When will you really address the housing availability problem?

[Twilite]

As someone who owns a personal mansion, I am indifferent.

And you're pretty much forced to keep playing just to keep it. :P

[Colorful]

And you're pretty much forced to keep playing just to keep it. :P

Why would you want to keep a house for a game you no longer play to begin with? If the gil matters so much, resubscribe after it's demolished, pick up your 80%, then unsubscribe once again. Everyone I know that owns a house feels the same way, everyone except people throwing around the Illuminati conspiracy that they're doing it so people stay subscribed.

[Archaell]

Why would you want to keep a house for a game you no longer play to begin with? If the gil matters so much, resubscribe after it's demolished, pick up your 80%, then unsubscribe once again. Everyone I know that owns a house feels the same way, everyone except people throwing around the Illuminati conspiracy that they're doing it so people stay subscribed.

Not to mention that there aren't that many house owners to make it a significant source of income.

[Rahzel]

Not to mention that there aren't that many house owners to make it a significant source of income.

Unless you're WoW, 92,160 subscribers is nothing to scoff at. Assuming all plots on all servers are taken, that's 60 plots x 8 wards x 3 residential districts x 64 servers (that's how many I counted on ARRstatus). That's roughly $1,381,478 a month (assuming all are one month recurring full subs without legacy status).

Of course, that's not accounting for Free Companies which can be owned by someone that also owns a personal house, and the fact that FC houses can be refreshed by any of its members. Still, even if we halved that amount, it's not so insignificant.

That said, it was a feature that should have been in place from the beginning, and while I'm sure keeping homeowners subscribing wasn't their primary reason for implementing it, I doubt the possibility of reclamation helping to retain subs didn't escape them either.

[Gyson]

Why would you want to keep a house for a game you no longer play to begin with? If the gil matters so much, resubscribe after it's demolished, pick up your 80%, then unsubscribe once again. Everyone I know that owns a house feels the same way, everyone except people throwing around the Illuminati conspiracy that they're doing it so people stay subscribed.

It doesn't take an "illuminati conspiracy", just common sense. Do you believe they have zero interest in seeing inactive players resubscribe? No hope that inactive players might have their interest in FFXIV sparked by hopping into the game again?

If none of that were true they'd just require inactive players to log into their Mogstation accounts via the website, where they'd click a button marked "I'm still interested in retaining my property".

[Colorful]

snip.

Of course they're interested in retaining players, but I also believe the players leaving couldn't care less about their house to the point that they'd force themselves to pay $15 a month for a virtual house. I do find it funny how people throwing out that idea are the same ones who still play, and care for the game, of course you're going to think of it like that. The 45 day period is using data from SE, if a player has left for 45 days it's likely they either never come back, or come back much later. Tell me, which is more important, satisfying current customers by freeing up plots, or holding it for players that aren't paying because "I might come back in a year, maybe, so I'll keep hitting this renew button until I do come back, if I do"?

[Miah_G]

I really don't think the time they give players to use a house before its reclaimed is a ploy to get them to re-sub. It might serve that purpose as well in some cases, but I don't think its the intent.

Sometimes people run into money issues and cant pay a sub, or other real world issues keep them from logging in (moving, job, school projects, family, tragedies and so on). For example, if I had something come up IRL and I couldn't pay a sub for a month, I'd feel really cheated if I were to lose something as large as a my FF14 house and knowing that its gone... well, it may serve as a deterrent for me returning at all.

People shouldn't be able to be un-subbed or inactive for long periods of time and still be able to retain their house, however. The houses need maintenance and housing plots are limited in supply (thats just the way it is at the moment). It would be unfair if once bought, the plot belongs to its owner until the end of time no matter what. Thank goodness there's a month and a half of inactivity allowed before the house is placed on the market again.

The current system isn't perfect, but its the step in the right direction, I feel.

[Gyson]

I really don't think the time they give players to use a house before its reclaimed is a ploy to get them to re-sub. It might serve that purpose as well in some cases, but I don't think its the intent.

While I don't know how it's working in FFXI now, it's worth pointing out that for several years following FFXI's launch SE only guaranteed keeping your character data intact for 90 days following the lapse of your subscription (which is a *lot* worse than losing your house). My friends and I all lost our FFXI characters during a one year hiatus we took from the game (and I doubt my newest character even exists there anymore). So, this is not the first time they've used this tactic to encourage subscription payments from inactive players.

[Mycow8me]

A 7 year old game is going to have an entirely different set of limitations than a for the most part new one. Im sorry but if the reason characters cant get to creative is cause of memory limitations... that just makes you wonder even more about those kinds of limitations for something like housing. Im not saying its never going to happen but the idea of personal housing for all in an actual zone is highly unlikely at any time soon or at all. This could have been done sooner possibly with an extra monthly fee similar to retainer or even player hosted instances that cost immensely less gil than the public zone counterparts. Theres alot of other possibilities that wont involve memory or even server usage. SE though likes to keep everything server side to avoid hacks etc. I dont blame them but either way housing for everyone aint gonna change anytime soon.

Im all for a general situation outlook message from the devs though, they know theres alot of disappointed folks by now im sure

[Gyson]

A 7 year old game is going to have an entirely different set of limitations than a for the most part new one. Im sorry but if the reason characters cant get to creative is cause of memory limitations... that just makes you wonder even more about those kinds of limitations for something like housing.

Only a single instance is loaded into your computer's/Playstation's memory at any given moment. So, whether you have 8 instanced neighborhoods or 5920 of them on the servers makes no difference memory-wise. I don't have to upgrade my memory every time the developers decide to add an additional zone to the game.

I agree that a 7 year old game is going to have a different set of limitations - one would think much more restrictive limits than a more modern game like FFXIV.