So, what now? Lotteries with 150+ bids until... when?

[Jojoya]

"Housing: Reborn"

Though really, the only question for me is about how wards actually fit. They'd get grandfathered in but you'd want people who don't actually care about being in a ward to move out so there's space for people who do care to move in. Aside from taxes, one thing would be making it so you can only have one house regardless of whether that's instanced or ward which would force the choice between being potentially stuck with a small in a ward or upgrading to a medium/large in an instance.

There's no reason an improved instanced system couldn't exist side by side with wards.

The improved instanced system could even be accessed through the wards just as apartments already are. I think all the housing districts have areas that are unused dead ends. Turn the dead ends into the entrance for "private estates" (would need a better name), which would be the new instanced system. It would give the added benefit of more traffic in the wards as those owning the instanced housing would want to go back into the ward to access marketboards or vendors or the "recreation areas" (like the Brimming Heart or the Shirogane hot springs) on occasion. It would give everyone a house at the same time it improves the "neighborhood" feeling that the wards are supposed to provide but don't.

Yoshi has commented a couple times over the years, mostly in live letters, that he's aware of the housing shortage. He's also stated that they prefer the ward system and can't add instanced housing to it. He's given several reasons over the years for why instanced housing isn't possible;
-the social aspect is the most common one
-storage space on the servers
-the way the wards were programmed doesn't really allow for instanced housing
-he prefers wards to instances.

More recently, the global supply chain issues have only complicated any potential changes to any system. If they weren't planning it 4 years ago, its not going to happen any time in the near future. Thats just the reality of the world we're in right now.

None of that's to say instanced housing can't eventually happen but we're unlikely to see it. Personally, I think Yoshi has convinced himself of that they've put so much into wards now, that it would be a waste to abandon it and switch to instanced housing. They'll just keep throwing wards at the problem until demand is met.

Most of that makes no sense when all housing interiors, whether house, FC private chamber or apartment, are instanced.

They already co-exist.

The only reason I've personally heard him give is that they like the social aspect of wards and yet they fail in that regard for the majority of house owners.

- There's a limited number of owners in each ward/subdivision, usually with different schedules on when they can play the game.

- If they are playing the game, most of the time they're going to be doing other things instead of standing outside their house in the ward where other players can see them (like playing around inside of their house where they can't be seen).

- Lack of reasons to travel within the ward not to mention the aethernet shards that can take players directly to their destination those rare occasions they do need to means greatly reduced chances of random encounters that lead to socialization.

- If socializing is intended to mean hanging out at the FC house with your FC members and their invited guests, or going to a RP venue, that can be accomplished through instanced housing as easily as a ward. RIFT has a great system for helping players find and travel to other players' housing, not to mention the whitelist and blacklist features that frequently get requested for housing here.

SE need to stop believing they can train the player base to use housing the way YoshiP wants it to be used and start looking at the actual experience house owners are getting on a daily basis. I love my house, I will visit it a few times each play session but I'm still spending 90% of the time I'm logged in doing other content, 9% inside of my house and only 1% standing outside of it. Even last expansion when I spent about 300 hours sitting in my yard grinding out my Expert crafting achievements, I only saw 3 players randomly pass by my house.

If a player is after an actual social experience, they're much better off hanging out at the Limsa, Ul'dah or Gridania aetherytes where players actually gather to socialize and other players are constantly passing through.