Letter from the Producer LIVE Part VI (April 3, 8:30PM JST)

[Enygma55]

Totally forgot the live letter was early this morning or I would of did some screen cap work too. Lots of interesting stuff they got planned.

Materia needs to be destroyed upon purge to support the economy since gear binds now.

[Kachiko]

So, about player housing - it looks like you can actually walk past peoples plots, and if so, doesn't that mean that there's only going to be so many plots available, in each city? Or maybe, they'll have many instances/zones of player housing, to accommodate a house for everyone? If not, it sounds like UO where you had to wait until someone sold a deed to get an opportunity to put a house down. If that's true, that wold make rolling on a new server that much more appealing for most people. Did they say anything specific aside from you'll be able to sell your deed?

[Waraji]

they'll have many instances/zones of player housing, to accommodate a house for everyone

Settle down Beavis, you answered your own question.

Also, some mentioned here or it was in the Q&A, but you will be able to trade your deed.

Furthermore, wtf constitutes 2-3 level 50 players life time savings (based on what they've mentioned before on pricing) for the purchasing of a property? Is that the equivalent of gil acquired by leveling 2-3 classes to 50 in ARR, or really our hard earned gil from endgame & high level crafts? Or would it constitute one of us Legacy members "life savings" which as of ARR launch will be in the single digit millions. What are your thoughts BG?

[Stromgarde]

I bet they want to get rid of as much gil as possible from the pre-ARR era of a significant number of people having capped gil across primary account and both retainers, and this is a fast and appealing way to do it. Once they deem a sufficient amount of money has exited the economy, then they'll let the prices dip back down.

[Sephiroth]

Thing is if they price them too high then those on new servers won't be able to afford them for a long time. I know the prices fall over time but you'll still have an imbalance if they start off the same across all servers. Unless the longer they stay unsold, the faster the prices fall.

[Gokulo]

Thing is if they price them too high then those on new servers won't be able to afford them for a long time. I know the prices fall over time but you'll still have an imbalance if they start off the same across all servers. Unless the longer they stay unsold, the faster the prices fall.

I think that's fine. A House is supposed to be something that you take time to achieve and that's what new players will have to do. 1.0 already played the game for some time so you could say they had time to progress towards that goal (even if it didn't exist previously). It's just another headstart 1.0 gives us.

[Hellfury]

Q3: Is it possible to have multiple houses? For example, your main residence is located in Limsa Lominsa, but you have a vacation home in Gridania or Ul'dah.

A3: It really depends on multiple factors, like lag and such, but as long as there are no problems we would like to make it possible to possess multiple houses.

So mansions for the mistress' and beach houses? :D

[Kurokikaze]

Thing is if they price them too high then those on new servers won't be able to afford them for a long time. I know the prices fall over time but you'll still have an imbalance if they start off the same across all servers. Unless the longer they stay unsold, the faster the prices fall.

It won't be unbalanced on new servers because they still have to go through the motion of getting to 50 and farming all the gil which is already a deterrent. 1.0 players can buy houses RIGHT NOW.

I'm for the prices being higher at the start and tapering off after a while. The crazy must-have-it-now folks will burn all their gil thus removing a chunk of it from the economy and bringing some sense of balance to the legacy equation.

[Sephiroth]

It won't be unbalanced on new servers because they still have to go through the motion of getting to 50 and farming all the gil which is already a deterrent. 1.0 players can buy houses RIGHT NOW.

I'm for the prices being higher at the start and tapering off after a while. The crazy must-have-it-now folks will burn all their gil thus removing a chunk of it from the economy and bringing some sense of balance to the legacy equation.

I understand that, but is it good to price players on new servers out of the housing market for a good 6-12 months just because people have too much gil on old servers? If SE wanted people to be able to afford a house after say 2 months then they'd have to set the prices at retardedly low prices on old servers. If they want consistency across all servers then all content (not just housing) will have to be priced according to the new server economies. Based on this I can imagine houses costing pocket change to anyone on an old server. I'm cool with that but people are going to be disappointed if they're expecting old players to be sending large chunks of their balances out of the economy.

