Just an idea; what if "Apartments" were all moved to a sort of "Cruise Ship"?

[Raim]

I hope its nothing then. Being able to just turn apartments into Large size plots would mostly eliminate the point of large size plots, with no downsides. They're 'supposed' to be worse than actual housing.

[SenorPatty]

I hope its nothing then. Being able to just turn apartments into Large size plots would mostly eliminate the point of large size plots, with no downsides. They're 'supposed' to be worse than actual housing.

Instanced large apartments don't invalidate physical large houses because the value is entirely on the player. Now it's no secret that there's quite a substantial amount of players who already own large plots that the exclusionary nature of the current housing system makes them feel good and they want to keep it that way. Some want the neighborhood feel and some want both.

Contrary to popular belief, expanded instanced housing doesn't take anything out of those two things. If you value house rarity through exclusion, it's still there. Me owning an apartment that has 2 extra rooms is still not a physical house. If you value neighborfeel, your next door homeowner isn't going to suddenly vacate his or her own place just because my instanced apartment can now have the same inside dimensions as large.

Expanding apartments still means that:
-I can't decorate the outside
-I can't garden outside.
-I still have to set it to public or private, just like a physical house
-The actual gil value is always going to be lower than any physical house.

And those are just the differences that I can think of off the top of my head. So, if SE considerd alternatives like OP's idea, then I'm in the agreement the we should get nothing. Otherwise, give us expanding apartments.