Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Nalien]

There plan has always been to add more Wards as necessary. Is that a perfect plan? Not really, but this, I think, is an important step in that plan. Why add more Wards, when you potentially have an entire Wards worth of plots owned by people who haven't played the game since 2.2? Maintaining plots for players who aren't even playing anymore is nothing more than a waste of resources.

That is what this is made to address. We know for a fact that we are getting more Wards in the long run, with that in mind I really don't see the problem... They've got themselves in a sticky situation for sure, but this is hardly the end of the world... This is simply a means to prevent wasting plots on people who are not playing the game... The alternative is to effectively screw over all home owners currently to completely rebuild the system to something better... The only other alternative is to work on implementing Housing features for basically everyone, but I imagine that takes more time than just plugging in an extra Ward (although an Ishgard Ward certainly takes a lot of time to develop as well).

Ideally I think they should, and some of this is actually planned, add Housing content in non-Housing areas. Chocobo Stables, for example, I think they've stated they're working on outside Housing. Stands to reason Gardening could follow suit, not to mention the Airship Workshop... They could also just give everyone a Private Room through Inns. Then Housing becomes less about haves and have-nots, and more about having a central location for that stuff. That would be the ideal scenario with their current set up, but like I said that takes time, and in the mean time they can cut down on wasted resources by booting out the countless players who've since quit, but still take up Housing space...

[kamikrazy]

snip

Until the problem is fixed, it isn't fixed. Just saying "we'll do this someday" isn't getting it done. If by "adding more wards as necessary" they mean a dynamic system like what LOTRO has, then that is a solution.

But so far this "adding more wards as necessary" hasn't even come close to that solution. How long has it been the way it is now? A very long time. Making the jump from 1.8% to 2.5% is not a solution. A system needs to be implemented that is large scale to fix this problem. It needs to be a dynamic wards system like LOTRO, an instanced housing plots system like Wildstar, or even just an instanced private room system (something that ALREADY FREAKING EXISTS AND THEYD JUST HAVE TO MOVE THE FREAKING DOOR TO A PUBLIC AREA).

Adding more wards the way they have been doing (and failing at miserably I might add) is not a working solution. It just flies in the face of the problem.

Do you have a better plan?

We are the ones who asked for this btw. Every forums literally asked about afk housing and giving an eviction notice to free up housing. Hell, At least square is nice enough to send you 2 emails of eviction and refund 80%.

Yes, I've stated three different objectively superior solutions several times in this thread. Once in this post. One in another thread. I've posted them all over. I came up with these solutions in 3 whole seconds. There's no possible way that SE could have spent any length of time and not thought of any one of these solutions (all of which have been done in other games before and proven to work). It's clear that in light of this especially, there has to be a driving purpose to intentionally withholding housing content from players.

And SE benefits from doing this. They benefit because they don't have to spend the money to fix it. They benefit because almost 100k players will be guaranteed to always be subscribed until the bitter end.

[Reaperking386]

Until the problem is fixed, it isn't fixed. Just saying "we'll do this someday" isn't getting it done. If by "adding more wards as necessary" they mean a dynamic system like what LOTRO has, then that is a solution.

But so far this "adding more wards as necessary" hasn't even come close to that solution. How long has it been the way it is now? A very long time. Making the jump from 1.8% to 2.5% is not a solution. A system needs to be implemented that is large scale to fix this problem. It needs to be a dynamic wards system like LOTRO, an instanced housing plots system like Wildstar, or even just an instanced private room system (something that ALREADY FREAKING EXISTS AND THEYD JUST HAVE TO MOVE THE FREAKING DOOR TO A PUBLIC AREA).

Adding more wards the way they have been doing (and failing at miserably I might add) is not a working solution. It just flies in the face of the problem.


Yes, I've stated three different objectively superior solutions several times in this thread. Once in this post. One in another thread. I've posted them all over. I came up with these solutions in 3 whole seconds. There's no possible way that SE could have spent any length of time and not thought of any one of these solutions (all of which have been done in other games before and proven to work). It's clear that in light of this especially, there has to be a driving purpose to intentionally withholding housing content from players.

And SE benefits from doing this. They benefit because they don't have to spend the money to fix it. They benefit because almost 100k players will be guaranteed to always be subscribed until the bitter end.

I will look into your solutions in the forums.

[kamikrazy]

I will look into your solutions in the forums.

Look no further than the post you quoted. All three of them are listed right there.

Solution 1: Dynamic ward system that guarantees that everyone will get a house, EVEN if they are evicted for inactivity (LOTRO)
Solution 2: Everyone gets a private house instance, FCs get a guaranteed instanced FC house, could even pay to upgrade this type (Wildstar)
Solution 3: Everyone gets a private room in a capital city of their choosing that is accessible from the Inn (It's already in the game, they'd literally just need to move the door to the Inn)

Three working solutions, that wasn't hard at all.

EDIT: Have to put this here because I reached the daily post limit. If someone could be so kind as to step in to keep putting down the false celebration and get people to realize that this is very bad news for us and especially for the game's overall health, that would be great.

