Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Seryl199]

Well, I've said in the past that I do think 45 days is too short, though at least initially I think it works for what this is primarily intended for; Freeing up plots owned by people who no longer play at all. We should want those plots freed up as soon as possible, active players are unlikely to be taking a break right after 3.1, after all, so a shorter timer shouldn't really affect anyone initially. In the long run though, I do think they should perhaps raise it to 90 or something.

Fair point, I'm in full agreement. The timer definitely needs to be revisited as housing availability improves, as it makes housing almost exclusive to full time subscribers. They deserve to be part of the housing scene, for sure, but I hope the system continues to grow and eventually provide for anyone that wants a house to be able to get one, regardless of how much subscription time they buy. It's a social medium, so I want it to be as accessible as possible so as to encourage as many players as possible to participate.

[Xerius]

It's not too much to ask for you to log in once per month and visit your house if you wanna keep it.
At least now other people who are playing have a real shot at owning land currently not being used

You say this now. Wait until you purchase a private estate and furnish it and then realize there's rarely ever a reason to enter your house once the novelty wears off.

[Blood-Aki]

The bolded text highlights the point I'm trying to make.

Nailen's argument was "You signed a TOS saying they're allowed to do this, so you shouldn't complain." My argument is that if you're going to make that argument, you have to apply it unilaterally, you can't just pick and choose.

This is where common business sense comes in, This scenerio is never going to happen, sure they can just "delete everything because you agreed to it" but that's never going to happen, freeing up highly in demand plot because people don't log on is a far more reasonable scenario.

Fine, since you can't get over the specifics of the example to focus on the actual point:

If you tried to log on tomorrow and SE had deleted all your glamour items/companions/mounts/titles/achievements, would your reaction be "Well, I agreed to the TOS that said they could, so that's fine"?

Read above, this is something that is extreamly unlikly to never will happen. You're just trying to hard. Deleting all that is actually unreasonable and no call for it, freeing up plots that aren't being used. is actually fair.

You say this now. Wait until you purchase a private estate and furnish it and then realize there's rarely ever a reason to enter your house once the novelty wears off.

Then why did you buy it to begin with? Thinking ahead goes a long way. IF you didn't think it would be worth the invesment, should have never bought it, It is a good idea to think hard about spending large amounts of gill on content that you know you will never get that money back for.

[Nalien]

Fair point, I'm in full agreement.

Yeah, if anything perhaps they should start selling this as a temporary measure, rather than effectively having it as a permanent "feature" going forward... They should probably be more open about this stuff, if they came forward and said "We've got the numbers, around X plots per server have not been used at all in several months, we're not going to spend resources on new servers for new wards with that kind of wastage", perhaps that would go down better... That is the justification people like me seem to be working on, though I'll admit I'm only assuming that. Apparently a plot is still owned, and still lacking an actual house back on my old server (which I left... around 2.3?), so I can't imagine the assumption is baseless... Some plots clearly are being wasted...

You say this now. Wait until you purchase a private estate and furnish it and then realize there's rarely ever a reason to enter your house once the novelty wears off.

Hey, I use mine pretty much whenever I'm on... It's a nice private place to craft in... It's both my go-to AFK spot and where most of the things I'd want are located (though the Unending Journal and Crystal Bell are still absent, but apparently they're planned), going forward it'll also have more features to hopefully enjoy in down time... Heck, when I get bored of certain content (not the whole game), it's also fairly nice to go about and redecorate the place. It's not keeping me subscribed by a long shot, but I'd rather enjoy redecorating than say, continuing to do Neverreap despite it melting my face off in boredom...

Still wish they'd change those crafting stations though... I'd like an actual benefit for having those things, reduced item wear perhaps? Would be nice without being a requirement for crafting... I mean that's effectively what the furniture foods do, which come to think of it are another reason I tend to actually use my house...

People who managed to get a plot get punished if something happens out of their control that prevents them from accessing their house. People who own a plot did not make this flawed system. People celebrate this punishment as if it's going to magically fix the core problem. Only seen on the OF. I giggled irl too.

