Housing abandoned plots, this is needed SE!!! Thank you!

[Madjames]

So this is a reply to Neira

Firstly, I do understand what it takes to keep a subscription running for as long as I have. I have had hardship in my life as any other person. However, if you are on a food budget of $15 for a week then obviously the subscription should run out and you should feed yourself. I personally would not worry about a subscription until all of my other bills were paid and food was stocked in my house. If I did not have the $15, I would do things for other people to make sure i had that money and it always seemed to work out. One time I did not have the $15. I was around 20 or so. I went to each neighbor and offered to mow their lawn for a dollar. 2 hours and 15 lawns later, I had the $15. There is ALWAYS a way.

I also would like to say that while you may say that my situation is not the norm, I would disagree with that statement here. My family did not pay my bills. I was given $15 a month doing my lawn service. That $15 was given to my parents who deposited it into their credit card account the same day. If it was not deposited the subscription would have been canceled.

My brother was in the army. He was deployed for 18 months. I would log in every month and keep his house up in Ultima Online. This is not making the game a priority over anything else. It is making sure that a hobby while someone is away is taken care of. Now their may not be someone in a persons life, at all, to log in like I had. I had my brother, mother, and now wife and twin boys to log in for me just in case something happens. I have never met anyone who did not have anyone in their life to log into a game once a month for them in case something happened. While their may be people out there that have absolutely NO ONE, no family or friends, that is not the norm. Generally speaking people do have at least one person who could do this. There is always a work around.

I did not write my post to cause an argument. I wrote my post because while you may think that I am only 1:5000000 with an alright life, I say that is flat out wrong.

The issue I have is that no one has the determination to go that small extra mile. I say this because I lived it. I made sure that my hobby and everything else was always paid for in a legitimate and legal way here in the US. I never pan handled though. If your missing money for your life, no matter what it is for, then common knowledge should dictate that something should be done to make sure you had enough money.

I remember a few years ago that ends were not being met in my life. I was roughly $200 short a month which was for hobby's only, MMORPG's included in this. I dropped all other hobby's of mine that were more expensive and kept my MMORPG going. What do you think I did before another month came up? I got a second job working 2 days a week that was $200 total just to make sure my hobby's were paid for. I have since moved jobs and now work 4 days a week and have everything paid for. The wife also works but she only works 12 hour days so she only has to work 3 days a week.

I understand that there may be some people who may be in your situation in my country but they are not the Norm. There is always some way to earn a little extra cash. My friend works full time and just to make sure he has enough money he cleans houses on his days off just because. He has never had to use his house cleaning money for the past 7 years and has a large sum of cash from that.

The main issue I see a lot of people make is not living within their means. They want everything NOW and refuse to put the time and effort into getting nice things. I see this everyday at my job and all I can do is shake my head and go about my business. I lived within my means all of my life. Any debt I have accrued in my life was always paid back and was a higher priority on my list then any hobby of mine, ever.

Lastly, SE can change or go back on anything they say. We rent our accounts and access to the game from them. It is their game. I fully support them relinquishing land from inactive non-paying customers. If I stop paying my mortgage I lose my house, period. It does not matter if I get cancer, get into a car accident, lose my job due to cut backs, nothing. I lose my house plain and simple. If I stop paying for my Netflix, I lose access to their service and anything pertaining to it. MMORPG's should be the same way. The ISP's do not keep bandwidth on hold for you if you cancel your service. It goes to their customers.

[Neira]

Thank you for expanding on your view point. I simply think it's a matter that we disagree and there is nothing more to come of it. I just hope there are enough people, like me, who don't want to support a company lying to their customers or taking away what subscribers put time and effort into. They have to earn my money, it's not guaranteed, and actions like this on their part are pushing them closer to losing it.

And I'm not going to work odd jobs or push myself to exhaustion just to keep a home in a video game. If I don't have the money for it one month, I'll come back when I do. Or not at all if they take my home away. I commend you for your work ethic to do such a thing, though it might be borderline addiction.

