[Request] Please Suspend Housing Demolition for NA

[Mrydeen]

Guys,

Some of you'll are not affected by the unfortunately incident. That's great for you, but at the very least please be mindful for the victims and those related to them.

When they last suspended the housing situation for JP, it was initiated by YoshiP thru one of his letters. And it was accomplished for all the servers - NA included. While they don't need to do it, it's still good PR, and would better justify their previous stance, and or disprove our opinions of SE's JP bias.

[Myrhn]

Well i Mean,the west including Canada are just on fire, everywhere it seems like. the entire south of the US, Gulf Islands, and parts of Mexico are underwater. Mexico just had an earthquake as well.

You're right, its not all of the US, but it does include other countries/islands/territories too.

And yet you dont see the people of those area requesting anything, not even by a proxy. Affected people wont care if they lose it or not because is not the priority. Would it be nice if they do it sure, but at this point I see it more of a demand for them to do it more than a request.

[Moonlite]

The problem(ok one of the problems) is they can't seem to design certain systems for certain areas. When they suspended it for Japan it should be JP servers, if they suspend for NA it should be NA servers. Or they could just come out and say the first time they did it was a mistake and going forward they won't ever turn it off.

[Welsper59]

Guys,

Some of you'll are not affected by the unfortunately incident. That's great for you, but at the very least please be mindful for the victims and those related to them.

When they last suspended the housing situation for JP, it was initiated by YoshiP thru one of his letters. And it was accomplished for all the servers - NA included. While they don't need to do it, it's still good PR, and would better justify their previous stance, and or disprove our opinions of SE's JP bias.

All things considered, why is bias a problem here? Lives are not on the line obviously, and no one reasonable would accuse them of simply not caring if they don't, since you might as well accuse practically every company and individual of that for any given disaster. Of course there's going to be a bias, as Japan is home turf for SE. That, despite what some may think, is enough reason for bias to exist in this context. I'm not against the idea of them doing it, but it's not as worthwhile as many of you folks seem to think. Headlines across the gaming world are not going to suddenly say "Final Fantasy XIV developers act on a good gesture in-game!" or anything like that. Likewise, the people unaffected will either not care about the cause itself (just maybe reaping the minimal benefit) or go "oh that's nice" and never think about it again. It's still a positive thing, but it's not worth much more of a thought than simply flipping a coin to decide on it (i.e. the result doesn't matter). This gesture is not going to remove any distaste any given person has for content or a decision by the devs they don't like, for example lol.

[AzakaTonnerre]

And yet you dont see the people of those area requesting anything, not even by a proxy. Affected people wont care if they lose it or not because is not the priority. Would it be nice if they do it sure, but at this point I see it more of a demand for them to do it more than a request.

I live in Florida. I am lucky to live in an area that was not affected too bad and I got my power back this morning. That said, my credit card company suspended late fees the next two months for people who need to make credit card payments. Additionally they introduced a year of 0% interest for purchases needed to help with recovery (available over the next few months). Verizon is not charging anyone in an affected area data for two weeks (they extended it a week yesterday). Many other companies have offered other assistance on their services (I am not listing more - a simple google search is all you need if you don't live in an area affected). None of these were specifically asked for by anyone as far as I can see.

Many companies do these things not because they were asked for, but because it is the right thing to do, and it shows they are socially integrated within the communities they do business.

Furthermore, just because someone does not place temporary priority on losing something (housing) while dealing with this, does not mean that the community we share with them should not do what we can to ensure what they enjoy is there for them when they are able to return.

[Meraii]

That said, my credit card company suspended late fees the next two months for people who need to make credit card payments. Verizon is not charging anyone in an affected area data for two weeks (they extended it a week yesterday).

These things are to do with finance and money that can have real world implications for persons if they don't/are unable to pay due to their circumstances.
A comparable gesture would be for SE to give them some free game time / suspend charging sub renewals for a bit or to even raise money to help them out.

Making them temporarily immune to certain features of the game is not comparable to the gestures you mentioned and one could even claim SE to be insincere in their sympathies for offering such a feeble thing.
"oh you lost your home? Well here's an extention on the demolition timer for a virtual home that you may not even have"

It would be akin to an FPS game offering a free medipack to victims of a shooting.

[Awha]

Call me crazy but if I am was left without power or my home was inaccessible my video game home would be the last thing on my mind. So while the gesture is nice I do feel it is unnecessary.

Also asking to delay the new housing zone for everyone in light of this, yeah I am sure that will end well for SE, I mean they would get zero push back. Best idea NA!

[Niwashi]

Affected people wont care if they lose it or not because is not the priority.

not priority =/= don't care

Obviously, the loss of an in-game house is nothing like being left homeless by a natural disaster in real life. But when people face major real-life turmoil, there is a great deal of stress. A common (though not universal) reaction to such stress is to become hyper sensitive, where even minor things they might have taken in stride otherwise become overwhelming, because of how they're compounding on top of other (much bigger) losses.

Ever hear the expression "insult on top of injury"? Being driven out of your home by a natural disaster is the injury. Consequently losing a virtual house in a video game you enjoy and have put a great deal of time into is the insult. I'm sure there are many people who will indeed care.

[KisaiTenshi]

I don't normally make request threads like these, but here we go.

In light of the recent disasters in NA such as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Jose to the fires burning in Northwestern US and Southwestern Canada, a lot of people are finding themselves displaced or without internet/electricity.

This was largely a spring-to-summer long phenomenon, where as the tohoku earthquake was a one-off disaster. I would not expect a game to suspend it's events/progress/housing, etc for half a year, but it seems relatively within reason to push off minimally the housing auto-demolish since it would not harm the game balance by doing so.

That said, for obvious reasons, there are climate-related disasters every year (everyone remember last winter?) so it would impair the game if updates were pushed only during non-disaster seasons (which varies by part of the world.)

[Sarteck]

Here's a thought...

Be the change you want to see.

If you guys are really this worried about it, then offer your own help in acquiring a new house in game for those you find to be affected.

Y'know, putting your money where your mouth is and all.