The Devs really need to change how housing works.

[Edax]

Another floor would've been nice too instead of the dinky little box with barely any room to swing a lalafel.

Nice but besides the point.

No, it's exactly the point. You can already make a multi-floored apartment and you can still have room to swing plenty of Lalafels in it. You already have your wish.

[JeffD]

Then no one can see my pretty house from the outside

But tbh, just the other day close to my house there was an open land and different people kept camping there while I was doing duties, the next day someone got it and they have not yet even decorated it. I feel bad for the people who actually wanted the house for good use.

Was it a small house? Some people may be coming from an apt and have almost no out door furnishings. I am currently doing that and will be in the same boat. Also im sure on some of those servers where camping a plot is an event, you may need to take a few days off after burning yourself out with a multi hour camp.

[GenBroadaxe]

I'm wondering if our private quarters in ShB is a test for a larger/new apartment style. It seems that a lot of the issues we have would be solved with a few additions to apartments (gardening options/more item placement).

[Sunoske]

No, it's exactly the point. You can already make a multi-floored apartment and you can still have room to swing plenty of Lalafels in it. You already have your wish.

Coming from someone who plays a smaller sized race... Have you tried standing in a split apartment as a highlander or taller race? There really is hardly any room.

[Jojoya]

I'm wondering if our private quarters in ShB is a test for a larger/new apartment style. It seems that a lot of the issues we have would be solved with a few additions to apartments (gardening options/more item placement).

Our private quarters are nothing more than the new inn room. There's nothing being tested by it because we don't have the ability to place items or interact with anything other than the standard inn room amenities (sans the Crystal Bell, which isn't present).

At most it's maybe a sign that SE has been working on new interiors for us to choose from. It won't come with gardening (SE starts talking about the upcoming player farms every time someone mentions gardening in apartments/FC rooms). Whether or not there's an increased item limit we won't know but then there's no apparent reason why item limits couldn't be increased more as it is. They already doubled it once since originally the limit was 50 items.

Coming from someone who plays a smaller sized race... Have you tried standing in a split apartment as a highlander or taller race? There really is hardly any room.

I also play a Roe. Her apartment has been split level since people shared how to float a troupe stage over a window. The new lofts have improved on that by making the upper floor surface slightly lower since they're half the thickness. There's plenty of room.

Camera collision can be a problem if you're in third person instead of first person but that's a problem for everyone, including lalas. I also can't place a loft any lower with this character before hitting an invisible wall when trying to walk under it than I can with my Roe. The difference is visually it makes sense with my Roe - of course she's going to bump into it. With my lala, it makes no sense that I can't walk under it.

[Edax]

Coming from someone who plays a smaller sized race... Have you tried standing in a split apartment as a highlander or taller race? There really is hardly any room.

I was talking to a player with a Lala profile so he already has his wish.

[Nalien]

As much as I enjoy the open neighborhoods, instanced housing is the solution

The open neighborhoods don't even function that well, because everyone is spread out over so many wards and subdivisions. You don't see a lot of houses because of it, you see your little corner and the houses nearby, same with your "neighbors".

It would actually work a lot better if the plots themselves were moved into instances. Keep Lavender Beds, the Goblet, etc., but take the current garden space of houses, and move that into an instance. Collapse all the Wards into a single zone. Rework the fence to include a gate so it's more acceptable to have an invisible wall stopping us jumping into plots. The instanced version is now accessed via the placard outside each plot. So, for example, if you own plot 1 in ward 1, you're now first on that list at the placard for plot 1, if you own plot 1 in ward 3, you'd be 3rd on that list. An instanced system very much like how apartments work, just for the current garden plots.

Work in a system where the zone randomly displays a snapshot of various houses from the instance list, mark them with a star in the placard list so people can see the house easily and maybe visit it if it catches their eye. Heck, work in that whole guest book "Like" system into the list... Do all that and you still have the exact same neighborhood vibe from say Lavender Beds, but it's amplified and (at least IMO) improved upon. It's easier to visit others plots with such a system, compared to wading through wards and subdivisions. Right now you have 36 versions of a plot spread across 36 versions of the zone, instance them and slap them in 1 zone and you've got the people using those 36 plots all gathering outside the same plot, using the same market board/etc., and it would feel a hell of a lot more lively and, dare I say it, neighborly...

Once the plots are instanced, all the current issues should fade away, we should hopefully be able to have plots for everyone finally. Don't even have to sacrifice the neighborhood feel for it, in fact you can improve that feel by making them instanced...

[RikuShieran]

I'm personally looking forward to this as a current home owner so I can relocate my small to a medium that someone will inevitably abandon in one of the old wards in favor of an Ishgard plot.

There's no timer on new blocks. Houses aren't going to get all relocated, the vast majority of them are just going to get snagged as soon as servers go up.

There is literally not enough supply for the demand, especially on moderately big servers, nevermind full servers.