The Case for Instanced Housing

[Melichoir]

snips

The issue boils down to the same thign though - You either destroy ward housing and switch to an instanced housing system, or you run a parallel housing system which then deals with the issue of "Which is better." If you make instanced housing better, you then punish ward housing (and people who have had ward housing for a while). If you run it where Ward housing is vastly superior - then why not just upgrade apartments? It would be the same thing. Which is more or less my aim.

The suggestions I made with Apartments is to create a new housing structure that is inferior to ward housing but has its own benefits. Namely price point and availability - the two major underlying factors of the housing discussion broadly. My issue with OPs suggestions is they add bells and whistles that are frivolous. Theyre neat as a concept but actual usefulness is another question. For example, when really is the last time you used an airship after unlocking the major cities' aetherytes? Or that housing your squadron at your personal residence doesnt make lore sense (Theyre soldiers of the GC and youre their commanding Officer, not that they are your personal mercenary group).

You can solve most of the issues by upgrading an adding onto a system already in place, a system that needs the work, rather than tear down the entire system and move to an individual housing basis at the expense of players who like ward Housing for what it provides.

As a side note, yes I actually thought a lot of what Wildstar did housing wise did was ingenious. It had a lot more options and interest when it came to placing items and customization. However, while instanced housing did provide people with a place to call their own, it was also lonely. I could visit any house I wanted so long as it was open, but it isnt the same as running around the neighborhood, seeing an interesting exterior, and wanting to see the interior. When doing Wildstar, after a while I didnt bother checking out other homes cause most of the time they were undeveloped.

A key point to understand (and probably somewhat understressed) is that a lot of people react and act in regards to their surroundings. If the houses around them look good, people will be more inclined to try and do decent decorating themselves. If they cant see those houses or neighborhood, the likely hood of people putting effort or design into their houses drops. We can assume that htis is part of the reason why people want housing - because they can see houses and housing and think its cool. I think this facet isnt addressed in instanced housing. While I know there are plenty who would take an apartment and turn it into soemthing cool, my wildstar experiences tends to lead me to feel that the general mentality is "Buy a house, poke around a bit, then do nothing with it cause no one will see it most of the time." Part of the reason why people focus on glamour and mounts in this game is cause other people can readily see it.

.... My starter list would be:

*Make apartments available to every character that wants one. Yes, some servers may still have some availlable, but many others do not.
*Add an independent garden system that everyone can access or allow garden options to match that of a house
*Add an independent workshop system that everyone can access, or allow this to be accessed via apartments
*Allow tenants to be added

Just some thoughts:

I wouldnt give people housing out the bat. Housing is supposed to be a partial moneysink to keep the econ in control.

Id give apartments individual gardens that are accessible within the apartment. Kind of like how individual rooms within an FC operate. Point is to use systems in place to improve on an issue to cut down on some of the workload and streamline the process.

As for workshops, Id actually think those should be sent to GCs. GCs are already up S-creek on things to do, it would probably be better to add functionality to them rather than apartments.

I dont see why you couldnt add tenents to an apt, though admittedly I dont know why you would want to either.

[Shougun]

The issue boils down to the same thign though - You either destroy ward housing and switch to an instanced housing system, or you run a parallel housing system which then deals with the issue of "Which is better." If you make instanced housing better, you then punish ward housing (and people who have had ward housing for a while). If you run it where Ward housing is vastly superior - then why not just upgrade apartments? It would be the same thing. Which is more or less my aim.

No it doesn't. It doesn't punish ward users. I already said give ward users their silly little yard, and the pocket space. Just like if you had the flower quest done in FFXI and could change your exterior exit via a magical door, just like in Howel's Moving Castle with the magical door lock.

Owning a ward slot gets you a physical PO box and a tiny space of land, AND the instanced space. The interior of the house is shared (is the same, you may enter the house or enter your instanced exterior via interacting with the door).

Not owning a ward means you don't have the tiny ward yard, which is meaningless to anyone who feels like the wards are not that interesting right now anyways (quite a few of us), but it affords you a whole functional house like gardening and more impressively a massive suite of new upgrade choices and customization options (options that ward users also get).

If you quit the game you can lose your ward spot but you wont lose your instanced interior/instanced exterior.

Also instanced houses are better, lol.

[Skivvy]

Just some thoughts:

I wouldnt give people housing out the bat. Housing is supposed to be a partial moneysink to keep the econ in control.

