The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Anova]

I'm incredulous that you saw nothing more than what you describe in any of them, even implicitly.

To wit: both you, and Rheunis, have somehow overlooked what's being displayed/described in those videos..

Ah sorry, I was only referring to the Vanguard video rather than the other three you posted (since that was what Sandpark was getting hung up on). Sorry if there was any confusion over that. I'll refer to the specific videos from now on.

I do generally agree with the concept of Rift and EQ2's instancing of housing. The limited spaces do not make sense, and I never meant to imply that the status quo was good. I doubt there's any arguments that we DO NOT need more housing slots, but the question is how to add it within the current system. The alternative is to tear the whole thing down and wait 1-2 years for development to revamp it (because SE'll only have about 6 developers working part-time on this, not to mention testing and QA who will definitely be juggling a bunch of other updates such as class/dungeon balance in addition to housing).

I for one am fine with moving personal housing to instanced servers, while leaving the neighborhoods open for FCS to fight over. There's some merit in the competition for the spaces, and some players genuinely enjoy it. Just don't tie them to FCs, otherwise it's not actually a personal house.

I'm all for customizing and would welcome the ability to customize the layout of my house. My concern with EQ2 housing though is that while it is highly customizable, it is not very friendly to the console market. Similarly, if you want to import textures, that's going to be difficult to do with a PS3 or PS4. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want a house like that, but it limits the type of player who will be able to build a house and customize it. It's a good feature to have, but it's not important at all. Maybe we'll have them in 5-10 years (because it needs a lot of tweaking to make it work on a console and gamepad), but I do not expect Rift or EQ had that robust of a system at 2 years. Minecraft did, but that game is built around crafting.

As for the Vanguard video, which was my argument, FFXIV already implements those features where it can.

• You have a plot of land you can see and buy on the spot.

• Building houses requires gil, which all players can contribute by depositing in to the FC box.

• Airship construction has a UI and list of crafting materials that registered players may add to (just like Vanguard).

If you want players to become porters and buy/deposit materials to build their houses like a giant fetch quest, that's fine. But I didn't hear you say that in your post and I honestly expect many players would like the shortcut to just pay the gil there than to pick it at the marketboard/retainer and then run all the way back to the house lot.

Anyway, hope that clears up my points. If there was anything I missed in the Vanguard video, feel free to add to the case.