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

[GenJoe]

No other aspect of the game punishes you for being inactive

That's because no other aspect of the game has limited supply.
1440 houses for a large server (~30k players) means that it only serves less than 5% of the player base.
No other aspect of the game is as limited..
Add more wards? Sure, can SE add 30000 plots? I don't see that happening

[Taiine]

Well if something happened in real life that forced you away for an extended time, would it be okay to lose everything you worked hard saving up for? I'm sorry but I would likly leave the game after that. That is a LOT of wasted gill, not just for the plot but for the decor as well. To lose all that time and effort in a GAME just because something forces you away is harsh.

I still say only release the plot if your sub has run out for 6+ months. That is to help account for life issues getting in the way. Shoot when my system got ruined due to a storm caving in part of the cealing, I had to go with out for nearly five months, having to deal with affording the roof repairs, THEN getting a new pc. That was a few years ago yes, but life happens. I was a wow player back then, main healer for a hard core raiding guild. Shoot Wrath was just coming out, I was well behind everyone else. Should they have kicked me for it for not being around? No because punishing someone for life isn't right.

[MistyMew]

Terrible idea, just terrible op

focus on the problem not the players (hint...thats SE)

[GenJoe]

I was a wow player back then, main healer for a hard core raiding guild. Shoot Wrath was just coming out, I was well behind everyone else. Should they have kicked me for it for not being around?

They didn't have to kick you out of the guild because there's plenty of room in the guild itself.
But I'm sure you got kicked from the raid group? Or were they nice enough to hold off raiding until you got back?

The key difference between the two is supply.. Housing in the game at the moment is more akin to a spot in a raiding group, very limited.

[Madjames]

Well if something happened in real life that forced you away for an extended time, would it be okay to lose everything you worked hard saving up for? I'm sorry but I would likly leave the game after that. That is a LOT of wasted gill, not just for the plot but for the decor as well. To lose all that time and effort in a GAME just because something forces you away is harsh.

I still say only release the plot if your sub has run out for 6+ months. That is to help account for life issues getting in the way. Shoot when my system got ruined due to a storm caving in part of the cealing, I had to go with out for nearly five months, having to deal with affording the roof repairs, THEN getting a new pc. That was a few years ago yes, but life happens. I was a wow player back then, main healer for a hard core raiding guild. Shoot Wrath was just coming out, I was well behind everyone else. Should they have kicked me for it for not being around? No because punishing someone for life isn't right.

YES it is ok to lose stuff. I have been playing mmorpg's since September 1997 when I was 10. I worked as a gardener for neighbors to afford the 10 dollars a month. Then wow came out and again, never missed a payment.

Then I got married and never missed the $30 a month payment for wow. Switched to FF11 and never missed the 30 dollars there, or in SWTOR and now Here.

Saying stuff like "Wahh IRL stuff happened and I cant pay 15 dollars a month for 6 months or a year, It isnt FAIR to lose my house!"

Life is not fair. Perhaps I have been lucky. Perhaps I just have been fortunate enough in my life to be paying for an MMORPG subscription for 18 years, STRAIGHT. Or perhaps some of you so called adults are CHOOSING not to pay your sub and instead putting it towards some other activity or hobby. For the first 7 years it was $10 a month, then it was $15, and for the past 10 years it has been $30 a month. I have NEVER missed a sub payment, not even when I went on vacation for 2-3 weeks straight because I had Family doing things for me and keeping my businesses in the game going while I was away. I was 10 years OLD and I had the motivation to make SURE MY SUB NEVER RAN OUT, EVER!!!

I have NO sympathy for people saying it isnt fair because sorry to tell you, life is not fair. To keep something as limited as housing is from people who are actually HERE and supporting the game and paying their subscription is a stupid practice.

I lost my home and countless rares and server rares in Ultima Online because my Castle decayed. Why? Because I quit playing the game and canceled my subscription to move to World of warcraft. Your talking about a 50 Million Castle for the plot alone. I had roughly 200 million gold or more in just rare items, not counting how many million gold I had in 1 mil vouchers in my house chest OR how many one of a kind server only items that were worth 500+ million gold a piece.

Do you honestly expect me to be able to go back to UO now and have all of my stuff back? Do you honestly believe that all of the rare and one of a kind items should be mine still if I went back?

I was One of the richest people in the whole game world wide at the time. I can say with full confidence that I would NOT expect to have all of my stuff back if I went back. Life is not fair and it was MY decision to leave and NOT support the game in any way. Why should I have this self entitlement regarding a game that I am not paying for AT ALL? Why shouldn't other people who actually ARE supporting the game have my castle and everything inside of it due to it decaying and my stuff falling on the ground?

The point here is that it IS fair if you stop your sub, PERIOD. Limited in game things such as housing should ALWAYS go to paying subscribers over someone who quits the game even for a month ALWAYS! Ultima Online did it and your house decayed after 30 days. The system KEPT people subscribing and worked great to get all of the people who do leave the game to actually lose their plar in order for a PAYING CUSTOMER to get a house, and use all of its features!

