Reclamation of Inactive Housing (details)

[Hammersmith]

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.  It's how us gamers are wired.

[Oli!]

 

 

Oh if we speak about gardening for example? Maybe the FC is using the garden just to grow minions, glazenuts to make gil for the FC ect, so the FC leader is locked out for using it for his or her own personal gain. My old FC never had the leader doing anything with the house, an officer did the decoration, the gardening and all that, he was really just the FC leader in name, and I think most FCs are ran like that.

 

I feel as if I'm bashing my head against a brick wall now though, and you're only willing to see it from one side, whereas I already said the system is stupid multiply times, but every argument you've brought up can be turned around so easily as well.

Not everyone is some greedy booman who happens to own a FC house you know? If you don't like how it is being ran, well, there's always other options, such as making gil to buy your own home, joining another FC ect.

 

That said, people without a FC, and with a personal house, don't have access to a personal rooms in their house. Should we go whine about that as well? I don't see anyone making a massive issue out of that as well, whereas I see plenty of FCs using alts ect to make rooms for their roleplay purposes, while people without a FC but a personal house have just a house to roleplay in. Housing system is massively flawed. Yes this is one step, but trying to bash down the people who happen to have gil for both just sounds like jealously.

 

I'd love to make Gil and buy my own home.

 

Too bad there's no homes to buy.

 

What you're mentioning is not the problem. The problem is that the thought process you're subscribing to either assumes an infinite number of houses, or simply doesn't care about people being locked out of certain features.

 

By buying multiple items of which there are a limited amount, you are denying other people of that item. Add into that the fact that those items allow for entry into content that people will otherwise be unable to experience, and people will be understandably frustrated that other people are buying multiple things of which there is a shortage.

 

It's not a question of jealousy. It's people being annoyed that they are unable to access content, regardless of eligibility, because someone logged in while they were at work or whatever and snapped up their second or third house, which would be of mostly redundant use, mechanically. This is not an unreasonable complaint.

 

The argument that people should not do so therefore stems from the following: Do you have absolute control over all the content you want? If so, then don't buy a second house. If not, then do. Living in an FC chamber does not fulfill that first value if you want unrestricted access to certain things. Having control over an FC house, meanwhile, does fulfill this, which brings into question why someone might buy a second house under that circumstance.

 

"Because they can and want to" is always a reason you can use, but that doesn't take away anyone's right to complain. I have the legal right to buy up every bottle of soda in the world and say none of you can have any, but that would still make me an asshole.

 

Also the bit about having personal rooms in a personal house is irrelevant, considering that a personal house serves all purposes of a personal room, and then some. No one raises a fuss about it because it would be a redundant feature.

[Telluride]

Maybe it's because other games have managed to handle housing, even with a ward system, just fine, and a long time ago, so any problem in FFXIV is one of either dev willingness or older choices interfering with implementation, which is a dev issue, no matter how much anyone would ask the playerbase to stop complaining about it.

[Ignacius]

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.  It's how us gamers are wired.

 

That's not necessarily true, though.  SE has made a foreseeable and obvious misstep with housing.  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.  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.  Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out; despite the intention they've created a sore spot in their gaming.  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.  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.  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.  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.  They're only certainly damned if they do nothing.

[Momo]

This is not the last feature of change to the wards, there will be a three step system to make changes over the next year, this is simply the first.

 

No matter what your opinion will be, this will do something, though I think it will be a small change because as much as people complain about empty houses, I rarely if ever see these "empty" houses.  This will either cause players to return, or houses to be up for sale later this year, and either of those things would be a good thing.

 

Some things to consider that you have already discussed:

 

~Not all FC leaders are power and money hungry monsters!

 

~There are houses up for sale (nearly all the time), and the market is inflated yes, but everything on Balmung is inflated (including egos and personalities...#RPServer)

 

~There are ways of making a lot of money among FC members, and so the costs of most of the houses I am seeing be sold, aren't so far out of the range of reasonable as to gripe about it. (Though I agree, they should be sold not far over the original amount myself, some of those you buy from are selling for what they paid themselves!)

 

~If your FC is an RPFC and has no money, this may be a signal to actually play the game to make money to get the house you really want

 

Some amendments to the above, I am an FC leader, an RPFC who has a small amount of members, but we make sure from the start that those members value game play as well as role play, and in the very short time that we have been together, we have generated tons of rank and money together, without even being very vigilant about it.  If your FC cannot do this, it is time to rethink your priorities in the game, and place value in game play, so that in the future making money is much easier and faster.

