Can we get some Sweeps in here.

[Hakucat]

Is it just me or is it that SE is adding to many wards for housing. The way I feel is if you dont use your house for anything and just have it there for show and you never go inside of it or you never logout inside of it OR EVEN STEP ONE FOOT INSIDE OF IT AFTER YOU BUY IT after a course of a month or two there need to be a sweep. I mean why should I save my gil for a house that is 2 mill and I hardly craft or gather I sell what I can and try to flip what I get only to have it stolem by a gil buyer or a 4star crafter that already owns 5 small houses. I mean please make a system in the game that will sweep players names that have not been on for a month or 2 and if they own a house bye bye house. Let someone else get that plot I mean some games have a tax system where you pay blah blah blah gold every 2 weeks -cough- (Archeage) and that is free to play and they have a fair housing system. I mean I'm sure we cant have 100 billon houses on this server and it only puts strain on the server.

[Justsomeguy]

Thing is, that isn't fair to the house owner.

They bought the house, they can choose to use it if they wish to. If someone buys a house and never uses it, but they pay etc etc a person cannot demand the bank/government/whatever (I don't know real estate D: ) to take the house back because they want it.

Although I understand what you're saying, if someone quits the game and has their house...well. A Bi-Yearly check up system can fix that, every 6 months you check a box, doing this shows you still play and you still wish to keep your house.

Even then, I can see people complaining.

[kyuven]

Even then, I can see people complaining.

Internet Law #1: People will complain about EVERYTHING.

[Justsomeguy]

Internet Law #1: People will complain about EVERYTHING.

Sadly, this is correct.

[LunaHoshino]

Frankly, what I wish they'd sweep is character names. It's annoying as heck to go to create a character and find out that the name you want is taken by a level 1 character still in the default gear that was obviously created and then never touched.

[Nuinn]

Well, I'll be going away for 2 months for work + vacation. My house better not get "swept" or I WILL hunt you down.

[Canadane]

Wasn't there a system in place where if the owner (or the whole FC?) doesn't log in for 35 days it's relinquished and sold back at it's purchase price?

[kyuven]

Frankly, what I wish they'd sweep is character names. It's annoying as heck to go to create a character and find out that the name you want is taken by a level 1 character still in the default gear that was obviously created and then never touched.

Games usually don't do this kind of sweep until the game has been out for a few years at least. There's even less incentive in games like FFXIV where not only are names inherently more complex, but there are statistically fewer characters per player than other games due to the armory system.

Wasn't there a system in place where if the owner (or the whole FC?) doesn't log in for 35 days it's relinquished and sold back at it's purchase price?

I think that's only for housing purchased by an FC. I know that if the owner of an FC doesn't log on for that long, ownership of the FC itself transfers to the most active player.

[Bluevann]

That's why I keep saying they should remove the neighborhoods, or make it an option. I spend almost my whole game time there and it's a freaking ghost town.

What do we know:
1 - There aren't many houses because neighborhoods have a huge load on servers.
2 - Neighborhoods were made because there was demand of them by players over instanced housing.
3 - Despite the demand, people who own houses (2% of the playerbase) do not hang out in neighborhoods; only a very small minority does (2-7 people in each ward at all times)

So my suggestion is:
- Make housing instanced, and make it require GC seals / Missions progress to acquire rather than gil, wich each size requiring achieving further progress /more seals.
- Make neighborhoods an optional feature requiring a large gil sum. Want your instanced house to be transferred inside a neighborhood? 4M gil for a small, etc.

That way, everyone can have a house (instanced houses are much lighter on the server's load than neighborhoods), and only those who actually care to have (and would use) a neighborhood can get it.

[Buff_Archer]

Wasn't there a system in place where if the owner (or the whole FC?) doesn't log in for 35 days it's relinquished and sold back at it's purchase price?

I was thinking the same thing, there was something like that placed in the game last spring. Because I remember people complaining on the forums about it. I don't remember the time period, or how it translates to 100% personal housing vs, a defunct FC's house.

If someone 'hardly ever' crafts or gathers, I don't think they're the target demographic for housing. The garden's going to be pretty empty anyway with soil/seeds to plant most of which requires a high level gatherer or lots and lots of gil. There's a 300k FC personal room option now which is within reach of most players who accrue gil casually vs. putting in significant effort at it to be able to purchase bigger rewards. If someone is worried about outlayng that much cash and losing it due to FC issues they should reevaluate their choice of FC.

My view is- as long as I'm a subscriber in this game, I didn't rent my house, I bought it.