Turn Housing Demolition on

[KuroMaboroshi]

It has everything to do with areas of operation. There were three regions in which Square officially operated Final Fantasy XIV: North America, Europe, and Japan, none of which have seen a war in decades - the Balkan Wars happened in the 90s - until Ukraine was attacked.
(I am not sure if the same is true for Oceania, though I highly doubt New Zealand and Australia have been involved in any wars in recent history either. Not sure about the smaller Oceanian nations though.)

While wars have happened in other regions, those were not reason to suspend demolition, because they did not affect an area Square officially does business in, and are thus unlikely to have a large playerbase for the game in. That's it. Anyone going "but there is always a war somewhere" is engaging in bizarre levels of hyperbole.

[Shibi]

...though I highly doubt New Zealand and Australia have been involved in any wars in recent history either.

Not recently, but the Australian army did lose to a bunch of wild birds in the Great Emu War of 1932.

[Silverbane]

I can see why events in Europe mist justify pausing demolition on the EU servers.
I don't see why it should pause demolition on the NA and JP servers; the number of players harmed by continuing demolition on those servers would be miniscule compared to the number who benefit.

[KuroMaboroshi]

I can see why events in Europe mist justify pausing demolition on the EU servers.
I don't see why it should pause demolition on the NA and JP servers; the number of players harmed by continuing demolition on those servers would be miniscule compared to the number who benefit.

You'd be surprised. There are plenty of us EU folk over on the NA servers.

Also, I'd argue the "harm" inflicted by there being less housing available due to a lack of demolition is miniscule compared to the one inflicted by someone losing their house through no fault of their own on top of an already shitty situation.
The moment one concedes that housing demolition suspension in a crisis is in principle the right call, even if it is only a token gesture of goodwill towards people who have other worries at the moment, then one can't argue that somehow people not being able to get a house to begin with, but who are otherwise fine somehow need their "distress" balanced against the actual distress of people in real trouble.

[Silverbane]

You'd be surprised. There are plenty of us EU folk over on the NA servers.

SE should IMO actively discourage players from making investments in immobile game assets outside their home geography.

I'll go farther and suggest that SE should outright prohibited people from owning houses on servers in a geography other than their own. Yes, I know people can use VPNs to get around this, but I still think it would be a good idea.

[KuroMaboroshi]

I'll go farther and suggest that SE should outright prohibited people from owning houses on servers in a geography other than their own. Yes, I know people can use VPNs to get around this, but I still think it would be a good idea.

This can't be a serious take, can it? I have been swallowing bait again, haven't I? Shame on me...

It's fine though, you can have "my" housing spot I didn't end up taking on the EU DC.

[ChazNatlo]

Wait, it's been off...? Thank god I actually knuckled down and relenquished my back to the market. I was considering sitting on it till it auto demolished so I could get some of my gil back, but figured it'd take too long when I thought demolish was on.

[Nyxs]

I think it should be turned on and I own a house. No point having them owned by inactives.

[dspguy]

You know, the war between North Korea and South Korea isn't over either. They are in a perpetual stalemate.

The point I'm making is that there will always be a reason to keep the timer off. If not the Russia/Ukraine conflict, then it will be millions of displaced refugees that aren't settled for years. Or the millions of displaced refugees from Syria years ago. Or an earthquake. Or a hurricane.

The precedent Square Enix has set will always beg the question: If SE shut off the auto-demo timer for X, then why not for Y?

If SE recognizes that natural and man-made disasters are reasons to stop the loss of virtual real estate in a video game for those affected... then maybe they should realize the ridiculousness of their system in the first place. The pausing and restarting the auto-demolition timer isn't the solution. Remove the timer entirely and change the system so all players can have housing going forward.

[hynaku]

Theres always conflict going on and wouldn't ones from Ukraine be playing on the EU database. So the Jp and NA database shouldn't have it turned off.