[Suggestion] Solving the "Housing Problem"

[Penthea]

I see what you are saying Nettle, but Garrisons were nothing like housing. I hated mine, too. No customisation of buildings, no choice regarding npcs, no actual house or even a bed for your character to sleep on, and so much busy-work connected to it, you could easily fill a play session there on your own, just doing 'chores'. Player choice was limited pretty much to, 'You can put your barn here or you can put it over there. And no, you can't change the look of the buidings.'

Even if garrisons had actual customisation half as good as FFXIV they still would have gotten a lot of hate because the main gripe seemed to be the isolation it caused. Of course the garrison had too much functionality which decreased the likelihood of players idling elsewhere, but there is no doubt that a huge part of the isolation happened because of the instancing itself. WoW's biggest mistake with garrisons was letting only individuals own it. I'm sure they would have been at least moderately successful if they belonged to guilds instead.

If instanced housing was offered to individuals and the wards went back to being for FCs, I think we'd get much more community feeling than we will by sticking to the system we have. But instanced housing has to be attractive; it has to have advantages over what we have now.

If instanced housing offered people say, interesting locations (town house in Ishgard, desert island near Mist etc.), the opportunity to upgrade to a bigger house, more outdoor furniture and wasn't subject to the timer, I think quite a few of us would be tempted to swap to it from our personal houses.

I would be okay with instanced housing if it was in addition to what we have now. To make this work wards would need to be more attractive to fcs than individuals, and instanced housing would have to be more attractive to individuals than fcs. Let players choose what they want but have one be the obvious better choice depending on their situation.

I would not be okay with instanced housing if everything else was scrapped and that's all we were left with. I'm totally against forcing players to isolate themselves or their fc from the rest of the game.