Player Assets deleted (Housing)

[Donze]

Let me first say that 'packing up' or 'rolling up' houses and making way for actively subbing players is ALWAYS a great thing regardless of the online game. Ghosts of the past shouldn't be interfering with the present.

That being said, Square's decision to straight up DELETE your hard earned assets is alarming, shocking, and uninspired.

I am one of these people (Diabolos, Ventus Vero and Vengillian Vero). I was very excited to jump back into game when 3-4 friends said they wanted to all play an MMO and mentioned FF14 (originally left as life happens, new job, moving states, buying first house, death of mother). I found i had 5 days of game time for some reason, logged in and discovered the ugly truth. 2 GM tickets later it was confirmed that if you do not log in for 45 days, your house and all the items in it get deleted. I never got an email or I would have used my free game time to sell the house and store the items in my person FC bank. Anything but deleted en mass.

-Why couldnt square keep the 'deed' list? Why delete it completely. Is a 170KB or so file with itemIDs, gil, and positions for an instanced lot/house so crippling? We already know they 'packed up' houses and put them on vendors for all items and 80% of the gil, so why delete such a file for 45 days of inactive (even is actively subbed).

-Why not have a paid restoration? Even if, lets say, all 5 million subs or so get houses and then have them redeed, the collective item list/gil wouldnt be crippling (I offer to buy a couple 2TB drives...) but actively keeping something for nothing wouldnt be reasonable. You've got dozens of services on the mogstation already, including additional retainers and such. Why not capitalize on rolled up houses by charging for recovery of 80% gil and the items?


Everything here points to a conclusion along the lines of "We don't care" or are talking steps to prevent re-subs. Clearing housing for active subs and archiving inactives... it could have been both, even at financial gain (i would have paid to just get the items and 80% gil back from my private house, over 2 years of memories there).

I was really excited to dive back in, wanted to get a collectors heavensward and catch up and see whats been going on. I'm sure the manderville man has been at it again. I left after the final coil came out/the golden saucer.

In the end, however, there is caution to advise to players investing in characters and assets in FF14 ARR when Square Enix will delete said investments so easily.

Just another sob story from some online player, im sure, but I wanted to relate plainly that if you own a house, your house and items will be deleted in 45 days if you dont log in and visit your house. I received a lot of "its just re-deeded in 45, you can pick it up from vendor" and other wrong misinformation. Definitely one of the best MMOs ive ever played (second in my mind only to my beloved SWG of old) but one must have principles, and this sort of practice is something I would prefer to avoid supporting, even if that means no more Hildebrand for me.

Perhaps one day Square will offer MogStation restorations of the gil and items (unlikely, but I am keeping the dream alive). Until then, take care of Eorzea for me (and stay classy Diabolos).

[OliviaJ]

I'll give you this, at least you are understanding that your house isn't there anymore and seem like you agree with the reason behind it. It would be nice if they kept that data for longer though. Maybe it's more of an incentive to get people to re-sub. You know it's likely possible since they kept your character info. What lot did you have anyway?

[Donze]

I'll give you this, at least you are understanding that your house isn't there anymore and seem like you agree with the reason behind it. It would be nice if they kept that data for longer though. Maybe it's more of an incentive to get people to re-sub. You know it's likely possible since they kept your character info. What lot did you have anyway?

Believe me, i tried. I almost felt like i was consuming too much precious Ticket Response time from others. I asked, extensively, even offered to pay a service fee to get a 'elevated tech' on it. Suggested I would compensate say 50$ for the recovery (when i was initially researching and in denial "they can't have decided on this, i must be missing something" mode, one reddit user had the cactars to suggest that for that money, you could just buy the gil, which any decent Hero of Eorzea would be offended by. The gil was certainly one part, but the memories man! The items there are all memories!)

I believe i was in 6 or so. Private lot, center back left, Small house just at the bottom of the west ramp from from Lavander Beds Center Back Market board. You could sprint jump off the cliff directly from the board into the front yard. But the location of the house is of little or no consequence compared to all the great memories arranged in that house. The bath/spa alone was the venue of some great and hilarious hang-outs. Not sure i can even remember what the bench out front under the tree next to the melons in water looked like, but i remember the friend that, in protest to me needing to tank in a raid instead of barding, sat on the bench attempting to spread word of the injustice of it all to passersby in a show of solidarity, like 12 hours a day for 7 straight days until next raid...ha! Everything there had a story, a memory, the very PLOT point of FF14 (losing the memory of the heros that saved the land, but honoring them nonetheless) and it feels off or wrong for the policy to be 'delete it'.

I'm far too much of a gamer (or too rational?) to think i should get the lot. Absolutely not. By all means pack it up. But deleted? What screams "stay away, dont log in!" more than deleting players hard work? Even if you are actively still subbing, thats no excuse to be able to camp on a lot when others may want to buy, but by the twelve, just hang onto or extract a 150KB text file of the (what is the cap? 75 items for small house?) players memories in the form of items, the gil, and give him/her a reason to return rather than the opposite.

While researching if there was anything I could do to recover the gil/items, i was bombarded with people that said "no, Square Enix doesnt delete anything, its on the vendor" and as much as I hate the phrase "raise awareness", I thought it appropriate to articulate plainly that 45 days no house visit means deleted and to make the suggestion for a paid service on mogstation in lieu of discouraging former homeowners from ever returning.

