Suggestion: Do not allow multiple service accounts all own houses.

[Mikki]

It's way more trouble than it's worth for SE to vet people for something that very few people do in the first place.....

And wasn't it you who said earlier you wanted the wards rather than instanced housing because you like the way wards are????? The reason to get a non-instanced house would be because you can show off your yard and have that neighborhood feel- plus, there would still be a sort of prestige to it. For people who don't give two flying flamingos about that, they can opt for instanced housing. A lot of people enjoy decorating but don't care if it's instanced or not. And there's really no reason why instanced housing couldn't have a yard too - look at Kugane's inn room. There's a garden off of it. Sure, you can't access it. But it would be possible to make it so that you could.

And Jojoya put it well. Options are good. I'm all for it if they want to do away with the ward system entirely but I'd prefer it a lot more if they'd give us the options so that at least everyone can have a house that's a nice size and fun to decorate AND allow people who really want to live in the ward to do that as well. Personally, I like having the wards. I really do. If I had a choice, even if an apartment could be literally the exact same size as a large house, I would still prefer the ward because I like the potential for a neighborhood feeling. Even if you could have a yard in the apartments, I'd still rather an actual house. BUT at least I'd feel happier knowing that if I lose my house for some reason or another, I can still get something just as nice at the apartments and not have to worry about losing it if I drop my sub for a couple of months.

But yeah, as Jojoya said.... the problem is that it wouldn't solve anything. Logically, you'd think "just add more wards to the populated servers and not to the low pop servers" but SE said that the system wasn't built to do that, so they can't do that. They'd have to rebuild the system if they wanted to do that and at that point, if they're rebuilding it anyway...they'd probably do something more sustainable and easier on their servers. And if they just added more wards as the system is, then it's a problem of there STILL not being enough on high pop servers AND there being tons of empty wards in low pop servers, which is a waste in SE's eyes and also it kind of devalues the experience for players on low pop servers because if you wanted an empty ward you could have just gotten instanced housing in the first place and then you wouldn't have to keep your sub up just to keep it, too.

In a perfect world, yeah. We'd have enough wards and houses for everyone. But we're just being realistic here; it's probably not going to happen sadly. Instanced housing is just more player friendly in every way. Literally the only thing it lacks is that neighborhood feel and I'd argue that it hardly exists anyway - as someone who basically lives in the housing ward. The number of times I've seen my neighbors is pretty laughable. The only time I do is if I'm near a huge FC house with tons of active members.

[InkstainedGwyn]

These suggestions that might add <100 houses max back into the market (not even per server) always amuse me because it's pretty clear that the posters are tunnel-visioning with the idea that they'll get a house, so it doesn't really matter how infeasible the goal is or whether it's actually fixing the system, does it? (Which, here's to hoping you're able to identify the empty houses, get there, and outclick whoever's waiting at the placard.)

I'm not even worried about suggestions like this because not only are they completely unreasonable, but far too much work (especially considering SE would lose money - lots of people with multiple accounts do it solely to get an extra house, so they wouldn't be paying SE for those accounts anymore.) It's just amusing how many complaints on the forums (not just housing, but it's a lot of it) break down into "I want a thing and I don't think someone else deserves their thing, it's not fair, so give me their thing."

[Canadane]

I feel like most of you are completely missing the point. I'm only saying it's scummy for one single individual player to own 4 houses, and not letting separate service accounts by the same person buy more houses would stop that. That's all. You and your husband are different people with different accounts, so I don't even see how what you said relates to this in the first place. Why even worry about a slippery slope which would very obviously never happen?

Even if it’s the same player, they are literally four separate people in this scenario.
I think this is fair game.

[LarryButz]

The argument against new wards comes from it both not solving the problem on high pop worlds where demand will continue to outstrip supply and by creating a new problem in its place - mostly empty wards on lower pop worlds when players who want that neighborhood feeling want to be seeing other players with houses in their ward, not a series of empty plots. If SE could expand the wards dynamically on a world by world basis so only worlds that needed more wards would get them, the objection to wards would mostly go away.

Lol that low pop arguement is silly. Don't buy a house on a ward that's empty. Easy. Or don't pick a low-pop server if you want to be around more people? And your argument about not adding wards because of high pop servers is literally solved by adding more wards so..

These suggestions that might add <100 houses max back into the market (not even per server) always amuse me because it's pretty clear that the posters are tunnel-visioning with the idea that they'll get a house, so it doesn't really matter how infeasible the goal is or whether it's actually fixing the system, does it? (Which, here's to hoping you're able to identify the empty houses, get there, and outclick whoever's waiting at the placard.)