What are you talking about? They clearly said that this system was the first step to make more plot available. They'll either add more plots to the existing cities or they'll open Ishgard.

Besides, your 1.8% thing is completly wrong since it doesn't take FC into account. I'm a FC leader and we do have a house... but according to you, we don't? Even if you are talking about individual houses you're wrong since FC and individual players share the same plots.

So not only you clearly don't know what you're talking about in the first place, but you also support wrong arguments and calculations just for the sake of arguing on something you hate for some reason. Stop it or bring actual objective facts.

1.8% is certainly a rough approximation to be sure, but it is an approximation all the same. It is nowhere near 100%, which is the only number that should be acceptable as a fully functioning solution. If housing content is not available to every player, then the solution is not good enough.

And I've stated accurate observations constantly. Nothing here is my opinion. I've never stated how I felt about anything. Are you saying that my thinking that 100% of players should have access to housing is an opinion? Then I'll gladly call that my opinion. It sounds like a pretty good opinion to me.

[StouterTaru]

Solution 1: Dynamic ward system that guarantees that everyone will get a house, EVEN if they are evicted for inactivity (LOTRO)
Solution 2: Everyone gets a private house instance, FCs get a guaranteed instanced FC house, could even pay to upgrade this type (Wildstar)
Solution 3: Everyone gets a private room in a capital city of their choosing that is accessible from the Inn (It's already in the game, they'd literally just need to move the door to the Inn)

1 - Everyone having a house in a dynamic system would require thousands of times the current server capacity, unless you greatly change what a house is, ex snap to grid furniture and 90 degree rotations. It would require a substantial downgrade to what housing is.
2/3 - Removing open world housing "punishes" active players instead of "punishing" inactive players. We paid for our Barbie dream house with the promise of being able to play with it outside, not locked away in the closet.

Just because you think those ideas would be better, doesn't mean they are even close to perfect.

[Neira]

1 - Everyone having a house in a dynamic system would require thousands of times the current server capacity, unless you greatly change what a house is, ex snap to grid furniture and 90 degree rotations. It would require a substantial downgrade to what housing is.

Actually, fifty-four times the amount of current server capacity if we're going by the figure of 5m subscribers and discounting FC houses. However, even five times the server capacity(five times what we have now) would put a decent dent into the housing issue for quite a while. Not quite sure where you're getting "thousands", but if we had even one thousand times the wards we currently do, that would be 92,160,000 houses, which is pretty much overkill. Ten times our current wards would put us at 921,160, which would potentially cover every player who even wants and can afford a house.

[StouterTaru]

Not quite sure where you're getting "thousands", but if we had even one thousand times the wards we currently do, that would be 92,160,000 houses, which is pretty much overkill. Ten times our current wards would put us at 921,160, which would potentially cover every player who even wants and can afford a house.

The use of thousands was hyperbole.

Rewording his suggestion of dynamic housing to include "capable of providing a house for every character and FC that wants and can afford it" without implementing a reclaim system still has issues.
-Ten times more would go very quick on some servers, and require an upgrade to server capacity larger than the HW expansion
-Depending on what he meant by "dynamic housing," it could be a downgrade of the current housing system, which "unfairly punishes" current housing owners
-Without a removal system, housing will continue to grow at an unsustainable rate

[SweetP]

Have to put this here because I reached the daily post limit. If someone could be so kind as to step in to keep putting down the false celebration and get people to realize that this is very bad news for us and especially for the game's overall health, that would be great.

CELEBRATION!!!!!

[Neira]

EDIT: Have to put this here because I reached the daily post limit. If someone could be so kind as to step in to keep putting down the false celebration and get people to realize that this is very bad news for us and especially for the game's overall health, that would be great.

I've been debating this for I think literal months at this point, sorry. I'll post when and how I can, and I'm still amazed(not really, to be honest) at how naive some people seem to be in thinking that this will change anything other than SE's income, but don't expect the majority to grasp what you're talking about. My only hope at this point is that is backfires in SE's face, when people who are burned out and tired want to quit playing and paying but feel tied to the game, or in a half a year or so when people are still complaining about not having a house because this didn't add any extra housing.

[Seryl199]

I've been debating this for I think literal months at this point, sorry. I'll post when and how I can, and I'm still amazed(not really, to be honest) at how naive some people seem to be in thinking that this will change anything other than SE's income, but don't expect the majority to grasp what you're talking about. My only hope at this point is that is backfires in SE's face, when people who are burned out and tired want to quit playing and paying but feel tied to the game, or in a half a year or so when people are still complaining about not having a house because this didn't add any extra housing.

They aren't being naive, they're being receptive of an implementation that directly affects them, good for them. Some of the people that have been clamoring for housing will get their chance at it. They'll be competing against droves of other players to get a house the moment it's demolished, and those who have set their alarm clocks for 45 days after the server reset of 3.1 (I don't doubt this will happen, if you think getting a house after this will be easy, you haven't prepared enough aside from amassing gil) will finally get their house. The housing problem persists, but they've joined the few. It's no more than a step forward, but at the very least, abandoned plots will be refreshed. As long as housing fails to encompass 100% of the player base, it hasn't been properly implemented.