Please, make auto-demolition 90-120 days. It's time.

[Mawlzy]

The way to actually solve the limited housing issue isn't to increase the length of the autodemo timer. It's to EITHER move to instanced housing, or to impose property tax (compounding for each property owned by the account). Extending the timer for people who don't even want to play the game is remarkably selfish.

Property tax idea is interesting, but would have to be steep given the excess of gil in the game. For FC houses it would need to be massive due to submarines.

How many total houses are there in the game? Would limiting multi-ownership solve the current problem?

[hydralus]

Property tax idea is interesting, but would have to be steep given the excess of gil in the game. For FC houses it would need to be massive due to submarines.

How many total houses are there in the game? Would limiting multi-ownership solve the current problem?

Personally I'd do two things for that. 1: remove the jewellery from submarine ventures and 2: exponential tax based on total properties owned. Monthly property tax begins at 10% of max purchase price (which means a mansion owner is paying 5 mil a month to keep their mansion), but owning more than 1 house/1 FC house (per account) increases it to 100% for all properties, then 1000% at 3 or more houses. Someone could own 2 houses if they make a decent amount of gil, and I think that's a realistic and acceptable goal for someone to have if they play the game a lot. However at 3 houses a player would at the very least be paying 90 million gil a month to keep those properties.

This may seem harsh or it might not seem harsh enough. After all wouldn't limiting housing to 1 per account be better? I think that if someone really loves decorating and wants to own more than 1 house, they should be afforded the opportunity, and realistically few people are going to bother with owning 3 or more. What will also happen is that people who don't particularly care about houses will realize they don't want to spend monthly gil on something they never use. There are a lot of people who hold on to a house they never use because there's no in-game commitment past the initial purchase. This also shrinks the supply of available homes. There's also a pleasing psychological effect. Currently, a person who owns 3 medium houses is paying the same money for their subscription as someone just starting the game. Implement the increasing tax and at least you know the person is shelling out 480 million gil a month to keep their places.

Of course, I also think it'd be a lot nicer if everyone just got their own instanced place but if they're keen on sticking with neighborhoods then tying ownership to an active sub, no matter how many properties you own, will encourage grabbing as many as possible.

[IndraSyngiwyb]

The way to actually solve the limited housing issue isn't to increase the length of the autodemo timer. It's to EITHER move to instanced housing, or to impose property tax (compounding for each property owned by the account). Extending the timer for people who don't even want to play the game is remarkably selfish.

It's not that I and others don't WANT to play the game. We DO want to play it. A lot of us are heavily invested in this game and have been for years. We don't want to quit. We want the game to improve and for the devs to stop giving us crap stories and content. And they're never gonna improve anything while a huge swath of the player base is effectively being extorted into paying their monthly sub so they don't lose their house. The ONLY thing that corporations hear is money, and as long as money is still flowing in, they have no incentive to do anything to improve the game.

[hydralus]

It's not that I and others don't WANT to play the game. We DO want to play it. A lot of us are heavily invested in this game and have been for years. We don't want to quit. We want the game to improve and for the devs to stop giving us crap stories and content. And they're never gonna improve anything while a huge swath of the player base is effectively being extorted into paying their monthly sub so they don't lose their house. The ONLY thing that corporations hear is money, and as long as money is still flowing in, they have no incentive to do anything to improve the game.

Well, asking a company to hurt their own bottom line is definitely something you can do (while at the same time doing nothing but hurting the limited housing the game has), but I don't think it'll catch on. I'd also say that buying a house knowing it'll go away if you stop paying your sub, and acting like the company is extorting you because of it, is pretty wild.

As for the rest of the statement, the story content of the game has always been pretty weak. 45 minutes of story every 3-4 months is hardly a reason to stay subbed and it's been like that since ARR. That leaves the rest of the content. Again, it's been about the same as it has in prior years. So I guess what I'm getting at is what exactly is different now? What were you doing from 6.1 to 6.2?

[IndraSyngiwyb]

Well, asking a company to hurt their own bottom line is definitely something you can do (while at the same time doing nothing but hurting the limited housing the game has), but I don't think it'll catch on. I'd also say that buying a house knowing it'll go away if you stop paying your sub, and acting like the company is extorting you because of it, is pretty wild.

As for the rest of the statement, the story content of the game has always been pretty weak. 45 minutes of story every 3-4 months is hardly a reason to stay subbed and it's been like that since ARR. That leaves the rest of the content. Again, it's been about the same as it has in prior years. So I guess what I'm getting at is what exactly is different now? What were you doing from 6.1 to 6.2?

Yes, when I bought the house, I knew it would get demolished if I unsubbed and logged out for too long. But when I (and many others I wager) bought the house, I still trusted the dev team to keep making a good game. Even if there were some low points, I still believed they could make a good story and interesting content.

Now, they have delivered the exact opposite. Dawntrail's story was terrible. The role quests were crap. The dungeons and raids have been utterly uninteresting and unappealing. And the graphical "update" actually made every NPC and my WoLs look about a zillion times worse. If ONE of these things were true but everything else was fine, we wouldn't be having this conversation because I'd have *something* to hold onto as a reason to keep paying my sub.

But right now, the only reason I have to keep paying is the house. That's not right. Especially with Yoshi-P doing his, "Go play other games" schtick. How are we meant to do that if they actively punish us for doing it by taking away the housing they've intentionally made scarce?

You asked what the difference was? During the previous expansions, the story, the side content, etc. All of it was simply written better. Did it have its issues? Yeah. But even at its lowest points (i.e. The Gyr Abania half of StB and most of the EW patches), it was still LEAGUES better than the Disney-esque, corporate slop we were given in Dawntrail.