I've seen less people claiming this is some magic bullet which will fix all our woes (actually I've seen no such people), and more people claiming this is the first step in addressing the problem... Again, why would SE want to invest in new servers to give us more wards or a better system, when the current system has an issue that is effectively wasting resources?

[SinisterJointss]

Many people renew subscription just for 1 month for major patches. Then they take a 60-80 days break till the next patch because, let's be honest, there's not much to do when content gets stale like now.
By definition, they can't own a house even if they are regularly playing since August 2013.

and these people dont need houses.... period.

Not to mention how can you regularly play while taking 60-80 day breaks..smh

[Xerius]

Then why did you buy it to begin with? Thinking ahead goes a long way. IF you didn't think it would be worth the invesment, should have never bought it, It is a good idea to think hard about spending large amounts of gill on content that you know you will never get that money back for.

Why? What else is there to do with Gil?

I bought an estate for the same reason as everyone else, because I wanted an estate. I didn't plan on getting a return on my investment. It's a luxury item in its entirety.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

You have no idea how much this made me laugh IRL, if this is the state of the playerbase and their opinions then it cements all the more that this is truly the worst playerbase in mmo history.

People who managed to get a plot get punished if something happens out of their control that prevents them from accessing their house. People who own a plot did not make this flawed system. People celebrate this punishment as if it's going to magically fix the core problem. Only seen on the OF. I giggled irl too.

[Ibi]

This is where common business sense comes in, This scenerio is never going to happen, sure they can just "delete everything because you agreed to it" but that's never going to happen

When the lead developer of the game specifically states "we're not going to have a system like this", most reasonable people would probably say that's a scenario that's never going to happen also.

I'd say it's bad business sense to delete any part of a players efforts in a game, rather than finding an alternative solution.

Read above, this is something that is extreamly unlikly to never will happen. You're just trying to hard. Deleting all that is actually unreasonable and no call for it, freeing up plots that aren't being used. is actually fair.

Your comment that "that is actually unreasonable", implies that you would agree that SE acting within the terms of the TOS can be unreasonable. You're just drawing a different (equally arbitrary) line.

As indicated above, it's my opinion that removing any part of a player's efforts in game is equally unreasonable. I think discriminating is ridiculous. Companions, mounts, etc. obviously all also take memory. If memory is the limitation (and that's what SE tell us) then this decision shows that anything that relies on that is, theoretically, up for restriction at some point down the line.

If they didn't have the necessary capacity to implement the system in such a way as to conform to the expectations that they themselves established, they shouldn't have implemented it as they did.

Then why did you buy it to begin with? Thinking ahead goes a long way. IF you didn't think it would be worth the invesment, should have never bought it, It is a good idea to think hard about spending large amounts of gill on content that you know you will never get that money back for.

I know this wasn't in response to me, but since I'm in a similar situation...

Not spending time in your house after some time has passed doesn't mean it wasn't worth the investment. I long since recouped the gil I spent on my house via the garden (and could make a significant profit if I decided to sell the plot), but to this day it has almost no furniture placed and I don't remember the last time I actually went inside of it. I do use it as a teleport location on a daily basis, but that's about the extent of it.

And before you accuse my other arguments of being self-serving, my sub's been active since the start of 2.0, I have no intention of cancelling any time soon, and even if I did I wouldn't be that bothered by the loss of the house (in fact, the 80% refund is an excellent addition for players who no longer want their house but don't want to feel forced to have to try to sell the plot to another player to recoup their investment).

One of the more productive steps SE could take would be implementing some encouragement/motivation for players like me, who find the house convenient but don't really care that much about it (or who enjoyed the house initially, but are no longer as interested as they originally were), to relinquish their plots.

[RiceisNice]

As indicated above, it's my opinion that removing any part of a player's efforts in game is equally unreasonable. I think discriminating is ridiculous. Companions, mounts, etc. obviously all also take

This already happens retroactively with vertical progression, and has happened with 2.0 gear going into 3.0 even for purposes of glamour.

[Waeksyn]

This already happens retroactively with vertical progression, and has happened with 2.0 gear going into 3.0 even for purposes of glamour.

Fine. This actually sounds reasonable. A reasonable housing solution would therefore be to add a new housing system that is scalable to the entire player base that will make the old housing less desirable.