Ishgard Restoration will finish in 5.4

[MikkoAkure]

I doubt it'll ever be anything but that.

People assumed the Firmament would be new player housing towards the end of the expansion but after the more recent restoration steps, it seems less likely. They build houses in the firmament, but they are NPC houses, and they also placed a Custom Delivery NPC in the area too. Its shaping up to be little more than a fleshed out doman restoration, rather than a server wide effort to get a new set of player housing wards. I doubt we'll be getting Ishguard housing at this rate, especially as SE STILL havent confirmed or denied the rumors by this point so late in to the restoration. Also, considering they're adding yet more wards on tuesday to existing areas, you'd think they'd of confirmed if ishguard housing is coming or not by this point...After all, if they confirmed it suddenly there is going to be half as many people rushing for a house on tuesday as they wait for ishguard housing, which will give those desperate for ANY house a chance to get one on tuesday.

If this wasn’t going to be a lead up to a housing district, then what was the point of making a zone that looks like a housing district down to the same number of large, medium, and small plots of houses all plopped down in a fashion that looks like a housing district and an obvious apartment building at the top of it all? I can see this specific zone remaining as a crafting and NPC area but considering all the other housing wards have dozens and dozens of copies not filled with NPCs, I don’t see why that won’t work here.

It would be in really bad taste for them to make an out-of-season April fools’ joke out of a zone that looks exactly like a housing zone but isn’t.

[Rufalus]

My guess is player ishgard housing will be announced at the virtual fan fest for release next expansion. The grinding this expansion was just to prep the lore for housing to be available, the post-war recovery efforts.

[Shougun]

Of course it won't. They have to sell that "this place has seen hard times" vibe to people arriving in the city for the first time.

It's why I think it would be best if the progression of the area related to your own personal journey while binding the maximum progress to the community (such that everyone who is actively end game contributing progresses the area as a team, and must do so or it wont upgrade, meanwhile those coming in late get to see the city evolve as logical to their story) over just... "this area is blown to bits and oh yeah this area is immaculate cause WoL helped, and like.. uh.. didn't care about the rest of the city lul".

Plus I just generally like to see stuff change myself lol. It's why I don't and wont play a sandbox mmo, but why I play FFXIV. I know someone say "But this is an MMORPG!" but clearly this is a unique one where a massive amount of it is personally driven (and even in other games less story driven like WoW there is still a HUGE bias to the personal journey), like the vast majority of the game is such that story is a requirement and pretty much nothing moves without you. This of course also means that sometimes it's maybe a good idea to have a diversity of content, so... just do something different cause.. maybe something different is nice.. so I'm not saying it's forbidden lol, just that having the personal journey be paramount to the experience of the game is certainly well within the wheelhouse of this game and is not a strange bias to have (and enjoy / encourage about the game).

If the clean up causes so much issue that they must use very strict phasing then I can understand the hesitance (makes people have trouble playing together), but if it's like beast tribes (which doesn't) then I eagerly encourage them to use this more. Foundation may be able to get away with beast tribe clean up, as for the housing zone.. that'd have to have something a bit stranger (fade away if you go beyond an area unrepaired in another person's world but you're still all on the same plane of existence, and if you join parties it'll add an 'echo' overlay to the players as they sync up to let them know they're phasing through time), so I'm still kind of pushing / encouraging SE to consider it anyways so long as it's not horribly restrictive phasing for the next content concept like this (I encourage the community ideas again, but like I said lean more into community determines the maximum step, personal determines the actual - and if the area can utilize a phasing system without too much pain then do so, and if it can't then I guess fine sometimes it is what it is).

If this wasn’t going to be a lead up to a housing district, then what was the point of making a zone that looks like a housing district down to the same number of large, medium, and small plots of houses all plopped down in a fashion that looks like a housing district and an obvious apartment building at the top of it all? I can see this specific zone remaining as a crafting and NPC area but considering all the other housing wards have dozens and dozens of copies not filled with NPCs, I don’t see why that won’t work here.

It would be in really bad taste for them to make an out-of-season April fools’ joke out of a zone that looks exactly like a housing zone but isn’t.

Not quite set up for it, but I had imagined it would be a fun content to have a Dark Cloud sort of system where you get to find and house NPCs across the world and this would provide you benefits and progression in a fairly long lasting system (that keeps getting added to, like the delivery NPCs at max can be asked to come to your village). Maybe a little Anime Crossing like in vibes, or the other 500 rpgs that have a roster / recruitment system lol. The content could be for FC or the personal, either or would be neat (of course for the FC would be a nice new group project for FCs). An NPC housing visual might work very well for that (although clearly not required to look 'just like' player housing lol).

[swiss_Momo]

If this wasn’t going to be a lead up to a housing district, then what was the point of making a zone that looks like a housing district down to the same number of large, medium, and small plots of houses all plopped down in a fashion that looks like a housing district and an obvious apartment building at the top of it all? I can see this specific zone remaining as a crafting and NPC area but considering all the other housing wards have dozens and dozens of copies not filled with NPCs, I don’t see why that won’t work here.

It would be in really bad taste for them to make an out-of-season April fools’ joke out of a zone that looks exactly like a housing zone but isn’t.

This. I expect them to turn the current firmament with all the side quest NPCs into a ward 0 of sorts

[Jojoya]

I doubt it'll ever be anything but that.

People assumed the Firmament would be new player housing towards the end of the expansion but after the more recent restoration steps, it seems less likely. They build houses in the firmament, but they are NPC houses, and they also placed a Custom Delivery NPC in the area too. Its shaping up to be little more than a fleshed out doman restoration, rather than a server wide effort to get a new set of player housing wards. I doubt we'll be getting Ishguard housing at this rate, especially as SE STILL havent confirmed or denied the rumors by this point so late in to the restoration. Also, considering they're adding yet more wards on tuesday to existing areas, you'd think they'd of confirmed if ishguard housing is coming or not by this point...After all, if they confirmed it suddenly there is going to be half as many people rushing for a house on tuesday as they wait for ishguard housing, which will give those desperate for ANY house a chance to get one on tuesday.

There will still be player housing. SE isn't going to tease it like they did then go "ha ha we were kidding".

In the Nest, the only houses that are clearly reserved for NPCs are the house for the orphans and the one for Maurice and his family. Not being on Tonberry, I don't know what house(s) in Featherfall are marked as reserved for NPCs. All the rest should be available for players to choose from.

The two possibilities I see happening are:

The current Firmament ends up as ward 0 with normal wards getting added.

The current Firmament provides a new type of instanced housing so only one ward is needed and players are free to pick which plot they want to use that isn't already designated as a NPC house. This might mean losing the ability to place outdoor furnishings if the entire plot isn't instanced and it only provides a portal to the instanced interior as current plots do.

With the Firmament being completed in 5.4, it seems far more likely that we will get the new housing in 5.5. There was some speculation that it wouldn't be available until next expansion. If that was going to be true, it would make no sense to end the Firmament in 5.4 and leave 5.5 without new Firmament content.

[Kuroka]

There will still be player housing. SE isn't going to tease it like they did then go "ha ha we were kidding".

They did not straight out say "no male Viera/female Hrotgar" sooooo i dont expect much from them lol

...but i really hope for a isntanced housing there between all those npc... all houses in the same style is kidna,... neat...