Plots everywhere demolished and open!

[GeminiReed]

To be fair, WildStar's housing would be a hard act for anything to follow.

Yes and no.

Everybody got an exterior plot with a good amount of room. Various dwellings could be added to provide interiors. If you were careful there were few, if any restrictions on where you could put stuff. The entry portal being a notable bone of contention. Adopting these two features alone would improve the XIV housing experience enormously.

IMO, Wildstar's housing should have been considered barely adequate instead of the Gold Standard MMO housing enthusiasts seem to consider it. Like many things in WS the community was able to work around some of the worst shortcomings of the interface thanks to their add-on API. Think of this: It was barely better than Bioware's NWN toolset and that was 10+ years old by the time WS released.

While it was completely instanced I've had significant better social interactions in both quality and quantity in WS than XIV's ward system. That's more the fault of XIV's awful chat interface and the lack of addons that allowed the RP community to replace WS's stock chat with one more suitable for RP.

[Shougun]

Yes and no.

Everybody got an exterior plot with a good amount of room. Various dwellings could be added to provide interiors. If you were careful there were few, if any restrictions on where you could put stuff. The entry portal being a notable bone of contention. Adopting these two features alone would improve the XIV housing experience enormously.

IMO, Wildstar's housing should have been considered barely adequate instead of the Gold Standard MMO housing enthusiasts seem to consider it. Like many things in WS the community was able to work around some of the worst shortcomings of the interface thanks to their add-on API. Think of this: It was barely better than Bioware's NWN toolset and that was 10+ years old by the time WS released.

While it was completely instanced I've had significant better social interactions in both quality and quantity in WS than XIV's ward system. That's more the fault of XIV's awful chat interface and the lack of addons that allowed the RP community to replace WS's stock chat with one more suitable for RP.

To be fair, or unfair? carrying on your yes and no comment lol, I have some really great memories of WoW's interface. Some features I still greatly miss and I'm like dang FFXIV why can't you---.. and then I remember that 98% of the reason why WoW's UI was so good for me was that it was modded to oblivion and back. XD

I think the comparison isn't quite perfect but you could say WoW gave the infrastructure (underlying potential features) for the community to go hogwild, so similarly Wildstar did that too (so I think it's worth saying they should get some credit, but perhaps not the typical kind you'd think of). The amount of power and creative control in Wildstar takes HUGE, MASSIVE, whacks at FFXIV- absolutely no comparison, miles and miles and miles better. But yeah maybe some weird quirks that the community had to get around lol. Certain games have done more or less, I just like the general whole package as a great piece to example (skydrop, weather, land, house, z axis, scale, massive amount of objects both inside and outside of your house- both of those limits mind you, for players that don't know what we're talking about, is much larger than FFXIV's, allowed players to join house power to create substantially larger full power community zones for things like basically in game cities, etc). ESO, another system a few people have mentioned- so I'm refrencing it, for example caps out at like 700 for the biggest house (and if you're subbed), but they have their own neat feature in that you can own all of the houses (so you could own like 42+ houses).

So Wildstar sitting at 1000+, ESO with the ability to own multiple 300+ houses, and then there is FFXIV where they can barely handle adding more limited quantity 400 item houses. .. . /playing my violin lol. Thankfully the entire game isn't just one feature.

To FFXIV credit, at least on the UI, a lot of stuff is much better out of the gate. I don't need to troubleshoot any of my UI and "it just works". Not sure how much credit I want to give to housing though since the glitches you have to do and repeat objects because scale and z axis control are not a thing.. FFXIV community has a lot of hurdles to deal with too (meanwhile getting way less power than Wildstar, and many other mmos). Objects in FFXIV are quite pretty, but .. you know.. the whole game is lol, that's about where I want to give credit for FFXIV (on the topic of housing at least, other parts FFXIV has done very well).

I think the social interaction part I want to add though is just proof though that instanced systems are not the death of social events, which is sometimes the counter argument people have to them. Like if you have that system then social interaction becomes the grave (which is often funny to read since the areas I go to are already dead or very nearly, lol). Certainly for both systems there are things that can be done to improve interactions, like if you had an instanced system it would be important to have a search able house board so you can find that cafe or whatever. May even have a weekly challenge log for some of the easiest tokens of your life, just because SE can (like venture tokens, to fit the theme, or perhaps MGP, or it could relate back into some other house feature, visit these houses get a bonus to your garden, or something). As an aside though while I think FFXIV's current wards are just about if not more dead than any sort of instanced system, with rare exceptions usually based on very specific types of people, I would say if FFXIV had kept housing FC only that then it would probably be much more social by the nature of lots of people (but that ship is long gone).

