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

[Haru]

Clipped

There is no way im paying 250,000g - 500,000g a month just to keep my small plot of land + house you are absurd. What they should do is create an entirely new plot for renters and leave us who paid outright for our homes alone. Let alone how you think new players could afford this ridiculous high price.

[GenJoe]

There is no way im paying 250,000g - 500,000g a month just to keep my small plot of land + house you are absurd

Mmhm, which would mean another open plot for people to buy once you give it up

What they should do is create an entirely new plot for renters and leave us who paid outright for our homes alone. Let alone how you think new players could afford this ridiculous high price.

New and old doesn't matter in terms of purchasing power, it's up to the individual. There are plenty of new players that can afford housing, but can't because all the plots are taken up by people who made a few million gil back in the day and just let the house sit without doing anything with it.

I understand that upkeep will alienate part of the playerbase, but that's the entire premise of the idea, alienate part of the player base that don't care enough to make the extra rent, then it will free up houses.. Couple that with letting people trade houses, it will give home ownership a much needed rotation rather than being stale and owned by the same people forever until SE adds new wards, then a few more people will join the ranks but the idea will still be the same, only a minority of the playerbase who happened to buy the house in time will get to keep it forever and majority of the players don't even have a chance to ever get one.

Ideal solution would be to add more wards, but SE has shown us again and again that they're not capable of just doubling and tripling wards whenever there's demand.
Seriously, 250k or 500k gil sounds like a lot but that's price of a couple of good tier IV materia.

[Nalien]

Ideal solution would be to add more wards, but SE has shown us again and again that they're not capable of just doubling and tripling wards whenever there's demand.

What? The last time they gave us new Wards they did so by doubling the number by adding subdivisions... There is no reason to believe they wont eventually do the same in the future... So what if they can't do it at the drop of the hat? They can and they will, the only real issue with housing is plots owned by people who aren't even playing, but there are much better ways to deal with that than forcing people to pay absurd amounts rent... That would just destroy the enjoyment of housing for the majority because it stops being something fun and starts being Tenant Simulator.

Seriously, 250k or 500k gil sounds like a lot but that's price of a couple of good tier IV materia.

Honestly, to me that doesn't sound like a lot. I've got enough to last me a couple years as it is already, and I could certainly make more easily. I'm against this idea solely because it is simply unfun. Anyone with a house probably wouldn't have a hard time making that amount unless they make Gardening available to absolute everyone and that little economic bubble bursts. This wouldn't really achieve anything with that in mind, only people who aren't playing would lose their plots, but like I said, there are far better ways to go about doing that. Ones which don't sap the fun out of housing.

[GenJoe]

You mean the majority of the playerbase.

I dunno. To me your idea seems counterintuitive. You wouldn't be opening the housing to more of the playerbase, but even less than before.

Because the number of plots in this game can only cater to a minority, might as well make that minority the ones who REALLY want the housing instead of someone who just bought it because it was new and shiny, and hasn't done anything with it for the past 6 months. (These people are still subbed, housing is just not a very big interest to them, but there's no reason to relinquish, so they keep it around without using it, I WAS one of those people, until I gave it away to a friend of mine as a wedding gift)

the rich could be the only ones in the housing areas

Houses in the game are ALREADY owned by the rich. Currently, it's a mixture of rich players, some who really care for housing, decorating, etc. and others who couldn't care less but have no reason to relinquish. If upkeep was implemented, it would at least be the rich who really want to own houses.

Every time I pass by houses in my FC ward, and see an empty yard, even an empty plot (owned, but not built) it makes me wonder if these people really deserve to keep their house simply because they could afford it. They don't live in it!

What? The last time they gave us new Wards they did so by doubling the number by adding subdivisions...

Yes, adding additional wards would have to be an ongoing thing to fix the underlying cause of the issue, but in the meantime, upkeep would let more people play with houses. At the rate we're going, I don't think we'll ever see enough wards added to cater to anything BUT the minority of the playerbase. Even on Jenova, there are about 7 or 8 Mediums left and that's it. Most people are going without houses, but as time passes it's only natural that more of them would want it, 2 months down the road I expect to see some complains about lack of housing on Jenova.. Somebody posted that the last plot on Lamia sold out a few days ago, a day after that there was a post of an FC that wants to buy a plot on Lamia, give those people a few more weeks and the idea of "I want to buy a plot" quickly changes to "There's no plot anywhere!?"




If SE was willing to scrap the housing entirely and overhaul the system where every house is inherently instanced and they released residential districts in the game with rent that worked in a trailer park like manner, that is what I would imagine to be the best way to implement housing. I'm not an advocate of the current housing system as is, I just don't see any realistic solution other than a redo, which I don't think SE is willing to consider.

[Nalien]

Yes, adding additional wards would have to be an ongoing thing to fix the underlying cause of the issue, but in the meantime, upkeep would let more people play with houses.

And, like I said, there are far better ways to go about dealing with this. Kicking people who aren't using their house, out of their house, is the solution. Not turning the entire thing into a massive chore.

If SE was willing to scrap the housing entirely and overhaul the system where every house is inherently instanced and they released residential districts in the game with rent that worked in a trailer park like manner, that is what I would imagine to be the best way to implement housing. I'm not an advocate of the current housing system as is, I just don't see any realistic solution other than a redo, which I don't think SE is willing to consider.

Why would they have to scrap the current system completely? Leave it as is, having a neighborhood is actually quite a nice thing, certainly enjoyed the Christmas event as a result (even if it had a few flaws regarding Subdivisions). I rather enjoy having my Free Company Mansion next door to my private house. Creating an instanced version for everyone would be great, but they don't have to completely gut the existing system to do so, we can easily have both.

