Data analysis of the current housing situation

[DPZ2]

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This is a good first attempt at data gathering.

The initial analysis is a bit cumbersome. For example, the words "considerably worse" are judgement calls, not data descriptors.

The use of the word "demand" is a two-edged sword. "Supply and demand" works well enough on an economic scale, but, when combined with "considerably worse", may be interpreted as a value judgement call.

"There are more FC houses in Japanese servers than in North American servers" is a better factual statement based on the data you've derived.

"Undesirable plots" is, again, a value judgement, not a factual statement.

Several of the statements are opinion which cannot be inferred from the data. "It's healthier" is meaningless in the context of the data. The use of the term "servers" should be replaced by "Worlds", as no World consists of a single physical server, and each housing Ward consists of more than one physical server.

"Most popular" and "prestigious" are also value judgements not reflected from specific data. It's useful to learn the biases of the analyst.

This was useful: "In entire game, there is 729 000 plots, but only 70 888 free plots. Out of these free plots, over a half (38 020) of them are on the new servers"

This was not: "New servers and wards carry every stat". It is not clear what the statement was supposed to mean.

This statement should never appear in data analysis: "If we ignore new servers ..." as (1) there are new servers and (2) there has to be sufficient reasoning (and making the numbers look pretty is not sufficient) behind ignoring data.

Behaviour is also not useful for data analysis, unless it is one of the defined variables being studied. Better to use "Differences in EU/NA and JP's player numbers provide some hints at why the availability of housing differs by type in each region".

And again, Dynamis has been available for players for 8 months. If the 'player population' site used does not have any relevant data, then the data is useless for the analysis, and should not have been included at all. If there is relevant data, then it should not be excluded simply because it makes the interpretation of results "wonky" (to use an extremely non-technical term).

Either of the solutions proposed would resolve issues. I anticipate that SE's response would be to create more wards.

[ThaCa]

EU situation will probably be alleviated quite nicely once they launch the new DC.

I got my house with the latest addition of the servers, there was basically no competition and it took few months for the servers to really get populated but now it is business as usual.

[Stormpeaks]

EU situation will probably be alleviated quite nicely once they launch the new DC.

I got my house with the latest addition of the servers, there was basically no competition and it took few months for the servers to really get populated but now it is business as usual.

You mean when they kill off Chaos and Light (or create a new completely dead datacenter) ?

Surely that will go well, it went so well for NA, what can go wrong with doing it to EU which has a lot smaller population.

If they go ahead with that new DC plan, they are absolutely oblivious (or dont care) as to what will become to the new players on the new DC. It wont populate, it'll just split the already "medium" population on EU into even smaller bits.

To clarify, there will be a peak at expansion release, but this isnt the WoW exodus phase anymore, it wont be as big of a peak, and also people will leave and it will go back to normal numbers, but with an even more split community than it was before the new DC.

On the topic of goblet, it's all opinions, some plots are decent but compared to other areas, it's absolutely mediocre, the only area that is on par with goblet is Empy as both of them are very depressing looking. The only good plots in goblet are 20/50 for small, 30/60 for large and 19/49 for mediums, the rest is really terrible, but it's all opinion.

[Kaurhz]

EU situation will probably be alleviated quite nicely once they launch the new DC.

I got my house with the latest addition of the servers, there was basically no competition and it took few months for the servers to really get populated but now it is business as usual.

I don't think they will continue with the second phase of their plan, honestly. They had a massive population influx that just didn't sustain, even remotely close - A lot of players just dropped, and I would wager some of their announcements hinged on them anticipating higher retainment numbers from the influx. We currently have Twintania as a preferred world in addition to Sagittarius, and frankly Sagittarius is just a barren wasteland, so I don't think they will do another DC on top of what we already have -- At least I wouldn't expect it until after 7.x tbh.

In the first phase of the expansion, scheduled for July 2022, a total of four new Worlds will be added, two under each of the logical data centers presently housed in the European Data Center. In the second phase, one new logical data center will be established and eight new Worlds will be added under it, resulting in a three-logical-DC configuration of 8:8:8.

It would be more of a barren wasteland than Sagittarius is -- and even more of a barren wasteland than Dynamis.

[Deo14]

This is a good first attempt at data gathering.

The initial analysis is a bit cumbersome. For example, the words "considerably worse" are judgement calls, not data descriptors.

The use of the word "demand" is a two-edged sword. "Supply and demand" works well enough on an economic scale, but, when combined with "considerably worse", may be interpreted as a value judgement call.

"There are more FC houses in Japanese servers than in North American servers" is a better factual statement based on the data you've derived.

"Undesirable plots" is, again, a value judgement, not a factual statement.

