Two reasons why an eviction system is INEVITABLE.

[MsCroc]

Majority rules, Croc. They're going to go with whatever decision gives them the most subscribers - and when the rain of tears begins, it's going to be the group that cries the most. It should be obvious which group that's going to be.

If SE has to choose between two different types of customers in order to maximize their profits, then FFXIV is in a lot of trouble. But I agree on majority rules. My money's on 'casual players' as Wildstar can attest to, I am sure.

[Madjames]

I realize it's a highly contested subject. I have some thoughts on this:

I work in business as a living so I am familiar with the importance of new customers. However, screwing over previous customers is not the way to do it. If we're going to come at this from a 'business angle' then SE should accept responsibility for advertising housing as a main feature and not being able to live up to that promise.Due to how it was advertise, we were all expecting it to be more accessible than it is.
It is their own problem that they created and the best business option would be to fix their horrible tech.

Dulling out punishments does not create happy customers. The problem with saying that "it's their fault for not always subbing" is that 'taking the kids gloves off' also has the side effect of preventing past customers from turning into returning customers.

I have been a paying subscriber since September 1997 when I was 12 years old for Ultima Online. They have a house decay timer that is 30 days. If you do not log in for 30 days, not only did you lose your house, but you lost everything in it because anyone could come and pick it up. It was not tied to your sub. That to me is a perfect example of WHAT DID WORK in a limited feature such as housing. A limited feature should be for paying customers only.

If I stop paying my mortgage or property taxes every month guess what, I lose the house I just had built last year. It does not matter if I lost my job, if I got terminally ill with cancer, or even died. If the bill is not paid, you lose your stuff.

The same thing should be said here. Housing is a big feature that is saddly limited for now. These people who leave the game for months on end should NOT expect to come back and have their house. I DO NOT expect to come back to UO after being gone for the 10 years as I have been and have all of my stuff. That feature is and should be for paying customers ONLY!!

Also do not give me this bullcrap excuse of (IRL stuff happens WAHH i cant afford 15 dollars a month) I have been paying a subscription for 18 years STRAIGHT! since I was 12 years OLD. I did not ask anyone to pay my sub for UO or any other MMORPG I have been playing since then. I washed cars and mowed lawns up and through highschool as I was not old enough to have my own credit card. My parents had it on their card but if I ever stopped giving them the 10 dollars a month they would cancel it immediately. I moved to wow that upped my sub to $15 dollars a month in 2005. From 2005 until 2006 I paid the 15 a month. In 2006 I got married and have been paying $30 a month straight up to and including TODAY.

If a 12 year old kid can do it through more then half of his life and into adult hood and including adult hood then anyone can. If you can not afford $15 a month then you have much bigger issues in your life and you probably should not be worrying about a video game in the first place.

[Nyonmyan]

Majority rules, Croc. They're going to go with whatever decision gives them the most subscribers - and when the rain of tears begins, it's going to be the group that cries the most. It should be obvious which group that's going to be.

There's no "to be", majority already cried and devs decided to scrap land relinquish feature. And they were paying customers, mind you, since you can't post on forums without active sub.

We have now about 5-7 active whiners (out of 700,000 active players) in half-dead subforum, who will be gone as soon as devs throw bunch of new wards in.
After new houses will be all sold, a few new folks will appear, complaining about "broken housing". And in 6 months or so cycle will repeat itself.
That's my prediction, at least.

[Eye_Gore]

I have been a paying subscriber since September 1997 when I was 10 years old
I have been paying a subscription for 18 years STRAIGHT! since I was 12 years OLD.

Something strange is afoot at the circle K.

[Peachy]

The best part is they were ready to implement this as a thing a couple patches ago. The timer was 30 days for the auto-relinquish, I believe, and a vocal minority of the forums freaked out, so they pulled back.

I think the way it was worded is why people opposed it so much. It was talking about auto relinquish for not using the property but never explained what they meant by inactivity. Do I have to enter the house once a month? is it specifically talking about the players who bought land and didnt place a house yet? or are they talking about players who are not currently subscribing? They needed to be more specific which is why a lot of players opposed it.

