Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[echoica]

snip

You can't compare housing to personal items stored on your retainer. Housing effects gameplay of other players where the latter does not.

Personally I think it's a net gain keeping paying customers happy as opposed to catering to fickle players who don't commit to the game long term.

[Dree-Elle]

So they're going on sale at the full, original price again. Ugh.

Why would they not? It's not like you're getting a trash-strewn lot or something.

[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.

[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.

[Vinestra]

Jesus they do exactly what people ask and still get met with "Ugh"

No they did what some certain Vocal Minority wanted (Vocal Minority on both sides of this debate).

[Nalien]

As someone with two houses (a FC and personal one), I have absolutely no issue with this.

I can't see a reason why I'd unsub for 90 days other than being done with this game, in which case I don't think I'd care about my virtual estates... If my financial situation is such that I can't sub for 90 days... I think I'll care less about virtual plots and Gil, and more about real money... Likewise if something unexpected happens health wise... If I wake up from a 90 day coma I'm certainly not going to be cursing YoshiP...

Bottom line, if you're not paying a subscription fee, then there is no reason you should hold a plot over someone who does. If you want to take breaks, settle on a FC House with a Private Room, you don't have to visit the FC House for it to remain, just someone in the FC... Hopefully this will open up more plots and allow more FCs to actually get a house...

Honestly though, Private Rooms seemingly have no limitation (in theory, everyone on the server could have one if they're smart with FC membership)... I don't get why SE doesn't just offer Private Rooms at the four cities Inns and then tie those to the FC house if applicable... Everyone should be able to have a Private Room...

[AlexanderThorolund]

That is great news, im sure a lot of FCs will be very excited.

[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.

[Malevicton]

Okay, I had to google around cause I thought I was going nuts, but this is pretty much the exact same plan from April 2014, the only real difference being that it was 35 days instead of 45. When they scrapped that plan, it took them a year and a half to add 10 days to the expiration timer.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ming-Patch-2.3

The big complaints from that plan? The exact same ones people are bringing up now lol. So 18 months to not solve a problem and just continue with the same plan that people complained about.

[Ashkendor]

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.

It's more like selling someone a car and then repossessing it when they stop making payments.

I have both a FC and personal house and I completely support this system!