Lost House - Question

[MomomiMomi]

I really don't think it was necessary to try to rile up the OP by pointing out that players (yes even myself) agreed with Housing reclaim. It comes off like starting a witch hunt. Just because some of us agree with the process doesn't mean we can't empathize.

Your post implies that anyone who might have agreed with the reclamation system is a "bad" part of the community; which is simply not the case.

"Your house should be taken away."
"Oh, I'm sorry your house was taken away."

You can keep your damn empathy.

[Syrehn]

"Your house should be taken away." "Those of us that agree with housing reclamation realize that the current housing model is a finite resource (for numerous factors that some don't agree with) that many players are wanting to take advantage of, so we understand the current necessity of recycling properties from inactive to active users."

You can keep your damn empathy.

I fixed it for you.

My original point still stands. This shouldn't be turned into a witch hunt against players who agree with Housing Reclamation, nor should we be considered a "bad" part of the community for those views.

[MomomiMomi]

I fixed it for you.

My original point still stands. This shouldn't be turned into a witch hunt against players who agree with Housing Reclamation, nor should we be considered a "bad" part of the community for those views.

Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer. I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

[Syrehn]

Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer.

While I personally wouldn't mind if the decay timer was extended a bit I don't necessarily think that it's too short. That being said I do think that the item reclaim period should be longer than it currently is so that in the event that a house is demolished the items will still be accessible for a longer length of time.

The purpose of my initial quoting of Neira wasn't to drag the for vs. against argument into this thread. It was to point out that we don't need to start a glorified witch hunt against players that agreed with housing reclamation, nor do we need to imply that they are bad players because their views are different from those who were against it.

[Serendair]

Up to page 1 this was such a nice thread....

[Gyson]

Most people against it were arguing that the timer was far too short; they still would have supported a longer reclamation timer. I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

The timer is always going to be too short for someone - someone will always show up just after their property is reclaimed.

Just 2 and a half months after the first "Free Login" period we're now having a second one. Between the frequency of that event and the reasonable 45 day timer, it's really difficult to lose a property unless you're just not paying attention to this game anymore - and those are the types of people property should be reclaimed from. Now, I personally feel that there should be more than enough property for every player on the server, but that's not how it works and housing reclamation is one way of making that ugly flaw easier to put up with.

The original poster received advanced notice in December, and that was the same month we had the first "Free Login" event. It would have been simple for him to set three minutes aside to login, walk in his house, and log off. The issue for him was that financial woes made it impossible for him to subscribe to WTFast, and he can't log into the game without it - that's a pretty specific combination of problems, one I doubt most will have as a hurdle in keeping their virtual homes. He also lives in California and shouldn't need WTFast just to connect to the FFXIV servers, and that's what ultimately bit him in the rear - a problem that has nothing to do with housing reclamation and a technical issue that he probably should have resolved long ago (rather than relied on WTFast).

As for placing a limit on how long the Resident Caretaker holds reclaimed furniture - that's on Square. I really doubt any player suggested placing a time-limit on furniture storage. Rather, that's SE's way of encouraging people to sub-up. Still, you're looking at 45 days before someone loses the property, and then an additional 35 days before they lose the furniture.. a total of 80 days to take a moment to load FFXIV up is pretty generous, especially when they're throwing in "Free Login" periods every 75 days.

[MomomiMomi]

The original poster received advanced notice in December, and that was the same month we had the first "Free Login" event. It would have been simple for him to set three minutes aside to login, walk in his house, and log off. The issue for him was that financial woes made it impossible for him to subscribe to WTFast, and he can't log into the game without it - that's a pretty specific combination of problems, one I doubt most will have as a hurdle in keeping their virtual homes. He also lives in California and shouldn't need WTFast just to connect to the FFXIV servers, and that's what ultimately bit him in the rear - a problem that has nothing to do with housing reclamation and a technical issue that he probably should have resolved long ago (rather than relied on WTFast).

Still would have lost his house, as I did. Thankfully, my personal house was only a small house; my large is an FC house that I asked a friend to take care of for me with an alt. Had my large been the one I lost, I probably wouldn't have had much desire to return.

45 days away from the game is not very long, and is still within the realm of someone who intends to continue playing the game. A longer timer would still clear out houses from those who don't intend to play anymore.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Some may view 45 days as generous but it really is not a long time at all. It's a bit unheard of to me for an MMO to take things from you after that short a time frame and other games I have played just have your house sit there indefinitely (EQ2, Aion if you have a free house.). Even when games had taken things from people, it was under strict circumstances like characters who have not logged in for a year and were also under level 6.

I wasn't following FFXIV news and system updates that closely because to be honest, I had more important and more stressful things going on than FFXIV patch notes when I couldn't subscribe. But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact. The reward for SquareEnix is their return to the game when they start to miss it.

