3.3 & 3.4 Housing Updates

[Kellach Woods]

That, or it's an all or nothing thing because it's likely a server software patch and just easier to keep all datacenters on the same version. (China and Korea servers excluded).

considering this is a MMO, I'd bet a large sum of money this is the reason.

[Kage]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/303104-Only-1536-apartments-per-server?p=3846870&viewfull=1#post3846870

 

just to confirm: the apartments are per ward (including subdivisions) and not one per country. This is confirmed by Yoshida during the recent Letter from the Producer at around 2:09:20 in the Twitch stream, and is also mentioned on the 4gamer summary of the stream which states:

 

このアパルトメントは，3国の冒険者居住区の各区画に1棟ずつ建ち，部屋の代金は50万ギルになるという。

 

The Japanese ff14wiki also clarifies:

 

ハウジングエリアの区画1つにつき、一棟。拡張エリアにも立つ。1棟あたり512戸。 12区＋拡張エリア＝24区。24区×三国＝72区。72×512戸＝1ワールドあたり36,864戸ということになる。

 

Yoshida also mentioned on the live stream that, if it wasn't enough, they could still add more (but I tend to think this will be enough for all but the absolute busiest of servers, at least for now).

[Ruran]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/303104-Only-1536-apartments-per-server?p=3846870&viewfull=1#post3846870

 

just to confirm: the apartments are per ward (including subdivisions) and not one per country. This is confirmed by Yoshida during the recent Letter from the Producer at around 2:09:20 in the Twitch stream, and is also mentioned on the 4gamer summary of the stream which states:

 

このアパルトメントは，3国の冒険者居住区の各区画に1棟ずつ建ち，部屋の代金は50万ギルになるという。

 

The Japanese ff14wiki also clarifies:

 

ハウジングエリアの区画1つにつき、一棟。拡張エリアにも立つ。1棟あたり512戸。 12区＋拡張エリア＝24区。24区×三国＝72区。72×512戸＝1ワールドあたり36,864戸ということになる。

 

Yoshida also mentioned on the live stream that, if it wasn't enough, they could still add more (but I tend to think this will be enough for all but the absolute busiest of servers, at least for now).

 

 

*HALLELUJAH CHORUS*

 

'All but the busiest of servers' though. /weep

 

Still, it's a relief that all divisions and subdivisions will be getting their own apartments. That's a huge increase in housing!

[Kage]

Considering it's 36k and Balmung was recently said/reported to have 20k active characters, it should be good for awhile yet.

[Kage]

Live Letter Digest came out.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/304383

Apartment-style housing will be added. These apartments will have a shared lobby and chocobo stables, which can be accessed by all tenants. Each ward will have one apartment, and it will cost 500,000 gil for a room.

 

I bolded this because I am worried about the specificity of this word. Let me explain why the word usage needs to be specific and why it's 'not just semantics' that I am pointing at the use of 1 apartment per ward.

 

In the additional housing plots lodestone page

Wards 9 through 12 will be added to all residential districts. Subdivisions will also be available in these new wards

They made -sure- to note subdivisions so that everyone knew how many plots would be added per residential district. Also keep in mind how the subdivisions in teleports are per ward. You can only use the aetheryte system per ward but it includes subdivisions as areas within the ward in its hierarchy of teleports and naming (If you go to each of the 12 wards you see Ward 1 tab 1-30 tab 31-60. It's not Ward 1 Ward 1 Subdivision. They may function in some basics as wards but subdivisions are not wards.

 

Hoping that it really is subdivisions get 1 apartment.

[Warren Castille]

When you're wondering if it'll be 15,000 rooms added or 30,000 rooms added it IS semantics.

 

Read the previous page, Warren, before commenting.

 

...still. It's only (512x12)3 rooms.

[Delilah Scythewood]

It's better then the previous limitations when it's come to housing. This allows a lot more people a better shot to get something. Even if they just toddle to some random ass ward, at least they won't all go away within a few minutes the way other places have.

 

Granted they won't be around for long but still!

[Oroban]

New housing preview

THANK YOU SE FOR YET ANOTHER CONFLICTING NUMBER. This preview on the Lodestone says an apartment building per ward AND subdivision. Then it goes on to say only 90 tenants per building, which means...hardly any apartments. Didn't they recently say it was going to be a significant number?