Id give apartments individual gardens that are accessible within the apartment. Kind of like how individual rooms within an FC operate. Point is to use systems in place to improve on an issue to cut down on some of the workload and streamline the process.

As for workshops, Id actually think those should be sent to GCs. GCs are already up S-creek on things to do, it would probably be better to add functionality to them rather than apartments.

I dont see why you couldnt add tenents to an apt, though admittedly I dont know why you would want to either.

I'm not really opposed to housing (in whatever form it takes) having a price tag associated with it, I just feel like it's something that should be made available earlier in the game, and maybe not linked to having a certain GC rank. This game could use some money sinks, and housing is a good spot for that.

As for tenant options....I will admit that was a bit of an afterthought, although it could still be nice if that's the only housing you have, and you have someone who either likes to decorate for you (I personally had a friend design my house), or if they like to help out with your gardening or something along those lines. I do feel that if the upgraded apartments were made available to everyone, the need to allow tenants probably wouldn't be too strong, but could be a nice option.

In regards to the workshops, I don't know how it is for everyone else, but in the FCs I've been part of it's generally just one or two people who deal with the ships - everyone else pretty much just AFKs in the party and then has no further interaction with it (at least that's been the role I've always filled). It could be fun to get to actually control things, build your own ships, have your own personal missions, etc.

[Melichoir]

No it doesn't. It doesn't punish ward users. I already said give ward users their silly little yard, and the pocket space. Just like if you had the flower quest done in FFXI and could change your exterior exit via a magical door, just like in Howel's Moving Castle with the magical door lock.

I might be misunderstanding your point, so explain what you mean by pocket space. Im not referencing FFXI cause I do not have experience in that one, so your example is lost on me. Based on what you were saying, what it came across as was ward housing is still instanced housing - you just have it in a 'ward like setting' but you wouldnt have a neighborhood. Going to your house just puts you in your house/yard with stand in buildings or the like for the surrounding areas that you can see over your plot walls, but couldnt actually walk over and visit.

Also instanced houses are better, lol.

Instanced housing being better is dependent on what your goals are.

I'm not really opposed to housing (in whatever form it takes) having a price tag associated with it, I just feel like it's something that should be made available earlier in the game, and maybe not linked to having a certain GC rank. This game could use some money sinks, and housing is a good spot for that.

The game definitely does need more money sinks. Frankly, an idea I had a while back (and Im sure Im not the only person to think of this) was to remove the housing demo timer all together and switch to a property tax/renters fee. pretty much create a bank of sorts where you can deposit Gil. Every month, or two weeks, or whatever the interval, the game takes money out of that deposit based on rent/property tax. If you dont have enough Gil in teh deposit when it tries to extract, demo timer starts and you get a penalty. You have to pay the penalty + Fee before demo timer ends or you lose your apartment/house.

So for example, if you own a medium house in the Goblet, youd have to pay 50k every 30 days in Gil. you can store up to 100k in the Deposit, so two months worth. When its 10 days from the time to collect, if the deposit is short money, youll be notified upon log in with a pop up window. If you fail to pay the deposit, you owe the 50k + a penalty (lets say 50% of hte deposit cost), so now you owe 75k. You have 7 days to get the funds or your house gets demoed.

I think this might actually solve some issues that people complain about. It creates a new money sink cause inflation is an issue, it gives you a longer period of time to hold onto a house beyond the typical 45 days I think it currently is, you are notified in game very visibly you need to pay your deposit cause taxes are due in so many days, it removes the necessity to walk into your house (although I dont get why people struggle to do that over a 45 day period, but I digress.), and it creates a management and payment burden on players who own multiple properties through more unscrupulous means.

As for tenant options....I will admit that was a bit of an afterthought, although it could still be nice if that's the only housing you have, and you have someone who either likes to decorate for you (I personally had a friend design my house), or if they like to help out with your gardening or something along those lines. I do feel that if the upgraded apartments were made available to everyone, the need to allow tenants probably wouldn't be too strong, but could be a nice option.

I could see it being useful to allow someone access and control of your apt for decorating purposes. I dont see why they couldnt allow for 1 or 2 other people to be tenants for an apartment.

In regards to the workshops, I don't know how it is for everyone else, but in the FCs I've been part of it's generally just one or two people who deal with the ships - everyone else pretty much just AFKs in the party and then has no further interaction with it (at least that's been the role I've always filled). It could be fun to get to actually control things, build your own ships, have your own personal missions, etc.

