Regarding that Finaland Interview...

[Melichoir]

For the sake of giving Yoshida the most credit possible, his responses are a very indirect way of explaining certain things.

1)Housing

Houses are perks for people who are actively subscribed to the game. It essentially boils down to the issue at hand. The devs do not want a situation where people will buy a house then quit the game, which would hold onto that land and not have it in use for players who are actively subscribed. If you have an apartment, you are not at risk of losing your place. The issue with limited housing is a separate issue, but if I had to hazard a guess with that, its either they wnat to avoid "empty wards" or do not have server resources for infinite wards. Empty wards would be wards where there is just tons of empty plots of land with no one built on it. Since part of the game is reliant on 'theme' (I believe they have in fact stated this in the past), ti would mean they want housing wards to appear populated.

Also, server resources are limited and must be factored in. As of September, the rough estimate of active players in the US alone is 280k-ish. Every ward can hold a max 60 different land plots. They would need 4666~ wards to allow every active player their own place in a ward. That kind of server load is not reasonable, unless we change the housing system completely to be independent instances for each house. Even then, its still harsh. Even if we assume only 10% of hte population wants a house, thats 28k people in 466 wards. Its still a hefty amount.

It would be nice for the Devs to just speak plainly about the issue, but I hazard they dont do to either legal or financial reasons for the business. Meaning, theyre not going to say "Yeah, we dont have the server space cause this is our server size" cause that would be a company trade secret, or would be bad for the business broadly.

2) Open class Glamours
While I do personally believe that any class should be able to glamour, the game still is very broadly a themed game. They do not allow you to glamour any thing because there is still, at the end of the day, a design aesthetic they want the game to adhere to. They want this to give the world a certain 'feeling' and do not want to over pollute it with an "Anything goes" glamour system. What glamour they have now is probably the edge of what they want to get to. When Yoshida talks about taste, he is refering to peoples level of immersion. The biggest being that because the glamour system is semi limited, people arent jarred to much by odd glamour choices. But if you were to completely open it up, then you may get bigger issues with immersion. PERSONALLY, I think thats a misplaced position, and most of hte player base would be indifferent, if not positive to any glamour being on any class.

And this is just my own idea but the glamour system (as well as hairstyles) should be available to any character, regardless of class. So you should be able to get the variations of the hempen camise on every race. Every armor should be glamourable to any class. The caveat SHOULD be that you can only glamour armors, and that you are only able to glamour an armor of another class so long as you have reached that lvl. So you cant glamour lvl 50 PLD armor to a WHM unless you have a lvl 50 PLD already. Things that vary by race (like the camise, or hairstyles) should be available from Gold Saucer for MGP. The race you start with gets them automatically for free, but everyone else has to do Gold Saucer to unlock/buy them. The exception MAYBE would be storyline class specific armors (like the lvl 50 PLD armor from teh story quest, maybe).

[Mesarthim]

1)Housing

Houses are perks for people who are actively subscribed to the game. It essentially boils down to the issue at hand. The devs do not want a situation where people will buy a house then quit the game, which would hold onto that land and not have it in use for players who are actively subscribed. If you have an apartment, you are not at risk of losing your place. The issue with limited housing is a separate issue, but if I had to hazard a guess with that, its either they wnat to avoid "empty wards" or do not have server resources for infinite wards. Empty wards would be wards where there is just tons of empty plots of land with no one built on it. Since part of the game is reliant on 'theme' (I believe they have in fact stated this in the past), ti would mean they want housing wards to appear populated.

Yeah about that. Ever since they reopened personal housing back in what, 4.2? Or whenever the personal ban for new buyers was lifted I found my newest neighbor across from my medium was actually a housing squatter. Aside from a few weeks the house has had a completely empty yard. Even my FC's house is next to a house that doesn't see any use.

There's certainly no shortage of people holding onto houses they've no intention on using other than keeping it purely to relocate to a larger house, or sell if they find some means to do so. Every plot may be owned on Leviathan but the housing wards feel very much dead, at least in my neck of the woods save for maybe one neighbor upstairs.

[JunseiKei]

Every plot may be owned on Leviathan but the housing wards feel very much dead, at least in my neck of the woods save for maybe one neighbor upstairs.

It's like that in Cactuar. Even when houses could only be bought and used by FCs, this was the feeling unless you had a couple of FCs nearby that were VERY active (usually some crafters squatting between the MB and the summoning bell to pull people down and appear active). It seemingly has little to do with house squatters and just no real reason to remain at your FC unless you actually have a reason to be there. Outside from a crafter (who now might have an apartment with an equally accessible ideal location or a personal house), there's really no reason to physically plant yourself in the wards. (My husband pointed out he's really loyal to his FC, but he hardly ever goes to the [FC] house. He talks with people all the time, too, but hardly anyone knows he owns a house, let alone visits it, even though that's where he is when not raiding.)

