Personal Housing *SHOULD* be expensive...aka Yet Another Housing Topic

[Kosmos992k]

Personal housing should be expensive, otherwise it utterly invalidates the lore surrounding Free Company Housing. Free Companies are allowed to buy house because the 3 cities/Grand Companies allow it as a special privilege. How much more so would it be special for an individual to purchase a house like a Free Company can afford?

There is no way that the *land* could ever be cheaper if it is in the same ward as Free Company residences. If it was it would immediately invalidate any FC purchasing plans.

Note, I said land, and the land is the only cost that has been revealed. The cost of actually buying the permit to build and building itself has not been revealed, perhaps its the same, perhaps it is less. Personally I would hope for it being a lesser amount since in my opinion personal houses should be limited to the kind of house that small FCs could afford when FC Housing was first implemented.

That leads me neatly to two questions which are burning in my mind as Free Company master;

FC Housing gives access to crafting facilities, gardening, Chocobo Stable/training and Moogle mail conveniently at the front door - among other things. Are the advantages of the Free Company housing to extend to individuals now?

And following on from that, if that is the case, then what is the point of Free Companies? You already wiped out one of the advantages by allowing individuals to buy the same plots of land and presumably houses as a whole FC (who doesn't think that will drive further RMT in this game?). So if those individual homes have all the same perks as a Free Company house, what really is the purpose of the FC?

Yoshida-san and the Dev team, please listen. You guys completely lacked pre-planning and thought when it came to the Hunt system which was a near total disaster - even with the subsequent hot fixes. And here we are again with you dropping a major new system on us which is *clearly* not through being tested, otherwise you'd have implemented what you talk about putting into 2.4, now instead.

Did it not cross your minds that allowing individual players to buy the same houses and facilities that FCs can basically undermines the entire purpose of the Free Company? Did it never cross your minds that the high prices of large and medium plots would potentially drive players to buying Gil?

This isn't exactly rocket science here, it is entirely predictable.

Now, the one ray of hope I have at the moment is that the patch notes didn't really elaborate on individual housing, and yet there has to be a separate UI for them. So there remains a lot we do not know. We don't know if the houses will be the same size, have basements, be able to host airship facilities (whenever they come) gardening, Chocobo stables/training, etc. I call it a ray of hope, but that might be too optimistic, I honestly think that someone forgot to think this through. not only that , Yoshida-san, I appreciate your letter about housing, but it honestly seems to me that you were informed by the Dev team about what would make it into 2.38 for personal housing, realized that players would be massively angry about it, and hastily wrote that letter in the hope that you could quell the angry voices with an apology. Sadly acts of contrition and apology do not work with the typical MMORPG player these days as they are too focused on themselves to realize that there is a bigger picture. That said, you are a very intelligent man, so how could you not see how this would affect the community?

[MaethusXion]

There is no way that the *land* could ever be cheaper if it is in the same ward as Free Company residences. If it was it would immediately invalidate any FC purchasing plans.

Note, I said land, and the land is the only cost that has been revealed. The cost of actually buying the permit to build and building itself has not been revealed, perhaps its the same, perhaps it is less.

I think you answered your own question with these two lines. Same land, same permits. They didn't ever say you had to buy a separate building permit with FC Housing iirc...

[Kosmos992k]

I think you answered your own question with these two lines. Same land, same permits. They didn't ever say you had to buy a separate building permit with FC Housing iirc...

Re-read the patch notes, there is a distinction at the time of purchase between individual and FC. Nothing else is revealed.

[MaethusXion]

Re-read the patch notes, there is a distinction at the time of purchase between individual and FC. Nothing else is revealed.

Going off of what you were saying: Same land means it has to be same price.
So, would it be reasonable if the SAME house was built for less gil just because it's a personal house? A Small FC house will be the same size as a Small Personal house. Why? Because it's the same land. The only difference is if you're able to buy a FC House but haven't is you make sure you buy it as the correct type of housing.
As for the building permits, Smalls run about 200k-400k for a building permit(estimated, can't remember what my FC paid). Are you saying they can charge less for an individual's home construction and not for an individual's home land?

Incidentally, Yoshida can say that the house will be cheaper and be perfectly correct, even if the land itself is the same price. I don't recall the patch notes indicating the costs of the house permits (it might have, I was skimming), but it did layout in detail the cost of the LAND, not the house.

The 2.1 patch notes didn't say price of construction permits either...

[Kosmos992k]

Going off of what you were saying: Same land means it has to be same price.
So, would it be reasonable if the SAME house was built for less gil just because it's a personal house? A Small FC house will be the same size as a Small Personal house. Why? Because it's the same land. The only difference is if you're able to buy a FC House but haven't is you make sure you buy it as the correct type of housing.

Perhaps you should review construction of homes in general....You can buy the same acre of land and build a 1000 square foot ranch style home with no basement, or a two story colonial style home with a complete basement, the cost of the LAND is identical, the cost of actually preparing the land for the type of home to be built and then building the home are not.

[MaethusXion]

Perhaps you should review construction of homes in general....You can buy the same acre of land and build a 1000 square foot ranch style home with no basement, or a two story colonial style home with a complete basement, the cost of the LAND is identical, the cost of actually preparing the land for the type of home to be built and then building the home are not.

Except we're being led to believe, by SE, that the housing is EXACTLY the same. Not a "I only want this size house so I can pay less" platform.

How about this: buy a personal house brand new with screenshot of the price when you buy it, buy the permit for the house with screenshot of the price when you buy it, then go inside and take screenshots of all four walls. Post the screenshots here.

My FC room is getting revamped again, time to lock it til done... I got better stuff to spend my gil on than overpriced personal housing.

[TeaTimeBear]

Guess it's true what they say. No matter how bad something is you will always find that one person to defend it. I'm not even gonna argue with you I'm just gonna leave you with people have wanted this for a long long time now and this was entirely stupid.

Have fun with the oncoming lions an wolves.

[Kosmos992k]

I'm not defending it, I'm appalled by it, I'm pointing out that the lore of the game that covers personal housing makes this inevitable.

[TeaTimeBear]

I'm not defending it, I'm appalled by it, I'm pointing out that the lore of the game that covers personal housing makes this inevitable.

Honestly the lore of the game is not a good reason.

[Kosmos992k]

Honestly the lore of the game is not a good reason.

Why not? In a virtual world, the lore is all we have.