Airship stuff is a bit tricky, just because Airship and Sub crafting is item intensive. Im not opposed to it, as I think granting greater access makes sense, its just Id maybe still let that be handled by GCs (like squadrons). it would probably make more lore sense, give something for GCs to be pertinent about, and possibly also justify differentiated costs. Meaning you wouldnt need as many parts/items for it if you did it through a GC, buuuut the draw back may be limited slots. Unlike an FC, at a GC you may only be able to build 1 Sub and 1 Airship at a time, for example.

[Shougun]

I might be misunderstanding your point, so explain what you mean by pocket space. Im not referencing FFXI cause I do not have experience in that one, so your example is lost on me. Based on what you were saying, what it came across as was ward housing is still instanced housing - you just have it in a 'ward like setting' but you wouldnt have a neighborhood. Going to your house just puts you in your house/yard with stand in buildings or the like for the surrounding areas that you can see over your plot walls, but couldnt actually walk over and visit.

If you watched Howel's Moving Castle just picture the door, if not.. it's neat if you like anime so go watch it lol.



But basically as a ward user you have purchased your instanced housing interior, a ward exterior yard, and a pocket world space instanced exterior. Like OP's image, like Wildstar or other instanced housing systems, the instanced exterior is going to be significantly larger than your yard (with wildly more free customization, like changing your backdrop so you're a floating island or with a specific weather pattern, or you can scale / float objects without it messing with others).

Instanced users will only have the instanced housing interior and instanced exterior, they will not have a ward yard. You can also add a housing link to the instanced system in the ward system, just to encourage instanced housing users to be able to exit to a ward sometimes even though they own no ward. Also I think adding in game supported competitions and other incentives to visit strangers (that have the public flag on) would be good, as well as adding more seasonal event / content concepts to the wards.

Basically you only own a ward house because you want to be part of the ward, if you -just- wanted a house you'd be instanced. People who don't want neighbors wont take space in the wards and those who want neighbors will be there. Ward users however would lack not a single feature, everything is available to them (hence they're not punished).

Ideally to add the instanced portion will get lots of granular upgrades and customization choices (like Wildstar), of course some of the purchases from ward upgrades would cross over into instanced (like buying a large house increasing the instanced interior). As I'd like to see housing come into the game sooner, and be a smoother process that can evolve with you throughout your whole experience. So definitely not losing the gil sink but parsing it down into better smoother bite sized pieces.

Instanced housing being better is dependent on what your goals are.

Totally fair lol. I was just being impish. :P

On a personal level they're potentially superior, like Wildstar, but that's also because I don't really care to have some stranger decorating my visual horizon with their phooka theme and would be more impressed with a system that adds long term progression and higher levels of customization. It's also why I suggested an Airship system that behaves more nodular, so it's low on memory use (instead of 200 xyzs of ?? items it's just like 5-50 nodes of 'slot y is ?? element'), is a system that can be good for those who can't decorate/don't want to but still want a home base (like how pretty the in game inn rooms are), and ultimately can still be nice for ward users. Since the home would be far more personal decorating touch, but the airship would definitely feel homely with an outward outpost/mobile base vibe and have customization still- just can't x y z place a flower put but rather upgrade rooms (nodes/airship designs) and change their themes and SE decorates it for you. I'd still think wards are a bit silly yet in that circumstance I'd probably just leave it alone as a salt topic because airships could easily still act as a long term progression system that co-exists and grows with your character, adding a personal space for those who didn't have one before for whatever reason, and allowing FC and players to enjoy content they normally couldn't due to scarcity issues (gardening/submarines/etc, via the Cid Workshop concept the thread mentions).

[Melichoir]

Snips

Hmm ok. I see the point being made. Essentially your adding an instanced area (garden) to pre-existing ward housing, while providing a completely instanced housing, wildstar style. The differences between the two is Wards actually get a front yard + neighbors, while instanced housing doesnt get that front yard or neighborhood. Garden area and interior between the two are identical. The exception being made is that wildstar type houses can upgrade the size of that housing, where ward houses are locked in.

This system broadly works fine, but ti does give a small advantage to instanced housing in one capacity - interior storage space. It is easier for an instanced house to acquire more interior storage space due to being able to upgrade your house. Simple solutino would be just equalize interior housing item count - they all get the same item limit, regardless of size. As a point, I have money to upgrade to a medium, but frankly I havent cause I like my location and feel of the size of my cottage. But I would kill for more interior housing space. Im one of those people that like people all sorts of small details into designs - something you cant do with the current housing limitations short of upgrading.

