FFXIV Housing Re-Imagined

[SerenityLuministia]

Apologies in advance for the long in-depth wall of text. You are welcome to read if you are interested in my ideas.

I would also like to say these are my personal opinions after much thought of what I believe the FFXIV player base would enjoy most on a broad scale but also what I think the game would benefit most from in the long run. I'm also very much aware that these are all very extensive ideas and mostly likely will never happen due to the amount of overhaul it would require. But it's still fun to dream. That being said, you are welcome to agree or disagree and post your own thoughts on my ideas of re-imagined housing.


Start out by scraping everything you know about the current housing in your mind. I will also be completely separating Personal Housing and Free Company Housing into two completely different categorizes and play styles.

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Personal Climate Controlled Domes (Personal Housing):
Focus: Personal Use and Creativity

Brief Lore:
After the success of Labyrinthos deep below Old Sharlayan, researchers sought out to replicate the massive dome on a smaller and more personal scale. With Etheirys' new allies the Loporrits and their previous failure with Smileton, the Loporrits and the Sharlayan researchers combined their knowledge to mass produce their new and experimental Personal Climate Controlled Domes. A brave adventurer such as yourself is more then happy to try out this experimental technology and push it to it's limits!


Main Tools:
Summoning Bell:
-Summons Retainers (Same as Current).

Location/Climate/Time Control Machine:
-Set the Background(Skybox) of your personal dome, be it Desert, Beach, Snowy Mountains, Foggy Forest, etc.
-Set the Climate of your personal dome, such as Clear Skies, Snowy, Rainy, Dust Storm, Auroras, Gloomy, etc.
-Set the Time of your personal dome, like normal day-night cycle, permanently stop time at sunset, permanently stop time at midnight, etc.

Holiday/Unique Furniture Replicator:
-Previously earned Holiday/Unique Quest/Mog Station furniture may be traded to this machine and it will light up the previously grayed out text on a list to bright white to indicate you obtained this item. It will also disappear from your inventory. You will only ever need one.
-After selecting the Replicator again, you can purchase the item again and make as many copies as you want using Dome Crafting Points (more on these points below).

Workbench: (This will be your main go-to location)
-Trade in Raw/Crafted materials as the building item indicates, to create it. (This will be a way to include Gathers/Crafters and stimulate the Market Board if you choose to buy instead).
-Create Parts of Walls, Floors, Roofing, Doors, Windows, etc. When creating a item such as a Wall you can indicate the material on both sides you desire, such as brick on one side and red floral wallpaper on the other side. You will then be prompted on the materials this piece of wall will require along with dye colors to trade in.
-Create Furnishings such as tables, chairs, rugs, mannequins, weapon displays, etc. You will similarly be prompted materials and dyes, such as a type of wood, cloth, and dyes for a chair for example.
-Create Natural Features such as trees, flowers, rocks, water features, etc. Same as before you will be prompted to collect and trade in seed types and fertilizer for some flowers for example.
-After the successful creation of a Wall Section/Furniture/etc. you will also earn Dome Crafting Points, these points can then be used to copy furniture at the Replicator, or buy backgrounds(skybox) skins at the Climate Control Machine, or even unlock additional furniture or features at your dome with these points.

Refurbisher:
-Placing already created and no longer wanted Wall Section/Furniture/etc. in here will grant you back a third to a half of the materials used in creating it.
-Placing already created Holiday/Unique Furniture in here will grant you some Dome Crafting Points back.

Weapon/Armor Hologram Machine:
-Trade Weapons and Armor of your liking up to a certain amount to make a hologram copy save of these items. You still keep the weapon/armor in your inventory after trading.
-After placing a mannequins and/or weapon display, you can then return to the Hologram Machine, select the mannequins/display and then project the image of that armor/weapon onto it.

Message Book
-Located near the Enterance/Exit of your Dome, similar as how they work now. Depending if you have your Dome set to Public or Friends Only, people can write you a little something complimenting your creation.

How it all fits together:
-As a new player progresses through the story they earn a personal dome. These are all personal instances. (I'm still unsure at what point this should be, I'm thinking pretty early in the story, even though in my lore I describe events of Endwalked, I don't think people should be forced to wait that long for housing, I don't have a good solution here) The dome will be defaulted with a background(skybox) matching to their starter city, and as they progress through the story they earn additional backgrounds(skyboxs) at certain points in the story matching where they've been such as the Ruby Sea or Sharlayan, etc. Other backgrounds(skyboxs) can be purchased using Dome Crafting Points.
-Teleporting Home will place you outside an area where if you run in you will auto go into your personal Dome.
-Each Player can set their Personal Dome access. Public where anyone can visit by searching that players name at the entrance to all the private instance Domes. Private where it's locked to anyone else but you. Friend List to where only yourself and people on your Friend list can access your Dome when searching for it.
-By selecting Working Level in your Dome, you can pick the level you are working on, such as basement (underground), first floor, second floor and third floor. You can then further modify where you want to place the item using the X, Y, Z Axis. This will even allow for free floating items if you so choose. Along with rotating and tilting items diagonally.
-Using the Workbench you can create the Dome of your dreams. You are not limited to having a house on your plot of land in the dome. You can have a garden, ruin, snowy wonderland, haunted mansion, or even a hut held together by three peices of metal, etc. The limit is your imagination.
-When choosing to build a house, you are not limited to a rectangle shape either. The walls/doors/windows/roof fit together like puzzle pieces and can make any house shape you desire.
-Of course you can even fill your space with gardening furniture and use your Dome as a gardening/harvesting space


Final Thoughts on Personal Climate Controlled Domes:
Lets say it's Halloween, and you want to build a Haunted Mansion and invite your friends to RP with you. You set the background(skybox) to foggy forest, set weather to gloomy, set time to permanently midnight. You then use the workbench to build your mansion, throw in some ruins, and dead trees. You then go to your Replicator and copy a ton of jack o'lanterns, you want this place to be covered in them, you make like 30. Set your Dome access to Friends only and have a great time.

