Two reasons why an eviction system is INEVITABLE.

[Odeda]

What's wrong with implementing taxes? Inactive players unable to pay their taxes would lose their homes. Players could have the option to "bank" up to 3 months of taxes so that they can stop playing for a month or two without concern.

I really don't like any form of the rent/lease/tax idea. How would you define a fair price price anyway? As it's been brought up many times in housing discussions, there are some who really struggle making gil and it would only add to the burden to the FCs/players like that and make the housing barrier even bigger than it is now. I think it shouldn't matter if saving for a plot took you 9 months of less than a week, it would be no problem for the latter but would only add stress and tension for the first. And most importantly: there are plenty of other ways to measure activeness, such as timers.

[Khadawaru]

And most importantly: there are plenty of other ways to measure activeness, such as timers.

Then Square needs to implement them. It shouldn't take a year to implement a timer.

[Kaiser-Ace]

What's wrong with implementing taxes? Inactive players unable to pay their taxes would lose their homes. Players could have the option to "bank" up to 3 months of taxes so that they can stop playing for a month or two without concern.

Then RMTers gain footing after losing most of their power for the first time since 2.0 opened.

[Kiri_Hadaka]

My idea isn't perfect, but at least it gives people who really want to keep their houses a chance to do so while those who don't really care will get evicted.

Say someone didn't log on for five months, and they had a private house. SE would send them an alert email saying that they would be charged $15 the upcoming month if they chose to keep the house, and another $15 every month after that if they kept it. Unless they log in, they will continue to be charged or have to give up the house. It sounds like a lot, but that would be the cost of paying to log in once to keep it anyway.

I could see how some people would just pay to log in a few times a year to keep their house, but I don't think most inactive players would do that just to keep it. I could see some people logging back in once that was implemented to clear out their stuff, but most people who gave up the game wouldn't see it was worth it. Plus, most of the abandoned houses I've seen are empty.

[Yeldir]

SE would send them an alert email saying that they would be charged $15 the upcoming month if they chose to keep the house, and another $15 every month after that if they kept it.

Heh. I like that. You effectively can't unsub without demolishing your home, or handing ownership to someone who's paying. That's got a nice ring to it. Kind of a "cha-ching!" or maybe a "dingdingding", and the clatter of coins. SE, are you reading this?

[Yeldir]

Told ya' so.

"MMORPG.de: A lot of players complain about the housing situation. They want to buy a house, but it is impossible to find free plots on some worlds. Are there any plans to improve the situation?

NY: Yes, we are working on it, and there are three phases. The first step is working on abandoned houses, so there’s no owner, or player there actually. The second step is to make it available to players that they can move house. There is no system in game yet that can help you to change the house, so we want to help and support this in the game. With these two steps we will be able to have some empty plots. Then we want to see if we have to open up an Ishgard plot or add more plot to the existing areas. That is the third step. We want to be careful here and judge the situation first. We are working on step 1 and 2 already. There will be some updates, probably in patches 3.1 to 3.15, around this time."

[Reneo]

[QUOTE=BreathlessTao;3161727]Eh. While my rational mind sees and believes that... The fact that they are planning to add more plots (housing in Coerthas, whenever that happens, means more wards for sure) totally goes against it. Same way as the "expanding inventory is complicated because hardware/network" thing, which is apparently totally not a thing if you just throw some more money at them... So yeah, I'm not sure I even buy that excuse/reasoning anymore. :|[/QUOTE

^~^ SE sounds so shady this way.

[Reneo]

[QUOTE=BreathlessTao;3161727]Eh. While my rational mind sees and believes that... The fact that they are planning to add more plots (housing in Coerthas, whenever that happens, means more wards for sure) totally goes against it. Same way as the "expanding inventory is complicated because hardware/network" thing, which is apparently totally not a thing if you just throw some more money at them... So yeah, I'm not sure I even buy that excuse/reasoning anymore. :|[/QUOTE

^~^ Me neither actually. But SE does try to keep their promises so...

[Inzoum]

There's a plot on my ward (relatively close to where my personal house is) that's been sold for MONTHS and still doesn't have a house built on it. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that is.

Another legitimate but kind of awful thing I've seen: When our FC moved to a large house, our former medium plot (the only available M plot on the server) was quickly purchased by an individual as a private house (nearly at max auction price, barely any devaluation). The owner's FC doesn't even have a house of their own. Talk about selfish, but then again, it's all perfectly legit.

[Syrehn]

I am looking forward to the decay timer (if in fact that is what they are planning to implement). There are just way to many houses sitting vacant that could be going to use with active players.

I'm pretty sure the neighbours next door to my FC were banned (they haven't logged in for well over a year) and their house just stands there, locked and undecorated, advertising their Chinese website on their signboard.

It would be gracious of SE to provide players with a portion of the funds back if they did lose their house, but I doubt this will happen. In all fairness for a S house it really isn't that hard to re-earn 5mil gil.

I would like to see the restriction of "un-retrievable" items removed for these houses. All items inside/outside of the lost property should going to that housing reclaim vendor; this way those players (should they come back) aren't out the cost of their property and all the deco fees (this could be millions of gil depending).

It'd also be nice, though also unlikely, if SE would restrict the purchasing of M and L houses to FC's only. This would keep a healthy mix of FC's and personal housing in the wards. IMO no individual truly needs those larger houses for personal property.