Quote Originally Posted by GeminiReed View Post
The developers designed housing to be a prestige reward and that it would be popular social spaces. In practice it was neither.


I keep seeing that remark oft repeated. When was the last time he expressed that opinion? I don't recall anything about it since Shadowbringers' released. Certainly not since the pandemic started.

If they truly believed that the wards were a viable social space I would think they would have added more features to make it that much attractive for that purpose and yet... nothing. Heck if you look at the wards attached to the starter cities you can see parts that look like airship terminals. Adding subdivisions and wards further divided the population and the severe supply shortage has made it near impossible for friends to live near each other. The darker side of the shortage is that it has been an absolute gift to the RMT crowd.

I'm going to go out on a limb and believe that he understands that now and have every reason in the book to explore alternatives. Unfortunately it's a very complicated feature to do right. Their existing instancing server can barely handle the load when enough people start using housing. I was getting the "Due to extreme load you cannot leave this area" error the night round two resolved.

I want to believe that they're working on that alternative. My only hope is that CB3 tends to be very tight-lipped about new features until they know it's ready for release. My suspicion is that Sanctuaries is a field test for a new instancing system.
That is an interesting take on Island Sanctuaries and one which I had not considered. Thanks for suggesting that. You have given me something to ponder...