With regards to the possible upcoming housing relinquishments. . . . .

[Syrehn]

It is likely a dead horse, but that horse is what SE really needs to fix the housing issue.

Unless you are a SE programmer you can't say that for certain; none of us have any idea what their infrastructure is. Yoshi provided a response that was quoted in one of these threads about why they don't have instanced housing in relation to the current ward structure. Whether players choose to believe his explanation or not is entirely up to them.

I just would't hold out hope that they're going to change it; the probability of that happening isn't high.

[SQBoard]

Unless you are a SE programmer you can't say that for certain; none of us have any idea what their infrastructure is. Yoshi provided a response that was quoted in one of these threads about why they don't have instanced housing in relation to the current ward structure. Whether players choose to believe his explanation or not is entirely up to them.

I think you're referring to this dev quote:

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.

That quote was in a discussion of them adding more wards. And he was comparing the difference between an inn room and a housing ward in that the inn rooms have no saved items and if it does, it would be same as adding more wards (land). Not that it was the reason they don't have instanced housing.

And not sure if you read the rest of my post instead of stopping at the first sentence of which you quoted, you would notice that i was talking about "individually instanced" housing.

Right now, they have 30 combined houses per ward (instance) and the problem with that is if there are hypothetically 20 unused houses regardless if it's bought but unused or available for purchase (plots), it still takes up server resources because it needs to be loaded by the server all the same...AND still limits the number of housing items people can add because SE has to account for the possibility of 30 houses having max items whether it happens or not. Not to mention, it limits housing upgrades (small > medium > large) because it's fixed. All you're doing when you upgrade (now or after they add a move option) is shifting your coordinates in a similarly limited fixed map.

If they switch to individually instanced housing, already it would use up less server resources because you don't have to load UNSOLD plots until someone actually buys it. You also only have 1 person/group's house to compensate for the number of items you can add instead of 30. And if 20 houses are bought but unused, they can be unloaded to free up server processes and have the added benefit of not aggravated players if they decide to come back since it doesn't need to be deleted.

Relinquishing inactive houses will not stop land baron players who buy houses with intent on reselling. All that would do is make them visit their house once a month or however long the inactivity timer is.

I've already mentioned invidividually instanced housing examples in Wildstar and Black Desert and those aren't even the only ones that have that type of system.

Unless you're saying everybody else is capable of doing this except for SE who seem to be inept in proper mmo scalability design concepts?

I believe Yoshi just wants a neighborhood set up but don't have the infrastructure to handle it. And that is a similar mistake with not instancing the persistant zones. Remember what happened when they launched gold saucer? People getting locked out because the zone was full. It wasn't until Heavensward (almost 2 years later) when SE finally gave into instancing zones (hw ones anyway) to be more scalable to player use.

(Eventhough they couldn't do that properly either with separating teams into separate instances and not have an option to switch back without running in and out of a zone.) But that's another topic for another time.

[Naunet]

Unless you are a SE programmer you can't say that for certain; none of us have any idea what their infrastructure is.

It has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing SE's infrastructure. Instanced housing is the only way to ensure everyone has a house. It is pure numbers. Any attempt to simply add more wards is never going to be enough. Removing inactive houses is never going to be enough.

Well, unless FFXIV's population drops to be around equal to the number of housing plots, but then the game would have a whole 'nother set of issues.

I still have such an incredibly hard time believing SE is incapable of instanced housing when so many other MMOs have it. Either they are lying, or they are embarrassingly incompetent.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Business Jargon 101:

Incapability: Adverb
Origin: Corporate Finance

Definition: Lacking Motivation to expend finances or resources to pursue a suggested course of action.

Basically, it's not that they CAN'T make instance housing but simply have no desire to completely scrap months of work and resources spent on the current system only to replace it with a fundamentally different system with it's own unique set of issues that will inevitably arise and put them back at dev step one.

As far as the devs have come, and as much time and effort as they put into developing and fixing things, from a Risk vs Reward perspective overhauling the system to make instanced housing is just logistically unadvisable. I don't blame them for staying their course and powering through the current issues. Success always makes more money than popularity. And as divided as the Final Fantasy fan base usually is, the Popular Decision still won't be "The Right One".

[Valaska]

snip.

I already addressed this earlier. I was a service member, I have plenty of friends that were and they've played other games such as ArcheAge, Vanguard Saga, Darkfall online... Each one of these people either used me or a close friend to go on and check their housing situation, it's not a hard thing to do and its reasonable as the ENTIRE world can't be expected to wait and bend the knee just because you have a job to do.

We all understood the commitment of time going in. 1-3 months is acceptable, I've done shift work and long hours away from home and have never had a problem with housing decay in games, housing decay ONLY improves the situation. Adding more servers is immensely expensive and is akin to you having a little car trouble and instead of changing the tire someone tells you to buy a whole new car.

[Zorlinta]

...
Definition: Lacking Motivation to expend finances or resources to pursue a suggested course of action.

Basically, it's not that they CAN'T make instance housing but simply have no desire .. the Popular Decision still won't be "The Right One".

so in proper words means the game policies or SE vision is that house system was never intended to be for everyone own a house, just the lucky rich ones, and it gives some kind of achievement/status. And against that no matter player thoughts, kinda like savage mode wich is intended not for everyone.

[Geesus]

I've already mentioned invidividually instanced housing examples in Wildstar and Black Desert and those aren't even the only ones that have that type of system.

