I want to chime in here (at length, thanks to the flu) because I've been following this for awhile and even after a couple years housing still feels in the 'beta' stage. Also just having indulged in Archeage specifically for what turned out to be a frustrating and absurd approach to property, I'm already embittered and happy to try something else.
First of all, it isn't true that all houses are useless/purely aesthetic. Just personal houses (unless you want to garden or raise chocobos, craft at home, etc.). FC houses can be upgraded to provide daily passives for every member (20% cheaper travel, 10% more EXP and so on) and provide the platform for airship missions (though there may be a public platforms I don't know about). Being able to warp directly to where you get a sleeping bonus also isn't non-trivial when you have to log off abruptly, which is a small perk even for personal housing. In general, with the exception of the Grand companies (hunts) and class guilds, housing districts are already as useful as the main cites themselves. In fact I'd love to see the ability for players who've mastered their given class to turn their house into a class guild house where the classes and jobs are available. It could make these communities viable alternatives to the guild houses we otherwise waste time running to. But I digress.
Archeage's biggest problem, in my opinion, wasn't the land shortage which directed many people's outrage, it was the inability to own property without founding a structure on it first that would still need to be constructed before the site could be used. The expense of construction, plus the large amount of speculation by those with no intention of using the property themselves, meant that there would be whole towns of unfinished houses with an active homeowner in between. Worst of all, if you wanted to change your mind and build something else, for a brief moment the land would become available for anyone to place down a structure of their own and thus acquire the spot. It also meant that when the properties of inactive members was scheduled for demolition, the way to acquire it was to show up with all the other people who had scouted it (I used to sell the locations of demolitions) and then participate in this absurd game of lay down a phantom structure in error, wait for the house to get attacked so it would begin collapsing, and then hope your ping adequately indicates when you can build, or that your claim will be received first on the server. XIV doesn't have that issue, but did nothing to address shortage (which should have been easily calculable based on the amount of gil on that server). I'll probably return to the concept of a land rush after Christmas, after we see how that turns out.
In some ways, it's good that housing isn't integral to the core gameplay (as it was in Archeage) so that the housing market can straighten itself out. You need housing turnover of some kind to recycle active players in an area. The problem is in the consequence for the inactive player. The developers explicitly reiterated they weren't making housing subscription-based, but 45 (35?) days is blatantly a subscription schedule, plus a couple weeks to scrounge up $10 you weren't planning to spend. Thanks a lot. I already got screwed out of legacy pricing for not reading up on the game leading up to ARR - even though I subscribed over a year after pre-ordering and 2 of the 3 months before 1.0 went under. Every year I subscribe now costs me $24 a year more than it costs someone who only played the game those requisite 90 days. If I happened to have bought a house last year then stopped my subscription, then not read about the change in policy, I'd have to hope the demolition email didn't end up thrown with all of SE's promotional spam. It's absolutely asinine to simply take away the privilege, and at worst take all your items if you don't pick them up over the consequent month. It's the sort of bait and switch that should shed casual subscribers.
Also, casual subscribers are not necessarily casual players. If so, they're so casual that they reached max level and did enough endgame, crafting, or market speculation that they could have millions of gil in the first place. 3.2 million gil (at the very least) does not come from playing the game to 50, and takes a fair amount of advanced play, so that unless you're on a small server where some houses could depreciate in price, only advanced players or organized groups have bought houses. And if they happen to play other games, or heaven forbid have real responsibilities, they're going to drop their sub from time to time. Now, they're being held hostage by what at first seemed like their reward for all the time invested.
So I have two ideas, because that's what message boards or for.
If there truly is a technical limitation to expanding the housing, and the developers, like Archeage's, aren't just stalling until the players actually interested in houses are separated from those who aren't, then charge subscribers for the ability to own a house. I spend an extra $2 for retainers, and would happily spend that money to have a house. No upfront cost for the undeveloped land because it's built into the game on the backs of those who want to utilize the feature. Everyone who hasn't paid can still explore these areas, or utilize free company housing which is already fairly reasonable and attainable (400-500 instanced rooms per FC house for 300,000 gil each). It funds the additional server demands, maybe even development specific to housing. (You can understand the demand for housing if you understand that gameplay in The Sims or Farmville or Minecraft is widely appealing.) This also provides an incentive for membership in FCs, specifically those that pay for estates, ideally with the ability to grow your fortress bigger than your rivals can.
The second idea might be even more controversial, but addresses the issue of derelict, unused properties. The subscription-cycle limit has got to go, but in favor of something that still addresses houses that go unused for months or years. Certainly $2/month buys, at the very least, goodwill, and at the very best a permanent technical solution for how to provide servers full of player housing. But it still does nothing to settle the qualms of players who use their neighborhood and would like actual neighbors. The role player in me says the fair way to do it would be rent.
Even without implementing extra fees, I think a kind of in-game rent would go a long way. Don't ever use your house? Rent it to someone else for a pre-agreed period no shorter than 30 days, or with a payment structure that transfers ownership once all payments have been made. A home Mogage, if you will. Subscribed players could charge whatever they wanted, as they might still choose to use the house at some point but consider a certain revenue worth the exchange. And while renting you can still room at your free company or the inns (which should also be selling instanced rooms).
On the other hand, if you bought a house but can't use it because you're not subscribed, a rental would automatically be made available at a flat rate determined by the class of the location. If you don't login for 60 days, your furniture gets put into a *permanently available* storage, and the house becomes available for another player or Free Company to rent in your absence, for no period shorter than 30 days, and with the opportunity to purchase the spot outright after a year. If the owner isn't back by then, they don't lose the privilege of having an estate, just having an estate in that exact spot. But rather than the prospect of having to start over with no furniture because it expired, less gil, and no available plots, they'd be returning to a big chunk of extra gil and the ability to go rent a place or pay your own $2 to jump back in again.
But wait, if you can use real world money to generate in-game gil...
When I first started thinking about how to fix housing, because I badly want it, I hadn't considered the financial position or the transitions for the industry that Catwho and others have mentioned. If Square-Enix is already in the business of borderline gambling at the arcade, the real money market must frustrate them because they're not the ones capitalizing on it. The way I see it is that Final Fantasy is an institution, and that a lot of the reason to play this mmo over another isn't always about gameplay, but its unique character. For me the most alluring mmo is one with an emergent player economy and some degree of player-generated content. Housing as it is scratches that itch, but only until I face the notion of spending $140+ per year just to keep my place to do those things.
Many people want this to work and would be willing to pay for it. Either housing is completely through a cash shop, or through a $2 fee, give us some alternative whose solution isn't just to blow it up on Christmas.
(Added a poll:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UbFPWefTZ7VWu0hhhBH2osNZImgbStaaNkqk-zGKwWM/viewform?usp=send_form )
Edited, Dec 9th 2015 2:55pm by lowesox 
