New Ward Classifications are out!

[Pablomaldito]

HA! Must be nice to be so blind. Last time when they opened 10-18 for personal, there was thousands on bids on Midgard where I am. There has not been 1000s of people getting houses since then. People haven't been bidding because they believe its hopeless. They wont believe it was hopeless with the new wards, bids will go WAY up. Triple++ Just like they did the last time they opened more wards to personal. They have only been 'consistent' because people have given up trying a long time before new wards were announced. And now that they are here, they will be coming back to try again. If I know so many people like this, I know I'm not the only one who knows people like this. They have been disheartened and driven away. They will be back for the new wards.

Yep, when Empyreum was launched with its laughable 300 personal houses up for grabs, not a single house had fewer than 10 bids on Balmung. That gives us an absolute floor of 3000 people bidding on a house. Many houses had well over 10 bidders, but let's just make a conservative estimate of 3000 new bidders to account for relocators. 2700 of those people did not win a house. Later on, when some wards were reclassified from FC to personal, that added nearly 200 more houses to bid on. So that leaves roughly 2500 Empyreum round 1 bidders without a house. On smaller servers, I saw houses with bids as low as 6, but that still means nearly 2000 bidders.

On crowded servers like Balmung & Mateus, these new wards are gonna get eaten up instantly (hopefully I get a bite :P ). On servers with established populations (which is all of NA except Dynamis), these new wards may last a while, but they aren't going to solve the housing problem once and for all.

[Shibi]

Yep, when Empyreum was launched with its laughable 300 personal houses up for grabs

Well, 360.. but yep laughable Pablo, SE were real weird with the high number of the FC ward numbers they decided on pre-zero bug.

They should have hard metrics and factual data to back up their descisions. But it still seems they just throw at a dart and use the number it hits.

Game needs a dedicated housing developer to take control and do it right (doesn't feel like they have one right now, for sure)

Dynamis, the place where dreams come true.

With only me in my maddy FC ward, it's so empty. My Materia FC at least now has someone way over on the far side.

Feels weird when I do my Aether FCs, those are packed tight.

Still I'll be doing multiple bids I think on the Aethers (officers, alts and trusted members) to move to a more prime spot. If we win, we win, if we don't we don't. Doesn't really matter too much.

[dspguy]

Plenty of houses up on Dynamis DC. Head over there if housing is your priority. Lots of plots with 0 bids right now.

[Jojoya]

HA! Must be nice to be so blind. Last time when they opened 10-18 for personal, there was thousands on bids on Midgard where I am. There has not been 1000s of people getting houses since then. People haven't been bidding because they believe its hopeless. They wont believe it was hopeless with the new wards, bids will go WAY up. Triple++ Just like they did the last time they opened more wards to personal. They have only been 'consistent' because people have given up trying a long time before new wards were announced. And now that they are here, they will be coming back to try again. If I know so many people like this, I know I'm not the only one who knows people like this. They have been disheartened and driven away. They will be back for the new wards.

Where he is being overly optimistic, you're being overly pessimistic. The outcome will lie somewhere in between (except for those on Balmung and Mateus). The majority of those still looking for a house will end up with one between the ward addition and demolition resuming. Will some worlds still have players looking for a house? Sure, but it will be a small fraction compared to the number that want and have been able to obtain a house.

Things that people are forgetting to consider: a lot of players did transfer to Dynamis to get a house there. That is helping to reduce demand on other NA worlds.

We're also halfway through the expansion now and many players have quit to do other things before they return just before the next expansion is released. They're extremely unlikely to return just to get a house then feel like they're tied to a subscription when they don't want to be playing. That is reducing current demand even more.

While some players who want a house did give up because they hate feeling like constant "losers", the majority are continuing to enter because it's almost zero effort to do so and there's no chance of winning a house if they aren't trying.

You can walk into this as a doomsayer and make yourself miserable, or you can walk into it with a positive attitude and see how things turn out. Unless your deadset on getting a prime plot instead of going for one of the less desirable plots at the outset, your chances of getting a house over the next 2 months is good.

[True-to-Caesar]

Another issue is, people want medium/large houses and there’s not enough of those.

At any rate, the whole system is terrible and «*neighborhoods*» is a myth. Def best solution even if not the one I like the most, is instanced housing or upgrade their servers. When even old games like LOTRO automatically creates new wards to allow people to buy, you know there’s something wrong in FF. Why be stubborn with a system that clearly doesn’t work no matter how many bandaids you put on it, instead of offering a solution that could satisfy a large portion of your players. They’re even missing out on mogstation sales since a lot of people don’t have outdoor properties.

[dspguy]

When even old games like LOTRO automatically creates new wards to allow people to buy, you know there’s something wrong in FF.

In some ways, you are correct, but in others you give LOTRO more credit than they deserve.

LOTRO housing wards are more like Island Sanctuary. The size of your plot dictates the number of slots of outdoor furniture you have. The options are limited and the locations are not customizable. It is more like "slots" where we can choose 1 of 4 landmarks to place there. The inside of houses are similar (unless something changed) where you have "slots" for tables, chairs and storage chests. There is minimal customization.

I think given those circumstances, it isn't hard to add more instances when the existing ones fill up.

[SlackMage]

Can I build a town on my Island Sanctuary with even more plots to give to my fwends and me plz? Those lazy and annoying mammets can go to the apartment building.

[Shibi]

Those lazy and annoying mammets can go to the apartment building.

I have this weird kopfkino of them building a mammet erp club, complete with DJs. And then one day driving down the I95 to see a huge billboard for "Nekomimi-san's Club - 18+ - We have mammet for all tastes"

[Amenara]

Can't wait to try and get a small in Goblet. Hoping my odds are pretty ok with how everyone goes there last usually.

[Serenitey]

Can't wait to try and get a small in Goblet. Hoping my odds are pretty ok with how everyone goes there last usually.

Goblet is pretty and underrated in my opinion. Good luck on your house.