wasting some precious time of life...

You are the one that won't let it go and keep talking like you know what the heck is going on - when half of what you talk about doesn't even make sense. No offense. But I get the impression that you just don't want to "lose".

[Zelas]

I really don't know about "changing" housing. Like many said, making personal housing instanced wouldn't fix the problem either. Also, the idea they had for housing is actually a good one. Wanting to promote community interaction in a MMO is a good idea. The execution, however, leaves to be desired.

By making housing limited and not giving Free Company housing its own space, they're making it hard for all newer Free Companies to grow. Not everyone wants to join an already established company, but with the upcoming Free Company crafting and Airships content that's being added to housing, they have absolutely no way of hoping to access this content now that all the richest players have claimed the plots of land.

The sad reality is; they added Personal Housing to the same area as FC Housing because they knew personal housing areas wouldn't be as lively. Let's face it. A majority of people get personal homes, they decorate them for their own personal pleasure...but people don't visit other people's houses. Not only is it a hassle to reach them, but there's positively nothing to do there. Even on Balmung, a server full of roleplayers, I have many friends who have personal housing, but they hardly ever use it for roleplay. The real deal is FC housing. Personal housing should never have been implemented. (At least, not as it is right now.)

Think that Personal Housing is "vanity" and "something that should be limited" all you want, it shouldn't be affecting Free Companies as well. Not when so much of the Free Company perks that are being implemented are centered on housing.