4.2 Housing Update

[Rymm]

It doesn't have any reflection on them as a person whatsoever.

I guess that depends on your world-view. I subscribe to the belief that it's the small, everyday interactions that determine the kind of person you are. It's one thing to be good or moral when making big, life defining choices or actions, but really the little things (even if it's just being thoughtful toward others in a video game) have just as much bearing on the formation of your character (your personality qualities, not your game avatar, lol.)

That being said, I personally don't hate hoarders. Well, scratch that, I do dislike a few of them but that is less about the fact that they have multiple homes and more about their personalities; I'm pretty specific with my hates, dislikes, likes, loves, etc. and I can't really form an opinion without knowing much about them. And I don't envy them either as I am already lucky enough to own a personal home and my FC has a house as well, and have passed on multiple opportunities to buy more. I simply don't want to because I don't think it's fair. Which is really the root of my issue with house hoarding- it offends my sense of fairness and just because it's not breaking the rules does not mean that it is not morally objectionable. Keeping multiple things for yourself, at the expense of other people, is objectively "not nice." This is something we teach (or try to) little pre-school aged children on a daily basis, it's a standard of social behavior; I really don't understand how it is suddenly so contentious, beyond people looking out for their own selfish interests.

You are correct in that I don't believe that SE can fix housing at this point, at least not with the budget they are currently allowed. I would love for them to completely overhaul the system and give us either instanced housing or dynamic wards but I genuinely believe that will never happen. Which is why I support stop-gaps intended to ease the housing crisis like the old auto-demo timer, the new 1/1 owning restrictions, and hopefully the future reclamation of hoarded homes. Everyone claimed that the auto-demo timer wouldn't make any difference either, but look how many people own homes now thanks to that. If they do reclaim the hoarded homes, I guarantee it'll make a huge difference to the people who are able to buy them.

As an aside, I really take issue with hoarders constantly throwing around the word "punishment" when talking about taking away their multiples. I've said it before and I'll say it again, being negatively impacted does not equate punishment. Losing those homes would be no more of a "punishment" by SE than they were "punishing" other players by holding them in the first place.

[StouterTaru]

As an aside, I really take issue with hoarders constantly throwing around the word "punishment" when talking about taking away their multiples. I've said it before and I'll say it again, being negatively impacted does not equate punishment. Losing those homes would be no more of a "punishment" by SE than they were "punishing" other players by holding them in the first place.

From good old wiki:

A punishment is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behaviour that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable.

Imposition of undesirable outcome - check
meted out by authority - check
response to undesirable behaviour - check

Which part makes it not a punishment?

[Rymm]

Which part makes it not a punishment?

Context. You glossed over that part from your own quote.

"in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law"

I'm going to quote myself here to save me the trouble of typing out the same example, again-

It's like owning a home with a big, beautiful front lawn for years. Eventually the traffic in front of your house gets worse and worse and finally the city has to do something to relieve the gridlock. So they decide to add another lane, by widening the street and taking part of your front lawn to do it, maybe even chopping down a tree or two. Does it negatively impact the homeowner? Yes. Is the homeowner being punished? No. But the city needs to infringe on their luxury in order to make the lives of the majority of people better.

Also-

response to undesirable behaviour - check

Just curious, does this mean you are conceding that house hoarding is an 'undesirable behavior' by SE? So many people are claiming it is okay because the rules technically allowed it up until now.

[StouterTaru]

Context. You glossed over that part from your own quote.

"in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law"

I don't think you understand what that means. It means those two different areas as well as others, eg putting down old yeller, your boss yelling at you, traffic tickets.

Your example lacks the undesirable/unacceptable behaviour requirement.

[StouterTaru]

Just curious, does this mean you are conceding that house hoarding is an 'undesirable behavior' by SE? So many people are claiming it is okay because the rules technically allowed it up until now.

I am conceding that people like you find it undesirable, and want an authority figure (SE) to punish them.

[MizArai]

Everyone claimed that the auto-demo timer wouldn't make any difference either, but look how many people own homes now thanks to that. If they do reclaim the hoarded homes, I guarantee it'll make a huge difference to the people who are able to buy them.

Personally, I thought the auto-demolition timer would be a huge help. That it would be a semi-decent sized group of houses available that first 45 days, then after that a slow trickle to help ease the market.

Reclaiming houses from everyone that has multiple houses might give a one time boost of about 100-200 houses on the market per server. It would make a "huge difference" one time, but it will also piss off many people, and create many headaches for SE including wasting time and resources on a one time event to make it happen.