[SturmChurro]

Stole this plot tonight:



Yes, I still have that ugly house. The lavender bed base estates are nicer, but I don't want to spend another 450k... Also, this plot is literally right next to a marketboard, so great trade overall!

This is how many I stole it from..

SE made me what I am. Don't hate me! I had to! It was my only chance to get out of The Goblet.... FOR NOW. Saving up money, so I can get a bigger, better plot later. I'll settle on this until then! To Shirogane and beyond, that's my goal!

Don't tell anyone I still haven't touched crafting, so actual house customization for me is severely limited right now..

--

Congrats on clearing Housing (Savage), Sturm! As someone who actually likes using housing (and is proud of her yard), welcome to the club! Since we're both on Primal, let me know if you need any furnishings. I... uh... have a problem. *stares sheepishly at retainer full of unused housing items from retainer ventures, from completing crafting logs, etc.*

...

Thanks! I have done it again, and I have a foothold on a decent location in Lavender Beds now! I need to clear ultimate - which is a bigger house! Thanks for the offer as well, I'd like to make my house myself. Makes it feel more personal. Plus, it's a motivation to level crafting for me.

Oh yeah, that's a big issue. Probably a huge one for new FC's starting out. I've never really been in an actual FC (and not in one now) in all the years I've played this game, I've never even touched airships/submersibles, company crafts, or whatever. Instanced housing should at least allow people to touch some of these other aspects of the game. Otherwise, I think people have to, buy(?), fc plots from other players, I've heard. Not gonna act like I know anything about this though.

I... admit that's not a house I'd consider attractive, no.

Some of the housing types can be crafted by individuals, others (especially the newer ones) require using an FC company workshop to craft. That said, if the issue is the roof (my issue with it would be the roof, anyway), you can swap out the roof on that for something like the Oasis Composite Roof or Oasis Stone Roof relatively quickly.

In general, once you're into housing, I highly recommend using FF14Housing to look up the things you want. (For furnishings, the preview mode also lets you pick literally any furnishing in the game and try temporarily placing it to see how it looks.)

I don't think I really want to invest into this estate hall in particular. I'll just see what I can get aside from the base designs. The Lavender Bed ones are much nicer, I'll have to check out the mist ones, and what can be crafted.

Side note, they really need to give us a glamour dresser for housing. I'd have a reason to visit more often otherwise. Aside from novelty.

[Packetdancer]

IMO, Wildstar's housing should have been considered barely adequate instead of the Gold Standard MMO housing enthusiasts seem to consider it. Like many things in WS the community was able to work around some of the worst shortcomings of the interface thanks to their add-on API. Think of this: It was barely better than Bioware's NWN toolset and that was 10+ years old by the time WS released.

I would argue that comparing the Aurora Engine to an MMO housing system is sort of like comparing a sports car to a freight train; they both have wheels, yes, but they're sort of different categories, even if you can say "the train is better because it can pull more weight". And comparing a modern sports car to a train from the 1950's does not change the fact that you're comparing a car and a train.

If you're going to do that, then you might as well go "I can make more impressive stuff in the Unreal Engine than I could in WildStar housing" which, yes, is true. Because one is a game engine, and one is an MMO housing system.

I will definitely give you the fact that the default interface for editing housing in WildStar left something to be desired. But what you could build with that interface still seemed pretty powerful, and I've personally not encountered an MMO with more flexibility in what the end results of the housing system could be.

While it was completely instanced I've had significant better social interactions in both quality and quantity in WS than XIV's ward system. That's more the fault of XIV's awful chat interface and the lack of addons that allowed the RP community to replace WS's stock chat with one more suitable for RP.

Trust me, I'm well aware of the benefits of an addon system like that; I'm the one who wrote the original RP-aware chat log replacement during the WildStar closed beta—along with quite a few other things—and nearly took a job with the company as a result of that addon work. I'm already firmly sold on the "addons can be very beneficial" stance.

[Jojoya]

I don't think I really want to invest into this estate hall in particular. I'll just see what I can get aside from the base designs. The Lavender Bed ones are much nicer, I'll have to check out the mist ones, and what can be crafted.

