So, what now? Lotteries with 150+ bids until... when?

[SweetestLily]

Except that those people wouldn't have had reason to come onto the forums to complain about it and as such wouldn't have seen the posts asking for lotteries, etc. It's a pretty common occurrence in games dev and one of the reasons devs responding to the forums rather than actual data is risky. It's similar to how you'd expect most threads to be full of people complaining about a feature because the people that are happy with things wouldn't be on the forums complaining. It's a pretty simple concept that also shows up in customer service.

Then it looks like the majority won what they asked for.

[Sairys]

Then it looks like the majority won what they asked for.

That's also not a given, it's just a group of people complaining on the internet.
For it to be the majority of players it would have had to have been millions of players all agreeing, barring that it's just a portion of the playerbase complaining about something others aren't paying attention to. Realistically, if it was the millions of players that would make up a majority of the playerbase then housing would become one of their highest priorities rather than something they're only slowly patching but not really fixing.

[ShantiiElorei]

Then it looks like the majority won what they asked for.

I don't know what most people prefer. But Sairys is correct that you can't actually judge majority opinion based solely on forum comments. It's a fact that people who are upset about something are more likely to complain on the forums when that thing is affecting them. People who are happy with the status quo are more likely to be silent. (Speaking as someone who used to work in games and has a spouse who still does).

I see issues with both systems. The lotto is more generally fair/egalitarian, the old system favored people with more flexible schedules, more free time, and people who REALLY wanted a house so badly they'd go above and beyond for it. It's probably hard to judge what most people prefer also because I assume the lotto system made a lot more people interested in trying for a house who before may have considered it out of reach.

tl;dr it's possible the core of people who were REALLY enthusiastic about housing may be upset about this change, but this change may be more popular with the player base at large, including those with a casual interest in housing.

I'm someone who would have been able to placard camp (had there actually been houses available on my server before the change) and in the "very enthusiastic about housing" camp, and yeah it does kind of suck to keep losing out to people who may just not even care that much but wanted to give it a shot. But I'm also not sure the previous system was the best thing either, as clicking for several hours isn't so much "effort" as it is a miserable experience. I would've done it, but likely ended up with a repetitive stress injury as a result which is not something that should be happening just to get a virtual house in a video game.

Ultimately they need to decide whether they want housing to be exclusive to only the most committed and enthusiastic and add more reasonable hoops (high prices, some long involved quest chain, etc) or whether they want it to be accessible to much of the player base, even those with a casual interest, in which case they DESPERATELY just need to improve the supply problem.

Because what they currently have done is made attempting to get a house easily accessible to anyone with a passing casual interest while still having a severely limited supply and that is just a recipe for disaster.