Housing Ownership System Abuse

[ErysNight]

The players who play are not virtual people. They're real. They spend real time and money playing the game. Their joy and frustrations are also real.

Sure you don't have to care about them but it looks like you're saying "none of this is real!" to justify your stance.

You'd be better off sticking to how you're not breaking any rules because at least that stance has some merit. Going into "it's just a game" territory just allows others to say the same to house hoarders when they say SE should take away their grandfathered plots.

But your point was on whether our in game actions have moral and ethical merit. I didn't speak to the individual motivations, I was addressing your point on whether the action of taking up something for themselves could be seen as selfish in an environment that doesn't have real world consequences.

For example, it's exactly the same with sports (another form of game) one team does not have to stop scoring touchdowns on the other because of some prescribed notion. MMOs are about accomplishment and achievement. Hoarding and collecting ARE the rules and the TOS supports it. So at the time the grandfathered employees were winning this "competition of sorts", that was the norm.

Returning to the sports thing, sure the losing team can be mad, but it would be insane of them to look at the other team and say "You're selfish, and greedy how dare you score all those points". Why not? Because it's not real life in the sense that the social contract of that game is set. The Referees (our TOS) are the only rules that need to be abided by.

It actually IS just a game lol.

[ErysNight]

QFT.

I wouldn't be surprised if SE is addressing housing before 5.4 because Covid affected housing significantly on JP servers as well. (Credits: Mew FC for scrapping the Lodestone data)

People seem to be hypocritical about ward owners who do it on 'dead' servers on NA/EU. I can respect a stance that's universal instead of this hand-waving "cultural differences."

Definitely a fare point. I went over to the JP Forums to check out their housing forums and there doesn't seem to be an uproar yet (but please note it's google translate) I'd be interested to see if they had posts like these there.

[Sylvastreak]

I'm not sure we can equate sports to an online rpg mmo, especially considering they don't exactly run any esports on it and the winning team of a tournament or league wins what? A shiny trophy that they usually have to return at the start of the next season. It's a bit different from an ingame house that may stand around doing nothing for literal years and never actually be used when someone else could be using it daily for things with their friends and decorate and use it to their tastes.

[ErysNight]

I have been refreshing because this has been interesting and stimulating but alas, adulting hour and I have to return to real life. I think back and forth discourse is fun and while I don't hope to change opinions, hopefully others found it refreshing as well. Just to stimulate the mind!

[xxvaynxx]

wait until ishgard opens up and they relocate every house, then people will no doubt suddenly care.

They'll have to be insanely quick to even move two houses.
In fact, the server would have to be basically dead for them to do that.
I wouldn't worry really. If you look in shiro, you won't see it. Maybe two at best and that was probably from buying someone house or getting lucky with a auto demo.
Also I only said that due to goblet being the least popular housing. Most Homeless people even refuse to move there even when desperate for a house and is usually the cheapest houses to buy in the house selling reddit.

[ErysNight]

I'm not sure we can equate sports to an online rpg mmo, especially considering they don't exactly run any esports on it and the winning team of a tournament or league wins what? A shiny trophy that they usually have to return at the start of the next season. It's a bit different from an ingame house that may stand around doing nothing for literal years and never actually be used when someone else could be using it daily for things with their friends and decorate and use it to their tastes.

Ah one last post, I saw this as I posted mine.

The accomplishment of getting the house is an achievement for people. All they wanted was to own one, because housing is finite in this game. It feels good to have one and like a loss to lose it. It's why people pay a sub to keep their houses even when they don't play. The very act of participating in housing is doing something with it for a lot of people.

It doesn't seem different to me but this is where we converge in opinions. I unfortunately have to get off the PC lol. But just differing opinions!

[k99]

I'm sure everyone is tired of seeing me pop in every now and then to do the whole "morals are not rules" reminder thing so I'll get right to the point.

OP you are in violation of forum rules by singling out a user by name. You may have censored the name, but you left the FC name fully visible. Rule broken. It is only a matter of time before this thread is locked/deleted.

OP you are constantly harassing players beyond logic about something that isn't a violation of rules and your only argument is that it is immoral. As you already know, moral decisions are not enforced by rules in the game world. The only time they are enforced upon is when they serve to inconvenience or grief players as detailed by the GM in the well-posted logs. Simply buying houses in mass is nothing that has grounds to be disciplined or enforced. Intent is the key word, and unless proven, there is no way to make a move.

OP you are constantly manipulating information in this argument, needlessly spreading hate and negativity, and you are encouraging others to gang up on users who are trying to explain why this mob mentality is unacceptable and going as far as trying to convince people that GMs cannot be trusted because you are unsatisfied with the way their ruling has worked out for you. You have been very vocal about how you do not care if houses were obtained either on the same account or separate accounts, and it is clear you are simply here to drag this matter out as much as possible. Your intent is clearly not resolution, but further drama.

The others in this thread who always chime in every time and continue to direct people's anger towards people who own multiple homes is nothing short of detrimental to the effort of ever resolving this or ever finding common ground to have a constructive discussion. Is is a really sad sight to see people turning into animals over something like housing in a game. This community should be better than this.

I understand that many of you are frustrated with the situation of housing, and you have a right to be frustrated. But desperately searching for a person to single out, blame, and ostracize is not the answer. If you are unsatisfied with the moral decisions of other players, breaking the ToS to start witch hunts against players on the forum is not the way. You should take your concerns to support tickets or chat and let them decide. We the players are not the judge that enforces the rules. It is your GM staff and SE who has the final say. This non stop harassment of players who are simply following their passion of housing, no matter how extreme, has to come to an end. The very people who are arguing morals in this matter are exercising very poor moral judgement themselves with their pitchfork approach.

[k99]

My point was, since you really need it spelled out for you (surprise) is that lots of things in real life are legal but are still immoral. Being fired for being black, gay, etc., example. In some states or countries, that's legal. Does that make it right or fair?

Just a side note, I feel it may be somewhat extreme to draw parallels to sensitive civil rights matters to the acquisition of virtual homes in a game. It greatly cheapens the importance and impact of such events. Making a comparison like this is just misuse of people's true misfortunes to try and escalate the actual severity of housing in a video game.

[Almagnus1]

The others in this thread who always chime in every time and continue to direct people's anger towards people who own multiple homes is nothing short of detrimental to the effort of ever resolving this or ever finding common ground to have a constructive discussion. Is is a really sad sight to see people turning into animals over something like housing in a game. This community should be better than this.

Did it ever occur to you by having one side basically ignoring the other's argument you end up with perfectly rational people going BAN EVERYONE THAT HAS MORE THAN ONE PERSONAL HOUSE AND CONTROLS SHELL FCS FOR HOUSING instead of talking it over like a rational adult?

It's not a one way street here, both sides are guilty of contributing to this cluster - and it's high time the multiple house owners admit they're in the wrong.

[Kenky]

it's high time the multiple house owners admit they're in the wrong.

But they're not..?

Again. If the game allows you to do it, then you're welcome to do it. The GMs aren't going to punish house-hoarders because "They have a house and I don't." sorts of reasoning. What they do is in bad taste and indeed greedy / selfish. But if the plots weren't being used before they had the idea, then they can't be slighted for people being upset after the fact, when they themselves had the exact same amount of time to buy up one of the plots.

First come, first served. Crying because you were late to the party is pointless.