Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Evumeimei]

Because that means you have to resub every single month even if you want to take a break from the game.

And that is exactly my problem with this. I'm part of a very small FC of people (all of whom I know in real life). These days only me and another member are online, and sometimes I just need to take a break from the game. But I always come back. So it's just annoying that you're now going to have to pay a sub fee every month even when you want to take a break just to check up on your house...

[ElHeggunte]

Why implement this if they were going to add more wards "as needed" any time soon. Cuz that need has yet to be met for awhile now.

* * *

Wake up , people. Don't u think if they really WERE going to put in more wards any time soon they would have done so instead of just making this rule?????

No matter how many wards SE plans to add in the future or when they decide to add them, something needed to be done about abandoned plots.

And that is exactly my problem with this. I'm part of a very small FC of people (all of whom I know in real life). These days only me and another member are online, and sometimes I just need to take a break from the game. But I always come back. So it's just annoying that you're now going to have to pay a sub fee every month even when you want to take a break just to check up on your house...

Honestly, if at least one person can't be bothered to log in once every 45 days it makes me wonder what you even need the house for because it sounds like you aren't using it at all. If an entire FC (even a small one) fails to log in within 45 days it's incredibly unlikely that they'll be coming back.

The only thing I don't like about the system is I think the time for a personal house destruction should be longer, but otherwise this is a much needed feature that we should have had from the start.

snip

It's almost as if you don't understand that any good plan has what we like to call "steps" and this is just the first step in dealing with the run-away beast of their own making. Even if what you're saying turns out to be true and SE has completely abandoned all hope of ever salvaging this mess, having a way to free up unused plots is way overdue. They most certainly shouldn't just leave it broken regardless of what they do from here on.

[kamikrazy]

So you have to always be subscribed or else your 50 million gil investment that took you months of work goes up in smoke? Should they also implement a 45 day timer where your gil starts vanishing from your inventory because other players might need it? And should they also take away your retainer's levels and gear as well? What about your character name after 45 days? How about they also make your gear go down ilevel by 50 for every 45 days you are offline?

It seems like a really cheap shot to keep people subscribed, it isn't a solution to fix the housing availability problem. Fixing the housing availability problem could be done in a ton of ways, none of which involve forcing players to login within an arbitary time frame that just so happens to guarantee you have to stay subscribed at all times or else.

[kamikrazy]

They could have added instanced housing plots.

They could have added apartments in the city states.

They could have done what LOTRO did and create an expanded system of plots that would actually function in a way where everyone will get one.

This system does nothing. Instead of only .5% of the playerbase on a server getting to do housing content at all, everyone will have to take turns being the .5%, except not a year from now when the .5% are all people who will stay subscribed forever and will never relinquish their property. This is nothing but an underhanded and subversive way of keeping subscribers while appearing to be improving the game. It's insulting that they think people are this stupid, and its even worse if people fall for it.

Their housing system is fundamentally broken, fixing that is what needs to be done. This does absolutely nothing for anyone except SE's subscriptions.

[MistakeNot]

They could have added instanced housing plots.

They could have added apartments in the city states.

They could have done what LOTRO did and create an expanded system of plots that would actually function in a way where everyone will get one.

LOTRO did have severe problems with the more populated servers running out of free houses until they introduced a similar model where people could lose their house if they did not pay the upkeep.
After introducing that (and waiting the required number of days) a lot of houses became available again.

[XLauncher]

So you have to always be subscribed or else your 50 million gil investment that took you months of work goes up in smoke? Should they also implement a 45 day timer where your gil starts vanishing from your inventory because other players might need it? And should they also take away your retainer's levels and gear as well? What about your character name after 45 days? How about they also make your gear go down ilevel by 50 for every 45 days you are offline?

Do you seriously believe any of that is analogous to what they're doing here?

[kamikrazy]

Do you seriously believe any of that is analogous to what they're doing here?

It absolutely is analogous. Wards are just data on a server. They could just add more availability. The fact is that the math just doesn't work out. No matter how many people relinquish plots, the current system guarantees that there will never be enough for everyone. Not even enough for half. Not even enough for 10%. Not even enough for 1%. That is the fundamental problem.

And just like when there isn't enough gil to go around, the game makes more. Just like when not enough players get gear to progress, the game produces more. Would the game function if only .5% of players had enough gil to repair their gear? No it wouldn't. Would the game function if there was a finite number of armor sets above ilevel 150, and it was only enough for .5% of the playerbase?

No, the game wouldn't function. This is the same thing. This is a digital commodity, and more needs to be produced. If they are unwilling to produce more wards (again, LOTRO has this same system, and it works, SE just needs to copy it) then they should create instanced housing (which they already have all of the assets for, but are now most likely never going to do because having instanced housing would take away the incentive for the .5% of players who own houses to remain subscribed forever, and by proxy eliminating a future feature that would improve the game tremendously). This would be the actions of a company looking to solve a problem with the game.

They aren't doing this because they aren't trying to solve a problem with the game. This is an underhanded way to force people to stay subscribed forever. Very low.

[Niwashi]

So you have to always be subscribed or else your 50 million gil investment that took you months of work goes up in smoke? Should they also implement a 45 day timer where your gil starts vanishing from your inventory because other players might need it? And should they also take away your retainer's levels and gear as well? What about your character name after 45 days? How about they also make your gear go down ilevel by 50 for every 45 days you are offline?

Do you seriously believe any of that is analogous to what they're doing here?

Actually, with the way they're implementing it, yes, it is pretty analogous.

I actually agree with reclaiming the housing plots, they're the limited resources. The current plan, however, is to take away not just the plot but all the money you spent on it and everything you furnished it with if you're away from the game too long. How is completely taking away the biggest investment you'll ever make in this game all that different than taking away your gil, levels, name, etc.?

If you take a break from the game, in 45 days you'll lose your housing plot. Fine. Someone else can use it. In another 35 days you'll lose EVERYTHING. Sooo NOT fine.

[Ashkendor]

This doesn't fix the problem, this just needlessly punishes the players who got houses

They never said that a purge was supposed to fix the problem. This has always been billed as the first step in fixing the problem. I honestly don't see how it punishes anyone. If you're gone from your estate for that long (especially in the case of Free Companies), you aren't using it and it's unfair to just camp on such a limited resource. If anything, people being able to just unsubscribe and hold onto their housing properties indefinitely is needlessly punishing those who don't have housing already.

So you have to always be subscribed or else your 50 million gil investment that took you months of work goes up in smoke? Should they also implement a 45 day timer where your gil starts vanishing from your inventory because other players might need it? And should they also take away your retainer's levels and gear as well? What about your character name after 45 days? How about they also make your gear go down ilevel by 50 for every 45 days you are offline?

None of the things that you describe here are finite resources. Housing is. There's no correlation to be drawn here.

[kamikrazy]

snip

The only reason it is limited is because of SE's own decisions. What, players should be penalized because SE made a bad decision and decided to make wards instead of instances? That really isn't fair. The only people who've made this a problem is SE in the way they designed it. The reason it is a finite resource is because SE has deemed it so. That's literally the only reason. If they had done instanced housing, or done a dynamic system the way that LOTRO has done, this limitation wouldn't exist. This is like selling someone a car, then coming back and taking it back to the dealership because you didn't drive it for a month. It's ridiculous.

Even worse, look at the time between updates. This system was clearly created for the purpose of forcing players to remain subscribed for months on end, and I guarantee that this will be followed by long content draughts. Want to quit while you wait 6 months for a patch? Better not, or else you'll lose your house!

Can't you read between the lines? This is very unethical business practice.