Quote Originally Posted by Penthea View Post
[...] but the obvious downside is the lack of foresight that came with housing in general, which lead to most players not having access to housing of any kind.
The main issue is that they did not restrict the Ward housing to FCs and allowed characters to get one. That is the prime mistake they made - if it was FCs only, we'd already have enough housing available across all servers and our only issue would be the uneven population. Since players are in the mix as well, it's not even close. Not even if we had a perfectly even population. And frankly, most neighborhoods are dead as well because the one player the house belongs to is never around.

That said, the first step is to disallow personal housing in future areas. The damage is done for the areas that exist and there'd be an outrage if you were to disown people, but there's no need to perpetuate it. Personal housing in future areas should be instanced instead - a separate area connected to the wards that features a full house of any size you can afford including a yard. Then you make a similar instance in the old residential areas for those who prefer that area and you're done.

It's not that hard in theory. I think the hardest part is acknowledging their mistake.