I've had a wild night of this. My friends (all of us on Mateus) and I have been preparing for literal months, sending gil to each other, running maps to save up, picking the ideal wards to try and get our cottages next to each other. Up to and including putting the better part of an all nighter together, because the patch went live any time from 3am to 6am depending on what timezone we were in.

We had to restart the launcher twice (once to patch, the next time to actually get the play button green) but were in character select within a minute of the patch going live. And then in a queue for just over fifteen minutes. By the time we got in, the only plots left were on cooldown timers because someone had gone around buying them up to relocate elsewhere.

We were aiming for the Goblet, and for a subdivision. The most unpopular choice in the most unpopular housing district.

We did everything we could but there was no winning, and the people bragging about snapping up their 4th house in the novice network because they use alts with FCs as a loophole for the one-personal-house-per-account rule was just insult to injury.

Maybe someday they'll instance wards by FC. Let people buy up plots around their FC house and allow anyone to visit but only those members to purchase. It would be a way to make lived in neighbourhoods you could travel and interact with without all this mess and misery.