The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[FoxyAreku]

Very strange, maybe your in an area with a lot of old FCs that have been abandoned. Hopefully that house relinquish system will come in soon and you'll get new neighbors. :3

[BunnyChain]

We have one person that hangs out near the Bell/board that isn't in my FC.

I kid you not. Lavender Beds Ward 2 at that. Can't remember plot number. :/

While checking a couple housing wards in Lavender Beds on my server, I found it to be more likely to find inactive players/FCs in the old wards.

[Nadirah]

What I need to do is find a plot to camp when they free those up.
How do you tell inactive houses anyway?

[Makeda]

Just make personal Housing instanced. Like both Wildstar and Everquest 2 do.
- There's a new MMO and a very old MMO - both having found a working solution. Compare them to see how a decade changes the concept, but keeps the basic notion in tact.

Instanced housing means you can have an unlimited number of them - and set them up to have whatever thematic designs are desired.

There are plenty of spots in all three of the cities that I could imagine one 'turning down an alley' to zone into their personal instance.

The Gridanian ones could be tree houses or clearing in a wooded area with a little stream by them.

The Limsa ones could be houseboats or lighthouse-like towers.

The Uldan ones could be back alley slums or towering minarets with a view of the city and desert below.

- And all of this could be tied to a quest one does somewhere between the level 15 'leave town' quest and the later 'pick a grand company' quest. With a fee to buy the house you plop on it, move it, etc. Players who already have personal houses could get some level of gil refund, and a special 'early buy in' house design only they get - as compensation for what they had to pay beforehand.

But whatever the specifics. Make it instanced individually. If we MUST have neighborhoods... take a page from the Sims and from what Wildstar is about to do... and let up to [x] people band together and put their plots into a neighborhood instance - with the ability to vote someone off the neighborhood (throwing the evicted person back to an individual instanced plot)... And these two, could be spun off in unlimited numbers based on demand.

Why they chose public access uninstanced for the housing, in a modern MMO... where we have long since learned why doing uninstanced personal content is a bad idea... I don't get. One only has to look at the history of why WoW started the instanced dungeon concept to know this... It was to solve the very people we see here in housing, that was killing Everquest's uninstanced Dungeons - too many people and not enough content leading to areas being unusable by paying subscribers. So WoW made instanced dungeons, and got to 11 million players, while Everquest at its height had maybe 100,000 to 300,000....

The limited instancing, as open zones, nature of housing in this game is going to kill housing - and the problem will get increasingly bad as the player population grows.

[Radacci]

if everyone in a FC, could have their own large room, the FC would realistically be the size of an entire ward...or are the rooms located in the sea of clouds? would be problematic if bismarck came and ate your room.

[Dree-Elle]

"Instanced" housing will *never* be worth what I paid for my house, "refund" or no. "Instanced" plots would all have the same look and view, to save on server stress and resources, with no individuality save for the building and minor landscaping. "Instanced" housing has no neighborhood feel. People can't be assed to scroll through the lists we have *now*; what makes you think anyone would bother to scroll through a list of thousands of players to find one individual "instance" to visit?

If an idea like this were to go through, I say instance ALL of it, not just personal housing. Free Company and personal housing are together now, let it all be together (alone) in instancing. Let the FCs suffer, too.

I have my home, in order to both see and be seen. I would quit the game (and I think others would too) if I lost my plot in favor of some "pocket dimension". Kick the inactives, and take their land. They're not paying rent (sub fee), they lose their home, just like in real life.

[Bishop81]

Probably apples and oranges but ...

Trove (effectively Minecraft Online) gives entire island to Clubs and you can do with it as you wish. You can build all sorts of fantastical things, e.g. floating islands, hollowed out floating sphere (i.e. like Cocoon), underwater hubs ... etc.

And they can provide such for every club in additional to every player having their own portable personal plot of 16x16 land that serves as their spawn point, wherever they drop it, when they die - but strangely enough, you can't drop it on the club island.

FFXIV housing while a ton more detailed graphically is quite a lot more restricted - and it isn't due to the graphics; EQ Next is also voxel based and is pretty detailed. You can't even change the layout of your house ... Heck, you can't even move the stupid light fixture in the center of the room, making partitioning a pain in the butt - not to mention that lighting is key to atmosphere; can't control the lighting, you can't control the "look" of the place.

Not asking for Minecraft level of construction. But The Sims level of construction I believe would be reasonable.

[Ferr]

.

People that can't have a house don't care about how much you wasted in your house
Just face it, things lose value. Same can be said about any expensive crafted pentamelted gear that gets outdated the nextpatch.

Even if you kick all of the inactives houses, that makes what.... houses for like 10% of the population without a house? What about the rest, fuck them, right?
And be sure that a lot of these new free houses will be for alts from rich people.

Let's face it, there's no solution to the housing problem other than:
- instancing
- a shit ton of plots for everyone (really hard to do).

The neightborhood is silly IMO. Neightborhoods are empty and even if they're full, people won't socialize (like what already happens in cities). At that point, seems like you only want a neightborhood just to brag about your house.

[TheUltimate3]

I'd like to for them to do what Log Horizon had shown (which from what I understand, is basically what Wildstar did, ala Makeda stated) and have a single (or four considering we have four major cities) central location with instanced housing in each. Don't care about the size (could be the size of an Inn room for all I care), but the key thing being instanced for people who cannot afford the legit neighborhood housing with the lots and everything. I would also provide a small public stable outside the capital cities for chocobo raising (in these public stables you can only tend to your own chocobo, and the experience gained lower than the ones in personal housing), and perhaps a small potted plant or something in the rooms to allow for some gardening (You can only plant at most 1 or 2 things.)