Only other point I want to comment on is that whoever helps you log in also has to have the game and access to it. That's what I meant by it being rare. I'd hope most people don't share their log-ins with others, and I'd imagine the majority of people don't have family or significant others that also play. Sure, I have a few friends who would log in for me if I couldn't, but none of them have the game, and less than half even have a PC that can run it, and I live alone. If you're young or married, then it might be different for you, but I have my doubts that many people playing either live with family still or have their own now.

[Niwashi]

Only other point I want to comment on is that whoever helps you log in also has to have the game and access to it. That's what I meant by it being rare. I'd hope most people don't share their log-ins with others, and I'd imagine the majority of people don't have family or significant others that also play. Sure, I have a few friends who would log in for me if I couldn't, but none of them have the game, and less than half even have a PC that can run it, and I live alone.

The chances for a console player to have a friend who can log in for them are even lower. I, for instance, have a nephew who's into video games, but his XBox 360 isn't going to help him access a PlayStation game. My account isn't licensed for PC, only for PS3 and PS4, so I would have to know someone with a PS3 or PS4 who I trust enough to give them access to both my PSN account and my FFXIV account. I would also have to mail them my one-time-password Security Token.

[Ayerinn]

If I don't have the money for it one month, I'll come back when I do. Or not at all if they take my home away.

I definitely see your point of view (and respectfully disagree,) however, I don't see them making it 30 days - imo 90 days would be fair since this system was not in from the beginning. An alternative would be a taxing system in game to maintain your land...I do not want to see this - hated this in Aion.

[Nicobo]

...I don't see them making it 30 days - imo 90 days would be fair since this system was not in from the beginning. An alternative would be a taxing system in game to maintain your land...I do not want to see this - hated this in Aion.

FYI - why some ppl see them making it 35days
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ming-Patch-2.3

[Neira]

I definitely see your point of view (and respectfully disagree,) however, I don't see them making it 30 days - imo 90 days would be fair since this system was not in from the beginning. An alternative would be a taxing system in game to maintain your land...I do not want to see this - hated this in Aion.

If you saw my point of view, then you would realize that the time isn't what I'm debating, it's the issue itself. They could make it a year, and I would still have a problem with it. It's an ineffective concept for a failed system that they didn't want to invest the money into making viable in the first place. I'm taking a principled stand against the system, not debating what is fair or unfair(or at what point the transition occurs), which is entirely subjective.

Also, willingness to accept a system and then hope that it's in keeping with your concept of fair is a very weak stance to hold strong to. If they release it with 90 days, you will be content, but what about 60? Or 45? Or 35 as that link shows they were quite willing to do previously? What if they do it at two weeks? Perhaps one week? You can claim it's an exaggeration, but any argument that would accept this idea would also equally accept a decay timer of twenty-four hours.

We're debating the concept here, not the implementation, so trying to proclaim your personal tolerance level is moot. If you would not accept a one-day decay timer, then you're on the wrong side of the argument.

[Madjames]

The chances for a console player to have a friend who can log in for them are even lower. I, for instance, have a nephew who's into video games, but his XBox 360 isn't going to help him access a PlayStation game. My account isn't licensed for PC, only for PS3 and PS4, so I would have to know someone with a PS3 or PS4 who I trust enough to give them access to both my PSN account and my FFXIV account. I would also have to mail them my one-time-password Security Token.

Hmm well you see back in Ultima Online there was no such thing as a security token. No one who logged in for me had a computer of their own. My friend would take care of our animals while we were gone and would log in once a month on my computer to keep my house from decaying. He had a PC and the game and could log in for me from his own house back in the day and did on a regular basis when he couldn't come over physically.

When I was gone for 6 months straight on a long vacation, my friend, mom, brother, and my brothers wife would take care of my animals. They would again, log in for me and keep my house from decaying. This was from their own computers or my computer if they came over. Its once a month btw, not every week.

If I had a security token (Which I did for wow) I would leave it on my keyboard so whoever was watching my house for me while I was away could log in.

The only time people were not able to watch my house, I had 10 IRL friends playing the MMORPG I was playing and they logged in to keep my stuff in order. As I said before, there is always a work around. If you have absolutely NO ONE to do that for you then you have other issues IRL that need fixing as well. I paid a house sitter I found online to watch my house to log in for me. I showed them how to turn on my pc, launch the game, log in, and keep my house from decaying.

