Hoarding Houses - Sometimes a Depressing Sight (a rant)

[AriesMouse]

snip~

Fair, my wording could have been better, you're right there.

I'll be honest, while I am within the fair limits of home ownership, I am just a bit miffed with the attitude and hostility a lot of transfers brought to this server. These people got a great opportunity to come to a quiet server, to liven it up, and all they brought with them was grief. Rather than making best of things, they instantly set into complaining, bullying, and generally being massive thorns in the sides to the people that originated on the server. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sort of salty about it. That being said, there are still plenty of people that came from those transfers that are amazing, the rare gems in the sea of salt from both sides at this point.

And again, I'm not directly saying you specifically/directly are demonizing people, I'm saying your stance, and the people that side with it, do. The perception comes across that way when you look at the over all picture, not just your one or two specific statements. I might not agree with you, but you do seem to me mostly reasonable/you do clearly care, you're not just slinging shade at people unprovoked. Not everyone on your side is that way though, and I tend to address the masses not just one. It's like fighting one political side with another, as awful a comparison as that is. One person can be reasonable, but the over all group mindset isn't.

[Penthea]

Fair, my wording could have been better, you're right there.

I'll be honest, while I am within the fair limits of home ownership, I am just a bit miffed with the attitude and hostility a lot of transfers brought to this server. These people got a great opportunity to come to a quiet server, to liven it up, and all they brought with them was grief.

Rather than making best of things, they instantly set into complaining, bullying, and generally being massive thorns in the sides to the people that originated on the server. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sort of salty about it. That being said, there are still plenty of people that came from those transfers that are amazing, the rare gems in the sea of salt from both sides at this point.

I think they're salty because they left servers where wards were constantly hopelessly full and they couldn't hope to afford to buy a house from a house flipper, or they didn't want to risk their account by doing so. Many of these people couldn't access housing for years. They left to find greener pastures, where there would be houses available that they could finally enjoy...and then they find an entire ward is taken up by two people. It can't be a nice feeling to leave one hopeless housing situation, and then be presented with something like this.

However I do understand your position. Your server was small, but it was chill. Now you have a lot of new people throwing around their bitterness and in some cases very harsh words. While they may be justified in feeling crappy, this doesn't change that it creates a negative atmosphere in what was once a pleasant quiet place.

As for the pair on Mateus who bought their houses while the server was dead:

It is a shame to see unused content, and it is a shame to see a server with sparse activity. While I disagree with grandfathering, I will not deny the people who took over that ward achieved something quite remarkable and did breathe life into an otherwise barren place.

I have said before, though I'm unsure if I said so in this thread, that I am more willing to understand hoarders who actually put in the effort to decorate their plots. I completely understand wanting to decorate much more than the current limit can offer you. I own the current maximum of every type of housing on my main, I have fc rooms and apartments on all my alts and I am tenant to two homes that I have put a great deal of time in to. I freaking love decorating. I completely get why people want several houses. I would love to have more houses.

But players like the one I mentioned in my first post make me so angry. Those seven plots are borderline abandoned and the characters that own them aren't being played. This isn't a player who is passionate about housing. Every time I see those plots I can't help but think of other players who could find great joy in decorating them. I said it's a shame to see unused content, and those houses that player owns are exactly that.

And again, I'm not directly saying you specifically/directly are demonizing people, I'm saying your stance, and the people that side with it, do. The perception comes across that way when you look at the over all picture, not just your one or two specific statements. I might not agree with you, but you do seem to me mostly reasonable/you do clearly care, you're not just slinging shade at people unprovoked. Not everyone on your side is that way though, and I tend to address the masses not just one. It's like fighting one political side with another, as awful a comparison as that is. One person can be reasonable, but the over all group mindset isn't.

Thank you for saying that I am reasonable despite your disagreement with my stance.

I do know the kind of people you are on about because I have seen them say things like "you're a horrible person for owning so many houses, SE should remove your account" and I strongly disagree with expressing this issue in this manner. Most of the time I would only go as far as to say that hoarders are greedy, because they are aware that they are potentially depriving other people of content. My personal opinion of who they are as a person stops there. It's only players, like the one I mentioned who was very elitist about housing regarding "free rides" who I would say is not a good person. And possibly the person who very recently accused me of having less passion for housing simply because I own less houses...like wow...quantity doesn't automatically equate to passion or effort. I felt as if he means to say my opinion matters less because I have less houses.

I understand why people might think my stance is demonising, because I am not putting house hoarders in a good light. I am saying that they are greedy, and this isn't a positive thing to say. But the unfortunate truth is their ownership of more than the current limit is causing problems for other people, and they know it. This needs to stop. Ideally SE should give us unlimited housing in some form...but as I already said before it's not likely.

I did say in my first post that grandfathering should be removed or to have a system in which hoarding wouldn't negatively affect anyone...but people have been debating with me as if I only said the former and not the latter.

It is not my intention to demonise anyone. My intention is simply to increase how many people have access to housing. That's it. However arguing for this does require stating what I think is an issue, and it's basically impossible to call something an issue without putting any negative labels on it.

I have had my house for two years and I still haven't forgotten the hopelessness of seeing the full wards. I have been leading my fc for over a year and I haven't forgotten the difficulties we had with having a cottage. Personally I'm doing bloody great with housing right now. My fc and I have everything we want and need. But not everyone is in this position and most of the time through no fault of their own. There are ways to increase the amount of players as fortunate as I am without asking SE to do something they probably never will...so here I am in this thread.

And for the person who thinks I put in less effort because I own less houses: I worked for over a year to get one house. I lvled all my crafters and gatherers with the sole intention of fueling my love for housing through crafting furniture and making gil. I camped the aetherytes for freaking months. I watched three houses I ran to be bought right in front of me. I experienced lost opportunities and hopelessness due to the broken system but I never gave up. My perseverance paid off because I ended up with enough gil to buy any class of medium house, and I had the incredible luck of ending up on one of my two dream plots. I literally jumped around the room and danced when I got my house. People who bought houses on sparsely populated servers cannot possibly imagine the joy and relief that I felt when I finally got a house in a server with constantly full wards.

My solution would be; SE to enforce the 1 personal and 1 FC house per SE account while also unlocking house use for characters on that account, and HEAVILY encourage current owners to relenquish their extra houses while grandfathering them in as current.

I'd love to say SE should just take the houses, but that is wrong. Encouraging players to voluntarilly relinquish their extra houses is the only fair way to do it. Perhaps give them a free subscription month per house, or triple the in-game value... etc.

I agree that some form of compensation would be a good incentive to relinquish plots. After reading this I am now inclined to think that those who have houses revoked if and when grandfathering is removed should be compensated, because the fact is something they own, and are using in some manner however small, is being taken away from them. It goes without saying that they should get a full refund of the cost of the plot and the house (they are bought separately). But there should be additional compensation. Perhaps some crysta for the mog station, or as you say some free game time. Maybe even both.

This is quite different to demolition because grandfathered players are actually using their houses to some degree, so the blow would really sting if their houses are taken away. The compensation should reflect this.

[Numenor1379]

No! No taking houses away from whomever the current owner is. If you own 27 houses right now, fine... you're grandfathered. 100% good, no complaints, no forfeiting.

But... if a system was introduced to entice those players to sell their extra houses, excellent. No coersion, no taking, nothing changing except the player deciding to give up their extra plots.