Hurray! Finally saved up 6mil for my personal house!

[Gyson]

No I'm suggesting that core functionality should not be tied to something so limited and hard to get at this stage. It's about helping as many people as possible with as few changes as possible. Putting must have functionality into Personal Rooms and Inns would appease more people than adding a few more wards ever would. Did I say this was a perfect solution? No, its just a way forward that would do a lot of good for both the game and for many individuals by putting currently limited functions (gardens and chocobo raising) into the hands of far more people to play with. This is after all content that many people can't even play with right now and most players haven't. Can you honestly tell me people wouldn't be overwhelmingly happy in the majority with enhanced access to these features that allowed them to avoid the insane restrictions on housing? Until such a time as housing can actually fit the demand nothing that important should be linked to them, and until actually adding that housing is easier than just adding these features to an inn room I will continue to say that it is the better option. The development time required to recode the system or the server costs to add wards are both very unrealistic options or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Simply adding the features in other places (chocbos to porters, planting to flower pots or window beds) would be far simpler and faster and make a lot of people happy immediately. Time is money and the longer they take to fix things like this the more time people have to get frustrated with it. If every problem sat and waited around for only the perfect solution to come along then nothing will happen fast enough. You need to make a cost benefit analysis of your options. I'm not opposed to them adding 200 housing wards and just doing away with the problem. I am however realistic and I know that is not an answer we will get any time soon and until that time we need something else.

I never once made a comment about what is or isn't fun since fun is entirely subjective anyway. Don't put words into my mouth with assumptions about hidden meanings or suggestions. I mean only what I explicitly say. Making the houses entirely for glamour type purposes in no way inhibits your "fun."

It absolutely does inhibit one's fun if there aren't any small housing plots available to own.

Again, the problem with your proposed solution is that it's only a fix for those players who are just interested in the gameplay elements (i.e chocobo raising, gardening) tied to housing. It does absolutely nothing for the players who simply enjoy owning, decorating, and having fun with virtual homes. And I think you're sorely underestimating how many players the latter applies to. It's one of the reasons housing is such a popular request in MMO gaming (where elements like chocobo raising and gardening don't necessarily exist).

Meanwhile, more housing (a lot more) fixes the problem for everyone - both the people who want to play house, and the people who want to garden and/or train chocobos. That is where the focus should be, not band-aid solutions that only cover part of the problem.

I'd even argue that moving chocobo raising and gardening away from housing will make the housing districts more of a ghost town than they already are (which is an odd problem to have considering the lack of free plots). The developers should be looking into a way to bring more life into the various neighborhoods, not add reasons for people to go elsewhere. I do agree that new "must-have" features shouldn't be added to housing until the problem is fixed. But, if anything, that should equate to lighting some fires under the behinds of some problem solvers rather than never expanding on housing features from here forward.

I'm not sure why the developers aren't choosing to expand the housing. I've not seen them come out and state "server costs" as the issue. The impression I've gotten is that there is still housing available on less populated servers and they're attempting to avoid spreading everyone out too thinly, that they don't won't homes sitting in the middle of divisions filled with empty plots. I can understand and sympathize with that, but at the same time there are more populated servers out there where small housing isn't available. And advising players to transfer servers isn't a reasonable suggestion. Many people are where they are for a reason.

Threads like this one aren't going to stop as long as the developers are making statements about being satisfied with the amount of housing available, as obviously the players aren't satisfied (and for legitimate reasons). It would help if the developers were more open/honest about what precisely the problem is. Useful communication would go a long way here.

[Purrfectstorm]

supposed to be casual cosmetic content that is denied to the casual player base.

denied to the casual player base.

casual friendly

yet lets restrict player homes and all associated features to the hardcore, first come first serve crowd.

I think you're misusing the terms casual and hardcore here, especially if it's plot availability, not pricing, that you have an issue with. You seem to be equating "hardcore" with "haves" and "casual" with "have-nots." There doesn't seem to be much correlation to actual hardcore playing having anything to do with getting a plot.

You were either there when new plots opened up or you weren't.