 

Some Cash-Raising Ideas:

 

~Dungeon Spams for rare items, schedule revolving among your group

~Look to your crafters, if they can make things, or have a real desire to craft, invest time and money in them so as to get a return that will help the entire group

~Sell everything! Make a week, or some times of the week, where everyone agrees to sell all their useless items, and donate that money to the FC

~Daily/Weekly/Monthly donations to the FC chest, make a minimum for all members of the FC to donate after a certain amount of time, not too much though!

~Le Gasp...throw an RP event with donations...we are groups of RPers after all, do something simple, and invite friends, and LSs, if you don't have many of those...back to the drawing board!

 

And so on, these are just a few of the easier ideas, but they would each probably manage to help you raise a good bit of money for your own house.  I cannot tell you, as someone who values FFXIV as a game and a mode of Roleplay, how frustrating it is to have people who do not care to contribute to a group through gameplay as well as RP.  This is a game, and should you be joining with others to accomplish goals, be sure that you can handle the level of their goals, and be a contributing member, instead of a leech who "just feels like RPing", because it is not in anyway unreasonable for your FC, or hell, even your friends in general IG, to expect some amount of FFXIV gameplay out of you from time to time.

 

If you didn't like this change, wait for the nest two!  You will probably manage to hate those as well!  In the coming months, to a year we will also be getting:

 

2. Moving and Trading Housing, so we sort of heard about the Ishgard housing transfer system, they said that this will be phase 2, and include proper trading of housing to other players as well as transfer from one place to another, or it was implied as such, not given a whole lot of detail

 

3. Add New Wards, this will be the last step in the process, and they have been stating that both new wards will be added and/or Ishgardian wards will be added, so it is a toss up on what they decide to include in this last step.  The time frame they gave was a year or more for this last step to take place.  So there is a wait for this last step certainly.

 

To check the above information, please refer to the Gamescon 2015 interview!

 

Now...let us go talk about Halloween stuff, because they are basically loading us up with junk we all absolutely need!

[C'kayah Polaali]

I've read that LotRO reached similar issues according to this post.

 

There is housing in other worlds so the issue is that the far more populated wards reach full much faster. Their system applies to the worlds at large and not per world so there's plenty of housing on the other worlds but the more active ones got full. They implemented essentially what SE is doing now.

 

It did... sort of. People didn't understand the system, and so they would complain because they couldn't get the exact specific land spot that they wanted (certain spots in a ward are always more popular than others due to the view or whatever, I'm sure that's the case in FFXIV too). What they didn't realize was that if they and a friend paid a little gold to buy up the last couple spots for houses of that size, it would trigger the server to generate new wards due to crossing that "availability threshold", which it wasn't currently wasn't due to those couple of "not in the popular spot" houses of the given size being available.

 

Yep, this. What would typically happen was all the small houses in a ward would get snapped up, then the big ones would linger a while and it would be hard to get small houses where you wanted. It wasn't a terribly big deal - my first house in LOTRO, I really wanted one specific spot. I ended up waiting about 4 days until I could get it. My second house there was part of an attempt by my guild to fill up a neighborhood with only guild members, so with that one I ended up getting a leftover deluxe house in a spot I didn't love, but that was sort of an artificial restriction.

 

In general, housing in LOTRO is far more functional than in FF. If you simply want a house, and you have the money, you can get it without a problem, even on the more populated servers (my first character was on Landroval, my second on Laurelin, both of which are highly populated servers), because it spawns new wards on demand.

 

I've argued (both here and on the SE forums) that a hacky variant of that could be implemented by SE fairly easily: The take the existing number of wards and pool them. Each server starts with 1-2 wards, and then they draw new wards from the pool as those wards fill up, LOTRO-style. The hardware costs don't change, as it's still the same number of instances. You simply have those wards allocated unevenly between the servers. Low population servers might be fine with their initial 1-2 wards, while servers like Balmung might have 12-48 wards. It doesn't solve the problem, but it at least mitigates it.

[T'shina]

Well, it has been stated that this is only phase one. Phase one said that they were going to free up unused property. Then they'd move to phase two and open up more wards. Then phase 3 was actually opening up Ishgard wards. Or phase 3 and phase 2 are reversed... I don't remember which but I do remember seeing this discussed when the reclaiming of housing came into question.

[Sig]

The FFXIV housing system is fundamentally flawed because supply is so beneath demand that it has priced a substantial portion of players out of the market. This will continue until supply is dramatically increased.  The current lack of housing is highly detrimental to new players, RP'ers, and casual players in particular for obvious reasons. 

 

The solution to the housing problem is not to apologize on behalf of SE, or encourage players to grind out unreasonable sums of gil for purely aesthetic elements of gameplay.  These approaches will only increase market inflation and exacerbate the problem. The only solution to the housing problem is increasing supply.  

