The Housing Situation

[Renik]

Well, instance housing worked just fine in FFXI from what I heard.

Also I don't think it's a storage space issue. FFXI is nearly 10 years old, it's from the era where PCs had 64MiB of RAM and 1GiB hard drives. We have 8GiB of RAM now and multi-TiB hard drives. Technology has improved a ton.

It's not about the system itself, it's about the whole game, this game stores more data than any other, specially the housing system, we have a very large range of options, customization and contents related to housing.

When it comes to housing, it doesn't matter where you place the house as long as you keep the same number of option it will take the same memory, the reason it worked in XI is the same reason most people never cared about it back then, it was very limited and served only as storage, and the game in general saved a lot less data than this one.

There's only one solution, adding more physical memory (HDDs).

[Bishop81]

It's not about the system itself, it's about the whole game, this game stores more data than any other, specially the housing system, we have a very large range of options, customization and contents related to housing.

When it comes to housing, it doesn't matter where you place the house as long as you keep the same number of option it will take the same memory, the reason it worked in XI is the same reason most people never cared about it back then, it was very limited and served only as storage, and the game in general saved a lot less data than this one.

There's only one solution, adding more physical memory (HDDs).

I can't say I know exactly what is going on at SE's data centers but computing power and memory has increased several fold over the last decade.

The way I see it, based on what I know about how computers function - as limited as it is - the server only has to store,

1. item ID
2. location and orientation of said items

That doesn't take up all that much space. Assuming, conservatively, a 64 bit item ID, 64 bit per axis, we have 3*64 for position, and 3*64 for orientation, for a total of 448 bits = 56 bytes per item. That's a drop in the ocean with GiBs of RAM and TiBs of hard drive space.

[Chasely]

Well, instance housing worked just fine in FFXI from what I heard.

Also I don't think it's a storage space issue. FFXI is nearly 10 years old, it's from the era where PCs had 64MiB of RAM and 1GiB hard drives. We have 8GiB of RAM now and multi-TiB hard drives. Technology has improved a ton.

FFXI is 13 years old.

[Natsuno]

When the EU get their own servers, that'll free up the existing ones NA side.

I'm totally against the instanced housing, or converting existing housing zones into FC complexes as it'd kill any sense of community that the housing zones currenty have.

If I'm out in my garden, or the housing zone in general there's a chance I'll meet new people. I can also see what other people are doing with their own houses. Every house is different. I think its cool, sometimes, just sitting on my roof, looking across the zone and taking it all in as the sun sets below the horizon or such (the weather can make for a stunning view). If it's all instanced, what would I see? No traces of individuality or creativity, that's for sure.

As far as FC complexes go... that's great if you're in an FC, but even then, you'll be resticted to just your FC (no offence to fellow FC members). Would we even be allowed to zone into other FC complexes?

Also, I'm hugely put off by the idea of 'rent'. Enough bills irl tyvm.

[Gramul]

I'm totally against the instanced housing, or converting existing housing zones into FC complexes as it'd kill any sense of community that the housing zones currenty have.

Is there really a strong enough sense of community that it should be chosen over having enough houses though?
If instancing could fix it that is.

People that want houses are just a smaller minority than people that want fancy relic weapons... a significantly smaller one.

Then we should at least have enough to fit the needs of the apparent few that want it.

[Natsuno]

Is there really a strong enough sense of community that it should be chosen over having enough houses though?
If instancing could fix it that is.



Then we should at least have enough to fit the needs of the apparent few that want it.

Then let's keep the current housing area, and put up a 1 house 'apartment block' somewhere else for those that want that kind of thing.

It's the removal of the current areas as they are now that I am opposed to.

edit: it seems instanced housing is a no go anyway, so this whole conversation seems pointless. :/

[Gramul]

Then let's keep the current housing area, and put up a 1 house 'apartment block' somewhere else for those that want that kind of thing.

It's the removal of the current areas as they are now that I am opposed to.

I'd be down for a new, separate hosing style area. So long as it has outdoor furnishing capabilities so I can garden and junk.

So this whole conversation seems pointless.

Nonsense. I love to talk about game development.

[dekal]

I agree that there should be a building where individual person can buy with limit thing you display/use because it is an apartment. It will give us new players and vet players access to a house while they work to gain more space to make personal houses that can show all the decorations and items that are need for all gathering/crafting jobs.

I personally wouldn't want to buy an apartment w/e guild I am. What if I decided to leave the guild or I forced to leave. I can't have an apartment already in the new guild. There should be only rooms for the guild leader.

[Cherie]

I'm pretty sure there will always be people without. But not everyone wants a house. I played for more than a year before I decided I wanted one and there were still some to choose from.

On leviathan server there aren't tons of houses left, but there are some to be found if don't mind farming money. I mean, spiritbonding for just a hour you can make a million fairly easily. Even if only mediums houses are left, you can get one with no special skills and a much smaller time sink than getting one of those zeta relics. I see lots of people with the relics so I'm not sure why all the medium houses aren't filled too.

My assumption is people really aren't into this vanity item enough to farm a few days for it. The small houses are all gone because you can just nab that pretty easily without saving for very long. Most people wouldn't want to farm a week or two for some vanity house I guess.

People that want houses are just a smaller minority than people that want fancy relic weapons... a significantly smaller one. I'd suppose this is why it hasn't gotten a new ward yet. But in time it will, even though the existing ones aren't full yet.

[HitoYuudai]

the problem with just adding new wards is that it will just create even more ghost towns...
I'd love to have a small house, but I don't want one in a ward where you rarely see anyone..
but that's probably the way SE continues