Why do Vanity items / Player housing / Pets exist?

[Molly_Millions]

Because people enjoy different things in games. Not everyone is all battle all the time.

[Razzle]

I'm the player type the OP listed, who likes the vanity, housing and pets (just cause I like nonsense and doing things just for fun even if it means my chaarcter won't "z0mg progress" through it...).

It's like decorating your work office in real life, putting some plant pots on the desk, and some family pictures. You decorate your character just to for fun, it doesn't have much meaning, just gives a funner atmosphere. And hurts no one.

I'd like to add that you're wrong about housing though, YoshiP said somewhere that he has plans for it later on, functional decorations that may help our characters in some way (maybe like extra storage?), Chocobo raising, maybe some gathering too... So it's not completely vanity-fun-time...

So you don't like X type of content, that's why you will also get Y type of content which you do like, but doesn't mean players that like X type of content shouldn't get theirs...

[Bichcat]

I LOVE player housing. I spent hundreds of hours working on my houses in EQ2. The big question for me is, can they top the EQ2 player housing.....not likely, but I'm exicted to see them try.

[Nuinn]

I'm a bit confused o_O I'll admit that. No ill thoughts meant but from the OP I felt like reading about some bizarre new features thing being introduced to the MMO market. Took me back in time. . . .

I'm soft when not excited and I'm excited both about the battle aspect of this game as well as all the vanity additions, which is to say - always
It started because people want more different experiences from a single game than getting a quick fix of either action or casual from different sources.

Also, there's never "me" in MMOs, no matter what the devs tell us, it's always "them" and the money. These feats bring more money as they cater to a wider variety of people. If you (or rather, all of us) can enjoy them, great. Otherwise just cross your fingers that they provide your taste buds with enough sugar of your own liking in equal quantities as well.

[LiquidOuroboros]

Why do Vanity items / Player housing / Pets exist?

Why do you care what clothes you were, or what car you drive? Vanity ftw imo.

Some of us actually enjoys roleplaying. I consider myself a pretty hardcore gamer and a roleplayer both. But if I had 2 items almost identical in stats, Id take the better looking one even if it was a few stats worse.

Not sure if OP is trolling, stupid or ignorant. Vanity items spice the game up and makes it richer. Why even care if they cost money? Noone is forcing you to buy any of it.

[Mezolitik]

Final Fantasy is about exploring, killing monsters, leveling up and gearing your character, not building a house. You cannot deny that.

Yes, but MMOs are about casual endeavours, mini games, and dressing up.

People play open world games for different reasons, and obviously SE has to respect that. IMHO, killing monsters, gearing your character, and levelling is pretty dull in FFXIV; it's the other stuff (mounts, minions, houses, crafting, gathering, etc.) that keep me playing.

[Tharia]

*snip*

Yes and we also should reduce games to 2D with anmies as a red dot and people as a blue dot and amybe only excel tables at all. All this grafic and amory stuff eats way to much developed resources. Imagine how many dungeons Developer could do for the action if we just use ASCII as a GUI. All the fighting content we get if we remove all the other needless stuff.

[Brojam]

Because some of us actually enjoy all of these things

[Yshnal]

Because of variety and different tastes. Some people enjoy killing monsters, others fighting against other players, someone else likes to roleplay, another one likes to craft stuff and/or play the market, the guy next to them likes to collect all the gear because he likes how it looks, his friend wants to get all pets and mounts available, their FC mate is a housing addict, etc. And some people even enjoy everything. It's not that hard to understand, if you think a bit about it. Content for everyone, as everyone pays the same.

This is an MMO, so I say that it's good that it tries to build a wonderful virtual world with plenty of alternatives for everyone to enjoy.

[Renik]

@OP

certainly devs has to fix a lot of things, housing, minions and mounts are just vanity items, a waste of resources taking into account the current state of the game, but this is an MMORPG.

Also, while making housing, minions and mounts takes time and resorces, making new dungeons and HMversions (that will get old after the first week) takes even more time and resources.
If you're mad because the game is becoming repetitive and boring, don't complain about the resorces invested in vanity content, complain about the poor design of end-game content.

On the other hand, if you're ok with repetitive content and just don't care about the rest, then you're the one who is worng about the MMORPG, not the rest of the gamers, Blizzard decided they wanted an MMO where everything was instanced and repetitive, but that's not an MMO, that's just a multiplayer with a big chat room.

PS: I went a bit offtopic, but all these threads has the same root, so i'll leave my post as it is.