(10-20-2015, 02:21 PM)Hammersmith Wrote:(10-20-2015, 02:14 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: I'm convinced anything SE does regarding housing will be The Wrong Thing, just short of opening up infinite wards.
miqotedragoonsascianswhitemagessoulstones
It's pretty much proven fact any move SE makes will be a bad one. Â It's how us gamers are wired.
![[Image: 0hE1V7z.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/0hE1V7z.gif)
That's not necessarily true, though. Â SE has made a foreseeable and obvious misstep with housing. Â When you limit absolute supply in an MMORPG, that particular area will be limited in the number of people participating in it, the price will rise, and you set up a bad player choice situation (either make that portion of the game as insignificant as you can to avoid player anger, or you risk having your playerbase revolt over the forced exclusivity).
This has been pretty well-known in the MMORPG business for a long time. Â SE went with their ward system because, I think, they wanted to make that housing a more public sort of system, more clearly mimicking housing in the real world. Â Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out; despite the intention they've created a sore spot in their gaming. Â Their housing is good, it's popular, they could expand its scope if it was widely and freely available and make every player very happy. Â However, as they're limited by sockets on wards, they'll be accused of wasting their time if they put more work and fun into the housing system.
Given all that, the good decision would be to make the housing widely and freely available since it's so popular and it provides such a useful gil sink. Â SE seems to be going the direction of making the housing less necessary and useful so that it's simply a sidelong niche that a player doesn't really "need", or even that many would necessarily want if they could get all the services and fun elsewhere. Â While that won't earn them ill will, it's not the best decision.
Still, that doesn't mean they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. Â They're only certainly damned if they do nothing.