Do not sit there and give me this bullshit excuse of "I cant pay for the game for 6 months due to this or that happening IRL" If you cant scrap together $15 a month when your an adult yet a 10 year old kid made sure for the next 18 YEARS (This is up to and including today) his sub was paid for, you seriously have something wrong in your life and perhaps you shouldn't even be playing the game in the first place.

[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.

[GenJoe]

The only issue with a simple subscription check is that it doesn't catch any of the players who have bought houses but just keep them around for either reselling or found that they aren't really that interested in housing and leave it empty.

It's a pretty significant portion of the homeowners in the game.. They're not unsubbed, they're just off doing other things and the house gets no love whatsoever.
First, these types of homeowners need a way out without losing their gil, so even implementing something like house trading would help a little bit so these types of homeowners can get their money back AND the homes can go to people who'll take better care of it.

It's not a one step fix all, there are many proactive things SE needs to do, but certainly sitting on it and releasing new wards once every year will not solve it.

[Nalien]

It's not a one step fix all, there are many proactive things SE needs to do, but certainly sitting on it and releasing new wards once every year will not solve it.

This we can agree on at least. Personally I would, and in this order;

• Remove unsubscribed players from Wards outright. See how many that is.
• Implement a better abandoning/sales system to make selling on your plot a lot more appealing than it currently is. People with a 10m plot aren't going to want to abandon that 10m for nothing, currently the only thing they can do about this is negatively impact the new buyer, which puts buyers off anyway and is something someone has to actively look into doing. Being able to put a plot up for sale at a set price, with all the furniture/etc. included, but with the same depreciation rate, would be great. See how many people want to sell their plots on. (By the way, adding Rent just means people end up sinking more Gil into a plot, that is going to have a negative impact when it comes to trying to get people to let go of their land)
• Implement a system which automatically puts a plot up for sale if it is inactive for however many days, with a warning upon log in that this will happen in so many days. The the owner still owns the plot, so they can visit it and take down that sign if they want, if it sells instantly tough luck though. Since the same depreciation is in place though, new buyers may wait for it to drop, giving the current owner a bit more time. Similar to what they already had planned, but much more forgiving, see if it gets the same reaction.

I don't see what Rent would achieve that this doesn't, other than being an annoyance for everyone. Both have the same end result. People not using their land pass it on, with Rent they're doing so because it is annoying. With a proper sales system they're doing so because they'll get something out of it. All Rent does beyond that is add an extra chore to the game, one which would either be small enough to not really matter, or large enough that it just kills housing. They'd have to spend a fair amount of time just balancing how much to charge, which is only going to end up being more annoying for players. That annoyance might be enough to force a few people out of land, but I doubt it would be a significant amount. More likely it would just be incentive to do some Gardening.

[Aeyis]

Life is not fair. Perhaps I have been lucky. Perhaps I just have been fortunate enough in my life to be paying for an MMORPG subscription for 18 years, STRAIGHT. Or perhaps some of you so called adults are CHOOSING not to pay your sub and instead putting it towards some other activity or hobby. For the first 7 years it was $10 a month, then it was $15, and for the past 10 years it has been $30 a month. I have NEVER missed a sub payment, not even when I went on vacation for 2-3 weeks straight because I had Family doing things for me and keeping my businesses in the game going while I was away. I was 10 years OLD and I had the motivation to make SURE MY SUB NEVER RAN OUT, EVER!!!

I think its safe to say that the average person has more important things to consider to spend their time/money on when they have to make a choice.

Have you ever had to consider the price of your food/drink on a daily basis, or you wouldnt have enough money left?
Have you ever had to invest time in something and not have time left to spend on an online game?

Probably not, or you wouldnt be making this ridiculous argumentation.

Do not sit there and give me this bullshit excuse of "I cant pay for the game for 6 months due to this or that happening IRL" If you cant scrap together $15 a month when your an adult yet a 10 year old kid made sure for the next 18 YEARS (This is up to and including today) his sub was paid for, you seriously have something wrong in your life and perhaps you shouldn't even be playing the game in the first place.

A 10 year old child (typically) has only a small fraction of the expenses to pay for that someone living on their own does.
Not to mention they (typically) wouldnt have anything more important then a game to spend their time on.

Then I got married and never missed the $30 a month payment for wow. Switched to FF11 and never missed the 30 dollars there, or in SWTOR and now Here.

Wow or ff11 was never 30 a month to pay?

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?

Less stupid as the argument that every single person in a servers population even wants a house.

Only 5% of the players can have a house. But how many actually want one?

Incidentally a rent system would just make the housing system even more biased towards those with a lot of gil on hand.

Then what they can do is share housing and allow people with access to refresh the house for you while you are away.

Enabling house sharing (with its own storage like the FC chest) would be a much better solution to the housage shortage then adding rent or removing plot ownership.