Housing plots need rent. Sound horrible? Consider these facts:

[Riepah]

They said there wouldn't be upkeep when we bought them. Slapping upkeep on them now would fly in the face of everything they've said about their housing system from the start.

It is SE's mess, they were the ones who chose to make the system what it is. They're the ones who have to provide more wards now, not find ways to take away from us what we earned. Rather than telling them to take from us what we have, you should tell them to give us enough wards to provide for everyone.

[Yeldir]

It is disappointing to see people only thinking of themselves, when it comes to the idea of taxation. Destroying gil is an incredibly valuable feature, and serves the poorer players in very important ways - materia costs are lost, the cost of crafting gear sets is less, inflation in general is just plain less, making it easier to actually buy what you need to support your progress in becoming an earner, as opposed to someone with no means of generating gil.

Using the example Terrini provides, of your casual non-crafting player struggling to get a cottage for themselves, I'd like to call attention to two things: Firstly, on Brynhildr, 5% of the most expensive small lot size would work out to be 125,000 gil a month. That is easily obtainable by anyone who has been 50 for a month or two.

Secondly, please consider the example of Terrini in this way also - if Ter's server had a gil devouring housing rent engine chewing away at the savings of the mansion-owning master crafters, the server would have less total wealth in circulation, which would mean the price in pure gil of entry into crafting and gathering careers would be that much less, and more quickly reachable through gil generated as opposed to gil taken from other players. I shouldn't have to explain the importance of the distinction between those two income sources, and how they relate to new players and the barrier of entry they face when growing towards crafting for profit.

Please! Consider the broader advantages of having gil destroyed on a monthly basis. We associate the word "tax" with feeding some greedy fatcat money-for-nothing, but that really isn't how gil destruction works at all.

Think of it like this - Monsigneur Mansion has 1,000,000 gil. Cody Cottage has 100,000 gil. A tax of ten percent kicks in, and the His Highness now has 900,000 gil, and Cody Cottage has 90,000 gil. Who lost more? Mr. Mansion. Who'll have an easier time making up for the loss? Mr. Cottage. This form of gil destruction is the best and most useful means of reducing the distance between the haves and the have-nots because it almost exclusively targets the haves - homeowners.

[Fiyero]

All I'm hearing in this thread is: "I got to this server before OTHERS. I made enough money to get the houses before OTHERS. The OTHERS can piss off."

You all act like no one else is "scrimping and saving." You're just lucky you did it first when plots were available.

(For the record, I don't even really care much to have housing. I'm just enjoying the game as it is. I'm just shocked at the selfishness of people, is all...no, never mind, I'm not that shocked.)

[Nuinn]

First misstep : Not making housing account-wide and allowing alt chars purchasing multiples.

In my Ward only there's people who own more than 1 house on 1 account. If SE didn't have the basic skills to figure out how to get gil from those fatcats while not screwing over others who can't get just one small plot, you can't expect things not to go downhill from there.

Tax system isn't that bad. I've lived with it in LotRO while I still played, which is pre-f2p and how many years ago was that? Then again, less elaborate zones (of course) and infinite wards... but I'm still stumped that a company like SE doesn't have the resources to develop server stress-free instances in 2015 (yes, even for the PS3 public) in a way that can be both functional and good looking. It's just one of those things I can't wrap my head around. Housing just feels so half-assed on their part which is a damn shame :/

[Madjames]

Rather not. I have to be away from the game sometimes for 30+ days cause of travelling/work and I worked as hard for it as you.

How about SE admits they've made an utter crap of the housing system in general (even compared to f2p of the early 2000's) and fix the damn thing already?

Then what they can do is share housing and allow people with access to refresh the house for you while you are away. This way the ONLY homes that will be taken away and given back to the population are the ones where people have actually quit and will not come back. I will also say that your gil would be reimbursed to you. The housing system is crap ONLY because they are NOT doing anything about the countless homes that are abandoned. A 30 day limit is more then reasonable.

