The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Jynx]

The good thing is that it's almost universally agreed upon that something, anything needs to be done about housing. It needs to be accessable in some way, shape or form to the mass populace.

This is why I suggest using a existing system and incorperate it into the Company Housing without damaging the current system freeing up space for companies to procure housing, and giving the individual players even within these companies a space to call their own and to customize as they see fit.

[KaedrianLiang]

The solution is to tie plot/house ownership to your subscription. If you don't pay the bills, you will lose your home. Plot is vacated and up for grabs again. Really if they aren't playing the game for ANY reason, they don't need a in game house, they are not using. On many servers majority of player owned plots have been abandoned by unsubscribing players.

Think about it, how does it feel, when unsubscribing players are using up dead space within the in-game world long after their passing? While consistent subscribers that have been wanting a FC hall or a personal house sit there being slapped in the face til the end of time because of this lack of oversight.

My heart goes out to all those poor chocobos that are sitting in the stables left to fend for themselves.

[Malzian]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3263878

Also, they mentioned I the live letter that they are planning on a mechanism to remove inactive houses. They're working on it, it's just going to take time. They can't just add more plots because it would affect server stability due to the same issue that makes it difficult for them to add inventory space (that the servers save data twice as often as other MMOs do). Patience... And for the record, I don't have an FC or personal house, either so I would like it to be fixed too. But I'd rather see it fixed in an effective manner then just slapping more land on that will just go the same way as all of the previous plots if you're not the first to log on seconds after the servers go live when they do add them...

[Ferr]

The solution is to tie plot/house ownership to your subscription. If you don't pay the bills, you will lose your home. Plot is vacated and up for grabs again. Really if they aren't playing the game for ANY reason, they don't need a in game house, they are not using. On many servers majority of player owned plots have been abandoned by unsubscribing players.

Think about it, how does it feel, when unsubscribing players are using up dead space within the in-game world long after their passing? While consistent subscribers that have been wanting a FC hall or a personal house sit there being slapped in the face til the end of time because of this lack of oversight.

My heart goes out to all those poor chocobos that are sitting in the stables left to fend for themselves.

That's not a solution. There's still not enough plots for everyone, even if you keep kicking inactives.

[Stormrider]

So I had a curious message last night. I can't remember the exact words, it was houses full try again later. Like we get message for to many people doing certain dungeons in the past. So my question is the inside of the house is instanced right? Does this mean the servers they have can't handle the meager amount of housing we have now?


Sorry should have been more specific. It is not the ward itself it is the house. So can get into the ward but yoou would be locked out of your FC house and in turn locked out of your FC room.

[Bishop81]

So I had a curious message last night. I can't remember the exact words, it was houses full try again later. Like we get message for to many people doing certain dungeons in the past. So my question is the inside of the house is instanced right? Does this mean the servers they have can't handle the meager amount of housing we have now?

The wards are instanced - that's why there is a loading screen. But I believe they never "unload" from the server even if there is no one in them, hence the "need more servers" answer from SE.

Stupid design IMHO.

[Preypacer]

Obviously, Prey is comparing a feature in another game she thinks did housing really well. The video highlights it well, but could you please tell us specifically what we're looking for? As far as I can tell, it's about how players can buy plots designated as housing spots and build houses there. There's some obvious differences in graphics and house size, but as far as I can tell, it's not anything different from the current housing system.

The videos, along with their audio/narratives, and the small tidbits of info I provided in that post should at least indicate how the housing systems in those games - some near or over a decade old, now - go well beyond what XIV offers us, or is even close to being capable of.

I'm incredulous that you saw nothing more than what you describe in any of them, even implicitly.

To wit: both you, and Rheunis, have somehow overlooked what's being displayed/described in those videos.

I'll put it this way...

We can start and finish the list of ways that XIV's housing system falls short in one single point, which happens to be at the core of this thread, at least:

Every one of those MMOs accomodates every player with at least one personal home (with Guild-sized homes being an option). Further, in some of them, players can own multiple homes, in various locations, of various sizes.

But, to expand on why this is so... I'll focus on just two MMOs.

1. In EQ2, every player gets access to a small house/apt, with 2 rooms. It has full customizability (floor, walls, ceiling, etc), can hold numerous pieces of furniture and other items. It provides additional storage, and direct access to sell one's wares to others through.
   
   Beyond that, every character can own up to 25 homes, total, from tiny homes, way up to full on mansions. And, unlike XIV's current system, they can do this without impeding anyone else's ability to acquire even one.
   
   EQ2 has had this system in place for at least 10 years now.
2. In RIFT, players get 'Dimensions'. These are essentially their own plot of land, based on their choice from a number of different environments, derived from areas in the game.
   
   In these Dimensions, they can build, almost literally, anything they want, from scratch, using a wide variety of building materials and items available in-game. If they're not keen on building, and just want something ready-made, they can purchase pre-built houses as well. Or, build a mix of the two.
   
   Further, unlike FFXIV's current system, they can own several Dimensions, of varying sizes... without impeding anyone else's ability to acquire even one.
   
   If you want to see the kind of community that can build up around a well-designed and put-together housing system that empowers and supports players' creativity, take a look through this site. Check out this video in particular, for just one example. This is all built by a player, through Rift's take on a housing system.

If the glaring disparity between XIV's system, and other MMOs - including one over a decade old - isn't clear now, then I don't know what else to say, except "there are none so blind as those who will not see".

