Housing: there has to be a better way

[MrSmiley]

I cant even get an apartment. SE just refuses to admit the system sucks, or even has issues at all.

[Stormfur]

I really like the neighborhood feel. But I don't understand why -- with this new server move and upgrade -- they couldn't add more wards to the existing areas in addition to the ones opening with Shiro?

[frostmagemari]

I'd argue that SE is starting to slowly be accepting of moving away from the neighborhood feel limitation. I think it's great to have that sense of a community, but at this point, most probably could not give a damn in the slightest if it means having a house or not.

Honestly, there is a way to do both. Have more houses and more sense of community; and it would have been so easy to do (if they started with it); they could probably revamp everything to do this, but it would obviously take a bit of work to change what's currently there.

What they needed to do is essentially make every house into an "apartment."

Have a single ward, and have placeholder houses on each plot with an assortment of themed yard items for whatever ward it was in. (table, chairs, etc)
Then have a placard in front of every home (just off the property) with the options "buy home" or "enter home"
You would allow multiple people to buy homes at a single plot and use the placard to browse through people who are living in that space as you would apartments. (Possibly adding a search option for first name or FC name)
Once you use the placard to enter a home, you're then taken to an instance for each individual owner and the house can work as it does now. (Yard and all, since we know SQE has no problem with instances inside instances with private quarters and airship rooms)
Then, add more social gathering spots in the wards themselves.

Honestly.. if they did something like this, you would have more people mingling outside of the homes and more traffic giving it a busy feeling instead of having everything spread across twelve wards; and they wouldn't need to worry about adding more wards and just opening up more housing instances.
Is it nice for everyone to see your house and the work you put into it? Maybe, but to everyone around you, seeing your house (no matter how beautiful or horrendous) loses it's appeal after the second time a person sees it.

I really like the neighborhood feel. But I don't understand why -- with this new server move and upgrade -- they couldn't add more wards to the existing areas in addition to the ones opening with Shiro?

Sometimes i think by move, they meant picking up the hardware and just setting it down somewhere else after a bumpy truck ride... and by upgrade, they meant buying new cables 'cause old ones were fraying too much...

[Keridwyn]

I really like the neighborhood feel. But I don't understand why -- with this new server move and upgrade -- they couldn't add more wards to the existing areas in addition to the ones opening with Shiro?

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone outside of myself and my friends running around in my housing ward despite the fact it is completely full and the houses are decorated. I never see anyone, nobody's ever talking, nothing. It's not a neighborhood, it's a ghost town. All I ever get is a sense of what could have been but ultimately isn't.

I do like the sound of that Wildstar housing though, being able to form a neighborhood with friends would pretty much be perfect.

[aesteval]

They should reduce to a single ward in each region. Eliminate the ability to decorate the yard/outside of the house. Each housing plot can be purchased by whomever wants it and entering the house takes you to your instance of the inside of the house.

Using this would keep the neighborhood, even making them more active, while also giving everyone the house they want.

Oh, but what about gardening, chocobo, decorations for your yard? How about they add backyard that you can decorate!

-_- If you add a backyard you may as well add a front.

[Cylla]

I cant even get an apartment. SE just refuses to admit the system has sucks, or even has issues at all.

Which is funny because SE was all like, "We can add more apartments at anytime." but here we are still at the same amount we started with back when apartments were released.

[MrSmiley]

Which is funny because SE was all like, "We can add more apartments at anytime." but here we are still at the same amount we started with back when apartments were released.

I'm sure we'll get some excuse for the servers exploding which is the cause for lack of everything from glamour logs and more colors to butt sliders.

[Cylla]

I'm sure we'll get some excuse for the servers exploding which is the cause for lack of everything from glamour logs and more colors to butt sliders.

Pretty much. Sad when a game that was released five years ago was and still is far behind when comparing to most MMO's of today and how they do housing and other functions like glamour/vanity.

[Lyshell]

Just give me access to my own instanced garden for my apartment and it will drop my care/need for a house like that. I actually like my apartment and find it cozy. I just want a garden.

[Legewiel]

I don't know why ppl keep insisting on this instanced house talking, it doesn't solve anything at all. The map with a lot of houses and the house itself are already an instance, that is not the problem here. If this were the problem they could just add more wards or subdivisions to multiply the number of houses.


The problem is that the houses are highly customizable and all the changes you make in your house have to be stored somewhere, so it's a challenge to store all that amount of data. Which were the same problem with expanding inventory and were the same problem that lead for itens sold in mogstation to not be account wide anymore.


To solve the house problem at least, they would need to search for more optimized ways to store that data (which i believe they're already doing, cause they raised the amount of itens you can have inside one house and now they even added this housing itens storage) or to make houses with no customization or just some simple presets that you could choose from (like the lame wow garrisons) and I doubt anyone would like that, to have a house but to not be able to play "the sims" with it customizing every little detail inside it.