PSA/ALERT: Houses are getting demolished when they shouldn't. SE needs to see this!

[Alleo]

People complain about having nothing to do in the game; forum and Yoshida tell them to take a break. People take a break but receive wrong information about demolishing or no email at all and write that they lost their house; some posters being really rude and tell them that its easy to log into once a week to save their house..x)

If someone is on a break (which should be allowed even if you are a house owner) then this means they have no sub at the moment thus they cant just log into this (would also kinda defeat the point of a break). Thus they either have to remember when to come back which can be a bit chaotic if you have lots of things to do in real life or have to hope that the email about the demolition reaches them in time. That is no handholding, that is simply making sure that your customer does not lose something that limited because of one break and because of some problems with the mails.

I mean you have people that never got mails, that got them too late, that got them with a different timer (only 15 and 3 days left), then you have people posting that they got a demolishing mails even though they dont own a house or are not on the server and one even posted that he got the mail, went into the house and two days later still got another mail...something is wrong if so many things are happening to this mail. I for example have no single problem with getting any other mail from SE but I also never got my housing mail. Thankfully I did remember when I have to come back but others that may have some stuff going on in their life might not exactly remember the timer and they should receive the right mail, with the right date on the right time from SE.

Those of us who own a house, use it and want to keep it are kinda forced by SEs system to sub at least every 45 days so we already cant take longer breaks. We should then not also on top of that fear to lose our house because there is something wrong with the mails or even the system in the game.

[worldofneil]

That is not completely true. Any of the big email providers (like google or yahoo) have very stringent requirements on the senders of emails to prohibit automatically filtering their emails into spam folders. This requires special email headers and specific DNS records from the senders domain. If the demolition mail land into spam folders, esp. on services like google then yes, this is on Square Enix, not the receiver. They manage to setup up their other emails quite well, they should do that for those emails as well.

Yes you are talking about things like SPF and DKIM records. I've just checked and SE do have SPF setup and previous Square Enix emails that I have received are also DKIM signed. Unfortunately I don't have a housing demolition email to check, but if someone else does and could look in the headers for a DKIM signature that'd confirm if they use it for that as well (most likely, it's done by the mailserver itself, not the application sending the emails).

However you seem to be misunderstanding how the technology works and what the intention of it is. Setting these records up doesn't guarantee that the emails will be delivered.

These features are a way for the sending mailserver to confirm to the receiving mailserver that they are the one sending the message and that it hasn't been faked. It doesn't confirm if the message is spam or not (because spammers can also set up SPF, DKIM and whatever else if they wanted to). Using this technology (which SE is) gives the receiving email server a little more information about the origin of the email, but ultimately it's still up to them if they trust/deliver the email or if they junk/delete it. There is no magic "if you do this to your email then this email will always be delivered without problems or delays". Can you imagine the field day spammers would have if there was? :S

If spam was this easy to fix we'd have solved it years ago. It's not.

[qwerty23131]

Yes you are talking about things like SPF and DKIM records. I've just checked and SE do have SPF setup and previous Square Enix emails that I have received are also DKIM signed. Unfortunately I don't have a housing demolition email to check, but if someone else does and could look in the headers for a DKIM signature that'd confirm if they use it for that as well (most likely, it's done by the mailserver itself, not the application sending the emails).

However you seem to be misunderstanding how the technology works and what the intention of it is. Setting these records up doesn't guarantee that the emails will be delivered.

These features are a way for the sending mailserver to confirm to the receiving mailserver that they are the one sending the message and that it hasn't been faked. It doesn't confirm if the message is spam or not (because spammers can also set up SPF, DKIM and whatever else if they wanted to). Using this technology (which SE is) gives the receiving email server a little more information about the origin of the email, but ultimately it's still up to them if they trust/deliver the email or if they junk/delete it. There is no magic "if you do this to your email then this email will always be delivered without problems or delays". Can you imagine the field day spammers would have if there was? :S

If spam was this easy to fix we'd have solved it years ago. It's not.

