Free Company Housing YEAHHHH!!!!!!

[Humanogrowth]

Players will be able to purchase a house together with members of their free company. The house may then be used for a number of in-game activities.
* While there are plans to allow for individual housing in the future, only free company housing is scheduled for patch 2.1.

In order to acquire a house, players must first raise the rank of their free company and obtain a Land Acquisition entitlement.

 

Residential Districts

Residential districts will be instanced to accommodate fluctuating player populations.

Entrances to residential districts in each city-state may be found in the following locations:

 

City Limsa Lominsa Gridania Ul'dah Housing Area Mist Lavender Beds The Goblet Entrance Lower La Noscea
Cedarwood
Red Rooster Stead Central Shroud
Bentbranch
Mirror Planks Pier

Western Thanalan
Hammerlea
The Eighty Sins of Sasamo

 

 

 

Acquiring a House

1. Purchasing Land

Plots of land will be sold by auction. An unowned plot can be purchased by first examining the placard located at its entrance. Land may be purchased in any city, regardless of your free company's affiliation. Furthermore, only free company members with proper authorization may purchase land. For the time being, only one plot may be purchased by a single free company, though the ability to purchase multiple plots is scheduled for a future update.

 

2. Auction System

The designated prices for all plots of land available for auction are set to be reduced every six hours. To confirm the price of an unowned plot or make a purchase, examine the placard located at its entrance. 

* Development screenshot—subject to change.

 

3. Purchasing a House Permit

House permits will be available for purchase from a vendor NPC. 


4. Building a House

After purchasing a plot of land, build a house by using a house permit on said plot.


* Development screenshot—subject to change.
 

Remodeling a House

 

1. Customizing the House Exterior

A house is comprised of four mandatory parts—roof, exterior wall, windows, and door—along with up to four optional parts: roof decoration, exterior wall decoration, placard, and fence.


* Any parts used to customize your house will be consumed, and disappear from your inventory. 

2. Outdoor Furnishings

A number of furnishings can be placed in the garden outside of your house. The following three options will be available to adjust their position:

Move: Change the position of selected furnishing.

Rotate: Rotate the selected furnishing

Remove: Remove the selected furnishing from the garden.

 

 
* The number of furnishings that can be placed in your garden will depend on the size of your land.
* Once a furnishing has been placed in the garden, it can no longer be traded. Furthermore, certain furnishings will be lost upon placing them in or removing them from the garden. 


3. Customizing the Interior

A number of parts including the wallpaper, flooring, and lighting of the interior can be changed.

 


4. Placing Furnishings in the House

A wide range of furnishings will be available to decorate the interior of your estate including tables, lamps, plants, wall mountings, carpets, and more. Certain furnishings can be placed on top of others, such as lamps atop tables or desks. 

 
* The positioning of furnishings inside a house can be adjusted using an interface similar to the one used for the exterior.
* Once a furnishing has been placed in the house, it can no longer be traded. Furthermore, certain furnishings will be lost upon placing them in or removing them from the garden.

 

Planned Additions to the Housing System

A crafting workshop where players can build vehicles such as airships.

An orchestrion to change the music played inside houses.

A chocobo stable to raise chocobos.

Mannequins that can be dressed with player gear.

A bulletin board that can be place inside the house.

* The specific names of these features are subject to change.

These are but a few of the ideas planned for player housing.

With the release of patch 2.1, free companies will finally have a base of operations to call home. We hope you will enjoy this new addition to the world of Eorzea and look forward to the many related features that will follow.

[Carn Astrael]

Have we decided where we will buy land yet? i am fine with whatever but Gridania is my favoirte and close to the higher areas. Mirror Planks is lovely too as a location. But will leave it up to the FC elders

[Rouhet]

Have we decided where we will buy land yet? i am fine with whatever but Gridania is my favoirte and close to the higher areas. Mirror Planks is lovely too as a location. But will leave it up to the FC elders

 

We will probably put it up to a guild vote -- stay tuned!

[Rav]

So are only the entrances in those places or is that where all the houses actually would be? 

[Humanogrowth]

The residential districts are instanced. Those are the entrances

[Rav]

Ok I've figured it out.  And I think we should get some more screenshots or videos circulating if possible of each of these three instances.  Also keep in mind where you will (likely) have to go to get to the housing instance.

 

Limsa housing instance is called Mist and the proposed entrance is at the Red Rooster Stead in the Cedarwood area of Lower La Noscea

Ulda housing instance is called The Goblet and the proposed entrance is at The Eighty Sins of Sasamo in the Hammerlea area of Western Thanalan

Gridania housing instance is called Lavender Beds and the proposed entrance is at the Mirror Planks Pier in the Bentranch area of the Central Shroud.

[Elric]

They've also been talking about an Aetheryte crystal that could be build in the FC housing.  If that was built, members of the FC could recall right to the house instead of walking there.  I don't think they have confirmed yet if that will be right away in 2.1 though.

 

Also, further detail from the "LIVE Part IX - Letter from the Producer" back on 10/30/2013:

 

 

1:13:45
Q: What are the requirements to own a house? A: You will need to increase the rank of your free company to the point where you have permission to buy a house. After this you just need to buy the deed to the land and house.
 

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.

1:15:05
Q: Are the prices still a secret?

A: Yes, they're still a secret.

1:15:10
Q: Can you take out a loan?

A: We've been asked this a lot, but there are problems with how it would be collected, repayment, and other such aspects that would just make it too similar to real life, so we're not planning to have this at the moment.

