Why on Earth is there a timer for retrieving items after being demolished?

[Seleni]

I'm not a programmer to know the specific technical details. The simple explanation given to players is that instances are load on demand (when a player is ready to enter). The data for the instance is retrieved, it's created and the player goes in. The player leaves and the instance is removed (assuming no other players are still in it) so there is room for the instance server to create a different instance for a different player.

There's nothing new about this. MMOs have been using instance technology for various portions of their content for decades.

That’s more of a matter with data processing than data storage though. Instancing saves on processing power but it does not help with storage. (Think of it of it as cpu+RAM versus hard drive space. Multiple CPU cores + sufficient RAM let you run multiple applications simultaneously, but you need hard drive space to store the actual applications regardless of whether they are running.)

In this game, item storage seems to be very expensive; or at least SE is treating it that way. They’d have you use retainers (essentially half a playable toon) for additional storage than some bank system, and they charge a monthly fee for additional ones. The system might have been setup for lore purposes, but if that were the case, they could have made it a warehouse that retainers have access to, rather than each retainer having access only to his/her inventory.

Having items from auto-demolished house being tied to old plot, instead of previous owner(whether it be an FC or player toon) also seems an awkward decision. But maybe that’s their way to avoid dealing with auto-demolition of multiple houses belonging to the same owner.

[Almagnus1]

That’s more of a matter with data processing than data storage though. Instancing saves on processing power but it does not help with storage. (Think of it of it as cpu+RAM versus hard drive space. Multiple CPU cores + sufficient RAM let you run multiple applications simultaneously, but you need hard drive space to store the actual applications regardless of whether they are running.)

In this game, item storage seems to be very expensive; or at least SE is treating it that way. They’d have you use retainers (essentially half a playable toon) for additional storage than some bank system, and they charge a monthly fee for additional ones. The system might have been setup for lore purposes, but if that were the case, they could have made it a warehouse that retainers have access to, rather than each retainer having access only to his/her inventory.

Having items from auto-demolished house being tied to old plot, instead of previous owner(whether it be an FC or player toon) also seems an awkward decision. But maybe that’s their way to avoid dealing with auto-demolition of multiple houses belonging to the same owner.

I suspect it's part of the architecture that was inherited from 1.0 that hasn't been changed yet... or something they tried internally and things went boom. There's been a lot of things we've had to live with that shaped FFXIV because of how 1.0 was designed along with getting everything to work on a PS3.

That said, some of it definitely needs a second look.

[Themarvin]

It is a temporare use of the Database, that allow this feature, just like spam mail it will deleted after x amount of time, co keep the database clear, too much yank in the database... from eg. 1000's of players inactive or 100.000's of players, will hurt the server stability, especially in a field where it has not been invested into havind additional resources.

That is the long explanation told short, they wont know if you are coming back, so unless you have legit stored it on retainers and such, then it vanished into thin air to preserve resources.

I don't know what the time is for an ex subscribed player will be in the database, or if there is any limit on that though, to go a bit further with things.

Sorry for your losses