In ultima online I would be gone from the game for 6 months +. I would still be paying every month and my best friend IRL at the time would log in, fill orders for ore and refresh my homes for me when I was away. Now, my wife logs in for me to do things for my customers and would be able to refresh a house. There is always a nice workaround.

If you CAN NOT do that, be glad SE would give all of your gil back with my system because in UO, not only would your house decay but EVERYTHING INSIDE would fall on the ground and be able to be picked up by ANYONE around. If SE allows shared housing my advise to you is maybe give the house to a real good friend that can be on once every 30 days to get use out of the house.

Ultima Online had th multiple house per account issue as well. Back in the day you could own I think it was 1 house per character.

After a year or 2, they implemented it to ONE house, Per Character, Per Server, Per Account. This opened up thousands of houses across the whole game. SE should do this as well.

[Krylo]

It is disappointing to see people only thinking of themselves, when it comes to the idea of taxation. Destroying gil is an incredibly valuable feature, and serves the poorer players in very important ways - materia costs are lost, the cost of crafting gear sets is less, inflation in general is just plain less, making it easier to actually buy what you need to support your progress in becoming an earner, as opposed to someone with no means of generating gil.

What?

No.

The effective price of entrance into any activity in an MMO stays roughly the same regardless of inflation. What's the best way to make money in any MMO? Farming it with in game methods, or using the AH/MB/Whatever? Always, always, always the latter unless it's within a few months of launch.

In the latter case inflation basically keeps everything with the same equivalent cost. If iron ore and Kirimu coat, for instance, costs 50 and 100,000 gil respectively, and that server sees a heavy bout of inflation increasing average costs x10, the average cost of iron ore will be 500, and Kirimu will be 1,000,000. In either case one has to farm and sell 2000 iron ore to buy a Kirimu coat (obviously these costs are off a bit, I think the going rate for a kirimu coat in iron ore is about 10,000, but I'm not gonna be bovvered to check).

The only way in which the barrier to entry is changed in any meaningful way is if the player completely refuses to engage with the market board in any meaningful way except to buy things. If they're one of those people who put up things for that vendor for 5 gil for sale on the MB for 1 gil.

The reason destroying gil is valuable isn't due to helping people get into crafting or lowering the difference between the haves and have nots. It's to make in game gil sinks matter. Take WoW, for instance. Back in the day I played on highly inflated servers and ones that weren't. In the servers with high inflation I could generally buy a mount upon hitting the level for it, and ride it around without any care/worry/thought. In the ones where there was little inflation it would take until I was 5-10 levels past being able to buy a mount to actually afford it.

When it came to purchasing crafting materials or whatever else though? Made no difference.

Indeed, it was EASIER for me to gain entrance into these things in servers that had massive inflation because I could buy whatever I wanted/needed from vendors and still have money left over to hit the market. Servers with low inflation had a HIGHER barrier to entry because my money went to in game gil sinks leaving me very little to invest in the larger economy.

Same goes for SWtOR, Vindictus, DFO, and every other MMO I've ever played. And, as someone on a 'rich' server here? Same goes here. Anything that a vendor sells I can buy without really thought or care because I regularly sell things on the MB. Would I have enough money to, without really caring, just buy my sister crafted stuff off the market to get her into ST if repairs and teleports were actually making a meaningful impact on my earnings? No. No, I would not.

However, as a player who hasn't maxed either crafts or gathering yet, while I can save up enough to buy a nice (small) house (if there were any plots available for me to spend gil in) in a couple months that requires constant and direct effort in making money while playing very very often. Earning 10% of that every month is going to require that I neglect most other parts of the game just to pay for the house. Especially if any of the next relic quests have multiple gil sinks like the materia (which didn't even destroy gil), or the kettles etc. etc. that cost a few million gil each step to forge through.

This isn't 'the haves' being selfish. This is people who understand how MMO economics ACTUALLY work saying, hey, you know what, this is just going to screw over anyone who isn't an omnicrafter or who doesn't want to immediately monetize their property. Especially considering the extra costs of actually building and decorating a home after you buy the plot.