This is one of the reasons why I'd still very much like to push for housing to be moved to instanced and just remove the open wards save for maybe the Free Companies. Even then, you could easily move the FCs to the Grand Company headquarters they are listed with and access it like you do the squadron. Just make it so every member can go inside and hang out. Solves the problem for FCs that can't get access to airships and submarines, too.

[Fhaerron]

Yeah about that. Ever since they reopened personal housing back in what, 4.2? Or whenever the personal ban for new buyers was lifted I found my newest neighbor across from my medium was actually a housing squatter. Aside from a few weeks the house has had a completely empty yard. Even my FC's house is next to a house that doesn't see any use.

There's certainly no shortage of people holding onto houses they've no intention on using other than keeping it purely to relocate to a larger house, or sell if they find some means to do so. Every plot may be owned on Leviathan but the housing wards feel very much dead, at least in my neck of the woods save for maybe one neighbor upstairs.

The housing wards are dead on most server. I've been playing on 4 servers in EU and housing wards are dead on all of them. There's hardly anybody there. If there are they're most likely inside their house.
The majority of people online will be in Limsa standing about and waiting for the DF queue or PF group to fill up.

[Alleo]

The housing wards are dead on most server. I've been playing on 4 servers in EU and housing wards are dead on all of them. There's hardly anybody there. If there are they're most likely inside their house.
The majority of people online will be in Limsa standing about and waiting for the DF queue or PF group to fill up.

Its funny because a FC must have bought a house near mine and suddenly for the first time since quite a while I have people jumping around the wards, saying hello or watching me work. I honestly was a bit annoyed at that after some time so I mostly just craft inside my house now (god I am a grumpy old lady arent I?) But it also showed me how much the reasons for wards often told hold up.

Also about apartments: We could have a deal Yoshida if we could buy unlimited apartments in all city states and buy more rooms for each apartment too. Otherwise...no apartments are not a good other way to have a house. As a FC you get no workshop, and for everyone you get no big garden plot. You have not outside space to decorate and the inside is so small that you can barely do anything with it. You could barely even use any of the house items they create per patch or throw into the events.

[Jojoya]

Also about apartments: We could have a deal Yoshida if we could buy unlimited apartments in all city states and buy more rooms for each apartment too. Otherwise...no apartments are not a good other way to have a house. As a FC you get no workshop, and for everyone you get no big garden plot. You have not outside space to decorate and the inside is so small that you can barely do anything with it. You could barely even use any of the house items they create per patch or throw into the events.

Considering house interiors are already instanced, there's no reason why FCs couldn't have a workshop attached if FCs could buy apartments in addition to houses.

Most players I know with houses don't garden at all. If they have a garden plot placed, it's usually empty or at most being used for shards. It might be interesting one day when bored to survey all the houses and see which are using their garden plot and how many are intercross gardening (which is the only gardening that requires the outdoor plot, yield/HQ can still be achieved through the indoor flower pots).

Many also don't care about having a yard, it's the interior space they're looking for. Give apartments interior options comparable to house interiors and they'd become far more popular especially since there is no risk of auto-demo. That would open up more houses on the crowded worlds to FCs and players who do want to garden seriously.

As for the complaints about the wards being dead, why would anyone expect them to be busy? Think about the things that make a neighborhood feel busy in real life.

People traveling to/from work and school or on errands. We teleport everywhere, we don't have to follow the "roads" to exit a ward.

Homemakers doing chores. The only outdoor activity in housing to simulate this is gardening and even if you're a compulsive fertilizer with a large house it only takes a few minutes a day.

Children out playing. We have no children.

Someone throwing a party so people who don't live in the neighborhood come to visit for an afternoon/evening. How many players throw a party at their house on a regular basis?

The wards should feel dead. If players are online, they're more likely to be doing content elsewhere. It would be weird to be seeing the other 29 house owners in your ward all the time.

[Vahlnir]

The wards should feel dead. If players are online, they're more likely to be doing content elsewhere. It would be weird to be seeing the other 29 house owners in your ward all the time.

I see my neighbor up the hill fairly regularly but I don't really interact with them. Other than that my ward is largely dead. Filled to the brim with plots, but devoid of any real player interaction. That's basically what to expect though and has been my experience in every ward I've lived in. (Lavender Beds, Goblet and now Shirogane)