We need a system for appeals on housing demolition

[DoppelShifter]

[TL;DR] We need a system where we can appeal to the demolition of playing housing in specific situations (few examples would be unforeseen hiatuses due to health issues / computer malfunctions, missing the deadline for mere hours/days, glitches impeding the game from registering player attendance to their house, etc etc). It'd be good for the players, and it'd be good business for Square Enix, as many players keep their subscriptions just so they can maintain their housing during prolonged hiatuses; deleting them just gives them a reason to stop subscribing or abandoning the game for good.

[Foreword]

I'm breaking a promise here to never come back to these forums. Years ago I was one of the players leading the charge against Square Enix's then-decision to remove regional pricing, thus skyrocketing subscription pricing for players in many countries (...except the UK for some reason). I then got a temporary ban. Others kept the movement alive, some posting on my behalf, but I swore to never come back here ever again.

Well, here I am, because Square Enix's customer support continues to be terrible, and after screwing up spectacularly once again when dealing with an issue, they "kindly" asked me at least 3 times to come here and "offer feedback" on how they could improve their services.

Okay. I'll do that. But I'll be very thorough.

This post will be split into sections for the sake of readability.

If you want to skip to the detailed suggestion rather than backstory stuff, go to section 4.

This will also have to be broken into multiple posts, because of the tiny character limit.

[DoppelShifter]

[1) The inciting incident]

On April 6th 2026, my cottage in Shirogane's Ward 3 Subdivision, plot 44, was demolished. I found out about it on the following day, on April 7th, when I opened my email inbox, something I hadn't done in weeks, and thus had missed both warning emails.

The reason why, however, is a little more complicated. I've suffered from severe chronic depression for years, possibly most of my life. The last few years have been particularly bad, and the last few months even more so. I've been having appointments with a neuropsychologist to help my neurologist pinpoint a diagnosis, on whether I have Autism Spectrum Disorter, ADHD or something else under that umbrella, as I have many of the typical behavior patterns and symptoms, and my antidepressants have all but ceased to work, and I can't change to a new set of meds without knowing the full picture.
...This meant an immense mental strain for me through these last few months. I had no energy for most things. I haven't played FFXIV regularly since December last year, yet I kept my sub active so I could keep my cottage, logging in once in a while to keep it from being demolished. However, I've also fully retreated from most things. Not just gaming-wise or even internet-wise. I've stopped meeting friends. My phone is turned off more often than not. I checked emails maybe once a month. My mind was overwhelmed, I had no willpower nor energy to do most things. And it was in this situation that I missed the two emails that warned me about the demolition of my cottage.

I immediately logged into the game, confirmed my house was gone, and the immediately tried to contact Square Enix's support. And that story is a doozie, which will be described a little further down the line.

[DoppelShifter]

[2) The cottage, Eorzea and me]

I think everyone who owns housing in FFXIV knows how special it is to them. A small virtual safe space that they can call their own. Their little corner in Eorzea that they can tailor to their own tastes and needs.

And Eorzea itself, a space that welcomed us for 12 years. For some of us, including me, those 12 years included some of the worst years of our lives. Pandemic. Political persecution. Natural disasters. Personal disasters. The loss of loved ones. And yet Eorzea was always there to be our safe haven, our place to connect with dear friends, to experience good stories, to build good moments.

Even during extended hiatuses, I'd guess for most players Eorzea never really leaves our hearts. It certainly never left mine; my login screen counter shows 3060 days subscribed. Meaning I've been here for most of its story, and it's been special for me. It's where I met some of my most trusted friends. In a touch of irony, it was even the subject of my postgrad thesis (about "virtual gaming environments as safe spaces for self-expression"), even though I'd lose my spot in that postgrad program due to my deteriorating mental health because of the pandemic.
...So even during the worst moments, Eorzea never ceased to be dear to me.

And my cottage in Shirogane, I had it for about 6 years at least (though with the gap I have in my screenshot folders, it might have been 7 years). With over 12 years of "reborn Eorzea", that means it was at least pretty close to the point where the span of time when I owned that cottage was longer than the span of time I didn't, during my time in this game. And I loved that little place. The cutesy carbuncle decoration, the meticulous placement of every topiary and every garden stone on the pathways.
....The interior was always a mess, but that was because I was always changing my mind on what to do with it. December last year I contacted a decorator to help me overhaul the interior in a more "tech/modern style", inspired by another game I love, Arknights, and of course taking advantage of the new influx of modern/futuristic housing items. We were just waiting a few more months for a few more items, and for my personal situation to be a little more favorable.

....But then April 7th happened.

[DoppelShifter]

[3) The Customer Support failure cascade]

Immediately after confirming that the plot was empty, I went to what I thought would be the main hub for obtaining support information: The Mogstation. I was then redirected to SQEX's support page, and its subpage for FFXIV. There I had two options: Live chat or Email. Chat was a no-go, as it was just outside active hours.
The plot was still not eligible for purchase, so this meant I still had time. So I tried the email, hoping that it would be enough to solve the situation by next day.

