Auto-demolish

[ManuelBravo]

Auto Demolish if anything should be made a shorter time then it currently is. It would make more sense to make it 30 days of non activity or 15 days after payment failure. That is when people will really be on top of things. No more empty houses just sitting there and would require people to log in. On the other hand, the only real benefit to housing is FC perks. Personal housing is extremely limited to things you can also do with in apts, and in personal FC rooms.

[Skivvy]

Instanced housing will never be the answer. Instanced housing would just be bigger apartments, and people don't want that. They want the community aspect of a neighborhood.

I want instanced housing.

[Raim]

I want instanced housing.

What this sounds like to me is this then. You'd have a little zone dedicated to instanced housing where its an enclosed field dedicated to the theme of that city. Its only got one house plot in it, but you can pay to dictate the size. You can then customize the usual outdoor decorations, but also perhaps alter the zone to your liking. Things like optional waterfall, streams, ridges, etc. Something like Mabinogi's Homestead system.

[Destati]

That they're reinstating auto-demolish is admittedly concerning. It tells me that whatever new system they have planned for buying houses as well as the number of wards they are adding in 4.2 will do very little to help alleviate the demand (which honestly becomes more aggravating when you take into consideration that SE is clearly aware of how great said demand is).
I know it was stated that everyone would be given a fair chance at purchasing houses and not necessarily guaranteed to get one but I was hoping it would at least make a sizable dent in the problem.
Yes, it's very wishful thinking on my part and of course we have yet to see how this system will work. But I think we can all agree that we wouldn't need auto-demolish if it weren't so difficult to get a house, right?

[Caitlinzulu]

Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: .... Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.

"We wont have ANY SYSTEM LIKE THAT" the auto demo system IS like that.

You know why they had to do what they did? Because they do not have enough funding, SE needs to give the FFXIV development team a bigger budget, all it is.

Sometimes viewpoints change out of nescessity. Its not as much going back on their word its more being pragmatic, being confronted with reality realising that what was said before wont work. Its not the first time this has happened to SE or any other company.

[LyraKuroneko]

That they're reinstating auto-demolish is admittedly concerning. It tells me that whatever new system they have planned for buying houses as well as the number of wards they are adding in 4.2 will do very little to help alleviate the demand (which honestly becomes more aggravating when you take into consideration that SE is clearly aware of how great said demand is).
I know it was stated that everyone would be given a fair chance at purchasing houses and not necessarily guaranteed to get one but I was hoping it would at least make a sizable dent in the problem.
Yes, it's very wishful thinking on my part and of course we have yet to see how this system will work. But I think we can all agree that we wouldn't need auto-demolish if it weren't so difficult to get a house, right?

It is difficult because they don't have the ressources necessary for everyone to get a house with the current system.
It is also why some pple are trying to suggest adding instanced house as well. To wait until it is possible.

[Draxxion]

On one hand I feel obligated to keep playing instead of taking a break and stopping my sub for a while. I want to a break, but love my ingame house as I put a lot of work into it. The on the opposite hand I don't want someone to go with out a house or add to the emptiness of the housing area. With such a limited supply I completely understand letting it not go to waste. Understand both sides are the argument.

[AxlStream]

I just love how people go "fix housing, it's so simple look at x game, y game and z game". Oh you mean games with dedicated MMO teams with multiple years experience if not decade at this point that have the MMO as a major part of the publisher and not a sort of spin-off like XIV?

[RitsukoSonoda]

Sometimes viewpoints change out of nescessity. Its not as much going back on their word its more being pragmatic, being confronted with reality realising that what was said before wont work. Its not the first time this has happened to SE or any other company.

Actually I'm pretty sure their quotes are being used entirely out of context as they are most likely from very early ARR when housing was FC only and while it was FC only. As originally designed all of those statements are true. The problems arose later when SE saw a great deal of the housing plots basically being an unused resource and many if not most servers did not look like a neighborhood because a majority of the plots were empty. So they made the plots available for personal purchase. The oversight here at this point was likely a miscalculation on just how much of the playerbase would actually be able to afford a house. However once they did this there was no option of going back so they have been left with no real choice but to try patching the system which later included auto demolish for inactive accounts due to the large percentage of plots owned by players that have not paid an active sub in months.

Instanced housing looks good on paper to many players as a solution though again most do not consider the full implications and what would actually be required to make it work in the capacity they are proposing. We recently were reminded that personal instances are not infinite either when Stormblood launched as people could not progress various quests that involved solo duties which created a personal instance.

[savageink]

Instanced housing looks good on paper to many players as a solution though again most do not consider the full implications and what would actually be required to make it work in the capacity they are proposing. We recently were reminded that personal instances are not infinite either when Stormblood launched as people could not progress various quests that involved solo duties which created a personal instance.

That's not really an argument against instanced housing. That's an argument against forcing everyone on the server to create a personal instance at the same time. Personal instances are used in lots of systems. Just entering a hotel room does it.

Edit: I should also mention that those were also combat instances that were the problem which use more processing power.