Why Removing Houses from inactive is NOT a solution.

[Naunet]

Player housing is also a significantly greater investment on the part of the player than almost all of the things I listed.

Fix the system. Bandaids on a broken system will do nothing but punish players for SE's mistakes.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Well,I'm sure a 300 milliin USD donation could probably modivate them to invest in new hard ware and the extra bandwidth to add a few thousand plots per server... but short of that there are really only two options. Weed out players that likly arent coming back (lapses of over 6 months in my oppinion are most likly not coming back.) or abandon housing development all togeather like the lost cause it seems to be because of the "Bart Simpson Paradox" player base.

In all things, both online and IRL, sacrifices have to be made. And I'd personally rather solo players, dead FCs, and especially large FCs who own multiple abandoned plots to loose them in favor of people who will use and apreciate them than for paying players to loose out because of a few [Kupo]ers that buy up all the land then never log in again.

As far as SE goes, if its a Lose Lose situation with the fan base they're going where the cash flow is. And I cant blame them for that.

[Titor]

Well,I'm sure a 300 milliin USD donation could probably modivate them to invest in new hard ware and the extra bandwidth to add a few thousand plots per server...

I am not sure if you know how much servers cost or that it is possible to pull off a good housing system on lesser hardware.

Also I use and appreciate my house a ton, it is my pride and joy in the game. If something came up IRL though and it caused me to be away from the game out of my control but I had every intent on returning I would be devastated if it was gone. I poured my heart and soul into gathering the funds for the house so I would have enough to get it. It was not just a trivial task I got in a day or so. I worked at that for /months/.

[Kaiser-Ace]

snip

Well, tbh I pulled the numbers out of my arse. And I do sympathise. It'd be no different then unsubbing for a few months and log on to see all my levels have been reset and my items deleted but something MUST be done. We all agree on that. A way I see it being a solution, is after a time the degradation puts the plot up for auction. The Gil goes to the owner of the plot and the items to the Residential Reclaimer NPC (Same NPC as if you had a personal room and got booted for your FC) then Only the Plot and Building would be gone and the evicted player would be compensated. But all in all there is a very short list of things that can be done and most are just as bad as the last.

What ever is done, I just hope it doesn't turn into a disaster of its own.

[Nymeria2x]

If they really want to make players happy and make it truly available to everyone they need to scrap the current system. Leave the wards for FC's only if they must keep them. Refund the private owners and set up a system that is an amalgam of the Mog room and Wildstar's instanced housing systems, hell even if you make it an entrance in the wards themselves where you port to you're own private plot it would still work. Just make a gate right off the main market in a ward next to the merchants. Give us the ability to build truly unique homes freely and give us some incentive to even want the house outside of our egos. A daily buff or an overall buff on crafting while we're at our house. More people would use the houses if there was a real reason to do so. I'm just wondering why we're still going along with the ward system, especially after they made it so individuals have to compete with FCs for housing plots.

[Youkulm]

Snip

More like so FC's have to compete with individuals XD But yeah exactly the point.

[Nymeria2x]

Jub, if you ever saw the Wildstar housing system you'd see how wrong you are. Wildstar has an instanced system. Every player is given an impressively sized plot with a shack in the middle and a community board at the entrance. The board allowed you to pick 1 of 3 24hr buffs as well as giving you access to your closest neighbors, everyone's house on your friends list or in your guild, allows a separate list for people you designate as favorite neighbors, you also can use the board to shuffle through random plots to visit. The customization is amazing. You can paint items, resize, completely rotate, sink items into the ground or make them float. You can work your way to upgrading your house from the shack to a mansion. They allowed you to pick a node for each gathering class. For houses they had challenge courses you could buy and set up in your yard for other players to come try which drove the community to grow. Housing in Wildstar was superb and SE could really learn from it.

[Scotty_Delial]

Turn inn rooms into mini housing, giving the buffs, maybe a small garden and yeah!

[BunnyChain]

About housing:

Q: I can’t buy a house! Yoshida, please do something!
A: I’d like to address this first since there are people saying plots are unavailable and prices are just too high. First off, I owe you an apology for my subpar explanation of why personal and Free Company housing cost the same amount. The prices were determined after extensively reviewing the game’s economy, and they won’t go higher than they are now.

Basically, the reason both personal and Free Company housing plots aren’t segregated is that because it’s been a year since our official launch, the rate at which Free Companies are established will gradually decrease. If the land for personal and Free Company housing was separate, we’d have to keep supplementing both in spite of declining demand for Free Company plots. Plus, when a Free Company is dissolved, its property is relinquished. On the other hand, individual players will continue to earn gil, so the demand for personal housing plots will only increase from now on. Separating the two would result in a situation where a player can’t purchase land in crowded personal housing areas or buy an empty plot in the Free Company areas. So, while I do understand that people want to buy a house right away, we have decided to proceed with a system that won’t keep players from building houses in the long run.

We’re planning on doubling the number of plots in Patch 2.4, and we’re aiming to add even more land in later updates. At the moment, though, we don’t have a good handle on how many players are trying to buy personal plots worldwide, so just sit tight─more is on the way.

Finally, I’ve seen a few posts on the forums saying housing would be better if it was instanced like inn rooms are, so I want to point out that instances aren’t saved. Nothing in an inn room needs to be saved; player housing, on the other hand, necessitates personal save data for things like furniture placement and character location. So, it would really amount to adding more land anyway. During a previous Letter from the Producer LIVE, I mentioned that we would make it possible for players who don’t belong to a Free Company to have a house with a yard so they can garden and raise chocobos, and the current system is designed to do this. We will be doing our best to provide more land as soon as possible, so please bear with us a little longer.

Source

• separate personal and Free Company housing plots would require the supplementation of both
• declining demand for Free Company plots
• increased demand for personal housing plots
• unused plots in both areas

• player housing necessitates personal save data
• [instanced housing] would amount to adding more land

[Syrehn]

About housing:
Source

The quote and source you posted clearly show that SE is highly unlikely to ever separate personal/FC houses. It also shows their reasons why they likely have no intentions in the future, even if some players think it's a good idea, to convert to an instanced system.

It basically reaffirms that they'll move forward as best they can with their current model. This includes: decay timer, adding land periodically, and house sharing options. Please look forward to it.