Just to help you figure this out here is the headers for the demolition email I got in March with my email censored. Looks like DKIM is not included:

X-Apparently-To: censor{at}censor.com; Sat, 10 Mar 2018 08:26:28 +0000
Return-Path: <FFXIV-HOUSING@square-enix.com>
Received-SPF: pass (domain of square-enix.com designates 202.67.53.160 as permitted sender)
X-YMailISG: LjsJYToWLDtDqJOLka.f0wETrr.BvHlh7YWpsQnZ6ZYKevJP
SxIrRFkJMcYkyFGqv.afXNxnSfqHJBUzAdFEO.dJZ1aYsFa4bZbp6cE.Or.i
q_nTWKuadFFCFX4vilNZDhkq_5AFFVA57hpWVBJvfAfWW4lnBWnaQ8ZRZHIX
pIcStSgikMHuMKyKF3_7IOcIXQVgXm_Vv36JQ2vLq4DOFl1OauoJPztIURBt
c8Xff_R_liAyLoHM2xKAiwqyZbY_uSJqe7JBXuqWXH_uPy0scW2s5CDQYfKo
mWNv9cH7JFDc9y1QmmdWSHLlDkICSB9zzbNoKvapPZPos2U1iUntnB36s6aD
vRPl7Gv8tbYkfSrT5yIXkicjVXozf.viNxQCRgLlZgDaJ8lZPHY4O7lviII.
1Wl23fE4IF2hKOa86cAyhmFNp_ztvaMAJ2PEy5kVEoEvgL6bLeEAKKlt9lqp
2w24Ezbj4H2LjKMnEkw9HNt9RQdNAmnKC5ZK5AmcYNPdPGQRGIDlsfAVoVy1
1Gumw13CX3vfhUClXV9MKFqRBGZwaFIs7w1y2W5FLokGD8wMC4EW492CiTiu
UjCQbDpZSXHUPIVJHt0XSmw9Tweh7Xn_QtYb4IzTpniDnlHT3u..is9Bi_9w
UZZ3DFROSyCeUG2RJaq6.RC8c4S7avAV4wvzIdPj06WmM6vjqYb1CC6G_Tzk
UY5vYHJYB_wc3ROVSWMntkc.D5sFtsBbr4V9t0n7qPxzc2_l4k0ga8Lxc8im
_TTbHg9JJlbYTyw7MBfxbrFerH_zG.jBvt9KF_yr5qVAqUdumD8rhcBlvug3
P54MgMIFIGXLyTff6A7qTYlyPEeNegjW9amCD58kAhVqZUu6LPWOUV7PzLtz
vlBpRa3jMu326I6DpttZxyU9QIYqQHjAZb_yXU7IgMO2jmf4sC5qVqEoI1JL
JXiGgpYIEh2QFzyeODDJZ0x0u0XvP7CvbAbOeCsOxIj5OE6klKP1rtBXmqw6
dbj1s7ekNjGJXWO45yEs4vdLFhCBi5.lShqViZH0307SmxLvBiC7b5sB7jIs
IUJpqi4x7aUFPCz6FRYI1p6NPuMjQWHWf1Qo709g06wCiPjyGZkWfbjDTg--
X-Originating-IP: [202.67.53.160]
Authentication-Results: mta4217.mail.ne1.yahoo.com from=square-enix.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=square-enix.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO dmx02.square-enix.net) (202.67.53.160)
by mta4217.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 10 Mar 2018 08:26:28 +0000
Subject: FINAL FANTASY XIV Housing Automatic Demolition Notice (10-day Notice)
To: censor{at}censor.com
From: FFXIV-HOUSING@ square-enix.com
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 17:26:26 +0900
Message-ID: <201803101726.61545ffa@square-enix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Length: 14994


For clarity here is the stated date of demolition:
Demolition Date: 2018-03-19 20:00:00 (UTC)

[Penthea]

SE has no control over *their* spam filtering. It's also on them to go in their houses once every 45 days. The email that SE sends is just a courtesy reminder.

