How would YOU make Apartments viable options?

[Kytrin]

So I've seen a number of suggestions scattered around various threads about apartment upgrades, and I thought consolidating them into one thread might help the devs with ideas as they wouldn't have to wade through tons of other topics to look at our suggestions.

I'll start...

I think most of us can agree that true instanced housing (the kind where you can buy a plot of land and build on it however you want) is a pipe dream currently. For whatever various reasons it seems like they simply can't implement that system without a major overhaul that would probably leave a number of current housing owners furious. However, I do think we can work with what instanced housing we already have in the game. That, of course, being our apartments.

Right now they're not much to look at, but I think we have a lot of flex to make them every bit as awesome as regular houses.

What I'd like to see is them capitalizing on several key features already in the game, and offering a series of purchasable upgrades. Namely...

1. The apartment buildings are universally located in places where there are no houses BEHIND them.

This means that not only could the lobby be revamped to allow access to apartment exclusive beaches, lakes, pools, etc., but it would be absolutely possible to build private balconies!

They've said before they can't do balconies because of how much stress it would be on the servers allowing everyone access to the ward at large, so eliminate that entirely. Let our balconies overlook the surf, or forest, or whatever. It's a single generic view that we can enjoy and decorate or upgrade as we desire.

Nor does this have to conflict with apartment exclusives. As long as our balcony view isn't overlooking a place players will be then we can easily have both if we so desire. It's the difference between having a balcony that gives a great view in one direction, and trekking down to the beach in another.

2. The apartments ARE instanced, so the stress and load problems they have in the general wards shouldn't, theoretically, be nearly as much a factor.

This gives us a LOT of flexibility with upgrades in size.

It would be easy to create a gil sink that is upgrading your apartment size. You could start out at the generic 500k for the basic apartment. Maybe up that to 1.5 million for an upgrade to something like the Crystarium Inn. And so on and so forth until you reach the 'Penthouse' that is roughly the size of a large house.

More than that, you could introduce all sorts of other upgrade features. Don't like the floor plan? That's cool. Talk with our architect and purchase a brand new floor plan to implement with the Caretaker whenever you like! If we wanted to get fancy with it, we could even make collecting blueprints a thing. Once you learn the blueprint you can switch between any floor plan you like by talking with the Caretaker.

You could do the same with balcony upgrades too. You start off with a window you can look through to see your view, and slowly upgrade it from that to a large deck where you can set out furnishings, have a patch of soil to garden or plant trees in, and a pool to swim in.

3. Apartment amenities do leave something to be desired.

Technically speaking, we have most of the amenities (bar gardening and workshops) you'd get in an FC house, but they're not the most convenient. It's kind of a pain to have to zone all the way outside to check the MB and then have to zone inside to send/receive mail or buy something from an npc. I imagine that for people with slower systems that gets very annoying very quickly.

What I'd like to see instead is a revamped lobby where the lobby itself is 'outside', so when you log in, you log in there. Immediately, you'd have access to the MB, retainer bell, post moogle, an FC chest, and all the various npcs. No fuss, no muss.

I'd also like to see the option to buy amenity upgrades the same way you do size expansions. Workshops come to mind for that. People have wanted individual workshops for some time, it would be nice if we could actually purchase that option even in a watered down setup from the FC version. Instanced greenhouses to garden in would also be an interesting option if growing things on private balconies simply can't be done for some reason.

All of this together would vastly improve apartment living, and would make a great alternative for personal housing. Particularly since apartments don't get demolished, so there would be considerably less crying from people who lost their houses because life happened. Not only that, but it would do a lot to help with high-population servers who need the space. I imagine it would be a lot easier to expand the number of apartments per ward/subdivision than it is to implement whole new wards across the board whether they're desperately needed or not.

Those are my thoughts. Tell me yours. Do you agree with me, or would you do something totally different? If so, what? The more ideas we can throw out there, the more likely we are to hit on something the devs can implement!

[CobraChicken]

I'd love for this to happen. I think it would be great. Lots of positive options with this.

[Kytrin]

I'd love for this to happen. I think it would be great. Lots of positive options with this.

Thank ya! If you think of any other ideas, whether they work with mine or not, let us know! I'm eager to hear everyone's suggestions!

[CobraChicken]

I was admiring and drooling over the picture at the Thread: Why not just have larger apartments? Post #31 The more I studied the picture the more I drooled. (Didn't realize I drool so much. )

Someone walked in the room here and looked at it for a second and said, " I suppose most people would want the top floor, eh. " I said, " I suppose so, yes."

(I don't know how to post links and such like or even if it's allowed)

[TinkerTech]

They've said before they can't do balconies because of how much stress it would be on the servers allowing everyone access to the ward at large, so eliminate that entirely. Let our balconies overlook the surf, or forest, or whatever. It's a single generic view that we can enjoy and decorate or upgrade as we desire.

Nor does this have to conflict with apartment exclusives. As long as our balcony view isn't overlooking a place players will be then we can easily have both if we so desire. It's the difference between having a balcony that gives a great view in one direction, and trekking down to the beach in another.

