Lost House - Question

[Gyson]

I don't think using WOW as an example is really that strong, so let's provide more information about this example why don't we. I don't play WOW, but Googled World of Warcraft Name Purge and saw a post from Blizzard, in 2015, warning people who had not logged in since 2010. That is not a typo. That is not "a couple months earlier in 2015." It's literally after nearly 5 years of inactivity.

Also you don't want to use words like "right" or "fair" while simultaneously putting words into others' mouths like "obligation." It's not about "obligation" or requirement, it's about doing right by your customer base so they remain customers. And while it's great that they sent me an email warning me about the imminent removal of my house, let's not do cartwheels with applause here - the message was actually quite clear - "you better pay a subscription, and pay a subscription every other month, or we'll be taking something from you."

This is far different than WOW's "hey you haven't logged in for 5 years...we are going to assume you moved on and release your old names."

Is it? The very first thing I said in this thread was "The timer is always going to be too short for someone - someone will always show up just after their property is reclaimed.", and that applies here. 45 days, 5 years.. to the player who decided to return to the game the result is the same - something of theirs is gone, something they felt should have remained safe despite not paying the company a dime in the interim to keep it so, and they're going to be upset and less excited about the prospect of returning to said game.

I also already said "While it makes sense from a retention standpoint to keep non-subscriber character data intact, in reality developers are under no obligation to do so once you stop subscribing to their service.", meaning I get where you're coming from about keeping a product appealing to potential returning customers. However, your statement was "..But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact..", and I disagree with that. It's certainly your right to take a break, and you can hope your data will be kept intact while you're gone, but developers are not obligated to do so once you decide to stop paying them. If it was a system that required paying property taxes in-game every 45 days instead, would you be looking at it any differently? Either way you'd still be required to log in every 45 days.

For the record, "Landmark" (aka "Everquest Next Landmark") required upkeep every month or your plot would be deleted - and getting a desirable plot in that game could be pretty hard. And that's a game that started within the past two years. It didn't start with that feature, but it was added after they realized a) space was limited and b) having inactive neighbors made the game less fun for active players.

Look, I'm with you on the 35 day time limit on retaining your goods at the Resident Caretaker. It stinks that it's not much, much longer than that. Then again, this is the company that can't spare any more storage space for the inventories of paying subscribers, so I'm not sure what we can honestly expect here. But let's be realistic about this - rough period of time or not, it would have taken you three minutes of your time to log in and save your property during the "Free Login" event. You didn't/couldn't because a) you weren't aware of the event (let's call that Square's bad, as they should probably be sending out emails about those) and b) your connection relies on (for whatever reason) WTFast - a technical issue that exists on your end, one I hope you have since resolved rather than just relying on paying for third-party software as a fix, and one that would have prevented you from logging in even if Square had mailed you an advertisement regarding the "Free Login" event. So, there's plenty of blame to go around here if you're being honest about it.

[MomomiMomi]

Then again, this is the company that can't won't spare any more storage space for the inventories of paying subscribers, so I'm not sure what we can honestly expect here.

Fixed that for you.

For the record, "Landmark" (aka "Everquest Next Landmark") required upkeep every month or your plot would be deleted - and getting a desirable plot in that game could be pretty hard. And that's a game that started within the past two years. It didn't start with that feature, but it was added after they realized a) space was limited and b) having inactive neighbors made the game less fun for active players.

Required; past tense. From what I just read about that game, you only need to log in to keep it, and it gives you up to 90 days. This is far more reasonable than 45.

[Gyson]

Required; past tense. From what I just read about that game, you only need to log in to keep it, and it gives you up to 90 days. This is far more reasonable than 45.

Actually it's more complicated (and far less reasonable) than you're letting on. Initially upkeep in Landmark required the gathering and donating of resources, but that system has since changed. Now it's more akin to a time bank.

New players can only be offline for 7 days before losing their claim on a piece of land. For everyone else, for every 2 days you log in you'll get 1 additional day of protection against land reclamation (up to a maximum of 90 days). So, you actually have to log in every day for 6 months to protect your claim for 3 months. That is a LOT more inconvenient than just requiring someone to enter their home once every 45 days.

