Tell me again why we can't have instanced housing?

[Shibi]

...areas that multiple players can enter (including housing) are limited by server capacity and bandwidth, which are in turn limited by cost, infrastructure, operational and supply chain issues. Though it isn't clear to me whether island sanctuaries will be open to multiple players or not...

It's always been said by yoshi that we can visit other people's islands.

The "we can't have instanced houses because servers/covid/supply chain" argument needs to be put to bed now.

[DPZ2]

It's always been said by yoshi that we can visit other people's islands.

The "we can't have instanced houses because servers/covid/supply chain" argument needs to be put to bed now.

Except that we know that the current housing is built across multiple servers, and we know that Islands are not going to be 'housing'. From what we've learned (which is very little) you will not be able to put a single housing item on your Island. It isn't built for that purpose. I anticipate something very close to the Garrisons from Warlords of Draenor in World of Warcraft.

So, you can rant and rave all you want, but if you want something like the current housing, it is dependent on limited infrastructure.

A complete change in that architecture will be required to provide everyone with what you wish for as "instanced housing". And that is going to take time and future infrastructure purchases to assure the 5-15+ million players who want to be able to leave the game and come back 5 years later that their house is still available.

[PredatoryCatgirl]

At this point, the reason we don't have instanced housing is because...they don't want instanced housing. The wards are Yoshi-P's baby, and for all the good he's done this game, that is one decision that makes me wonder what the heck he was thinking.

[Shibi]

to assure the 5-15+ million players who want to be able to leave the game and come back 5 years later that their house is still available.

That's disk space, not server space.

Edit: and simplistically doing the calculation on space

128 bits for an instance UUID
128 bits for an object UUID
24 bits for position <X,Y,Z>
24 bits for rotation <I,J,K>
8 bits for dye

32 bytes. Lets triple that to be generous and add 3 more bytes to hold scale too to allow later expansion.

120 bytes per object. 200 objects = 24KB

Let say 3 houses per person as an average... 72KB per person

15,000,000 players is 1,080,000,000KB / 1,080GB or basically 1TB of data split between 3 data centres. Which is a tiny amount of data.

And that's everyone having 3 houses, each holding 3 times the data that would be needed.

500GB for NA, 500GB for EU, 500GB for JP, 500GB for OCE (My PC has more than this)

I've still underestimated? ok, lets triple it again and add 3 x 500GB SAN arrays in each region.

Teir-1 Enterprise solutions are there for this, complete with hot geo-redundant backup.

[UkcsAlias]

128 bits for an instance UUID
128 bits for an object UUID
24 bits for position <X,Y,Z>
24 bits for rotation <I,J,K>
8 bits for dye

128 bits is excessive for unique object ids, and instanced object ids. That would only be relevant if each object would be like an NFT. A number with over 30 zeroes is enough to not only give everyone unique ids, but basicly every single item they ever found in the game.
64 bits is on that already more realistic (and also natively handled by computers being at least 4x as efficient to use). But even this is a huge number of ids (still a digit with 19 zeroes).
Therefor i think that this game either uses 16, 24 or 32 bits for such ids.

Within an instance, it goes further, Since you know the restrictions per ward anyway. And there is no crossreferencing needed between wards. So you only need enough ids to store every potential object in the entire ward. lets for simplicity say 100 houses using all 500 slots (well above what we have now). Then thats 50000 unique object ids. Add in 500 appartments, and you are at 300000 ids. This can fit well inside a 32bit integer (it fits 10x).
128 bits would again be an excessive waste of resources.

The problem is most likely not space, but the constant requirement of network checking for dynamic content, and transferring house information. While 32bytes isnt a lot, network traffic has overhead which can easily make these packages more expensive.
If each second 10 people are joining a ward, and it has to send all the data of 60 houses (lets say 200 outdoor objects). Then this means almost 7MB in data for each person. With 10 people thats 70MB. This is most likely the real issue, since such traffic is just a lot of load. This cannot scale linearly like HDD space since this very quickly runs into physical limits of cables. Luckily this data is quite easy to compress (lots of very similar information), so it might in the end still be only 1MB.

But i guess this is what prevent them from expanding, as hardware needs to be capable of managing the traffic, and since its all free, it has to be done cheap.

[Angellos]

Except that we know that the current housing is built across multiple servers, and we know that Islands are not going to be 'housing'. From what we've learned (which is very little) you will not be able to put a single housing item on your Island. It isn't built for that purpose. I anticipate something very close to the Garrisons from Warlords of Draenor in World of Warcraft.

So, you can rant and rave all you want, but if you want something like the current housing, it is dependent on limited infrastructure.

A complete change in that architecture will be required to provide everyone with what you wish for as "instanced housing". And that is going to take time and future infrastructure purchases to assure the 5-15+ million players who want to be able to leave the game and come back 5 years later that their house is still available.

