Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[ElHeggunte]

This doesn't fix the problem, this just needlessly punishes the players who got houses

It does indeed fix the problem of houses being unavailable to people who want them because someone took up the plot and then quit the game or decided to take an extended vacation of several months. It won't solve the problem of there never being enough houses to go around (that's another issue all together), but it's better than what we have right now by far.

It also doesn't really "punish" anyone. The personal housing timer could probably stand to be longer, but if you can't log in and enter the house at least once every 45 days (especially if you're voluntarily gone so long you'd have to do that more than once) the house doesn't really seem to mean all that much to you. On the flip side the FC timer is probably too long. If a FC owns a house and no one enters it for 45 days it's pretty clear none of them have any intention of coming back and the house is of no use to them.

Still, I suppose I can see how it may sting to a personal house owner since there are things that may drive you away from the game for 45+ days that are outside of your control, but keeping such a finite resource tied up in limbo isn't very fair to the active players either regardless of why the original homeowner hasn't been using it.

This isn't going to work when every estate is owned by someone who doesn't leave it be for 45 days, in a year or so everyone will once again not be able to buy houses...

No, but at least people will have a little peace of mind knowing that even though the houses are unavailable, at least they're being used. Way better than passing by a house you know no one has been in in months and knowing that's it's permanently stuck in limbo.

... and all this will do is annoy people and feel like a cheap gimmick to force you to keep playing the game every month even if you want to take a break from it

Terrible choice, I'm very dissapointed in this awful design decision

Less of a "cheap gimmick" to make money and more an attempt to be fair to their active players. It's SE's fault for giving us such a limited housing system, but until they change it (if they ever change it...) this is the next best thing for dealing with delinquent homeowners.

This is a change that's been asked for for a very long time. And it's a good one unless you think letting abandoned plots sit around and take up space is a good thing just because someone wants to take an extended vacation and might come back a few months later.

...so, plots that have been abandoned for half a year or even longer, will still be unavailable for another one and a half month after 3.1 hits, whenever that happens. Way to go. -_-

Probably to give players a chance to come back for 3.1 before destroying their house. It would suck if a player who was planning to sub back full-time for 3.1 returned to find their house already vaporized with minimal warning. Though at the same time if an entire FC hasn't been seen for over 45 days even before 3.1 I wouldn't feel any sympathy if their house vanished today.

[kamikrazy]

You already paid for the car.

You are completely missing the point. They are taking away something you bought based on a supply/demand system that they created. It's a circle, and its clearly designed to line their pockets. This doesn't improve the game whatsoever. Only .5% of players will ever get houses at a time. If they had a real plan to fix this system, then availability wouldn't be an issue and thus there'd be no point in implementing the 45 day timer.

However availability is the issue, and all this 45 day timer reveals is that they have no plan to deal with it. Instead they are just going to monetize the problem. This is exactly like how Blizzard "dealt" with the leveling problem in Warcraft by adding a character boost to the cash shop instead of fixing the leveling system. This solves nothing and actively rewards SE for not solving a problem. You can't seriously be falling for this.

[Felis]

When they scrapped that plan, it took them a year and a half to add 10 days to the expiration timer.

But the expiration timer don't start on day 1 you don't go into your house.
Only if you didn't enter the house for 45 days the timer start and give you another 45 days and send warnings to you.

[Vinestra]

It's more like selling someone a car and then repossessing it when they stop making payments.

I have both a FC and personal house and I completely support this system!

Not really. Seeing as how come, people did an upfront payment and we're never made aware that you could lose it.

[kamikrazy]

So what's going to happen when there's 6 months in between patches?

Better stay subscribed when there's no content or you'll lose your house! That includes you FCs! And you individual players! Don't leave or we'll take it away!

Just add more? No way, that'd cost us money, why spend money adding wards or improving the system when we can make money by forcing you to subscribe when you don't want too because the next patch is 6 months away!

Can't you people read between the lines? This is very bad for everyone. If you really want to fix the housing availability problem, we should be putting pressure on SE to find a solution that will provide everyone with housing, not celebrating when they've just redistributed what remains of their failure. This is a very bad sign for the game. They are manipulating people by getting them to celebrate and think this is a good thing. It isn't. This is a very subversive strategy to give them insurance that x-amount of people will stay subscribed no matter how long between updates. This is bad.

