Some missing bits here.
The personal housing was indeed originally going to be in separate wards, however they decided to mix them up with FCs because while housing was FC only the wards were completely desolate and empty.
Since the launch of ARR and the absolute lack of actual social content and interaction that promotes stronger bonds between players. Virtually all those big linkshells or groups of players ultimately collapsed and fell apart.
There's numerous reasons for this.
One ofl the top ones being the total lack of free company group content of any form. Even the free company primals were scrapped and free company's developed into little more than a chat channel.
Other reasons include the game design itself with content all being designed specifically for 4 or 8 people, it meant that Free Companies found it impossible to include everyone who wanted to participate. This either lead to people being left out and getting upset / angry or every one doing nothing. 7 of your members want to farm Garuda. Sorry you can't unless you get a pug 8th. But that 8th interferes with any loot plans you may have so you don't bother going at all, so again people get frustrated or angry.
Then there's the msq. When you and some of the people in your free company all want to do it together and find you can't because "you must be solo in order to continue this quest" which is annoying to this day... its an mmo I wanna play with friends.. it also leads to people leaving other people behind because you get notorious stuff like Brush of Cold Steel in 4.0 that held players up for 3 or 4 days clicking the npc trying to get in an instance and progress the story.. This then meant some of you have done it and were moving on while others were still stuck waiting sometimes for days. This also hinders new players as well, How are new players meant to make friends and build connections when the game keeps telling them they have to be a billy no mates in order to continue the story. Its one of the reasons many new players dont stay around very long becasue they cant make decent connections when the game blocks them.
In 14 for example I cant even tell you names of anyone who was in my expert an hour ago or who was there the first time i cleared the most recent story dungeon., but I can still tell you the names of everyone in the party when i beat the raven in 1.23 or if you want to get even more nostalgic when i beat the shadow lord in FFXI and that was nearly 20 years ago..
All of this has destroyed many free companies even some of the closer knit ones from 1.0 or other games including my own LS from 1.0. The game is designed to be anti social right down to the fact you can't even send your friend a tell if they or you are in an instance of any kind.
The effect of all of this meant that the housing wards were empty and deserted because almost no free companies ever survived long enough to even get the rank required to buy a house and of those that did. Getting members to work together when everything in the game is designed to be antisocial is a nightmare. Hell just getting 4 people into a company workshop so you could advance a project became a real challenge.
So the devs decided to open it up to personal housing in an attempt to populate the wards. Thats why they mixed fc and personal because free companies just didn't survive long enough.
All those players in your free company that get frustrated or angry because they feel left out. And can't participate in stuff. Like if 5 people want to do roulettes or a palace floor 200 run.. well either someone's getting left out. Or no one's going. Which then means all those players end up breaking connections and jumping from FC toFC to FC and relegating the entire FC concept to essentially just a chat channel..
The wards were designed to be highly social, an actual neighbourhood. But the game itself is designed to be anti social and anti inclusive in so many ways that meant players attitudes ultimately become more and more self centred and not group centred and thats what has lead to the current housing situation as well as many of the so called "toxicity" issues and arguements.



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