Several of the statements are opinion which cannot be inferred from the data. "It's healthier" is meaningless in the context of the data. The use of the term "servers" should be replaced by "Worlds", as no World consists of a single physical server, and each housing Ward consists of more than one physical server.

"Most popular" and "prestigious" are also value judgements not reflected from specific data. It's useful to learn the biases of the analyst.

This was useful: "In entire game, there is 729 000 plots, but only 70 888 free plots. Out of these free plots, over a half (38 020) of them are on the new servers"

This was not: "New servers and wards carry every stat". It is not clear what the statement was supposed to mean.

This statement should never appear in data analysis: "If we ignore new servers ..." as (1) there are new servers and (2) there has to be sufficient reasoning (and making the numbers look pretty is not sufficient) behind ignoring data.

Behaviour is also not useful for data analysis, unless it is one of the defined variables being studied. Better to use "Differences in EU/NA and JP's player numbers provide some hints at why the availability of housing differs by type in each region".

And again, Dynamis has been available for players for 8 months. If the 'player population' site used does not have any relevant data, then the data is useless for the analysis, and should not have been included at all. If there is relevant data, then it should not be excluded simply because it makes the interpretation of results "wonky" (to use an extremely non-technical term).

Either of the solutions proposed would resolve issues. I anticipate that SE's response would be to create more wards.

Thanks for feedback.

"Undesirable plots" is, again, a value judgement, not a factual statement.
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"Most popular" and "prestigious" are also value judgements not reflected from specific data. It's useful to learn the biases of the analyst.

What is exactly wrong with calling something "most popular", "prestigious" or "undersirable plots"? If we rate demand, isn't that essentially how much is something popular or (un)desirable for people based on data (at least in this case)? Would simply calling it "most demanded" and "least demanded" be more correct?


As for "If we ignore new servers, EU would have nearly 3x less free plots than JP, and NA 2.5x less than JP." - I wanted to give perspective on how did EU/NA get affected by new servers (also this specific point was actually taken from my first version, where it was more clear why I put that in). I should definitely add same thing, but with all servers included, so you can actually see the changes. But thinking back, evaluating this would be better with some timeline with older datasets to really get something meaningful out of that.

And again, Dynamis has been available for players for 8 months. If the 'player population' site used does not have any relevant data, then the data is useless for the analysis, and should not have been included at all. If there is relevant data, then it should not be excluded simply because it makes the interpretation of results "wonky" (to use an extremely non-technical term).

I was taking population data from FFXIVCensus, from # of endgame characters. The fact that Dynamis doesn't have data for it didn't seem that crucial for me, since I've also had analysis per regions. Since Dynamis has enough plots, it seemed fine to just ignore it. Obviously that is not a best solution by any means, but I didn't know how else should I evaluate housing availability without population data.

Anyways, thanks again for feedback. Looking at the data, do you think there is better way to evaluate housing availability, then just simple average of free plots per population?

[DPZ2]

Thanks for feedback.
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What is exactly wrong with calling something "most popular", "prestigious" or "undersirable plots"? If we rate demand, isn't that essentially how much is something popular or (un)desirable for people based on data (at least in this case)? Would simply calling it "most demanded" and "least demanded" be more correct?

If every single large and mid-sized house has been taken up, there can be no "most popular" plot. If plot #29 on every world is sold, and so are plots #1-28, which is most popular? Prestige is a value call, unless you have data on why players selected these sites.

One could better say "full-sized houses in non-FC wards are sold out on all worlds" - which is something you might be able to derive from your data. If "mid-sized houses in non-FC wards are sold out on all worlds" is also true, then which type of housing is "most popular"?

Another interpretation might be that "players with more gil tend to purchase larger houses", which can be inferred considering that the larger the house the higher the cost.

Your data would have to show that plot #16 in Ward 5 is generally empty across all worlds, which is what would occur if something were truly "undesirable" as opposed to simply "unsold".

Hope this clarifies my thinking about the use of those terms in your analysis.

[Oizen]

If only there were some sort of sanctuary that could save us from how bad housing is, perhaps on an island of some sort

[Reinha]

You probably should have done the data analysis on EU after the upcoming auto-demolition waves. And EU is getting 8 new servers. So really the housing problems are mostly on 3 North American data centers.

[Stormpeaks]

You probably should have done the data analysis on EU after the upcoming auto-demolition waves. And EU is getting 8 new servers. So really the housing problems are mostly on 3 North American data centers.

They wont go forward with the new EU DC, no way, they couldnt even fill 2 servers on each DC.

[Shinkuno]

They wont go forward with the new EU DC, no way, they couldnt even fill 2 servers on each DC.

If they do they are so out of touch that there is no point playing the game anymore