Regarding that Finaland Interview...

[SenorPatty]

He doesn't "redirects" he states, again, that there's apartments, use that instead. I don't know how many times they can say "we can only add so many houses" before people actually get it.

People's personal attachment to their homes is on them, to me it's absolutely crazy to keep a sub because of a demo on a house that provides nothing. Especially when you can transfer to another server where there's several available. People can't put themselves in stupid situations and expect the devs to fix it.

You're not making sense here.

The question started originally started off with the interviewer stating that even if he wanted to take a break as the producer advised, he can't take one for more than 30 days (granted it's 45 days). Yoshi responds that you don't need to play, you just need to log in and click on the door.

Fine, so far so good (somewhat). It's not ideal if you want to actually want to pause your sub but if you want to keep the house (within the 45 day limit), that's the alternative. But at the same time, that's the actual issue on hand, which the person points out. Note here the person is not talking about perma/quitting the game. The person,as an example, just wants to take a break for 2 months. The person wasn't asking for more houses, as you put in your quotes so I don't know why that's here. He's basically telling Yoshida that taking a break from the game comes with consequences equal to how much you invested in the house, whether that'd be financially or time spent acquiring things that you cannot get with in-game currency. This isn't like playing catch-up msq or being late to endgame raiding. It's something they possess in the game that isn't going to end up being useless 3 months later like
tome/raid gear.

Now at this point, some developers might take the in-depth approach and explain why they decided on a 45 day number instead of 25 or 65 and how those days "keep housing in balance" (I don't know if it does, I'm just guessing) and that's why the playerbase has to deal with it. Some might take a more customer service based approach by empathizing with the issue and--if they're allowed to say it--state that either there's nothing they can do or they have thought about it and are working on something, either way ending with an apology.

Instead, his advice basically boils down to "you got house but you don't want to pay sub so you can make sure you keep your home? Use apartments."

Factually, he's right. On paper, he's right. In the interview itself, he's right.

But to the people the game caters? He's wrong.

People's personal attachment to their home exist in the first place because for the most part, housing is fluff. It's enjoyable fluff. It's not tedious fluff, nor is it grinding fluff. It's not fluff you can easily discard because three months from now, it'll be useless because there's a better house with better upgrades. It's something that enables players to directly edit a piece of something they have in the game in many shapes and forms. It's not just the inside of it; the outside of their house matters to them too. You think when Yoshida was developing housing, his goal was not to create attachment to it? That'd be one hell of a thinking process. How much attachment to their house is irrelevant because the very same man who keeps going on about how passionate he is about creating stuff in the game for players to enjoy is now telling them, redirecting them to bounce to an apartment the player has no attachment to begin with.

Lastly, remember that FF14 is a theme park game. People will enjoy many things, some things and at times very, very specific things. If housing is what someone enjoys and they usually don't mind paying a sub for that, why is that somehow crazy compared to a player who only subs to raid? Or only subs for the story? Or only subs to RP? That's my issue with Yoshida right now and the origin of my rant: he's getting out of touch with the playerbase and making light of what they enjoy out of the game, even if that one thing is what keeps them subbed to the game.