[Kilieit]

Takes the current estimated total down to 6,480 per server.

 

It's more than the 1,536 we thought there'd be when news of apartments first came out, but still...

[Kage]

RIP in pieces.

 

Apartments.

 

For those who asked.

Players are allowed one apartment per character. Furthermore, it is possible to own both an estate and an apartment.

* Estate sharing is not permitted with apartments. Furthermore, apartments are not subject to auto-demolition.

[Kodie]

RIP in pieces.

 

Apartments.

 

For those who asked.

Players are allowed one apartment per character. Furthermore, it is possible to own both an estate and an apartment.

* Estate sharing is not permitted with apartments. Furthermore, apartments are not subject to auto-demolition.

 

Yeah this isn't worth it if you have an FC room, especially since you can't share the apartment.

 

So this is more than likely geared for folks in FCs that don't have an FC house available too them, so I'll just pass on it personally and wait try my bad luck again during the eventual house demo day.

[Kilieit]

I'm probably... gonna try for one.

 

Because running an RP establishment out of my FC's house is impractical for both IC and OOC reasons, and I might have more chance of getting an apartment than a house. Maybe. Possibly.

 

Sigh. A small house would still be much better for what I had in mind... so I guess I won't be too disappointed if, as I suspect will be the case, I don't manage to get an apartment (I'll just think of it like "holding out for" a small). But still.

[Dravus]

I've said this before but the developers really should just acknowledge that certain realms - such as Balmung - deserve special treatment. That may seem unfair to some but...let's be honest here: Balmung is almost always going to be very busy for as long as the game exists. I believe some of the other bigger servers out there are also consistently busy.

 

With that in mind it makes sense to me to adjust the number of available housing instances for the consistently large servers. It'd solve many of the housing related issues and lessen the amount of time that the developers need to spend in order to try and mitigate the problems that exist.

 

It's probably not as simple as that, I suppose...but at this point I'm just left scratching my head at how such things are handled. A lot of content doesn't appear to be designed with the question of 'Will this work on the busiest servers?' in mind. Like that problematic Moonfire Faire quest that involved slaying Bombards that spawned as 'Free for All' kills and thus ended up having numerous players all competing over the same handful of enemies, killing them at the same time so that it took an awful lot of time for anybody to get the quest completion they were seeking.

[Zhavi]

All I can imagine is devs cackling with their fingers steepled in front of their mouths, watching all the fuss and angst.

 

The up and down numbers is like a shitty game of wheel of fortune. HOPE IT LANDS ON THE RIGHT ONE.

[Kilieit]

To be completely honest, I hope that this addition is laying the groundwork for a system akin to private chambers in an FC house, where an additional list of empty rooms is generated once the current list becomes 100% full.

 

Buuuut we can hope that we'll wake up tomorrow and au ra horns won't be attached to their face presets any more, and that probably isn't going to happen either... >_>

[Niteshade_Rune]

I was hoping the apartments themselves would at least be instanced. A limited number isn't going to go well for alot of us I hadn't gotten enough gil for a small home so when I heard about this next patch I got a little excited. Well here's hoping. But I know how busy Balmung is lol.

[Kage]

To be honest, I was hoping apartments would help free some plots for people who really only wanted a personal room without wanting the FC or being wary of the FC and not needing larger than a small plot (or even bigger).

 

I need SE to give ways for existing plots to grow and get housing without being homeless.

 

Or even lose a lot of airship progress.

[Cassandra]

I've said this before but the developers really should just acknowledge that certain realms - such as Balmung - deserve special treatment. That may seem unfair to some but...let's be honest here: Balmung is almost always going to be very busy for as long as the game exists. I believe some of the other bigger servers out there are also consistently busy.

 

I suspect the reason they don't is because they hope to encourage less people from transferring off other servers to Balmung and Gilgamesh. Blocking transfers as a whole could backfire, since people may up and quit if they wanted those particular servers for whatever reason. Making it slightly inconvenient though won't drive them fully away.

 

It boggles the mind why they decided to allow people who own houses to also buy apartments.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I've said this before but the developers really should just acknowledge that certain realms - such as Balmung - deserve special treatment. That may seem unfair to some but...let's be honest here: Balmung is almost always going to be very busy for as long as the game exists. I believe some of the other bigger servers out there are also consistently busy.

