Thinking this game is a bad investment

[Malevicton]

Millions you say? And every month? Maybe in a year's time or even half a year, but in a SINGLE MONTH?

There are approximately 500,000 active subs. To not make over a million dollars in a month the subscription would need to be under $2

There's still other expenses and maintenance and overhead and what have you, but it'd all have to be really expensive to knock the income under $1mil

It's not like there servers can cost any more than, oh idk, maybe tree fiddy

[kamikrazy]

$15+ a month times at least a million active players = $15,000,000 per month. And I know it costs no were near that. And lets not forget all of the vanity items people buy plus retainers. I have 8 retainers myself and I pay a $25 a month sub to play the game and I know there are a ton of people out there with all 8 retainers. Add it up!

I believe a while back I heard that World of Warcraft cost $100,000 to run for a single day, and that game has way, way, waaaay more servers than this game. If WoW for how enormous it is costs that much to run for a day, take a small fraction of that for what it costs SE to run this much smaller game, and compare that to how much they get in a month.

This game is like printing money for them, and just like Blizzard, I don't see hardly any of it going back into the game. It's fine to make a profit, but changing enormous parts of the fundamental game just to have to get around doing any actual work is pretty messed up.

[Sho86]

This is just my opinion but...
I DO have a house, just by the way ----snip

I have houses as well, across different servers. I do not like the idea of losing said house, regardless of their reason. A perfect example for me was about a year ago my income did a sudden 180 and I had to get off the game for a few months to get things back in order in life; had this happened after this patch, I would've lost my houses because of it. I doubt I would've come back after that much investment (time watching the wards for houses to open, investing into plot/house, investing/crafting items for house.) It's used as a 'cheap' tele-point for the city location so I can favorite another location instead; its also used for quick access to the MB and my retainers, not to mention for its visual appeal for an accomplishment within the game. Many of the 'destroyed upon removal' add up to quite a bit of gil, and in some cases exceeding the amount paid for the house, which would be entirely lost.

Edit: also on a different note, being a 'community' instance isn't exactly an excuse either. LotR did this as well and at worst you had back rent that piled up, to a capped amount, to unlock your house. They didn't prune housing till years later from what I recall, to get rid of people that were gone for said years, myself being one of the people getting an email about it and at that point I did not care since I already left.

[Elim]

This is just my opinion but...
I DO have a house, just by the way

but if it gets to the point when I log out for the last time for more than two months, then I'm probably going to stay logged out for at least half a year to a year, and at that point I'd really rather someone else be using my plot of land. Sure I love my in-game house and the probably millions of gil that's gone towards making it great but really after coming back for that long of a break the LEAST OF MY WORRIES is my house. It's more like "damn I missed all those events :T" or "ugh I'm a million ilvls behind everyone I know"...

+1 to you and I'm a house owner too.

[Alex_Lenderson]

How is having a house an ultimate achievement? I mean... really?

[kamikrazy]

How is having a house an ultimate achievement? I mean... really?

Because its the largest, most time consuming, most customizable, content locked, most expensive thing you can acquire in the game? A lot of people see housing as the most difficult and time consuming achievement one can acquire because for a lot of people, especially those who don't care about competitive raiding at the cutting edge of difficulties (which is most of the population of any mmo) it is the ultimate achievement. Everything you did was leading up to it. Every bit of money for the crazy expensive item that every player drools over.

It's the Anaconda in Elite Dangerous. It's the Gold Challenge Mode gear in Warcraft. It's the apex achievement for alot of people. There is nothing more expensive and prestigious than owning a house in this game. For a lot of people who lose their houses, they will likely feel that with their greatest achievement stripped of them, they will feel there is no point in coming back. For me, having to commit to play this game forever in order to achieve that apex, there's no point in going forward.

[Sho86]

How is having a house an ultimate achievement? I mean... really?

For the same reason someone wanted to beat the current savage raid, or get the fenrir mount, or become an omni-crafter. It is their personal set goal to get, which in this game, is hard to come by; even with this demolishing patch, there still isn't enough housing for everyone by a long shot. So to finally get your own personal chunk of land to design and claim for yourself it a nice achievement for some. Your bewilderment is just the same for me with those hardcore raiders; the amount of stress and attitude and job-like hours for a fight doesn't seem fun for me in a game at all.

[Elim]

there's no point in going forward.

Sounds like you already made up your mind.

If you like housing so much I suggest sims or animal crossing. I'm sure there are other games out there with good housing features but I can't think of any other atm.

[kamikrazy]

Sounds like you already made up your mind.

If you like housing so much I suggest sims or animal crossing. I'm sure there are other games out there with good housing features but I can't think of any other atm.

Your glibness does you no credit. People like me are the future of this game, and my attitude about this issue, especially from how many likes I've gotten in the first post, reveals that there's a sound logic behind my conclusion. If housing itself has been something SE has invested time and money into to attract players, then this change breaks that attraction. New players who may be drawn into an MMO that consolidates their interests will be drawn away to other games, effectively making housing a worthless investment for SE, because the players it was meant to attract are not drawn to it. Your merely condemning me and your poor attitude just makes me feel as if new players who are attracted to longterm accomplishments are not welcome or desired in this game, as well as a longterm player who is willing to put in countless hours to build a character over years and years is not the target audience, and such people should ignore this game and look at other mmos instead.

[Elim]

My poor attitude? I suggested games for you to play since you sounded like you already made up your mind. Your twisting it into something else. There's no victims in this thread, just people with different opinions.

I personally think this system is good for the game. Like I posted in another thread, it sucks seeing all those houses sitting there being unused for so long.