First article about the House pricing.

[MakotoNano]

select "few" groups of people (Titan run sellers) have farmed up collectively 20mil to 80mil (supposedly) These "few" groups, now control the housing market prices. One of the FC on my server has about 30mil saved up from just titan runs. Most average players in my FC? 500k to 2mil (with a few who claim 10mil+)

About 1/3rd of my FC, doesn't care about housing at all. In general, that 1/3rd is also the player base with the most money.

Many FC members ask me this. "Why would I donate to FC housing when I don't intend to use it." OR "Why should I donate anymore then the lowest player." If someone can only afford a 100k donation, why should I fork over 1mil+ or my hard-earned gil? (Their thought process not mine). You might be thinking "Man you got a lot of scum bags in your FC."
They also ask "Would you trust giving a large sum of money to someone you barely know online that you worked hard for (gil obviously). What if he server transfers after getting 20+mil or 80+mil?

[VenusCaelestis]

Not impressed. You have no facts except what you know of the patch notes and the outcry is from small FC's that think they should get the largest plot.

We need to see how making gil is in 2.1 before coming to any conclusions. You have no proof the sky is falling yet.

[Giringiro]

It's a big blunder on SE's part, and that's being generous. They made housing such a luxury feature that it is out of reach for the majority of the player base.

I for one think the land should be rented as well as sold. Like, for land patch X you can fork 20 millions for full ownership, or 5% of that every month for rent. Everyone would have a chance to sample the new content, maybe enjoy renting a small house while they gather the funds to buy a bigger one.

Such a system would become a more effective gil sink and give realistic options even to family-sized FCs.

[MakotoNano]

SE should introduce a RENT option. As well as lowering the prices by at least 1/3rd or 1/2 depending on servers.

so Say a first class, large plot is 100 mil, it would drop to say, 65mil or 50mil. Then allow FC to rent the plot. i.e. once a week the FC must pay X amount of gil required. Once that total gil reaches, the 65 or 50mil, you have fully paid it off.

[KHShadowrunner]

How bad these 'rent' ideas must be...

What happens if someone doesn't pay their 'rent'?
How do you transition the items that are currently in the house once 'rent' expires?
How long of a grace period do you give if someone cannot pay the 'rent'? (In hospital for x days)
What about other players and how they get to handle their belongings and such?
If rented, what is the purpose of personal housing? (Why pay 500k for your own house when you can 'rent' a virtual house for a month for 20k, and you don't plan on playing but for a month or two?)

Too many variables, too many conditions. You can't just say 'why don't they do X' without a plan, so that skeptics can pick at it with a chisel until it's either smooth and perfect, or cracked and broken.

Just as bad as the loan idea tbh. Sounds like a recipe for disaster

(technically, who is to say you can't already 'rent' a room in one of the larger FCs? unless it reuqires you to bei nthe FC to access.)

[Cegiana]

the cost of FC housing isn't meant to be entirely shouldered by a single player.

Which is funny, because the few FCs that will actually buy a house, will be the super rich owner of the FC. Nobody values their free time so little that they will give someone else millions of their gil to put in for a FC house that will belong to someone else. It's a flawed system based on flawed logic, they can't make it hard to earn millions and then expect people to give up their millions when they finally get the gil. Remember, people have themselves to finance as well.

[KHShadowrunner]

I don't know, just like how I remembered whole linkshells gathering together to help their fishermen get the Lu Shang's way way back in the day, and dynamis groups banding together to help one person get the currency they need (some groups actually did this, you know), I can see groups of people in an FC banding together to help get a community house. It's very possible for them to want to do this, and when everyone gets 'something' out of it, it's a very real possibility. Just seems that people don't have that mentality nowadays.

(and it's expensive)

[KraggyKor]

How bad these 'rent' ideas must be...

What happens if someone doesn't pay their 'rent'?
How do you transition the items that are currently in the house once 'rent' expires?
How long of a grace period do you give if someone cannot pay the 'rent'? (In hospital for x days)
What about other players and how they get to handle their belongings and such?
If rented, what is the purpose of personal housing? (Why pay 500k for your own house when you can 'rent' a virtual house for a month for 20k, and you don't plan on playing but for a month or two?)

Go play LOTRO, Turbine solved all these problems years ago with Kin houses.

Stupid post limit .. to answer the guy below me:

Your suggestion to solving this is to steal off another game? So much for detailed analysis.

What i mean is, you say 'do rent', I say 'how', you say 'I dunno, those guys did it, so do it'.

It's not very helpful, nor does it actually propose a solution.

'Steal'?

LOL?

FFXIV is one BIG 'steal' from all the MMOs that came before. In this case I'm pointing out that all your 'problems' have been solved, so do like all good engineers do and adopt proven solutions.

You actually don't want answers, your opening comment clearly shows you were simply trying to put down someone's suggestions, I was simply pointing out your criticisms of it aren't valid, I wasn't trying to be helpful because you were looking for help!

[KHShadowrunner]

Your suggestion to solving this is to steal off another game? So much for detailed analysis.

What i mean is, you say 'do rent', I say 'how', you say 'I dunno, those guys did it, so do it'.

It's not very helpful, nor does it actually propose a solution.

[Abriael]

Methinks you overstate your claim by a wee-bit. But let's not digress here. I'm not saying that customer satisfaction is unimportant, but it does have to be balanced by game balance as well as developer vision.

This is a vanity feature. For vanity features balance plays a much less important role than customer satisfaction, by definition.

Did not Yoshida say on numerous times that housing would be expensive? Why act so shocked when he actually keeps his word?

He also stated that it would take about the savings of three level 50 players. So again, you're wrong. Expensive and mindboggling are two different things.

Anecdotal. For every story you can give of a FC not being able to afford the cheapest lot, there's a story of a FC that can, as of now, afford a first class slot.

Keep trying with the semantic tricks without noticing how ridiculous they are. Even if some FCs can afford it, it doesn't disprove that the feature is locked out from a large part of the population. Basically you don't have a point.

People who have been on Legacy servers and playing since 1.0 generally have more gil than those who started with the release of 2.0. Even after the number slash, players from 1.0 are still gillionaires.

There's tons of players on the legacy servers that don't come from 1.0, and tons of players from 1.0 that don't even have a million, or much less.

I'll admit that FFXIV is going into new territory by offering guild housing first, and then personal housing. With that said, I think calling it "high engagement" is an over-statement. Housing is a feature, but not the main point and part of the game.

Your knowledge of the MMORPG market is obviously very limited. And you demonstrate it with every single thing you write. When any developer adds housing to its MMO it's publicized immediately as a primary feature, because they know what kind of draw it has.

Hyped? Again, over-statement. A quick look at the topics on Lodestone, Housing was featured only once, along with every other main addition in 2.1. Lightning Returns got more coverage. As far as "vast portion", I think that's not taking into account that there are more gil fountains in 2.1, that prices will fall over time, and that personal housing isn't in yet.

My, you seem to have a vested interest in stating falsehoods. Housing was hyped during *every single live letter* *personally* by the *president and CEO of Square Enix* so much that he was nicknamed "Uncle housing." There's no other feature that got a similar treatment.

Get your facts straight. You really need it, because the falsehoods permeating your posts to defend an obvious blunder are stifling.