OCE does not need the lottery system on day one.

[Ilisidi]

When they introduced the lottery system last year they said that you'd be able to see the number of bids on a plot.

I suspect everyone and their coeurl will target the last hour of the bidding to decide on a plot

[Jojoya]

The question I would have is whether or not players are able to see how many lotto entries there are for a plot of land. Arguably, there may not be enough players in each world to fill up every plot in every ward in every zone for a good while. As such, giving players the means to search around for a plot of land that nobody has entered the lottery for would at least allow most to get into housing by the end of the first lotto round.

The sample screenshots from the news topic shows the placard window including "Current participants:0" so you will be able to tell how many others have already entered for that specific plot.

I also think you're severely underestimating the size of the player base if you think there aren't enough players on NA and EU worlds to fill what's being added the week Empyreum opens. JP worlds might be okay since they have about half the active average population that NA and EU worlds have, and their housing has historically filled at a slower rate. NA and EU are bursting at the seams, though, thanks to the population surge last year.

It's uncertain what will happen even on the Materia worlds. If the majority of characters are either transfers or new characters created by veteran players, that housing could fill very rapidly. There's been reports of large numbers of shell FCs appearing, most likely RMT prepared to try to get control over the market. It does players little good for SE to add all those plots if RMT is going to be flooding the lottery with entries (and don't be surprised if RMT will be present in the individual wards just as much as the FC wards - sales of service accounts with houses attached could be incoming).

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

May be a company wide policy even though some servers don't need it due to lesser sized pops.

[NessaWyvern]

I am on an OCE server, and I think it's good that everything is lotto. FCFS always sucks, when you get a huge flood of players logging into the game at once, and then you lose your chance at getting the houses because you got two log-in errors, and it's all snatched up in under 2mins.

Before someone says "That's fine, you can still go do the lottery houses afterwards, if it's split between lottery and FCFS!"
The more plots there are that are lottery, more likely you'll get a lottery plot, as there's less competition in the lottery per plot. The lottery system is better if you have a lot of houses up for lottery which is what OCE will have.

I gave up my medium plot 6 in the mist I had for 5 years to come to Ravana, I would at least like some chance to get a housing plot. Rather than having my chances ripped from me because the login server can't handle it, or I had do something else that day when the patch drops, so I couldn't log in.

[DixieBellOCE]

I am on an OCE server, and I think it's good that everything is lotto. FCFS always sucks, when you get a huge flood of players logging into the game at once, and then you lose your chance at getting the houses because you got two log-in errors, and it's all snatched up in under 2mins.

Before someone says "That's fine, you can still go do the lottery houses afterwards, if it's split between lottery and FCFS!"
The more plots there are that are lottery, more likely you'll get a lottery plot, as there's less competition in the lottery per plot. The lottery system is better if you have a lot of houses up for lottery which is what OCE will have.

I gave up my medium plot 6 in the mist I had for 5 years to come to Ravana, I would at least like some chance to get a housing plot. Rather than having my chances ripped from me because the login server can't handle it, or I had do something else that day when the patch drops, so I couldn't log in.

My personal opinion is that players that transfered with an active plot (That were reimbursed) should have have the ability to use FCFS on any plot the same size they left, even if it is marked as a lottery plot.

Its going to absolutely garbage if people not able to atleast replace the house they left behind.