 

Housing is an important element of the game for many roleplayers.  It should not be a luxury contingent on certain social connections or obscene quantities of PVE farming.  Until supply can keep up with demand, housing will remain critically flawed.  It doesn't matter how supply is increased (i.e.  more wards, aggressive reclamation, etc.), but SE's current proposals are unsatisfying vague.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Perhaps this has been answered elsewhere, but has SE given any reason for the lack of demand-driven wards?

 

Housing in another MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, was very much like it is in FFXIV - wards of houses, and each ward had the same layout as the other wards. Their system was set up to generate two (or three? I don't remember) vacant wards if the existing wards were 90% of a given house size (there were three sizes) were purchased, or if the existing wards were just 80% full overall across all sizes. Servers with low populations just ended up with few wards, while the popular ones had many wards.

 

I'm totally at a loss as to why that wouldn't work for FFXIV. Has there been a dev explanation for the current Super Restricted Availability Policy?

 

PS3 limitations. 

 

._.

 

I'm not sure what additional housing wards has to do with PS3. A player can only be in one given ward at any time, and client-side you only process data relevant to where you are right then in the game.... so the existence of 5 wards or 500 wards shouldn't impact any player's processing load.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Perhaps this has been answered elsewhere, but has SE given any reason for the lack of demand-driven wards?

 

Housing in another MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, was very much like it is in FFXIV - wards of houses, and each ward had the same layout as the other wards. Their system was set up to generate two (or three? I don't remember) vacant wards if the existing wards were 90% of a given house size (there were three sizes) were purchased, or if the existing wards were just 80% full overall across all sizes. Servers with low populations just ended up with few wards, while the popular ones had many wards.

 

I'm totally at a loss as to why that wouldn't work for FFXIV. Has there been a dev explanation for the current Super Restricted Availability Policy?

 

PS3 limitations. 

 

._.

 

I'm not sure what additional housing wards has to do with PS3. A player can only be in one given ward at any time, and client-side you only process data relevant to where you are right then in the game.... so the existence of 5 wards or 500 wards shouldn't impact any player's processing load.

 

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

 

Have you seen the Inventory menu in a typical Final Fantasy game? Dozens and dozens of items, and you scroll down them using this little cartoon hand icon that points to the item you're currently on. I'm sure if there were 50 wards, this would work just fine, especially if they allowed the user to re-sort the list (so if your friends' houses are on wards 27, 31, and 44, you could move those three to the top of the list if you wanted, for less scrolling).

[V'aleera]

Given SE was bold enough to put player housing as a front and center feature on the remodeled FFXIV homepage, I'm hoping this reflects confidence in equally bold changes to be implemented in their planned three-phase housing changes.

[Kage]

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

 

Have you seen the Inventory menu in a typical Final Fantasy game? Dozens and dozens of items, and you scroll down them using this little cartoon hand icon that points to the item you're currently on. I'm sure if there were 50 wards, this would work just fine, especially if they allowed the user to re-sort the list (so if your friends' houses are on wards 27, 31, and 44, you could move those three to the top of the list if you wanted, for less scrolling).

Well... it took them like 2 years to add in TP bars... They'd mentioned it was PS3 limitations for the UI/HUD

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

 

Have you seen the Inventory menu in a typical Final Fantasy game? Dozens and dozens of items, and you scroll down them using this little cartoon hand icon that points to the item you're currently on. I'm sure if there were 50 wards, this would work just fine, especially if they allowed the user to re-sort the list (so if your friends' houses are on wards 27, 31, and 44, you could move those three to the top of the list if you wanted, for less scrolling).

Well... it took them like 2 years to add in TP bars... They'd mentioned it was PS3 limitations for the UI/HUD

 

And that the font is MASSIVE in a typical console game. Not everything scales so nicely as a MMO.

 

A scrolling list for houses would probably work quite nicely, if they were to implement it that way. (But they didn't :

 

But even then, scrolling lists have their limits. Ever tried to scroll down the friends list for a moogle mail? It's terrible if you have more than maybe 20 people in there. x_x

[LiadansWhisper]

Perhaps this has been answered elsewhere, but has SE given any reason for the lack of demand-driven wards?

 

Housing in another MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, was very much like it is in FFXIV - wards of houses, and each ward had the same layout as the other wards. Their system was set up to generate two (or three? I don't remember) vacant wards if the existing wards were 90% of a given house size (there were three sizes) were purchased, or if the existing wards were just 80% full overall across all sizes. Servers with low populations just ended up with few wards, while the popular ones had many wards.

