Hear me out: Paid housing

[MicahZerrshia]

But also a good system to hit players using RMT solutions and makes people much more visible when they are engaged in such transactions.

No they need to solve the housing problem, not create another one that would be a much larger PR nightmare than what already exists, then exasperate the already existing rmt problem, just to take steps to reduce it back to it's current state so they look good.

Sorry you can't find a house dude, but that doesn't mean you should be spending your time looking for ways to punish those of us who spent months camping the wards for an open plot before this silly band aid was applied, when you could instead be putting pressure on SE to solve the issue once and for all. Players who already own housing are not the problem here.

[Jojoya]

No they need to solve the housing problem, not create another one that would be a much larger PR nightmare than what already exists, then exasperate the already existing rmt problem, just to take steps to reduce it back to it's current state so they look good.

Sorry you can't find a house dude, but that doesn't mean you should be spending your time looking for ways to punish those of us who spent months camping the wards for an open plot before this silly band aid was applied, when you could instead be putting pressure on SE to solve the issue once and for all. Players who already own housing are not the problem here.

How badly would you have gone after than house if you had to pay gil monthly to keep it?

I completely agree that SE needs to solve the supply problem and believe it should be possible for them based on what other MMOs have done with their housing systems. But for the sake of discussion, what if there is truly some quirk in the system that prevents them from creating a solution whether technical or because of great financial cost it's not feasible?

How do we discourage people who only buy a house because they've got nothing better to do with their gil, which reduces the supply for those that truly want and would use a house on a regular basis?

You don't like the idea of a monthly fee, even though it would be very effective. People get a lot more cautious about their purchase choices when there's a monthly fee involved, even relatively small ones, because that affects their future earnings. One-time purchase fees only impacts their past earnings. Either they've already got the gil or they don't. Either they can afford it or they can't.

So if a monthly fee is not the answer and there are reasons why supply can't be increased to meet demand, how would you solve the problem?

[Neoyoshi]

I like how people making "self-proclaimed smart" ideas when they don't even understand how SE's server infrastructure work at all.
Their server infrastructure is not as simple as one you "pictured" in your head.
Overall Japanese's server technology is behind Western by one generation where Chinese and Korean are already much more advanced than Japanese in this category

How do I know this?
It is from a podcast from one of the Asia game publisher explaining why they are unable to publish FF14 in their country but they can publish WoW instead.
It is due to lack of physical spaces to keep the servers and the high maintenance of the FF14 servers.
Especially SE's approach is go for stability where they are always use server from same manufacturer (this is why you rarely seeing server congestion or failed patch day from FF14)

Just imagine this game publisher is able to host WoW servers but not FF14 due to physical space for server.
The cost of SE is open a dedicated house ward is much costly than you expected.

This point will likely get overlooked more then most points, so i'll quote it, because it's something so few people seem to be aware of.

[MicahZerrshia]

So if a monthly fee is not the answer and there are reasons why supply can't be increased to meet demand, how would you solve the problem?

As someone who isn't a game developer, I don't know simply because I do not know what is and is not available to me. So this question isn't one that I can actually answer.

As someone in advertising and public relations, I do know that suddenly adding a monthly fee, which punishes players who already purchased a plot based on the fact that there was no monthly fee is not the way to go. Not everyone who owns a house is drowning in gil, this is quite a false equivalency. Many people have been scraping gil together for months to buy a house just to have it taken away by a sudden monthly fee. It is up to the people at SE, who know what options they have and what budget they have to work with, to find another way to solve their supply problem, while creating a little fallout as possible, especially if they ever want to have the option to make another mmo since these things follow you, especially when you have a big name like SE does.

Sometimes you need to bite a bullet and commit more money and time to something neglected or not good, even if it takes away from something less important like they did with dungeons. Ask yourself, why are we getting farmville if housing is a priority? Or sometimes you need to look at options that you were not even bothering to consider, like instanced housing, because that wasn't your initial vision. The only reason we got for this not being a thing, was that they wanted to keep the community feel, nothing was ever said about budgets or servers.

Let's move to that other comment.

How do we discourage people who only buy a house because they've got nothing better to do with their gil, which reduces the supply for those that truly want and would use a house on a regular basis??

You should not add a feature and then actively discourage people from using that feature or retroactively punish the players who already took advantage of something you offered as a one time purchase, just to make up for your mistake. They already added a reclaim timer, so you do need to actively use your house, by the most minimal standards, to keep it. Now how active you want to be with your house outside of that is up to you. What using a house on a regular basis means to one person, could be drastically different to another. You may think, for instance, that you need to use your house daily to be considered active, some may only be able to log in once a week and consider themselves active. Another may barely log in, but enjoy having a house they decorated to the nines and is open to the public and consider it being actively used just for that reason alone.

