Last Tuesday, the expansion of housing areas, which had long been awaited by the community, came to Final Fantasy XIV. This almost solves the massive housing problem that has long plagued Final Fantasy XIV.
With the update, the development team introduced new regulations for purchasing the plots to counter the massive housing shortage in the MMORPG. The complicated rules are explained on a special page created for this purpose.
Have the developers succeeded in solving the problem with the new regulations? Yes and no.
Free Companies Have Priority!
A total of 12 new districts went online in the four housing areas on Tuesday. However, these could only be purchased by free companies (abbreviated: FC), the FFXIV equivalent of guilds.
Houses are particularly important for FCs. FCs without houses cannot build airships and submarines, which bring back rare and expensive items from their exploration trips.
Moreover, players prefer to recruit from Free Companies with houses.
The development team’s strategy seems to be working. Even a full day after the opening of new areas, there are still free plots even on crowded servers like Balmung.
During the last update of the housing districts, all plots were sold out within minutes.
As a sample, an unofficial census of the Famfrit server was taken. In the first 12 hours after the update, a total of 49 FCs acquired new houses for their members, and the number has likely increased since then.
Players Find Loopholes in the System – Free Companies Split Up
However, it quickly becomes apparent that the system has several gaps.
On various servers, members of some Free Companies have utilized their second and third characters to create offshoots of their main FC and thus occupy multiple houses.
Particularly a lot of discontent has been directed at the FC “Entropy Workshop.” A total of 37 plots in the Mist have been occupied by the offshoots of “Entropy Workshop” on the Ragnarok server.
In the official forums and on Reddit, they have been cited as the prime example of “purchase fraud.”
Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that, with two exceptions, Entropy purchased their houses long before the update on Tuesday.
So, at least in this case, these are relocations that are completely legitimate under the new system, as the number of free plots does not decrease.
However, the main problem is that Entropy Workshop and other Free Companies are thus showing real estate sharks how to circumvent the new restrictions in Final Fantasy XIV, both in terms of owning multiple houses and reselling.
This allows a shark to sell an FC with a house, invite the buyer into the FC, collect the money, appoint the seller as the leader, and then leave the FC.
How problematic this new strategy for resale will be in the future cannot be said with certainty right now.
Since the primary goal of the update was to supply Free Companies with houses for their airships and submarines, it can be said that the development team has succeeded in this regard.
When the remaining houses will be available for individuals to purchase is still unknown.
More information on Patch 4.2 of FFXIV can be found here:
These are the new armors and cosmetics in Final Fantasy XIV 4.2
