Two reasons why an eviction system is INEVITABLE.

[Kataz]

Madjames, you need to get off that warpath cause it wont happen. A non-paying customer 2 months ago might return to being a paying customer next month. One sure fire way to make sure they return to non-paying customer is to throw away the house that they worked for. Focus your energy on a more feasible solution rather than saying that poor people don't deserve to play video games.

Let me lay some real world on you here - My wife used to play. Then she developed major hand and wrist issues. Kienböck's and carpal tunnel. I'll save you some googling - Kienböck's is when the bones in your wrist die. The solution? Melt all the bones together with some donor material and reinforce it with a steel plate. She hasn't played in quite a while. There is not 1 single surgery to "address" Kienböck's, instead its spread out over 4 surgeries to try "fixing" it before they just melt every thing together and throw some steel in there on the 5th surgery. Surgery is not cheap. Each one was in the thousands. With medical bills piling up and nearing 5 digits and a wrist and hand thats essentially useless, she wasn't going to be playing FF any time soon. Her account has been inactive now for about 5 months. Her wrist is starting to heal, so she might come back for the expansion.

Now, she didn't stop paying for a subscription to "stick it to the man", to laugh at SE while she wasted a valuable piece of digital real estate. She's played since the games release, only stopping while she was undergoing surgery and physical therapy. She enjoyed the game and intends to return to it as soon as the pain in her wrist allows. I hear the nonsense already, "Why, you only saved $75 by cancelling the subscription for 5 months. What's $75 mean in the face of tens of thousands of medical bills! The foolishness of it all!", and to that I say she spent what would have normally gone towards a monthly subscription on less intensive games like Civ 5 and all its expansions.

The moral of the story - people have priorities that apparently do not align with yours, and sometimes paying for this game is a very very low priority. But that doesn't mean that when they return, they should expect a bad experience and weeks of work thrown away. Thats why I say they should focus on abandoned FC housing. No single person gets the shaft when an FC house goes back on the market. But when you target the person who let their subscription lapse while they explored other games or took care of real life situations and obligations, all you are doing is killing off what could be a returning customer.

[Amykat83]

Totally disagree, these people who have not logged in well over a year dont deserve to have their empty house while paying customers are homeless.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Why do they deserve it any less? The re minority here is the extreemly vocal "I cant buy a house so give me theirs" faction.

When the idea of plot reclamation was announced nearly 100,000 players got up at once in protest. At best your whiny self entitled faction is in the hundreds. At the time I didn't have a plot myself and was still opposed to it. Still am even after inheriting my guild and its plot.

So what do a few hundred whiners matter compared to tens if not hundreds of thousands of subscribers that oppose the verry thought?

Even the LS members that are plotless want a real and permanent solution rather than the reclimation idea because we're all smart enough to know it's a new problem that's attempting to fix an old one. Time and money would be better spent finding a permanent solution than doing patch jobs that fix nothing. And the devs apparently agree since they are doing just that. Looking for a REAL solution.

[StouterTaru]

When the idea of plot reclamation was announced nearly 100,000 players got up at once in protest.

I don't think 100,000 players even knew it was in the works, let alone got up at once in protest.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I don't think 100,000 players even knew it was in the works, let alone got up at once in protest.

You'd be supprised how many people actually read the developer notes and keep up with the announcments.

[Kataz]

I was thinking about this a bit more last night, and what people like Madjames need is a financial way of obtaining a house. SE is no stranger to micro transactions, I pay an extra $2 a month just for a third retainer to hold on to all my garbage. I didn't think out all of the little odds and ends of it, but something similar to paying real money for another retainer could be applied towards owning a plot. Roughly, something like $2 for a small, $5 for a medium, and $8 for a large, added to your monthly subscription, and then you get your pick of available plots on a new ward and get some percent of gil reduced off the price of the house, like %30 off the lot price. Additional wards can be added as necessary because their cost is built in to the subscriptions that pay for a plot. When you stop paying, just like the retainer, your house goes away and another paying customer can opt for your plot. Don't have time to explore this more at the moment, but if someone wants to take the idea and run with it, go for it.

[Kaiser-Ace]

That'd work really well. Make Two or three primium wards that are cash players only. Charge maybe 20% less gil as compensation, and then should their subscription expier even for one day their plot is vacated, all their non-moveable items destroyed, the rest of their items sent to an NPC, and all of their hard earned gil wasted.

And since usage of said primium plot would link your player ID to that area via the Mog Station due to the subscription based access RMTing gil for those useres would be impossible.

[Zorlinta]

Well yeah that option of premium house would be great. Though should be a good study about the prices for it, im personally would preffer a bigger unique payment for the plot size. Like $10 small, $15 medium, $20 large to buy/build and have it permanent, or well a small holding free not bigger than $5 . And also tag all current ones as non-premium wich be free, but will be easily relinquish if not active or any other stuff.

[Kataz]

I would be a bit cautious about a house being straight up bought with cash. I think a small cash commitment to secure your plot is fair as long as you also have the gil to purchase the plot at a slightly reduced rate. Earning the house should still require a pretty sizable in game commitment and effort instead of just someone with more money than time buying their house. A house I don't think falls under a "pay to win" category, but it is often bragging rights that should be earned in game, not JUST purchased with cash.

Premium housing areas would be nice. Still accessible to the common player to explore and visit, but the plots are reserved for people who want to buy in. Obviously if you are paying real world dollars for what people in regular wards got for zero real world dollars, there needs to be some incentive beyond just owning a house. Unique layouts different from the cut and paste subdivisions that were added. Better placed market boards and bells so there aren't any real undesirable plots. Even though I already own a house, I'd consider buying in just to ensure that I'm part of an active community instead of the ghost town my current subdivision is, thus freeing up my old plot for someone who doesn't want to spend real money on a house.

I think there is a lot to that to explore, I'd be interested to see what other ideas could make premium housing sound like a real solution.

[Kaiser-Ace]

A greater deal of customization would be a good incentive but we also have to add the risk of "use it or lose it" to apeeze who this would actually be quelling. <looks in disgust at certan posters>

But yes, to be an incentive land should only be purcaseable by primuim listers paying month to month with the plots being nearly identical to eachother but far more customizable. Maybe even a unique aperenve to the premium area to visually distinguish them as "uperclass" premium players. but the minut that plot sub lapses, poof. all gone, to bad so sad.