In Retrospect, should Housing had been limited to Free Companies only?

[Morningstar1337]

I figured in light of the current topic of the month, I'd ask if you think SE should had waited until later (Like after they drop the PS3 or get new servers) before implementing personal housing. A related question is hat do you think the decay timer is actually a move to make FC housing more favorable then personal housing?

[Saccharin]

Most of the abandoned properties are FC Houses.

[ElHeggunte]

I think lumping FC and Personal Housing together is easily one of the biggest missteps SE has ever made. Personal Housing should have been instanced, or if they still insisted on doing a neighborhood then PH should have had their own specific wards independent of FC wards. I don't think the reclamation change is an attempt to move us towards more FC housing though.

[Archaell]

I think that current type of housing should have been limited to FCs only...

While there should have been a different type of housing for personal use. Let's say smaller streets alongside the main hub. Either completely instanced, or including only few small/medium houses, which wouldn't be physical locked, but possible to move to different districts so that you can have your house next to your friends, or move it to a lil bit more active neighborhood.

Pretty certain that current housing was a major turn off for many players. Everyone should have access to at least small house, othetwise all the resources used to develop housing are not efficiently used.

[FaizeD]

The common consensus is that they should have left FC housing as is, and implemented instanced personal housing similar to the Mog House system in XI.

[Colorful]

Wasn't that the plan from the beginning, to have separate personal housing that was much more affordable for your average player? They should have held up that promise honestly, that would have been perfect if personal housing was instanced.

[Xairos]

Im of two minds about this.

I would say that instanced housing would be perfect, but before I played FFXIV i played RIFT, and the housing there was perfect....except because it was instanced, I knew that I would have to either sink hours into making it awesome enough to be a top rated home so people would come visit, or make it decent enough for me, and have no one come by because why would they? They have their own homes and stuff.

Instanced homes have such low social visibility it made me dislike it.

[Zojha]

Purrsunally, I would have been fine just having a flat really.

A regular house in the housing area with a small interior lobby, maybe a garden outside and stairs that lead upwards to your instanced flat/room/suite.

It's not much, but it's home :/

[MistyMew]

Enough housing should have been available since day 1 ..thats the way it should have been.

The neighborhood is too high of a price to pay for such limited design. I would have preferred Rift design 100% over ffxiv. There is ZERO creativity for players compared to Rift. Its mindless and creatively suffocating.

Housing is somewhat instanced already considering we enter an instance when we enter our homes. Its just 1000x more limited and simplistic then most other games.

Seeing a neighborhood to me is worthless, does nothing to increase my enjoyment of it. But to be able to actually create would have been enjoyable and long lasting.

Having personal + fc together should also never have been an issue. It was se' blunder in thinking so typically small that ruined much of the enjoyment of our plop and drop "housing" (its shameful actually)

[BreathlessTao]

I think lumping FC and Personal Housing together is easily one of the biggest missteps SE has ever made.

^ this. Well, considering FFXIV:ARR anyway. But yes, I simply can't comprehend how they could have been so utterly short-sighted. I mean, I understand they felt the need to out personal housing asap, heck it's been a pressure since 1.0, I believe. I understand that the ward system was already completed and available. But to think that it would ever be able to cater to anywhere near the demand level...it's mind-boggling. Especially without any restriction on plot ownership (we all know that 1+1 per character means jack s××t) and without any method of recycling abandoned plots, as it ended up being implemented. For so long. At those prices (that really only served to squash potential demand somewhat). It really is shocking.

And it's not even retrospect, I do believe many of us have been saying, ever since the introduction of this type of personal housing, that it's a blunder and that wards should have been left for free companies only.

Oh and one more point: the fact that they continue to invest so much resource in it, with so damn many new furnitures (even as seasonal item rewards), and new features, one after the other, instead of prioritising the availability itself first and foremost, is just even more baffling.