The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Kosmos992k]

My only issue with the housing is that FC and Personal housing share the same Wards.

We will get new housing areas soon enough, just have to be patient.

That will not solve the problem at all. There are far, far more players in the game than the number of available lots. Adding a new housing area will only increase the tiny number of wards and lots by one third over the existing system - which doesn't even come close to denting the problem.

The existing system serves a miniscule number of players, that is the problem. Adding a fraction of a tiny fraction to itself results in a slightly larger, but still tiny fraction... Until you have a system that serves all players, you have a problem.

Instanced housing could be as varied and exciting as development budget will allow. Think of having 20+ different options (for different prices) when you purchase your instanced home - each with different building design, overall landscape theme and amenities (garden plots, stables, etc). They could feed into a "lobby" area that has things like MB and bell and housing related NPCs (things that you need to leave your current house to access in the wards now) to preserve a "community" gathering place.

A condominium style system with an entrance in the main square of the housing zones would take care of this.

The only thing that would be missing is the ability to show off your house to the general public and even that could be included (I'm thinking the ability to set "open house" to invite the public to tour your house, or to restrict access to those in your party, FC, LS, etc.). I think that would be a fair trade-off to enable EVERYONE that pays a subscription to have access to housing and all of the content that is gated behind housing (gardening, stables, workshop, airship ventures, etc).

One thing I disagree with in this is that content such as the workshop and Airship ventures should remain FC exclusive, and not be linked to personal housing.

Sorry for my bad spelling today... on my phone and it's keyboard is small for me...

Can't find the edit post button on the Android version of the forums...

Watch out for the soft buttons immediately below the space bar on Android, they can swallow your post before you even send it if your finger happens to brush one of them when you are meaning to hit the space bar. Quite why they don't allow the user to move the soft buttons to a different location is beyond me.