My absence and return - thoughts on demolished houses

[Geryth]

I quit this game about two years ago. It was only going to be a temporary break. Shortly after I quit, you implemented the demolishing of houses that were inactive. When I learned that I was forced to enter my house at least once every 45 days, I was livid. I strongly disagreed with the sentiment that my house was held hostage behind a subscription, not allowing me to take a break from the game.

And I stuck to that, and I spent my money and time elsewhere for the past two years. What sucks though is that I had no forum access to tell you my grievances two years ago.

Fast forward to today, and a friend of mine gave me a 7 day free log in pass, so now I finally get the chance to tell you about my thoughts here.

Firstly, I absolutely understand the need to purge inactive houses, especially after coming back and seeing that every single house of every single ward of every single city are occupied on my server. Though I believe the whole housing concept really should be totally reworked on a technical standpoint so that there wasn't such limited real estate (instanced like FFXI mog houses). The apartments seem like an okay compromise, but I disagree with the notion that someone who owns a house has to perpetually remain active to keep it. Really, either your designers or your software engineers failed here big time on this, making housing so restrictive in the first place.

Secondly and most importantly, I have real beef with the permanent deletion of my content. I boycotted the implementation and let my house and all it's contents get deleted, because I wasn't going to financially support the model as it existed two years ago (not even for a single month to reclaim some of my stuff). But not everyone is in that boat, I'm sure thousands of people went inactive, never saw the warning emails, and got blind-sided with permanent deletions. This is a huge issue. I had millions of gil invested in a super awesome, meticulously organized, and well loved abode. I've been really thinking about coming back to the game, because it really is a fun and awesome game and I'd lie if I said I haven't missed it. But you must realize the burden it is to come back and see your game life's saving of work and gil completely wiped away with zilch to show for it. That really, really dissuades me from ever wanting to become a subscriber again.

That is all to say that permanently deleting houses and all its content is an easy way to permanently lose subscribing players. You absolutely lost my business because of this. We'll see if I can stomach the loss and start playing again.

I left my OP as a quote for reference, but I'm making an edit here to change the direction of this from a "complaint" post to a discussion post.

I was content to to let this post fall into later pages, happy with where it went overall. But a lot of people are continuing good discussion, so I want to clean up the OP to foster that discussion. Also I want to try to dial back on my..."combative" vocabulary. This game meant a lot to me and I speak out of passion. And lastly, I hope to lessen the confusion a lot of people have about what exactly it is that I have issues with.

So let me try to rephrase my OP as clearly as possible:

About two years ago, the game got a bit stale (burned out on crafting) and I was taking a short break. I unsubscribed and was going to be gone about a month, maybe two. While I was unsubscribed, house demolition was announced. The previous implementation of housing had issues, and inactive players were taking precious housing resources from active players. This was a major problem that needed to be solved. I was hopeful that SE would fix that by implementing a system that made housing not so limited, however they took an easy and cheap way out and kept the system they had, and decided to demolish houses of inactive players. With that design philosophy, they severely punish players who want or need to take an extended break from the game. Housing is such a huge and enjoyable part of the game, and I know for myself a majority of all the gil I ever made went in to my house, so deleting it is a major punch in the gut. Let me reiterate that housing demolition is absolutely necessary in a system where housing is so restrictive and limited, and is better than what it was before. However, there were so many other and better options that they could have gone with, and in my opinion they picked the laziest and worst solution.

So because of my distaste of that design, I put my money where my principles are, and refused to resubscribe. I just wish I could have posted way back then, but since I was unsubbed at the time, I had no forum access to do so (I'm on a free 7 day trial right now).

I've had a lot of people post in this thread about this being "self-inflicted" or "you knew it would happen, it's your fault". I knew all the rules, I had the time (and money, if I wanted to spend it) to save my house. I can't change all your minds but I vehemently disagree that I have any blame that my stuff was deleted - SE designed and implemented and carried out the deletion of my content, and they are ultimately to blame for it. I made a point to them, the most powerful point I can make in my relationship between me and SE, which is my money. I told them that I'm not willing to spend money on the product they created. Just because they created a set of rules doesn't mean they can't be held responsible for what they did, and it doesn't mean that set of rules is any good.

