The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Preypacer]

I'm of the opinion that housing in XIV could use a complete overhaul. Call it Housing 2.0: "A Housing System Reborn".

I don't know the specifics, but it seems to me that there was some kind of a bigger idea they were going for, and wound up painting themselves into a corner. Perhaps it was limitations of dealing with consoles. Or, if it's a product of SE's penchant for introducing complexity into things that really don't need, nor benefit from it. They have a habit of doing that. Again, I don't know.

I do know that this is one of the least flexible and unfriendly housing systems I've seen in a MMO in a very, very long time. With how popular housing is in MMOs among many people, and the kinds of communities that develop around it, I feel like SE really botched a great opportunity here.

There are MMOs like Rift where people receive a plot of land, and can build pretty much anything they want on it.

Though it's aging, EQ2 has had a much more flexible and accomodating housing system for years now... for guilds and individuals, of all levels of wealth. Players can get seriously creative with the decorations, too. Could almost call their use of certain decorative pieces as "emergent" lol.

LoTRO's system is rather close to XIV's, in terms of instanced neighborhoods and specific plots. Except houses are already built, and you simply purchase one and then pay an upkeep. You can decorate the interior, and the yard, though placement of items is restricted to specific spots, which isn't as interesting.

Even Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, for all its other problems, had a pretty advanced and powerful housing system.


And for one other example, Istaria (formerly Horizons), has a very nice housing system as well, where, along side biped characters, Dragons could create their own cave-based dwellings, and expand on it, etc. Can't find any good videos really showcasing Istaria's housing, unfortunately.

Point is, there were, and still are, numerous places SE could have drawn ideas from to create an accessible, flexible, powerful and of course fun housing system for their players to really dig in and get creative with. Again, I don't know what they had in mind when they set out to design/develop XIV's housing. Maybe their reach exceeded their grasp on this aspect.

Still, I think - instead of putting band-aids and trying to find ways to work around the current setup's limitations and problems, they should just go back to the drawing board and start again. Keep the current system in place in the meantime, maybe add more wards if they can. But in the meantime, begin anew on a better system. Ensure that players/FCs who already owned a plot/house would receive a new one of equal - or maybe even better - value when the new system launches.

Will this happen? I doubt it. However, I definitely believe it should.

[Ruenis]

-snip-

All I see from your example is crappy graphics.

[Nadirah]

All I see from your example is crappy graphics.

All i see from your statement is something that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that other games, including FFXI, have been doing the housing thing better than FFXIV for almost 20 years now.

[Ruenis]

All i see from your statement is something that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that other games, including FFXI, have been doing the housing thing better than FFXIV for almost 20 years now.

All I see from the example people throwing off are, if I want better housing feature, the trade of is to having shite graphics. Which I don't want.
I don't have house now, even though I crave for one. Do I want to trade of Mist/Lavender/Goblet housing plot with barren housing from vanguard Just so I can get one ? Hell No.

Besides, MMORPG, 20 years ? lol

[Preypacer]

All I see from the example people throwing off are, if I want better housing feature, the trade of is to having shite graphics. Which I don't want.

Who said anything about having 'shite graphics'?

Who said anything about a 'trade-off'?

The graphics of those games is based on their age/tech and/or their particular art style (which you may or may not like). Older games are going to have older looking, less impressive graphics (by modern standards).

Regardless, none of that has anything to do with the underlying housing systems themselves, which is what we're talking about here.

And anyway, why would you assume they couldn't pull off something better, more versatile and more accessible than what we have now, without sacrificing graphics quality? Do you have that little faith in SE to accomplish such a thing? Tsk tsk.

[Nadirah]

All I see from the example people throwing off are, if I want better housing feature, the trade of is to having shite graphics. Which I don't want.
I don't have house now, even though I crave for one. Do I want to trade of Mist/Lavender/Goblet housing plot with barren housing from vanguard Just so I can get one ? Hell No.

Besides, MMORPG, 20 years ? lol

Yes, 20 years.

And you realize that a) Everyone's taste in graphics is different, b) there are people out there that think FFXIV looks like shit, and c) graphics don't matter to some people, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online September 24, 1997 original release date

and the very first MMORPG: http://www.meridian59.com/

December 15, 1995

One of the biggest deterrents to housing is that there is no communal space to entice players to stay there instead of in a town.

Some neighborhoods are also healthier than others, although that has more to do with the player community wanting a place of their own and putting in the effort to build that socialization.
For example, my FC maintains a fairly friendly relationship with our neighboring FCs and our crafters were often chatting with each other next to the marketboard. That's changed a little thanks in part to the airship workshop and forcing everyone in to an instanced room now, but it is an argument against instancing.

Instead, I'd really like to see giving people with a house the chance to really enhance the public works in their neighborhoods. Let them invite NPCs from Rowena trading company to sell tomestone gear and crafting mats to the public. Maybe a customized park players can add. Of course, there's no profit from this, but it lets players turn the residential areas in to a customized community instead of a showcase.

One of the reasons that game communities do *not* want fully fleshed out guild housing, etc, is because the towns end up empty.

You *need* to have a reason for people to be in the cities rather than than inside houses. Typically guild oriented housing does this more so than private housing, but there are exceptions.

EQ2 wasn't so bad until they added guild halls. Now everyone just hangs out int he guild halls with all the vendors, the broker(market board), banker, teleporters, etc all there.

WoW doesn't have guild housing, but instead they added personal garrisons that act as your base of operations for this expansion. It's so tightly drilled into the quest experience you can't ignore it.... and it's turned the landscape into a dead zone.

[Anova]

One of the reasons that game communities do *not* want fully fleshed out guild housing, etc, is because the towns end up empty.

Those are some fun and interesting case studies.

Anyway, I did suggest those features as public works, and not as private. I envisioned those npcs being in the plazas and marketboards of the residential areas and not stuck in the FC houses. Sorry, I forgot to explicitly mention that those npcs would be public or where they'd be placed, but there you go. The goal is to turn the neighborhoods themselves in to hubs for players to congregate and socialize. It's a way to at least make a devoted server for the wards worth more than it is currently.

[Farah]

They should have never shoved personal housing in with FC housing. They were supposed to be separate and Square Enix went back on their word.

I would suggest having neighborhoods for FC's only, and other neighborhoods for single players. This might leave the solo neighborhoods empty, but people barely use them now. They could also make instanced houses with a yard. Also, have the option of having something like the inn rooms for players who only care about decorating the interior.

For stuff like chocobo's, make training and such available from the chocobo trainers in bentbranch. Pay a fee and they board your chocobo (like how you board horses in rl). That will give people the ability to dye and train their chocobos without having to own a home.

For gardening, they could make indoor pots/planters that you could grow stuff in. That way it is both decorative and functional.

Tada, most problems would be solved.

[Preypacer]

All I see from your example is crappy graphics.

Well, then it's a good thing graphics have nothing to do with my post, or my examples, isn't it?