Why do you want a House?

[Malk77]

I want a house for gardening, and because I like being able to use all the crafting skills I've built up to make something for myself, rather than just selling stuff on the MB. I also think it is incredibly appalling and somewhat insulting to make housing so limited when I keep getting rewards that I CAN'T USE because I don't have a house. I don't know why SE is so stubborn about adding a lottery system or about regularly increasing the number of available lots, but it's frustrating.

[Jojoya]

I don't know why SE is so stubborn about adding a lottery system or about regularly increasing the number of available lots, but it's frustrating.

A lottery system won't get you a house when there are no houses available. Why do you want them to waste time creating one instead of putting that time and effort into solving the supply problem?

SE doesn't regularly add houses because it requires negotiating for physical space at the centers where the servers are located, obtaining the hardware needed for those servers, and sending their own technicians to do the installation work. There's a slight chance COVID has forced them to change their stance on the latter, as we're seeing with the announcement about the OC data center. Travel restrictions mean they need to rely on third party contractors for setting up the data center, and probably have been for some of the other overseas technical maintenance as well. Whether or not they will be willing to rely more on third party support once COVID restrictions are no longer an issue is something only time will tell.

There's also the problem of not every world being in need of housing but the number of houses per world has to be the same due to SE's chosen technical design. Adding more wards because some servers need more houses means other worlds will end up with wards that are empty because there aren't enough players who want them (and that's a wasteful business expense from a corporate point of view).

Many of the JP worlds and 2 of the EU worlds have plenty of houses available right now for players to walk up and buy. Why don't we see the same situation in NA? Because NA players like to claim that worlds are dead if they aren't massively overcrowded so SE holds back on adding more worlds here. If players didn't demand the overcrowded worlds, SE would have reason to add more worlds and we'd have more houses in NA as a result.

[Malk77]

A lottery system won't get you a house when there are no houses available. Why do you want them to waste time creating one instead of putting that time and effort into solving the supply problem?.

Nonsense. You think every bit of the game is populated at all times? It'd be a huge QOL improvement for house hunters.

Your other point is laughable. There has never, and will never, be a world with empty housing wards.

[Jojoya]

Nonsense. You think every bit of the game is populated at all times? It'd be a huge QOL improvement for house hunters.

Your other point is laughable. There has never, and will never, be a world with empty housing wards.

It's not a huge QoL improvement when it doesn't result in players getting the houses they want.

And yes, there have been worlds with empty housing wards on other data centers at times (or are you trying to nitpick over 3 larges and a couple of mediums having owners while every single other plot in the ward is vacant?). Go back and visit the housing census thread posts from 2018. Vacancies weren't evenly distributed between all the districts and wards. Shiro generally filled but you'd have a couple of empty wards in LB and Mist with Goblet having several empty wards.

[Arohk]

I bet most of the people whining about not getting a house in here would play around for a few hours with it, then realize how much work it is to actually build something nice and then never enter their house again just blocking the plot for someone else.

Before you even buy a house, are you willing to invest hundreds of hours into it? Do you even have all crafting jobs at max to create the furnitures?

I have seen too many orphaned houses because people think they must have one and then not doing anything with it, its sad and unfair for those whoa ctually are into the whole housing/decorating thing.

[Sotaris]

It's not a huge QoL improvement when it doesn't result in players getting the houses they want.

And yes, there have been worlds with empty housing wards on other data centers at times (or are you trying to nitpick over 3 larges and a couple of mediums having owners while every single other plot in the ward is vacant?). Go back and visit the housing census thread posts from 2018. Vacancies weren't evenly distributed between all the districts and wards. Shiro generally filled but you'd have a couple of empty wards in LB and Mist with Goblet having several empty wards.

This. Pre-SHB we had wards, especially in Goblet for months on end empty/vacant on my server.

[Coletergeist]

I want a house for my degenerate rp.

[Dyvid]

So it seems Decorating is the number one reason with gardening and outdoor items as number two. Now let me ask you this. How would you feel about apartments if SE changed them to be the same floor space as a Small House; both width and height (two story) but remove stair as where it is one giant cube. This would give the players the option on how they want to build either a two or three story space. They could also make it possible to place indoor or outdoor furniture inside this space allowing for some really creative designs.

[ItMe]

Now let me ask you this. How would you feel about apartments if SE changed them to be the same floor space as a Small House; both width and height (two story) but remove stair as where it is one giant cube. This would give the players the option on how they want to build either a two or three story space. They could also make it possible to place indoor or outdoor furniture inside this space allowing for some really creative designs.

I think that would be lovely and would open the door to whole new approaches to design.
I feel like it's a pipe dream, but if it happened wow people would flock to apartments.