 

I suspect the reason they don't is because they hope to encourage less people from transferring off other servers to Balmung and Gilgamesh. Blocking transfers as a whole could backfire, since people may up and quit if they wanted those particular servers for whatever reason. Making it slightly inconvenient though won't drive them fully away.

 

It boggles the mind why they decided to allow people who own houses to also buy apartments.

 

My guess is that housing is tied directly into the release of their server software. Naturally, we can't look at that. But if they had to have special builds only for certain servers, it'd make maintenance a nightmare. Never let there be multiple versions of your software be out there in the open. (When versioning matters with features). ...then again, China and Korea have their own, but SE also isn't running those servers. They're just licensing their software/client.

 

RE:Why can someone buy them all? Because SE probably isn't coding for the largest server. They're likely coding for the medium or average server out there where most of these resources aren't 100% maxed out within minutes. The housing craze is really only this insane on Balmung and a couple other servers, but mostly Balmung. It'd be nice if they made exceptions.

 

SE honestly should be blocking transfers when they say creation is locked. Their website even states that people aren't supposed to be able to transfer onto a closed server, although we see it happening all the time. (Otherwise all the gil farmer bots would be dead by now). The only way I can really see them trying to solve this eventually is to offer free transfers OFF an overcrowded server. At least until the populations would stabilize a bit.

[Leggerless]

I still wonder why housing isn't limited to one per server rather than one per character.

 

Maybe it would alleviate a lot of problems? Not really sure.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I still wonder why housing isn't limited to one per server rather than one per character.

 

Maybe it would alleviate a lot of problems? Not really sure.

 

SE already answered that. They're of the mind that all characters should be allowed to buy a house, for "RP" or other reasons. Maybe better if that could be toggled based on population, but that's probably dev work spent better elsewhere.

[Gabineaux]

I've said this before but the developers really should just acknowledge that certain realms - such as Balmung - deserve special treatment. That may seem unfair to some but...let's be honest here: Balmung is almost always going to be very busy for as long as the game exists. I believe some of the other bigger servers out there are also consistently busy.

 

With that in mind it makes sense to me to adjust the number of available housing instances for the consistently large servers. It'd solve many of the housing related issues and lessen the amount of time that the developers need to spend in order to try and mitigate the problems that exist.

 

It's probably not as simple as that, I suppose...but at this point I'm just left scratching my head at how such things are handled. A lot of content doesn't appear to be designed with the question of 'Will this work on the busiest servers?' in mind. Like that problematic Moonfire Faire quest that involved slaying Bombards that spawned as 'Free for All' kills and thus ended up having numerous players all competing over the same handful of enemies, killing them at the same time so that it took an awful lot of time for anybody to get the quest completion they were seeking.

 

If anything there should be free transfers OFF OF the server. I can't tell you how many people I know, who don't RP, are here for 'a friend' and HATE IT here. Just HATE IT. Do nothing but bitch about RPers and ...won't leave. 'I paid to get here, I won't pay to leave.' :dazed:

[Kage]

There should be more incentive than that to transfer off. Housing progression, plots. The gil limitations.

 

There's just no real reason to leave, especially when you have to pay to do it.

[Hyrist]

If I recall correctly, relief for congested servers (as in for more housing plots/wards) is on the docket, I would assume at that point that it would mean that more apartments as well.

 

This was explained when things like housing item limits weren't being expanded upon and things like Mannequins were not being produced. So they have, at least in my recollection, acknowledged the population tilt problem in relation to housing, we just haven't gotten to their attempted fix for that yet.

 

This was to address the more widespread problem of housing - in which case I'm all for it, as this severely helped if not solved the housing problem for the vast majority of low to mid population servers.

 

Can't help it that Balmung is THE top server. Tis the price we pay for our thriving community, I suppose.

[AlionLucada]

I'm getting pretty sick and tired of people on the official forums saying stuff like "if you don't want to deal with no housing you shouldn't have gone to Balmung, hurr hurr hurr".

 

I've been on Balmung since 2.0 launch, I'm not a recent immigrant. I shouldn't have to transfer off of the server I've been on since ARR launched because other people flooded on to it.