And when you have such a colossal drop in quality, you should expect people's trust to be shaken and for them to maybe want to back off for a little bit until you do something to prove you can actually do better.

But when you refuse to change a system that effectively prevents your most loyal customers from expressing their discontent in the ONLY way that actually leads to real change (i.e. cutting into the bottom line), you only further erode that trust.

[hydralus]

Yes, when I bought the house, I knew it would get demolished if I unsubbed and logged out for too long. But when I (and many others I wager) bought the house, I still trusted the dev team to keep making a good game. Even if there were some low points, I still believed they could make a good story and interesting content.

Now, they have delivered the exact opposite. Dawntrail's story was terrible. The role quests were crap. The dungeons and raids have been utterly uninteresting and unappealing. And the graphical "update" actually made every NPC and my WoLs look about a zillion times worse. If ONE of these things were true but everything else was fine, we wouldn't be having this conversation because I'd have *something* to hold onto as a reason to keep paying my sub.

But right now, the only reason I have to keep paying is the house. That's not right. Especially with Yoshi-P doing his, "Go play other games" schtick. How are we meant to do that if they actively punish us for doing it by taking away the housing they've intentionally made scarce?

You asked what the difference was? During the previous expansions, the story, the side content, etc. All of it was simply written better. Did it have its issues? Yeah. But even at its lowest points (i.e. The Gyr Abania half of StB and most of the EW patches), it was still LEAGUES better than the Disney-esque, corporate slop we were given in Dawntrail.

And when you have such a colossal drop in quality, you should expect people's trust to be shaken and for them to maybe want to back off for a little bit until you do something to prove you can actually do better.

But when you refuse to change a system that effectively prevents your most loyal customers from expressing their discontent in the ONLY way that actually leads to real change (i.e. cutting into the bottom line), you only further erode that trust.

Like I said the story thing is whatever. That's like max 2 hours of content which isn't worth a subscription, at least to me. I am surprised that you feel so strongly about the dungeons and raids being uninteresting. Is there anything in particular you'd like to point out in how they're lacking?

[IndraSyngiwyb]

Like I said the story thing is whatever. That's like max 2 hours of content which isn't worth a subscription, at least to me. I am surprised that you feel so strongly about the dungeons and raids being uninteresting. Is there anything in particular you'd like to point out in how they're lacking?

I wouldn't say there's a single thing I could point to. It was more like, as I was going through them I just felt bored. Unengaged. Disinterested. Maybe it's because they were linked to a story that bored me to tears at best and made me blindingly angry at worst.

And maybe the story doesn't matter much to you. I get that. For some people, the story is secondary at best. But for I and others, the story was what made us care about the game. I never got stories in WoW like I got from 14. I never cared about WoW characters like I cared about 14 characters (I sure as hell didn't cry over any WoW characters like I did over Haurchefant). My player character in WoW never felt like she mattered to the story. It felt like she mattered in 14.

Until Dawntrail, where we were basically relegated to the same state as the WoW player character. We were just there. So maybe that's another reason why the dungeons and raids felt so empty to me. I didn't feel like anything I'd done had mattered in this expansion, so I felt no connection to any of the dungeons or raids. I was just IN them, doing things for the sake of doing them.

[Rinoa_353]

I wouldn't say there's a single thing I could point to. It was more like, as I was going through them I just felt bored. Unengaged. Disinterested. Maybe it's because they were linked to a story that bored me to tears at best and made me blindingly angry at worst.

And maybe the story doesn't matter much to you. I get that. For some people, the story is secondary at best. But for I and others, the story was what made us care about the game. I never got stories in WoW like I got from 14. I never cared about WoW characters like I cared about 14 characters (I sure as hell didn't cry over any WoW characters like I did over Haurchefant). My player character in WoW never felt like she mattered to the story. It felt like she mattered in 14.

Until Dawntrail, where we were basically relegated to the same state as the WoW player character. We were just there. So maybe that's another reason why the dungeons and raids felt so empty to me. I didn't feel like anything I'd done had mattered in this expansion, so I felt no connection to any of the dungeons or raids. I was just IN them, doing things for the sake of doing them.

I have been hearing this from the majority that care about the story felt we were just a side character when we have been the main character since 1.0 on top of the terrible pacing made the DT MSQ poorly received. Most would agree one core strength of this game before DT was us being the main focus of the story, not babysit from the sidelines.

[hydralus]

I wouldn't say there's a single thing I could point to. It was more like, as I was going through them I just felt bored. Unengaged. Disinterested. Maybe it's because they were linked to a story that bored me to tears at best and made me blindingly angry at worst.

And maybe the story doesn't matter much to you. I get that. For some people, the story is secondary at best. But for I and others, the story was what made us care about the game. I never got stories in WoW like I got from 14. I never cared about WoW characters like I cared about 14 characters (I sure as hell didn't cry over any WoW characters like I did over Haurchefant). My player character in WoW never felt like she mattered to the story. It felt like she mattered in 14.

Until Dawntrail, where we were basically relegated to the same state as the WoW player character. We were just there. So maybe that's another reason why the dungeons and raids felt so empty to me. I didn't feel like anything I'd done had mattered in this expansion, so I felt no connection to any of the dungeons or raids. I was just IN them, doing things for the sake of doing them.

So it really is just about the story, huh. Naturally whatever feelings you have on the matter is valid, but still doesn't have much to do with the housing situation. Things that could improve the housing situation is adding more wards to worlds with high populations, enacting a tax, or moving to an instanced system, not just being hoarded by people who don't want to play. I'd want housing to be more available to everyone, including yourself and others, not just some selfish desire to be able to stop playing the game yet hold onto a limited item.