Alleo's Signature

[MomomiMomi]

So why not a year, then? That's even more lenient for those who have already paid their dues. Longer is better after all. Hey! Why not two years?? It'll still open up the houses... eventually.

You are right about patch cycles not being arbitrary, I'll concede that one. But it still doesn't mean they should have any influence over the housing timer.

Because some people are willing to compromise, something which I'm not sure you understand how to do.

I would prefer no timer at all in all honesty. It's SE who should bear the burden of this housing system, not the players.

They should simply provide more houses when there aren't enough instead of jumping straight to taking them away from those who already have them. Alas, they get to have their cake and eat it, too. And then they even get defended for it by the players. It's pretty amazing.

[Lubu_Mykono]

Because some people are willing to compromise, something which I'm not sure you understand how to do.

I would prefer no timer at all in all honesty. It's SE who should bear the burden of this housing system, not the players.

They should simply provide more houses when there aren't enough instead of jumping straight to taking them away from those who already have them. Alas, they get to have their cake and eat it, too. And then they even get defended for it by the players. It's pretty amazing.

The problem is you are looking at it as it if's a specific problem rather than a general issue in the wider community. There are numerous things to consider

1. The overall population playerbase. Let's get real, this is only going to drop until the next expansion, therefore the longer you hang around the better chance you have of getting a house
2. The demand per server - this is the biggest. I'm on two moderate servers and there is plenty of small houses available. If you do not have the option of buying a house then you might want to transfer.
3. House sizing - You cannot win here. If you made more servers with large or medium people would complain either way, either they didn't get it on demand or that their small should be maede bigger.
4. The long-term. The only real impact on Square Enix for housing is server costs and how housing impacts the value of retaining subscriptions. A few afternoons with a good analyst would work this out (and probably has). There is no point putting up more housing if there is already a decent number of plots available from a commercial perspective.

Tl;dr Housing is a commodity. As a corporation SE probably will not change their policies on housing to suit the small few opinionated players on a forum page. If you really want a mansion you might have to be willing to
1. Change server
2. Merge or allocate resources to an FC
3. Grind out gil for months/a long time
4. Hawk out the property board at every opportunity.

I don't like it but it's more likely to get the house you want doing that than by complaining to corporate who are more interested in profit margins than housing in one of their games.

[Rymm]

Because some people are willing to compromise, something which I'm not sure you understand how to do.

I wouldn't be quick to make assumptions about people because, honestly, I really wouldn't care much if SE chose to extend the demo timer. Or shorten it for that matter. As long as it accomplishes it's purpose of opening up unused homes for active players, then I consider it working as intended.

If you look back at my posts, I never once argued that it shouldn't be adjusted either way. I at one point asked someone to clarify their reasoning for claiming their way was better, but that was the closest I ever got to even hinting toward disagreeing. The only two personal opinions that I expressed were A) believing that the timer is necessary in the current housing system and B) understanding SE's reasoning for tying the timer to entering the house and not the sub.

What I do take issue with is flawed arguments. Like people claiming one length of time is better than another (which there is nothing wrong with, everyone has their own opinions) but basing their stance solely on their personal feelings and then presenting it as an objective fact (which is the sort of thing that torques me off.) The whole reason I even got drawn into this thread wasn't about the demo timer itself, but because someone made an erroneous, unrelated claim about what they pay for and I pointed it out what it is that SE is actually charging for. Things sort of snowballed after that, largely because of people who missed the point of my argument and just saw me as someone who disagreed with them and therefore must be refuted.

And, of course, the system would be better with instanced housing or dynamic wards or whatever else they could come up with that would allow each and every player to own a home and never have to worry about losing it. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who would actually argue otherwise. I personally really liked the idea that I once saw suggested where the housing wards still exist but when you walk up to the placard you can select which version of the instanced house you want to visit. I think that would be awesome and the best of both worlds (instance and neighborhood housing.)

Sadly, such a thing does not and may never exist. Until the game does change to support housing for each and every player, I feel the demo timer is the lesser of two evils.

[Alleo]

It's the crux of alimdia's argument. And total BS, which is the whole reason I got drawn into a discussion with her in the first place.

