Alleo's Signature

[Alleo]

The person I was quoting directly before bringing up housing features was claiming that SE added housing (and the demo timer) solely to force people to stay subbed. I brought up the examples of features housing offers only to point out that they are why housing was added, not some crazy conspiracy by a mustache-twirling, money-grubbing SE dev. The list of examples I gave have no bearing on my argument about the demo timer itself and was merely to counter that specific claim brought up by that specific poster.

I know this discussion comes up a lot (A. Lot.) and that one of the ideas often kicked around is if SE should have other requirements in place for players to keep their houses; minimum number of furnishings, move things around inside every so often, etc. Let me just be clear that I am not one of the people in favor of these type of suggestions.

SE obviously wants housing to go to people who are going to use it in some way, shape or form. They could, theoretically, add any number of convoluted, authoritarian requirements to make sure that you are actually "using" the house. Instead they went with a softer touch (which I agree with) and just require you to visit it a bare minimum of once every 6ish weeks. They are leading the players to water, but leaving it up to the individual whether or not they choose to drink.

I just knew someone was going to take what I said in that post out of context.

I am also quite sure that people did not say that housing itself was created to keep people subbed because housing started without the timer. (And I agree with one poster, somehow recently people that own more than one FC and private house were grandfathered in but those that bought houses before the timer did not, which imo is also not quite fair) But since the timer started people are not only forced to sub nearly constantly but also visit the house in that time limit. At the same time Yoshida more and more stated that people should just go play something else between patches if they are bored..this is kinda ironic since the timer exist thus people cant just play something else without paying and playing anyway. So for me its completely understandable that we house owners are a bit annoyed to have to be punished for their bad system.

I am also gonna be honest and say that I have never read that anyone would want much stricter rules that includes moving stuff around. The only thing that I remember are fees for house owners.

The thing is, SE never truly cared for housing. They created this limited system and was fine with it. Until the playerbase got more and more (rightfully) pissed of because they could not get houses. And instead of fixing their system so that everyone can have a house they just punished us owners by creating a timer which also includes that you need to go into the house. They were completely fine with letting people sell and buy houses until the players were annoyed about this again and then they said that this is not good but never really enforced it either...and on top of that after all the time were even the timer is not enough to give people houses, they release a new zone which ends in another housing war and lots of backlash. Thus they were forced to release many more wards which still does not solve the real problem. So for me they never cared how many people get a house because the system itself makes it impossible to have one for everyone. Even if only truly active people own a house it would not be enough. So the timer is nothing but another bandaid fix (and a broken promise) which ultimately never solves the problem, while keeping people forced to sub if they dont want to lose it.

To battle all the unused plots from players that never play again, they could have simply created a system where you get a mail after half a year of not paying a sub and if they dont react on this the house would be demolished. Half a year should be enough for someone to decide if they want to play anymore and if someone has something happening to them in real life they have the time to sort it out and if they cant go back soon they still could simply sub to not fall under this. I know that there would be some people annoyed because in their view such a person has no right to own a house but honestly that just opens the door to the question of "who really deserves to own one?"

About PVP: So would you be fine if they suddenly made a rule (because they noticed that the limited mount is not used in a certain way and people are angry that they lost their chance to it) that anyone who does not use it in a certain amount of time will get it taken away? Because that is exactly what happened with housing. There was no timer and a promise to not have it. People probably worked hard to get one (since it was more expensive and you did not get Gil so easily) and bought it with the knowledge that it would stay with them. And suddenly thanks to SEs bad system they could lose it if they want to take a break that goes longer than 1 1/2 months..and it also did not solve the problem at all. Yes after the first time quite some houses got demolished but after that its was barely the case. (Its not like houses did not get demolished without the timer)