Regarding that Finaland Interview...

[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)