[Neira]

If you have absolutely NO ONE to do that for you then you have other issues IRL that need fixing as well.

I would say the opposite is most likely true. A MMORPG should not hold such priority in a person's life that they need to find someone else to log in to their characters if they aren't able to. Additionally, all of Niwashi's points are valid to this game, where as most of yours seem to be living back in the glory days of your gaming. I convinced my FC leader to buy the PC CE of ARR so he could 1) get the bonuses and 2) so I could actually log in to him if FC business needed to be handled while he was out of town, but I would actually still say that is far outside of the boundaries of normalcy.

Additionally, I'm not about to pay more real life money to SE buying additional copies of the game to register to my account just so people can log in to me when I'm away. That's taking a real life rental fee and building onto it with additional one-time service fees for a housing system that wasn't supposed to cost us any money in real life. I've also never hired a house sitter for when I go out of town. I have no pets, my neighbor knows what I and my only in-town family look like, and he's paranoid enough to watch after my home naturally, without having to pay or trust someone to go inside of it.

[Ayerinn]

If you would not accept a one-day decay timer, then you're on the wrong side of the argument.

I'm sorry but my views on unrealistic extremes like having a one-day decay timer do not effect what side of an argument I'm on. I don't actually care about a decay timer I was just responding to you mentioning "a month," nothing more. I see your side of the argument - effectively, you want to treat a shared space like non-instanced housing the exact same as your own character data. Unlike your personal character, however, you are taking up space in the game world 24/7 that could otherwise be used by someone else. My personal view is that if you are paying, who cares if you never log in. Does it suck for people who would use the plot? yes. Is it your prerogative to do so with your $15/mo? absolutely. But I completely disagree that you should be able to take up shared game world resources for months or years if you are not even paying rent.

[Neira]

I'm sorry but my views on unrealistic extremes like having a one-day decay timer do not effect what side of an argument I'm on. I don't actually care about a decay timer I was just responding to you mentioning "a month," nothing more. I see your side of the argument - effectively, you want to treat a shared space like non-instanced housing the exact same as your own character data. Unlike your personal character, however, you are taking up space in the game world 24/7 that could otherwise be used by someone else. My personal view is that if you are paying, who cares if you never log in. Does it suck for people who would use the plot? yes. Is it your prerogative to do so with your $15/mo? absolutely. But I completely disagree that you should be able to take up shared game world resources for months or years if you are not even paying rent.

You originally said that a 90-day decay timer was fair, but 30-day was too little, taking a stance of defense for SE. I implied that drawing a line at a certain time limit(in this case 90 days) but disliking any other time limit(with examples ranging down to 1 day) would put you on the wrong side of the argument, taking a stance of opposition against SE. Now you say that you don't care about a decay timer at all, taking a stance of defense for SE. You sacrificed your own position to defend any decay timer, period. This action and reaction could lead to a conclusion that you would in fact support a one-day decay timer, and therefore find yourself exactly on the proper side of the argument; defending any choice SE makes.

That being said, I understand you accept any additional fees that they wish to enact to cover up the fact that they implemented a housing system that the vast majority of players can never utilize. I think it's wrong for people to have no home because all of the resources are used up also. I just understand that even with this system, which seems like nothing more than an attempt to extract extra funding from the players, that the majority of players will still be without a home.

Meanwhile, SE will be ensuring that, at the very least, 90,000+ people will likely maintain their subscriptions to keep their in-game investment. It's a genius idea on their part, even if they didn't think of it first, and it will also help ensure that any extra investment in the current (broken) housing system will in turn generate additional revenue when players buy homes in new wards. More money in their pocket, and the majority of people will still have no house.

It's a difference in perception. I'm tired of SE acting like a gluttonous shadow of it's former self, feeding on the nostalgia and popularity that different people earned in their name, and seeing fans gobble up any overpriced garbage that is thrown our way, while the profit margins are high enough to allow for twice the effort at half the price. They've shown more greed than any other MMO to date that I'm aware of, with their subscription requirement, aesthetic cash shop, and now rental storage. Yet they can't implement a housing system that every player can utilize, and want to mandate subscriptions for the 1-2% of people who have a home when free MMOs with 1/10 of the subscribers can function without such a requirement?