I'm not even worried about suggestions like this because not only are they completely unreasonable, but far too much work (especially considering SE would lose money - lots of people with multiple accounts do it solely to get an extra house, so they wouldn't be paying SE for those accounts anymore.) It's just amusing how many complaints on the forums (not just housing, but it's a lot of it) break down into "I want a thing and I don't think someone else deserves their thing, it's not fair, so give me their thing."

Like half of what you said has nothing anything to do with what any of this thread has been about dude. You say it would only clear up <100 but then later say lots of people do it. Okay lol. And who cares it would free up <100 houses? That's not the point. I've very, very clearly stated that yes it's a very niche thing, but it's still stupid and scummy.

Even if it’s the same player, they are literally four separate people in this scenario.
I think this is fair game.

This makes absolutely no sense lol. If you mean four separate characters however, then that doesn't matter to me. Who cares how many characters they have? I'm saying one real person should only be allowed to have the same amount of houses as everyone else no matter what. It's just pay to win otherwise (as in now what these guys are doing). I literally could not care less how much "Work", "Time" or "Money" they spend. It's still basically flat out pay to win nonsense.

[LarryButz]

It's way more trouble than it's worth for SE to vet people for something that very few people do in the first place.....

And wasn't it you who said earlier you wanted the wards rather than instanced housing because you like the way wards are????? The reason to get a non-instanced house would be because you can show off your yard and have that neighborhood feel- plus, there would still be a sort of prestige to it. For people who don't give two flying flamingos about that, they can opt for instanced housing. A lot of people enjoy decorating but don't care if it's instanced or not. And there's really no reason why instanced housing couldn't have a yard too - look at Kugane's inn room. There's a garden off of it. Sure, you can't access it. But it would be possible to make it so that you could.

And Jojoya put it well. Options are good. I'm all for it if they want to do away with the ward system entirely but I'd prefer it a lot more if they'd give us the options so that at least everyone can have a house that's a nice size and fun to decorate AND allow people who really want to live in the ward to do that as well. Personally, I like having the wards. I really do. If I had a choice, even if an apartment could be literally the exact same size as a large house, I would still prefer the ward because I like the potential for a neighborhood feeling. Even if you could have a yard in the apartments, I'd still rather an actual house. BUT at least I'd feel happier knowing that if I lose my house for some reason or another, I can still get something just as nice at the apartments and not have to worry about losing it if I drop my sub for a couple of months.

But yeah, as Jojoya said.... the problem is that it wouldn't solve anything. Logically, you'd think "just add more wards to the populated servers and not to the low pop servers" but SE said that the system wasn't built to do that, so they can't do that. They'd have to rebuild the system if they wanted to do that and at that point, if they're rebuilding it anyway...they'd probably do something more sustainable and easier on their servers. And if they just added more wards as the system is, then it's a problem of there STILL not being enough on high pop servers AND there being tons of empty wards in low pop servers, which is a waste in SE's eyes and also it kind of devalues the experience for players on low pop servers because if you wanted an empty ward you could have just gotten instanced housing in the first place and then you wouldn't have to keep your sub up just to keep it, too.

It's obvious you did not read what I said, or just read it wrong. I've literally said I do not want them to vet people, and that having a mix of more wards and instanced, bigger apartments would be the best solution to the overall housing issue. Still wouldn't stop people from buying way more houses than they should be limited to though, which is what this is mostly about.

[Canadane]

This makes absolutely no sense lol. If you mean four separate characters however, then that doesn't matter to me. Who cares how many characters they have? I'm saying one real person should only be allowed to have the same amount of houses as everyone else no matter what. It's just pay to win otherwise (as in now what these guys are doing). I literally could not care less how much "Work", "Time" or "Money" they spend. It's still basically flat out pay to win nonsense.

If there are four individual service accounts being paid for, by all rights they are four individual people. It makes a lot of sense when viewed through the lense of the company, customer service, and logic. You may not like it but to say it doesn’t make sense, well...

[Alyanna_Elingval]

I have to respectfully disagree. While I think SE should have limited each account to one private and one FC house per subscription from the very start. Every paid subscription should have access to exact same features and benefits, whether a person has 1 or 100. What if a person actually wanted to play two accounts, or more so was paying for an account for someone else? Should the person they're paying for not be able to purchase a house in game?

I was lucky enough to add one of my alts to my friend list, so I can use my house while playing either character. But if I couldn't do that I may have purchased another subscription, and I would definitely be expecting to be able to buy a house on that new character.

[Lalarrific]

First, they need to get rid of the grandfather clause on multiple houses owned by a single character.

[MaybeOliverB]

First, they need to get rid of the grandfather clause on multiple houses owned by a single character.

A non-factor, next.

[Alien_Gamer]

Since there is literally no way for SE to determine how many people are behind the keyboard your suggestion is impossible. You can't rule out people based on address, email, phone number, credit card or ip address.

Without an effective means of verification this idea won't happen.