Quote Originally Posted by Valmarus View Post
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.