Could we do something?

[lorthera]

that article is almost 5 years old and not really relevant in 2021.

When that couple bought the houses no one bought house on Mateus. They were up for sale for months on end.

yes, i know. i brought up the article to point out how this topic keeps getting brought up over the years lol.

the group has been there for years, longer than most people on mateus. this topic keeps getting dragged up. isn't anything new.

[Jojoya]

that article is almost 5 years old and not really relevant in 2021.

When that couple bought the houses no one bought house on Mateus. They were up for sale for months on end.

It's very relevant to why that specific pair of players has most of a ward to themselves. They acquired those plots fairly under the game rules at the time.

A lot of new players don't realize that before patch 4.2 in January 2018, there were no restrictions on how many houses a single player could own (though there was still the passive 1 personal, 1 FC house per character limit). Players that had acquired multiple houses prior to the rules change were allowed to keep them since they had done nothing wrong at the time they were acquired. Even now, the rules only state how many houses per world a single account can have (still not per player).

If I wanted to put in the effort, I could have 80 houses by having a character on each of 40 different worlds and having a personal house and FC house for each character. I would be doing nothing wrong by the rules of the game even if that means there are 79 other players who won't be able to get a house.

SE really needs to pull its head out of the sand about how bad the ward system is when it comes to serving the needs of players. An instanced system would serve the entire player base and allow anyone who wants to own multiple houses to do it without impacting another player's ability to get a house.

[Almagnus1]

It's very relevant to why that specific pair of players has most of a ward to themselves. They acquired those plots fairly under the game rules at the time.

A lot of new players don't realize that before patch 4.2 in January 2018, there were no restrictions on how many houses a single player could own (though there was still the passive 1 personal, 1 FC house per character limit). Players that had acquired multiple houses prior to the rules change were allowed to keep them since they had done nothing wrong at the time they were acquired. Even now, the rules only state how many houses per world a single account can have (still not per player).

And that's also why I don't like grandfathering in stuff because it creates haves and have nots.

[Chagur]

They need to fix it so only one alt/main character can be leader of a FC. The intent was one personal and one FC per server. The one private has been enabled but the problem is FC's purchases are broken and they're done nothing to fix it.

see this would be how they should do it, only the leader of the FC should be able to own an FC home (and that ownership moves to the FC leader if they try to change it) though I'm sure there would be ways around that as well...

[Dewslam]

What's SE supposed to do? Remove their claim on the houses? Ban them?

Who says you're not next if they do that?

More supply is the only actual solution. Atleast in my head! I doubt the lottery system is gonna change much either.

But never say never! ^^

More supply isn't viable when not only does it require more hardware in a time where there's a literal shortage and even a million dollar company can't magic up infinite amounts of servers, space to secure them and people to maintain them but people will continue to use alts to bypass the rules as long as the rules aren't well clarified and enforced. If square isn't going to add instanced housing then they need to better define the rules for housing to prevent this "technically not breaking any rules" garbage people use to do things that were clearly not intended by a system that assumed everyone would be playing in good faith.

As for the scare tactic of "who says you're not next?"
Well if there's twenty people in a room and a plate of ten cookies - then yes I'd say we start slapping the hands of people who reach for three or four cookies entirely for themselves first. And maybe start telling off those who pay their friends to get them two or three more cookies so they're the only ones who can get any while most of the people hanging out can't even get one crumb. Is the problem with the core system of whatever jerk only gave twenty people ten cookies? Yes. Of course. But the least people could do is not abuse a bad system. The absolute least.

If you do something cruel or selfish and your only defense is "Well the rules don't say I can't pee in the pool, everyone else does it!" Then you're probably not standing on solid ground to begin with.

[PredatoryCatgirl]

As for the scare tactic of "who says you're not next?"
Well if there's twenty people in a room and a plate of ten cookies - then yes I'd say we start slapping the hands of people who reach for three or four cookies entirely for themselves first. And maybe start telling off those who pay their friends to get them two or three more cookies so they're the only ones who can get any while most of the people hanging out can't even get one crumb. Is the problem with the core system of whatever jerk only gave twenty people ten cookies? Yes. Of course. But the least people could do is not abuse a bad system. The absolute least.

Except there weren't 20 people in the room, there were 4. Everyone had 2 or 3 cookies until the plate was empty. Then 16 more people showed up and started asking why there weren't any cookies.

[Besame]

So while looking for some available housing in Ul'dah I noticed several homes in one ward all owned by Moon, isn't there something we could do to stop these people with multiple accounts owning different homes as it takes houses away from other players.

30 plots out of the many plots wanted by players is a mere drop in the bucket. The system is bad so put the blame where it should go, to SE&Co. You cannot rationalize with hoarders in real life let alone in an MMO so just keep tagging SE to fix housing and move on.

[Niobee]

And that's also why I don't like grandfathering in stuff because it creates haves and have nots.

SE is to blame for “haves and have nots” because they missed to improve the apartment system and did not add enough new wards with the increasing number of players. It is not the fault of veterans who got their houses by playing by the rules.

They need to fix it so only one alt/main character can be leader of a FC. The intent was one personal and one FC per server. The one private has been enabled but the problem is FC's purchases are broken and they're done nothing to fix it.

I’d rather have them not “fix” this. I currently have the leadership of two FCs (both with a house on the same server) where one got passed to me because the leader was absent for more than 30 days. I remember the time when you were forced to abandon a FC because the leader stopped playing and the other members would lose all they had helped to build.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

So while looking for some available housing in Ul'dah I noticed several homes in one ward all owned by Moon, isn't there something we could do to stop these people with multiple accounts owning different homes as it takes houses away from other players.

Prepare to be banned I said same thing with a similar thing on Ragnarok. They are aware of it but are not going to do anything about it.

[LaylaTsarra]

I’d rather have them not “fix” this. I currently have the leadership of two FCs (both with a house on the same server) where one got passed to me because the leader was absent for more than 30 days. I remember the time when you were forced to abandon a FC because the leader stopped playing and the other members would lose all they had helped to build.

You don't need to be the leader of two. Leadership should have been passed to someone else if you were already the leader of another FC. The FC abuse is rampart and it needs to be fixed. How is it that someone else couldn't be leader unless you were the only one left to receive it.

The intent was/is one FC and one Private per server per account in my view and that certainly isn't what is happening in reality.

SE is to blame for “haves and have nots” because they missed to improve the apartment system and did not add enough new wards with the increasing number of players. It is not the fault of veterans who got their houses by playing by the rules.

I certainly agree.