Can housing demolition happen now? (or add new wards please)

[Eriane_Elis]

I know at first it was about the hurricane, and then it was the fires in California. But it's been a long time now, can demolition happen already? If not, can new wards please be added? I like my house very much but there are so many new players who can't get a house and veterans alike.

[BiffWellington]

I understand turning off auto-demolition when there's a natural disaster, and I approve of it, but these things only really affect a very small area when you consider that the NA datacenters basically serve half of the planet.

It'd be nice if they could limit these timer deactivations to the areas most affected by the disaster. For example, a hurricane hits Florida... turn off auto-demolition for a while for players living in Florida, and maybe Georgia and Alabama. Absolutely; that's fair. But there's no reason it should also be automatically turned off for players living in Saskatchewan and Argentina.

[Seraph522]

I understand turning off auto-demolition when there's a natural disaster, and I approve of it, but these things only really affect a very small area when you consider that the NA datacenters basically serve half of the planet.

It'd be nice if they could limit these timer deactivations to the areas most affected by the disaster. For example, a hurricane hits Florida... turn off auto-demolition for a while for players living in Florida, and maybe Georgia and Alabama. Absolutely; that's fair. But there's no reason it should also be automatically turned off for players living in Saskatchewan and Argentina.

The problem there is that it would be highly difficult, if not outright impossible, to narrow down auto-demolition in that manner. You'd have to match player accounts to living addresses, and I don't think we're required to give that information to SE to play the game; payment data is encrypted, after all, and that's the only place that information would be required, and using it for non-payment purposes would probably fall into a legal grey area at best (not to mention that you may have accounts with separate billing addresses from where you live). Tracking ISPs wouldn't work either, as people might be using VPNs or otherwise be logging in from elsewhere, and they would likely only be able to track that info while the player is logged in anyways. And it's not like servers are assigned to specific states or countries or even regions beyond NA/EU/JP, so that isn't an option either.

Personally, I'm hopeful that they'll announce the housing demolition reactivation in NA with 4.56 later this month, but they may be holding off until after the data center shift as well, so who knows.

Edit: I forgot, we do have a place to enter our current address on our Mogstation account; that being said, we aren't required to keep it updated, so its accuracy is not guaranteed (I just checked and found my living address from last year, for example, not my current address).

[LaylaTsarra]

They need to remove the entry into a house routine and make a paying sub the requirement for keeping a house. This current fiasco is off more than it's on and it's simply not fair to those who want houses to not have access to them from those who have stopped playing the game.

[BiffWellington]

Is that so? I thought they did have access to my address. I certainly remember giving it to them, but that may indeed have been when I put in my credit card info to activate my subscription. And if they do keep payment info encrypted and inaccessible, then you've made an excellent point, Seraph.

I thought I was really onto something there, but I guess they'd already be doing that if it were so easy.

[Seraph522]

Is that so? I thought they did have access to my address. I certainly remember giving it to them, but that may indeed have been when I put in my credit card info to activate my subscription. And if they do keep payment info encrypted and inaccessible, then you've made an excellent point, Seraph.

I thought I was really onto something there, but I guess they'd already be doing that if it were so easy.

Well, I just edited my post to reflect my error, though since the address you give doesn't have to match your actual living address (I doubt they check it with USPS or a similar organization in the US, let alone other countries), it still wouldn't be a good way to ID current living addresses.

[Seraph522]

They need to remove the entry into a house routine and make a paying sub the requirement for keeping a house. This current fiasco is off more than it's on and it's simply not fair to those who want houses to not have access to them from those who have stopped playing the game.

That would honestly make the situation worse, not better; someone could continue paying their sub without ever actually playing the game, let alone use their house, and they would never have to relinquish it. The only real solutions are to add more wards and/or shift over to instanced housing, but SE's been mum about the issue for a while. Maybe we'll see some of that change when 5.0 drops (though that's certainly not a guarantee).

[BiffWellington]

Well, I just edited my post to reflect my error, though since the address you give doesn't have to match your actual living address (I doubt they check it with USPS or a similar organization in the US, let alone other countries), it still wouldn't be a good way to ID current living addresses.

I think it'd be good enough. If you give them a fake address, or fail to keep it up-to-date, then that's on you.

[BiffWellington]

That would honestly make the situation worse, not better; someone could continue paying their sub without ever actually playing the game, let alone use their house, and they would never have to relinquish it. The only real solutions are to add more wards and/or shift over to instanced housing, but SE's been mum about the issue for a while. Maybe we'll see some of that change when 5.0 drops (though that's certainly not a guarantee).

I agree with this. If I quit an MMO, I don't bother to end my subscription because I could come back. It basically just ends when my credit card expires and I don't bother to log in and enter my new payment info.

[Seraph522]

I think it'd be good enough. If you give them a fake address, or fail to keep it up-to-date, then that's on you.

It could also probably be abused by people; if you hear about a major disaster, and know this system is in place, you might go in and change your address to take advantage of it and avoid the demolition timer. Not to mention the number of complaints that would come from people affected by the disaster who just forgot to update it (who would be understandably outraged, especially if they discover that down the line) and people miffed about data privacy and the like. It's a good idea in theory, but I think it would create more problems and work for the development team than it would benefit; they're better off just shortening the period it remains turned off (it probably would have been fine to turn it back on back when 4.55 dropped, but they didn't for some reason).