I am all in favor of this. While I get the technical limitations prohibit looking out into a full player-instanced area, even a "fake skyline" balcony would be nice. At the very least it would be a nice break from the three small windows my FC room seems to have. Heck, even a nice bay window where I could sit with a book.... drifts off

That being said I instantly fell in love with the Crsytarium inn rooms and would love to see more places like that, especially for player usage.

[ERMITANYO]

If improved apartments are to be implemented in ishgard then hopefully an instanced balcony with a view of snowy mountains, maybe a valley with a river flowing through, on both east and west side of the apartment for sunrise and sunset scenery, following weather conditions, and allowing large house capacity gardening plots.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

For just basic fixes that can realistically be done without completely scrapping the current apartment system:

a) Increased Item Count - Base apartments as we have them now should have the same item count as a small house: 200. The current limit on apartment placeables is far too restrictive.

b) Access To Features - New placeable items that can be used inside a standard apartment. One that allows access to the airship/submarine feature and another that allows the planting of multiple seeds for cross-breeding. The airship/sub feature doesn't need to give as much return as an FC's might, but allowing a small amount of access to this feature would be desirable imo. The indoor garden would be limited to one in a base apartment.

c) Lofts That Make Sense - Any furnishing object that can be placed on an apartment or house floor should also be placeable on a loft. It makes no sense that only table top items can go on a loft. A loft is not a table. It is basically a floor, and not being able to place furniture on it makes me wonder what the devs thought we wanted lofts for in the first place.

Non-instanced housing would still hold prestige, but it would no longer lock players out of certain features like crossbreeding and airship/sub missions. If the only difference between a standard small house and an apartment (as far as features go) is that one is out in the neighborhood and the other is instanced, I believe that most people would be satisfied with an apartment.

---

For more robust features that would likely take significantly more effort by the dev team:

a) Multiple Tiers - Additional apartment size options that cost more so that, like houses, you can have a small (the current base apartment), a medium, and a large. Larger apartments would allow for more indoor garden planters and a higher furnishing item count just as larger house sizes do.

b) Free Company Apartments - A free company that does not currently own a house can purchase a free company apartment instead. They choose which tier (size) they wish to purchase.

c) Apartment Upgrading - Just as house owners can transition home ownership to a bigger plot, so too can apartment owners upgrade a currently owned apartment to a larger one.

[Kytrin]

b) Free Company Apartments - A free company that does not currently own a house can purchase a free company apartment instead. They choose which tier (size) they wish to purchase.

This is the only point you have that I would argue a little on. Personally, I would rather see us migrate to a place where robust apartments are exclusive to individuals while houses are for FCs. And for the features you're referring to, I'd rather see options to access those same features in the world at large. The difference is you have to actually haul your butt out to Bentbranch Meadows to stable your chocobo, or Limsa to send out your subs. That kind of thing. I wouldn't mind those world at large options being available to individuals too actually...

[Sauteed]

I think apartments are "viable" now, but compared to a house, they do lack a lot of cool features.

Letting players have access to 1 deluxe garden patch would be a great step in the right direction, and my suggestion on how to do that would be just make it a contextual affiar initiated by clicking on the door of the apartment, with like a still image of the garden bed appearing when beginning interaction, and then just put little images to represent a slot is occupied by seeds when in use.

Size and item limit increases should seriously be considered/implemented. I would not "gladly" give up my house I camped for it, I want it. That being said, I would enjoy a larger apartment as well. At least let us have an instanced cottage size as an upgrade. Consider taking out the 2 floors and steps and just give us a very large customizable box, and please take the pillar/wall supports out.. or give us the option to toggle them off. I've just gotten used to using them when I decorate a house or apartment in a lot of cases lately. I also think they are heinous and get in the way of so many ideas. Windows too. Please consider just giving us a "plain" option for our living spaces.

Another idea about "apartments" would be giving us the ability to give tenant rights to players or at least let us give the general public access to our amenities within them. I'm sure this has been a recurring request in the housing forum for a long time, but I think it's kind of a seriously missed opportunity especially for players who like to run pubs/bars/clubs/dinner parties etc as role playing events. You know, this is a "massively multiplayer -role playing- game".. I think it should be natural that we can allow some of these massive amounts of people to come enjoy our establishments and the amenities they offer. We've made due for a long time, but please consider this.

Let there be an indoor craft-able mail box perhaps? Not sure why this doesn't exist now, I'm sure it is probably blamed on coding nightmare (I can believe that), but that would be cool, not just for apartments.

General housing improvements overall tho, the oft mentioned loft situation.. Allow people to place furnishing objects on lofts, not just table top objects. I think most people will make due with that and not be so tied up trying to float objects up to where they need to go and then placing the loft back etc. That being said, give us more variety in lofts and steps/stairs. Give us the ability to eject and ban people from our apartments as well, Ultima Online did this decades ago, and I don't mean this in terms of a coding/technical perspective but coming at this from a this should be an expected feature in this day and age at the very utter core of the housing system in general.

[NanaWiloh]

Your first suggestion is what the DEV's are saying they can't do. Private Balconies would put more stress on the server not matter how their done. Everything else you asking for is great but the balcony one is a no go.