So my issues aside, let's segue this back to a more civil discussion about housing. Here are some great issues that currently exist with some things that others have brought up in this thread

1. Even with the good compromise in Apartments, they still lack desirable features such as gardening.
2. Many features overall are locked behind a limited resource that players have no control over. Airships and other features are only available with houses, and only a small percentage of the population have access to houses.
3. The "neighborhood feel" of the wards and districts is anything but. Maybe some servers have organized community events with their neighbors, but on a whole, fully populated wards have people walking through them very sparsely. Many of us would prefer to give that up for permanent and less limited housing.
4. We get why you have to demolish inactive houses in the current sub-par implementation of housing, but you don't have to go and delete our furnishings too.
5. Deleting so much of what players worked for and accomplished in your game is a major deterrent for them to ever resub.

Feel free to discuss what you like and don't like about housing. Not everyone is the same - someone posted about how they like it to be limited because they see it as a status symbol. Let the developers know what kind of system you want. As for me? I think at the end of my 7 days I'm going to resub and give this game another go. I have no qualms challenging the developers on their work and letting my money do the talking - but I have hope that they'll put this on their radar for some improvements.

[AxlStream]

But... they lost your business before they demolished houses... I am confused on what your grievance actually is.

[Geryth]

But... they lost your business before they demolished houses... I am confused on what your grievance actually is.

It was only going to be a temporary break.

I definitely planned on subbing again, until they decided to hold my house hostage behind a subscription. So I let SE shoot the hostage and took my business elsewhere. But the hostage meant a lot to me, and coming back to see a dead hostage doesn't encourage me to open up my wallet again.

[AxlStream]

I definitely planned on subbing again, soon, in fact, until that patch went live.

But consider this. Your plot got vacant and somebody else likely picked it up. Someone that stayed actively subbed that might of left if they didn't have access to housing. If you had already left before the patch, they lost you somewhere else, therefor your sub is not guaranteed either way. That decision was likely to secure their active subs.

[Thaldor]

But shouldn't current users be given the chance at housing too? It sucks I get that but with a shortage on housing they have to do something. It also has the effect of keeping the housing areas from looking less abandoned by doing this.

From what you wrote, you also had the chance to keep your house but chose not to. Having said that maybe They need to implement some system that deleted items get pushed to some sort of holding box that can be accessed and the items retrieved, LOTRO has something similar.

[Texa]

The housing and glamour systems are pretty gross boils on what's otherwise the strongest mmo on the market and I feel ya. The auto-demo function is super unpopular in Japan too.

[alimdia]

2 years is a long time to not lose your house, yeah the situation sucks but auto demolition is better than no auto demolition until they can sort out the shortage issue (if ever). I do agree the time limit to reclaim furniture is silly.

[Farkle]

I lost my mansion which was 42 mill at the time of purchase.
I totally support making that house available for subscribing players and acknowledge 100% its my fault I lost my house and items.
The permanently lost items and gil (but mostly the items for sentimental reasons) have me really salty though.

The email notifications about the house being demolished were very good in their number and frequency. Post destruction, however, there was nothing at all about the reclaimed items though. (as in reminders)

[Geryth]

But consider this. Your plot got vacant and somebody else likely picked it up. Someone that stayed actively subbed that might of left if they didn't have access to housing. If you had already left before the patch, they lost you somewhere else, therefor your sub is not guaranteed either way. That decision was likely to secure their active subs.

So they designed a system where either an existing player gets pissed and leaves, or a new player gets pissed and leaves. Hmm...

Firstly, I absolutely understand the need to purge inactive houses, especially after coming back and seeing that every single house of every single ward of every single city are occupied on my server. Though I believe the whole housing concept really should be totally reworked on a technical standpoint so that there wasn't such limited real estate (instanced like FFXI mog houses). The apartments seem like an okay compromise, but I disagree with the notion that someone who owns a house has to perpetually remain active to keep it. Really, either your designers or your software engineers failed here big time on this, making housing so restrictive in the first place.

[Geryth]

2 years is a long time to not lose your house, yeah the situation sucks but auto demolition is better than no auto demolition until they can sort out the shortage issue (if ever). I do agree the time limit to reclaim furniture is silly.

I was not going to be gone two years. Maybe another month or two, tops. I only decided to quit permanently when they decided to hold my house hostage to a subscription. I wasn't willing to financially support that model. THAT's why I was gone for two years. I otherwise would have shelled out probably another couple hundred bucks their way these past two years.