How is it not SE's fault if a person has zero issue getting mog station receipts, subscription payment notices and promotional emails from SE but has issues getting demolition notices into their standard inbox? If this is happening there is obviously something different SE is doing with the demolition emails that makes them more likely to be flagged as spam.

That is not completely true. Any of the big email providers (like google or yahoo) have very stringent requirements on the senders of emails to prohibit automatically filtering their emails into spam folders. This requires special email headers and specific DNS records from the senders domain. If the demolition mail land into spam folders, esp. on services like google then yes, this is on Square Enix, not the receiver. They manage to setup up their other emails quite well, they should do that for those emails as well.

Precisely. Senders can take measures to decrease the likelihood of being flagged as spam. SE have already demonstrated that they can do this for other emails they send.

As for people arguing about "why not use your house" and so on. This particular issue isn't about that. It's about SE saying they will do something, and whatever method they chose to do it in is clearly not functioning correctly...and it has been like this for months with no sign of them even addressing it. It's not unreasonable to expect features to work correctly, especially years after their implementation.

[Asphodae]

Figured I'd chime in. Got an email stating my house would be demolished on the 23rd of August. I renewed my sub on the 20th of August, logged in, went into my house on both floors, left to talk to some friends at my FC and logged back out. I've been pretty busy the past couple of months so I logged out for about a week, logged back in and my house was gone. Someone else had already bought it as well. I was mad and logged out and didn't get on for most of September because once again, busy and lost most of my will to play just because I was mad they even did this. I messaged SE about it, was redirected to a GM in game. Messaged someone. No reply. Messaged again asking if they received my message. No reply. Granted that was only about 6 days ago so idk how long it typically takes for them to get back to me, but an email confirmation that they received my message would at least be nice. The main problem is I've fully given up on getting my house back and such, but I didn't receive my items or the 80% of the money I should have gotten because I didn't realize there was a way to get it back. I also didn't get any notification that my house had been demolished stating that, unless I overlooked it in the aforementioned email stating it was getting demo'd in the first place. Now that I know you can receive your stuff back at least, I'm really mad I've lost everything due to a glitch that they apparently won't even respond to me about.

Attached are some of the email screenshots I received as well so they can't act like "Well maybe uhhh.... your spam folder, it definitely wasn't our fault"

[TalithaSolarien]

Just to help you figure this out here is the headers for the demolition email I got in March with my email censored. Looks like DKIM is not included:

