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Demoralizing Demand for Housing - doctorgalactic - 12-15-2013
I'd like to sound off here, and I hope that I can properly articulate the voices of some of my fellow RPers in the process, as well as my own tribulations.
I started a conceptual Role-Playing Free Company on Gilgamesh prior to the launch of 2.0 on an RP Forum. Â RPers are definitely the minority, I think we could all agree, but we did well enough out of the gates to be able to form officially right away. Â Founding date was the day of launch, and since that day we have been saving a Housing Fund. Â Literally since day one. Â In previous interviews,Â
YoshiP had stated that a medium sized house would be approximately the same amount that 3 people would make in their career towards becoming level 50. Â I thought that was a tall order at the time, and still do! Â However, we were dedicated. Â I didn't teleport, I didn't buy armor, and I only spent gil when absolutely necessary. Â By the time I'd reached lvl 50, I'd garnered about 300,000 gil, or so. Â It's a rough estimate as anytime I had a surplus it went into the bank. Â Our initial goal for our Housing fund was 500,000 as I didn't anticipate all of my guild members having quite the same level of dedication, and I wanted to lead by example. Â Every dime I made went into the fund.
Since those early days, we've grown vastly in size; currently we total about 130 or so. Â We hold events to raise money. Â We have days of the week dedicated to gathering and crafting for the Free Company fund. Â I have members that mine all day (6~8 hours in some circumstances) for multiple days to raise funds.
After months and months of hard work and dedication from my amazing role-playing Company, we're on the cusp of raising 10 million gil. Â I'm proud of our efforts, and I'm proud to know these fine people. Â Unfortunately the recently released information means that I won't be able to reward them for that effort. Â At least not yet.
We were all under the impression that with 2.1, Housing would be available and not some new long sought goal. Â We've only been at this since launch, and I personally feel terrible for the Legacy players. Â For them, it's got to feel like they're being punished for their loyalty. Â For us, the Role-Players, it is a de-moralizing defeat. Â
I understand that they want to ensure subscriptions and long term gameplay. Â I understand that they want dedication and tenacity. Â They have it! Â To be told 72 hours before the launch of the patch that we're just not good enough, however, will surely send ripples into the community that will be felt for a long, long time.
I know that Role-Playing can be seen as taboo. Â We're not a powerhouse end-game raid-hungry force to be reckoned with. Â But we do our damned best. Â We are open to anyone with an open mind and heart, and we've done well enough for ourselves, and in my eyes certainly well enough to purchase a place to call home. Â I will continue to positively re-enforce my comrades, and we will continue our efforts, not only to obtain a Free Company Hall, but to be one of the best role-playing Free Companies that we can be. Â It will be a rockier road than it has been, however, and one that few want to travel.
My name is Kayle Delwyn, Arbiter and Leader of The Driftwood Coast Free Company  on Gilgamesh.  My Company is my Family, and my Family is without a home.
RE: Demoralizing Defeat - allgivenover - 12-15-2013
To be fair, when YoshiP was talking about a house costing as much as what three fresh 50 characters would have combined he was talking about personal housing, not FC housing.
My pet theory is that the ridiculous initial prices of the FC housing is in part meant to remove a lot of RMT gil from the server economies. There is a red colored font blurb in the patch notes about how FC housing purchased with RMT gil will be confiscated and I suspect a lot of innocent players who happen to be in the same FC as cheaters who RMT are going to suffer for it.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - doctorgalactic - 12-15-2013
(12-15-2013, 10:54 AM)allgivenover Wrote: To be fair, when YoshiP was talking about a house costing as much as what three fresh 50 characters would have combined he was talking about personal housing, not FC housing.
That may in fact be true, and if so I will certainly stand corrected.  However this brings up another topic, as personal housing won't even potentially be available for another 6 ~ 9 months post 2.1 release, and that's if they decide to implement it in the fashion we've been anticipating.  There's also bee talk recently of simply making personal rooms in the Free Company Housing, whether this is in addition to personal housing or a substitute is still up in the air.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - doctorgalactic - 12-15-2013
I'd also like to submit the following, in regards to the previous post. Â This is a re-post from an official forum thread, and it begs the question; If YoshiP was referring to personal housing, why would he imply that 4~5 players would share their earnings to buy a house?
November 19th 2012 at 6AM EDT:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/58180-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-IV-Q-A-Summary
well, technically it was said the week prior, but that was when the official translation was posted.
