Hoarding Houses - Sometimes a Depressing Sight (a rant)

[Alien_Gamer]

Says the guy who owns 27 houses...

Lets see, we started with 9 wards, now we have 18 and a 4th housing area with 18 wards for a total of 27 new wards (54 including subdivisions). Oliver has less than 1.

I can't place an exact number of reclamations per month but I'd estimate it around 20 (approximately 1%) on Jenova across all wards. So in 2 months the system would have reclaimed more houses than Oliver owns. Even at half that rate there's still be more houses opened each patch than removing his houses would account for.

Based on what I know of Jenova, if you removed all houses that were grandfathered in you might free up 1 ward. Given a few months that many wards are freed up from reclamation.

Regardless of your personal feelings for how he approaches housing, he is correct. Wards and reclamations both put more houses on the market than removing his houses, or any grandfathered houses would.

[MizArai]

Lets see, we started with 9 wards, now we have 18 and a 4th housing area with 18 wards for a total of 27 new wards (54 including subdivisions).

"We" started with like 5 wards or something. There were 8 plus the subdivisions when I started playing, so I wasn't around for the really rough times of no one being able to afford the houses and there not being very many.

[Alyanna_Elingval]

Lets see, we started with 9 wards, now we have 18 and a 4th housing area with 18 wards for a total of 27 new wards (54 including subdivisions). Oliver has less than 1.

I can't place an exact number of reclamations per month but I'd estimate it around 20 (approximately 1%) on Jenova across all wards. So in 2 months the system would have reclaimed more houses than Oliver owns. Even at half that rate there's still be more houses opened each patch than removing his houses would account for.

Based on what I know of Jenova, if you removed all houses that were grandfathered in you might free up 1 ward. Given a few months that many wards are freed up from reclamation.

Regardless of your personal feelings for how he approaches housing, he is correct. Wards and reclamations both put more houses on the market than removing his houses, or any grandfathered houses would.

I have no dog in the fight because I was able to get my dream house, but I don't know if I completely agree with this. Yeah, houses are opened up through reclamation that would cover the multiple houses this person has. However, that would only be a remedy to the overall shortage if the number of people seeking a house stayed flat. Reclamation would have to outpace the number of people currently waiting, and all of the new players who have saved up their nest egg to buy their first home in order for the multiple houses owned by players not to matter.

But at the end of the day it was a failure in foresight and planning by SE. They should be able to look at what their putting in place and think of the ways it can be abused. This one was pretty obvious. The only way I could back taking a house from someone was is if they could show the player either bought gil to buy it, or paid real money for it flat out somewhere outside the game. Because at that point they would have violated rules that existed at the time they purchased the house. But if I had an alt that earned the money in-game, bought a house and SE took from me after the fact I would probably stop playing.

[Alien_Gamer]

I have no dog in the fight because I was able to get my dream house, but I don't know if I completely agree with this. Yeah, houses are opened up through reclamation that would cover the multiple houses this person has. However, that would only be a remedy to the overall shortage if the number of people seeking a house stayed flat. Reclamation would have to outpace the number of people currently waiting, and all of the new players who have saved up their nest egg to buy their first home in order for the multiple houses owned by players not to matter.

The rate at which people buy houses and the rate which people leave are always going to be variable things. More people buy around big patches and expansions as people come back and more people leave towards the end of the expansion and between patches. None of that is really a surprise to anyone. But even during 4.2 when the new wards and restrictions were put in place, not all plots were bought on all worlds; most worlds were full but not all, and that was really the point of peak demand this expansion. Availability has only increased since then; many players have posted increases in plot availability on multiple worlds since then. So I feel confident that the rate of reclamation over the past year has been greater than the rate of purchase.

But at the end of the day it was a failure in foresight and planning by SE.

I agree there. They vastly underestimated the demand for housing and they've refused to make some necessary changes to the system. Whether thats from stubborness or server restrictions I don't know but its clear they aren't going to revamp it. The most I'd expect is more wards, more cities, or an expansion on apartments. None of which will happen before 5.1 though.