Legit curious...why are housing wards ghost towns?

[Kemiko]

I only visit my house when needed. Train/clean Chocobo stables, tend the garden, poke the airship and maybe redecorate. Sure, there's retainer bells and marketboards outside but I hate teleportation fee's and loading screens and with that being the extent of what's available outside it isn't an attractive location to idle in.

With the lack of a glamour dresser housing item I find that city hubs are better idle locations. Access to shops, marketboards, retainer bells, squadron, gc options, that glamour dresser that just isn't available for housing areas, access to world visitation and even gives rested bonus.

Unless drawn there purposefully housing upkeep there's little incentive to idle there, especially if socializing is what you want.

[Dagget]

Our FC house has ppl coming and going all day, and many log out there or at their own houses nearby (we have 8 member houses within a stones throw of the FC house). A few other neighbors are seen periodically during the day, as well.

[shaiel]

I AFK in my house. But more people will AFK in major city hubs where they last were. There's just more stuff to do and more people around because of that. Compare to a housing ward with 30 houses and the mbs spread out. You also have people with no housing at all, because of availability mostly.

[GenBroadaxe]

My friends and FC usually use the housing wards as a gathering place when we get together for raid or farm parties. I also usually log out at my house since I can do quick repairs, check retainers and sell random stuff I don't need. I think how much use you see from the grouping in housing wards probably depends more on the nature of a group rather then anything else

[ERMITANYO]

I sometimes afk at the beach

[Mew_FC]

Pretty easy to answer. We went from FC only wards, with a grand total of 450 houses, to mixed wards and a whooping 4,320 houses.

[Bright-Flower]

Each ward has a handful of market boards and only people with houses, fc houses, or apartments in a given ward would have people there. I do often see people in housing wards, but it's usually like one or two, not a lot.

The main cities/endgame hubs however are one to a server, instead of having 12 or however many wards with two subdivisions per housing area, split up between different mbs in each one.

[Ryaz]

I'm constantly at my house. I'll be there crafting/decorating either inside or out while waiting for queues or will just hop on my mount and walk up and down the street, go swim in the ocean or just enjoy the view. I don't see a lot of people personally, but I chalk that up to my location and the time of day I tend to play. I work nights so I'm on during the day and my mansion is on the beach with just a couple houses around me, which are personally owned. I saw more activity when the small across from me used to be FC owned.

There is a paissa house next door where I've never once seen the owner. Which is good, because murder would be involved. Damned paissas.

[ern815]

I like to hang at my small house in Shirogane. I normally would jump to the top of the roof and enjoy the surrounding view with not much obstruction which is one of the best thing about my plot.

I do occassionally see my neighbors hanging around from time to time.

[SummonerSenah]

I've been hanging out near my house since my FC is new and doesn't have a house. I prefer the housing wards to big cities because it loads faster.

Today while I was queued up for various things I explored other houses in the ward, and I did notice a lot of houses were very sparsely decorated, as though people bought the house just to have it but never bothered to actually do anything with it. Also, most houses (even some of the designer ones) didn't have the message book for visitors, which I personally find disappointing as I like to leave notes like "Your house is lovely!" or "I love your yard!"

I didn't see any people but I tend to play during the day which is not peak hours in NA.