Regarding that Finaland Interview...

[Alleo]

But for housing, during HW, (2 years with NO wards added ! ) i many time said the matters was personnal housing, and i would applause a cancellation of it. YES players/customers would be angry to not being able to use houses anymore. yes. me first, i have two account from ARR and both did get houses. But prefered loosing this, to see all player on the same line, seeing all FC getting houses. And getting improvment on appartment (doing size x3. or being abe to get different size. )

I agree with a lot of your points but them taking out personal houses (and taking them away from people) would have been a catastrophe. (IMO) Heck even when they for a short amount of time introduced the new housing rules they did not take away the houses from those that owned too many.

For me they should introduce private instanced housing. With all the sizes and zones available. It would be awesome if we could buy a L house in each zone since its instanced thus people could own quite a lot of houses, while at the same time the wards still exist but instead of taking the houses away they just stop people from buying more private ones for the future and maybe give a compensation for everyone that switches their private house from wards directly to an instance. On top of that give FCs access to workshops in some city states and gardening plots in Gridania for everyone to use.

This way a FC does not need a house to get access to all the things behind it, people can all have as many big houses as housing zones exists. (Right now that would be like 4 large houses) And they would not lose it and have a huge gil sink on top of that. I would gladly give up my personal and FC house for that. But I would not give them up for something like an apartment.

I wish people who complain about having to stay subbed because they are bored/hate the game would just unsub already and give someone who still loves the game a chance at homeownership. SE makes the terms and we either abide by them or we disgree and take our money/time elsewhere.

I am quite sure that those that complain that the timer is bad if they want to take a break are just exactly wanting that: A break. Which means that they plan to return to the game. I mean we are not talking about a timer that is 90 days long or more, but something as short as 45 days which amounts to a bit more than one month breaks. Seeing how a patch takes at least 3 months to come out than this is way too low. Someone could have played the game for years constantly, own a house but just want to take one break between two patches. They simply cant..because that would be too long and they will lose their house that they have might used quite a lot and had planned to use it again after the break. Why would someone else deserve it more than them?

[Aerlana]

I agree with a lot of your points but them taking out personal houses (and taking them away from people) would have been a catastrophe. (IMO) Heck even when they for a short amount of time introduced the new housing rules they did not take away the houses from those that owned too many.

If they did it, it would be a hard decision, with a lot angry people, and even if i think it would be 1-2 week of raging on forum, it wouldnt be a so hard result on long term. And i just said "personnal houses are matter" not "forbidden to give players anything else as substitute or compensation"
There is as you say the instanced housing for personnal houses as idea. or working better on appartment (lets say, S like now. M = 4 time the size we have now, and L = 2 level appartment... those are example)

ALSO, they wouldnt do it ("cancel" Personnal Houses after releases it) for a reason even more silly : they did add personnal housing, knowing it would create all those matters. How i know? I think they are able to do simple mathematics (they know the activity on each servers, the population of each)
If you do a such big mistake, you dont want to go back after... Even if you have an idea to compensate...


Note : that instanced housing/appartment for CHARACTERS (not FC) would be a REAL way to get living neiborghood. i think we have too much houses for only FC now. (i think without proof, but... i dont think many servers get more than 4k activ FC... ... )
More wards = more spread of population = less living wards. But wards defined only with FC needs, it will concentrate people (a FC is generally more than 1 guy...) AND the instanced link to the same wards (like appartment we have now) could add even more people in the area. (because it will add all non-FC people in those)

So, the same thing solve 2 matters... sad to not doing it v_v"


(simple mathematics i speak : )

(they know the activity on each servers, the population of each (with inactiv character that could become activ), and the number of houses is easy to count... 540 at personnal houses release, 2160 during HW, 2880 at 4.1, 4320 today. For activity, luckybansho helps us to get an idea of how much character are activ per server... 550k activ people, 66 servers => 8.3k per server.)

About simple mathematics. we can easily count how much houses :
1080 at personnal houses release (or not sure if houses 31=>60 did existe at 2.38 or added just after but not a real difference)
2160 during HW,
2880 at 4.1,
4320 today

They know how much character, FC. they can have a quite excellent idea of the activ part.
With luckybansho scan, we can see 550k activ character (600+ on period with the 96h free login... so i am more looking on the others results)
66 servers => 8k5-9k activ character per server (activ from luckybansho : getting at least 1 more minion/mount/level in any job between 2 scan)

In reality, most japanese server are under this, and european/american server are many time over (with high spike for ragnarok/balmung and other like those) ... But easier ton consider same for all

We see that we have 1 house now for 2 activ character. and there is the FC matter then...

SO YES they did the mistake knowing it was a mistake.

I wish people who complain about having to stay subbed because they are bored/hate the game would just unsub already and give someone who still loves the game a chance at homeownership. SE makes the terms and we either abide by them or we disgree and take our money/time elsewhere.

The destruction is for making people paying subscription (hard to translate other way the answers in this interview... and remember they did ask the questions due to the "take a break" that Yoshida himself invite us to do ! )
AND to get a TURNOVER on houses possession.

so "stop playing with this, please, leave it a little to this other child, he wants to play with it too"
"YEAH, it is MY TURN to play with it"





But as i said : those answers, the housing, and other matters in the game are only different symptoms of one ill. If the Yoshida mentality, and his team mentality about one of the matters change to fit more to what we, players and customers, are waiting, many other thing will also change. It is my thoughts. The "ill" is, for me, they dont think enough with player's mind.

[Alleo]

If they did it, it would be a hard decision, with a lot angry people, and even if i think it would be 1-2 week of raging on forum, it wouldnt be a so hard result on long term. And i just said "personnal houses are matter" not "forbidden to give players anything else as substitute or compensation"

I am quite sure that taking away personal houses without something else for it (like instanced personal houses) would create more fire than just a bit of 1-2 week raging. Remember how the forum was on fire when Shirogane started and people were not able to get plots for different reasons? How other sites talked about this and how they even gave us much more wards (thus houses) afterwards? That was not a small fire and they needed to react to that. Now I cant see how taking away someones house because SE made a mistake by creating a bad system would be good. Honestly it feels like the majority of the houses are privates ones thus a huge amount of people would lose their house. That would be such a huge PR disaster and who knows how many people would simply stop their sub. If they did that and force people out of it I would probably also stop playing because I would feel that this would not be respectful at all. Thats why I pointed out that any change should have good instanced housing before that and be a choice that people can make. (Some do enjoy the ward system for their personal houses)

It would seem SE would rather give the opportunity to have a house to someone paying them rather than someone who is not paying them. Is this that wild of a concept considering there is not enough housing available for all?

So someone that has played the game for years and takes one longer break is less important than maybe a person that plays it for a couple of months and get a house but might also stop after a time? Or what about those that do pay but cant log in for certain reasons? I mean if its only about paying then people could at least still buy a sub and not lose it but you have to be in the game on your plot on top of that. And there are cases that would lose their house even if they are paying for it..