Housing needs to be addressed.

[Azurith]

Which is why many of us are pushing for a fully instanced system for houses, not just apartments. Unfortunately, that would take a lot more time for SE to develop and implement compared to adding new wards.

Hopefully we get both - new wards as a temporary post launch measure then a new instanced system later in the expansion.

I wouldn't say most. Quite a lot of people like myself hope *they never* introduce instanced housing. Part of the appeal of housing is the neighborhood, randomly walking around to look at people's houses etc. They have apartments which are pretty much dead, you never get random visitors. Thats what instance housing would do.

[Edax]

I wouldn't say most. Quite a lot of people like myself hope *they never* introduce instanced housing. Part of the appeal of housing is the neighborhood, randomly walking around to look at people's houses etc. They have apartments which are pretty much dead, you never get random visitors. Thats what instance housing would do.

I agree. Runescape had instanced housing and it sucked. It was so terribly isolating, it felt like I was never part of a community.

[Nothv13]

I agree. Runescape had instanced housing and it sucked. It was so terribly isolating, it felt like I was never part of a community.

The problem is that most of these districts are dead because the plots are so limited, thus for most they still don't feel like a community.

Now, if they would do something like BDOs housing, it could be very interesting. Instanced, but built directly into the world. Make each plot instanced and it shows the oldest purchased house on that plot by default but changeable by you by using the placard. You get more people into the districts, able to somewhat tailor the look of neighborhood, get rid of the buying/selling problem, and you can still get the feeling of a community.

[Solarra]

... Quite a lot of people like myself hope *they never* introduce instanced housing. Part of the appeal of housing is the neighborhood, randomly walking around to look at people's houses etc.

Ideally we would have instanced housing (I'm talking about something better than apartments) as well as the existing wards.

While I can see walking round the ward is a little more immersive than clicking to visit from a menu, I'm not convinced it outweighs the low outdoor furnishing limits and short supply of plots we have to suffer in consequence.
I'm also a little envious of those people who talk about seeing lots of people in their ward and getting random visitors because it happens so rarely that I ever see anyone near my house and most of my guest book entries are either from friends or just me messing around.

I sincerely doubt they'll scrap the wards as they've invested so much in them, so I don't see any harm in pushing for better quality instanced housing to go along with them.