Adressing the roots of the housing problem

[Darrcyphfeid]

I've brought up counters to your points

And I've responded, civilly, to things that I had further comments on. So let's steer well clear of ad-hominems.

You will never NEED to support resellers, you seem to be scared that when this new system we've not seen the full details of comes into play your friends will have even less of a chance of getting houses.

I'm sorry, but we've seen enough to know where we stand. We absolutely have. I've also been a patron of Squaresoft/Square Enix for more than twenty years, so I feel that I know about what I can expect from them. What I know/feel/expect/insertwordhere:

1.) FCs, people that already have houses, and resellers with two and a half weeks worth of dummy FC prep time get unrestricted first crack at housing with a confirmed date and time
2.) Anyone that does not qualify for Point #1 has to wait. They do not currently, and judging by Christmas 2015 will not period, have a confirmed date nor time when they can join
3.) Auto-demolition is turned off. If you do not buy from a reseller, or for some inexplicable reason someone relinquishes their plot, you have no avenue to qualify for Point #1

To me, it's cut and dry. If you wish to gamble on some eleventh hour hail mary, that's fine.

It seems we see where your line is: "When there is a threat to my interests."
And now you're encouraging the entire playerbase to "go out and get yours".

...Yes? I'm once again very confused where we're going here. Are we not all just out for our own (read: ourselves and our friends/family)?

I don't especially care if people here heed my advice/warning, but as I've stated in a previous post I'm pretty insulted by the details Square has given us thus far and feel an obligation - as seen by having more posts in this thread than anyone else - to at least try and give some people a heads-up.

I don't claim moral superiority, but I'm not the one saying a company is playing dirty and then buying from the thieves because hey, the price might go up soon.

The price already went up. Square is "playing dirty" insofar that they've legitimately broken their singular promise of making 4.2's house adjustment be fair. Remind me again what's fair about locking people out of housing because they don't already have a plot, and punishing them by not even having the common decency to give them a date or time alongside the one given to FCs/relocators.

And resellers aren't "thieves." They didn't steal houses from people, they competed alongside everyone else (or bought from other, lowballing resellers) and earned/won them. You may call semantics, but, it's ultimately true.

We'll see 2 weeks from now if the situation gets better or worse. I'll gladly revisit this and post where I was wrong and what could have been improved.

I'm sure it'll be drowned out by the forums being blasted to high heaven, but sure, bookmark it and we can contrast accuracy levels FOR SCIENCE! when the dust settles.

[Krotoan]

1.) FCs, people that already have houses, and resellers with two and a half weeks worth of dummy FC prep time get unrestricted first crack at housing with a confirmed date and time
2.) Anyone that does not qualify for Point #1 has to wait. They do not currently, and judging by Christmas 2015 will not period, have a confirmed date nor time when they can join
3.) Auto-demolition is turned off. If you do not buy from a reseller, or for some inexplicable reason someone relinquishes their plot, you have no avenue to qualify for Point #1

To me, it's cut and dry. If you wish to gamble on some eleventh hour hail mary, that's fine.


...Yes? I'm once again very confused where we're going here. Are we not all just out for our own (read: ourselves and our friends/family)?

I don't especially care if people here heed my advice/warning, but as I've stated in a previous post I'm pretty insulted by the details Square has given us thus far and feel an obligation - as seen by having more posts in this thread than anyone else - to at least try and give some people a heads-up.


The price already went up. Square is "playing dirty" insofar that they've legitimately broken their singular promise of making 4.2's house adjustment be fair. Remind me again what's fair about locking people out of housing because they don't already have a plot, and punishing them by not even having the common decency to give them a date or time alongside the one given to FCs/relocators.

And resellers aren't "thieves." They didn't steal houses from people, they competed alongside everyone else (or bought from other, lowballing resellers) and earned/won them. You may call semantics, but, it's ultimately true.


