I'd like to take an extended break from the game, but...

[Zojha]

I can only make assumptions as only the devs know how the instancing works, but assuming their server hardware is limited when it comes to total instances they can allocate, I can assume the choice of 'neighborhoods' was made to keep the total housing instances on each server down to 36 instances (12 wards * 3 housing areas) vs 2160 instances.

Sounds plausible - until you realize that the interior of the houses has to be allocated as an instance either way, so you're not saving those 2124 instances, you only have 36 more. Moreover, every FC house can have up to 512 more instances inside it - Private chambers. If the amount of instances was an issue, people using that potential would be a veritable nightmare for them.

If they had wanted to save instances, they'd have had to design the exterior of the house to fit with the interior, so that both are in the same instance. Easy to do when one house is one instance, a lot less so when 30 houses make one instance (Subdivisions are a new Instance IIRC).

[RLofOBFL]

I actually think auto demolish is fine, however I do think 45 days is short. I took an entire month off in December waiting for 3.5 but I had to resub early so I wouldn't lose my house & it was a little stressful.

I think somewhere between 3 to 6 months is a good amount of time. People don't realize how many houses were freed up from people who never played again. I remember my server had no plots free. Literally 0. Now we still have some leftover spaces waiting for buyers.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Sounds plausible - until you realize that the interior of the houses has to be allocated as an instance either way, so you're not saving those 2124 instances, you only have 36 more. Moreover, every FC house can have up to 512 more instances inside it - Private chambers. If the amount of instances was an issue, people using that potential would be a veritable nightmare for them.

If they had wanted to save instances, they'd have had to design the exterior of the house to fit with the interior, so that both are in the same instance. Easy to do when one house is one instance, a lot less so when 30 houses make one instance (Subdivisions are a new Instance IIRC).

Like I said, it comes to assumptions. Based on zero load times and what I know of dev 'tricks' from the time I've worked as a programmer, I actually think the interior of the houses are 100% loaded in the same instance as the actual neighborhoods, just that the interiors are located far away, beneath the ground, or otherwise inaccessible. There have been plenty of times not just in what I've worked on, but from what I've seen in other games through people using cheat devices or glitches, that objects and stuff that's needed for something specific, but not necessarily needs to be seen by the player until a specific point are often stored beneath the map or out of sight, then the player is simply teleported to a location, or the objects brought into the scene.

In the case of their neighborhoods, I would have put in 30 empty rooms per division far beneath the map, then once the house is accessed, the server would pull all the data regarding objects inside the house to populate it so it'd give the 'illusion' it's instanced. But who knows. I only base it by the nearly zero load times to enter subdivisions and the houses themselves. Either way, It's my guess there's a technical reason behind not doing full instanced housing, and 'immersion' is the 'PR' response.

[Kaethra]

Instanced housing would solve the situation, but could present a technical and catastrophic nightmare from the dev's side of things if implemented in haste without proper testing, or the proper hardware to handle it.

Instancing doesn't put any load on the server. Instancing takes a value in RAM or object, and clones it. Meaning 5 instances take the same space as one. The 'issue' is assigning an instance value to each character as an ID, which would take a few bytes. Then you assign a database to each ID to show what items are where. And that is saved on the character. This part is already done. Its why you can put furniture where you want.

So what happens when you have two people owning the same 'house'. The outside is static. When you enter a gate or door, you enter an instance of the place. It sends you your information during the loading screen and when it appears it appears as your house. Lets say your friend owns the same house. You exit your home through the gate or door and reenter, selecting your friend from a list. You enter their version.

Here's the cool part. The house is already loaded into RAM from you entering your version. It only needs to load the placement of the furniture. The loading time is quicker because of that.

Also all textures of the instance and furniture is loaded from your harddrive. The ONLY thing the server loads is the database of furniture used and where it is as well as the new instance ID. We're literally talking about 2-4bytes of info needed. And who is moving where as normal. That part may seem high, but its not. Zone ID, X, Y, Z coordinates. The zone ID is the only difference. And its needed anyway for Mist, Goblet, ect.

The hardest part is making an access point. And the list of who owns what. Data that is already being used.

As for the potential 20,000 instances. Instances ONLY need to be running when they are being accessed. Just like Dungeons and Duties. Its no more stress on the server than there is now. Hopefully that clarifies.

[Moonlite]

snip.

The original problem with the waits for instance was a design mistake (i would like to say something else). Originally the instance servers for dungeons had a set amount per dungeon so it didn't matter if over half the servers were idle. They did patch to allocate servers so they removed wait. Since then I have only ever seen a wait of 1 min and I think it was the first day of one of the 24 mans. They were also supposedly fixed roulette so it would pick the most appropriate level dungeon for the group. But that doesn't always seem to work and they had a lot of problems with people not getting in. But supposedly is why a full group of 50s doing leveling roulette would get ToTorak most empty servers.

But I would love an honest explanation as to why they haven't instanced houses. If the game has coding issues and they can't, people might be more understanding (might).

[Nixxe]

Given that housing exists in instanced copies of whatever neighborhood, there really shouldn't even be limits on player housing. They can just keep adding wards any time there isn't at least one house of each size available for purchase.

[Aylis]

Given that housing exists in instanced copies of whatever neighborhood, there really shouldn't even be limits on player housing. They can just keep adding wards any time there isn't at least one house of each size available for purchase.

I've wondered before why they couldn't just open up new wards. A friend tried to explain why to me a few years ago. It has something to do with the way the servers store and load the data from outside decorations and external house customizing. Under normal circumstances, when nobody is in an instance, the instance closes but the data is saved till someone re-enters the instance. He went on to say the external wards are always running and never really close and the data is always loaded in full. If what he said is true then its because of data storage issues as why they can't just make new wards with how they're programmed.

[Naunet]

He went on to say the external wards are always running and never really close and the data is always loaded in full. If what he said is true then its because of data storage issues as why they can't just make new wards with how they're programmed.

Basically, poor planning led to them coding themselves into a corner. They really need to just admit that they made a mistake and redo the whole thing.

[Aylis]

Basically, poor planning led to them coding themselves into a corner. They really need to just admit that they made a mistake and redo the whole thing.

Yeppppp, between coding, and the other issues (private housing mixed with FC housing, no account limits of house buying, etc) I'd agree housing needs to be scrapped and redone from the ground up. I like to hope they know its the only fix and the only reason why they won't is because I can already imagine the player outcry with all the time and money players invested if SE went scorched earth on housing.

[Lexia]

You want to take a extended break from the game or you want to take extended break from paying the sub? I find there to be a difference.