That 450k you spent was actually the Estate Hall permit that "builds" the house. You would have had to pay that regardless of what exterior you want. I still don't understand why SE doesn't roll that into the price of the plot and give the owner a choice of default skins to select at the time they purchase the plot.

Mix and match of the Glade/Oasis/Riviera/Hingan exterior fixtures is a good way to go. They're either inexpensive to make (ask a friend since you don't craft) or cheap because quick ventures have flooded the marketboard with pieces. You should be able to at least the mandatory fixtures (wall, roof, door window) for under 100k if not the others (except fence) as well. Don't forget that some of the exterior fixtures can be dyed if different colors would make what you do have more bearable.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Am I the only one who actually likes the Goblet?

[Lumivyory]

Am I the only one who actually likes the Goblet?

I also like the Goblet! :'D
Used to have a nice small house there and I kinda miss it.
While Firmament is currently my fav, I would take Goblet over something like Shirogane any day.

[Payadopa]

Stole this plot tonight:

Good choice! I have the same spot.

I went from Ragnarok to Spriggan before it was cool and like 80% of all wards were empty for months.

[SturmChurro]

I had been checking plots last night (reason I got that relocation), and one lone Shirogane plot opened up. Looks like it because of the time, or just people not bothering to check Shirogane. At the same time, someone swooped in and relocated to my old Goblet plot (think it was an FC alt), and then there was ONE ugly spot left over in The Goblet, as well. All you need to know that housing sucks, is that there were anywhere between 5-6 people actively clicking the placard for that Goblet plot at 1 am EST. Two houses left, and these people desperately trying to get a plot - in The Goblet, over Shirogane (I guess they assumed it would get relocated to).

I camped out at the Shirogane plot with good company, and it took quite awhile for anyone to actually show up. Pretty good banter all in all. Anyway, I went to bed, and logged out at the plot, I was curious to see who would win out! It just so happens the very first person who started clicking last night spent 10 HOURS clicking that plot, longer than I even slept! They literally pulled an all-nighter! And they were the only person that stayed the long haul. Yet more proof of how terrible this housing system is. I watched it sell just now to them! Perseverance actually won out! I'm more surprised nobody relocated to it, had to be the time (night/morning). This is what I call a success story! They won the plot, but had no money to actually build their estate hall. So I might have given them almost 200k so they could build it.. Now they are over here taking gpose pictures in front of their house! Now this is a feels good moment!

Location is super CHOICE too, well for convenience, not so much looks:


I paid back my due for stealing my LB plot.

--

That 450k you spent was actually the Estate Hall permit that "builds" the house. You would have had to pay that regardless of what exterior you want. I still don't understand why SE doesn't roll that into the price of the plot and give the owner a choice of default skins to select at the time they purchase the plot.

Mix and match of the Glade/Oasis/Riviera/Hingan exterior fixtures is a good way to go. They're either inexpensive to make (ask a friend since you don't craft) or cheap because quick ventures have flooded the marketboard with pieces. You should be able to at least the mandatory fixtures (wall, roof, door window) for under 100k if not the others (except fence) as well. Don't forget that some of the exterior fixtures can be dyed if different colors would make what you do have more bearable.

Yeah, I probably should have actually looked at the other options though before I clicked the first one. Not gonna lie..

I'll see what I can do, now that I have a LB plot, I'm a bit more invested in upkeep. I'll probably start crafting soon, after I finish my last combat class.

Good choice! I have the same spot.

I went from Ragnarok to Spriggan before it was cool and like 80% of all wards were empty for months.

Thanks! Gonna stick to it for awhile. I need to save up my gil for the BIG ONE. I'll have to see how Ishgard (supposedly) pans out. That should be the next housing rush, I'd assume.

I'm just happy I was able to grab a semi-desirable plot in one of the places I would have wanted a plot (Lavender Beds, Shirogane)! I just happened to check the wards at the right time. Getting a house on Excal is pretty difficult.

[Payadopa]

I'm just happy I was able to grab a semi-desirable plot in one of the places I would have wanted a plot (Lavender Beds, Shirogane)! I just happened to check the wards at the right time. Getting a house on Excal is pretty difficult.

Fingers crossed!

I got suuuper lucky and got the mansion in Shrogane that overlooks everything at the very top for my FC. It was suddenly free and I ran as fast as I could. lol

I'm not even trying with Ishgard. I'm sure it'll be gone within minutes. But that's hardly a complaint seeing as I already have a nice house.