[0:49:58]
Q: Roughly how much will housing cost including the furnishings and interior designs?
A: I think that maybe 4-5 players, each with one level 50 class could probably buy a house if they put all of their earnings together.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Desmond Aryll - 12-15-2013
There is another side-effect to the exorbitant prices.Â
Considering how much housing costs, small or new FC's (Rp or otherwise) will simply not be able to compare to the giant, faceless FC's out there.
Why would the average player want to save up for conceivably months with his dozen or so FC mates to buy a house when when they can just join an existing FC with 150-350 members already? The difference in money raising potential is way too unbalanced.
This is going to promote less and less new growth for FC's not associated with pre-existing groups. Bad show.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - LandStander - 12-15-2013
While I am definitely not coming to the defense of SE for this decision because I also think that they took it a bit too far and I am frankly upset and disappointed myself (Who the hell on Balmung is sitting on a pile of 315mil gil or more?!); I think the problem here is that we were all expecting to be able to buy a large house.Â
A lot of these FC's have 10-15 active members, sometimes a bit more or less. The FC I am currently in has about 40 active people and if we pool all of our gil together we could scrape up the 25mil for a small house (but I don't think everyone is willing to go broke to rent an apartment). The large homes sound they are reserved for the very large free companies with 100+ members in it.Â
While a few months down the road we might be able to buy the medium sized house for our slightly medium sized FC. I seriously don't see our FC getting a large house until maybe the first or second expansion at this rate...and that is factoring in the price drops along with members becoming inactive in the future and such.
I suppose I can never RP out the set of my Eorzean reality show "Who wants to date a hairy Roegadyn?"Â
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - DimmerMeerkat - 12-15-2013
While I agree the prices are a little too high, I don't think it's totally unachievable. If an FC bands together and saves concertedly for an FC house, I think it can be done. It just requires more than "a few" people doing their best to grind coin and donate it to their FC.
This is actually somewhat similar to Aion's housing dilemma. While they didn't have legion housing, personal housing prices on the higher end were pretty outrageous. My RP legion spent months in advance (3 or so) doing nothing but grinding for money. It wasn't terribly fun, but it was rewarding in the end. I really pulled my own weight by eventually donating something like 600 million Kinah to my legion, combined with all the other donations to make about 1.5 billion. This was when having over 100 million Kinah personally was exceptionally rare and pretty much reserved only for the super hardcore players.
I do think it shouldn't be easy, and I'm kind of relieved that no one seems to have the coin saved up already to afford it. It's something you need to work for, together, cooperatively, to afford... and people need to be selfless. If your FC's desires are in line with your own, it shouldn't be hard to coordinate. One thing I'd recommend is incentivizing donations. For instance, if you are or you know an artist, and someone donates 50k Gil, make/buy them a little doodle. If they do 100k, make/buy them a sketch. If they donate 250k, get them some nicer art. If they donate 500k, professional art. 1 million? Well, you get the idea. Really anything you have that can incentivize donations... use it.
I think it does fall on a FC leader to organize this sort of thing and ensure that FC goals are in line with the wants and needs of the individual members of the FC. Obviously you don't want to require a fee, but you do want to do something so you're not all on your lonesome for saving up. It will take work. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I'd actually be a little concerned if RP FCs, which in general are a little lighter in numbers and active gameplay, could already afford FC housing.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Ashscarred - 12-15-2013
(12-15-2013, 02:25 PM)Desmond Aryll Wrote: There is another side-effect to the exorbitant prices.Â
Considering how much housing costs, small or new FC's (Rp or otherwise) will simply not be able to compare to the giant, faceless FC's out there.
Why would the average player want to save up for conceivably months with his dozen or so FC mates to buy a house when when they can just join an existing FC with 150-350 members already? The difference in money raising potential is way too unbalanced.
This is going to promote less and less new growth for FC's not associated with pre-existing groups. Bad show.
Not much you can do about that, regardless. Large, faceless guilds will always exist when there is a system in place that rewards guild members based on participation and overall activity.
I wouldn't be too worried about it, though. The players who want to earn a house for their Free Company are going to do just that. The value comes not simply from having the house, but from having the house for you and your guild mates alone.Â
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'd never devote a minute of precious time donating Gil to buy a house for random people I don't know, nor would I get anything from using a guild house populated with said individuals.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Naunet - 12-15-2013
Once again, Squeenix has gotten it all completely, horribly backwards.
