You DID decorate your house, right?

[Batbrat]

You're the one complaining about it, not me.
Does it bother you when people ask you questions? Because that's how you're coming across as being so defensive about my question.
It's a little ironic, that my response triggered some form of response from you when it's over 2 weeks since I made my comment.
I can understand what you're saying but at the same time, who are we to decide how others play the game and do with their house?

Having a conversation is complaining? If you said something right now and I agreed with you, would you feel better?
No idea why you got offended, very weird. Enjoy your house!

[Sotaris]

Lol, you took that away as me being offended? ok, buddy.

[Jojoya]

Everyone was really angry about how scarce housing was but there are dozens of biddable & devalued plots on my server and hundreds of open houses with no furniture. Most of the FC houses don't have gardens or subs either.
I don't get it.

The problem is they're on your server and not the servers with more players and thus a need for more houses. According to the last Lucky Bancho census (about 5 weeks ago), there are 15,765 active characters over level 60 on Chocobo. Compare that to Balmung with 29,338 and Mateus with 29,382 yet all 3 worlds have the same 9000 plots.

It's hard enough to convince players to transfer between worlds in the same region where 95% of players speak the same language. Asking them to transfer to a region on the other side of the world where most players speak a completely differently language is not going to go over very well.

[Tint]

I never made a fuss about needing a house, I was happy with my apartment. I bought my house more by accident (I was the very first person on the server when they added new wards back before lottery). I didn't really wanted it, I just wanted it to be able to relocate a house to Ishgard when that district would be added (turns out it would be impossible to easy relocate with the lottery system).

But well I was the first one in the server so I bought an M house in Limsa. You should use our opportunity when it is given to you, right?

I really love my house and abandoned the plan to relocate it long before they added the lottery stuff.

But it took me over a year to finally decorate it. I was just not interested in it. I bought it when I was able to. I decorated it when I was in the mood for it. But I used it regulary anyway, I have decorated my garden and was basically living in my tree-house.

Now it is fully furnished, but I bought an L house in Ishgard for my FC. So now I use my decorated personal house less often than before I decorated it because I am at the FC house most of the time. But since I would never get an M house in such a nice spot again... It will just keep sitting there I guess.

And yes, I decorated the FC house immediately.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

The problem is they're on your server and not the servers with more players and thus a need for more houses. According to the last Lucky Bancho census (about 5 weeks ago), there are 15,765 active characters over level 60 on Chocobo. Compare that to Balmung with 29,338 and Mateus with 29,382 yet all 3 worlds have the same 9000 plots.

It's hard enough to convince players to transfer between worlds in the same region where 95% of players speak the same language. Asking them to transfer to a region on the other side of the world where most players speak a completely differently language is not going to go over very well.

Well that makes sense; though it doesn't quite explain half of her concern. That is the players grabbing houses and seemingly doing zero with the property (no subs or gardens either) Its kind of why I feel houses should have some sort of upkeep cost; something that can be easily met by playing but requires more then a login once a moon.
Interestingly enough I think the idea of housing systems bound to worlds to be a less then stellar idea - but I see the flipside if it wasn't - the low pop worlds would be in the same competition.

Oh incidentally I dropped by your medium neighbor!

[Nepentha]

Well that makes sense; though it doesn't quite explain half of her concern. That is the players grabbing houses and seemingly doing zero with the property (no subs or gardens either) Its kind of why I feel houses should have some sort of upkeep cost; something that can be easily met by playing but requires more then a login once a moon.
Interestingly enough I think the idea of housing systems bound to worlds to be a less then stellar idea - but I see the flipside if it wasn't - the low pop worlds would be in the same competition.

Oh incidentally I dropped by your medium neighbor!

Still smacks of "I don't approve of how you use your house, I want it taken away from you."

Honestly a better option to get people who, in your opinion, are not worthy of having a house because they don't do what you think they should do with it, is to offer a better instanced housing feature. Because right now, there probably are a few people who are on the fence on house ownership but are reluctant to let their homes go because it's so difficult to get one in the first place. And what if they decide later they want it after all? Instanced housing, (bigger than a breadbox apt) which never demolishes, is a great option for these people. They can have the house, not worry about it demo'ing and not deal with the lotto on Ward housing. Far less likely to hold onto the house when what they have works perfectly fine to scratch that itch and not need to worry about losing it.