As stated, leave the current housing lots as is, if someone can drop the gil on buying it then more power to them. I personally would have made the houses far cheaper, but added a maintenance fee to keep the house standing. After the first month of not paying, the house is set to "condemned" and you can't go inside it until you pay the gil to reopen it. Go two months without paying it, and you lose the lot, with all of the stuff inside the house being moved to some sort of storage for safe keeping, but the lot is lost and free for someone else to purchase and build on.

This to me solves the major issue with housing offered in this game.

1) It allows players who want housing but can't drop 30 million gil on the lot a nice bit of personal space to play around in, while not stepping on the toes of the people who DO have the 30 million gil to drop on a lot.

2) It makes sure things aren't gated either by Free Company or having massive amounts of gil. A person in the apartments can still raise their chocobo and will still be able to grow plants, just naturally not to the extent of someone who did drop 30 million gil on a house.

3) Still encourages those who drop the gil on a house with the benefits, but adding a tax would at least open lots up so people can't buy a house, quit for 8 months and come back expecting their house still standing.

Finally, it would only be natural that if someone had already bought a house before this system was put in, the new price of the house would be taken and the rest would go into maintenance. So like, 30 million house, maybe half would go into the actual lot, and the rest would go into maintenance, giving them i don't know like a 6 months or a year buffer before they would have to start paying for it.

[MistyMew]

Housing...ugh.....

Some servers wards may have some activity for sure...but its not a lot in a good chunk of them. (Im in the lav beds), and there may be some people running about but thats more in the first few original wards..anything beyond that, I may see 2-3 people ( if I went searching), but most times I see none.

Mind you Im cool with that needing to see others is last on my priority list for housing....dead last.

Neighbors aside though..the current system is too limiting. They are thinking far too small for every aspect of housing (except cost and the number of limitations)

If some people just want a house to have it "seen" for a strange form of epeen boost or arousal lol then thats a totally personal issue that needs some counselling imo. Theres being proud then there's...just plain being odd.

I for one want to enjoy the home itself, my area...what I create > trying to impress anyone else. Besides the current system doesn't allow for any uniqueness anyway we all use the exact same furniture in the exact same homes, the only difference is where to plop it down .
Theres no reason to go see anyone elses, we are all basically carbon copies , anyone who cant see that has never experienced what unique housing is like, or what being able to create can result in.

I always hyped a housing system like Rift dimensions and will never give up that goal, as it has so much more to offer all of us! It is by far leaps and bounds ahead of ffxiv.

Affordable, instanced, a zone...not a plot, item limits in the thousands, 100% player controlled and built , can still be visted and seen for those that are here just for a "look at what i did" mindset.. its vastly superior to this gamesin every possible way except graphic quality. It's disheartening considering Rift is so much older yet pulled off such a superior design, hands down.

Instanced could allow for the purchase of a large area .... a zone at least the size of an entire ward...sheesh! O.o

If they designed similar to Rift, we could control the weather, the time of day, bgm, and can literally build a floating castle as a home or rustic log cabin, a replica of any zone in-game... and fill it with not only the beautiful things SE has made but ANYTHING we choose to build....its endless, engaging, and the dreaded "f___" word...you know, that word so many cant quite grasp ....Fun!

The only limit would be the players /fc imagination. A truly customizable and 100% creative design for everyone. Now THATS something to be proud of.

Now wait!...I am aware of the massive effort it took to have what we already do!..Im not blind to the work they have done, but why any game would design such a bland and limited idea on purpose is mind numbing. If they couldnt offer a complete and fully engaging design then dont implement yet, don't introduce it until its exceptional and at least at the same level as other games.
It could have been so much more

They focused too much on the "perks" and the false sense of a lolneighborhood, and very little on the enjoyment of creating something unique which is (imo) 3/4 of what housing should be.

Focusing far too much on hoping we see a person run by instead thats couldnt care less about what you are doing btw, instead of giving us room to breathe and the freedom to create on a personal level or as a group with a fc area something that is stunning and worth noticing or visiting.

I dont want a room as my "home" as some have suggested, no..that's what the inns are for.

Players shouldn't have to settle for the design like ffxi either, that is a terrible design. For its day it was fine!! but today, housing should be a lot more then a glorified room. If you are gonna do it..dont go 1/2 way se.

My mog house in ffxi currently is full and we even have a second floor now but the design cant even remotely compare the the standard and depth of Rift. (and I am sure other games out there)

Why should we settle for something subpar? This game is relatively new and yet housing feels and plays ancient and so darn small. Its nothing beyond, basic..nothing.

I understand they wanted that "sense of community" when in the wards but at what cost to the majority of the players is the seeing that 1 person run by?

A severely limited design that only a few can enjoy?

If that's the case, then the cost was too high. Far far too high.

The "neighborhood" isnt worth all the enjoyment so many are missing...not even close to being worth it. I would trade a "neighborhood" in a heartbeat for a engaging housing design. And a design that is available to everyone.

Availability has to be #1 for them now. I feel so bad for those that haven't had the ability to buy a home yet. even with the endless limitations.

As times goes on I have seen players lowering their standards more and more just to have a piece of something "even a room will do...an apartment!" That's very sad and it should never have reached this stage imo.

SE needs to do whatever it takes to accommodate all their players....a year ago would have been nice.
We would have no leg to stand on if it was a ftp game, but it isn't , we pay and are trying to support the business....our voices and satisfaction should count. Its a 2 way street . Supply from their end should be sufficient now for old players and new alike and a revamp would be a godsend

Upgrade, redesign..completely revamp...whatever it takes.

Players settling for less should never be the solution or even a suggestion.

Not gonna get that from me anyway.