 

I'm totally at a loss as to why that wouldn't work for FFXIV. Has there been a dev explanation for the current Super Restricted Availability Policy?

 

PS3 limitations. 

 

._.

 

I'm not sure what additional housing wards has to do with PS3. A player can only be in one given ward at any time, and client-side you only process data relevant to where you are right then in the game.... so the existence of 5 wards or 500 wards shouldn't impact any player's processing load.

 

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

 

It was tongue-in-cheek, but that's not the actual issue why the wards are limited.

 

So, for whatever reason, when SE designed the Gardening (and, I believe, the Chocobo Raising) systems, they made it so those pieces (the plants/plot) have to constantly check in with the server in order to "grow."

 

The problem with this is that it requires the Wards to be active at all times.  They must exist at all times. (This is also, incidentally, why they can't seem to get gardening to work for FC house rooms, as those rooms do not exist when no one is in them, which is why you get booted to the front lawn when you DC and log back in.)  What SE has said is that, because the wards MUST be persistent, there simply isn't enough room in the hardware itself to support an infinite number of them 100% of the time.

 

This is why they have a limited number of wards, and this is why the housing system is complete balls on any server that has a significant population.  So until they fix the gardening system to stop being stupid, or they add more hardware, we're stuck with a system where they can only have a limited number of wards on each individual server.

 

So they say, anyway.

 

Here's hoping they figure a way around it, because I want a damn house (and I would really like them to do something with wherever those random roads out of the housing areas were supposed to go to, because it's obvious they were supposed to go to something else, but they've never put it in).

[LiadansWhisper]

I think heat was a tongue in cheek response.

 

But actually, it is a console issue. A window/UI box can only lost so many things because it becomes visually difficult to read. Especially if someone is sitting a "recommended" distance from their TV.

 

Have you seen the Inventory menu in a typical Final Fantasy game? Dozens and dozens of items, and you scroll down them using this little cartoon hand icon that points to the item you're currently on. I'm sure if there were 50 wards, this would work just fine, especially if they allowed the user to re-sort the list (so if your friends' houses are on wards 27, 31, and 44, you could move those three to the top of the list if you wanted, for less scrolling).

 

What's in your inventory is simply a database entry.  It doesn't take up any real "space" in the hardware itself.  Housing wards take up actual space.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

What's in your inventory is simply a database entry.  It doesn't take up any real "space" in the hardware itself.  Housing wards take up actual space.

 

Only while the ward is loaded (which you've explained is apparently all the time due to the gardening thing - so at the moment... yeah). If it's not being viewed by anybody, then it's just DB entries too.

[LiadansWhisper]

What's in your inventory is simply a database entry.  It doesn't take up any real "space" in the hardware itself.  Housing wards take up actual space.

 

Only while the ward is loaded (which you've explained is apparently all the time due to the gardening thing - so at the moment... yeah). If it's not being viewed by anybody, then it's just DB entries too.

 

It really isn't.  It's up all the time.  It exists, up and running, even when no one is in it.  That's the entire point of what I was saying.  It doesn't just exist as a database entry that's only called upon when you open your bags and doesn't really "exist" in 3d or whatever.  The Wards are up 100% of the time, always running.  They are always chewing up fluid memory as well as hardware space, and they take up MUCH MORE than the database entry that is your inventory.

[Kage]

What's in your inventory is simply a database entry.  It doesn't take up any real "space" in the hardware itself.  Housing wards take up actual space.

 

Only while the ward is loaded (which you've explained is apparently all the time due to the gardening thing - so at the moment... yeah). If it's not being viewed by anybody, then it's just DB entries too.

 

It really isn't.  It's up all the time.  It exists, up and running, even when no one is in it.  That's the entire point of what I was saying.  It doesn't just exist as a database entry that's only called upon when you open your bags and doesn't really "exist" in 3d or whatever.  The Wards are up 100% of the time, always running.  They are always chewing up fluid memory as well as hardware space, and they take up MUCH MORE than the database entry that is your inventory.

Mmmm I remember people always making notes to people to make sure they took care of their gardens before long maintenances or else you'd get the ill purple glow thing (sick plants? whatevers)

[Ignacius]

What's in your inventory is simply a database entry.  It doesn't take up any real "space" in the hardware itself.  Housing wards take up actual space.

 

Only while the ward is loaded (which you've explained is apparently all the time due to the gardening thing - so at the moment... yeah). If it's not being viewed by anybody, then it's just DB entries too.

 

It really isn't.  It's up all the time.  It exists, up and running, even when no one is in it.  That's the entire point of what I was saying.  It doesn't just exist as a database entry that's only called upon when you open your bags and doesn't really "exist" in 3d or whatever.  The Wards are up 100% of the time, always running.  They are always chewing up fluid memory as well as hardware space, and they take up MUCH MORE than the database entry that is your inventory.