I don't think that timing makes one hardcore or not. But then I've never liked the whole hardcore/casual dichotomy some players seem eager to push. Point of fact is that your post insults both groups. On the one hand it paints "casuals" as players unable or unwilling to get access to the housing feature (it is actually very easy i.e. "casual" these days) and on the other hand the "hardcore" players have an unfair advantage due to their no life status. This is way too many assumptions for you to take on and seems like a bit of cognitive dissonance to me:

I want housing.
I can't get housing.
So I'll denigrate everyone who has housing by calling them "hardcore" (a term which you seem to be using negatively here).

When SE first released player housing, I would've probably agreed with much of what you've said, but some things have changed: prices have come down, SE has released more plots of land, and gil is plentiful to be had. I think there is plenty of reason to suspect that this trend will continue so I'd suggest saving your gil and waiting till it's your turn (pricing is affordable + land is available). This WILL happen.

I want to be clear that I don't completely like what SE has done:
- how housing is limited at all
- how personal and FC housing is shared
- the price of plots and houses

but I DO like that:
- you need a house to have a chocobo stable or garden
- that these things are resources that reward you for having invested in a house
- the feeling of accomplishment at having purchased a house

TL;DR version: not a perfect system but easy for the average player to take part in, if not right off then down the road a ways.

Final note: I'm a "casual" player and I actually enjoy grinding for things I want in game be it gear or housing. Casual doesn't mean you want things handed to you. And I don't think that waking up an hour early to log on when new plots open up makes you particularly "hardcore" either.

[Tiggy]

It would help if the developers were more open/honest about what precisely the problem is. Useful communication would go a long way here.

Communication or not it doesn't change the realities. Recoding the system for instancing would take a ton of work on the order of months or more, and adding new servers takes a ton of money. Based on a number of sources it something around 550k people play this game with active subs and they likely simply can't afford to throw money at it with subs still that low. The game has to use that money to pay the developers salaries, pay for servers, pay for bandwidth, pay for advertising, stockholders etc. All things that take a lot of money and take even more money as the game ages. Servers are very expensive to run. That's the truth. Whether they tell us that or not doesn't change that they likely don't have the money to spare on this problem. You can't ignore the likely hood that money and time is the cause just because they haven't said anything about it. We don't get to sit here in ignorance with hands over our eyes just because they didn't say anything. It's very possible for us to think of the likely scenarios for ourselves with some degree of reason. Like I also said before I'm perfectly content with them adding more housing. I'm just clearly more realistic about the situation than you are and would in the short term be happy with some more simple solutions. You can't expect ONLY a perfect solution for a situation this expensive/complex. It's completely unrealistic. Their resources are limited in terms of developers and cash. So when you say things like "I'm not sure why the developers aren't choosing to expand the housing" it makes me think that you're just blatantly ignoring the obvious answer. Time and money.

Square needs to do something to make the most people possible happy as soon as possible. If that means 400k people are happy they can garden now and 50k people are still made they don't have houses then I'll pick the 400k happy people every day. It's not smart for square as a business decision to only appease a minority of their player base. That would be an awful business decision.

[Gyson]

Communication or not it doesn't change the realities. Recoding the system for instancing would take a ton of work on the order of months or more, and adding new servers takes a ton of money. Based on a number of sources it something around 550k people play this game with active subs and they likely simply can't afford to throw money at it with subs still that low. The game has to use that money to pay the developers salaries, pay for servers, pay for bandwidth, pay for advertising, stockholders etc. All things that take a lot of money and take even more money as the game ages. Servers are very expensive to run. That's the truth. Whether they tell us that or not doesn't change that they likely don't have the money to spare on this problem. You can't ignore the likely hood that money and time is the cause just because they haven't said anything about it. We don't get to sit here in ignorance with hands over our eyes just because they didn't say anything. It's very possible for us to think of the likely scenarios for ourselves with some degree of reason. Like I also said before I'm perfectly content with them adding more housing. I'm just clearly more realistic about the situation than you are and would in the short term be happy with some more simple solutions. You can't expect ONLY a perfect solution for a situation this expensive/complex. It's completely unrealistic. Their resources are limited in terms of developers and cash. So when you say things like "I'm not sure why the developers aren't choosing to expand the housing" it makes me think that you're just blatantly ignoring the obvious answer. Time and money.

