Would a raffle system be that hard?

[Abbylegs]

WoW doesn't have player housing (they had a Garrison but it wasn't anything like FFs housing. Not sure about ESO, but I don't think ESO looks as good as FF.

[Jojoya]

WoW doesn't have player housing (they had a Garrison but it wasn't anything like FFs housing. Not sure about ESO, but I don't think ESO looks as good as FF.

The praise is generally for the way ESO housing functions as opposed to the art style (though the art style has its fans as well).

You can own every available housing location in the game if you want because it's all instanced. There's more variety in locations and layouts, essentially being pieces of the game world instead of isolated wards. No need for floating glitches - items can be placed and rotated freely not to mention resized. Game subscribers have higher item placement limits than we get in some of the housing locations (but those who play but aren't subscribed have lower limits to work with).

Now imagine that with the FFXIV art style. Wouldn't you consider it an improvement?

[Abbylegs]

The praise is generally for the way ESO housing functions as opposed to the art style (though the art style has its fans as well).

You can own every available housing location in the game if you want because it's all instanced. There's more variety in locations and layouts, essentially being pieces of the game world instead of isolated wards. No need for floating glitches - items can be placed and rotated freely not to mention resized. Game subscribers have higher item placement limits than we get in some of the housing locations (but those who play but aren't subscribed have lower limits to work with).

Now imagine that with the FFXIV art style. Wouldn't you consider it an improvement?

Oh that would definitely be an improvement, though I do really enjoy how FF has us in wards, I like seeing my neighbours around, you know?

[Jojoya]

Oh that would definitely be an improvement, though I do really enjoy how FF has us in wards, I like seeing my neighbours around, you know?

How often do you actually see your neighbors in your ward?

It's a rarity for me even though I go to my house a few times a day and I'll even craft in my yard when the weather is Clear/Fair. I've never seen the player who owns the house across from me even though I know they do go there because the yard is changed occasionally. Outside of friends coming to visit me at my house, the only time I've seen someone else in the ward is when I've gone to the marketboard and met someone who was also using it. It's not like my house is in a remote corner. If there was no Aethernet in the ward, there's a sizeable portion of the ward that would pass by my house to get to the beach or merchant stalls. Because the Aethernet exists, they can use that to get where they're going instead.

Wards do feel like ghost towns not because they aren't used but because there's no reason to travel through them.

You got a point there. They'd probably have to do something at raffle entry to sift out the bots from the actual players from the bots without the constant clicking for hours for an invisible timer.

Why would a bot buy a house? They don't have a use for one. If a bot operator is looking for a place a crafting bot can work unobserved, an apartment is a much better choice because they're instantly available and a lot cheaper.

Those automated placard campers aren't bots. They're normal players using simple repeating scripts (probably on a gaming keyboard) to do the clicking for them because they have no problems with cheating to get what they want.

Using the third party tool is still wrong but we really need to stop calling everything a bot when it's not.

[ItMe]

How often do you actually see your neighbors in your ward?

It's a rarity for me even though I go to my house a few times a day and I'll even craft in my yard when the weather is Clear/Fair. I've never seen the player who owns the house across from me even though I know they do go there because the yard is changed occasionally. Outside of friends coming to visit me at my house, the only time I've seen someone else in the ward is when I've gone to the marketboard and met someone who was also using it. It's not like my house is in a remote corner. If there was no Aethernet in the ward, there's a sizeable portion of the ward that would pass by my house to get to the beach or merchant stalls. Because the Aethernet exists, they can use that to get where they're going instead.

Wards do feel like ghost towns not because they aren't used but because there's no reason to travel through them.

Yeah... whenever I zip around a ward I only really see people at the market boards.
For all their talk of wanting neighborhoods and the community feeling they sure aren't doing much to provide on that front, huh...

Why would a bot buy a house?

... don't they do this to try and flip them?

Those automated placard campers aren't bots.
[...]
Using the third party tool is still wrong but we really need to stop calling everything a bot when it's not.

100%
This is a big pet peeve of mine.

[tdb]

... don't they do this to try and flip them?

A raffle system would make reselling houses even harder. More competition = less chance for the intended buyer to get the house.

The FC route exists, though it's not available for those who are members in some other FC and don't want to leave it. To further discourage that abuse, there could be some kind of restriction of leadership transfer, like you have to be a member of the FC for a month or two before you can be made the leader. That won't make shell FCs entirely useless for house flipping, but should lower the throughput and tie up resources for the flippers.

[ItMe]

A raffle system would make reselling houses even harder. More competition = less chance for the intended buyer to get the house.

Increased competition/demand sounds like it would lead to flippers being able to charge more.

[Vahlnir]

A raffle system would make reselling houses even harder. More competition = less chance for the intended buyer to get the house.

Which would be bad for everyone trying to get a house, not just resellers. It would do more harm than good in the long run. People just don't realize that, apparently.

[Barwara]

I've already said this on another post, but the way I see it the problem is servers. SE should expand it's server capacity and then we won't need to have conversations about faulty systems. The game shouldn't make content exclusive; everyone should have a chance to obtain every item in the game at their own pace. Grinding is good and satisfying when you finally obtain what you want, but making content only accessible by clicking a placard for 10 hours and taking a day off work to do it is disrespectful towards players. Not everyone has the leisure to do that. Some people can only dedicate a couple of hours a week to the game. They shouldn't be at a disadvantage.

Increase! server! capacity!

[DrWho2010]

Increase! server! capacity!

Too! Expensive!

Server costs are huge. You cannot just increase capacity at will. They also do in fact plan to add more servers.

just a little thing called a pandemic is preventing them from getting to go overseas from japan to the US to install them.