On hte flip side, as an added bonus for houses that are Wildstar styled, allow the player to pick 'location'. I.E your surroundings would be some 'theme'. Much like how Wildstar did that (kinda). Except in this case you could have a 'cliffside' house, or one in a dense forest, or one by a stream, or etc. Itd probably be a permanent design choice as I dont nkow how youd logic out your instanced house changing scenery unless it was mobile (which is kinda what Wildstar had an advantage on), but it would be an interesting customization option in placement of not having a yard or ward.

If you went the airship route, as suggested, then your surroundings can be where-ever cause airships obviously move, but the garden aspect would be lacking cause itd be weird to have a fullsize garden on an airship..unless you made an arboretum or greenhouse or something (I envision the District Promenade of Divinity's Reach from GW2, but smaller scale). Youd also have to help introduce the concept in game lore wise. Large scale airships arent seen to frequently outside of Garlemald from what I understand. Most Eorzean ships are small scale. But yeah, this would work in this context.

I think Airships, as a concept, probably wouldve worked better as an FC house than actual FC houses. Maybe they can introduce that in 6.0 - FC housing moving to Airships, and free up mansions for player housing. Itd be a more unique experience. Could do things like move airships to certain places so that it affects teleport fees too. Station it outside of Kugane for example, or outside Uldah. Airship look and design can be based upon which City State builds them. So gridanian airships look different than Uldah and Limsa ones. Etc. Its an interesting idea.

[Shougun]

Hmm ok. I see the point being made. Essentially your adding an instanced area (garden) to pre-existing ward housing, while providing a completely instanced housing, wildstar style. The differences between the two is Wards actually get a front yard + neighbors, while instanced housing doesnt get that front yard or neighborhood. Garden area and interior between the two are identical. The exception being made is that wildstar type houses can upgrade the size of that housing, where ward houses are locked in.

This system broadly works fine, but ti does give a small advantage to instanced housing in one capacity - interior storage space. It is easier for an instanced house to acquire more interior storage space due to being able to upgrade your house. Simple solutino would be just equalize interior housing item count - they all get the same item limit, regardless of size. As a point, I have money to upgrade to a medium, but frankly I havent cause I like my location and feel of the size of my cottage. But I would kill for more interior housing space. Im one of those people that like people all sorts of small details into designs - something you cant do with the current housing limitations short of upgrading.

On hte flip side, as an added bonus for houses that are Wildstar styled, allow the player to pick 'location'. I.E your surroundings would be some 'theme'. Much like how Wildstar did that (kinda). Except in this case you could have a 'cliffside' house, or one in a dense forest, or one by a stream, or etc. Itd probably be a permanent design choice as I dont nkow how youd logic out your instanced house changing scenery unless it was mobile (which is kinda what Wildstar had an advantage on), but it would be an interesting customization option in placement of not having a yard or ward.

If you went the airship route, as suggested, then your surroundings can be where-ever cause airships obviously move, but the garden aspect would be lacking cause itd be weird to have a fullsize garden on an airship..unless you made an arboretum or greenhouse or something (I envision the District Promenade of Divinity's Reach from GW2, but smaller scale). Youd also have to help introduce the concept in game lore wise. Large scale airships arent seen to frequently outside of Garlemald from what I understand. Most Eorzean ships are small scale. But yeah, this would work in this context.

I think Airships, as a concept, probably wouldve worked better as an FC house than actual FC houses. Maybe they can introduce that in 6.0 - FC housing moving to Airships, and free up mansions for player housing. Itd be a more unique experience. Could do things like move airships to certain places so that it affects teleport fees too. Station it outside of Kugane for example, or outside Uldah. Airship look and design can be based upon which City State builds them. So gridanian airships look different than Uldah and Limsa ones. Etc. Its an interesting idea.

You've understood what I was suggesting exactly.

Also on your location point I'd suggest that you have to earn the locations, before ShB, you will be unlocking a smaller selection, wooded area here, perhaps beast tribe reward there (actually a great way to bring beast tribes back, hard), and while they're pretty significant investments once purchased you own that land and it'll cost a bit to 'move' the rest of your property but you don't have to rebuy that whole area again (cost to connect aetheryte magic and also to build scaffolding appearance); however, after ShB you will be able to manipulate an area of 'that one place' that is for some reason particularly willingly to be bent to your will-- and from here on the cost to move is nulled or at least greatly reduced (as you don't rebuild anything, you just feed and learn to manipulate the area better- things are far less 'physical' minus the ward) and even more options are added (like options that normally don't make sense, for example you could have your house on top of the Ramuh fighting arena, well a larger arena but you know what I mean, rather than having weather that matches the area you physically owned before now you can control the weather patterns too, etc). Also at that point the game can let players sell essence that you use to recreate an area, essence being craftable and lootable. Essence of the Striking Tree, unlocks x weather x back drop x platform.