Square needs to do something to make the most people possible happy as soon as possible. If that means 400k people are happy they can garden now and 50k people are still made they don't have houses then I'll pick the 400k happy people every day. It's not smart for square as a business decision to only appease a minority of their player base. That would be an awful business decision.

Tiggy, (and perhaps you're aware of this) understand that you're making a whole lot of assumptions in your posts - from costs and time involved, to the number of subscribers funding development, to how much of it is available to go back into development of the game, to the amount of people your proposed solution would make happy, etc.. and all while ignoring the negative consequences your idea will have on housing districts and those players who want less ghost-towns and livelier neighborhoods.

For example, what if your solution only makes 50k people happy and 400k people unhappy (rather than the exact opposite picture you paint)? You're assuming the vast majority simply want access to gardening and chocobo raising, and the rest of housing is meaningless to the masses. I'd rather have instanced garden spaces using the existing garden plot props rather than moving or expanding the entire thing out of housing. Even a public garden space and chocobo stall within the existing neighborhoods would be preferable - attract players to the community areas where they can interact, rather than giving them reasons to hide in a private inn-room.

That's why I said "..It would help if the developers were more open/honest about what precisely the problem is. Useful communication would go a long way here..", because then the assumptions (ours included) can stop.

[Tiggy]

Yes, I made some assumption. Some fairly safe ones at that. Like servers being expensive. I assume they are expensive. I do however base this on current industry knowledge that I have. It's a pretty safe assumption that they are indeed expensive. I also assume it will take months to reprogram it for instancing. I base this on the fact I am personaly a programmer and I know how long even "simple" tasks can take. This is hardly a simple task, and while I don't know have innate knowledge of the games architecture I have enough knowledge of the process to know its harder than most people think. (If I had a dollar for everytime someone at work suggested something by saying "well why don't you just..." I'd be doing pretty well) It is possible to make reasonable assumptions and these are reasonable. It's you're inability to make reasonable assumption that is making you such a stickler for "communication." Communication is nothing but appeasement. If they popped up today and said "In six months we are adding 200 wards!" it still wouldn't change anything for 6 months. You still wouldn't have a house. These threads will still exist because people will still be unhappy. Words are cheap and don't mean anything until action is right in front of us. It also ignores the possibility that they are still trying to figure out what they want to do to fix it in the long term while at the same time working on an expansion and releasing patches for the game every 3 months. Them having said nothing so far literally only means that they haven't said anything so far. It isn't an indication they aren't working on solutions and until they have a solution they 100% know will suffice I'd rather they stay quiet about it entirely. That's how you end up with an announcement, and then people angry several months later when details have changed. (I.E. personal housing was supposed to be separate but in the end it wasn't and there was outrage. Had they never said anything about that no one would have known and no outrage would have happened.)

As for server populations yes they are assumptions. However they aren't based on nothing. Specifically you can use this thread that popped up this December that listed the estimated number at 574,440.
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...eased_another/
They even list their criteria for figuring it out.

Additionally Squaresoft released some numbers this last month to support the numbers listed above. Here is one article about it here. http://arcadesushi.com/square-enixs-...rs-2015-plans/
An exerpt if you will.

“Three major MMO titles - Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn which began operation last August, Dragon Quest 10, which was launched in August 2012, and Final Fantasy 11, which has entered its thirteenth year of operation-maintain nearly 1,000,000 paying subscribers all together, and have established a solid revenue base,” said Square Enix President and Representative Director Yosuke Matsuda.

