Can I report people for buying multiple houses?

[PewPewPewPewPew]

(Continued from previous post)

So the question now is, does that still make me a terrible person for coordinating a mass buyout of houses by the book and within the parameters of the "rules"? Everyone owns only two houses, which is allowed, and we have simply decided to dedicate our second home to our FC as a team effort. Though some will argue that this is a gross accumulation or hording of houses, my FC and members are all very dedicated to what we do and how we play. We play hard, and we want to play -very- hard. Of course, this does not go mentioned without understanding that it may inconvenience some players or seem insensitive to the needs of others. Understandable, but we try to make our meaningful contributions to players around us to spread some of the wealth we accumulate.

But more pressing than this question, I would like to address that not one person up until now has come forward with actual official writing or a statement from SE or Yoshida that states anyone who buys more than 2 homes is in violation of the rules and will have actions taken against them including suspension, ban, or termination. Nowhere does such writing exist and the only thing in writing so far is merely a statement of technical limitations per service account. Nothing about violations or enforcement are mentioned with relation to those technical limitations. There is no official text which states that staff will take action upon any user who has acquired more than the technical 2 houses per service account via means that are already in place in the game.

Further evidence of this is the GM conversation posted by another user earlier in this thread that shows the GM saw no reason to take action upon the user for buying an entire ward. The reason for that is simple: Technical specifications do not translate to VIOLATIONS.

At the end of the day, I believe that the only 'violation' occurring around housing is related entirely to morality which differs from player to player. As demonstrated by the OP of this thread who also buys multiple houses, felt that someone buying MORE houses was where the line was crossed.
SE does not enforce upon morality, because those cannot be covered by the rules nor can intent be proven. The GM conversation shows the GM asking if any intent of malicious behavior or griefing were to be attached to the act of buying houses, only then could a GM after investigation take any actual action. But that action would not be related to a loophole around buying houses via a legitimate (albeit 'immoral') process in the game.

(Continued on next post, so sorry )

[PewPewPewPewPew]

If you read through this long I want to thank you for taking the time to read it.

So as one of just a handful of mega-house buyers, I am humbly asking you to consider these points going forward and to factor these into your discussions on this topic ongoing. No rules have been violated or broken. Only ethics, which are not covered by the rules in the game and ethics which differ from player to player. My parting opinion on the matter is that if housing were truly in peril to such a degree that a truly significant distribution of the population were inconvenienced by the lack of exterior-attached housing (aka not apartments/Fc rooms), then SE would certainly take aggressive action to correct it. Seeing as how there is no correction nor any form of correction on the horizon, I believe it serves as an indicator that this matter is not so disproportionate as posters on the forum may otherwise suggest, and that it is simply a topic that keeps getting over discussed without much progress and understanding.

[Penthea]

If you read through this long I want to thank you for taking the time to read it.

So as one of just a handful of mega-house buyers, I am humbly asking you to consider these points going forward and to factor these into your discussions on this topic ongoing. No rules have been violated or broken. Only ethics, which are not covered by the rules in the game and ethics which differ from player to player. My parting opinion on the matter is that if housing were truly in peril to such a degree that a truly significant distribution of the population were inconvenienced by the lack of exterior-attached housing (aka not apartments/Fc rooms), then SE would certainly take aggressive action to correct it. Seeing as how there is no correction nor any form of correction on the horizon, I believe it serves as an indicator that this matter is not so disproportionate as posters on the forum may otherwise suggest, and that it is simply a topic that keeps getting over discussed without much progress and understanding.

So your argument essentially boils down to "if SE are doing nothing then it must mean nothing is wrong".

I think you're mistaking SE having other priorities to them actually being genuinely happy with the housing situation.

SE view housing as side content. This is very clear. If fixing the housing situation could result in the loss of other major content, then I could easily see SE choosing to focus on that content instead of fixing housing.

Additionally, I don't know if you're aware, but the housing situation isn't as dire in Japan because the culture over there is much more conscious about how their actions affect other people, and conforming to a standard is very much expected. So that would be another reason as well as to why SE are slow to do something. Their target audience is doing better than we are as far as housing goes.

SE only take real action if enough people complain at the same time. This distinction matters because while there is a constant flow of players in this forum unhappy with the housing situation, it is just a flow. It's not a gigantic wave of discontent all happening at once, which is what happened at the Shirogane launch. And that incident was why SE finally took some decisive action to discourage house hoarding and flipping, and added more wards in a later patch.

This is an interesting thing to point out because there was already ample feedback in the forums for several years consistently pointing out issues with housing acquisition, hoarding and flipping. SE had been warned about these problems thousands of times, and were happy to ignore that feedback until it came back to bite them when the Shirogane launch became a horrific mess. It was such a huge mess even third party websites were reporting it as news.

This has shown that SE don't really care about the glaring flaws of the housing system, and feedback about it, unless enough people complain at the same time.

Basically what I'm saying is: don't confuse SE's apathy towards changing the housing system for them truly believing it's in a good position.

[Doozer]

I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said, but I always get a chuckle out of the fact that threads like these always attract certain people. Specific people that always have something to say when someone mentions people owning lots of houses in a negative way. Funny.

[Losara]

SE needs to figure out a way to allow players who don't have housing to purchase housing reliably (not apartments) and address situations where multiple houses are purchased by 1 person FCs. e.g.

[SpecialTaskForce]

Report don't do anything, I would know

[ERMITANYO]

Lets hope ishgardian housing has something new to offer that brings a solution for housing concerns.

SE should also set for reconstruction other war torn areas like ala mhigo, mor dhona, and doma.

[Ryaz]

I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said, but I always get a chuckle out of the fact that threads like these always attract certain people. Specific people that always have something to say when someone mentions people owning lots of houses in a negative way. Funny.

I love the fact that a lot of the people who own multiple houses know it's unethical, but also know there's no laws broken, so they don't really care. Speaks a lot about the kind of people they are. If this were The Walking Dead, they'd be the Negans of the world. Lol.

[Yshtola]

I love the fact that a lot of the people who own multiple houses know it's unethical, but also know there's no laws broken, so they don't really care. Speaks a lot about the kind of people they are. If this were The Walking Dead, they'd be the Negans of the world. Lol.

Laws? Might want to take a break from the virtual world, just saying.

There are plenty of people on this forum who openly mention how they never really do anything with their house, but you don't see anyone going after them with pitchforks. You might want to start showing consistency with your so-called ethics.

[Penthea]

Lets hope ishgardian housing has something new to offer that brings a solution for housing concerns.

SE should also set for reconstruction other war torn areas like ala mhigo, mor dhona, and doma.

Omg...Ala Mhigo housing...yes please! I don't know what Mor Dhona housing would look like...we only have that town to go on and it's just plain stone. I suppose it could take inspiration from Mhach but given that's a dead city state, I dunno.

Not sure if they would do Doma because that aesthetic is already covered by Shirogane. I wouldn't be against it though.

I love the fact that a lot of the people who own multiple houses know it's unethical, but also know there's no laws broken, so they don't really care. Speaks a lot about the kind of people they are. If this were The Walking Dead, they'd be the Negans of the world. Lol.

You meet all sorts in games. You often see what people are really like online because they tend to be more honest when they can hide behind an avatar.