Housing abandoned plots, this is needed SE!!! Thank you!

[LineageRazor]

This community has to be kidding me.

Yesterday, people cry how abandoned houses should be forfeit

Today, when such a feature is announced to be planned, people cry how it's a bad idea.

You seem to be assuming that it's the same people crying both ways. They aren't. The community isn't a hive mind, some people feel one way, others feel another. You can't please everyone, and so whatever you do, some people are gonna be salty, and quite vocal about their saltiness.

if you're going on such ridiculously long "breaks" in the first place why on earth do you even need a house?

Part of the problem here has to do with the dumb way that they implemented a lot of housing furnishings. While all furnishings are unsellable once placed, many furnishings - particularly the "trophy" furnishings created from rare ingredients from difficult accomplishments - can't even be retrieved without destroying them. My FC has a Leviathan fountain, for example, that we were reluctant to remove when we were redecorating, in spite of the fact that it clashed with the new decor, for the simple reason that we couldn't remove it without destroying it and it had a lot of sentimental value. So, we pretty much just moved it to an out-of-the-way corner and tried to bury it behind other decorations. :P

If someone gets a house, they can use it to display the cool furnishings that they've accumulated over time. If that house is reclaimed by SE, presumably all of those trophies are destroyed. SE ALWAYS wants to bring lapsed members back into the game, and they understand that a player might be discouraged from doing so if they come back and discover that not only is their house gone, but all the awesome stuff they put inside of it. It'd be as if SE removes all your gil if you return to the game after a long absence, only worse. Because of the loss of furnishings, a simple gil reimbursement doesn't automatically make everything hunky dory.

All that said, there ARE ways SE could get around these issues that doesn't involve redesigning housing from the bottom up (which is something they really should do, but probably never will). If SE could arrange some way to save the furnishings, that might mollify folks. Along with the reimbursement, if they actually came back to the game they could rest easy knowing that as soon as they're able to purchase a new house, they can move all their stuff right back into it. That might not be easy, granted, if housing remains as limited a resource as it is now, but it's something; all their hard-earned crap is still there and ready to be placed, once they have someplace to place it.

I'm guessing, though, that SE's solution won't be this elegant. They will take the easy way out; a timer of some kind, I'm guessing six months. If you're unsubscribed for six months, your house goes "poof". Furnishings lost. No gil reimbursement. Just gone. If you're going to be away from the game for a long time and want to keep your house, you will be required to continue paying for your subscription. It's as simple as that. Even if circumstances prevent you from logging into the game for long stretches of time, even something as serious as military deployment is unlikely to be able to stop you from wiring SE money. By this method, if you leave the game and have no intention of returning, then you probably don't care about your house anyway. If you leave the game for a long period of time, but are planning to return and don't want to lose your stuff, you'll have an option available.

[Niwashi]

many furnishings - particularly the "trophy" furnishings created from rare ingredients from difficult accomplishments - can't even be retrieved without destroying them.

I think if SE is going to implement a feature to reclaim abandoned houses, they first need to change this rule (or at the very least make these reclamations an exception to it, though really it's pretty stupid to have such a rule in the first place). I think most people could accept a housing system in which if you're unsubscribed for 30 days or don't log in for 6 months you lose the house, but get a house voucher and ALL your furnishings kept in escrow for you until you return (including these currently irretrievable ones).

I'm guessing, though, that SE's solution won't be this elegant. They will take the easy way out; a timer of some kind, I'm guessing six months. If you're unsubscribed for six months, your house goes "poof". Furnishings lost. No gil reimbursement. Just gone. If you're going to be away from the game for a long time and want to keep your house, you will be required to continue paying for your subscription. It's as simple as that.

SE's original plan (which got shot down due to a lot of complaining) wasn't even based on whether you had a paid subscription. You would have had to actually enter the house every 30 days or less in order to keep it. Even agreeing that some sort of house plot reclamation is necessary, that version was just way too aggressive.