So for three games they have nearly 1million subs. So FFXIV having an estimated 574,440 members completely fits within squares own announcement. Especially when I consider that FFXI capped at 500k subs several years back and has seen a steep decline since then. It would have to then be my assumption that FFXIV is clearly the bread winner for Square in the MMO space.
*edit* additional info. Using http://www.ffxiah.com/database as tool to determine active FFXI accounts we get 139,045. This is how many people are making active AH transactions. It should be accurate enough for this instance.
For dragon quest we can use the Wiki page for some guidance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest_X According to source 45 for an interview on march 8th they had 300k daily logins. In general the game also sold weakly only reaching a million sales over a year and a half after launch and active sub numbers have likely declined since that article as is common for MMO's as they age. All 3 games combined and 1million seems like a pretty reasonable number given what little data is available to us. Meaning the assumption about FFXIV's sub numbers is probably within the ballpark. 300k + 139045 + 574440 = 1013485. Since I'm already assuming the dragon quest numbers are innacruate and are actually lower that ends up fitting the data rather well.

Also you argue that my numbers are made up. Obviously they are. That's why I use such words as "If" so that its clearly denoted as a what-if situation. A what-if where I said IF that happened then I would be happy. As far as would it make more people happy I posited this question earlier that wasn't responded to.

Can you honestly tell me people wouldn't be overwhelmingly happy in the majority with enhanced access to these features that allowed them to avoid the insane restrictions on housing?

The answer to that should be obvious. People almost always prefer more options.

I'll end it with this. Assumptions aren't necessarily wrong. Especially when they are made using real knowledge of other analogues and with some supporting data. Such assumptions are used every day in many fields to come up with good solutions to problems quickly without perfect data. The world works on such assumptions. There are unreasonable assumptions with no basis in reality and reasonable assumptions based on actual information. I like to this I've been in the later category. It doesn't automatically make what I said wrong either.

[MageBlack]

I think you're misusing the terms casual and hardcore here, especially if it's plot availability, not pricing, that you have an issue with. You seem to be equating "hardcore" with "haves" and "casual" with "have-nots." There doesn't seem to be much correlation to actual hardcore playing having anything to do with getting a plot.

You were either there when new plots opened up or you weren't.

I think its more a definition of terms than me trying to denigrate anyone. That was not what I was trying to imply and i apologize if I came off that way. I am a "casual" player as well and what i was meaning when I used the word casual (I don't think i actually used hardcore when describing people who got one) was someone who casually plays, log in here or there when they have time, Probably has a family, FT job and other out-of-work commitments. Someone who doesnt feel they should have to wake up at 3am just to partake in housing or have make the money needed in a short timeframe. I have no issues at all with a grind for money. Its possible, i'm just slower than most people. I have no problems saving money but once I am forcing myself to focus solely on making money by harvesting, working market board prices, soulbinding, etc. the game is no longer fun. most times I log in, I have an hour or so. Enough time to run a dungeon or two, help out some of my friends, Maybe do daily beast tribe quests, then log out. I'm sure i'm not alone and that is just one situation.

I also have no problem with the chocobo stables being attached to houses, gardens, or whatever. I think it makes sense. I just wish there was some sort of system in place that would assure me that once I met the requirements I would have my house. Such a system is not in place.

[Kasathar]

Getting a house is an absolute waste of money in this game and an excessive luxury. I understand people saving money to "decorate" a house because they like decorating and stuff but that is only a choice when a house doesn't cost you the absurd amounts it does in this game.

I wish houses were more than just a mere vault of useless stuff, I wish there was a purpose to them beyond being a pre-made barbie house. As it satnds now, I would save those millions of Gil to get useful stuff done in the game, like upgrading the relics or leveling up my crafts and get up to 2 star skill.

[MageBlack]

-snip-

I would also like to add to my previous post that once players realize there are restrictions on avaliability to any type of content it automatically becomes a Hardcore/RMT battle in which most casual players will lose out if they are not right on the ball. I see in PF people selling pots of land for more than they are worth because they bought extra plots just to turn around and sell them.

Someone else had suggested that Housing should be limited to one account per server, even that would help out (but not solve the problem ultimately). I like some of the solutions posed by people in this thread, Like Tiggy's Option C on the previous page. but in the end it just feels like a bandaid on a system that needs to be overhauled. now, let me add to that last statement.