It's only the poor who would be messed with, not the rich. It would only further the gap between 'haves and have-nots' not close it.

A cost of 1% or lower would serve the purpose without being as much a burden, but, at the end of the day, there's no reason for upkeep costs. It'd be just as easy to say '1 month unsubscribed = no house'. That's it. Not one month not logged in. Not one month without going into your house. One month unsubscribed. Hell, make it 2 or 3 months if people want. That'd be enough to free up housing.

That's all we need.

[Nuinn]

-snip-

I would still vote against it. It sounds like a forced and dated Facebook game mechanic, in this day and age. I'm really not sure if I dread losing a home after X amount of days or having to log in/pay monthly sub just to have someone do it for me.

A 30 day limit is nothing. People get over-saturated with a game, they want a break, they can't play for whatever reason. Taking their home away, destroying the work they did and the time they put in for furnishing it is just terrible. Also, I don't think SE would ever (and I feel like that one should be underlined) refund us. It would just create a mess where people would lolbuy homes and then do nothing, return after a patch/expansion, suddenly have those 2-10 mil "bonus" gil (depending on server), mess with the economy and so on and so forth... + added rage all over when someone misses logging in by just one day etc.

You definitely don't want to punish players for deciding to take a break and wanting to pick up where they left. That suggestion would get thrown out the window at our brainstorming meeting so fast you wouldn't even be able to see it o___o You'd want to do the opposite. Reward them for deciding to put their trust, time and money back into your game.

The issue here is lack of housing plots. I think that's certainly the one thing everyone can agree on. Making it a time-dependent system would only temporarily "fix" this (while creating a slew of other issues). What they need to do is downscale, if they can't afford more server space for new wards. Simplify it and make it actually user friendly. Honestly, as much as I like having a neighborhood, even the Mog House of XI is starting to look better the more the time passes.

[karateorangutang]

I dont think it even needs to be this costly. You could get rid of probably 10% of plots right now by charging 1 k a month... because the FC's and individuals are simply inactive. I wouldnt wanna punish those who dont wanna farm gil to keep their house but even charging a tax once a month would filter out the inactive land plots. If it didnt it would at least ensure some kind of activity from those individuals.

[Dererk]

Lets not do this rent or upkeep thing just no there's already people who buy Gil from rmts to get their plots lets not add to the problem by giving said players more reason to buy Gil just please no.

[Caraway]

I absolutely 100% agree with this. Every other MMO I have played has had an upkeep fee on their plots, including ones where housing was instanced! This is an easy gil sink (something all games need or you get rampant inflation and devaluation of currency; we don't want a digital WWII Germany people).

I personally think Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' housing system had it best. They too had a system of varieties in plots. Vanguard had housing districts in its open world that were designed with homes in mind. Within the distracts there were a variety of plot types. The value of the plot was based on two things; location, and purpose. More 'prime' real-estate options cost more upfront and had a heavier upkeep cost. Additionally you had a larger portion of plots designated for individual use (one plot per account), and then you had plots specifically for guilds. And these things cost. A lot. You had to really work together as a group to get a guild home (for reference, the most expensive personal plots cost ~30 gold, the least expensive guild plot cost ~1 platinum. One platinum was worth 100 gold and originally, tough to come by alone).

And when Vanguard began to run out of housing spaces (again, these were in the open world as there were no instances in Vanguard) they would 'raise' another island off of the main continents' coastlines for the specific purpose of housing. Each one of these islands held a number of plots for both personal and guild purposes.

Personal housing costs were pretty minimal but definitely helped give a gold sink. You could also prepay your upkeep if you were going to be away from the game for a while. Guild plots cost a significant amount, and were often funded by the trash loot from raids, donations from guild members, or guild services provided to external players.

EverQuest2 also has a system in place for upkeep and that game's housing is all instanced (they also require both gold and Status, another form of currency, to pay upkeep).