Why isn't housing priced higher? (why is housing random luck)

[Niwashi]

It would be good if they added instanced housing at least (similar to inn rooms - as in free or cheap - but decorate-able), so as to store all our decos and stuff. But since they aren't, I'm selling off all my rare decos, since my retainers are almost full with other more useful stuff.

But they are doing that. It's the next step after these new wards we got this morning, most likely coming in 3.35. They're adding 512 instanced apartments in Ishgard (not as unlimited as we'd ideally like, but it's a significant number, particularly if they later add additional apartment buildings which each have that many). We don't have a lot of detail on them yet. Many people are speculating that SE is simply re-purposing the Personal Chambers feature that they've already got for FC houses, but setting up a collection of them that don't require being in an FC with a house. But it's also possible the apartments will be bigger to make them a more equivalent alternative to private houses (although they won't have an exterior like houses do).

And some time after that there will be another set of housing wards in Ishgard. Along with that will come a feature for those already having housing to be able to move to a different house, so some in the current areas are likely to open up at that time as well.

(Note: "mansion type" in the first quote means apartments, based on the way Japanese uses the word. That translation confusion was fixed on the second quote.)

A4: We have confirmed that we will be increasing the amount of land for existing housing areas in Patch 3.3. After this we’re planning to introduce mansion type housing, and housing in the Ishgard area. These two are being developed in parallel, but in order to meet everyone’s demand, we will implement the mansion-type housing as a first priority. Currently it’s being planned that one mansion will be able to hold 512 residences. As for gardening, we think this will be difficult, but we’re currently developing new pots that will allow gardening, so please look forward to this.

A: We'll be increasing the number of plots for existing housing areas in Patch 3.3. After we expand those areas, we'll add apartment-style housing in Ishgard areas afterwards, starting with one apartment-style building which will hold about 512 residences. We’re also planning to make chocobo stables available for use to residents of apartment-style housing. Gardening patches are still proving somewhat difficult, but we’re currently developing new “planter pots” that will allow gardening.

[Stormrider]

But it's also possible the apartments will be bigger to make them a more equivalent alternative to private houses (although they won't have an exterior like houses do).

Do you honestly believe that this shit show of housing, if personal rooms were anything more then re-purposed FC rooms or worse that they would have said. We have surely entered the 1.0 ARR era of communication.

They have had since DEC 25th to make a statement about flipping. Wait for it fail. They have repeatedly added out door furniture to events, no out door instanced space. Wait for it I think that is fail two. They refused to overhaul gardening to make it even for people with instanced housing and those with out. I believe that would also be a fail? I could go on.

I personally don't have anything against you. I just don't understand how people can even hint that they are doing anything but failing in a backwards direction.

[Slirith]

SE I think has done the worst housing I've seen in an MMO yet

[Niwashi]

Do you honestly believe that this shit show of housing, if personal rooms were anything more then re-purposed FC rooms or worse that they would have said. We have surely entered the 1.0 ARR era of communication.

I didn't say I thought that was likely, only that we didn't have any clear information on it, and that the assumption that it's re-purposed FC housing is just guesswork from players who haven't been given any more information about it than that there will be 512 apartments per apartment building (and initially only one apartment building apparently). It could be the same or it could be different. We just don't really know yet. I wanted to point out the speculation about it most likely being re-purposed Private Chambers while also pointing out that that part is just speculation, though I was trying to keep the rest of the post factual.

They have had since DEC 25th to make a statement about flipping. Wait for it fail. They have repeatedly added out door furniture to events, no out door instanced space. Wait for it I think that is fail two. They refused to overhaul gardening to make it even for people with instanced housing and those with out. I believe that would also be a fail? I could go on.

I personally don't have anything against you. I just don't understand how people can even hint that they are doing anything but failing in a backwards direction.

I've never suggested that SE hasn't made a huge number of horrible design decisions with the housing system, the root of all of them being that they apparently never considered the number of players they have when they designed it in the first place. Then even after it was out and clear that it was nowhere near adequate, they continued adding more and more features for which a house is necessary, even while the bulk of their player-base didn't have access to one. As for the house-flipping problem, SE should have just updated the software to make that impossible as soon as the practice started exacerbating the shortage issue. (All it would take to get rid of it is a delay before a relinquished plot goes back up for sale.)

But at least they're finally starting to work on it. Another problem they initially had was failing to recognize that not everyone stays with an MMO indefinitely, and that many houses would naturally go vacant with time. But they did go back and fix that one. Now they're trying to add more housing to rectify the shortage problems. This patch alone they added another 720 houses, bringing us to 2160. Next patch we'll get another 512 (albeit more limited ones). After that, if the Ishgard housing area gets as many wards as the others have already, that'll be another 720. That'd get us up to 3392. That may still not be quite ideal for some of the more populated servers, but it's almost an order of magnitude of improvement over the 360 houses we started with when the feature was released.

Just because a system has problems (even a lot of problems) doesn't mean that nothing's being done.