Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Darthzilla]

I just say: WTF?!?!1!
We're gonna lose our houses after a short amount of time - only 45days? Even for people who own a house not as a guild?!
Why not just add more housing areas? >_>
They could spin the map again at 90° and its a 3th one!
What about those people who CANT login due random stuff happen in real life?
- being in a hospital
- console or PC broke
- school/college/job stress

This is exactly what I was thinking. 90 days would be better, it would give you time to deal with the RL unforeseen event without losing your housing.
- having a baby
- military deployment
- death in the family
- job change
- job loss
- major relocation
All these RL events happen, 90 days would give most people a chance to get sorted out again.
I don't have housing but I have experienced some of the RL issues that are listed here. I think 45 days is too stingy and unreasonable a time frame, I can see it for an FC but not for a private estate.

[raelgun]

It's more than a band-aid; it's removing a malignant tumor. The problem isn't resolved, but it's a necessary step in that direction.

You realise that the amount of housing that gets freed up after the time frame might be tons lower then what people are expecting not to mention once the houses are bought out, you are back to square one, band aids cover up the issue, you aren't fixing towards anything, fixes do not put you back to square one in any step, this is simply SE finding a scapegoat.

[Voltyblast]

every single one of those games is F2P...which means housing items are a significant revenue source for them - of course they are going to make it easy for everyone to own one (not that I don't think everyone should be able to have one in FF14, I 100% do think everyone needs access.) WS, SWTOR, RIFT are all solo house instances - totally different animal than a neighborhood, it is just another instance like anything else. Aion has housing districts but anyone can have a home via apartments...not sure what LOTRO has though.

But they work fine don't they? Sure, maybe some issues now and you're forced to get some items from the shop, but I don't think that they need a 45 day relinquishing system to make it work.

SWTOR is ok but requires money to unlock additional parts, but you don't need a 3 floored house to begin with. I haven't played Rift and Aion too much to fully say how they are, but they work just fine and that's the important thing.

Does the housing work in this game? No, and now we have a stingy relinquishing time that doesn't allow anyone to have months worth of break. I am NOT saying that we should let the abandoned houses go untouched: I fully agree to that, I want everyone to have a place to stay in but I just don't believe that this is the right way.

All I'm saying is, you want it done good, or done it poorly? Because as far as I'm concerned the housing in FFXIV is in the latter.

[ToniRomo]

They should redo the system so any player that wants as house can own one, like every other modern MMO with housing.

The current system is just bad. We wouldn't have to worry about a relinquishment system if it had not been so poorly thought out to begin with.

With the current amount of housing I probably won't ever own one. There just are not enough of them.

[Felis]

This is exactly what I was thinking. 90 days would be better, it would give you time to deal with the RL unforeseen event without losing your housing.

And this is why i think the german info text is more right (or clearer)

45 days time to enter the house before it get marked as an inactive house
45 days time to enter the house to remove the inactive mark before it get demolished

in total 90 days

[Syrehn]

You realise that the amount of housing that gets freed up after the time frame might be tons lower then what people are expecting not to mention once the houses are bought out, you are back to square one, band aids cover up the issue, you aren't fixing towards anything, fixes do not put you back to square one in any step, this is simply SE finding a scapegoat.

We've known this was coming for a long time and it was never marketed as being a housing "fix". It was always promoted as being a first step towards more accessible housing with their current structure. It's not going to get every player/fc a house but it will get one for some and be a recurring cycle as inactive's are exchanged for actives. Another step is going to be when they implement the house sharing feature for personal homes.

So no, this isn't SE finding a scapegoat. It's a recycle system to keep active users in active resources and it was sorely needed.

[Misutoraru]

it is not a perfect solution but it is a step forward
In the meantime SE have to figure out the solution
Recycling will reach it limits eventually and I don't think plot could be add unlimitly
Yet, at least SE are actually doing something about this issue

[Ritzin]

So SE band aids (badly, I might add) a problem which should have been solved by them improving what they have currently, and people think this is a good thing?

What's especially absurd here is players can lose their house even if they're still paying subscription

This change should only affect inactive accounts and the timer should be 2-3 months minimum. Ridiculous.

[SeleneFatalis]

So SE band aids (badly, I might add) a problem which should have been solved by them improving what they have currently, and people think this is a good thing?

What's especially absurd here is players can lose their house even if they're still paying subscription

This change should only affect inactive accounts and the timer should be 2-3 months minimum. Ridiculous.

Okay, I get the 90 day period and agree with that. But if you know you won't be on, it's really easy to cancel a subscription. So when you refer to players still paying a sub and may end up still losing their housing, that means they aren't using it. Going 45 days while playing, but not using your house for that long? This point doesn't really make sense.

[Lexia]

This is exactly what I was thinking. 90 days would be better, it would give you time to deal with the RL unforeseen event without losing your housing.
- having a baby
- job loss

Having a baby doesn't really keep you from being able to take 2 minutes to long into the game to keep your house, neither does job loss either unless you can't pay your sub in which case it doesn't really matter cause you not able to play the game anyways.