[Purrfectstorm]

You seem to be assuming that it's the same people crying both ways. They aren't. The community isn't a hive mind, some people feel one way, others feel another.

I'm glad someone said this. I think it's good to keep perspective that players are all different from one another. I think failing to consider different perspectives is why this issue is a debate.

It seems clear to me that a lot of players want housing and can't get it. These players are justifiably upset that house plots are taken up by players who aren't really using them (they're not playing). On the other hand, player who have housing would like to be able to take breaks from the game and know they can come back to the character, items, and house that they've heavily invested in.

I actually do think it's possible to appease both sets of players somewhat. SE could have a system where players who are unsubbed for X amount of time relinquish their land and I think that as long as the amount of time allowed for reasonable breaks people would be okay with it. I'm thinking that it should be at least 3 months, maybe even 6, and definitely not over a year.

I'm on the fence about restricting it to un-subbed players only. The reason being because SE never implemented a limit on how many houses an account could own. So if a scumbag player has 4 alts that are inactive for extended periods of time and they are all house squatting but play their main character (active sub) I don't believe those houses should be held in limbo from other players.

I think it definitely needs to be restricted to unsubbed players only. Things can happen that prevent a person from playing but if they're paying their sub they clearly still intend to play in the future. The sub money is the first priority for a company like SE and it doesn't make sense to alienate someone who will continue to pay.

The second point I want to make about your post is that it's hard to make a distinction between the "scumbag" player you describe and someone who just enjoys having alts and occasionally playing the game with them. It's really hard to devote time to alts but alts provide a change of pace now and then; I don't think players should be penalized for having them. Besides, how would you make a system not based on subs? If you based it on activity, that player just logs on with his/her alts once per day/week/month/whatever.

Your point does touch on an interesting issue that deserves to be addressed though: why would someone want to own multiple houses? I personally think it's about the gardening. Gardening was (is?) a very low-effort way of making quite a lot of gil. Maybe that's something SE should address to cut down on the "scumbag" players. They could:

1) Allow players to garden within an inn or FC room.
2) Reduce the demand on crops obtained only from gardening.
3) Increase the supply of crops obtained only from gardening.

Then players won't buy a house just to make gil, they'll buy a house because the vanity aspect appeals to them. I haven't been inside of or placed a single furnishing within my personal house; I bought my house almost entirely to have access to the self-sufficiency and the profits of gardening.

[hennalang]

Remember when small houses were only one floor? And when people bought them up and decorated them (somewhat)? Yeah, on Balmung all those said houses in the first few wards are STILL sitting with vacant basements. Something really DOES have to be done. I don't think it should only be a month though. I mean, you could be hospitalized or something and unable to play. But from the 3 month mark? Maybe... the 6 month mark? Definitely. A year and beyond? Come on... let's free up some server space for paying customers.

[Syrehn]

The second point I want to make about your post is that it's hard to make a distinction between the "scumbag" player you describe and someone who just enjoys having alts and occasionally playing the game with them. It's really hard to devote time to alts but alts provide a change of pace now and then; I don't think players should be penalized for having them. Besides, how would you make a system not based on subs? If you based it on activity, that player just logs on with his/her alts once per day/week/month/whatever.

Your point does touch on an interesting issue that deserves to be addressed though: why would someone want to own multiple houses? I personally think it's about the gardening. Gardening was (is?) a very low-effort way of making quite a lot of gil.

Scumbag might have been a bit strong... >.> <.<

Gardening was a very hot commodity when housing first launched and greatly contributed to alt FC's picking up multiple housing plots (which was sort of scummy to other homeless FC's imo); it's likely still a factor though not as big as it once was. Greed and epeen status is another reason.

I don't personally think anyone's alt character or FC should be holding additional housing space and a viable solution would be to implement something like 1 personal house per account per server.

I'd also like to see a restriction for future plots that keep M/L houses for FC purchase only; individuals really don't need that much space all to themselves.

