Why Removing Houses from inactive is NOT a solution.

[JubjubTubs]

snip

Going to try and belittle someone with 'juvenile ignorance'. And then proceed to follow that up by 'attack of peer' (You started all this), calling Jubs a possible SE employee, and then misspell Jubs name when its not like Jubs didn't say Jubs a bunch of times. Juvenile Ignorance huh.

And telling everyone how many subs and avialable houses there are does... what? Doesn't prove how many want houses. Doesn't prove how many plots are held by inactive accounts. Doesn't really prove any thing. Are you intentionally trying to create a convoluted mess by spitting out random irrelevent crap?

So back to Jubs original point. Are you just a hate monger hippie that is trying to throw a wrench in the current system, no matter what... to ruin the current system so SE designs and develops your personal system? If it isn't done Neira's way.. every single thing done Neira's way, it is all WRONG. And God damn a company trying to earn money...

[JubjubTubs]

-snip from 2013 letter-

Do you truly believe the answer to that question is implying rl money, or are you friend of a butthurt person that is attempting troll? Either way... this is adorable.

[Yeldir]

...I posted factual numbers that are quite real; you're welcome to count the houses, wards, forums, subdivisions, and servers sometime, and I gave SE's real claim to total subscribed accounts...

"well, freeing up empties won't be enough, so don't free up empties plzzzz"

I can by no means be bothered to read the entirety of this thread, when I have read it before in several other threads, some of greater length. It is plausible that everything said here has been said before. But I will ask you anyway - what are you a proponent of, in terms of solving the housing problem? Purely instanced housing? That would remedy the problem, at the cost of nuking any semblance of community.

Alternatively, if you're one of those build more ward types, what would you say when those wards filled up with dead houses, too? How far do you think that could go, exactly? SE obviously wants to build more wards, but it appears they've asked themselves this same question, and decided quite understandably that the costs of paying for non-instanced housing that players are not using are unjustifiable.

[Titor]

Alternatively, if you're one of those build more ward types, what would you say when those wards filled up with dead houses, too?

Dynamic re-instancing could be a possible solution. Inactive players will not /lose/ their house, but instead after a few months be moved to an instanced version. If they return, they can enter their instanced house as normal, and if there becomes room available in a ward they can place their house back in a ward.

That way you are not removing them of all of their gil and hard work (Remember large houses can cost upwards of 90m on larger servers!), but you are not making them use up the 'valuable resources' in the wards. It will move inactives to their own instance.

Also instanced personal housing should be an option as an alternative to wards. You lose the small feeling of 'community' at the price of opening housing to literally everyone that plays the game, seems like an OK tradeoff to me.

Heck you can even add neighbors to your instanced housing like some MMOs do. I would much much, /much/ rather be housed next to my friends than the random people that my house is next to right now. I do not know any of them (I did say hi and the like, they were not interested)

[Naunet]

Instances would destroy neighborhood social interaction, so eviction is wonderful to me.

Already pointed out that it doesn't have to if SE thinks for two seconds about how to work neighborhoods into an instanced housing system. (It's possible. It's been done in other mmos.)

Evicting inactive players from homes will have almost no effect on housing availability. There will still be hardly any houses. Only a tiny fraction of a server will be able to purchase one. This is a non-solution.

[Syrehn]

Already pointed out that it doesn't have to if SE thinks for two seconds about how to work neighborhoods into an instanced housing system. (It's possible. It's been done in other mmos.)

Evicting inactive players from homes will have almost no effect on housing availability. There will still be hardly any houses. Only a tiny fraction of a server will be able to purchase one. This is a non-solution.

You, and some others, may consider a decay timer (or w/e they'll be using to remove inactive houses) a non-solution. SE apparently feels differently. At the end of the day SE did think about it and made a judgement call that they:

1) Aren't going to move out of their existing housing model.
2) Want to add more servers but will deal with inactive/abandoned houses to both create continuously active wards and (this is the big one) save on server costs. From a business perspective it makes absolutely 0 sense to host homes on their servers for inactive players while, at the same time, adding more wards.

The reality is it's not even an "if" on inactive's getting the boot from wards it's now a "when". We're just going to have to wait until we get more info on how they're going to handle the items etc. from the inactive homes once they get removed. While this change might not open up entire wards it will open up some homes for active players to buy; when/if those players go inactive the recycle continues. As both an FC and personal home owner I welcome this change.

[Naunet]

SE apparently feels differently.

Our point is that SE is wrong. This "solution" will have NO impact on housing availability for the vast majority of players, because the housing system at its core remains fundamentally flawed.

[Titor]

You would rather 99% of the playerbase not have a house at all rather than have an instanced house?


....Really?

[Syrehn]

Our point is that SE is wrong. This "solution" will have NO impact on housing availability for the vast majority of players, because the housing system at its core remains fundamentally flawed.

Your opinion is that SE is wrong; which you are of course entitled to. You don't know how it will turn out, in fact none of us do, since the system isn't even out yet and none of us know the full details behind it. You don't honestly think that SE is moving forward with this choice without doing substantial internal research into and how it may/may not affect the current population do you?

SE is working out stratagems for their current housing structure because they have no intentions of changing the system regardless of how flawed you think it is. Those of us that advocate for these changes (e.g. a decay timer) do so knowing that it won't give everyone a house but we understand the value in keeping the existing structures wards full with active players (it's a recycle system) and not having SE spend needless money on servers for additional wards when the current ones are half dead. Couple the inactive housing removal with the house sharing feature and they are steps in the right direction for the current housing model.

[Naunet]

Your opinion is that SE is wrong; which you are of course entitled to. You don't know how it will turn out, in fact none of us do, since the system isn't even out yet and none of us know the full details behind it.

It's pure numbers. Compare how many theoretical housing plots there are versus how many players there are. Yes, I suppose if SE doesn't do any other change to their housing system, freeing up inactive plots will... do slightly more than zero. But why the heck continue to defend their cruddy housing system? We should be pushing them to improve it in far better ways.