That's just two examples. The key thing to take from this isn't necessarily the features they have (though many of them are damn awesome). The point is, that each of these MMOs, one of them over a decade old, has managed to pack all of these features into their respective systems, while still guaranteeing that each player can have not only one home (given for free), but can acquire multiple if they wish, without limiting anyone else's ability to do the same.

Now, folks may still somehow dismiss all that as unimportant, or whatever, "because reasons", or because "it doesn't affect them", but it's a major gripe - and a valid one - among many, many players.

At this point, I think most people would be satisfied to be able to get a house at all, in a neighborhood of their choosing. That such a desire is so out-of-reach, to so many, is really at the core of this entire issue.

In a nutshell: FFXIV's housing system was poorly designed, poorly implemented and is far far too restrictive and limited in its current form. The band-aids they are applying to "remedy it" are not what it needs. In my opinion, it needs a complete overhaul, from the ground-up.

[Sandpark]

@ Preypacer
The graphics do look bland on those videos and the building look very basic with not much details. Ok let's say those do housing itself better than FFXIV according to you.

The bigger question is:
What purpose do those houses serve besides decorating?
Is there any content that can only be done from those houses like Skycastles or FFXIV guild airships?
Can large groups of people hang out in the same area or do they have to zone into different instances?

Because Free Company houses are not just for decorating, crafting and hanging out. There is more content coming after island exploration for Free Company guilds to do I assure you. Content tied to the free company houses. One example is multiplayer crafting things such as cakes and sailboats, etc.

Let's look at some other possibilities for guild based content for Free Companies shall we?

-Airship Guild Vs Guild(Battle Airships designed and controlled by FC possibility)
-Submarine exploration(Designed and controlled by FC)
-Lunar expeditions(Spaceship designed and controlled by FC)
-Magitek Armor crafting( Designed and controlled by FC for guild vs guild wars)
-Magitek Battle/Racing circuits(Designed and controller by FC, Nascar type race teams(FC teams), think pod racing in Star Wars), with rankings, rewards, achievements,etc.


So people without guilds are not locked out of that playstyle of content, they can have queues for smaller scale stuff in DF, And personal smaller designs of things in crafting.
-

[Kosmos992k]

*SNIP*
In a nutshell: FFXIV's housing system was poorly designed, poorly implemented and is far far too restrictive and limited in its current form. The band-aids they are applying to "remedy it" are not what it needs. In my opinion, it needs a complete overhaul, from the ground-up.

Well, I'm not certain, but I have a suspicion that some or all of the housing system in those games operates at the client or peer to peer level rather than running entirely on the server side. FFXIV has adopted the much more server centric architecture as a countermeasure to cheating. Games that use more client side processing or peer to peer networking are open to cheating, even on the consoles.

Yes the housing system has many problems, yes we need them fixed, but, when comparing alternatives and trying to pull from those alternatives possible modifications or additions to the FFXIV housing system, we all have to be careful to remember that whatever is implemented will be done on the server side. The key point being that the load imposed by housing is real and no matter how much hand waving and assuming people indulge in; the truth is that there are real limits imposed by operating server side. Those limits exist both in terms of what a given server can handle, and also in terms of the bandwidth between the server and client (and/or the cummulative bandwidth inbound and outbound from the server itself).

In other words, consider the load on the servers of any changes to the housing system and try not to scoff at the concept of server load being an issue.

[Anova]

I'm incredulous that you saw nothing more than what you describe in any of them, even implicitly.

To wit: both you, and Rheunis, have somehow overlooked what's being displayed/described in those videos..

Ah sorry, I was only referring to the Vanguard video rather than the other three you posted (since that was what Sandpark was getting hung up on). Sorry if there was any confusion over that. I'll refer to the specific videos from now on.

I do generally agree with the concept of Rift and EQ2's instancing of housing. The limited spaces do not make sense, and I never meant to imply that the status quo was good. I doubt there's any arguments that we DO NOT need more housing slots, but the question is how to add it within the current system. The alternative is to tear the whole thing down and wait 1-2 years for development to revamp it (because SE'll only have about 6 developers working part-time on this, not to mention testing and QA who will definitely be juggling a bunch of other updates such as class/dungeon balance in addition to housing).

I for one am fine with moving personal housing to instanced servers, while leaving the neighborhoods open for FCS to fight over. There's some merit in the competition for the spaces, and some players genuinely enjoy it. Just don't tie them to FCs, otherwise it's not actually a personal house.

I'm all for customizing and would welcome the ability to customize the layout of my house. My concern with EQ2 housing though is that while it is highly customizable, it is not very friendly to the console market. Similarly, if you want to import textures, that's going to be difficult to do with a PS3 or PS4. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want a house like that, but it limits the type of player who will be able to build a house and customize it. It's a good feature to have, but it's not important at all. Maybe we'll have them in 5-10 years (because it needs a lot of tweaking to make it work on a console and gamepad), but I do not expect Rift or EQ had that robust of a system at 2 years. Minecraft did, but that game is built around crafting.

As for the Vanguard video, which was my argument, FFXIV already implements those features where it can.

• You have a plot of land you can see and buy on the spot.

• Building houses requires gil, which all players can contribute by depositing in to the FC box.

• Airship construction has a UI and list of crafting materials that registered players may add to (just like Vanguard).

If you want players to become porters and buy/deposit materials to build their houses like a giant fetch quest, that's fine. But I didn't hear you say that in your post and I honestly expect many players would like the shortcut to just pay the gil there than to pick it at the marketboard/retainer and then run all the way back to the house lot.

Anyway, hope that clears up my points. If there was anything I missed in the Vanguard video, feel free to add to the case.