I'm sure it'll be drowned out by the forums being blasted to high heaven, but sure, bookmark it and we can contrast accuracy levels FOR SCIENCE! when the dust settles.

1. FC's actually need them for full functionality. Relocation removes no houses from the empty pool and the problem is people don't have them, not they don't have a large one. I'll concede that the resellers do get a one up as it stands, my hope is there is a hidden restriction. If I'm wrong this will need to be addressed and I will stand and yell as loud as the next person that this isn't the solution.
2. Yes. Wait for an undetermined amount of time.
3. we do not know that ALL housing is restricted and it wasn't clarified unfortunately, just speculated that ALL housing would have this restriction. Nobody has shown me that existing wards would have this restriction. This may burn down to a different interpretation style on each side. I don't consider something a given unless explicitly stated.


I don't see this as unfair. Personal housing is nice (all crossbreeding gardening results can be purchased from other players) , but FC housing is necessary (nobody wants to join a FC without a house) . FC's need their fair crack at housing.

I'm personally waiting for the "more details" before I pass anymore judgements as I've said.

[Beelhi]

I personally believe the day 4.2 goes live and patch is live the first screen these hoarders will see upon login is Please choose the house you wish to keep, upon choosing one all others are demolished 1/3 of house value awarded to each character and all furnishings may be retrieved from npc at your convienience.

Not 1/3, they deserve the full price they bought it at back. Selfish as it may be, they didn't break the rules and deserve all their money back IF it would come to that.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I think that grandfathering in owners of multiple homes is the right choice. With that said, I also think it could be a good idea to provide some sort of incentive for those owning multiple homes to free them up. Nothing outrageous, just a full refund and something like chocobo feathers to buy mounts or something. In this way, a multi-owner gets a little something for their trouble and more houses become available.

[TheCurls]

Those examples are in no way similar. There isn’t a finite number of minions or loot or gil in this game.

What IS there a finite number of? Houses.

So yes, it is extremely selfish to hoard houses, locking other players out of certain contents in doing so. No, it isn’t selfish to earn gil to buy pets, give to friends, or even buy savage wins. There isn’t a set amount of any of those.

Here’s hoping SE takes away toys from the selfish people.

[NanaWiloh]

1. FC's actually need them for full functionality. Relocation removes no houses from the empty pool and the problem is people don't have them, not they don't have a large one. I'll concede that the resellers do get a one up as it stands, my hope is there is a hidden restriction. If I'm wrong this will need to be addressed and I will stand and yell as loud as the next person that this isn't the solution.
2. Yes. Wait for an undetermined amount of time.
3. we do not know that ALL housing is restricted and it wasn't clarified unfortunately, just speculated that ALL housing would have this restriction. Nobody has shown me that existing wards would have this restriction. This may burn down to a different interpretation style on each side. I don't consider something a given unless explicitly stated.


I don't see this as unfair. Personal housing is nice (all crossbreeding gardening results can be purchased from other players) , but FC housing is necessary (nobody wants to join a FC without a house) . FC's need their fair crack at housing.

I'm personally waiting for the "more details" before I pass anymore judgements as I've said.

It would be counter productive too apply the restrictions only too the wards in 4.2 and beyond. SE wants to stop people from reselling houses so not applying to current wards as well makes the restrictions pointless.

[Melichoir]

Ok, so whats the problem? Im having a hardtime figuring this out cause heres the info Ive heard:

1) 1 House 'type' (private/FC) per world PER ACCOUNT (so no alts). Individuals may only own 1 private and 1 FC house.
2) Theyll be adding around 1400 new plots per server essentially.
3) FCs will be allowed to purchase first, then individual purchases will open up.
4) New rules will apply going forward.

