Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[XLauncher]

I don't buy this talk about costs for instancing housing being prohibitive. I haven't played PSO2 in...four months now. If I log in now, my multi-room apartments (you can have two) will be waiting for me, just the way I decorated them, and that's a F2P game. A game with a sub fee and a cash shop has zero excuses on the affording resources front.

[Lexia]

Because there are better ways to do it?

Wildstar does it right.

SWTOR does it right.

LOTRO (apparently, never played it) does it right.

This game doesn't? And because of technical issues?

So yes, call me shocked by this considering this isn't a cheaply (?) made mmo.

Well 2.0 was built on top of a already broken game. So it was not redone from scratch it was just improved.

[FriendlyUncle]

The issue with this is then SE has to maintain 2 separate housing structures, wards & instances, which they may not have the manpower/time to do.

The reasons that we have the system that we currently do likely fall along the lines of:

1) Hardware/Storage costs - storage probably being the key.
2) They already had the FC housing structure in place so it's more efficient (time/money) to piggyback off it.
3) If they split FC & Personal houses into separate wards, if/when the FC housing demand dies down and individual personal housing demand increases there would be empty plots forever sitting in FC dedicated wards. This isn't an effective usage of server resources. Edit: Found the quote regarding FC/Personal houses being mixed:



4) They wanted Community centred hubs.

I said nothing about splitting based on FC/Personal. Just flat down the line, FC or personal housing can be placed in a ward or instanced. The fact that something is easier for them to just repeat doesn't mean it is a good decision. Look at our content formula for an example of repeating formula X out of ease not always working as intended.

You can get a moderate SAN system for around 40k that's like a months base sub for around 3200 accounts or something to cover that cost. Which again, they have all ready stated they want to expand and add additional wards as is, that hardware could just as easily be allocated to instancing rather than to physical wards. Keep the inactivity system in place like Sol said, you can even keep the 45 day time frame. After 45 days rather than demolishing that FC/personal house it is instead migrated over to being its own instanced property, freeing up the ward slot for purchase buy another player/fc or for a player/fc to move their existing home from an instance to said ward.

Returning players still have their house/fc house albeit it is instanced. Keeping housing as limited as it is now is not a good solution for the long term and that is what they need to be looking at instead of incredibly short term fixes like this which will still require them to purchase additional hardware in the long run. As far as FC creation declining that depends on the type of content they create, we saw a huge drop in FCs strictly because of how raid content has been done. Strict weekly lock outs with 8 man teams meaning there is no need for large/lively FCs nor do you even need one. Should they begin transitioning towards content allowing larger pre-made groups, be it a raid or we will see how airship expeditions play out we may see FC growth up until a point.

This will fix the issue for a very short period of time, a band-aid which could cost them more money in the long run in the terms of lost subs or hardware spent on wards if this is the route they continue to take seeing how nearly everyone wants a home. Pound for pound they would get more bang for their buck hardware wise adding instances vs wards which all ready require instances with their current implementation. This means more property available albeit in not as scenic an area, which may mean increased subs from people returning having hoped to be able to purchase a house, and possible retention for people who have been trying to get a house but were unable to get a plot. There is only so long that they can keep people on the forums from banging at the door about housing with this current resolution, and will eventually need to shell out for hardware regardless.

If they are going to spend the money on hardware anyway, why fight against a mixed model between Wards and instances if it will be more efficient and beneficial for players and SE? FFXI is what, 15 years old and has player housing for every character on the server, the customization of furnishings and placement and I think with the latest expansion an instanced island for all players to gather/raise pets? I applause SE for the look and feel of the Wards, it is unique from any game I have played but adding instancing to housing would only improve upon the Ward feature that they all ready have in place. Imagine if this is the duty finder mess from ARR launch, do you think they could have delayed purchasing additional hardware for the DF instancing for 1.5 years without players rioting and leaving the game? One feature is more important than the other of course but it still stands that the lack of hardware and forethought in the design is disruptive.

[CGMidlander]

Because there are better ways to do it?

Wildstar does it right.

SWTOR does it right.

LOTRO (apparently, never played it) does it right.

I think also Aion does it right, with personal flats.

And I believe also Rift does it right.

This game doesn't? And because of technical issues?

So yes, call me shocked by this considering this isn't a cheaply (?) made MMORPG. Also, I thought they didn't want to implement such system because people were enraged, were they not?

Individual house instances aren't the same as community instances.
All of those listed games have the former, not the latter.