I feel it is entirely in SE's power and capabilities to overhaul the system and give us something much more functional for us and for them. I saw what Yoshi-P did with 1.0, at the behest of the players, all they way to 1.23 and all that with a broken core to the game. He has since rebuilt the core of the game and is almost finished all the core systems they planned out. So I'm sure that with a better core to the game that Yoshi-P can work better with, possible big changes to something liek this could be achieved. At this stage I don't expect anything to be done, not till probably mid way through 3.X expansion. What I would like is maybe a second look by the devs at the way the personal housing is implemented (remember FC is fine as is, imo) and some official response, even if it is "we will look into it". The last official response was pretty much "Its a reward for those who put in the effort and its designed this way"

All I was intending with this OP was to put it back on the radar of the devs. As a wonderful byproduct of doing this, there has been some good conversation and some interesting ideas proposed. Hopefully some good food for thought for the devs. Heck I would even be happy if they created a "suburb" style "Small Plot Only" instanced housing that gives you a small plot and the surrounding yard as something added in at a later date. Just something.

[NyarukoW]

Getting a house is an absolute waste of money in this game and an excessive luxury. ..

And it does not help with clearing content or gearing up. In fact it distracts drastically from that. Want a tatami mat, got a mil? Nearly 1/2 the price of the small lot. LOL.

Better use that gil to meld det4 materia on your relic weapon . The house is just a fancy trophy case to show off more trophies. It is all vanity exponentiated, and it will cost you lots and lots of gil. Housing as in the FC house, FC room, inn room etc. are easily accessible housing for the vast majority players and everyone can participate easily. If you want you own exclusive personal house, that is extreme vanity and should NOT be handed out, just like not everyone can get the blue bird or the fat cat minions.

And yet as it stands unless players insist on crowding in on already crowded servers like Balmung and Excalibur, there are still plenty of available small lots. There is either not enough demand, or people are not willing to put up the 1.8 mil for the small lots to demonstrate their demand.

[Gyson]

Yes, I made some assumption. Some fairly safe ones at that. Like servers being expensive. I assume they are expensive. I do however base this on current industry knowledge that I have. It's a pretty safe assumption that they are indeed expensive. I also assume it will take months to reprogram it for instancing. I base this on the fact I am personaly a programmer and I know how long even "simple" tasks can take.

...

Additionally Squaresoft released some numbers this last month to support the numbers listed above. Here is one article about it here. http://arcadesushi.com/square-enixs-...rs-2015-plans/

And, in the end, they're still assumptions piled on top of more assumptions.

First of all, the numbers from the Polygon article you're quoting are from Square Enix's annual report, which released back on March, 2014. Since then the game has undergone several major updates (including new classes) and released on the PS4. In the end we have absolutely no idea what their numbers look like now (nor am I interested in playing the pointless guessing game).

As someone who has worked in game development (particularly MMO development) for a period of time that can be measured in decades, I will simply state this: the best things players can do is pass their wishes onto the developers and then let the developers figure out what exactly is and isn't possible. That's what their job entails. Arm-chair development from the players isn't necessary, nor helpful in most cases (particularly the kind that keeps insisting something is impossible, too complicated, too costly, etc) as it just creates useless noise that makes it difficult to weed through. The old adage regarding the squeaky wheel and grease absolutely applies here, and it doesn't hurt to bring housing woes to the developers attention repeatedly (if that's what it takes). The more they hear about housing the more likely it will be discussed and prioritized.

Communication is absolutely important and not just "appeasement". If something is impossible for the foreseeable future, then that should be made clear so players can consider alternative solutions. Without that information they're just wasting their time (and the developers) with requests that can't go anywhere.

Lastly, reading through this thread it's difficult not to get the impression that some people are tired of reading threads on housing. To those folks my advice is to simply skip them and spend that forum time reading topics that are of an actual interest instead. After all, these threads aren't aimed at you personally, they're aimed at the developers. By all means, share a useful opinion if you have one, but the "this again?" type statements aren't helping anyone.

My two gil.