...Next day I received a short email response that read as if it had been written by an AI that detected the words "housing" and "demolition" and thus regurgitated that line about how I "can recover 80% of the gil spent in the plot, as well as some furnishings" etc etc. Basically proving that no human being read my message, as that reply ignored 90% of what I wrote.

I then immediately tried the live chat, and here things got weirder. The support agent was kind but also they mentioned that SQEX's support can't do anything about it; "in-game" situations have to be solved with the Game Masters, meaning I had use the in-game Support Desk and try to talk to a GM about it.

I immediately logged into the game, went to the Support Desk and used the (very confusingly nested) options to talk to a GM, which would "review the request shortly".

...I spent 5 hours waiting and nobody showed up.
It was 10:30PM, I needed to go to bed to try to go to the hospital in the following day, so I just left another message to the Support Desk and went to bed.

The following day, April 9th, I had a reply from the Support Desk. "Sorry, when a GM tried to contact you, you were unavailable". There was no timestamp, but the date stamp read "April 9th", meaning it took at least until past-midnight until a GM finally tried to contact me. This was already absurd, so I decided to go all the way: try again, this time sooner, and stay until a GM appeared.

It was around 1PM local time when I requested, again, for the GM services. Meanwhile, I sat there, in front of the empty plot.

Some hours I sobbed. Others I cried into a towel.

16 hours later, around 5AM of April 10th, a GM finally responded.

"We do not offer this kind of service at this time."

I'm not sure what offended me most. The 16 hours of waiting, or the fact that most of the GM's lines were clearly copypasted blocks of text. A lot of them were the same paragraphs that I had read in the SQEX emails and chat agent. I tried to convey my story in human way and most of what I got back was corpo-laced copypaste. Very little humanity showed through.

It was borderline misanthropic when the GM's last line included "It was a pleasure talking to you"; a line I couldn't respond to because the DM link was immediately cut, and I couldn't message them anymore.

All I could do was log off, cancel my subscription, and cry myself to sleep.

[DoppelShifter]

[4) Suggesting a better alternative]

So here we are. April 10th. Okay, I will do it. I will suggest "improvements" to the service.

First of all, offer the option to an appeal post-demolition.

And no, this will not mean "far less plots will become available to other players".

Most of the plots that get demolished are due to players who completely abandoned the game and thus won't even notice the emails about housing, much less even try to appeal.
Others are just players who bought housing, but then squatted on the plot without doing anything with them, so if *those* try to use the appeal system, a simple check on their activities will prove they weren't using it, so the appeal won't work.

...For the real cases, however, this can mean the difference between keeping a player, or losing them forever.

The system should be, naturally, human review. GMs, Support Agents, whoever's most appropriate internally. They would read the appeal and take the following aspects into consideration:

• How long has it been since the house was demolished
• Did the player have an active subscription
• Did the player actively use the house (did it have furnishings, were they changed recently, or at least in clear bursts of activity that indicated they actually used it instead of mere squatting on the plot)
• What were their reasons for missing the deadline

If there's enough evidence that the player just had a small lapse in timing, or there were serious circumstances that prevented them from avoiding the demolition but they still showed serious interest in using it, or any other situation where it's clear that the player will continue to make use of that house, and that it will contribute towards keeping them in the game, then undo the demolition. No fees. No penalties. Refund any bids from folks who were trying to buy the plot. And the world moves on.

If it's just clear the player didn't care about the house anymore, or if they didn't even have an active sub and was just squatting on the plot, then request denied, the demolition stays.

[DoppelShifter]

5) Afterword: Ties that bind

A lot of things binds us to Eorzea.

The stories. The characters. The friends we made along the way. The vistas, the gameplay, the raids, the moments of laughter, the moments of joy, the moments of both sad and happy tears.

The shenanigans in Limsa Lominsa's main plaza.

Whatever happens in the Quicksand.

And, of course, our own houses. The events, the hangouts, the parties, the quiet moments. The sheer pleasure in just... changing the decorations.

So, so many players who take breaks from the game still keep active subscriptions so they won't lose their small collection of bytes that code that "this virtual space belongs to you, and is customized to your own tastes".

We have entire economies of decorators and housing designers that often make Second Life players blush.

So it's in Square Enix's best interest to offer an opportunity for players to keep those houses if they show that they're still invested in them.

....How many players just took a housing demolition as the last straw and just... left the game, never to return?

...Will I be one of those?

I'm not sure. I cancelled my subscription and I'm officially taking a potentially very long hiatus.
I'm not sure how long it'll take. Heck, I'm not sure I'll still be alive to come back in time.

But at the very least I'd wish there was a system in place to prevent other people from suffering through the same situation.


...Thanks for reading up to this point.

May you all walk in the Light of the Crystal.