1 account buying 14 houses in 1 ward.

[Acilith]

Part of me wants to organize a sit in on their ward? overpopulate their ward preventing them from being able to zone into it. i'm not sure how many people that would be but their has been times where i have not been able to zone into a zone because of over crowding.

You can no longer make characters on Mateus during prime time. The server is no longer preferred, it's full!

[Valenth]

I'm fully expecting Yoshi-P and the community moderators/GMs to reach out to the couple in question and request they give up their houses with full reimbursement. I'm guessing this is the only thing they can do now, going through the dirt and out of the way to meticulously compensate the couple for the time and money invested. And no, just adding more wards is not gonna work, it would cost SE way too many real life resources to add those wards. They simply cannot do this, especially from a financial point of view (and having a lot of money doesn't mean you should spend it recklessly). On top of that, it would incite more people to try and do this in the hopes of forcing SE to do things. It's Pavlov there really.

But let's be honest, I think we can all agree the game was definitely not designed for one person to have multiple house. It if was, we wouldn't be limited to a house per character to begin with but instead would have systems in place that actively allow for the purchase of multiple houses, at least no restrictions in place. They actively put designs in meant to prevent you from buying multiple houses, incomplete as they are. This should tell people one part of the intended design, the other being just being proper manners, ethics. SE's design leaves a lot to be desired for, sure, and that's where the big fault is, but people really can't deny it was sort of obvious what the intention of the design was. Nobody can righteously deny the intent of the design was clear and getting 28 houses through alts clearly is circumvention of said design. TL;DR - the entirety of design in place was one which inhibited the purchase of multiple plots on one character, this is all the hints you know to know about the developers' intentions of use. Circumventing by buying on alts, while possible, goes against said obvious intention. It's what's called a design oversight.

Ethics people. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Let's work together to make this game nice for everyone, it's a massive online game after all. SE should fully reimburse the couple for reclaiming property and we should all learn to pay more attention to proper manners. Even though the situation was caused by SE, we haven't exactly been behaving properly either, have we now? Treat each other a bit kinder, not like they're after your life or trying to dismantle your raison d'etre, keep things constructive and in the spirit of co-operation. In the end it's all a videogame.

[Venjamin]

Snip

Or... and hear me out... the design is set up to have one house per character/ fc. And it's working as intended. You're calling for them to lose a shitton of hard work and saying people should be nicer? Only niceness when it benefits you, I suppose.

Ethics aren't in play, here. No one needs a house - like you said, in the end, it's all a videogame.

[Mirch]

only 14? lol

[Aldotsk]

And it's working as intended.

Could have fooled me considering Square Enix doesn't undestand how adding more wards work for each housing zone. If people look at the interface for teleporting to specific ward, you'll notice that it was originally planned and built to skip to next ward page once it gets past like 50 Ward. So instead of blaming players, it's really this company's terrible management from increasing more wards every patch. It's been 3 years and they haven't really gone past 12 wards which is quite a shameful display.

[MaikoRaines]

But let's be honest, I think we can all agree the game was definitely not designed for one person to have multiple house. It if was, we wouldn't be limited to a house per character to begin with but instead would have systems in place that actively allow for the purchase of multiple houses, at least no restrictions in place. They actively put designs in meant to prevent you from buying multiple houses, incomplete as they are. This should tell people one part of the intended design, the other being just being proper manners, ethics.

Well, if we're being honest here... some idiots who have been actively defending these house hoarders would disagree that ethics aren't a factor here and that the system is "working as intended" - I think it's fair to say the majority of us agree that one person does not need 20+ houses. If that's the case, one character could snag them up easily. Otherwise, why else would you need to create an alt and transfer money to it to purchase the house? Not QUITE working as intended due to the developers oversight. But sure. Working as programmed. Lets go with that as it gives hoarders a pass.

Of course the same people would say "Well if it's just a video game then why complain about not having a house if it's just that?"

Well, if it's just a video game, what's the big deal with letting some of those hoarded houses go? Again, you know, because it's just a video game. I'll just sit back and watch this unfold. I doubt the developers are going to keep quiet about this much longer.

[Claviusnex]

Second, housing feels more realistic in FFXIV. Neighborhoods have some people instead of one house and only NPCs. It's great to meet people to socialize.

Other than the rare FC party the wards on my system are dead. I have seen one player in my ward since I bought my house and to be honest it was kind of creepy as they sat down beside me without a word being said. Going to instanced housing with a common area that contains all of the amenities would actually make it feel more alive as you would see people much like you see in the cities.

[Krotoan]

Well, if we're being honest here...

working within intended mechanics is quite separate from being a considerate player. However, what most of us are debating is whether or not the players who DID "horde" should lose what they acquired through SE action.
I say no. It's not their fault the devs didn't consider that people could do this. They need to come up with a solution that allows people to have housing, but doesn't take away from those who spent their time and effort building up what they have.
I don't think people who have multiple houses are being very considerate of others, but I don't think they are required to and don't think they should be punished via drastic account manipulation for that.
nobody NEEDS 20 houses.You don't NEED a house. They are nice to have and deepen the experience, I enjoy the heck out of mine but I worked hard for it ( checking housing wards everyday to see if plots were available through auto destruction and saving GIL to buy them when they showed up at full price) . Leveling all your alts to house level isn't nothing, it took effort, and the houses weren't free. They all represent lots of actual hours put into this game, paid for just like the rest of us. The fact that these people put effort into this particular goal means, to me, that they earned what they have and taking it away because some people think it's "unfair" is not right.

[Venjamin]

Snip

Oh no, you're not wrong about that. I just meant mechanically, the '1 per character' is working as it's supposed to, rather than just the housing itself. Housing is broken, 100%.

Snip

I think it's funny that some idiots are defending the whiners who refused to transfer until it was free and THEN started whining about housing. You can think it's fair to say, and you'd likely be wrong. Your random aspersions to numbers of people who "agree that one person..." etc? Yeah, that's pulled out of a place that's best not discussed in polite company. The reason you would need to create an alt is so you have to actually put effort into getting the houses. You know, since a level 1 character can't just buy a house, you have to hit a level cap to do it. So that way, people can't JUST transfer money to a level 1 account and pounce on housing for flipping and the like.

Not an oversight, IMO.

I used 'just a video game' as a counter to the point of it just being a video game, and how people shouldn't take it seriously. The big deal is that you're asking people to give up a lot of time and effort that was put into acquisition. You're literally asking to take time from these people for no cost to you. It is just a video game, which means whatever we deem as important to ourselves is what's true. They found it important to get that many houses, they put in the effort when others refused to for whatever reason, so they get to keep those houses until SE changes the rules.

I still fully expect SE to do nothing about the system - they haven't for years now with house flipping, etc. My guess is they will let it go for a while, because as soon as 4.1 hits and the Kugane housing is released, all the people whining about it now will have housing, and then goes the rounds of "got mine lol." People only care when it inconveniences them.

[Enla]

Other than the rare FC party the wards on my system are dead. I have seen one player in my ward since I bought my house and to be honest it was kind of creepy as they sat down beside me without a word being said. Going to instanced housing with a common area that contains all of the amenities would actually make it feel more alive as you would see people much like you see in the cities.

I would honestly prefer this going forward. Ideally with the old wards being retained a 'legacy' systems but frankly at this point I'm find with people just being reimbursed plus interest and them scrapping the whole system.