Personal Housing Questions

[Niwashi]

You guys - how is it handled in other games?

LOTRO uses wards like FFXIV's (though LOTRO uses the term "neighborhood" rather than "ward"), and it mixes personal houses and kinship houses into the same neighborhoods. (LOTRO kinship = FFXIV FC.) Turbine was a lot more generous than SE when it came to setting the number of neighborhoods, however. Its system for adding additional neighborhoods whenever a given size of house was sold out was automated and really worked for at least the first few years it was out. So you could always buy the size house you wanted in the zone you wanted (though whether the exact house location you wanted was available wasn't guaranteed).

Eventually (after about 3 or 4 years IIRC), the most populated server hit a maximum number of neighborhoods that the system could spawn, and new neighborhoods couldn't be added until Turbine increased that upper limit (which was immediately filled with the people who had been waiting for that limit increase, so it was back to full and needed to be increased again). But I don't think any other server, besides that most populated one, ever hit that problem. (I haven't really kept up with it all that well the last year or so since ARR came out, though, so I'm not up on its recent status.)

[MomomiMomi]

But so far as I've seen, the only thing they've actually answered is that we can have a garden.

And I believe even that's not certain if it's coming in 2.38. Last I saw, they were working on it, but they weren't sure if they could have it ready to come along with personal houses.

Which also makes me believe that these are going to be totally different to the existing wards if they have to work on the garden system so much for it.

[Narthice]

The only other game I've played with housing system was Mabinogi.

There they first had Housing which was not instanced. There were different housing areas (I think 4 total if i remember correctly) and you didn't buy a house really, it was more like a rent. First you would go to an available house and bid on it. If you won the bid you get to keep the house for 4 weeks and you would pay taxes once a week during this period. After the time expired you would take your belongings and try bidding on another house. You were able to decorate it to an extent, but frankly since you aren't keeping the house there wasn’t much incentive to decorating it. You may ask “What is the point of the house then?” Well they were basically retainers in a way. You would put items for sale as well as storing gold. I’ll leave a wiki link to it if anyone cares to read more on it http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Housing


Then there were Homesteads, which were instanced. They were free for anyone at early levels. You would receive a ticket to create one, and you could pick from three themes/environments (regular grassland, Desert, or Snowfield) It starts as a very tiny plot but you can level it up by doing activities such as farming and building. It would expand at certain levels as well as unlocking more selections of materials/fauna to add to it. One of the sad part of it is that even though you could add a house in the plot of land you couldn't go inside, and it didn't serve any purpose other than visual. Here is a link with more information on this one http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Homestead

Personally im hoping for Instanced in this game, I understand some people want to live close to each other and it would be nice to have both options, but I'm afraid that might not be possible (limitations and what not). It’s sad that we know nothing about this yet, and a lot of the statements made about it are confusing in which we don't know if they are referring to FC housing or personal rooms at times. Some clarification is really needed. Perhaps it really has been delayed yet again.

[CUTS3R]

expect to see people decrying crafters as greedy mustache-twirling robber barons

This is trully what they are though, some items prices are stupidly high for what they are. ( see Glamour prisms for example )

But thats another story. *teleports away*

[Jodou]

The (would seem obvious) reason that they cannot make personal housing in the same type of instanced wards is because they don't even have enough FC wards, how can they drop Personal Housing the same way and then it not be available for everyone. The game would explode.

Exactly. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense they simply can't handle this kind of demand and instanced rooms would be the only viable route. Luckily for me, they're adding more FC wards so I'll be simply buying myself a mansion that way. Sucks for others though.

[JillyBean]

Exactly. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense they simply can't handle this kind of demand and instanced rooms would be the only viable route. Luckily for me, they're adding more FC wards so I'll be simply buying myself a mansion that way. Sucks for others though.

I am reeeeallly hoping this is the case. I would have much more loved the idea of wards/neighborhoods, but that will leave too many people out and sad.

It scares me a bit to read how other games handle it. The possibility of wards really exists out there. I'm hoping that's just the case with older/less popular games, and that Yoshi knows better than to introduce something so many people are anxiously waiting for, but that only a tiny percentage of people could enjoy. Especially after the initial introduction of Free Co. housing which shocked the population with it's prices, leaving most free companys settling for less or with no house at all, and then the wards filling up by the time some FC's did have enough saved to finally buy. To repeat that with personal housing would just be a massive mistake. The outcry would be exponential.

I really think personal housing is supposed to be Yoshi's "answer" to all housing - making it possible for EVERYONE to have a house. Right now, ONLY people in FC's with houses can have a house or a personal (private chambers within FC house) room and access to any type of gardening or stabling/choco coloring or activities. I'm lucky enough to be in a great FC with all these amenities, but much of the player population is locked out of it. Personal housing should be the thing that opens it up for everyone. This was always what I thought it was to be.

[Nalien]

Nothing today? Guess it's Monday or nothing; the most clear and relevant information about Personal Housing in a recent time frame will have been banter about the cost and "somehow we can't implement Gardening for you easily".

[JillyBean]

Yeah there really should be a rep post in here clarifying something. I am very on edge.

[Yahavage]

I feel the need to keep prodding at this also. *pokes with stick*

Come on! Do something!

I've been really, really excited about personal housing since before the game launched, I neeeeeeeeeed to know what's gonna happen! Luckily I'll be able to get someone to log me on while I'm at work, but one of my friends is currently on holiday with no access to the game... it'd be nice to know if I can wait for them coming back, or is it every Eorzean for themselves?

[Nalien]

They really need to start doing a better job of keeping us updated on content that has been planned for a long time. Almost this exact same scenario happened with Frontlines (although we actually got a few screenshots of that, if little else), and OK, I ended up liking how Frontlines turned out, but it still doesn't change the fact that I expected something different based on what little they'd told us about it leading to its release. I expect the exact same thing to happen with Primal Summoning, and God only knows if Dragon Battles of Ishgard is still even a thing, even if it is, outside the name we've pretty much gotten nothing on that, and with Ishgard starting to take center stage in the Main Scenario, I'd at least expect something.

I'm really starting to regret keeping up to date on all the planned content; ignorance truly is bliss. Following their plans only seems to lead to disappointment, they go "We're planning this!", and we go "And what exactly is that?", and then they say nothing for years. Half the time I mention content I remember as being planned, people aren't even aware it was a thing anymore, it's really quite hilarious in a sad way.