player housing should be available to everyone.

[BunniEclair]

I find the neighborhood design quite charming, and enjoy spending occasional downtime poking around in the wards.

But aside from my personal preference, I think it would be too much trouble, if not impossible, to change the current system so dramatically so as to completely get rid of the neighborhood design. I think expanding the apartments with a deck and maybe a second floor would be a great compromise until the next MMO, where they can take this sort of major change into consideration.

[Eldevern]

...

It is not difficult to create central aetheryte environment. Even for the code, they have almost everything. I suspect it is more the question of old players who own entire wards, the time already spent in designing wards that are pretty heavier than instancied system with some kind of simple "central aetheryte".

[BunniEclair]

It is not difficult to create central aetheryte environment. Even for the code, they have almost everything. I suspect it is more the question of old players who own entire wards, the time already spent in designing wards that are pretty heavier than instancied system with some kind of simple "central aetheryte".

I feel like you’re oversimplifying this process here, but I don’t know enough about programming to dispute it.

But yeah, the issues with players you’ve presented here are part of the whole “too much trouble” thing I mentioned. I think their time would be better spent trying to expand upon the current setup rather than completely scrap it and start all over. I also don’t think they’d concede to doing such a thing at this point. But you never know!

[Eldevern]

...

Let's say that when we learn coding, one mantra is "don't reinvente the wheel". ^_^

A lot of coding is rarely to write from scratch but to copy past and change a few lines. Considering the apartment system, I hardly imagine they have to rewrite everything to go from a system "NPC to apartments" to "aetheryte to instancied house". There are a lot of things they can re-use (or the code is really but really really crapy).

Anyway I don't ask they rewrite everything. They could add a side system. I somehow have in mind that if they want to keep the game up-to-date and lasting even considering the coming next-gen, they will have to think about a great overhaul or they will need to publish a new game. A side system is halfway and can prepare for the next-gen MMO. That's my thought.

[BunniEclair]

Anyway I don't ask they rewrite everything. They could add a side system. I somehow have in mind that if they want to keep the game up-to-date and lasting even considering the coming next-gen, they will have to think about a great overhaul or they will need to publish a new game. A side system is halfway and can prepare for the next-gen MMO. That's my thought.

Not a bad idea! If they could do that, it would also be good for players who hate looking at the sillier housing skin choices.

And I could have a paissa house in peace...