On the airship point I think you nailed it again. I was thinking that exactly, if you have an airship just park it where you want to have your background lol and if they use neat phased content concept you can even look down at real players doing stuff . For the garden bit again you're getting exactly what I was hoping for, and yes you would have to build and upgrade an indoor garden section (obviously the bigger better ones looking cooler but also taking more time to invest in).

I like airships get a really unique aspect of content as well like you taking your base of operations out into actual content, like imagine attacking a Garlean base with some air content and then you land a short distance away and as you storm the gates you can actually look back and see 'your' airship. Feel that'd be neat. Also I just really like FF airships lol. Always a big memory point for me when I get my airship in the games that have that.

+1 for pretty much getting everything I said and to a deeper level than just the surface, like the garden interior point was totally something I thought would be neat (and add a nice level of progression to the content, as you have to upgrade rooms and organize the growth of your ship over time). Not +1 to say you agreed or want exactly what I want, but just that it's clear we went from missing each other to like eeeeyyy 'they get me' lol.


Edit:

Oh just want to add that I definitely believe the upgrades for wards and the wildstar part should carry through.

If ward owners own their yard (ward), instanced land (wildstar style), and instanced house (present on their ward yard and on their instanced land)- buys a large house then their instanced house has that new limit (it's really one and the same) and if they upgrade their large house interior to mansion then it's true in general. If they lose their ward because they stop playing for a while their instanced house is still a mansion they just don't own a ward yard anymore.

The ward yard is exactly as it is now; however, now when you touch the door you can either enter your house or step through the door into your instanced land. If you enter your house you can then exit your house back into your ward yard OR you can exit into your instanced land. From your instanced land you can enter to your house or enter to your ward yard. In terms of memory management you've three spaces, your house, your yard, and your instanced land. If you upgrade your house, you upgrade your house- it doesn't matter if it was a user who was part of the ward or if they were part of the instanced system (no item count upgrade will be lost on a ward user, no extra rooms will be lost because you owned the wrong type of house).

Pure instanced users will not have a ward yard, but they'll still have access to all the other features of housing (just no physical address, no decorate-able mail box basically, your ward yard is your calling card that exists in a physical space and is specifically for people who want that (and just the ward yard can be lost if you stop playing)). Also like I said I think it would be neat if seasonal took place in wards more often, to add to the value of wards having a community of people, at this time because people can't take part in housing it would probably have some salt but I think if everyone could have a house through some means (airship/wildstar/whatever) that then embellishing wards with activities would be neat (like snowball fights during winter, etc).

Other benefit of that system is if you wanted a ward yard but couldn't find the right size (just smalls left for example) you're fine, because you could have a mansion interior house and a large instanced land space- so you don't have to decide between having a physical address and actual quality of your housing content. If you prefer the small nook location on plot X, go for it, it won't stop you from enjoying housing to the fullest potential (well your gil might but that's the good part is the system will let everyone spend their money).

[Barraind]

The issue boils down to the same thign though - You either destroy ward housing and switch to an instanced housing system, or you run a parallel housing system which then deals with the issue of "Which is better." If you make instanced housing better, you then punish ward housing (and people who have had ward housing for a while). If you run it where Ward housing is vastly superior - then why not just upgrade apartments? It would be the same thing. Which is more or less my aim.

I stand by my suggestion for instanced housing using the ward system (in a sense).


Each housing ward turns into a version of the current district. You dont zone into Mist ward X, you zone into Mist. Same for the rest.

In those wards are a selection of houses in prime spots. Mist on the beach, on the bluff, up the central walkway, ect.
Goblet has stuff around the pool, on the large imposing cliffs, out on the rocks overloking the gorge, ect.
And so on for the rest. Basically,t he spots that are camped the hardest, and those with unique views.


Replacing the other houses are merchant areas.

Traveling beast tribe vendors. Guild vendors (bringing some of those vendor materials only found in one city to the residential zones). Tomestone vendors. Scrip vendors.

More or less everything not tied directly to the current expansion (and even then, why not, its better than going to 1-floor Eulemore).

Keep market boards and retainer bells.