Depending your server, are people anticipating 1400 FCs to spring up and buy houses? 1400 nwe houses popping up is a helluva lot. Is it goign to be all in Shirogane? No. So are people not going to get teh 'exact' house they want? Yes. Thats expected. These changes enable FCs to get housing first, THEN individuals, which is something I hvae no problem with. FCs should get the pick of the litter when it comes to Housing, broadly speaking. Then itll become open to everyone. And chances are good that theyll say "Hey, on So-and-So date, individual purchases for housing will go out!" So its not going to be a random unannounced time most likely.

So assuming that 400 houses get bought up for FCs, that leaves a thousand open houses. Now depending on your realm size, thats a huge deal. Realm average ACTIVE player base varies between 6k-13k, depending where you look. So an extra 1000 houses can be quite a lot depending the server. Even at its worst, 13k, another 1000 houses for individuals is gonna be 7% of the active server population. At its best, its near 15%.

"But the Resellers!!!" What about them? You cant own more than one private and one FC per world now, so if you already own a house, by how the rules look, your SoL. You cant buy a new one. Even if you can, ok so you own a second one. Derp, sucks but Resellers arent going to buy up that many houses as FC houses. And you want to know how you screw resellers who want to make fake FCs on the housing market? By stalling when individuals can buy houses, making it so theres PLENTY of other land to buy so that resellers are fighting in a market with to much supply. Yeah, tis not going to be widespread abuse on the whole reseller point. Good luck trying to sell a Primo FC house when there are 143 other plots around, and you can only buy 1 FC house and 1 Personal house at a time per server.

So, is this the worst thing ever? No. Are they likely to continue adding housing to the game? Yes. Should it be easier now to get a house this time around with new rules in place? Yes. Are you gonna have to really try for it still? Sure. Are you going to get exactly the house you want in Shirogane? Maybe.

But seriously though, please stop acting like this is the worst thing ever and does nothing to help. It may not be the most ideal of solutions currently, but you better be happy its something. Cause the alternative is SE just saying "Screw it, I dont care about your housing needs" and just ignoring you guys.

[LalaRu]

... a multi-owner gets a little something for their trouble ...

Which trouble? They monopolized a resource and now we have to give them a reward for doing so?

[Darrcyphfeid]

And chances are good that theyll say "Hey, on So-and-So date, individual purchases for housing will go out!" So its not going to be a random unannounced time most likely.

They did the opposite of this Christmas 2015. They gave a date and a time for FC/relocations already.

There's nothing to indicate, beyond your willingness to trust SE, that they will do an announcement and not just have people do another around of potentially sitting around for 9 hours or more again.

"But the Resellers!!!" What about them? You cant own more than one private and one FC per world now, so if you already own a house, by how the rules look, your SoL. You cant buy a new one. Even if you can, ok so you own a second one. Derp, sucks but Resellers arent going to buy up that many houses as FC houses. And you want to know how you screw resellers who want to make fake FCs on the housing market? By stalling when individuals can buy houses, making it so theres PLENTY of other land to buy so that resellers are fighting in a market with to much supply. Yeah, tis not going to be widespread abuse on the whole reseller point. Good luck trying to sell a Primo FC house when there are 143 other plots around, and you can only buy 1 FC house and 1 Personal house at a time per server.

This is a bit murky because you're stuck somewhere between "owning" and "purchasing," without fully nailing either of them.

The fact of the matter is that, if I (as an individual) were to re-up some old accounts, and spend a couple days making investments (time, mostly), I could very much use five service accounts to buy 7 (8 if I were to pawn off my current FC house) FC houses on Feb 6th. There's a very clear workaround in there. Depending on server stability, I'd wager I could nab 4 or 5 medium/large houses if I were so inclined*. This is anecdotal, but I'm familiar with two different groups of people on Faerie that resell houses. I don't know them personally, and do not know what they plan to do (or if they care at all), but the potential for abuse is high.

* I'm not! Put the pitchforks down!

So, is this the worst thing ever? No. Are they likely to continue adding housing to the game? Yes. Should it be easier now to get a house this time around with new rules in place? Yes. Are you gonna have to really try for it still? Sure. Are you going to get exactly the house you want in Shirogane? Maybe.

