FC Housing? What's the point?

[DevilInANewDress]

Hot tub anyone?

[echoica]

I see a lot of people buy housing and when the novelty wears off like a week later they hardly ever visit again. We, however, are there all the time as crafters it's a great place to hang out and get things done now that we have our own mender, summoning bell and marketboard outside. I love our house!

[Rex]

Our plot (30, Mist) is right next to a market board and is a stone's throw from the shore where there's a few vendors selling a few items that no other vendors sell. We have a beautiful Leviathan water feature in the garden (now with added glow), a delivery box that jingles a simplified version of the Moggle Mog chorus when you have a mail and ample foliage and pretty lights to make our yard attractive to onlookers and residents alike. The views from our plot are, in this humble homeowner's opinion, second to none in all of Mist. Our gardening patches are an excellent source of money for those with priveleges to plant and pick.

Inside our luxuriously decorated estate we have a summoning bell, two vendors, a mender and ample room to sit down, relax, talk, chill out or craft. We have a wide variety of plush, novelty and trophy furnishings to make our company home really feel like a hall of gathering for our members.
Despite all this, only 6/41 of my FC ever hang out at the house. Even with the above plus the drastically lower load times in Mist than a city people just don't care. Why? Because housing gives no tangible reward to anyone except those that can garden. Even then, that is temporary until the market is inevitably flooded by the few items that make money. I really like our house. I paid for 80% of the cost and decorated it myself. It pains me to say that because the majority of people in this game are so end game orientated they simply don't have time to appreciate what's good about housing. "It doesn't give me anything!", "What do I get from it?", "It's not my house anyway!" are just a handful of some of the phrases I've heard.

It depends on your attitude and goals in this game whether housing gives you anything.

^ Basically.

I have a private company with 5 other real life friends and a couple others met on XIV. At the time of buying the house, me and 3 of my real life friends were the only ones around and we bought a nice little small plot on the 29th (i think) plot of the 4th ward of Lavender Beds. We've made it our own. And we all use it. We made a little bar downstairs and the upstairs looks like a Maelstrom office. We have a little garden outside and plan to raise chocobos when that becomes available too. We have a firepit as well.


I don't think it's about "what do I get out of it" It's more of a place where you can go and enjoy your time with your friends instead of sitting in town with 100s of other people around you making noise. It's a lot of fun to have a little house with a couple of your friends. It's fun to enjoy the game. Not constantly run end game. Besides, it's the place we hang out when we have to do a bunch of myth or soldiery runs. It's where we meet. Hang out. Sure it doesn't have a whole lot of features now, but just because it doesn't have something for you RIGHT NOW doesn't mean it won't be increasingly valuable in the future. What's wrong with giving your character a home to go to?

Plus, we were the first ones in the 4th ward, so it was completely empty and quiet. It was fun to watch people slowly move in.

[swordrain]

Housing is meant to be like a glamour system, or basic character customization. It isn't something players need, its something that players want. If you don't want to contribute to an FC house, tell your guild.

It's meant to simply be another way for a player to express themselves in-game, which makes housing a piece of content that can't become "outdated" and something that the devs never need to redevelop.

If you continue playing this game, I guarantee you, after raids come and go, gear sets collect dust in your wardrobe, after friends come and go, you will appreciate things that don't have to change, and that you can hold onto them as 'yours.'

[QuCont]

To a non fc player it doesn't seem that important based on these replies.
Especially when it comes to actual gameplay.

I see no point in the convenience of mb and vendors when you have that and so much more in each town.

The FC vendors sell a lot more items than can be found on the vendors in town.

[Sadana]

If you craft at all, the npc materials vendor is great. They pretty much sell every mat available at every city. So no more "where was this sold at? Oh, now I need to port there...."

No, not everyone in my FC makes much use of the house, but some do and it's fun to hang out there.

I guess too, we don't know what features will be added to FC houses in the future. So, getting a house now before they are all gone and you CAN'T take advantage of these makes sense to me. Yes, I'm sure SE will add more wards at some point, but which will come first? More features or the wards? :/

[Tinsley]

Maybe my FC is rare but, we started with a small cottage and just recently moved up to a full Mansion. Both have always been our place to gather and hang out. Our home. We have a MB a few feet away, two summoning bells (one in house, one by mb), merchants, mailbox, mender and a aetheryte. I only go into the cities to go to GC, use the armoire or get my hair done.

There are always a few FC members near the house at any given time. We share gardening duties (tending, fertilizing, planting, gathering) and soon will add the crafting stations. This will give even more of our fc members a reason to hang at the house.

To be honest the house has given our FC a real sense of community and a stronger bond as a Free company. at least in my opinion. We arent all spread out over Eorzea and we help each other with crafting, materials, gathering, trials, dungeons, fates, etc daily.

Do we need a mansion? Probably not but it sure is pretty

[KovaThurne]

I feel like this game and DC Universe Online got it completely backwards when it comes to housing. Here you have FC (guild) housing and not personal housing. In DCUO you got personal bases (housing) and not league (guild) bases.

For DCUO I could care less about having my own base but it would have been really cool for our league to have it's own base like the Avengers HQ, Watch Tower, X Mansion, Asteroid M, ect.

For this game, while the FC housing is kinda cool I would much rather have my own cottage that I could decorate with my own souvenirs and trophies that I collected throughout my adventuring career