Quote Originally Posted by Bladehawk View Post
During fan fest the question was asked about expanding the size/option of apartments that they told us they were looking into a long while ago. They replied that it was no longer being considered because it would limit the number of housing wards they could offer.
Which would not mean taking houses away from players that have them, it just means not adding more.

Add in apartments with house sized interior options and you'll see a lot of players switching to them because they hate having a Paissa house for a neighbor or don't want to worry about demolition. That would free up existing houses for those who actually like the wards.

Quote Originally Posted by Seleni View Post
I’m not sure about fan fest one, but an email interview with Yoshi P listed similar response. I took the response to be more like it’d take an overhaul of the apartment system to accomplish and they’d rather spend that resource elsewhere.
I'd agree that it sounds like he's saying they'd rather put dev resources into wards instead of into apartments since houses are more popular.

What he seems to be overlooking is that players mainly dislike the apartments because of the small size and want bigger apartments. Even most house owners are unhappy with the wards themselves because the wards are usually empty (though they're relatively happy with their larger instanced house interiors).

When do I see players in the ward? When I'm at my FC house and other members are hanging out there (sometimes with their friends). Am I seeing them away from the FC house and out in the ward? Very rarely (and that's always at the Dappled Stalls MB).

What they need to be doing is combining the best feature from both systems, which is the large instanced interior and making more of that available to players. Keep in mind that instanced housing doesn't have to be all interior. It can include exterior areas (like so many other MMOs using instanced housing) though it would mean changing how exterior fixtures work.

Imagine having a Blank Exterior Wall equivalent to the Blank Partitiion wall that is cottage, house or mansion shaped with an opening for a Door Partition, the window fixtures change to work like imitation windows, etc. You apply the exterior skin of your choice to the wall, add in the door partition of your choice and then you can walk directly into your house interior - no loading portal.

If the only instanced housing you're familiar with is what's in this game, go to YouTube and search "Wildstar Housing", "ESO Housing" or "RIFT Dimensions". That's all instanced housing and (art aesthetic tastes aside) it puts the housing in this game to shame.