You act as though this is impossible, or some huge undertaking that will take years. Instanced housing wouldn't take much more hardware than their current bloated Ward system takes.

Step 1: Bolster the instanced housing servers. (There's been a huge influx in profit due to WoW players joining the game. Don't tell me the money doesn't exist.)
Step 2: Give everyone who currently owns a home a housing voucher for the appropriate sized home.
Step 3: Get rid of all the wards and have just one housing district.
Step 4: Players click on the placard outside of the house to purchase the home.
Step 5: Players click on the placard and 'Go to Your House' to enter. (Or go to someone else's house from a list, like apartments.)

PRO'S:

Massive gil sink for players, which means a much needed time sink that every MMORPG depends upon for player retention.
Devs could introduce special housing on the Mogstation for cash. (Default homes will still be available for just gil) Special homes could be: Amaurot themed, Crystarium themed, Garlemald themed, pirate ships, air ships, The Ragnarok, etc.) This would drive profits through the roof. Huge boon for the company.
You don't have to see your neighbor's ugly walls.
Most wards are devoid of players other than at the market board: You will still have the market board. Nothing changes.

CON'S:
Work by the Devs
Cost of upgrading current hardware. (A cost that is being covered by the huge amount of additional profit being made now with the huge influx of new players.)

There is absolutely ZERO REASON to NOT instance housing. Other multi-player games are coming out all the time. I do not believe for a second that SE can't get additional servers for instanced housing when small indie companies can get their hands on the same hardware. There's still a supply chain shortage, yes: But it's still obtainable.

[Zorander01]

You act as though this is impossible, or some huge undertaking that will take years. Instanced housing wouldn't take much more hardware than their current bloated Ward system takes.

Step 1: Bolster the instanced housing servers. (There's been a huge influx in profit due to WoW players joining the game. Don't tell me the money doesn't exist.)
Step 2: Give everyone who currently owns a home a housing voucher for the appropriate sized home.
Step 3: Get rid of all the wards and have just one housing district.
Step 4: Players click on the placard outside of the house to purchase the home.
Step 5: Players click on the placard and 'Go to Your House' to enter. (Or go to someone else's house from a list, like apartments.)

PRO'S:

Massive gil sink for players, which means a much needed time sink that every MMORPG depends upon for player retention.
Devs could introduce special housing on the Mogstation for cash. (Default homes will still be available for just gil) Special homes could be: Amaurot themed, Crystarium themed, Garlemald themed, pirate ships, air ships, The Ragnarok, etc.) This would drive profits through the roof. Huge boon for the company.
You don't have to see your neighbor's ugly walls.
Most wards are devoid of players other than at the market board: You will still have the market board. Nothing changes.

CON'S:
Work by the Devs
Cost of upgrading current hardware. (A cost that is being covered by the huge amount of additional profit being made now with the huge influx of new players.)

There is absolutely ZERO REASON to NOT instance housing. Other multi-player games are coming out all the time. I do not believe for a second that SE can't get additional servers for instanced housing when small indie companies can get their hands on the same hardware. There's still a supply chain shortage, yes: But it's still obtainable.

Case in Point New World EVERYONE has a house or is able to buy 4 houses!

[Darthgummibear]

Except that we know that the current housing is built across multiple servers, and we know that Islands are not going to be 'housing'. From what we've learned (which is very little) you will not be able to put a single housing item on your Island. It isn't built for that purpose. I anticipate something very close to the Garrisons from Warlords of Draenor in World of Warcraft.

So, you can rant and rave all you want, but if you want something like the current housing, it is dependent on limited infrastructure.

A complete change in that architecture will be required to provide everyone with what you wish for as "instanced housing". And that is going to take time and future infrastructure purchases to assure the 5-15+ million players who want to be able to leave the game and come back 5 years later that their house is still available.

This is a completely bunk argument. The island sanctuaries already have multiple functions and systems NOT PRESENT IN HOUSING. Defending a deliberate choice to omit instanced housing when they obviously could have done it by now at best positions you as the perfect customer.

[DPZ2]

Defending a deliberate choice to omit instanced housing when they obviously could have done it by now at best positions you as the perfect customer.

Perhaps I am the perfect customer for this game, and you are not. Are you going to go play another game that has the housing you yearn for, or are you going to stay here?

I have 35+ years of experience as a Computer Infrastructure Engineer. Declaring what I actually wrote (rather than what you think you read) as "bunk" is nothing more than you spouting nonsense.

[Gunbladesman]

Perhaps I am the perfect customer for this game, and you are not. Are you going to go play another game that has the housing you yearn for, or are you going to stay here?

I have 35+ years of experience as a Computer Infrastructure Engineer. Declaring what I actually wrote (rather than what you think you read) as "bunk" is nothing more than you spouting nonsense.

Facts and logic'd him epic! Settling for mediocrity and not expecting the best from a game doing as well as this does make you the perfect customer since you will just deal with what they give you and never expect more.