Is using it for RP only using it on a regular basis? Is just sitting it in or going afk in it actively using it? Is crafting in it actively using it? Is making it into a showroom for yourself actively using it? All these could be answered yes and no by different people. So this argument about who really wants one and who will really use one is a bit arbitrary.

I also know that fighting amongst ourselves about something that is quite literally out of our control and not a problem of our own making is not going to solve anything. We should not be looking for ways to punish other players, we should be putting more pressure on SE to solve their own problems in a reasonable manner.

[Themarvin]

No they need to solve the housing problem, not create another one that would be a much larger PR nightmare than what already exists, then exasperate the already existing rmt problem, just to take steps to reduce it back to it's current state so they look good.

Sorry you can't find a house dude, but that doesn't mean you should be spending your time looking for ways to punish those of us who spent months camping the wards for an open plot before this silly band aid was applied, when you could instead be putting pressure on SE to solve the issue once and for all. Players who already own housing are not the problem here.

How can it be a PR nightmare enforcing the no RMT rule more strict, be a PR nightmare? Nono, it would be the opposite, if they neutralized or had no pardons for using RMT.

I do have a house, there is absolutely no reason to attempt to grief or be outwards rude to anyone... I don't mind paying millions of gil a year to keep a house alongside with staying subscribed of course.

[Penthea]

How can it be a PR nightmare enforcing the no RMT rule more strict, be a PR nightmare?

Because your so called solution doesn't fix the problem at all, which is the lack of houses. You can't fix a supply issue if you are not taking measures to increase or improve the quality of the supply. Your solution is literally "lets make this too expensive for some players". Making something out of reach doesn't automatically make players not want it. If that worked there wouldn't be lesser skilled players complaining that certain content is too hard for them to get the goodies they want.

If more houses is not a possibility SE could at least improve apartments so that players wouldn't feel like they're missing out on a lot by not having a house. We need improvements to the system itself, not new ways of frustrating players. I'm starting to think you actually want to create some sort of upper class group of house owners and everyone else be just "the rest". You just never stop talking about the supposed merits of adding more paywalls.

If you really want to fix RMT then REDUCE the incentive for RMT. Increasing the prices of already poorly designed acquisition achieves the exact opposite of this.

[Themarvin]

Because your so called solution doesn't fix the problem at all, which is the lack of houses. You can't fix a supply issue if you are not taking measures to increase or improve the quality of the supply. Your solution is literally "lets make this too expensive for some players". Making something out of reach doesn't automatically make players not want it. If that worked there wouldn't be lesser skilled players complaining that certain content is too hard for them to get the goodies they want.

If more houses is not a possibility SE could at least improve apartments so that players wouldn't feel like they're missing out on a lot by not having a house. We need improvements to the system itself, not new ways of frustrating players. I'm starting to think you actually want to create some sort of upper class group of house owners and everyone else be just "the rest". You just never stop talking about the supposed merits of adding more paywalls.

If you really want to fix RMT then REDUCE the incentive for RMT. Increasing the prices of already poorly designed acquisition achieves the exact opposite of this.

But they are not going to make it possible for everyone to get a house plot that is playing the game, that is a fact and reality.

[Awha]

How can it be a PR nightmare enforcing the no RMT rule more strict, be a PR nightmare? Nono, it would be the opposite, if they neutralized or had no pardons for using RMT.

I do have a house, there is absolutely no reason to attempt to grief or be outwards rude to anyone... I don't mind paying millions of gil a year to keep a house alongside with staying subscribed of course.

Let us be real if SE doubled down on the fact that housing is a finite resource that is not meant to be readily available and started to charge people a maintenance fee it would not go over well. Which would have to be fairly large amount to even serve as a deterrent to those who have many houses. I know two to even ten million a month would be a drop in the bucket for me personally and would not cause me to even consider to give up any of my plots.

All a maintenance fee would do is alienate those trying to break into the housing market. I get the idea behind it, but all it would do is put the burden on the newer players who do not have as much gil.

[MicahZerrshia]

But they are not going to make it possible for everyone to get a house plot that is playing the game, that is a fact and reality.

Actively playing the game does not mean actively making enough gil to afford a monthly fee that is a actual fact and reality. Ppl who equate owning a house with drowning in gil are really out of touch with the player base at large.

[Penthea]

But they are not going to make it possible for everyone to get a house plot that is playing the game, that is a fact and reality.

Conveniently ignoring I mentioned that improving apartments would help the housing situation by lessening the gap in what both forms of housing offer.