[Niwashi]

I don't personally think anyone's alt character or FC should be holding additional housing space and a viable solution would be to implement something like 1 personal house per account per server.

That wouldn't be bad provided that all characters on that account are given full access to using the house. Currently, that's not the case, and buying up a house per alt is the only way to have access to a house.

[MageBlack]

That wouldn't be bad provided that all characters on that account are given full access to using the house. Currently, that's not the case, and buying up a house per alt is the only way to have access to a house.

At least have some level restriction or MSQ requirement on housing. The Ideas and concept of housing is grea, I love it, that's why I want a house. But with the current system there will forever be a wall keeping the majority of players from enjoying it. Bottom line, Greater availability needs to be implemented. The demand is high, time to increase the supply.

[StouterTaru]

At least have some level restriction or MSQ requirement on housing.

There is already a substantial wall before you can buy a house:
-Personal house requires highest current GC rank, which involves doing DD and AV
-FC house requires rank 5 for the FC

[MageBlack]

There is already a substantial wall before you can buy a house:
-Personal house requires highest current GC rank, which involves doing DD and AV
-FC house requires rank 5 for the FC

Oh, then thats good. I didnt realize that, my bad. Thanks for pointing it out cause I thought once you unlocked the wards you could just buy a house.

[Niwashi]

At least have some level restriction or MSQ requirement on housing.

It currently requires level 50 and being a 2nd Lieutenant in your Grand Company before you can buy a personal house, and an FC rank of 6 for FC houses. I think if anything the requirements are a bit steep already (and the prices even more so). Both requirements and prices were designed to limit the number of players who would try to buy houses, because SE wasn't providing enough of them. They need to take care of the deplorable limits on space, so that they can safely allow everyone to get houses, and then drop the requirements and prices down to something more reasonable.

The Ideas and concept of housing is grea, I love it, that's why I want a house. But with the current system there will forever be a wall keeping the majority of players from enjoying it. Bottom line, Greater availability needs to be implemented. The demand is high, time to increase the supply.

Agreed. They need a new model that allows them to dramatically increase the space, not just settle for adding a ward or two every 6 months to a year and act like that will satisfy the demand. They need to redesign the system so there will be enough houses for everybody, even on the high-population servers.

Instancing the personal houses is the most obvious way to remove the limit on space, but not the only one. Take LOTRO as an example: It has a similar housing system to FFXIV, with a few locations (four in their case compared to three here) that each have a collection of wards (or neighborhoods by LOTRO's terminology) where a bunch of people have houses together. Both games have 30 houses per ward or neighborhood. The difference is that LOTRO has up to 250 neighborhoods in each of four areas, whereas FFXIV has 16 wards (well, 8 wards and 8 subdivisions which are essentially the same thing) in each of three areas. That difference between 1,000 neighborhoods in one game and 48 in the other is what makes that shared neighborhood pattern work there and not here. If SE wants to keep using this type of shared housing ward, then they need to actually devote the necessary servers to housing, just like Turbine did for LOTRO. We're stuck with these ridiculous limits on housing for the same reason a lot of other things are lacking in this game, because SE doesn't want to spend anything on their infrastructure.


As to how LOTRO handles the abandoned house issue, they have a maintenance fee of a few silver per week that can be paid ahead up to six months in advance. Past that, if your maintenance fees aren't paid your house is locked so you can't use it, and after a period of time (another month IIRC) a locked house will be foreclosed with all contents going into escrow for the owner to pick up when/if they return. Combined with the fact that houses there are drastically cheaper than here, and there are plenty so you can always get another, not many people are upset with the foreclosure system. (There were, however, lots of complaints about their first attempt at it, because initially the escrow that holds the items from your house was going to be time limited as well. To get a system that players would accept, they had to drop that rule, and keep escrow indefinitely. There were a few other changes as well, like extending the amount of time you could pay ahead to 6 months as it was originally shorter.)