[Syrehn]

Snip

I know you didn't mention splitting wards based on FC/Personal. I was just adding some general info about why we have our current mixed ward structure; that really had nothing to do with Instances vs. Wards.

Back on the topic of a Ward/Instance combo...

Again, the bottom line with that scenario is does SE want to maintain 2 separate housing structures simultaneously because that's what they would be doing. Based on what's we've seen to date I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, they don't; regardless of the reason (time/money/resources etc.).

Additionally in an instanced/ward combo scenario you also have to deal with users who have been placed into that private instance because of the inactivity timer that, when they return, want to go back to a ward. Do you say "To Bad So Sad" and they're just stuck in a private instance which they might not like? If you do allow them to move back to wards how would that be handled? Would the system need to scan all the wards/sub-wards for the availability of the exact plot location they were removed from and place them back in the first available one? That in itself could carry it's own substantial drawbacks.

At the end of the day what it really comes down to SE is taking steps to make the best out of what they have currently implemented.

[Dree-Elle]

I haven't played PSO2 in four months now, and that's a F2P game.

With no release outside of Asia, and only on one platform (no, Vita doesn't count). Apples and oranges.

[Voltyblast]

Individual house instances aren't the same as community instances.
All of those listed games have the former, not the latter.

And so? They are houses. They give free (for the most part?) houses to players, which is what people want. Are you really that picky?

Infact, JUST BECAUSE these are individual houses (and not instanced ones), we have this problem of limited quantity: can you see what they have to do now for giving us plots? They have to reclaim those unused ones, because there's not enough for those who want it. They could always improve this system but instead they chose the worst possible decision, a decision that was initially revoked because people didn't want it. But I suppose people forgot it, so they tried again without telling anyone. Like those anti-piracy acts.

This is so wrong on so many levels...but so ingenious too: they took this problem at their advantage to make us house owners at least pay once in a while our sub. I would've let it go if it was, say, 3 months of inactivity (Being generous here: I'd give even more), because I doubt someone would come back that soon and when he does, he'll probably have a lot to catch up. But this way? Nope, you'll most likely have to at least pay once in a short while just to keep it up. Hat tip for that, Square Enix.

And also: yes I know this game was built up from a broken game...and as far as I'm concerned, we are into their first expansion and, SO FAR, nothing is really expanded. Big, open spaces with nothing to do and the same exact carbon copy method we had in 2.0. I think that you can see the tons of threads about people complaining on the game to see the "improvements" they did.

[FriendlyUncle]

Individual house instances aren't the same as community instances.
All of those listed games have the former, not the latter.

Your argument makes no sense. We do not having community housing instances either. We have physical server resources constantly devoted to running the housing Wards and subwards. At not time during server uptime are these ever removed from memory. Then on top of that, we have individual instances for housing interiors. So what exactly is the problem in this system? That it worked for other games?

[Jefferson050]

Im ok with this new system that houses are removed from inactive players, but they shouldn't touch houses from players that are still in there active subscription.
What im trying to say, as long you pay your subscription you should keep ur house.people that don't pay there subscription in while, those houses should be removed.

This means that people that have jobs that they have to be away for long periods of time still have a chance to keep there house by keep paying there subscription.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

And so? They are houses. They give free (for the most part?) houses to players, which is what people want. Are you really that picky?

Infact, JUST BECAUSE these are individual houses that we NOW have this problem: can you see what they have to do now for giving us plots? They have to reclaim those unused ones, because there's not enough for those who want it. They could always improve this system but instead they chose the worst possible decision, a decision that was initially revoked because people didn't want it. But I suppose people forgot it, so they tried again without telling anyone. Like those anti-piracy acts.

This is so wrong on so many levels...but so ingenious too: they took this problem at their advantage to make us house owners at least pay once in a while our sub. I would've let it go if it was, say, 3 months of inactivity (Being generous here: I'd give even more), because I doubt someone would come back that soon and when he does, he'll probably have a lot to catch up. But this way? Nope, you'll most likely have to at least pay once in a short while just to keep it up. Hat tip for that, Square Enix.

And also: yes I know this game was built up from a broken game...and as far as I'm concerned, we are into their first expansion and, SO FAR, nothing is really expanded. Big, open spaces with nothing to do and the same exact carbon copy method we had in 2.0. I think that you can see the tons of threads about people complaining on the game to see the "improvements" they did.

It was expanded. They took what was there, and added more. Anyone who thought the base game would change, when they never gave that impression, was delusional.