Square Enix removed my house when I used it every day, said "oh well"

[ronubonu]

I have been having a horrible experience with support for over a month now.

As many of us can attest to, the pain of waiting by a house hours, even days, is extremely exhausting. I spent my fair share of time trying to get a house, and poured millions of Gil into the house itself and decorations.

I use my house everyday because I am an active crafter and it is where I can go to lock myself away and get things done. Therefore, I enter and interact with my house every single day, going no more than a day or two without visiting my home.

I received an auto-demolition notice in December while I was sitting inside my house crafting. Odd, but maybe I needed to interact with my house retainers or move furniture around? So I did so.

Nope. When the demolition was up, I logged in, and it was gone. Everything I spent my time and money on just disappeared.

I spent the next month fighting with SE support. They asked me many questions about the situation, and I answered. After weeks of this, they started sending me generic bug report forms. I responded saying that I didn't want to fill this out as I have provided much of this information - mind you, this is a report that literally asks you for every part used in your PC among many other things. It is not a simple form, they used this to divert taking responsibility by having me fill a form out and then closing the issue.

Their response? They resent the bug form again. Nothing else. A slap in the face, really. They continued to send me automated messages.

I have been pouring money into this game for 3 years, and I am so disappointed in how SE handled this and how an issue on their end affected so much of my time and money. They refused to help rectify the situation so my last resort is to come here, hoping someone will hear what I'm saying and fix this issue.

If anyone else has experience with a demolition of their house when they used it daily or had a very bad experience with SE support, please share. I am really discouraged as a couple of their responses could have translated to "oh well" if you really read what they were saying. Now I'm afraid of getting a new house when their system could decide to delete it at any time, and I would get no help from support.

[Tabbs]

If this really is a bug, which it sounds like it is, you should definitely be filling out those bug report forms so that the proper people can get in touch with what happened and hopefully stop it from happening in the future.

That being said, I don't think support can restore your house? If someone else has already purchased the plot then that'd be unfair to that other player to lose the plot as well. If it hasn't been 30-something days since it was demolished, you should at least be able to get the furnishing and some gil back from one of the housing NPCs. In the future, I've also read that in the timers menu you can see if the demolition warning is still active. If you can't make it go away, it's definitely worth contacting support well before the timer is up.

It's really unfortunate, but I don't think there's very much more support can do for you besides point you to the bug reporting forms.

[Eloah]

That is frustrating. While I am sure you did something similar, did you have any records of your being in your house, before and after the notice? Also to you calculate the value of money spent on the house. At least if they can't grant you the house back, maybe they can compansate you for the issue. As frustrating as it is I wouldn't let it ruin your other experiences. Or at least try to not let it ruin them.

[ElazulHP]

I've heard of this happening before. Unfortunately, no matter what you do you'll not get your house back as the plot is already likely long gone. What you can do is fill out the dumb form and request full compensation for everything you lost. Gil, items, ect. They should be willing to work with you. Submit and in-game ticket to speak to a GM about it and see what your options are as well.

[Mhaeric]

Were you on the character that purchased the house, or on an alt? Alts, even those on the same account iirc, don't reset the demolition timer.

[Jojoya]

First, was it actually your house or was it purchased by a friend that made you a tenant while you contributed to the purchase price and buying furnishings? I know a lot of players who are only tenants but consider a shared house "theirs" because they contributed gil to the costs. As a tenant, you do not reset the demo timer by entering the house. Only entry by the character listed as the owner on the placard will do that. Not even other characters on the same account will reset it.

Second, why did you not contact SE as soon as you received the first demolition notice? You could have opened a ticket and had a GM witness that you were actually in the house without the demo timer resetting.

Finally, GM are not programmers. The bug report is for the programmers who investigate to determine the cause of the problem. They have specific information they need to investigate things, even if some of that information might seem irrelevant to you. Always complete a bug report when requested to the best of your ability.

Instead of arguing with them (which accomplishes nothing), complete the bug report. If SE can determine that the loss of the house was an error on their end, they may choose to give you some form of compensation though you will not be able to get the house back. Your refusal to provide the information prevents them from investigating so they have no reason to compensate you.

I'm sorry but this might have been avoided if you had submitted a support ticket as soon as you got the first demolition notice. Better to take steps to get something fixed when the first signs appear than to wait until the problem becomes too big to be fixed.

[Yshtola]

Hilarious how every time someone talks about this, they lack any sort of evidence.

[Besame]

I have had nightmares with in game support so I give them 1 option to help now and then call the support center directly. No more messing around. The support center guys have helped me out a time or two.

[ronubonu]

Welp, well thank you guys for the replies.

To address some of the things you have said:

Many of you:
Yes, it was my own house! I actually don't have any shared estates. I can see how that could lead to people getting demos though.

It sounds like this has happened to other people, and I guess you guys are right to say ultimately not much can be done even if I did reach some sort of resolution with the GMs. I guess there isn't much I can do in this situation besides fill out a bug report and move on.

Jojoya:
You're right, I could have put a ticket in when I got the notice. I figured I hadn't interacted with furniture, so that was the cause. That was something I could have changed, but it isn't my fault that I received a notice by mistake in the first place. I did my best to fix it as demo notices tell you to go into your house, and I would have never expected to have my house demolished when using it daily.

I think the notion I was arguing with GMs is a bit aggressive, but I can see how it came off that way when I was being stubborn about the bug report. It is true that they are not programming the game though. I had given a lot of information, and it seemed like I went from having a meaningful conversation to them being bored and sending me a standardized, long bug form. It wasn't me just being petty and argumentative, it was a complete wedge in the conversation that began to make slight progress. Sometimes, when conversations don't make progress, support channels throw out large forms to fill out to deter someone from continuing to pursue the issue. In my opinion, it felt that way with how the flow of the conversation was going beforehand. A bug report ends the conversation at that: just a bug report. But I will keep your thoughts in mind, thank you.

Yshtola:
I'm not sure what evidence I can provide, I don't track my everyday activities in a log. Dragging me down when I'm upset about something that happened isn't very nice, and I'm not sure why you'd want to portray this community that way. I was looking for support with this post, but for some reason you wanted to make me feel worse, which is disappointing.

I appreciate everyone who was supportive and offered me meaningful advice! I'll keep it with me when speaking to the GM and moving forward I will try to be preemptive if I see a bug, or whatever it is. I didn't know if I should have expected responses as I don't post here, so thank you to those who came here to make me feel better rather than drag me down.

[Dustytome]

I'm curious, did the house get auto-demoed 45 days after you purchased the plot or did you have it for a longer period of time? If a longer period of time, were there any changes you can recall making around a month and a half before the server ate the house? Maybe moving plots, connection changes, computer part replacements? Wondering if something somehow locked part of the reset process so that despite you entering the house, it wasn't triggering.