An idea for obtaining houses.

[Claviusnex]

Instanced Housing would only divide the community further, as every person would move to it and leave the wards empty, making them a lonely place to be. There are reasons why people tend to make towns and cities in survival games like minecraft and some others, as they give the feeling and immersion of the place being alive and active.

The wards on most servers are dead. I've seen one or two players in the years of being in my ward. They were walking to or from the MB and when I waved got no response. An instanced system on the other hand with a thought out common area would be more alive. Think of the market areas of the capital cities as an example or maybe even the entrance location.

[Enla]

The wards on most servers are dead. I've seen one or two players in the years of being in my ward. They were walking to or from the MB and when I waved got no response. An instanced system on the other hand with a thought out common area would be more alive. Think of the market areas of the capital cities as an example or maybe even the entrance location.

I was going to say even on Balmung most of our wards are absolutely dead beyond the rare RP event and maybe one or two larger guilds that have people standing around their own marketboards. It's not going to change much of anything to move the existing infrastructure into an instanced based system. The only way I could see that happening is if they implement bases like SWTOR which basically negated /ANY/ need to go to Fleet if you ponied up the cash to do everything in your base instead. Going back to RP there after they implemented housing was a big trip for that reason, and is part of the reason I came back here, but so long as they force you to go to a common area built for the new instanced houses or the main towns for the market board and a few other things I don't see it being an issue.

[Arrius]

The wards on most servers are dead. I've seen one or two players in the years of being in my ward. They were walking to or from the MB and when I waved got no response. An instanced system on the other hand with a thought out common area would be more alive. Think of the market areas of the capital cities as an example or maybe even the entrance location.

Or, you slap a weekly rent on the houses so the players require to maintain, else they run risk losing their place.
With that, you always have them active, and others get their chance of a plot when they get cleared.

[Enla]

Or, you slap a weekly rent on the houses so the players require to maintain, else they run risk losing their place.
With that, you always have them active, and others get their chance of a plot when they get cleared.

Unless staying in the ward for a set amount of time is part of the rent it won't do anything. People will just begrudgingly pay it and either stay cloistered at their respective spots if they bother with the wards at all or keep idling in other more productive places. Unless value is added to the wards themselves, nothing is really going to make them feel any less dead for those who aren't exceedingly lucky with active FC's that find worth in idling near their respective marketboards and actually interacting with others.

[Claviusnex]

Or, you slap a weekly rent on the houses so the players require to maintain, else they run risk losing their place.
With that, you always have them active, and others get their chance of a plot when they get cleared.

It doesn't matter how you determine a house is not being used demolition isn't the fix. The only fix is to provide a housing system that can provide houses for all players that want one. Anything else is just trying to put lipstick on an pig (no offense meant to pigs). The problem with wards is they are always up using server resources whether there are players in the ward or not. This means they sit idle most of the day doing nothing for the game. This is why an instance system would be a far better solution as it will only use system resources when in use and could utilize a pool of housing servers that could be added or removed dynamically with housing access demand.

I have played other MMO's with housing and have never seen the access issues you have in FF XIV. Wildstar has a very vibrant housing scene with an active chat log and open houses. You enter and exit from the capital so you have player activity when you leave your house. I have been playing Elder Scrolls Online since their last free week in March. I have 8 dwellings at this point. Some are just small apartments I use for free ports and to hold storage chests and others are larger houses with yards. I own some in the middle of cities with all of their hustle and bustle that provide easy access to crafting stations and banks. Others are outside or on the fringe of towns and have peaceful get away from it all feeling. While both of my examples have some housing drawbacks (such as item/visitor limits, placement rules) neither share the biggest one and that is access. I will also add both feel more alive as they both allow for access to active common areas where players are playing the game.