Instanced housing? Why not BETTER APARTMENTS?

[Keydah]

Above

I would support this if FC bases followed the same thing as your apartment idea. Every FC gets a small base with everything they need, but they can still buy housing in the wards. I'd personally prefer mansions be FC-only, with small and medium homes for personal or FC. Free Companies add too much life to the wards with all their members coming and going to not be a part of them imo.

[GirthQuake]

I would support this if FC bases followed the same thing as your apartment idea. Every FC gets a small base with everything they need, but they can still buy housing in the wards. I'd personally prefer mansions be FC-only, with small and medium homes for personal or FC. Free Companies add too much life to the wards with all their members coming and going to not be a part of them imo.

I absolutely agree with you about that FC's give life to wards, but I feel that this would be the best solution. The primary reason for people to own private houses seems to be the utility of it for the solo player (Why there are solo players in an MMO, I'll never understand), but FC's actually have even more utility. Because of this, if we need to have instanced FC bases (that yes, I'm absolutely for them being upgraded. Start with something small and then grow it up from there, maybe even add a separate building for member housing or whatever), in order to give all FC's the utility that they deserve, then so be it.

[Ayerinn]

The best part of housing imo is decorating your yard, not the inside...so, apartments even with a balcony would be meh. This is why I really wish we got more than 20-40 slots for the outside

[GirthQuake]

The best part of housing imo is decorating your yard, not the inside...so, apartments even with a balcony would be meh. This is why I really wish we got more than 20-40 slots for the outside

It's about everyone having a slice of a cake. While it's not perfect, at least everyone would have access to the utility that is so claimed to be needed by individual house owners. Furthermore, why not have your balcony be decorated? I suppose that the issue is more-so allowing others to see said yard and how it's decorated, but having a piece of things, instead of nothing at all, is still better.

[Mikki]

The best part of housing imo is decorating your yard, not the inside...so, apartments even with a balcony would be meh. This is why I really wish we got more than 20-40 slots for the outside

I agree, I love decorating outside. But a lot of people don't really care about that and others would rather just have SOMETHING rather than nothing. Which is why having a mix of wards + apartments that are actually NICE would be fantastic. Plus it would be great if people who don't care about having a house and a yard went to apartments and left the people who love to decorate their yards to do so. We'd have such beautiful wards!

[Nerfworthy]

I think this is the best idea I've seen proposed so far. +1 to OP for the creativity in this idea. This would give a greater number of people the chance to own a meaningful home to call their own, because apartments as they are right now are lackluster.

[RayneLittlewinkle]

Yes when apartments were first announced I had hoped it would be something like this. Somethhing that allows the player to use the gil that we're just sitting on with nothing to do buy it and make our apartments bigger. Sort of like how the fc company workshops are done.

We'd get one room, and then upgrade to two/three bedroom apartments with a garden and such. Why they didn't go this route and made it be another gil sink i will never understand.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes when apartments were first announced I had hoped it would be something like this. Somethhing that allows the player to use the gil that we're just sitting on with nothing to do buy it and make our apartments bigger. Sort of like how the fc company workshops are done.

We'd get one room, and then upgrade to two/three bedroom apartments with a garden and such. Why they didn't go this route and made it be another gil sink i will never understand.

I hate to say it but... this would require actual work. The current apartments were an easy copy/paste of the FC rooms. The dev seems remarkably tone deaf at times. Another factor may be cultural related. Japan sees vast space as "wasteful" whereas America values it.

[ChaoticCrimson]

Enhanced apartments sounds nice. It'd also be nice if you could have a sort of Guests List to allow certain friends to be able to go into the instance and see your apartment, but not be able to necessarily do anything in it unless you specify certain privileges.

[Welsper59]

So why instead of implementing a whole new system, we improve on the system already in place?

Gonna be a nitpicky ass on this one and say that it would essentially be the same thing if not a little more work to do the apartment thing. The instanced housing that is often suggested only requires one new change as far as design goes. That being the environment surrounding the house to fit the theme of the location (assuming that's what would happen, which means 4 changes in total... possibly 12?). The apartment suggestion would require not only 3 new interior models for a location, but possibly 24 in total (12 interiors, 12 exteriors). Balcony additions or exterior modeling involves being able to see the outside afterall. Wouldn't exactly make sense to have a penthouse in the Mists, only to stare out at vast desert lands of Thanalan or vice versa lol.

That said though, I'm absolutely for any idea that actually implements more housing options that either compare to or are exactly the same as current. Specifically any idea that can be done to the goal of meeting all/most demand.