Quote Originally Posted by Kirsten_Rev View Post
*Snip*
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that FFXIV is a failing game, or is even in remote danger of losing its status as a AAA MMO. People come here from WoW, of all places, hands down the most successful MMO of all time. WoW is getting old, certainly, and it's reasonable to expect folks looking for something new - but several MMOs have come and gone since FFXIV's been active, just about all of them flash-in-the-pan, and FFXIV's still chugging along.

Undoubtedly, FFXIV has a sub-standard housing system. A large part of this is a failure on Yoshi P's part back in the early days of ARR - and that failure was overambition, not lack of it. He had a vision of actual towns of player houses, not just the same old instanced stuff you can find in almost every other MMO. His reach exceeded his grasp, however. The initial, FC-only wards worked well enough, but wanted the same for private housing - and his devs couldn't give it to him on the scale he wanted with the infrastructure they had available. But they had this ready-made FC housing right there, and still mostly empty... It's easy to say "Yoshi, you should have taken the safe, boring path and given us all instanced houses!" now, but back then players were just as excited as Yoshi P was about real player towns.

Honestly, I think that 95% of the whining about houses would come to a halt if SE would give apartments the ability to do actual, outdoor gardening. Give them a patio, or miniature greenhouse extension, or something. Perhaps that is something they should consider.