X-Apparently-To: censor{at}censor.com; Sat, 10 Mar 2018 08:26:28 +0000
Return-Path: <FFXIV-HOUSING@square-enix.com>
Received-SPF: pass (domain of square-enix.com designates 202.67.53.160 as permitted sender)
X-YMailISG: LjsJYToWLDtDqJOLka.f0wETrr.BvHlh7YWpsQnZ6ZYKevJP
SxIrRFkJMcYkyFGqv.afXNxnSfqHJBUzAdFEO.dJZ1aYsFa4bZbp6cE.Or.i
q_nTWKuadFFCFX4vilNZDhkq_5AFFVA57hpWVBJvfAfWW4lnBWnaQ8ZRZHIX
pIcStSgikMHuMKyKF3_7IOcIXQVgXm_Vv36JQ2vLq4DOFl1OauoJPztIURBt
c8Xff_R_liAyLoHM2xKAiwqyZbY_uSJqe7JBXuqWXH_uPy0scW2s5CDQYfKo
mWNv9cH7JFDc9y1QmmdWSHLlDkICSB9zzbNoKvapPZPos2U1iUntnB36s6aD
vRPl7Gv8tbYkfSrT5yIXkicjVXozf.viNxQCRgLlZgDaJ8lZPHY4O7lviII.
1Wl23fE4IF2hKOa86cAyhmFNp_ztvaMAJ2PEy5kVEoEvgL6bLeEAKKlt9lqp
2w24Ezbj4H2LjKMnEkw9HNt9RQdNAmnKC5ZK5AmcYNPdPGQRGIDlsfAVoVy1
1Gumw13CX3vfhUClXV9MKFqRBGZwaFIs7w1y2W5FLokGD8wMC4EW492CiTiu
UjCQbDpZSXHUPIVJHt0XSmw9Tweh7Xn_QtYb4IzTpniDnlHT3u..is9Bi_9w
UZZ3DFROSyCeUG2RJaq6.RC8c4S7avAV4wvzIdPj06WmM6vjqYb1CC6G_Tzk
UY5vYHJYB_wc3ROVSWMntkc.D5sFtsBbr4V9t0n7qPxzc2_l4k0ga8Lxc8im
_TTbHg9JJlbYTyw7MBfxbrFerH_zG.jBvt9KF_yr5qVAqUdumD8rhcBlvug3
P54MgMIFIGXLyTff6A7qTYlyPEeNegjW9amCD58kAhVqZUu6LPWOUV7PzLtz
vlBpRa3jMu326I6DpttZxyU9QIYqQHjAZb_yXU7IgMO2jmf4sC5qVqEoI1JL
JXiGgpYIEh2QFzyeODDJZ0x0u0XvP7CvbAbOeCsOxIj5OE6klKP1rtBXmqw6
dbj1s7ekNjGJXWO45yEs4vdLFhCBi5.lShqViZH0307SmxLvBiC7b5sB7jIs
IUJpqi4x7aUFPCz6FRYI1p6NPuMjQWHWf1Qo709g06wCiPjyGZkWfbjDTg--
X-Originating-IP: [202.67.53.160]
Authentication-Results: mta4217.mail.ne1.yahoo.com from=square-enix.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=square-enix.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO dmx02.square-enix.net) (202.67.53.160)
by mta4217.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 10 Mar 2018 08:26:28 +0000
Subject: FINAL FANTASY XIV Housing Automatic Demolition Notice (10-day Notice)
To: censor{at}censor.com
From: FFXIV-HOUSING@ square-enix.com
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 17:26:26 +0900
Message-ID: <201803101726.61545ffa@square-enix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Length: 14994


For clarity here is the stated date of demolition:
Demolition Date: 2018-03-19 20:00:00 (UTC)

I pretty certain that having only SPF and no DKIM header will gmail have consider that mail as spam and will deliver it to said folder automatically. This is on SE's side and they need to fix that really fast.

[Nightroad]

I just wish to add to the seeming confusion what is going on.

I did receive a demolition e-mail notification for the FC house. And yes I have an Gmail account .

I will look for the e-mail to check the header , but I tend to be a bit compulsive in cleaning my gmail inbox and trash ......

[WhyAmIHere]

I pretty certain that having only SPF and no DKIM header will gmail have consider that mail as spam and will deliver it to said folder automatically. This is on SE's side and they need to fix that really fast.

What is DKIM, just another form of authentication?

[Dreggit]

I upgrade my house to an M from an S. I waited 24 days for devaluation so I could afford the house and finish the outside how I wanted.

Well apparently the M was demolished improperly.... and yesterday the prior owner was all uppidity of the fact and said I stole their lot. Which was not a fun experience.

Being at a loss I simply told them it was up for sale for more than 3 weeks before I bought it. If SE gave the guy back his lot of be really upset as I've waited patiently to upgrade, but at the same time I wouldn't want this happening to me either. But since the time I bout it my old S was purchased. So reverting wpuld be affecting 3 people at minimum and I don't think any current owners losing their houses to prior owners would be appreciative of this.

[Gallus]

Woah, that sounds pretty bad. I feel sorry for the people that suffered from this, behind a plot there's almost always a great amount of time and work, because people spend dozens of hours decorating their houses and gardens. If I had this happen I know I'd be severely disappointed. Hopefully SE can fix it asap.