There is also no guarantee that the number of people who are happy would outweigh the number of people upset, especially since many people have expressed concerns about taking homes from active players as a slippery slope. It would invite other in game items/ purchases to be taken away from players in the future. People who own multiple houses won't be able to buy any more, so that will help keep future ward expansions for homeless people (with people who already own a home being able to relocate to "dream plots"). Either with the addition of more wards, reclamation, or more likely a combination of both, housing will sort itself out as long as SE keeps taking the issue seriously and works at it (though instanced housing really would be the best option).

[Rymm]

I don't think you understand what that means.

I understand what the preposition 'from' means, lol. I just don't feel that this situation, regulation of virtual housing, falls into the sliding scale of context mentioned in your definition. Which I suppose boils down to opinion since we don't have an official source to cite on whether it does or not. Would it make you feel better if I phrased it as, "In my opinion, hoarders shouldn't throw around the word 'punishment' when talking about losing their multiples."? I could provide you with the Merriam Webster definition if you like, as it's the definition of punishment that I use and why I take issue with it being used in such a way. In the end, we are simply arguing semantics anyway, which pales considerably next to the topic at hand, and why I only mentioned it in passing at the end of my post.

There is also no guarantee that the number of people who are happy would outweigh the number of people upset

I can concede that you are correct in most of your post and that I heartily hope that you are right about SE continuing to take the issue seriously until housing is sorted out. But I can't agree with this line quoted here and have to point out that it is objectively wrong. Even if every single hoarder only owned one extra home, the ratio of upset/happy people if they were resold would be, at the very least, 1:1. But there are enough well documented cases to show multiple owners having way more than one extra home to tip the scales well in favor of the people who would be able to buy a house. And, even if that weren't the case, the probability of FCs scoping up those resold houses would tilt the scales even further in favor of the number of people to be made happy by such a change.

In the end, you are probably correct. It would probably be too much work for SE for too small a benefit to the playerbase for them to reclaim hoarders multiples and it is as futile for me to advocate this as it is to advocate instanced housing or dynamic wards. Still, the official word is that they are still taking feedback, so I will continue to give mine, even if it ultimately falls on deaf ears.

[MizArai]

Even if every single hoarder only owned one extra home, the ratio of upset/happy people if they were resold would be, at the very least, 1:1. But there are enough well documented cases to show multiple owners having way more than one extra home to tip the scales well in favor of the people who would be able to buy a house. And, even if that weren't the case, the probability of FCs scoping up those resold houses would tilt the scales even further in favor of the number of people to be made happy by such a change.

I've seen quite a few people in the forums who have commented in these threads claiming they either own no personal home or only one personal home and don't want the homes of people with multiple homes taken from them. What you're failing to take into account is the people who don't have a horse in the race, but see it instead as the start of a very slippery slope and setting a very bad precedent.

edit: I'm right there with you wishing they would do instanced housing, as long as I can still visit everyone's house, since I'm a nosey neighbor and love to visit random houses to see what all people have done with them. :-D

[Rymm]

I've seen quite a few people in the forums who have commented in these threads claiming they either own no personal home or only one personal home and don't want the homes of people with multiple homes taken from them. What you're failing to take into account is the people who don't have a horse in the race, but see it instead as the start of a very slippery slope and setting a very bad precedent.

But you have to realize that there are also people like me, on the other side of the fence. I also don't have a horse in the race, as I already own a home, but still think the fairest route would be to reclaim the multiples. There is no way to get concrete numbers on the proponents or opponents of the issue short of polling the entire playerbase. The only numbers we can be sure of at this point is the ratio of those who would loose their excess houses verses those who would gain access to housing.

If only SE would make this whole argument moot by fixing housing... if only.

[Besame]

I've seen quite a few people in the forums who have commented in these threads claiming they either own no personal home or only one personal home and don't want the homes of people with multiple homes taken from them. What you're failing to take into account is the people who don't have a horse in the race, but see it instead as the start of a very slippery slope and setting a very bad precedent.

edit: I'm right there with you wishing they would do instanced housing, as long as I can still visit everyone's house, since I'm a nosey neighbor and love to visit random houses to see what all people have done with them. :-D

In Star Wars, people could own 1 of each fortress (3) plus one of their faction but they were all instances. In the main hubs, boards with housing were listed according to what the owners allowed to be seen and you could pop to them and look around.