What's funny/ironic about this statement to me at least? You mentioned 2 other games that use instance housing almost as if trying to show that SE isn't doing as good a job as the Devs for those games. However, what you may not know is that SE already HAD instanced housing in XI. There's no reason to bring in another game(s) to prove the point. The reason most of us said, "instance" housing would have been the better choice, is because we already KNOW they can do it and wonder WHY the DIDN'T do it! lol Same thing with those of us that played 1.0 at release and wondered why XIV was missing so many basic features when XI was such a success for SE and HAD said features.

Housing was a mess from the day it was released. What we were told we were going to get, affordable yet separate housing from FCs, was not what we got and not truthful. Yup. Been almost 2 years and that STILL irks me. Only because I could have bought a medium plot for 2 mil that I was told I wouldn't NEED to do because that plot was for "FC housing" and I was getting less expensive "personal housing." Now? Now I have NO housing.

[SQBoard]

What's funny/ironic about this statement to me at least? You mentioned 2 other games that use instance housing almost as if trying to show that SE isn't doing as good a job as the Devs for those games. However, what you may not know is that SE already HAD instanced housing in XI. There's no reason to bring in another game(s) to prove the point. The reason most of us said, "instance" housing would have been the better choice, is because we already KNOW they can do it and wonder WHY the DIDN'T do it!

I know about the moghouse. I also know of many other games beside those 3, that's why the last part of what you quoted, i mentioned my 2 examples "aren't the only ones" that used instancing.

But in the case of moghouse, that was implemented 6 years ago. I used Wildstar and Black Desert as examples that even more "recent" games are going for instancing to show it's not an archaic design choice.

As to why FFXIV didn't use it? Who knows. Why didn't they instance outdoor zones to combat overcrowding problems like every other game i know does? It took them almost 2 years before caving in to using instanced outdoor zones (heavensward)

To speculate, i can only think of two reasons why they would go for the current housing set up:

1) Yoshi wants a neighborhood feel. People hanging out in the streets, having social gatherings with their neighbors, taking walks around their neighborhood and waving to their neighbors who might be gardening in their yard etc.

2) Less likely, they want some sort of market PvP land grab scheme where players fight for plots.

I said #2 is less likely because i don't see any other system to accomodate the land grabs such as decay/property destruction or a proper resell function like you would expect with games designed for that such as in ArcheAge.

Only #1 seems more plausible but if that's the case, then it failed (at least in the servers i checked) because i've never seen that type of mass social gatherings happen in the wards. Yes i've seen a few people walking around, seen 2 -4 people hang out by the market board sometimes but no large social gatherings between neighbors. The most is a single fc gathering (though usually done inside the house instead of in the streets). And i've checked since housing (fc) first launched, especially the first 5 months because it took me that long before buying mine and i've been checking/shopping around in that time.

Apart from small isolated incidents, there's been no large social exchanges between neighbors when housing was new and especially now when there's even more inactive houses and numerous houses owned by individual characters instead of large groups (fc).

Does anyone know if the #1 scenario happens a lot or at all with the japanese player community?

I do agree with the housing system seemingly a mess since release. The size of a small (fc house at the time) already seemed off to me. Even the smallest fc of 4 people seems a bit of a stretch for such a small space. (Remember the small house didn't have a basement at that time). And the backpedaling of the devs you mentioned were red flags to me as well.

It seems to me like they rushed housing out the door without fully fleshing out the design ideas and they've been putting one hasty patchwork on top of another ever since. I'm pretty sure personal housing was a rush job where they couldn't deliver on giving housing to the masses so they just jury-rigged the current (fc) housing to accept individual purchases.

[Kaiser-Ace]

so in proper words means the game policies or SE vision is that house system was never intended to be for everyone own a house, just the lucky rich ones, and it gives some kind of achievement/status. And against that no matter player thoughts, kinda like savage mode which is intended not for everyone.

Not even close, Housing was always intended to be a group collaboration thing and was to encourage player made communities that resembled Root Towns. Instance doesn't accomplish this ideal because it's instanced.

They will be kicking Gil Sellers, People who left the game, Defunct FCs with no active members, and the "Land Barons" who are taking up land that they are not or are no longer entitled to and making the land accessible to those who do not possess it.

They have no desire or motivation for instance housing because, to them, it goes against the desired product and there for will opt to spend hundreds of thousands more on the "Ideal Outcome" than what many people consider to be the easier and more logical choice, difficulty and logic be damned.

A small fact many people on this and many other games forget, when all is said and done the developer's word is law. And you're lucky if they even ask your opinion let alone consider it. They asked "What can we do to make housing better" and when they hear cries of "More Land!" after they've added land four times now, then they are naturally going to try and figure out WHY adding land isn't working. Which seems to be evident by the trend all of a sudden of the GMs hitting Land Barons with ToS violations.

If this course of action doesn't alleviate the problem in and of its self, THEN they may likely add more land in addition. But i'm willing to bet that this "Crack Down" may end up solving more land issues than most think.

[Valaska]

If this course of action doesn't alleviate the problem in and of its self, THEN they may likely add more land in addition. But i'm willing to bet that this "Crack Down" may end up solving more land issues than most think.

I agree wholeheartedly! The adding more wards is such a short term solution to the problem that will just happen again! Those future accounts could abandon all those houses, the new teleporting land grab bots connected to Gil sellers would swipe in and then sell their houses online for hundreds of dollars! It's the same messy nightmare in the end which would force them to make even more wards and even more servers and even more overhead!

It just is not feasibly money wise for Square Enix.