Endwalker Housing Update

[Dustytome]

Questions I hope to see answered:

How many days for lottery and land acquisition period respectively? (answered: 5 days for bidding, 4 days for claiming)

How long do players that lose the lottery have to collect their bid?

Do players need to take note of which plot they entered for or is there something in game that gives the player that information? (answered: Timers menu -> Estate tab)

Are plots of land relinquished and auto-demolished during the lottery period held until the next lottery period or are they added to the currently running lottery period? (answered: Plot released during an active lotto are held until the following cycle)

What happens when an FC master removes themselves and only a new member that does not qualify for the rank is left?

How long is a member considered too new to receive the fc master rank or land purchase rights? (answered: 30 days)

How many fc members can enter for an fc plot at a time? (answered in February live letter)

If a players has no plots of land purchased on a world, but has multiple characters on the same world that qualify for the listed requirements to bid, is each character on the same world able to bid on a plot or will all attempts to enter be denied on alternative characters after the first?

It states the buyer of an fc plot cannot have ownership of an fc plot on the same world. Does this mean if the leader of FC A (no plot) also owns FC B on an alt (does have a plot), they could simply have a member in FC A put in a bid as long as that member does not trigger the fc ownership rule?

With Devaluation being discontinued in 6.1, will their be a higher discount when relocating since the minimum price will now be the default price, will the relocation discount be adjusted to about 15% of the full price as it is now or will the discount be removed?

[Jojoya]

How long do players that lose the lottery have to collect their bid?

This one did get answered. YoshiP said they planned to allow players 90 days to collect the refund of the entry fee. He apologized that it could not be a longer period of time.

What happens when an FC master removes themselves and only a new member that does not qualify for the rank is left?

I feel like the answer here will likely be that a FC master would not be able to leave the FC unless there is a qualifying member able to become FC master in their place, or unless they disband the FC.

I imagine we'll end up getting answers to the rest as we get closer to 6.1.

* * * * *

My thoughts about the changes in general:

This seems like a complicated effort that still won't fix the underlying problem. The supply does not meet demand in general let alone the demand for the more desirable medium and large plots.

The limits are still per world, not per account. As a single player with a single account, I will continue to have the potential to own 80 different houses if I want (granted it would take a huge stroke of luck) and that would mean 79 other players will never be able to get one.

First come, first serve wards serve no useful purpose in combination with lottery wards if relocation no longer bypasses the purchase timer. Players will still feel forced to placard camp to improve their chances of getting a house. Better to move all wards to lottery so placard camping stops.

We will see more drama as people learn to "play" the lottery system to improve their chances of winning. They will wait until the last possible moment of the entry period before purchasing to stack the odds in their favor based on entries already purchased.

We will continue to see cries of frustration as players continue to not get a house because a player that really didn't care about housing but had nothing better to spend their gil on wins the house then ignores it.

The changes to passing leadership of a FC are good but still won't be enough to stop flipping unless the time period for someone to no longer be considered "new" is unreasonably long.

SE is still not addressing the issue of shared tenancy for alts. They told us over 2 years ago that they were working to make alts automatic tenants of personal houses already owned by the same account on the same world. What happened? Why is my main still unable to share with my alts?

Apartments are still being neglected. Instanced housing has so much potential, as seen in other MMOs, and yet it's being ignored in favor of adding even more dead wards. Why? Give players reasonable options in apartments and the demand for houses in wards would be greatly reduced. Reduced demand for houses would reduce the need to get new server equipment to expand the number of wards to meet the needs of a growing player base.

It's still sad that I could revisit RIFT after a 4 year absence to find my multiple housing Dimensions (all much larger than an apartment including one that's about the size of Little Ala Mhigo and has a 2500 item limit) still intact while SE can't provide more than a tiny room as guaranteed housing to most of its players and can't even do that much on Balmung, where apartments are sold out and now ripe for flipping to Balmung players desperate to get any sort of housing at all.

It's time to stop pretending that band-aids are going to fix anything.

[Dustytome]

This one did get answered. YoshiP said they planned to allow players 90 days to collect the refund of the entry fee. He apologized that it could not be a longer period of time.

That slipped by me, thanks!

I feel like the answer here will likely be that a FC master would not be able to leave the FC unless there is a qualifying member able to become FC master in their place, or unless they disband the FC.

I imagine we'll end up getting answers to the rest as we get closer to 6.1.

Yeah, I'm sure we'll get more clarifications and additional info closer in. Interested to see how the system plays out, though I don't think I'll be participating in giving it a try.