Yes you can use a quote out of the context and state that she sees it that way but it does not change the fact that housing started without the timer thus housing on itself was never something to keep us sub until the timer came. And thats exactly what Alimdia meant. That now this timer forces people to sub thus houses as those are behind the timer, keep us subbed. Nothing more, nothing less.

I know that you dont see PVP and housing the same but as you use it as an example, I do too, especially since PVP is the only other ingame part where you have limited items. So my question was how it would be fine if they suddenly created a new rule for PVP too?

In the end if the timer stays than it either should just be sub only and/or longer. So you would still have it to demolish really old not used houses but also dont force the people that are normally using their houses but just want to take one break, to continue to sub and play it nearly all the time. Even increasing the timer to 90 days would be better because that would mean that people could take a break between patches if its too boring. (Its not like every single house owner would always take a break)

[Rymm]

Yes you can use a quote out of the context

The only one taking the quote out of context is you. Here, I'll quote the entire sentence so that there can be no doubt:

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.

Let me break it down for you since you don't seem to get it. She disagrees with the fact you need to enter the house every 44 days to keep it. She believes that you shouldn't lose your house as long as your sub is active. She backs this up with the argument that the purpose of housing is to keep you subbed and so as long as it accomplishes that then entering it shouldn't be necessary. I based my posts and my argument on exactly what she wrote and she put no qualifiers in her posts about "now the timer forces us to sub" or anything else that you decided to attribute to her. It's there in plain English.

If you are so willfully blind that you refuse to acknowledge it and would rather pretend it doesn't exist, then there's really no point in pursuing a conversation with you.

housing started without the timer thus housing on itself was never something to keep us sub

I really don't know why you are arguing with me since this is exactly what I was saying.

And as for PvP, your example is still flawed. Houses aren't taken away from inactive players to punish them. They are are taken away to give other people the opportunity to access the features which would be otherwise unobtainable to them. Even if in your example they gave the Feast mounts to other PvPers who were still active, it gives them nothing that a regular mount doesn't except for a fancy skin. The only way to access crossbreed gardening or workshops is through housing. Now, I know the new owners might not access those specific features either, but at least they have the opportunity with the house being open.

[Lunavi]

I mean, it was not an unreasonable change. I think they were optimistic about how many housing instances they could pop out on a regular basis and pessimistic about how many people would be interested in this feature as I think they originally thought that only role-players would be interested in it.

[Lubu_Mykono]

If they added potted plants to apartments I think it would solve most the problems and/or benefits ofwning mansions. Problem is it would flood markets with gardeners then complaining about losing their revenue.

[Alleo]

@Rymm: In the end her point was that a sub alone should be enough to keep the house and not also have someone go into this. Because right now thanks to the timer people are forced to sub a certain amount of time if they want to keep it and the point was that if they force it like that, sub alone should be enough. We can now argue endlessly about the semantics since she did not include the timer in her words (maybe without calling someone else blind and other things) but in the end if you want to own a house right now thanks to the timer you are forced to sub and visit it. And as the OP pointed out, this was something that goes against one of their promises, thus if they go against it make it at least so that sub is all you need.

[ko_]

@Rymm: In the end her point was that a sub alone should be enough to keep the house and not also have someone go into this. Because right now thanks to the timer people are forced to sub a certain amount of time if they want to keep it and the point was that if they force it like that, sub alone should be enough. We can now argue endlessly about the semantics since she did not include the timer in her words (maybe without calling someone else blind and other things) but in the end if you want to own a house right now thanks to the timer you are forced to sub and visit it. And as the OP pointed out, this was something that goes against one of their promises, thus if they go against it make it at least so that sub is all you need.

But that promise as the way the system we have stands is impossible to keep. The timer like it or not is a must as without it noone would have a house who didn't sign into the game at the beginning. And that's a way more unfair system then the timer. Fact is with what we have the system we got is the best and most fair you can make it. You want to keep your house, you must use it. Otherwise it's poof and someone else will use it.

[Dualgunner]

But that promise as the way the system we have stands is impossible to keep. The timer like it or not is a must as without it noone would have a house who didn't sign into the game at the beginning. And that's a way more unfair system then the timer. Fact is with what we have the system we got is the best and most fair you can make it. You want to keep your house, you must use it. Otherwise it's poof and someone else will use it.

No, the most fair system would be you keep the house until your sub expires.