I'd even say SE should, if they implement instanced housing finally, allow those who own ward houses to demo and get their gil back for the purchase price of the plot. Since there's no more worry about reselling the plot, there's no need for people to have to wait 45 days for the house to demo. Let them get a refund for the amount and set the ward house back on the lotto market for someone who really wants ward housing.

[Jojoya]

Well that makes sense; though it doesn't quite explain half of her concern. That is the players grabbing houses and seemingly doing zero with the property (no subs or gardens either) Its kind of why I feel houses should have some sort of upkeep cost; something that can be easily met by playing but requires more then a login once a moon.
Interestingly enough I think the idea of housing systems bound to worlds to be a less then stellar idea - but I see the flipside if it wasn't - the low pop worlds would be in the same competition.

Oh incidentally I dropped by your medium neighbor!

SE doesn't put demands on what an owner does with their house so it's not a question anyone is obligated to answer. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to FOMO - get the house while you can because you may not be able to get one when you do want to use it. Once the house is purchased, there's no pressure to actually do something with it.

As much as I'm in favor of a recurring fee myself, you and I are part of a very tiny minority.

Considering how data center travel works, I can understand why wards have to be tied to a specific world (character data has to be copied to the destination server then updated again when returning). What I can't understand is why every world must have the same number of wards. We've got 1800 houses not available for player use on each of the 4 Dynamis worlds because there are still plenty of (small) houses available in the other wards. Wouldn't that server space be better allocated to the Balmungs of the game? But then we really don't know how many servers per world are dedicated just to housing.

And thank you for the visit. I really need to get it finished up, I'm still missing most of the ARR/HW Trophies not to mention display stands for the ones that need them.

[Reinha]

Well that makes sense; though it doesn't quite explain half of her concern. That is the players grabbing houses and seemingly doing zero with the property (no subs or gardens either) Its kind of why I feel houses should have some sort of upkeep cost; something that can be easily met by playing but requires more then a login once a moon.

An upkeep cost doesn't make players use the house, it just makes them farm what is needed to pay for the house. In fact an upkeep cost would have the exact opposite effect you want: it would force players to spend time away from the house because you can't farm currencies by placing furniture or having your friends over. Unlike some players, SE knows better than to turn one of the most fun features into a grind.

If there was actually concern about how players use their houses (and not jealousy over houses or a weird desire to ruin another player's gaming experience), the suggestions would revolve around making players use their house in "acceptable" ways. They would focus on what a player has to do in the house and how often in order to reset the demolition timer. But obviously there are no such concerns as most people are fine with only having to enter the house every 45 days.

[Jojoya]

But obviously there are no such concerns as most people are fine with only having to enter the house every 45 days.

But then that raises the question of why spend 3-50 million on a house if all a player does is enter it once every 45 days to reset the demo timer and ignores it otherwise.

To be fair, I suspect most players don't even think about the "enter once every 45 days" because they're actively using their house and don't concern themselves with what others do. The attention mainly comes from those who have been unable to get a house or have friends who don't have one. Perhaps a few of the concerned players are those looking to upgrade and see an apparently unused house on a plot they would consider an upgrade.

Are there that many players that consider ownership of a house some sort of flex that they get one then ignore it?

[UkcsAlias]

Are there that many players that consider ownership of a house some sort of flex that they get one then ignore it?

There are diffirent degrees, some people still do decorate it, but primarily use it as a flex. They just decorate it because an empty house doesnt look like a flex at all. But generaly these interiors are very rushed.

Also, some people are currently at a stage where decorating isnt what they want to do yet. They know they want to, but currently are too busy with other activities. The result is that the house is generaly empty. And there can be a good reason for that. Furniture can be very dynamic in pricing. During ward releases prices skyrocket, while during times where demolition is off the prices drop very low. Some players will only aim for these low price moments (which especialy if you dont have any crafters leveled is a wise thing to do).

And then there are some that have a small house now, but not at an ideal location, and are just waiting for a new small at a better location, or a medium to become available and aim for instead. If you have already been waiting a year to obtain a house, waiting another year isnt going to hurt.