The spaces that ARE the player housing options have an interactable placard. Click the placard for a house, and navigate through the list of everyone on that server who owns a house at that spot. Select someones house, it displays the exterior of that house for you as a preview. You can then select to visit it, taking you to the instance of that house. Leaving that house puts you back near the entrance. You can also select to purchase a house on that plot from the placard.

Zoning in to that house puts you in an accessible truncated outdoor version of the ward. This lets you view the exterior bits from outside the house, lets you set up certain features that interact with the native zone features (the large in mist letting you keep bridge diving boards to the ocean for guests to use, as an example), and doesnt confine you only to the exact size of the house. It can also load specific or random houses for other visible plots to make it feel like its still an inhabited world.


This would bring more traffic to housing wards, bringing MORE interaction between players in those areas, and can simplify the amount of assets needed to be loaded in any one ward at any one time.

It also makes adding future housing wards easier, as you potentially only need spaces that could allow a small number of houses, and wouldnt require a sprawling area to wedge 30 into.

[Skivvy]

I stand by my suggestion for instanced housing using the ward system (in a sense).


Each housing ward turns into a version of the current district. You dont zone into Mist ward X, you zone into Mist. Same for the rest.

In those wards are a selection of houses in prime spots. Mist on the beach, on the bluff, up the central walkway, ect.
Goblet has stuff around the pool, on the large imposing cliffs, out on the rocks overloking the gorge, ect.
And so on for the rest. Basically,t he spots that are camped the hardest, and those with unique views.


Replacing the other houses are merchant areas.

Traveling beast tribe vendors. Guild vendors (bringing some of those vendor materials only found in one city to the residential zones). Tomestone vendors. Scrip vendors.

More or less everything not tied directly to the current expansion (and even then, why not, its better than going to 1-floor Eulemore).

Keep market boards and retainer bells.


The spaces that ARE the player housing options have an interactable placard. Click the placard for a house, and navigate through the list of everyone on that server who owns a house at that spot. Select someones house, it displays the exterior of that house for you as a preview. You can then select to visit it, taking you to the instance of that house. Leaving that house puts you back near the entrance. You can also select to purchase a house on that plot from the placard.

Zoning in to that house puts you in an accessible truncated outdoor version of the ward. This lets you view the exterior bits from outside the house, lets you set up certain features that interact with the native zone features (the large in mist letting you keep bridge diving boards to the ocean for guests to use, as an example), and doesnt confine you only to the exact size of the house. It can also load specific or random houses for other visible plots to make it feel like its still an inhabited world.


This would bring more traffic to housing wards, bringing MORE interaction between players in those areas, and can simplify the amount of assets needed to be loaded in any one ward at any one time.

It also makes adding future housing wards easier, as you potentially only need spaces that could allow a small number of houses, and wouldnt require a sprawling area to wedge 30 into.

I could get behind that. I think one of the bigger draws for that setup (to me) is the greater potential to actually have people hanging around outside. I do also like the part about the instance itself being a truncated version of the zone and not simply being an interior space (like it is now).

I tend to always mention GW2 & WS when trying to show how instanced housing [I]can[I] be, but it's also not entirely reasonable to expect XIV to suddenly drop everything they have and remamp it to match one of those options. I think your idea could be a great way to repurpose the wards, allowing everyone to have a home, while also bringing some much-needed activity to the wards itself.

[Melichoir]

Snippers.

I guess the things that pop to mind for the suggestion provided though is depopulation elsewhere if it works, along with some misc small stuff.

What I mean is providing services like Beast tribes and the like in wards could or would help depopulate world maps more than they are. Not sure if this would be a good thing. This gets a bit more noticable if you start bringing vendors for Tomestones/relics/etc to a housing ward, thus making older cities and what not moot. Admittedly, it seems the general trend in MMOs is that the older an MMO gets, the less inhabited the world maps become as it were. So world depopulation might just be an inevitable factor of MMOs, regardless of what they do and it may not make a difference.

The other aspect is I am not 100% sure you would drive a lot of traffic to wards in general. Outside of Beast tribe and Tomestone vendors, what would be offered that couldnt be achieved in Limsa, Uldah, or Gridania? City Hubs (and the relative proximity of an MB to an Aetheryte) is a factor that affects player congregation. If you want them to go to Player housing, youd need to make sure there was an aetheryte right there near vendors/MB. Then it gets back to depopulating other areas. Also, dunno how beast tribes would work? Do the vendors only appear when you complete a certain rating with the beast tribe so its instanced like how Namazu or Moogles worked? What about beast tribes from the 1st? How do you accommodate for future beast tribes?