So SE.. Hows your new wards working out?

[Penthea]

Having played on other servers, I can absolutely guarantee that there is no other server out there with an RP community as large or vibrant as Balmung's

That's fine, I get that. But with the situation that server is in, it seems you can't all eat your cake and have it too. Most of you will have to choose between the rp community and having realistic chances of getting a house.

It's not likely SE will give any servers special treatment. They certainly haven't shown any signs of it happening. And they're also not likely to add an extremely robust amount of wards if most will just be empty on the majority of servers.

I appreciate your situation, I do. But with how things are presently most Balmung players can't have both the rich community and a decent chance of getting a house. They have to choose one.

[Madbunny]

Having played on other servers, I can absolutely guarantee that there is no other server out there with an RP community as large or vibrant as Balmung's

Nothing stops you to take your FC and friends and move to another server so you can build another great RP community. Yeah i know, its not hand-holding and you actually might do something but at least you could achieve what you want, instead of crying over and over again how you feel the world owes you something... because (here comes the punchline) no one owes you anything.

[Elamys]

That's fine, I get that. But with the situation that server is in, it seems you can't all eat your cake and have it too. Most of you will have to choose between the rp community and having realistic chances of getting a house.

Which is understandable, but what's starting to bother me more at this point is the absolutely unrestrained bashing going on on Balmung players, which is really nothing new because "ew ERP", but it's getting out of hand. Again, nobody who plays on Balmung has or is doing anything wrong by choosing to stay on the server. All we want to say is that the system is flawed, and it still is. Was this patch a step in the right direction? Yes, definitely. But it didn't resolve everything. Other servers are full already, and more will be soon enough, and then we'll be right back where we started, with damn near every server sold out of housing.

Here's what I ACTUALLY see concerning housing on Balmung: not a lot. I guess the impression people get of Balmung is that we're full of melodramatic people who do nothing but cry all day about housing but actually everyone's moved on. The night housing was launched there was a lot of hopeful chatter, the day after that when people were camping the placards there was some grumbling but mostly everyone had accepted it and was prepared to be disappointed, and now I don't hear anything about it at all. I'm tired of people who don't know a single thing about the server acting like they know everything about it. The fact is that there's like less than 10 frequent posters from Balmung on the housing subforums here, including myself. You're gonna judge the entire server based on that?

There's no reason to defend a system that will never work properly in the long term and what most Balmung players are actually asking for is not more wards, but for apartments to be improved upon, which is the most reasonable solution by far. This is the consensus I have seen not only on the forums, but also in game, while chatting in my linkshells and free company. Most of the players I know aren't that invested in a yard, they just want a reasonably sized space to call their own and the ability to garden. There are a few people who want Balmung alone to get more wards, but the majority appear to disagree with them. But the trend here appears to be snap judgments when you read the World listed under someone's name. It's absolutely exhausting. If you heard day in and day out how players from Moogle were whiny drama queens who suck at the game and have a culture of entitlement when it's not even true, you'd get tired too.

Players who choose to remain on Balmung for whatever reason aren't suddenly disallowed to point out the problems with the housing system. The sudden white knighting for SE, after years of agreeing the housing system was massively flawed, is exhausting. There are numerous valid reasons for someone to choose to stay on the server, and I swear to god, if I see one more person suggest that I ask my friends to come with me, I'm going to lose it. Because sure, I can ask my friends to come with, but then they have to ask theirs, and everyone involved in that network has to decide what is more important to them. I'm not vain enough to think that their world revolves around me and the idea is frankly quite ridiculous. I played on a smaller server before and I like a big server a lot more. I like that I see other people out and about in the world, people I can do FATEs, maps, and other bits of content with that you can't do via Party Finder. I like seeing the cities alive with more than one or two crafters sitting by the market board. I like that if I get tired of doing actual game content, I'm almost guaranteed to find some sort of tavern or other RP event I can go to and relax (I'm not actually a super activer RPer, whoops). I like that there are people to talk to in my linkshells and in shout, that the market board isn't a barren wasteland of overpriced goods, and that I'm not getting bombarded with RMT whispers every minute.

