Housing abandoned plots, this is needed SE!!! Thank you!

[StouterTaru]

The problem with making personal houses instanced is that you remove at least half of their appeal. It would be like making it so only you could see your own glamours.

Let's be honest, if you unsubbed before HW and haven't returned for an expansion there's a 98% chance you won't be back ever. If they reclaimed all the personal houses of those people, and all the FC houses where no member has been subbed since the expansion, that would be the equivalent of adding more than 2 full wards in each of the 3 housing zones on my server.

[Nicobo]

SE DEV please have foresight, please delete unsubbed characters instead of only the houses.

For example delete unsubbed over 3months players, since FC will be auto-dismissed if all members are deleted,
so both the Personal houses and FC houses owned by them will be relinquished.

SE should allow them to restore their characters when they re-sub, but just lost their lands with compansation.

By this solution, in the future you can add any "public resource" facilities to the game, and no need to worry for "inactive users" anymore.

[JoolzS]

We pay taxes and monthly bill fees which we don't in game. Should SE implement those monthly fees too?

Well, IRL I pay around 0.75% of my home's value in tax per year. I'd have no problem with SE charging me that for my houses in the game. I think I have enough gil to last me decades!

I really do have sympathy for people who don't have houses. I have friends in the game who really want one, and it's crazy that they don't just add enough for everyone.

[Vladislav]

Devs just need reconsider housing at all . Just make housing as it is aviable for FC's only , & make personal housing instanced ---> Like it was done long time ago in FFXI (For those who don't know XI had rooms which player able to furnish & invite friends , XI have personal island area where player can gardening/mining/fishing and many other awesome things ) . This solution not perfect but at least it will make less ppl's to /cry about houses , everyone will be able to do w/e they want .

[Catwho]

Just give the masses their instanced housing with a yard and everything. I'm so tired of this argument. As soon as you all get a house in the wards you're going to flop sides. I know you're going to say you won't, then you'll drop 20mil on a house and realize you're never getting it back.

Never getting the 20 mil back, or never getting the house back? Either way, I'm not unsubbing so it doesn't apply to me. Heck I still pay $18/month for XI and I haven't logged in in months...

[KoJenova]

Devs just need reconsider housing at all . Just make housing as it is aviable for FC's only , & make personal housing instanced ---> Like it was done long time ago in FFXI (For those who don't know XI had rooms which player able to furnish & invite friends , XI have personal island area where player can gardening/mining/fishing and many other awesome things ) . This solution not perfect but at least it will make less ppl's to /cry about houses , everyone will be able to do w/e they want .

Wouldn't work so well as many folks have alts with their own FC's to themselves just for the added FC chest. The only thing that irritates me is they add content in for FC housing with airships and folks can not even have a chance to participate because of no housing available. At least for the love of god make a workshop purchasable without a house in an instance or something. Not difficult SE, it really isn't. How this wasn't seen beforehand baffles me.....

[Kayote]

The problem with making personal houses instanced is that you remove at least half of their appeal. It would be like making it so only you could see your own glamours.

Wha? When you glamour gear, you walk around populated areas, you play with others in small groups who'll see it all the time. Housing... hardly. Other than your yard there is hardly a noticeable difference to the others. Those zones are ghost towns with hardly anyone there so its really not even comparable to glamour IMO. I havent checked out houses since they were first released... since then its just been my own FC's.

Honestly they shouldve made personal housing instanced from the start as a cheaper alternative and leave the wards to FC's only. Of course now its too late so theyll have to leave wards for individual players as well, even if they do make them instanced, which they should!

[BreyVoreas93]

Because I might come back to the game one day, and 15 bucks every 6 month is nothing to me.

If 15 bucks isn't that much to you.....by all means keep your sub active.

If I were to unsub (which I haven't done once since the launch of the game, because 15 bucks every month is nothing to me) then I would consider anything fair game for SE to change, remove, give away etc. because at the end of the day I own nothing on this game and agreed to SE holding rights to it all.......especially when I am not RENTING (subbing) the said content. Good luck to you all, by no means do I want ppl losing there houses for no good reason, there should be a better solution but if your not using the game it's what uve signed up for and ur not going to change that. Go play whatever it is that u unsub for anyway... If ur unsubbing chances are it shouldn't matter cause you really aren't all that into it. Best of luck!

[LineageRazor]

Folks keep bringing up Instanced Housing like it would be some miracle cure-all when, in fact, it would remove one of the biggest charm points about the housing system as it exists now: The ability to show off. Apart from gardening, showing off is pretty much the entire point of personal housing. You want people to see the homes you've built and decorated with your various trophies and adornments. You can't do that with instanced housing; you're the only one who can see it, unless there's some method for visiting another person's house in which case likely only your friends will ever bother.

Housing was instanced in FFXI. There were all kinds of furnishings and decorations you could put into your personal house, and it all felt terribly, terribly meaningless. Even after they added the ability to invite party members into your home, folks seldom did so and, at any rate, it's a lot more fun to impress a stranger than to impress a friend who already knows and respects you.

Instanced housing will fix one problem (housing shortage) and replace it with another (lose the fun of showing off your house). A decay system, where inactive homes are eventually released will also not solve the housing shortage problem to any meaningful degree, but it WILL solve another problem: Wards becoming ghost towns. The majority of players leave the game eventually, many without any intention of ever returning. Cleaning up the houses of folks who've left the game is something that should be done, so we don't wind up with wards full of houses but with only one or two active players there. It's not about the shortage - it's about keeping the wards alive with active players.

Tying house preservation to your subscription seems like a fair solution to me; if you value your home and think (or KNOW) you'll be coming back to the game someday, just keep paying your subscription. The fact that you're paying real money indicates that you're serious, both in your intent to eventually return and in your devotion to your home.

Someone brought up the point that hey, if you're gonna take their house, why not take all their gil and possessions as well? The problem is that your gil and possessions are not an active part of the game unless you're actually playing. Your house IS, whether you're playing or not. When you log off for the night, your house doesn't disappear. It's still there, anyone can visit in in the wards and even enter it if that's how you've set your permissions. When a player leaves the game, it's no problem for SE to make a record of their character and shove it into some dusty vault, never to see the light of day again unless you happen to resubscribe, in which case SE can dust it off and put it back into action.

[Ayerinn]

Folks keep bringing up Instanced Housing like it would be some miracle cure-all when, in fact, it would remove one of the biggest charm points about the housing system as it exists now: The ability to show off. You can't do that with instanced housing; you're the only one who can see it, unless there's some method for visiting another person's house in which case likely only your friends will ever bother.
*SNIP*

I can't imagine that adding new wards is any more stress on a server than having 1000 personal instances per server... we already have housing "instances" aka wards.
To your point, I don't agree with the housing "fashion" argument that would be "destroyed" by instanced housing - if you want to show off set permissions so that other people can openly visit your house instance (e.g. Wildstar)