This game needs way more wards!

[Barraind]

Most people thought that at the time.

Theres more about housing out there, but its not easy to find, given that the only wiki/database that kept changelogs isnt around anymore.

The current wiki has all of 2 reference links for housing info, both for 4.2 stuff. One of the guys that has a full ward on one of the legacy servers has a website with everything catalogued, but I cant find it.

[Maero]

They need instanced housing in the mix, i have said countless times but unless they implement it housing will always have issues.
I think 3 or 4 years it has taken me to finally get my own house so yeah ..

[RitsukoSonoda]

The demolition timer I think was added later due to complaints about plots being occupied by players and FC's no longer playing the game. By then more people could afford the plots and demand had risen considerably.

[Eldevern]

The thing is Y-P always seems bored (and/or bothered) by the housing matter. Since ARR, he always talks about it with some kind of... I don't know how to call that. I tend to think he's not personaly interested in housing, then... he doesn't give much care about this question. And that's why they always end to use the lesser evil as some kind of solution, they are somehow sticking a plaster on a wooden leg.

Ishgard? How not to notice they purposely slow down the release of a new housing area? At least I admit it is original but it doesn't change the fact they delay the release purposely.

[Curisu]

They should add a housing tax to decrease the amount of player who just have a empty house for no reason.
It could be like 2,5% of the plot cost, every week to make a small plot affordable for everyone and a big one just for the player who got the money to fill the house.
They should also add a garage to storage all of the unique housing items I got through events, etc.

[Missbone]

Ishgard? How not to notice they purposely slow down the release of a new housing area? At least I admit it is original but it doesn't change the fact they delay the release purposely.

I had exactly the same thought after observing this whole ishgard thing and all those steps from the current phase for a while. You can't help than thinking that they stretch this stuff artificially for god knows how long and if my guess is right this is only the first part. Currently we are just doing a small area of the lower Ishgard part. Even if my server is one or maybe the EU Server (Ragnarok) with the most ppl, it is far less active there now that it was during the first 2 weeks. We are currently at step 16 or 17 i think but you can feel that the ppl care less and less about this stuff. Most players that still there frequently are chars that lvl their crafters through the ishgard stuff and of course some others that do it for the tokens and items of course.

In my case i dont even bother about this ishgard shit anymore and i don't care if or not this thing will be ever finished. All i do is turn ins from time to time to buy new mats. I don't even collect them anymore and just buy them, most of them are really cheap already and it saves me hours of playtime. But except from that Ishgard is for me nothing else than one big disappointment. And from how things look i guess it will be finished shortly before the new expansion comes out.

For me it was the highlight of this expansion when they announced it before the release, together with all the crafter stuff and i really thought that with the release or the first great patch (witch was October last year) we would be able to start working on Ishgard and finish in max a couple of weeks so that players could enjoy the new housing zone. I spent a lot of time the first weeks to get all my DOL/DOH jobs to 80 as soon as possible and equip them to be ready for the Ishgard shit when it comes out. And after it came out i had to realise how meaningless and super easy lvling had become. I felt really offended, they could have at least said it right from the start that it would be like this, would have save me and many other crafters a lot of time and money.

[Jojoya]

Ishgard? How not to notice they purposely slow down the release of a new housing area? At least I admit it is original but it doesn't change the fact they delay the release purposely.

I honestly don't see them withholding a completed new housing district for arbitrary reasons, and definitely not for spiteful reasons like some players choose to believe. SE has acknowledged how high demand is on many servers, especially in the NA region, and clearly adding just 3 wards in 5.1 didn't come close to meeting the demand on those worlds.

The housing district and related programming may not be completed yet on their end. We know they have additional improvements to the housing system in development (YoshiP mentioned them at the EU FanFest Q&A). it could be the release is delayed so those improvements can be completed and everything released together at the same time.

Certainly the Restoration is a way for the player base to demonstrate just how badly they want the additional house plots through their participation. It would have worked much better if the entire project was one long progression with no interruptions instead of getting a phase then needing to wait for the next patch. There's not much sense of urgency to participating when the final phase, and presumably the opening of the housing district to players, is still months away.

I know many players who were getting excited as Tonberry was nearly completion of the current phase - then lost interest when nothing happened other than a handful of flavor quests. If 5.3 won't be the final phase, I expect participation to be lukewarm because the ultimate reward many players want still won't be available and there are relatively few players going after the Expert achievements.

As much as there's something to be said for spreading out content over time, it doesn't work for all content. Some things need to be released as a whole to keep the hype train going and eyes focused on the final goal. People lose interest when the reward they're really after is still going to be held for another 6-10 months. They'll worry about doing the work when the reward can be received.

[SamSmoot]

Eliminate the separate wards, they isolate the players from each other. Do the following instead:

Instance the plots themselves so:
1. Every plot can have many owners. This increases the chance of seeing more players in the neighborhood, since they will all be in one "ward", not spread across 21 of them.

2. Eliminate the multiple wards, since they're not needed with instanced plots.

3. When you arrive, your plot contents are visible, but you can select other owners' content from the placard (with thumbnails please. This will allow you to customize the appearance of your immediate neighborhood (Hate / love Paissa houses?).

4. Your plot is always loaded when you arrive. No load screens when entering the yard or house. Other plots would cause load screens on entry since preloading them all would probably take too much time. Still, selected yard appearances would have to preload so you'd see them when outside.

5. Since the house and plot are one instance, you could have real windows, open doors to walk out onto a patio / deck with no load screen.

6. Ideally, when in your yard you should be able to see everyone on the street (Assuming it's possible to code it.)

Of course, everyone would just buy copies of the most desirable plots, but it could be spread out by raising the prices of ones with many owners, and reducing the price of the others.

One problem though: With many more house owners, SE would need to add more storage to hold the content, and pay to maintain it. I suppose they could make it so everyone can buy one small plot for just Gil, but larger ones (containing more stuff) would add to your sub fee (like extra retainers).

[LaylaTsarra]

Ishgard? How not to notice they purposely slow down the release of a new housing area? At least I admit it is original but it doesn't change the fact they delay the release purposely.

I think it's a pretty neat thing to have the community actually rebuild the housing there. I suspect it'll be available for purchase soon after completion. One can hope that along with this new housing district they have something more planned like upgradeable apartments.

[Lambdafish]

They should add a housing tax to decrease the amount of player who just have a empty house for no reason.
It could be like 2,5% of the plot cost, every week to make a small plot affordable for everyone and a big one just for the player who got the money to fill the house.
They should also add a garage to storage all of the unique housing items I got through events, etc.

Housing tax would change the problem from "Housing is for those lucky enough to get it" to "Housing is for the rich", which doesn't actually solve anything. My solution is to expand the tools for allowing tenants. That way its more attractive to have multiple people per house. A tenant chest would go a long way to improve personal housing with multiple tenants, and allow tenants to share gardening, and crafting. You could also tie in eternal bonding into it, making it attractive for bonded partners to share a house. To me, the solution isn't to restrict and punish those who own a house, but rather maximizing the usage of the houses that we have. If there is incentive to share houses, people will, and it would get more people into the personal housing that we currently have.

Another suggestion that I have is to better utilise apartments. Allow them to be upgraded (Animal crossing style), so that people who really invest in their apartments will have large spaces, and those who don't will have small spaces, that way it saves on server space.