And all those things to me ultimately outweighed leaving the server, which I considered seriously when the incentives were announced. But I remembered playing on Malboro and how quiet it was and I decided I'd rather stay on my big, weird server. I instead chose to wait patiently for my house, and I was rewarded for that patience, and this may shock people, but pretty much everyone here on Balmung is fully aware of the housing situation, everyone, including myself, advises people to be prepared for disappointment on this server when it comes to housing, and those people who truly cared more about housing than everything else have already left. Those who remain have other priorities, but they still want housing, and here's another thing, I haven't encountered a single person, not a SINGLE one, who says they NEED housing for RP; everyone has either an apartment or FC room, sometimes both.

[Vahlnir]

There's no reason to defend a system that will never work properly in the long term and what most Balmung players are actually asking for is not more wards, but for apartments to be improved upon, which is the most reasonable solution by far.

See, the thing is...people have been complaining about this in regards to the sheer size of the population there for a long, long time now. This is for the most part a player controlled problem that they continue to make worse for themselves by endlessly flocking to Balmung. So while I understand the frustration, I can't...and won't, feel bad for people who sit on Balmung complaining about not having a house when they chose that server to begin with or transferred there. Balmung dug its own hole. They can either come to terms with this and face up to their decision to stay, or start migrating off of there since there's still plenty of houses available across most servers. Is the housing system flawed? Oh yeah, there's no doubt about that. But this patch brought a good many houses to a large number of people with plenty to spare. Balmung is something that SE can't really fix no matter how hard they try. They need to lock it permanently if they're ever going to get a handle on the situation there.

[Vonleo]

Everyone knows its a bad system the thing is it will not change because of the way they set it up now unless they are working on a HUGE overhaul without telling anyone I wouldn't bother with complaining about housing at all. Maybe one day they will all of a sudden announce housing from wards to instance in the next expansion? who knows but as of right now we just have to work with what we have.

[Shouko]

Snip

You're correct on one thing, I don't RP on this game because I prefer tabletop gaming over video games.

How is a community supposed to grow on other servers if you know they don't help? All anyone wants to do is go to Balmung for the most part which creates problems for those that do want to RP on other servers. I was only suggesting tabletop gaming because it's far better in terms of being able to RP without restrictions much more, if you don't want to that's not my problem.

[Elamys]

See, the thing is...people have been complaining about this in regards to the sheer size of the population there for a long, long time now. This is for the most part a player controlled problem that they continue to make worse for themselves by endlessly flocking to Balmung. So while I understand the frustration, I can't...and won't, feel bad for people who sit on Balmung complaining about not having a house when they chose that server to begin with or transferred there. Balmung dug its own hole. They can either come to terms with this and face up to their decision to stay, or start migrating off of there since there's still plenty of houses available across most servers.

Not really sure how this relates to the quote you gave. Most Balmung players I know of would be perfectly content with improved apartments, a resource that is not in short supply here.

[MizArai]

Not really sure how this relates to the quote you gave. Most Balmung players I know of would be perfectly content with improved apartments, a resource that is not in short supply here.

Oh good! I knew that the apartments had been full on Balmung. I had hoped that the additional wards would at least allow people to get apartments (there was no hope it could be enough housing for Balmung, ever).

[Elamys]

Oh good! I knew that the apartments had been full on Balmung. I had hoped that the additional wards would at least allow people to get apartments (there was no hope it could be enough housing for Balmung, ever).

Oh yeah, the addition of hundreds of apartments finally alleviated that problem. That was honestly an excessive addition even for us. There's like 4 other people in my alt's apartment building.

[Madbunny]

Most Balmung players I know of would be perfectly content with improved apartments, a resource that is not in short supply here.

At this point i'm not sure if you are so "limited" so you dont get what others are saying or you are just trolling... We all know how things will go on your server - give us more houses, better apartments... then will come more large houses, more Shirogane houses, more people simultaneously online (e.g. higher population allowance), more... more... more... give... give... give... an endless and vicious circle what will never end. The fact is many people from Balmung will never stop complaining and they will just jump from one request to another. However you try hard after the last patch you will never get the momentum you guys had before and its time to accept this fact for the simple reason you are alone in your situation.