So I've seen a number of suggestions scattered around various threads about apartment upgrades, and I thought consolidating them into one thread might help the devs with ideas as they wouldn't have to wade through tons of other topics to look at our suggestions.
I'll start...
I think most of us can agree that true instanced housing (the kind where you can buy a plot of land and build on it however you want) is a pipe dream currently. For whatever various reasons it seems like they simply can't implement that system without a major overhaul that would probably leave a number of current housing owners furious. However, I do think we can work with what instanced housing we already have in the game. That, of course, being our apartments.
Right now they're not much to look at, but I think we have a lot of flex to make them every bit as awesome as regular houses.
What I'd like to see is them capitalizing on several key features already in the game, and offering a series of purchasable upgrades. Namely...
1. The apartment buildings are universally located in places where there are no houses BEHIND them.
This means that not only could the lobby be revamped to allow access to apartment exclusive beaches, lakes, pools, etc., but it would be absolutely possible to build private balconies!
They've said before they can't do balconies because of how much stress it would be on the servers allowing everyone access to the ward at large, so eliminate that entirely. Let our balconies overlook the surf, or forest, or whatever. It's a single generic view that we can enjoy and decorate or upgrade as we desire.
Nor does this have to conflict with apartment exclusives. As long as our balcony view isn't overlooking a place players will be then we can easily have both if we so desire. It's the difference between having a balcony that gives a great view in one direction, and trekking down to the beach in another.
2. The apartments ARE instanced, so the stress and load problems they have in the general wards shouldn't, theoretically, be nearly as much a factor.
This gives us a LOT of flexibility with upgrades in size.
It would be easy to create a gil sink that is upgrading your apartment size. You could start out at the generic 500k for the basic apartment. Maybe up that to 1.5 million for an upgrade to something like the Crystarium Inn. And so on and so forth until you reach the 'Penthouse' that is roughly the size of a large house.
More than that, you could introduce all sorts of other upgrade features. Don't like the floor plan? That's cool. Talk with our architect and purchase a brand new floor plan to implement with the Caretaker whenever you like! If we wanted to get fancy with it, we could even make collecting blueprints a thing. Once you learn the blueprint you can switch between any floor plan you like by talking with the Caretaker.
You could do the same with balcony upgrades too. You start off with a window you can look through to see your view, and slowly upgrade it from that to a large deck where you can set out furnishings, have a patch of soil to garden or plant trees in, and a pool to swim in.
3. Apartment amenities do leave something to be desired.
Technically speaking, we have most of the amenities (bar gardening and workshops) you'd get in an FC house, but they're not the most convenient. It's kind of a pain to have to zone all the way outside to check the MB and then have to zone inside to send/receive mail or buy something from an npc. I imagine that for people with slower systems that gets very annoying very quickly.
What I'd like to see instead is a revamped lobby where the lobby itself is 'outside', so when you log in, you log in there. Immediately, you'd have access to the MB, retainer bell, post moogle, an FC chest, and all the various npcs. No fuss, no muss.
I'd also like to see the option to buy amenity upgrades the same way you do size expansions. Workshops come to mind for that. People have wanted individual workshops for some time, it would be nice if we could actually purchase that option even in a watered down setup from the FC version. Instanced greenhouses to garden in would also be an interesting option if growing things on private balconies simply can't be done for some reason.
All of this together would vastly improve apartment living, and would make a great alternative for personal housing. Particularly since apartments don't get demolished, so there would be considerably less crying from people who lost their houses because life happened. Not only that, but it would do a lot to help with high-population servers who need the space. I imagine it would be a lot easier to expand the number of apartments per ward/subdivision than it is to implement whole new wards across the board whether they're desperately needed or not.
Those are my thoughts. Tell me yours. Do you agree with me, or would you do something totally different? If so, what? The more ideas we can throw out there, the more likely we are to hit on something the devs can implement!
Continue reading...
I'll start...
I think most of us can agree that true instanced housing (the kind where you can buy a plot of land and build on it however you want) is a pipe dream currently. For whatever various reasons it seems like they simply can't implement that system without a major overhaul that would probably leave a number of current housing owners furious. However, I do think we can work with what instanced housing we already have in the game. That, of course, being our apartments.
Right now they're not much to look at, but I think we have a lot of flex to make them every bit as awesome as regular houses.
What I'd like to see is them capitalizing on several key features already in the game, and offering a series of purchasable upgrades. Namely...
1. The apartment buildings are universally located in places where there are no houses BEHIND them.
This means that not only could the lobby be revamped to allow access to apartment exclusive beaches, lakes, pools, etc., but it would be absolutely possible to build private balconies!
They've said before they can't do balconies because of how much stress it would be on the servers allowing everyone access to the ward at large, so eliminate that entirely. Let our balconies overlook the surf, or forest, or whatever. It's a single generic view that we can enjoy and decorate or upgrade as we desire.
Nor does this have to conflict with apartment exclusives. As long as our balcony view isn't overlooking a place players will be then we can easily have both if we so desire. It's the difference between having a balcony that gives a great view in one direction, and trekking down to the beach in another.
2. The apartments ARE instanced, so the stress and load problems they have in the general wards shouldn't, theoretically, be nearly as much a factor.
This gives us a LOT of flexibility with upgrades in size.
It would be easy to create a gil sink that is upgrading your apartment size. You could start out at the generic 500k for the basic apartment. Maybe up that to 1.5 million for an upgrade to something like the Crystarium Inn. And so on and so forth until you reach the 'Penthouse' that is roughly the size of a large house.
More than that, you could introduce all sorts of other upgrade features. Don't like the floor plan? That's cool. Talk with our architect and purchase a brand new floor plan to implement with the Caretaker whenever you like! If we wanted to get fancy with it, we could even make collecting blueprints a thing. Once you learn the blueprint you can switch between any floor plan you like by talking with the Caretaker.
You could do the same with balcony upgrades too. You start off with a window you can look through to see your view, and slowly upgrade it from that to a large deck where you can set out furnishings, have a patch of soil to garden or plant trees in, and a pool to swim in.
3. Apartment amenities do leave something to be desired.
Technically speaking, we have most of the amenities (bar gardening and workshops) you'd get in an FC house, but they're not the most convenient. It's kind of a pain to have to zone all the way outside to check the MB and then have to zone inside to send/receive mail or buy something from an npc. I imagine that for people with slower systems that gets very annoying very quickly.
What I'd like to see instead is a revamped lobby where the lobby itself is 'outside', so when you log in, you log in there. Immediately, you'd have access to the MB, retainer bell, post moogle, an FC chest, and all the various npcs. No fuss, no muss.
I'd also like to see the option to buy amenity upgrades the same way you do size expansions. Workshops come to mind for that. People have wanted individual workshops for some time, it would be nice if we could actually purchase that option even in a watered down setup from the FC version. Instanced greenhouses to garden in would also be an interesting option if growing things on private balconies simply can't be done for some reason.
All of this together would vastly improve apartment living, and would make a great alternative for personal housing. Particularly since apartments don't get demolished, so there would be considerably less crying from people who lost their houses because life happened. Not only that, but it would do a lot to help with high-population servers who need the space. I imagine it would be a lot easier to expand the number of apartments per ward/subdivision than it is to implement whole new wards across the board whether they're desperately needed or not.
Those are my thoughts. Tell me yours. Do you agree with me, or would you do something totally different? If so, what? The more ideas we can throw out there, the more likely we are to hit on something the devs can implement!
Continue reading...