Then it's coming up Christmas Time, you are now finally tired of your Haunted Mansion and now you want a Winter Wonderland. You set your background(skybox) to snowy mountains, set weather to snowy, and set time of day to normal day-night cycle. Then you use the Refurbisher and toss all those Haunted Mansion parts in there to get some materials back. You also toss all those jack o'lanterns in there and get some Dome Crafting Points back. You then use some of those re-obtained materials to create a stone path. Create some snow covered trees, a bench or two. Use multiple levels to float in some colored lights. Use the Replicator to make a snowman. Now you have a Winter Wonderland garden and you don't even need to have a house here if you don't want to. You are very proud of you creation so you set your Dome to public and let anyone visit as they see fit. They even leave you some praise in your Message Book.

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Free Company Guild Hall (Free Company Housing):
Focus: Multiplayer Use and Team Activities

Brief Lore:
In recognizing the strength of adventurers, The Grand Companies of Eorzea granted districts of their cities towards the building of Free Company Guild Halls where as in adventurers can band together. From their headquarters they can pool their resources, and plan to fell the most powerful of foes all in the protection of their beloved Etheirys.

Main Tools:
Summoning Bell:
-Summons Retainers (Same as Current).

Market Board:
-Buy off Market Board (Same as Current).

Calendar Board:
-Used to schedule a Free Company event, by filling out a brief: name of event, date, time, and small additional text for extra info.

Company Achievement Plaque:
-This can be used to search currently completed and incomplete Company Achievements.

Interior Decorator NPC: (Interior Floor/Wall/etc. type offered will also be in the style of the starter city chosen)
-Create/Update your Free Company's Logo.
-Option to Hang banners in the Free Company Hall depicting your personalized Logo.
-Select up to three colors as a theme for use on curtains, rugs, and other cloth-like items in the Hall (predetermined locations).
-Select a floor type: wooden, carpet, stone, tile, etc. (predetermined locations).
-Select a wall type: wood panels, brick, stone, tile, etc. (predetermined locations).
-Select decorative plant types: desert, mountain, coastal, jungle, etc. (predetermined locations).

Contractor NPC:
-Used to expand/unlock more rooms in your Free Company Hall as your team completes goals/ranks/achievements.


How it all fits together:
-A player decided they want to create a new Free Company. Similar to current, they gather three other players to sign and start up their New Free Company with a custom name at the Grand Company located in the starter city of their choosing.
-The New Free Company leader then gets access to the Free Company City District. There are three Free Company City Districts for each of the starter cities, Gridania, Ul'dah and Limsa Lominsa. The Districts are specific zones with very large and grand looking predetermined buildings, different from each-other but all in the styles of the starter city they belong to. Approximately 30-50 buildings per zone.
-There is also a District Center where there are additional Summoning bells and Market Boards. This area can be used as a gathering place for multiple FCs to interact and/or find additional people to add to their events if they are lacking.
-The New FC Leader then chooses the building he/she likes the best out of the existing buildings, and determines that they want that one to be their base. Only the doors are accessible for these buildings, clicking and scrolling on the doors brings up a list of all the Free Companies that are Instanced in that building.
-At this point the New FC leader can teleport to right outside the selected building's door and once clicked on will be transported to their particular FC Hall's instance. Any additional players invited to that FC will also be able to teleport to right outside their FC Hall's Instance doors.
-The Interior Decorator NPC will be used to change the major parts of the Guild Hall such as Floors, Walls, and Color Themes. With the option to hang banners including Company Logos.
-Inside the brand New Free Company Guild Hall the players will only have access to the main hall at the start. As they work together to complete goals/ranks/achievements they will gain access from the Contractor NPC to expand/unlock additional rooms for their Guild Hall.
-Additional Rooms may include: (among others I might not have thought of)
-Trophy Room: certain amount of bosses killed, or certain hard raids cleared may reward a bust of that boss, or some kind of other trophy.
-Music Room: room filled with different musical instruments that can all be played and used to set up a team band.
-Aquarium Room: room that's floor to ceiling aquarium, that the fishers in your free company can use to fill with fish they've caught.
-Gardens: an area that can be used either for growing/harvesting plants, or growing and leaving plants as is for a relaxation area.
-Pools: a pool room with swimming, relaxing in a hot-tub, and some water slides (A Fisher might even fish up some rare "Discarded Swimming Trunks" here.
-A Theater Room: a Large stage and seating area, where you can dim the lights and change the background and set up a show for your Free Company members.


Final Thoughts on Free Company Guild Halls:
Due to already having an extensive creative output accessible to everyone with Personal Domes, I wanted to limit the actual decorating aspect of Free Company Guild Halls in order focus more on Team Activities and Team Play. Having too much decorating for the leader only, would feel like being locked out of content for the rest of the team. I still wanted customization but limited for the Guild Halls.

Having a Calendar Board for scheduling and Company Achievement Plaque to see your progress allows players to set up team events to accomplish goals together. Having locked rooms, that you work on as a team to unlock with the Contractor NPC allows for a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of a fun reward at the end. Having an external zone with multiple Free Company Guild Hall Instances per House, allows for a community feel outside just your Free Company, while also retaining the aesthetic belonging to that city's Grand Company.

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If you stuck around this long and were interested enough to keep reading. Thank you!

I put a great deal of thought into these ideas, with my main goals being how to bring something that's fair, fun, and rewarding to the most amount of players!