Automatic Housing Instance Management

[Valmarus]

It seems to me that housing shortages could be reasonably easily solved by an automatic instance management. Put simply, if the plot consumption of a given housing zone > 90% (for example) then the system automatically starts up a new instance for that zone. If any given instance < 50% (for example) plot use && plot consumption across all instances <90% then the instance attempts to relocate the contents of those plots to an identical plot in another instance and if it can assign all the plots to another instance does so and shuts down.

This way every FC and individual will have opportunity to have a plot and will cut back on undue server load.

Also in conjunction with this the introduction of a system that shows which instances have open housing plots to make them easier to find.

[Edax]

It seems to me that housing shortages could be reasonably easily solved by an automatic instance management. Put simply, if the plot consumption of a given housing zone > 90% (for example) then the system automatically starts up a new instance for that zone. If any given instance < 50% (for example) plot use && plot consumption across all instances <90% then the instance attempts to relocate the contents of those plots to an identical plot in another instance and if it can assign all the plots to another instance does so and shuts down.

You are welcome to build that on their game engine for that and show it to Square Enix because that sounds really complicated.

[Jojoya]

It seems to me that housing shortages could be reasonably easily solved by an automatic instance management. Put simply, if the plot consumption of a given housing zone > 90% (for example) then the system automatically starts up a new instance for that zone. If any given instance < 50% (for example) plot use && plot consumption across all instances <90% then the instance attempts to relocate the contents of those plots to an identical plot in another instance and if it can assign all the plots to another instance does so and shuts down.

This way every FC and individual will have opportunity to have a plot and will cut back on undue server load.

Also in conjunction with this the introduction of a system that shows which instances have open housing plots to make them easier to find.

They've already stated that this sort of system is not possible for wards since wards are essentially permanent fixtures while instanced housing like apartments is load on demand.

Players would be very upset if their houses were being shifted from ward to ward on a random basis. Sometimes they've chosen the placement of their house to be in the same ward with their FC or friends' houses, sometimes they've chosen it specifically to avoid other players they consider a nuisance. Your system would separate them from their friends and FC, and potentially dump them next to someone they dislike. Trying to shut down wards would also never work because certain plots, especially large, are in constant demand so there would be no where to move those houses to even if the rest of the ward was basically empty.

Your system would still be a huge strain on server resources compared to an instanced housing system. Better for SE to create a more comprehensive instanced housing system than the basic apartments we currently have so no player/FC needs to go without and there's no complicated management of wards needed.

[Valmarus]

You are welcome to build that on their game engine for that and show it to Square Enix because that sounds really complicated.

Code wise it's not all that complicated. I can't say how complicated it is exactly without looking at their existing code but the code to start up a new instance would be simple and wouldn't even have to interact with the current code at all. Likelyhood is that they already store their plots in some sort of list or array and since the UI can display those lists it's likely they have a way of accessing those lists outside of where they are stored. All the instance start up code would have to do is read those lists and compare the number of plots flagged as owned and to the number of total plots.

The copying housing to other instances would require the code to be looked at and potentially altered but that was just a suggestion for reducing overall resources taken and there are different things they could do, I think the important thing to take away from what I'm saying is the system of starting up new instances where there is the demand. I'd imagine they already have the ability to run on-demand instances (I think this is how dungeons and congestion prevention zone instances work) so they can already start up instances automatically when the need arises.

[Valmarus]

(Forgive the double post. Character limits)

They've already stated that this sort of system is not possible for wards since wards are essentially permanent fixtures while instanced housing like apartments is load on demand.

Players would be very upset if their houses were being shifted from ward to ward on a random basis. Sometimes they've chosen the placement of their house to be in the same ward with their FC or friends' houses, sometimes they've chosen it specifically to avoid other players they consider a nuisance. Your system would separate them from their friends and FC, and potentially dump them next to someone they dislike. Trying to shut down wards would also never work because certain plots, especially large, are in constant demand so there would be no where to move those houses to even if the rest of the ward was basically empty.

Your system would still be a huge strain on server resources compared to an instanced housing system. Better for SE to create a more comprehensive instanced housing system than the basic apartments we currently have so no player/FC needs to go without and there's no complicated management of wards needed.

From what you're saying it sounds more like what they are saying is they can't switch the instancesd on and off every time a player enters or all players exit. That's not the same thing as what I'm suggesting at all.

As for people being moved away from FC members plots, your argument there falls apart for two reasons. 1 - if that's true the instances wouldn't be closed down. 2 - There's a huge amount of the player base who want housing but have no access so those players who want to be near their fc mates can't have any housing at all anyway.

As for apartments it is my impression that they lack certain features that houses can have, like gardens, which doesn't make them a substitute. Perhaps then the solution is to place an npc near an alley in the housing zones that can take you to instanced "walled estates" which are just instanced plots available in any of the sizes that normal plots can have. Sure you wouldn't get the nice view of a plot but at least you'd be able to play with all the features of the housing system.

[geekgirl101]

As for apartments it is my impression that they lack certain features that houses can have, like gardens, which doesn't make them a substitute. Perhaps then the solution is to place an npc near an alley in the housing zones that can take you to instanced "walled estates" which are just instanced plots available in any of the sizes that normal plots can have. Sure you wouldn't get the nice view of a plot but at least you'd be able to play with all the features of the housing system.

Kinda same as what I suggested a while ago but got told they can't do it because plants are somehow affected by the weather or something like that.

[Valmarus]

Kinda same as what I suggested a while ago but got told they can't do it because plants are somehow affected by the weather or something like that.

I really don't understand that because again from a coding perspective it wouldn't be difficult to log the changes in weather then pull the times of weather changes and calculate the change of growth on next time the instance is started.