Alleo's Signature

[alimdia]

If you need to pay to access the game to be able to buy a house and your sub money is partially going towards the upkeep of said servers, you are paying real money for that house. If we don't pay then there are no servers to host the houses.

I'm not arguing about ownership so I don't know why you're mentioning that, and entering a house once every 44 days is hardly using it. If the point of houses is to have more things to keep you subbed then you shouldn't lose your house if you're subbed.

[Rymm]

If the point of houses is to have more things to keep you subbed

The "point" of houses is... to access housing features. Decorating, gardening, workshops, etc.

The auto-demo timer isn't some sort of conspiracy to make people stay subbed to the game, no matter what the tinfoil hat-wearing posters would have you think. The auto-demo timer is to make sure houses aren't sitting unused indefinitely. Forcing you to actually go inside your house a bare minimum of once every month and a half is probably the least tyrannical way that SE can "nudge" you toward using it. But as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

And I'll say it again, since my point seemed to go over your head. SE does not charge for specific features (raiding, housing, pvp, etc.) they charge you access to the game servers. What you choose to do after that point is moot. You don't pay for a house, you pay to play, just like everyone else (homeless and homeowners alike.)

[alimdia]

But my point also goes over your head, if your money is being used to develop those features then you're paying for them, they aren't offering them for free, they are offering them as part of your sub. When you pay for something you're paying for everything included in that something.

It's not a tin-foil hat conspiracy when as a matter of fact we have had content droughts longer than 45 days, someone not playing for 45 days doesn't mean they have abandoned the game.

[Rymm]

But my point also goes over your head, if your money is being used to develop those features then you're paying for them, they aren't offering them for free, they are offering them as part of your sub. When you pay for something you're paying for everything included in that something.

You are also paying to develop ilvl 375 weapons. But SE isn't obliged to give them to you just because of that. You still have to Savage Sigmascape for them. You paid for the development of the Centurio Tiger but you still need to do 2000 hunts for it. You paid for the Magitek Conveyor to be created and yet you still need to rank in the top 100 for Feast.

The game is a package deal. You pay for everything, not just the content you choose to opt into. And you know what? Plenty of people without houses paid to develop and host your house, too.

And yes, the wild claims about demo-timer being there to force subs is a conspiracy theory thrown around by crackpots. The length of "content droughts" has no bearing on the topic of housing. The term itself is questionable as there is plenty of content in the game to keep people busy between content patches... if they choose to opt into it. Just because there is nothing you want to do, doesn't mean there is nothing to do.

Someone not playing for 45 days might not have abandoned the game. Someone not playing for 6 months might not have abandoned the game either. Or a year even. Where do you draw an arbitrary line like that? What's the hard cutoff for when people will never come back? To me, 45 days seems reasonable. Others disagree, as is their right. But it doesn't mean it's a conspiracy on SE's part. The demo timer is there to try to keep houses in the hands of people who will use them. Nothing more.

[Dualgunner]

I feel like this is a bit of an exaggeration. People are still buying up homes left, right, and center, (and complaining about auto-demo) even already being aware of it going in.

I'm not saying nobody would have been buying housing. However buying a house with the knowledge that it goes poof if you're gone for a while is different than buying one thinking its yours for the foreseeable future. Perhaps subscription anchor is a harsh term, but there have been several times in the past four years where its been exactly that for me.

I love the hell out of my house. But I bought it back when we were told houses were permanent until sold. I can't say I'd have bought it knowing that it would be like it is now, where a 45 day break or more will leave one homeless. Perhaps at some point just letting it poof will ease my mind, and I can just customize an apartment instead.

[Iscah]

If you need to pay to access the game to be able to buy a house and your sub money is partially going towards the upkeep of said servers, you are paying real money for that house. If we don't pay then there are no servers to host the houses.

Your money is paying for the servers, but so is the money of other people who want a house and can’t get one.

It might be different if you had to pay real money to keep your house if you’re not actively using it - but that’s a different can of worms.

[Solarra]

That auto demolition isn't tied to your sub is just baffling, you're literally paying a sub and the only thing of yours actively using server resources can be removed if you don't access it, even though you're paying for it with real money. An auto demolition system was very much needed due to people who left the game never to return, but a paying customer should never lose their house.

This!
I really cannot understand how anyone can defend a policy that permanently removes your virtual assets even when you are paying a sub. If this applied to minions, mounts or anything else we could get in-game or buy from the cash-shop there would be war.

Square have gone back on their word and while I can understand why that was necessary, I feel the present system is unnecessarily punitive. I think the very least we should expect is permanent storage of all furniture.

[JCharms]

If they had also included instanced housing along side of the hamfisted rubbish we ended up with, they could of avoided so much drama over all this time.
Pig headed devs with ridiculous backward visions...

[Cabalabob]

It’s not so much that they broke the promise that bothers me, it’s that people who already owned a house when they broke the promise weren’t grandfathered in.

I personally only bought a house because it didn’t require me to commit to the game. Then they changed their minds and now my sub fee is being held ransom when I was told that would never happen at the time I made the decision to buy my house.

[Ilan]

Yoshi makes a promise or says what he wants to do ------> one of his bosses says otherwhise and yoshi has to do what his boss says --------> com roasts yoshi.

The biggest mistake with housing was that they made private housing available if they have issues to get houses for everyone into the game.