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

[Kaiser-Ace]

Nope, not scrapped. Neighborhoods are coming in the drop following drop 6, supposedly. Were supposed to be in for this coming patch, but they pushed it back to work a few more features into the whole thing.

And Circles are basically Linkshells, so FFXIV's already got that framework.

Case in point, the housing system in FF14 is suppose to not need LSs and help even solo players co-operate with guilds large and small. As a person who soloed for a long time it took quite a while before I settled into an FC and even longer before I found the one I'm in now. Ironically run by a member of a LS I left a while back during my short stay on Adamantoise server.

[mathastora]

A friend and I started a FC together and he purchased our FC house under his name. He has since left the game and I am now the sole master of the FC. Even though our FC is very much alive and still running, will we lose our house because the original purchaser is now considered an inactive? This will be very upsetting considering we all pitched in to get the house.

[Valaska]

Nope, not scrapped. Neighborhoods are coming in the drop following drop 6, supposedly. Were supposed to be in for this coming patch, but they pushed it back to work a few more features into the whole thing.

And Circles are basically Linkshells, so FFXIV's already got that framework.

Point is you do meet your neighbors and things do randomly happen like FC's just raiding other peoples houses and hang out, heck I've met a bunch of DA2 friends because they had their house in the same ward as the FC I was in!

[SQBoard]

Point is you do meet your neighbors and things do randomly happen like FC's just raiding other peoples houses and hang out, heck I've met a bunch of DA2 friends because they had their house in the same ward as the FC I was in!

Visiting or "raiding" other houses can happen in an instanced design, people just have to click a menu. Sort of like someone in Ward 1 visiting their neighbor in Ward 2 in this game.

Running into your neighbors on the same zone is nice, but if my experience is any indication, it doesn't happen often enough with a significant enough result to justifiy effectively locking out the majority of the playerbase for the uncommon or even rare occurrence of any significant neighborly interaction. I don't mean just seeing 1 or a few people running by once in a while, i mean something useful...eventhough seeing people at all is also rare here in my experience.

Also, even if a massive uptick in community happens in the wards, the number of those groups/individuals is a minority compared to everyone who wants a house for legitimate use...even if they wipe every house and start over.

This is all academic, but if a significant increase in community is SE's intent for using this neighborhood set up, then that housing vision has severely failed on my server...even back when all houses were active and not owned by the same player. It's not unheard of for developers misjudging their playerbase, it actually happens often. Although it's rare to see devs of a game to publicly admit it until long after the game has shutdown.

I'll try checking other servers' peak times to see if it's any different...maybe the japanese servers?

[Ayerinn]

A friend and I started a FC together and he purchased our FC house under his name. He has since left the game and I am now the sole master of the FC. Even though our FC is very much alive and still running, will we lose our house because the original purchaser is now considered an inactive? This will be very upsetting considering we all pitched in to get the house.

As far as I'm aware, the GM "owns" the FC house - not necessarily the original purchaser.

[Voldemort]

The 3.1 update that will boot inactive players won't solve any issues really.
In a high population server like Hyperion, I would bet that players will be setting their alarm clocks for the update's release, foot race to the nearest housing ward, and purchase all the available land in a matter of hours. And then we would be back to more complaining...

The system that was put in place had a novel idea, and I do like being able to walk around different neighborhoods and see how everyone decorates their houses. However, with an ever-growing population, the system isn't sustainable.

And probably the biggest offense of them all, there is real content locked behind this housing feature that a vast majority of players will never get to experience.
Coloring your chocobo, gardening, exp crafting benches, and airships, with bigger and better plans to expand these airship expeditions in the future...


I had mentioned in a thread before about a system that reconciles instanced housing with the neighborhood feel.
- Perhaps if one wanted to have their house in their own little instanced world, one would choose solitary instanced housing. Just you alone with your cottage on a beach. Or an Uldahn waterfall.
- If you wanted to live next to your free company friends, everyone would choose a "link" feature that put all your free company's houses in one ward. So all your neighbors are your own friends, along with the actual free company house at the top of the hill to have weekly meetings and work on airship stuff.
- And if you liked the whole neighborhood feel, you would "link randomize" which puts you in a ward with other random players who chose the same thing. Everyone around you actually wants that neighborhood feel, and would be more willing to socialize in the streets, hang out at marketboards, etc.

[Naunet]

Case in point, the housing system in FF14 is suppose to not need LSs and help even solo players co-operate with guilds large and small. As a person who soloed for a long time it took quite a while before I settled into an FC and even longer before I found the one I'm in now. Ironically run by a member of a LS I left a while back during my short stay on Adamantoise server.

You don't need Circles to do anything in WS's housing, just like you don't need Linkshells to do stuff. The person I was responding to was referencing "gathering circles" which are popular in WildStar as a way to share resources grown on your plot with other players. A player can lay down a garden, a mining operation, or whatever, and set harvesting permissions to be either private, open, or neighbor-only, as well as what ratio of resources you want to split (100%-0, 75%-25%, 50%-50%, etc). Neighbors are kind of like a second friends list for housing only - just another level of control. So it became popular to set up gathering Circles where the people who join are then allowed access to a player's neighbor list and thus can harvest their resources. The harvestee can receive some materials when the harvester comes through, depending on the ratio they set. The circle isn't really necessary, though, as you can neighbor anyone.

Just thought I'd clarify that, as I think you may have misunderstood.

Visiting or "raiding" other houses can happen in an instanced design, people just have to click a menu. Sort of like someone in Ward 1 visiting their neighbor in Ward 2 in this game.

Running into your neighbors on the same zone is nice, but if my experience is any indication, it doesn't happen often enough with a significant enough result to justifiy effectively locking out the majority of the playerbase for the uncommon or even rare occurrence of any significant neighborly interaction. I don't mean just seeing 1 or a few people running by once in a while, i mean something useful...eventhough seeing people at all is also rare here in my experience.

That's pretty much been my experience, too. And that was on Balmung, a supposedly extremely populated server.

[cearka]

regardless of when or how this happens, I'm glad its happening. I look forward to having active neighbors again instead of a ghost town ward.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Just thought I'd clarify that, as I think you may have misunderstood.

You're right. I thought you were saying you could only communicate via the circles.

My bad. Misinterpreted that a little bit.

[T2teddy]

They haven't kept you waiting. You procrastinated and decided you wanted a house once they were all taken up.

As many others have pointed out, no empty plots have been available for months and many people joined long after that occurred.
Here on Sargatanas there are hundreds of level 8 FCs which have NEVER been able to get land due to this issue. Over half of the paltry 1440 existing plots have been scooped up as personal houses, not FC houses.
I hope to god any plots which are reclaimed by SE are sold ONLY to FCs. I also hope they check to make sure the entire FC roster is not comprised solely of BLMs with suspicious naming practices. We have tons of those kind of FC