I mean lets say a house costs 1 million gil. That is an insane amount of gil on a new server but pocket change on an old server. If they set it at 10mil then it could take over a year for a player on a new server to afford while many on an old server can afford it immediately. That's the kind of balance I'm talking of. SE isn't going to tell new server players that they won't have houses for a year. Of course all those will depend on how fast prices will drop.

[Gokulo]

You really need to take 1.0 into consideration in the whole issue. People played the game for a long time previously, so there's no issue with balacing the whole thing for them and not for new players. They already 'went through the motions' like Kuro said and it's definitely fair that new players would have to do that too.

[Eagleheart]

Sephiroth is right in his concerns, I think, but it would not surprise me if prices for housing deeds are different for Legacy servers as opposed to new servers.

(O.o) Surely Dev Team has taken this into account.

[Hyan]

What's so flawed about a scenario where prices start at 10 mil across all servers and drop to 1 mil in 2 months time (based on seph's assumptions)?

I haven't seen any of Sephiroth's economic concerns to become actual problems so far, and he has been saying these things for like 2 years now. I hope he isn't majoring in economics.

[Izzy]

What's so flawed about a scenario where prices start at 10 mil across all servers and drop to 1 mil in 2 months time (based on seph's assumptions)?

Yeah, that shouldn't be any problem. I know WoW, for one, does this every time a new patch is released. New gear is wicked expensive/certain mounts/etc. are expensive, then when a new patch comes out, they lower the prices for everyone else.

[Eagleheart]

Not that economics majors make a dime of difference in this era, with BoJ going full retard, the Eurozone swearing left and right that deposit levies will never happen again, despite a number of different political leaders and financial bigwigs stating quite flatly that they will, all the while the stock market irrationally goes through the roof whether the news is good or bad, eurozone unemployment (that is officially recognized) is 12%, and economists are busy telling us that happier days are just around the river bend.

Economics would be best described, in my opinion, as an admission that the butterfly effect is real, and that the world is filled with very angry butterflies. o.o I'll start to be concerned about the in-game economy only if we get a bald, bearded midlander to run the Ishgard Reserve and start whispering QE∞ you know you want it in the ear of the Holy See.

With all that said, there is surely some potential for problems, particularly after 1.23b's Clickageddon. >_> I do wonder how Dev Team is gonna deal with that. I do not think it will be anything terrible, though, and judging by folks' willingness to spend out the wazoo in every FFXI expansion ever (>.> ) yeah, that cash gonna find its way out of the servers soon.

[Waraji]

I think I'll play it safe and save my gil for a while after release. Planning on spending most my down time crafting.

[Gulkeeva]

I think I'll play it safe and save my gil for a while after release. Planning on spending most my down time crafting.

this, I'll be lvling up the few crafts I have left that are not 50 and lvlup my gathering.

[Gokulo]

I was also thinking that that's the best course of action, but I double I'll be able to stop myself from just doing everything else, lol.

[miokomioko]

I can imagine I'll be wasting a lot of gil just trying to complete Crafting Logs for unlocking all the recipes for my Lv.50 Disciples of the Hand. (Which is a complete waste of EXP.)

Speaking of... with the inevitable level-cap raise at some point down the road, it's going to be annoying when you accidentally complete Hunting Log entries on your Lv.50 classes. Doubly annoying if Hunting/Crafting/Gathering log completion is also a path to achievements with item rewards. I can easily see another crown-type trophy for completing every log entry for every class. HMMPH. :/

Legacy problems.

[Gulkeeva]

I was also thinking that that's the best course of action, but I double I'll be able to stop myself from just doing everything else, lol.

same here, I quit in 1.0ish, so I have no idea what to do with grand companies and other stuff. It'll probably be a mix of exploring, looking up wtf I am doing and killing everything that moves.

[Manako]

Yeah really like the idea of player housing, but I didn't play much 1.0 and would be considered poor by most standards so I assume that will be far off for me. Can always hope to be pleasantly surprised. I think the mentioned that it would be separate instances? I can't imagine having enough space otherwise!