Stay Safe Adventurer!

[OliviaJ]

Oh see that's how the wards used to be. They are feeling a bit empty nowadays. It sounds like you've retained your memories though. Gil is easy to recover. Some of those housing items are gone forever, sure. I'm sure you can pick up the pieces though. Plots still open once in a while. FC's are still recruiting. Come back for future good times!

[Donze]

Removed by OP (to save space)

[Donze]

Oh see that's how the wards used to be. They are feeling a bit empty nowadays. It sounds like you've retained your memories though. Gil is easy to recover. Some of those housing items are gone forever, sure. I'm sure you can pick up the pieces though. Plots still open once in a while. FC's are still recruiting. Come back for future good times!

Believe me, I want to, but I am a man of principles. I am just praying that Square Enix sees the light (or the money) and offers a paid recovery of the gil and items, otherwise I am wary to commit to another investment and labor of love while in the hands of ill-responsible stewards. I hope the opportunity to makes more memories like the stuff in that house and these pictures convey comes along when/if SEnix sees reason. (Kat's pics are from early in FF14 ARR's life, i mean, darklight, but THATS the kinda stuff you'd think a company would like to foster while getting paid a subscription, not the kinda stuff it deletes)

[Naria]

While I am in support of the housing timer, I've always found it odd that there is a limit to how long your items/gil/deed is stored. My main is a 1.0 character and all of our inventory was stored by the calamity salvager npc during the transition to 1.0. I still have random items stored by them that I've never bothered to pick up (I should do something about that ). Granted this is a small and diminishing population and FFXIV seems to have memory/storage issues but storing housing items, especially since many event items can no longer be obtained, would be a nice courtesy.

[worldofneil]

I'm sorry that you lost your house, I really am, but (and I honestly mean no offence) you're basically telling us information we already know...

We were originally warned about housing reclamation in December 2013 in the 2.1 patch notes and that it'd be coming with 2.2, but there were so many complaints about it that they indefinitely shelved it and that never happened.

But then after multiple forum threads complaining about inactive houses and the desire to have those houses reused, they reworked it and we were told back in October 2015 that housing reclamation was coming with 3.1. This was then confirmed in the 3.1 patch notes. Both of the those links say about if you don't walk into the house with 45 days it will be demolished and if it is demolished you have 35 days to collect your items/80% compensation money.

They do send two emails to the email address on the account before it is demolished and I realise you've said you didn't receive any email so I recommend checking your email address on the account is still valid as well as if it's been traping their emails in any junk/spam folders. Failing that, shout at your email provider as they might be running their own block list.

Housing demolition was also posted on the launcher at the time as well so everyone playing was actively informed (and having a working email address should have informed everyone not playing, but there's only so much Square Enix can do to tell people...)

The housing reclamation started with 3.1 on 9th November 2015, but due to the Kumamoto earthquake in Japan it has actually been suspended since April 2016 and has been repeatedly pushed back and won't be started again until 3.4 (27 September 2016). The free game time you recently got was due to the Free Login Campaign and was for 5 days since 25th July 2016. This unfortunately wouldn't have helped you with your house as that would have been demolished at somepoint between November 2015 and April 2016 and then the items/money deleted 35 days after that.

That being said, Square's decision to straight up DELETE your hard earned assets is alarming, shocking, and uninspired.

Well I appreciate that's a personal opionion, but there's 45 days before anything happens, an in game warning, 2 email warnings and even when it is deleted, you still have 35 more days to collect. After that yes it is gone, but that's quite a long period of time and all you have to do to save the house is walk into it... (or talk to the vendor to get items back)

Is a 170KB or so file with itemIDs, gil, and positions for an instanced lot/house so crippling?

why delete such a file for 45 days of inactive (even is actively subbed).

I'm curious to know how you came up with such an exact figure, but although I don't know the definite answer to your question, I suspect it's nothing to do with data storage and more because they want to motivate players to login (and play?) as well as if they can ditch the data it's one less thing for them to have to worry about storing/converting/updating in the future. Also housing was originally supposed to be a massive gil sink (so many things put money into the game, very few take them out) so they want to remove as much gil as possible to help slow inflation. Getting back 80% of the gil was supposed to be compensation, but now of course every player wants that 80% back and won't just relinquish the plot for nothing knowing that they could get money. Deleting the money after those 35 days allows Square Enix to have that gil sink again.

Why not have a paid restoration?

They already get a lot of stick for the Mogstation and at least everything on that you buy is untradeable. If they had a paid restoration they're essentially giving you money/items that are tradeable, for a real world price. Obviously they are items that you once did own, but it's no longer acting as the gil sink it was and I can only imagine how many accusations and money grabbing there would be about SE still having the data and only handing it over after you hand over a fee etc.

[Lexia]

Being how lot of servers don't have enough housing how exactly would of roll up or restoration of your house workd? Where are they going to put it? Cause if you on a server that doesn't have enough houses the plot that your house was on would of been taken by someone else.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

OP you say it makes no sense to delete your stuff, but why wouldn't it?

If you rent out a storage unit, put stuff in it, and then stop paying, what does the storage company do? Auction off or throw out everything in your storage.

Can you go back a month or two later and just pay to get your stuff back? No, of course not. They have no obligation to do so.

So why would SE have a different policy?