[MomomiMomi]

Actually it's more complicated (and far less reasonable) than you're letting on. Initially upkeep in Landmark required the gathering and donating of resources, but that system has since changed. Now it's more akin to a time bank.

New players can only be offline for 7 days before losing their claim on a piece of land. For everyone else, for every 2 days you log in you'll get 1 additional day of protection against land reclamation (up to a maximum of 90 days). So, you actually have to log in every day for 6 months to protect your claim for 3 months. That is a LOT more inconvenient than just requiring someone to enter their home once every 45 days.

Point still remains that you can have up to 90 days. We have no such option here no matter what we do.

[Gyson]

Point still remains that you can have up to 90 days. We have no such option here no matter what we do.

Yes, in Landmark you can accrue up to 90 days of time banked provided you are willing to log in every day for 180 days prior. Where as here you must log in once every 45 days. Pick your poison - 180 days of logging in for 90 days of protection, or 1 day of logging in for 45 days of protection. I definitely prefer the latter.

[MomomiMomi]

Yes, in Landmark you can accrue up to 90 days of time banked provided you are willing to log in every day for 180 days prior. Where as here you must log in once every 45 days. Pick your poison - 180 days of logging in for 90 days of protection, or 1 day of logging in for 45 days of protection. I definitely prefer the latter.

The 90 day option.

I'd maybe be okay with 45 days if you didn't lose furniture that can't be removed, and if your items and gil were held for at least 180 days.

[Lexia]

The 90 day option.

I'd maybe be okay with 45 days if you didn't lose furniture that can't be removed, and if your items and gil were held for at least 180 days.

Like someone said before the time will always be short for someone, hold if for 180 days (6 months) a person comes back in the 7 month and be unhappy that all their stuff is gone. 45 days may be too short yes but I still would only bump it to 60 days.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Just a few quick points:

1. WTFast - I don't really want to get much into an argument about WTFast. There were numerous threads in 2014 about this problem from multiple users, and I participated in some of those threads. The end result was that SquareEnix would tell people to contact their ISPs and then the ISPs would tell people to contact SquareEnix. It was a loop resulting in no solutions. Some said they were leaving the game, I just accepted I needed to keep buying WTFast to play this. Other games I can log into without WTFast: Everything else. (EQ, EQ2, Aion, Tera, The Secret World, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, any steam game, etc.) I also changed computers since 2014 and the issue remained with FFXIV (and only FFXIV). It's not that relevant to this discussion though to the greater issues at hand.

2. 45 Days v. 5 years. Are you really arguing that these are the same? This is ridiculous to me. There is a huge difference from someone taking a break of a few months and someone who showed no interest in logging in for 5 years. Yes it's a slippery-slope type argument but this argument is clearly a throw-away as written.

3. Obligations. I'll agree again that they aren't obligated or required to do anything. They can shut the game down tomorrow if they felt like it and we wouldn't have anything we could really say about it. But they should have thought this out much better. I've been a Square fan since Final Fantasy I on the NES and have purchased pretty much every game in the series, in addition to other products they sell. I even just bought the collectors edition of heavensward for $60. How they choose to handle their good will is on them. If I knew what was really happening before resubbing I would have walked away and not returned. (I'd probably still buy FFXV though...we'll see.)

4. Landmark: Is this really relevant? The game isn't even officially released yet and comparing expectations for Betas isn't comparable to games that have been released for several years. Also we all know that Daybreak has a huge mess on its hands right now with the cancellation of EQNext and is pretty much not a company to look to if you are trying to avoid PR nightmares.

