Observations and suggestion for impeding bots grabbing FC plots

[Corvus_V]

I can't speak for him, but being that I've made my position known and you and I have regular disagreements, I'd like to clarify that I don't actually hate you. It's clear that you do care about housing, and I've seen you jump in and help others out on other subjects, going as far as to physically visit plots where a dispute had been brought up and sharing screenshots of your findings. That's helpful, it's clear you want to contribute positive things to the community. What I don't agree with is the condescending way you often address people when it comes to the subject of re-evaluating the housing system to make it more equitable and accessable.

For the record, I also don't agree with instanced housing. I love the neighborhood feel of wards, and I'd like to find an equitable way to preserve them. That's part of why I'm frustrated with people who buy up house after house for themselves. It's hardly a neighborhood if it's all owned by one person, and until mediums and larges are plentiful enough to satisfy the demand for them, I'll always find it unethical to hoard them for yourself.

For what it's worth, I think that instanced housing would work and I also think that the neighborhood setting of a ward is preferable to it not existing and I definitely believe both is possible and I absolutely don't think one should just replace the other; but I think the 'exclusivity' of it is something that has no actual value. What I'm arguing for is that the value of housing being accessible and that people should be able to participate in the way they want, i.e) owning larges and mediums if that's what they want being weighed against what is effectively the sole functionality of the company workshop being exclusive to housing. I don't think that workshops being exclusive to housing, when already circumvented by the same means people buy up houses, is worth keeping everyone else out given that its simply not even the only advantage they have.

In the current system, without what we know as "housing mirage" and without instanced housing, I don't think there will ever really be enough mediums and larges for people without a restructuring of the landscape around wards to make any house work on any plot; and after that, there probably just might not even be enough plots for people. I also just flat out believe that wards would be a bit more populous if people who wanted it for things like hanging out, RPing, etc had houses; where other people might stick to an instance for the security; since wards are already pretty desolate. They're probably occupied mostly by people who simply don't play and are just worried about losing what they have and not being able to get any semblance of it back, and its obviously a pretty valid fear

Like, in theory, the demo system is a way to keep "active people" owning houses, but that's really just not what happens; and it's probably a large reason the neigbhorhood feeling we both actually want just doesn't happen.