One free company owns 13 houses in one Empyreum ward on my server.

[Azuri]

Sigh, for how entertaining this whole thread is I think it would be prudent to mention: it's completely impossible for one FC to own multiple houses. This is a hard technical limitation installed by SE. What is not a technical limitation - and not even a ToS offense - is having characters on the same or multiple accounts in different FCs. Not a single rule was broken in the whole situation you are describing. None.

The appeal to morality is cute but that's exactly what it is. A toothless "please be nice" that has no ground to stand upon to be enforced.

[axetastic]

The appeal to morality is cute but that's exactly what it is. A toothless "please be nice" that has no ground to stand upon to be enforced.

The appeal to morality was for the sake of the person doing the hoarding (which I'm sure, judging by their vitriolic responses to me, will fall on deaf ears). But whether or not my argument is toothless is up for SE to decide. There's enough evidence for SE to see that all these little mini FC's with slight misspellings and identical guild tags were intended to operate as one. Hell, they even admitted it on their placard note, before the owner of the houses changed all the messages on the multiple houses that they own.

If you're right, and this is all technically permissible, then so be it. Maybe nothing happens. But it's my right to bring attention to it, and staying quiet about people abusing the system doesn't get anything done.

At the very least, glad someone found it entertaining.

[Jojoya]

If you're right, and this is all technically permissible, then so be it. Maybe nothing happens. But it's my right to bring attention to it, and staying quiet about people abusing the system doesn't get anything done.

Unfortunately, bringing it up here in the forums doesn't get anything done either.

SE is not unaware of what is happening with the system. It's within their power to change the system if they want it to work differently. It's not within ours.

The most that might happen from a post like this is people making accusations that you're trying to start a witch hunt against players who are not breaking any rules. Many of us will agree that players should not be allowed to do it but it doesn't change that SE does allow it.

Squeenix loves RMT trading, thats why they specifically designed Empyrum for it, and every limitation they put into place to prevent it was completely bypassed by the fact that it took them over a month to fix a random number generator.

Empyreum isn't designed differently or have different rules from any other housing district so it's incorrect to state it was designed specifically for RMT.

Remember that some players are the ones that were convincing SE to add a wait time before FC Master could be transferred to a new member, claiming it would kill RMT. Many of us kept pointing out it would not stop RMT, it would merely be a minor obstacle. and that if players really wanted RMT killed then they should be encouraging SE to work on an instanced housing system that allowed every player to get the house of their choice. If players could get what they want directly from the game, RMT would have no foothold in housing.

Well, here we are back at square one because SE followed the advice of the players who prefer band-aids over fixes. Nothing about the system has improved. RMT still exists. Multiple house ownership on the same world is still possible. Players are still gated by RNG when it comes to their chance to get a house, it's just the "flavor" of the RNG that's changed.

If all people do is focus their complaints at those players using the system as SE allows instead of focusing their complaints at SE for their design choices, we'll never see any improvement because SE will inevitably take the easy way out as long as players give them the excuse to do so.

It also wasn't the random number generator that was flawed in the first lottery. It was the transfer of data between the lottery server and the housing server that was flawed. Do people not read when SE goes to the effort of explaining exactly what went wrong and what steps they were taking to both fix it and do their best to make certain it does not happen again?

[axetastic]

Unfortunately, bringing it up here in the forums doesn't get anything done either.

SE is not unaware of what is happening with the system. It's within their power to change the system if they want it to work differently. It's not within ours.

The most that might happen from a post like this is people making accusations that you're trying to start a witch hunt against players who are not breaking any rules. Many of us will agree that players should not be allowed to do it but it doesn't change that SE does allow it.

We're well out of "witch hunt" territory when the owner of the houses came and outed themself. Actually, I'm kind of impressed by how quickly they found this thread, but that's beside the point.

I did my best to be respectful. I did not list character names, free company names, or the name of the public discord. I'm not going to let comments like yours keep me silent when I see blatant abuse of the system. Every single thing I posted about here was very, very public at the time of my posting. And again, I did not name any names.

Why is it that people tell others not to bother trying to make a difference? It's my time being wasted, if anything, so it should be no skin off your teeth. Worst case scenario, nothing happens, and I wasted my time. Or someone gets pissy at me because I didn't like them hoarding all the houses. That's already happened, so there you go. And yes, you're right. It is ONLY within SE's power to change the system. They might not be aware of all the little ways their system is abused. But we are entrenched in it, so our feedback counts for something.

And if they don't care to change it? Whatever, then I'm the one who wasted her time and energy, and that's that.

[Jojoya]

I did my best to be respectful. I did not list character names, free company names, or the name of the public discord. I'm not going to let comments like yours keep me silent when I see blatant abuse of the system. Every single thing I posted about here was very, very public at the time of my posting. And again, I did not name any names.

But you did give enough specific information that it only took me 5 minutes to figure out which houses you were referring to (including the time waiting in queue for data center travel - a couple of those FC profiles read at the placard did not include the discord info by the way but the link was clear from the names).

I don't think it was your intent to start a witch hunt, of course. I know you're speaking out of a sense of frustration with a badly designed system. But what you did say could have been enough to start one.

I'm not saying don't try to make a difference. I am saying that coming here isn't going to make a difference. The forums are mainly for player discussion. While the community teams do monitor them on occasion and forward some of the feedback to the development team, we don't know that the issues important to us are what is getting forwarded.

To make a difference, you want to be opening a ticket under Report Cheating with the GMs if you suspect a player of not complying with the ToS or rules. You want to be using the in-game Support Desk "Leave a Suggestion" to give them feedback about your personal experience. Tell them how frustrated you feel that you're unable to get a house while you this other player has acquired 13 houses on your world (but likely doesn't have 13 services accounts). That way your voice can't be lost in the myriad of forum posts and replies that many times are off topic or non-constructive.

[axetastic]

To make a difference, you want to be opening a ticket under Report Cheating with the GMs if you suspect a player of not complying with the ToS or rules. You want to be using the in-game Support Desk "Leave a Suggestion" to give them feedback about your personal experience. Tell them how frustrated you feel that you're unable to get a house while you this other player has acquired 13 houses on your world (but likely doesn't have 13 services accounts). That way your voice can't be lost in the myriad of forum posts and replies that many times are off topic or non-constructive.

Thank you for all these suggestions, and for maintaining a civil discussion with me. I did not consider the feedback area of the support desk, and I will use this feature, like you said.

I'll be honest, I don't feel bad for calling them out. It's their own fault they were that easy to find. Had they not dickwaved on their 13 houses and claimed every single plot as theirs, I would have been none the wiser.

Edit: Now they've removed the discord, and edited all their tags and changed many of their near-identical guild names. Guys, no need to scramble. If the majority of this thread is to be believed, you're safe in your hoarding. Carry on.

[Jojoya]

Thank you for all these suggestions, and for maintaining a civil discussion with me. I did not consider the feedback area of the support desk, and I will use this feature, like you said.

I'll be honest, I don't feel bad for calling them out. It's their own fault they were that easy to find. Had they not dickwaved on their 13 houses and claimed every single plot as theirs, I would have been none the wiser.

Edit: Now they've removed the discord, and edited all their tags and changed many of their near-identical guild names. Guys, no need to scramble. If the majority of this thread is to be believed, you're safe in your hoarding. Carry on.

Thank you also. It's given me the idea to start a campaign to get players to use the in game tool for housing feedback instead of us just venting our frustrations into the forum void.