[Gyson]

Just a few quick points:

1. WTFast - I don't really want to get much into an argument about WTFast. There were numerous threads in 2014 about this problem from multiple users, and I participated in some of those threads. The end result was that SquareEnix would tell people to contact their ISPs and then the ISPs would tell people to contact SquareEnix. It was a loop resulting in no solutions. Some said they were leaving the game, I just accepted I needed to keep buying WTFast to play this. Other games I can log into without WTFast: Everything else. (EQ, EQ2, Aion, Tera, The Secret World, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, any steam game, etc.) I also changed computers since 2014 and the issue remained with FFXIV (and only FFXIV). It's not that relevant to this discussion though to the greater issues at hand.

I find it fairly relevant as it's ultimately what stopped you from logging in and saving your house during the "Free Login" event. You're in California.. not the moon; you shouldn't need WTFast to log into Final Fantasy. I can understand using it to help with latency issues, but simply logging into the game is something you should be able to do without it. If the problem persists through multiple computers the issue may either with your ISP or your network hardware (e.g. router, modem, etc). It's your call whether you're interested in chasing down a real solution or allowing yourself to be dependent on WTFast, however the latter is obviously one more thing that can (and did) get in your way.

2. 45 Days v. 5 years. Are you really arguing that these are the same? This is ridiculous to me. There is a huge difference from someone taking a break of a few months and someone who showed no interest in logging in for 5 years. Yes it's a slippery-slope type argument but this argument is clearly a throw-away as written.

Again, I'm saying that whether it's 45 days, 90 days, a year or 5 years the time limit will always be too short for someone's taste. A lot of players returned to WoW for the latest expansion, even after being gone for many years.. so yes, people do return (even in droves) after extended absences and want to find their characters intact. Heck, I returned, found my character had become bugged during my absence, and Blizzard was unwilling/able to fix it because of the amount of time that had passed. That was the last straw for me and I said "bye-bye" again for good.

4. Landmark: Is this really relevant? The game isn't even officially released yet and comparing expectations for Betas isn't comparable to games that have been released for several years. Also we all know that Daybreak has a huge mess on its hands right now with the cancellation of EQNext and is pretty much not a company to look to if you are trying to avoid PR nightmares.

Landmark was mentioned (and relevant) because it's a very recent example, and some are implying that deleting character data/content is a relic of the past that companies simply don't do anymore. That obviously isn't accurate.

Anyway, SE is about to add new wards again and it should be easy to get a house provided you're ready to pounce on them. There still won't be enough for everyone, though, and that continues to be an unacceptable problem (I feel). In your shoes I would honestly be much more upset with and focused on the 35 day timer for furniture storage of evicted landowners - that's really what set you back more than anything.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Quick responses:

WTFast: You haven't lived with the problem and people already wasted many hours of their lives "chasing a real solution" to no avail. Some left the game and others like myself just pay the $6 surcharge on accessing only this game whereas every other game in existence works fine. What actually stopped me from logging in was losing my job, burning through my entire 401(k), maxing my credit cards, having a tax bill on my hands from withdrawing my 401(k), my landlord increasing the rent $400.00 a month mid-year, needing to move from the city I lived in for 11 years because I can no longer afford it, and hoping to scrounge some way to buy token gifts for the children in my life for Christmas. Responding to what felt like a mean-spirited email over the holidays from SE about taking my in-game house was not a priority. Anyway this is not really relevant to housing so moving on.

Timing: You yourself wrote that your experience with WoW was your last straw and you won't be returning. And this was after an extended absence. This type of behavior becomes increasingly unreasonable the shorter the absence, and game companies should think more carefully when making these decisions. I'm pretty sure that 45 days is the most punitive system amongst it's peers.

Landmark: Still disagree - I don't find it relevant. Landmark is not a released game and purges/wipes are a common practice for pre-release games. This is not so common for paid subscription games that are post-release, and not without very careful and usually very generous requirements that need to be met before losing things.

New Housing: I'm angry with the entire system. I was left with pretty much nothing. The very last thing I did before taking a break was adding more decorations to my yard and buying rugs for the interior. I have 100K Gil and I doubt I will have enough for a house when the new wards come. I'm sure by the time I do, they will be gone. I was only able to afford a house by selling every single quest reward / materia I got my hands on, and this took a lot of time for me.