[GenJoe]

And, like I said, there are far better ways to go about dealing with this. Kicking people who aren't using their house, out of their house, is the solution

That's what an upkeep would do. Kicking for unsub would also work but there are far too many active players who just don't use their house.

Why would they have to scrap the current system completely? Leave it as is, having a neighborhood is actually quite a nice thing

Yeah I like the neighborhoods too, hate seeing all the dead houses in the ward, but for the most part I enjoy seeing different people wandering around, if SE could somehow triple the number of wards (~5000 plots), I think it would alleviate a lot of the problems.. But eventually, on any server with more than 10000 players, they would STILL run out of plots

we can easily have both.

That's where I disagree, I do like your optimism however.



Can you imagine a World without property taxes? Speaking about US specifically, anybody who had the misfortune of having ancestors that weren't around in the 19th century would basically be unable to own ANYTHING because all the land and houses would've been previously owned and those wouldn't exchange hands if there was no upkeep to owning it. That's the kind of environment SE is fostering with the housing system.. Good thing is, this is a game so the upkeep doesn't have to be in just the form of money, money IS the simplest form of charging, but it can be done other ways, activity for example as many suggested, and SE could always come up with a whole new system to check who wants to keep their house. Point is.. the current housing system we have has NONE of that, that's why old houses don't exchange hands and just sit there rotting away. If we can just build more houses, great, but that's a limited solution in an ever growing World.

[Elim]

I understand that upkeep will alienate part of the playerbase.

You mean the majority of the playerbase.

I dunno. To me your idea seems counterintuitive. You wouldn't be opening housing to more of the playerbase, but even less than before.

I personally could pay hefty rent and it wouldn't make me bat an eyelash, but, aside from not liking rent in any shape or form, I'd be completely against paying rent simply so the, more or less, "rich" could be the only ones in the housing areas. lol

Edit: but I'm totally for a system that takes away houses from people who've been unsubbed for long periods of time. Maybe three months of being unsubbed is fair?

[Alberel]

You mean the majority of the playerbase.

I dunno. To me your idea seems counterintuitive. You wouldn't be opening housing to more of the playerbase, but even less than before.

I personally could pay hefty rent and it wouldn't make me bat an eyelash, but, aside from not liking rent in any shape or form, I'd be completely against paying rent simply so the, more or less, "rich" could be the only ones in the housing areas. lol

Edit: but I'm totally for a system that takes away houses from people who've been unsubbed for long periods of time. Maybe three months of being unsubbed is fair?

Do you realise how stupid this sounds? Currently only 5% of the players in the game can have a house. How would implementing a system forcing the inactive among that 5% to relinquish their homes alienate more players than the current 95% that cannot get a house because they're all taken?

You mean to tell me that there are no players in that 95% that would leap at the chance to have a house, with an upkeep cost, that were previously denied one because selfish people bought houses then quit the game?

As other posters have pointed out, the upkeep doesn't even need to be expensive. It could literally be just 1 gil and you would instantly have a system relinquishing houses from unsubscribed players. Other games using this system (actually pretty much every MMO I've ever seen with non-instanced housing used this upkeep cost system, so it does work) also allowed you pay in advance for several months if you knew you were going to be away from the game for some time.

To be honest the fact that this system works perfectly in countless other MMOs kinda immediately dismisses all of the doomsayers that post against the idea. It works; your fears are therefore rendered invalid. Sorry.

[Nalien]

To be honest the fact that this system works perfectly in countless other MMOs kinda immediately dismisses all of the doomsayers that post against the idea. It works; your fears are therefore rendered invalid. Sorry.

I have no fears with the system, I simply do not think it is the best way to remove players from abandoned plots. Rent is not fun, it's as simple as that.

The exact same can be achieved by simply kicked people off land if they've left the game. The upkeep cost then just moves from (potentially) having to grind Gil, to actually having to visit your homestead, which would actually be nice to see though I suppose people would have to visit to pay rent as well.

Both achieve pretty much the exact same thing, only difference is one doesn't have the stigma of tenancy attached to it.

Other games using this system (actually pretty much every MMO I've ever seen with non-instanced housing used this upkeep cost system, so it does work) also allowed you pay in advance for several months if you knew you were going to be away from the game for some time.

I hope there is a limit to how much you can pay in advance. Slap that in here with the amount of rent I've seen suggested here, and I could pay for several years worth of rent and quit tomorrow. Wouldn't really achieve much if others do the same, it's open up plots in a few years though, I guess.

Are any of the MMOs which have non-instanced housing and this system actually P2P by the way? I'd say my subscription fee should be the "rent", if anything. People who have quit should not be holding onto land that paying customers desire, that is just common sense. Slap that in and see how many plots it frees up, then lets talk about what else needs to be done. I'd still go with a "Have you visited your plot in X days?" system before adding a rent based system in game though, some of us actually do frequent our plots regularly anyway. I'm sure some would find visiting their plot to be just as much as a chore as paying rent on it, but those are people who definitely shouldn't have the land then. To be honest both systems can be quite easy to get around without actually using the content properly given how much surplus Gil most of us are carrying these days, I really don't think rent would do anything differently.

Biggest thing I think they should add is just making it so you get Gil back for abandoning. If you abandon your house, or it is abandoned by default due to you never visiting it, you should get a % of the cost back. Short of out right allowing us to sell plots as they are (which might have other issues, if we can buy multiple plots as well I could just hoard a bunch and set my own price...), that would be the best way to open up land. People not using them currently abandon and lose everything, unless they strike a deal with someone, but then the new buyer usually has a lot extra to pay. If you just got some Gil back by default it would be much easier for people not using them to abandon them.