Quote Originally Posted by Gyson View Post
I think SE stopped regularly deleting inactive FFXI accounts roughly 8 years ago (although past that date they still made no guarantees your data would be kept intact beyond 90 days).

Even to this day many MMOs will delete data (namely names - consider how crazy players can be about retaining those) of inactive users to free them up for active players. Blizzard just finished a purge in WoW towards the end of 2015. So, yes, it's still a very valid practice.

I don't think "right" or "fair" are the proper terms to use here. That would be like me saying that I don't think it's right or fair that (insert undesirable FFXIV mechanic here) exists. If they didn't call it housing reclamation, they could have simply had a very reasonable system where characters were required to pay property taxes on their land every 45 RL days (that's about every 2 1/2 years in Eorzea time) - that would still require you to log in every 45 days to keep your house. We could call it it "inconvenient" or "annoying", but it's no less "right" or "fair" than anything from DPS-checks to dungeon penalty lock-out timers.

There are plenty of things in FFXIV that are not "right" or "fair" - like not being able to send mail or share a house with your alternate characters, or the fact that a major feature like housing is not available to every subscriber that wants one. I don't count the 45 day activity requirements as part of that, though. Just my opinion.

I don't think using WOW as an example is really that strong, so let's provide more information about this example why don't we. I don't play WOW, but Googled World of Warcraft Name Purge and saw a post from Blizzard, in 2015, warning people who had not logged in since 2010. That is not a typo. That is not "a couple months earlier in 2015." It's literally after nearly 5 years of inactivity.

Also you don't want to use words like "right" or "fair" while simultaneously putting words into others' mouths like "obligation." It's not about "obligation" or requirement, it's about doing right by your customer base so they remain customers. And while it's great that they sent me an email warning me about the imminent removal of my house, let's not do cartwheels with applause here - the message was actually quite clear - "you better pay a subscription, and pay a subscription every other month, or we'll be taking something from you."

This is far different than WOW's "hey you haven't logged in for 5 years...we are going to assume you moved on and release your old names."