Quote Originally Posted by Stormfur View Post
I would absolutely give up a dungeon's development for more housing wards. I think most people would agree.
Its not a development issue, its a hardware issue and no I do not think many people would sacrifice battle content in an mmo for wards they may not be able to get a plot in. No one wants the house for the neighborhood because no one uses it, they want a house because they like the appeal of decorating something to their taste or they want the company workshop/airship. Outside my FC members, yesterday was the first time I saw anyone else in my ward any they were just afk at the market board. Instance housing, make the 'back drop' a sort of furnishing like another poster suggested. You can make it look like your home is in whatever ward you prefer, or even underwater bubbles like Ruby Sea, what about an island in Diadem, etc.

If we continue to go the route of physical housing wards, there will never be enough housing without sacrificing a ridiculous amount of capital for infrastructure to host it. I would be curious as to how many concurrent housing instances could be supported on the same hardware it takes to support a single ward?

Again we have the ability to relocate housing starting tomorrow. Wards can remain, owners can relinquish their physical plot for an instanced plot for a gil refund and move their home to the instance. People owning a home in an instance can do the opposite, they can purchase a physical plot in a ward and have their instance home transferred to that plot. Instance housing should be at a pretty steep discount to warded housing to encourage its use, you have the same plot options of small, medium, large. This way all players and FCs can start progressing on a home even if it means starting with a small instanced home, upgrading it to a medium, and then finally purchasing a large warded plot and moving to it.

This also discourages the buying and selling of plots, it removes the demand for them because the NEED for it can be met with instanced homes. I specify 'NEED' because some people will still want the homes in the ward. Wants and needs are different, if the main issue is that housing is somehow 'gating people from a large part of content' then instanced housing solves that issue. I feel like I have to post this same reply every week because some new thread about wanting more wards crops up. They have added additional wards how many times now and the issue persisted, and with the game growing it will only become more obvious if we keep using the same solution. Its time to move on and away from housing wards.