The implement new content, but the bulk of the effort that goes into enjoying that new content comes before you can even participate in said content. For some batshit reason, they decided that the journey in housing should start and largely end before you even get the house.
Horrid decision.
Getting the plot/house should be at most an extremely minor bump in the road (and a nonexistent issue for individual homes). The meat of the content should come from banding together to craft and farm up materials and decorations to transform your acquisition into a masterpiece. Rift got this right. WildStar got this right. XIV... seems to have lost 99% of its braincells when it comes to designing non-combat content.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Ildur - 12-15-2013
My reading of this situation is that Squee is hoping the people with the huge ammount of gil required to buy the FC houses (in Legacy worlds, I mean) will do so. But they won't, because people with a hilariously large pile of money don't dump it on the first expensive thing available. I'm sure some will, but not as many as Squee is hoping.
So I'm guessing they will drop the prices in a couple of months.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - doctorgalactic - 12-15-2013
We know that they've looked at least 3 months down the road for pricing, and they've stated that it won't drop below the 50% mark, and that's IF it doesn't sell. Â
In regards to the Legacy servers, they got it worst of all, IMHO. Â First they had a 10% gil reduction across the board, and while SE lowered the overall prices of items to "give them the same buying power" it's still a reduction in efforts. Â After that was said and done, they still went into the servers and pro-rated the housing based on the gil capacity. Â Think of the poor folks that are fresh to 2.0 that decided to join a Legacy server. Â
In regards to working towards a common goal, I'm all for this. Â Trouble is, we have been since day one, and unfortunately it doesn't appear we've made sufficient progress in SE's eyes. Â
As far as offering incentives for fund donations, that's worked up to a point as well, however who's going to want to drop those large sums of money now that all of the Companies out there still interested are going to be hoarding their gil more than they were previously?
Some math's been done over on the official forum, and it kind of shows the scope of what SE is asking for from us at this point. Â Let me preface by saying that IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM DO I SUPPORT RMT. Â With that said, at the current prices they are offering their illegal market of gil at, it would cost a little over $18,000 USD to be able to afford the largest house on a Rank 1 server. Â That's absolutely preposterous, and it certainly doesn't seem to reward the folks that have worked hard and saved up for this feature. Â If a server had more money to start with, they simply increased the cost of housing. Â I really don't see a clear winner here.
Building up and furnishing the property, in my opinion, should be the long term goal. Â Or let us buy our properties with the nigh-useless Free Company points we've earned.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - LiadansWhisper - 12-16-2013
I've already expressed my opinion about this on the official forums, but to say that I'm extremely disappointed - near to heartbroken - by these completely unfeasible housing prices would be very accurate.
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - BroodingFicus - 12-16-2013
My little heart is broken.
What makes this more frustrating is that the reasons given behind this whole debacle are likely only going to be worsened (encouraging rmt etc). Maybe I’m just bitter because I am one of those people mentioned above who started 2.0 fresh on Balmung and even 10 million Gil seems like a pipe dream one might have after a bout of food poisoning. Or maybe its because when they say they are basing the cost on the amount of Gil in a server....well, see below and raise your hand if your in that bottom 80% percent that own practically none of all this Gil they speak of. Square needs to take a look at what they are considering. None of this really makes sense to be honest.Â
[youtube]f0ehzfQ4hAQ[/youtube]
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Miah Polaali - 12-16-2013
It seems the Japanese players are also upset with the FC Housing costs.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/127913-It-appears-Japanese-players-are-in-agreement
RE: Demoralizing Demand for Housing - Ashren Dotharl - 12-16-2013
My group of friends and I saved as much money as we could make, managing to scrape together I think a total of 50-60 million total between the 8 of us, so it's not entirely impossible, though since making that money the market has crashed and the methods we used to make all that money are not longer viable... or as viable because market board prices very quickly plummeted as the pool of gil continually diminished into gil sinks.
If a group of 8 or so people can manage to obtain that amount of money without that much effort I'm sure some of the much larger FCs can afford the 315 million quite easily if they are as dedicated to it as we were.
Still, with that being said I think that the prices they currently have are a bit unfair and they really shouldn't have considered server economics, it should have merely been a flat price across the board for every server that was obtainable regardless of whether you were Legacy or not.