[Ashkendor]

Not really. Seeing as how come, people did an upfront payment and we're never made aware that you could lose it.

Honestly, this was a much-needed first step to free up some housing while they work on more long-term fixes. If you are upset enough that you no longer want your house, you can get (most of) your money back for it by simply letting it get reclaimed so you can be shut of it. I really do believe actively subscribed users deserve more consideration when it comes to things like this than those that unsub for months at a time. Finally some of those idle plots in my housing wards can be taken up by people that are active and we can have an actual neighborhood again with people to chat with instead of a bunch of empty houses with half-assed furnishings and dead gardens, or those empty lots that sit there empty for weeks on end.

So what's going to happen when there's 6 months in between patches?

There's never been six months between patches, though. I think this is the longest we've ever waited and it's an anomaly.

Can't you people read between the lines? This is very bad for everyone. If you really want to fix the housing availability problem, we should be putting pressure on SE to find a solution that will provide everyone with housing, not celebrating when they've just redistributed what remains of their failure. This is a very bad sign for the game. They are manipulating people by getting them to celebrate and think this is a good thing. It isn't. This is a very subversive strategy to give them insurance that x-amount of people will stay subscribed no matter how long between updates. This is bad.

I think you need to remove your darksteelfoil hat. :x

[Sho86]

Bu the expiration timer don't start on day 1 you don't go into your house.
Only if you didn't enter the house for 45 days the timer start and give you another 45 days and send warnings to you.

Estates Subject to Demolishing
Free company housing that has not been accessed by at least one member within forty-five days.
Private housing that has not been accessed by the owner within forty-five days.
Purchased plots of land upon which an estate has not been built within forty-five days.


It doesnt say 90 days, it says 45 days, total. You only have 45 days from the day you stop going into your house. I personally don't like this system as they could easily fix all this by adding more servers and removing the stress on the players, but instead are adding more onto the players. Just like with inventory, they mess it up, players get to deal with it.

[Nalien]

I think if SE wanted to monetize off Housing, they'd have treated it more like the extra Retainers... I mean, we have to pay real money for extra Retainers because server issues, and the problem with Housing? Server issues. The fact that they're not making people pay extra on their subscription for Housing speaks volumes IMO.

The notion that they'll now make us wait longer for content updates is utterly absurd, given how few can even own a House... They'll piss off 99% of their playerbase with longer waits between updates, just to shill the 1% that "has" to stay around to keep their virtual land? Utterly absurd... If they start doing that, I'll be the first one out the door, and I'll certainly not care about losing my plots if they're going to devolve the game to that level. Did Blizzard do something like this? I honestly don't know, I'll have to take peoples word on that, but World of Warcraft is hemorrhaging subscribers, I'd hope SquarEnix has a bit more sense than that...

Heck, even one off situations like 3.1s delay should be better after 3.1, I'm certainly looking at Sky Exploration (and Lord of Verminion) and seeing content that is much more apt for long waits than the same tomestone grind we've had since 2.0... Other than 3.1 though, Final Fantasy XIV has been pretty phenomenal with its updates. The notion that they'll copy Blizzard, when Blizzard has basically been castrating itself for the past few years is just absurd...

[Twilite]

All I have to say is this is a bummer for people taking a break, but then you got the people that isn't coming back, so there's that.

This is also good for people who can afford houses. I can't.

[Felis]

Estates Subject to Demolishing
Free company housing that has not been accessed by at least one member within forty-five days.
Private housing that has not been accessed by the owner within forty-five days.
Purchased plots of land upon which an estate has not been built within forty-five days.


It doesnt say 90 days, it says 45 days, total. You only have 45 days from the day you stop going into your house. I personally don't like this system as they could easily fix all this by adding more servers and removing the stress on the players, but instead are adding more onto the players. Just like with inventory, they mess it up, players get to deal with it.

Estates Subject to Demolishing

That mean that it get seen as inactive after nobody entered it for 45 days.
After the time end it start the Steps Prior to Demolishing