Another housing delay, imagine that.

[Krotoan]

Yep, Tokai Tsunami was ~07/2/2016 until 26/9/2016 (patch 3.4)
US Hurricane Harvey was ~02/9/2017 until 29/1/2018 (patch 4.2)
Endwalker was 6/12/2021 until now, with the current world situation merged into it.

So, 16 months out of about 96.

(I am using d/m/y dates)

So.. that'd be FARRR less time out of demolition than with it enabled. Which is what it felt like really.

[HyoMinPark]

has it? Anyone wanna run the actual numbers? So far as I remember they suspended it for the hurricanes and flooding in America, the Tsunami in Japan, The launch of EW and now the conflict in Ukraine. I know I must be missing a few. Demolition was implemented in 3.1 (2015) So has it been suspended for more than 4 years?

They did suspend for COVID. Back in March 2020. I couldn’t tell you the exact time it was down, but someone posted earlier in the thread that they suspended it right when the pandemic started really hitting the world hard.

[Katt_Felista]

It's also time to accept this is a video game and immaterial thing, and in 15+ years time, maybe the server won't exist anymore. DUH.

What's that for a reality check ?

[Krotoan]

They did suspend for COVID. Back in March 2020. I couldn’t tell you the exact time it was down, but someone posted earlier in the thread that they suspended it right when the pandemic started really hitting the world hard.

so adding that to the already given numbers, at the absolute maximum it could have been of 24 months (pretty sure it's nowhere near this since it had to be on for us to turn it back off for EW) we come to 40 months out of 96 which is still not more on than off.

I am remembering that one though. There were some arguments that people were staying home MORE so pausing was ridiculous.. and people weren't connecting the dots that people couldn't work and therefore couldn't afford to play games.

[VirusOnline]

Yep, Tokai Tsunami was ~07/2/2016 until 26/9/2016 (patch 3.4)
US Hurricane Harvey was ~02/9/2017 until 29/1/2018 (patch 4.2)
Endwalker was 6/12/2021 until now, with the current world situation merged into it.

So, 16 months out of about 96.

(I am using d/m/y dates)

Since housing was created, housing demolition has been paused for 17% of the time due to some global disaster (but not all *big think*)


Dating back to 2014:
43% of the time housing has been FFA/auctionable outside of the game. At least persons with no house had a chance to "buy" a house but SE dubbed it against ToS (IIRC)
57% of the time housing has had RNG timers along with relocation still being auctionable outside of the game. This only served to alienate persons with no house at all and allow people with houses free reign to sell/buy.

Since I started playing back in 2015 on Excalibur:
Housing was completely inaccessible nearly 99.9% of the time, plots filled, sold only to friends, quite literally grinded 24/7 for demo'd houses, or auctioned on external websites.
This was the case for most popular servers and since population boom in SB through ShB, it's only gotten worse.

Side rant:

YoshiP wants this "community like housing area", well guess what YoshiP ain't no body at they house, because they afk dancing in limsoland.

You know what would be great.
If we could have instanced housing where we get to pick our choice of background. Mine would be Mare Lamentum, Radz-at-Han, Sylphland Forests, or Ultima Thule and my house would be nestled in that scenery.

And you know what - I used to think that housing is an "extra feature", "not a core gameplay".
You know that flying chair mount that you can only get materials for if you had a house ?
Not core gameplay my buttermilk biscuits.

You can't make housing a limited supply which is accessible to unique features which then are profitable on the market.
Imagine if treasure maps were like this, where there could only be a certain amount of portals active at one time on a world.
Housing at this point is just .... a gross display of bots, money, monopoly, and empty wards.
I've given up on it.

Demolitions help NO ONE. Break down the wards and make instanced housing. Nearly all of the problems will be solved.

[Chie_M]

[TristanX]

Wait. Are you saying you're making Lavender Beds?

No space. Just making more pots. They can't handle tropical weather. Cannot leave them outside. They don't like wet feet.

[Knot_D]

It's also time to accept this is a video game and immaterial thing, and in 15+ years time, maybe the server won't exist anymore. DUH.

What's that for a reality check ?

*turns into Blasphemy*

[Dzian]

has it? Anyone wanna run the actual numbers? So far as I remember they suspended it for the hurricanes and flooding in America, the Tsunami in Japan, The launch of EW and now the conflict in Ukraine. I know I must be missing a few. Demolition was implemented in 3.1 (2015) So has it been suspended for more than 4 years?

OK admittedly not the most thorough research out there but it's quiet at work so here we go... working backwards from present...

Decmber 6th 2021 > present.. Suspended
April 19th 2021- December 5th 2021 - Active
April 13th 2021 - April 18th 2021 - Suspended
December 8th 2020 > April 12th 2021 Active
March 26th 2020 > December 7th 2020 - Suspended
December 10th 2019 - March 25th 2020 - Active
September 2019 - December 9th 2019 - Suspended
April 24th 2019 - September 2019- Active
October 24th 2018 - April 23rd 2019 - Suspended
unknown date - October 23rd 2018 - Active
July 30th 2018 - Unknown date - Suspended
January 30th 2018 - July 29th 2018 - Active
Spetember 15th 2017 - January 29th 2018 - Suspended

Could go back further but excluding the unknown dates I couldn't find in the information section. All dates come from the lodestone.
Thats roughly 110 weeks the system has been suspended vs 111 weeks where it has been active.
If remains suspended until patch 6.1 expected end of April, that'll be roughly 115 weeks suspended vs roughly 111 weeks active.. (thats if they resume the timers with 6.1, they might not given the situation in the ukraine)

So I stand by my comment the system spends more time being suspended than it does being active (over the last ~5 years at least) and should just be scrapped all together

[Krotoan]

So I stand by my comment the system spends more time being suspended than it does being active (over the last ~5 years at least) and should just be scrapped all together

Demolition was introduced in 2015.. which is 3 years (156weeks) in which are unaccounted for. .. so.. maybe just don't say that since it's untrue? You did some math gymnastics just to justify your comment when you probably just should have said "it feels like".

Nevertheless just because it's happened a lot doesn't speak to its effectiveness or implementation (it is the reason I have a house, so maybe I'm biased), maybe the past 4 years have just been exceptionally ridiculous for widespread disasters that affect people? ... why yes.. yes they have.