I am all for unsubbed players losing housing after a certain time, but if someone is paying but not logging on, they should not lose housing. Real life comes up and sometimes you cant log in for a month or 2 but if you still pay then you have just as much a right to keep what you earned as anyone. A lot of people think the majority of housing is abandoned but there are plenty who just dont frequent the house enough to make it look used.

[m3eansean]

.I am all for unsubbed players losing housing after a certain time, but if someone is paying but not logging on, they should not lose housing. Real life comes up and sometimes you cant log in for a month or 2 but if you still pay then you have just as much a right to keep what you earned as anyone. A lot of people think the majority of housing is abandoned but there are plenty who just dont frequent the house enough to make it look used.

It takes at most 3 minutes to log in and enter your house, if you can't be bothered to do this once a month or two, then I'm sorry but you should lose your house. It is incredibly easy to do and requires minimal time investment.

"Not frequenting the house enough to make it look used" = abandoned, I'm afraid.

[Verdan]

Dude just let your UO house go, that's not healthy behavior.

I don't think auto-relinquishing is the best solution, but if they literally cannot add enough plots for demand it might be the only one. That 1440 number is legit guys, and I want you to think about what that means. The number of plots on servers where anyone actually plays in large numbers is just not enough. I don't know why they can't auto-generate plots like other games, or why they can't add a ton at once, or why making additional plots to suit needs seems like they're trying to rewrite the whole game's code so it only comes out after herculean effort. I'd wager it's cause this game was originally a piece of legitimate shit so bad that it wasn't allowed to continue holding the final fantasy name, so the technical debt they've got to work through is massive. But since they can't make the best choices, the only choices they have to make are ones like kicking out people who had houses and then left the game. That blows for people coming back after an absence, but man they don't seem to be able to craft the solution that would make that unnecessary.

Cause the OP's right. People are going to get mad when all that goes behind housing. I've been stewing about gardening, chocobo training, and chocobo coloring ever since I got back. If you could build an airship with your friends and like nobody can do it? If only a few people could get a cool special pet? There's gonna be lots of angry tweets.

[Zorlinta]

So while its ok for auto-relinquishing all those house from non-paying accounts, its not ok force a remove on those active paying ones that owns and not use, its their full right to use or not, much to the pain of those who doesn't own one (sorry bad luck/timing/etc). Although too should be bind the house to account and enforce a max of 1 house per account per server (and all characters on that account have access of it).

[DPZ2]

I can think of several instances in which a paying customer might not be able to log on.

1. They're taking an extended vacation without Internet access
2. They're called to duty in military service with no Internet access (or laptop/system to log in)
3. They've serving a couple of months in jail (for "reasons")
4. They've been in an accident and have been in the hospital for a month or two
5. They've suffered some medical problem which kept them away from logging in

Incredibly easy until you have no Internet access. Incredibly easy unless you have no time IRL.

None apply to me -- I don't own a house, I don't expect to get the multi-millions it takes to buy a house. I don't need a house. I did contribute to the purchase of a large plot for our FC housing though ...

[m3eansean]

1. They're taking an extended vacation without Internet access
-Must be nice, I dont know anyone who is gone for 30-60 days with no internet access. They clearly aren't using the limited server space for housing anyway, so sorry gotta go.

2. They're called to duty in military service with no Internet access (or laptop/system to log in)
-This is exceedingly rare, I know a few friends in the armed services, almost all bases have constant reliable access. Even the FOB's.

3. They've serving a couple of months in jail (for "reasons")
-They have bigger things to worry about then a virtual house

4. They've been in an accident and have been in the hospital for a month or two
-They have bigger things to worry about then a virtual house

5. They've suffered some medical problem which kept them away from logging in
-If you can't sit in front of a PC and spend 3 minutes logging into a game in the period of 30-60 days, you can't argue you are owed anything on the limited server space. There are many players logged in everyday who should have access.