1) Depends on how invested you are in this housing thing. Not all houses are created equally - if they were, we would be in instanced housing - and that inequality will be a bigger or lesser deal depending on who you are. Housing is aesthetic (glamour), and glamour is endgame.
2) Yes. But not for a really long time. This is probably going to be it for 4.X, meaning you have over a year to wait for more (or two months for a select few demolitions).
3) Debatable. I'd argue "No" since, to get a house now, you have to do it personally. You can't get any friends to help (by also trying to buy, and relinquishing later to give it to you). And realistically you only have one chance at one placard since everyone will be standing at various placards based on their amount of investment in #1.
5) Because of relocations, and depending on your server (RIP Balmung), the answer to this is you're probably not getting a Shirogane plot period. Most individuals that relocate, which again they will do before individual purchases are enabled, will be relocating into Shirogane. Most houses available when individual purchasing is enabled will be in the Goblet, following past trends (Shiro >>> Mist >/= LB >> Goblet).

It may not be the most ideal of solutions currently, but you better be happy its something.

I'll respectfully decline. "It's better than nothing" is such a low bar, and I'm not even sure they've managed to clear that after drumming up excitement for housing, and then failing to deliver, in two consecutive patches.



Also, as this thread is now located in the Housing forum where I'll be preaching to the choir and markedly fewer people will see it, my interest in posting more has bottomed out.

[Melichoir]

1) Ive no real reason to believe that SE will create a staggered purchase period and NOT tell us when the window for independant buyers opens up. It will most likely be made known in a small patch note. As in "Hey, after this minor maintanence, youll be able to purchase privately." It would be hugely retarded on SEs part to just open up individual purchases without any form of notification on a staggered purchase period. They have problems, but theyre not diabolical retards.

2) Yes, if you were inclined to go through THAT much work to mass buy houses, yeah you could work aroudn the restrictions. Thing is, most people are not going to go that length. There may be a handful of people who will actually use multiple accounts to get multiple houses. And theyer going to try and do this WHILE actual functional FCs are making their purchases. Are they gonna be duel boxing too? Or grabbing 7-8 friends to run in at the same time as FCs to get that thing?

Just because there are work arounds doesnt mean the system is bad. If you have to expend a lot of effort to do things, it shrinks the pool of people being able to do it easily, thus opening it up more for people doing it by legitimate means. Meaning, chances are youre going to find enough re-sellers be able to purchase FC housing competitively with actual FCs is likely to be small. Im not saying there wont be resellers, Im saying that given current restrictions pushed forward, youre not going to see it be this huge issue. Itll be there, itll suck for some cases, but its not going to be the 'world-ending' issue that people make resellers out to be. Abuse potential is there, though I dont believe it to be "high".

3) Glamours is end game, but that still doesnt make this system the worst thing ever. Its a decent step. They will add more housing over time. Maybe not right now, but theres no saying they wont add another round before the next xpac either. Its going to be EASIER cause they cut down on the average reseller nonsense, and there is a slightly LESS demand now for housing simply because people who wanted houses and got them dont need them currently, and server populations did not increase to overcome that difference. You may compete with getting a particular house, sure, but the number of people wanting a house should be less currently than it was when Shirogane opened up. And as I point out, 1400 new houses per server is not nothing to sneeze at. In some cases, thats almost a fourth of the server population. Assuming you wont get a house means you wont get a house. "Im never going to get the thing I want, so I will not try." Its a self-fulfilling prophecy. Youre not guarenteed a particular plot of land. Thats never been a feature. You have to compete with other players for specifics. But the idea you wont get a house being guaranteed? No, thats bleak thinking.

4) Disagree and decline all you want. The simple truth is this system being put forward is a step up from what it was. You can hate that its not being implemented in a manner you deem fit, but that doesnt make this a bad implementation.