 

It doesn't really matter because, between FC housing and personal housing, I don't often see a ward completely empty anyway.

 

However, the problem is that, as built, this is a terrible system for memory issues.  That means SE needs to be fixing it ASAP, because a system that is built with problem is a system that needs to be rebuilt.

 

It would likely be fine if housing was personal on spun instances and the wards were purchased, maintained, and exclusive.

[LiadansWhisper]

 

 

Mmmm I remember people always making notes to people to make sure they took care of their gardens before long maintenances or else you'd get the ill purple glow thing (sick plants? whatevers)

 

Yeah, apparently maintenance messes with the "time passed" part of it, so even if you water your plants right before maintenance, you need someone on to do it right after as it always seems to use up FAR more time while down than when the servers are running.

[Kage]

If patch 3.1 drops on Nov 10 like people think, a few plots may be available at or on Christmas :>

[Aldotsk]

Time to check my ward to see if one of those wards will be demolished so I can buy my alts plots that I've earned from dailies. Since I usually come online almost everyday to check, I can just hop onto my alts and just enter my house to let that 45+ days be gone.

 

An amazing idea, by the way. At least people get 80% of their purchased plots and most of the furnishings back. 45 Days is not terrible. It's really fair. I thought they'd make it 30 days, but extension of another 15 days with email warnings is definitely a fair deal.

 

I am glad this is happening since there will be plenty of people who want the plot including me as well, and they needed to get rid of dead plots with inactive players already.

[rainichan]

In regards to the finite space discussion, you're able to upgrade a PC to run better specs, load more assets in a virtual box such as a game, etc. With a ps3, it runs on fixed parts. You can load in a different HDD, sure, but replacing the motherboard, upgrading ram, etc? No can do. You can replace parts if they finally bite the dust, but it uses specialized parts for the hardware that don't seem to be able to be upgraded (google has told me as much beyond "you can try to mod it but it may/may not work" and that comes with its own issues.) Trying to stay within x amount of ram specs, memory issues, and whatever else on the ps3 while catering to their PC users who can swap out a new graphics card, sound card, etc to make their game run smoothly is not an easy task. Too much on a screen in hardware you're already pushing to the max can cause it to just not work, which is why I can believe them when they said "We have no idea how to implement TP bars just yet so it doesn't overload your ps3" before they swapped elements out. So for servers to be used for housing are storing a good amount of data plus whatever else they have running on them for maintenance and whatnot plus the inferior ps3 specs they have to still cater to until they release 4.0 in the next year or so makes it limited in how they can do things.

 

Instancing it out would probably cause problems with the instance server (since that's where your dungeon instances likely are too, or they're at least in the same server cluster) in slowdowns, or it wouldn't be what they wanted to go for in the way of "walk up to anyone's house, look at their cute interior/exterior designs, get to know your neighbors!" I remember the XI approach in having to have people in your party and having to inviting them into your Mog House; I wanted friends to be able to just walk in should they wish. So its got its pros and cons,

 

I think the way they've handled housing thusfar hasn't been the best, and yeah they could stand to change it (and maybe they're restructuring it in the shadows, separating FC housing and personal housing from each other and will make that announcement later!) but for now, yeah it's a bandaid but it's a temp fix for them before they can implement a permanent fix. Better server infrastructure and all would be great, and maybe they're upgrading them, who knows!

 

tl;dr I like the way they're going about it! They're giving ample warning with emails to everyone in a FC, a house owner, multiple times. But as a lot of people on reddit have even pointed out, if you've got an empty house/lot that you just have as a trophy and aren't doing anything with it, give it to someone else who will actually use it instead of just letting it sit.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Time to check my ward to see if one of those wards will be demolished so I can buy my alts plots that I've earned from dailies. Since I usually come online almost everyday to check, I can just hop onto my alts and just enter my house to let that 45+ days be gone.

 

An amazing idea, by the way. At least people get 80% of their purchased plots and most of the furnishings back. 45 Days is not terrible. It's really fair. I thought they'd make it 30 days, but extension of another 15 days with email warnings is definitely a fair deal.

 

I am glad this is happening since there will be plenty of people who want the plot including me as well, and they needed to get rid of dead plots with inactive players already.

 

Given that there are a lot of players who don't have even one house due to the finite availability, yet they are active players, I sorta feel like maybe it would be really nice of you to consider not buying houses for your alts. It doesn't make a lot of logical sense for one player to have multiple houses when other players have none.