This is the first time in 17 years of MMOs that I lost something in a game for being away for a few months. When I received the email around Christmas, I figured I could at least get my house items back and some of the Gil when I had money to spend on games again. When I learned that was gone too, I was very tempted to petition to refund my subscription and Heavensward purchase.

I understand that the housing system in this game is not well thought out and they want to keep housing as a perk for the most active players only. Well, most presently active - I'm sure that there were newer people who spent less money on the game than I have who also wanted houses. I can accept losing my house but they should mail back your Gil and house items. I see no reason why items and Gil couldn't sit in your mailbox until you can return. I can't honestly believe that SquareEnix can't afford the bandwidth for this when players can already craft limitless number of items to remain in the persistent world.

I'll never forget this experience and it will forever be a black mark on this game for me. I'll never forget that they took pretty much 90% of all the Gil I ever made while simultaneously sending me marketing emails to give them real-life money again.

As for the community - I don't blame people, for wanting a house. I want a house again. I blame SE for coming up with the system it did that created community in-fighting for unnecessarily scarce housing.

[Gyson]

Some may view 45 days as generous but it really is not a long time at all. It's a bit unheard of to me for an MMO to take things from you after that short a time frame and other games I have played just have your house sit there indefinitely (EQ2, Aion if you have a free house.). Even when games had taken things from people, it was under strict circumstances like characters who have not logged in for a year and were also under level 6.

SE used to delete FFXI characters if the owner went 90 days without paying a subscription. Think about that.. the amount of effort that goes into developing a character can be pretty significant. I know.. I lost several that way.

I wasn't following FFXIV news and system updates that closely because to be honest, I had more important and more stressful things going on than FFXIV patch notes when I couldn't subscribe. But to be honest people shouldn't even need a "good" reason to take a break - it should be their right to do so and know they will come back with their belongings (and character names) intact. The reward for SquareEnix is their return to the game when they start to miss it.

While it makes sense from a retention standpoint to keep non-subscriber character data intact, in reality developers are under no obligation to do so once you stop subscribing to their service. And if you are paying an active subscription, you just need to make sure you log in once every 45 days to keep your virtual home (as that's a required part of the housing mechanics now).

..but I don't see how anyone can help but feel bad when someone who just lost their home and items in-game is thanking us when it's our fault in the first place.

If you're implying the community should feel guilty about this, I'll be totally honest: I don't. Not even a little, and that's because the developers are grown ups who can make their own decision. If they choose to respond to a complaint from the community.. that's on them. Heaven knows they cherry pick which complaints to respond to.. they've given us everything from flying turtles mounts (who complained about turtles not being able to fly?), yet not a day goes by where players aren't complaining about inventory space issues - funny how that goes nowhere, but thank goodness for those apparently highly-requested flying turtles SE insists the players wanted..!

Point is, SE's mind was made up on this and what the community wants or doesn't want impacts very little. Housing reclamation was less about doing players a favor and more about increasing the amount of subscription fees going into SE's pocket. On "reclamation day" the properties which opened up on my server vanished within 60 seconds. Most people who want a home still don't have one.

I'll never forget this experience and it will forever be a black mark on this game for me. I'll never forget that they took pretty much 90% of all the Gil I ever made while simultaneously sending me marketing emails to give them real-life money again.

I can certainly understand the frustration there. But at least they did send you multiple notifications via email regarding your housing, despite the fact that you were no longer paying them any money.

It can be worse - for example, long ago I used to play Funcom's "Anarchy Online", and besides my main character and high level alts, I had a lot of low level characters that I used as storage mules for excess equipment/items. I took a lengthy break from the game but continued to pay my subscription fee the entire time - I never let it lapse. When I returned I found all my low level characters had been deleted as part of a name-reclamation inactivity purge (congrats to whomever was looking to free up much desired names like "ArmorAndWeaponStorage"). These were characters filled with items I invested a lot of time in acquiring - data I was paying money to Funcom every month to keep safe.. all gone.

When I complained about it and asked for that data to be restored, I was denied and told that an announcement/warning had been present on the game's launcher for a month. I tried to explain that people don't tend to fire up the launchers for games they're taking a break from, but Funcom's support just didn't see the logic in that. They never even felt the need to send out a warning via email before deleting the characters, although they had no problems with frequently spamming my mailbox with advertisements to try other Funcom products. They got my money and they still screwed me.

And that's why I don't touch Funcom's games anymore. Now, you might feel the same way here, but at least SE made efforts to notify you - and you weren't even paying them to keep you in the loop. So, yeah, as black a mark this might seem for you, that mark has room to be a whole lot blacker.

[Andrea]

I do think that anyone who agrees with this current system is supporting a very bad system that hurts players, and therefore detrimental to the community.

I'll be blunt, anyone who supports the current housing system is in denial at how bad it truly is.