I agree with the majority that it's not a bad thing. I also agree with the OP, though, that 35 days is excessive. Maybe not for guild housing, specifically, but if it was a single-player thing, that would be horrible.
In all, this doesn't really amount to more than a few KB, really. It's all text records in a database. It isn't like they're storing customized housing animations, textures, and graphics for each individual guild house, so there's absolutely no storage being wasted with it. However, those KBs do add up, too. So cleaning it up every few months isn't really an issue, in my books, but 35 days is a bit excessive.
I recall SWG had "maintenance" on buildings. If you didn't keep it up, the building and it's contents go buh-bye
Anarchy Online also has "rent" for player cities. Same thing. If its not kept up, buh bye.
The problem is that it's easily automated. In Anarchy anyway. You don't need an active account, The Org's funds, can cover rent. So you end up with blight. All these "active" cites that no one is around to use.
There is quite a bit of important information missing from the OPs post.
1. These are guild houses we're talking about.
2. The house only needs to be visited by someone in the guild once every 35 days. That doesn't mean that you have to continue to pay your sub fee, that means that someone in the guild needs to use the house once every 35 days... Big deal.
3. As a poster above previously stated, if no-body in your entire guild uses the house once every 35 days, you don't need a house.
Personally, I feel this is an extremely fair system. It makes losing a house difficult, but still possible if everyone in a guild completely neglects it or if the guild falls apart.
OP, please give people all the information before you start complaining. While there will be houses lost because of this system, but it won't be because 1 person decided to un-sub from the game like your post seems to indicate. It will be an entire guild that lets the house go.
I think the OP basically impacted a small number of guilds, those who really were more of a personal house for them or their small circle of friends/family, and it was possible that all would take leave of the game for periods of time.
Another poster said their guild imploded with only himself left, and the solution might be to merge with another group of people, or recruit to ensure someone will keep the guild house keeps running in the absence of the original members.
Like you said, perhaps if the guild implodes, or gets too small, guild houses should be removed, but it would be nice if they could be re-established once the owners decided to return, but might not be worth the coding.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
surprised no one here has bothered mentioning the REAL reason why houses are removed in the first place the REAL NEED for it to happen. housing is very expensive in resources on servers. each and every single instance of a house consumes a certain amount of ram on the server hosting it. a server only has so much ram. can you imagine if instant after instant of housing is created without limits falling into what the server can handle? trust me, no one would be able to access their house in no time. thus, the need to remove housing, especially those with instances like ffxiv.
it seems to me that SE choose to go the inactive route over the the fee route. both of which work basically the same way.
1) you have a housing fee, go inactive, lose your money to your housing fee, lose your house.
2) you need activity level, go inactive, you aren't showing activity in the house, lose your house.
same basic stuff. you HAVE TO get rid of inactive housing for performance.
after reading the thread, just seems to me like the OP has no idea how mmos work and is just trying to pick a fight about something it doesn't understand.
surprised no one here has bothered mentioning the REAL reason why houses are removed in the first place the REAL NEED for it to happen. housing is very expensive in resources on servers. each and every single instance of a house consumes a certain amount of ram on the server hosting it. a server only has so much ram. can you imagine if instant after instant of housing is created without limits falling into what the server can handle? trust me, no one would be able to access their house in no time. thus, the need to remove housing, especially those with instances like ffxiv.
Maybe because it's not the real reason.
First, servers only need to run those areas with active players on them. If there are no active players in zone, it doesn't need to be run and the resource costs are very close to zero.
Second, server power is cheap enough today that they could well have a complete housing instance for every player that's logged on to FF XIV if they wanted.
While it's not free to have those houses, the costs are non-issue. The costs haven't been an issue for the last 10 years.
An interview with the lead developer of FFXIV when housing was added below.
1:14:22 Q: Will there be any maintenance fees or other costs for housing, besides the cost of the land and house?
A: In older MMOs, such as Ultima Online, there was a house maintenance fee you had to pay weekly, but in FFXIV: ARR we decided against this system. Similarly, these older MMOs also had a system where your house would break down if you didn’t log in after a while in order to have you continue your subscription, but this is a thing of the past and we won't have any system like that.
Comments
I agree with the majority that it's not a bad thing. I also agree with the OP, though, that 35 days is excessive. Maybe not for guild housing, specifically, but if it was a single-player thing, that would be horrible.
In all, this doesn't really amount to more than a few KB, really. It's all text records in a database. It isn't like they're storing customized housing animations, textures, and graphics for each individual guild house, so there's absolutely no storage being wasted with it. However, those KBs do add up, too. So cleaning it up every few months isn't really an issue, in my books, but 35 days is a bit excessive.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
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Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I recall SWG had "maintenance" on buildings. If you didn't keep it up, the building and it's contents go buh-bye
Anarchy Online also has "rent" for player cities. Same thing. If its not kept up, buh bye.
The problem is that it's easily automated. In Anarchy anyway. You don't need an active account, The Org's funds, can cover rent. So you end up with blight. All these "active" cites that no one is around to use.
I think the OP basically impacted a small number of guilds, those who really were more of a personal house for them or their small circle of friends/family, and it was possible that all would take leave of the game for periods of time.
Another poster said their guild imploded with only himself left, and the solution might be to merge with another group of people, or recruit to ensure someone will keep the guild house keeps running in the absence of the original members.
Like you said, perhaps if the guild implodes, or gets too small, guild houses should be removed, but it would be nice if they could be re-established once the owners decided to return, but might not be worth the coding.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
surprised no one here has bothered mentioning the REAL reason why houses are removed in the first place the REAL NEED for it to happen. housing is very expensive in resources on servers. each and every single instance of a house consumes a certain amount of ram on the server hosting it. a server only has so much ram. can you imagine if instant after instant of housing is created without limits falling into what the server can handle? trust me, no one would be able to access their house in no time. thus, the need to remove housing, especially those with instances like ffxiv.
it seems to me that SE choose to go the inactive route over the the fee route. both of which work basically the same way.
1) you have a housing fee, go inactive, lose your money to your housing fee, lose your house.
2) you need activity level, go inactive, you aren't showing activity in the house, lose your house.
same basic stuff. you HAVE TO get rid of inactive housing for performance.
after reading the thread, just seems to me like the OP has no idea how mmos work and is just trying to pick a fight about something it doesn't understand.
Maybe because it's not the real reason.
First, servers only need to run those areas with active players on them. If there are no active players in zone, it doesn't need to be run and the resource costs are very close to zero.
Second, server power is cheap enough today that they could well have a complete housing instance for every player that's logged on to FF XIV if they wanted.
While it's not free to have those houses, the costs are non-issue. The costs haven't been an issue for the last 10 years.
wow and this isnt False Advertisement?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design