Ideas for fixing house ownership

[StouterTaru]

A rule of 1 Free company per world per account.

Why is it OK to hoard housing in different servers, but not the same server?

[NanaWiloh]

Why is it OK to hoard housing in different servers, but not the same server?

The goal of the rule is to stop players from owning multiple FC houses on the same world. To avoid things like the mateus pair where two people take up one ward all to themselves, which has a far larger effect then someone with 1 FC house. Right now a player with 2 accounts can have 16 free companys on the same world. With the rule they would only be able to have 2 Free companys on the same world. A player joing a server they dont normally play on and buying a 1 FC house is not as damaging as someone who buy's 8,10 or even 30 FC's houses all on that world. The rule is not perfect though and has its draw backs and why I asked for others to post their idea's.

[Keridwyn]

The rule is not perfect though and has its draw backs and why I asked for others to post their idea's.

Dynamic wards. One fills and a new one is generated. This way crowded servers can spread, smaller servers don't lose ground, and we don't have to keep becoming more and more draconian with rules.

Suddenly everyone can have all the houses they want and it becomes a game of waiting for a new ward to pop to upgrade to a larger size. That or better instanced housing.

Either way current system is broken and trying to make it 'fair' is only going to end up punishing people unduely.

[OliverB]

Dynamic wards. One fills and a new one is generated.

That obvously couldn't be countered

[Keridwyn]

That obvously couldn't be countered

If you've got a problem with dynamic wards beyond the spaghetti code making it a pipe dream fire away, always interested in different points of view.

But it is really simple, no open houses, generate a new ward. Open houses, no new ward generated. Transfer as you like, buy what you want. Will it stop the people being upset because they didn't get a medium or a mansion or in the zone of their choice, no, but it would at least provide housing for those that want it and get people off the back of those who have 'too many'.

[worldofneil]

it is really simple, no open houses, generate a new ward. Open houses, no new ward generated.

Unfortunately they've said before that's not possible.

The wards are each persistent instances, so they're always running, essentially the same as any other zone in the game.

4 housing areas, each with 18 wards, and of those each with 2 subdivisions - That's 144 wards/zones, that's more than all the other game zones combined.

But then multiply it by 66 servers... that's an incredible 9,504 housing wards that are always running, always needing resources.

I have wondered if they shut the ward down if no one is in it, but I doubt they do for performance reasons (we'd notice the delay if a zone was starting back up and it's probably a lot more intensive to keep stopping/starting 9504 wards than to start them up once and have them continuously run).

[Keridwyn]

Unfortunately they've said before that's not possible.

I mentioned that in my first sentence. I know the spaghetti code wouldn't allow for such a thing. That would have had to have been built in engine from the ground up as it was in other games. Also I don't know that they've ever said it wasn't possible, we can guess that it is (and if I did miss the article/interview where it's impossibility was stated apologies I'm happy to stand corrected) but it's far more likely they're just not inclined. And that's okay. There are other options such as instanced housing but remember the SB launch and how the instance servers couldn't keep up with us or when people were dodging the afk timer in their houses and bringing them down.

What I'm saying is there are issues with any suggestion on a basic code level just like many other things in this game.