1:15:40
Q: How much land are you planning to implement within a housing area instance?

A: Thirty houses can be built within one instance. There will also be multiple levels for an instance. There will be a bunch of land with the same geography, and you can purchase the land that is unoccupied.

1:17:07
Q: Please show us the flow from buying a house up to arranging furniture.

A: The general flow will be as follows.
Housing Construction
*This is demonstrated in the video.
A house will not be built when you purchase your land. Once you buy the deed to your house, you can preview what kind of house you would like to build from the housing menu. When you select your deed, a confirmation window will appear asking if you are sure you want to build the house, and if you select "Yes" your house will be built. It's an extremely simple process. Right after you build it, its appearance including doors and windows, will be standard, but by performing various actions you'll be able to swap out parts of the house.

Changing Exterior Parts
If you select the exterior from the housing menu, you'll see options that allow you to change the house's outer appearance and purchase additional exterior parts, which are sold in stores. When opting to change the exterior, a specialized screen similar to the equipment screen will appear for your house. In the upper portion of this screen, the various parts of the house will be displayed, and you can change them out by dragging and dropping just like when you're equipping your character. The parts will feature preset colors, but you'll be able to change them. Additionally, the lower portion of this window contains optional aspects, and you can customize the settings of various parts such as lamps that shine at the entrance and roof decorations. This is where you set up all of your house's exterior parts, and we'll be preparing a ton of them, so be sure to try them all out and create your dream home.

Placing Garden Furnishing
Next up, we have the garden layout. From the housing menu, you can select an option to place garden furnishings to organize garden-related objects. By selecting the items you wish to place from your inventory, you can drag them directly to a desired location. Then you can switch to rotation mode and adjust their orientation. We decided to split the positioning and rotation because a single interface for both would become a bit complicated. The garden objects you placed will then appear in the garden object list. Naturally, you'll be able to sit down on the benches that you place and jump on top of objects as well.

* In-game footage of the Small size house from Lima Lominsa is shown in the video.

1:27:06
Q: Could you explain how exactly gatherers and crafters will impact the exterior/interior of a house?

A: Approximately 85% of housing will consist of material from gatherers and items from crafters, all of which can be sold on the market. However, as there will be a limit to the number of furnishings implemented in patch 2.1, we're trying to find a balance that allows both gathers and crafters to take part as much as possible. There will still be a slight imbalance at first, but we plan to release plenty of new furnishings in patch 2.2, so every crafter and gatherer will have something to do. There really isn't very much you can buy purely with gil, so if you want to customize a lot you'll need to get help from gatherers and crafters.

1:28:22
Q: Can you change the music that plays inside your house?

A: While it won't be in patch 2.1, we have plans to introduce a jukebox. By crafting one of these and placing it in your house, you'll be able to play your favorite FFXIV: ARR music. I'm sure you would all like to be able to change the music depending on your mood, or play a free company member's battle theme before they run off to a dungeon, so we'd like to make this happen.

1:29:22
Q: Will we be able to store items within the furniture?

A: This will not be possible. Currently, the placement data alone has a saved data volume that is unusually large, so trying to implement storage would cause the saved data to become even larger. This doesn't mean that there are no plans for this in the future, but as all of your data is periodically written into the backend database, increasing this too much is directly linked to the risk of data rollbacks. This is very dangerous, so we'd like to proceed with caution. We plan to release housing first, and after we're sure that everything is running smoothly and expand to individual housing, there is a possibility that save data space can be expanded further.

1:30:29
Q: What happens when you have a house and you disband your free company?

A: Unless you completely dismantle the house you will not be able to disband your free company.

1:31:40
Q: Will there be ways to Return straight to your house?

A: We are planning to implement a feature where you can place an aetheryte at your house and set it as a home point to teleport and return to. We're cutting it really close, but we'd like to have this in for patch 2.1.

1:32:49
Q: Will we receive the resting bonus if we log out within a house?

A: Yes, you will.

1:33:03
Q: Will we be able to place bulletin boards and signs in front of our houses?

A: We have plans to implement a feature in patch 2.2 that allows players to leave comments on a bulletin board.

* In-game footage of the housing area from Ul'dah is shwon in the video.

1:34:37
Q: Can you move or reconstruct your house?

A: We're planning to have this after patch 2.2.

1:34:59
Q: Will we be able to garden at our houses?

A: We have plans to allow you to place a croft in your garden and harvest various items from it in patch 2.2. The other day I was asked if my vision was: A – anyone can casually grow things of almost no value; or B – plant rare items, harvest from them, and then use them to grow other things together. I answered B.

1:36:05
Q: Can you make an area in your housing area to practice battle skills and calculate damage?

A: There are already various locations around Eorzea where wooden dummies have been setup, and we're considering allowing these to be placed inside of your homes as well. While it won't be available in patch 2.1, we don't expect it to be that far in the future.

1:37:21
Q: If all of the Large size houses are taken, will you be adding additional instances with L size lands right away?

A: We'll be sure to add new instances as we keep an eye on the land that is being taken. Our goal is to keep unused land to a minimum, so we’d like to check each instance one by one and add more once they reach a certain percentage.

1:38:23
Q: As there are differences in economies from World to World, will the housing costs differ by World?

A: It will not be different. The price of the buildings will be a fixed amount, but the land will be sold in an auction-like system and start at the highest price. As time passes, the land that has not been sold yet will decrease in price. With that said, players on newly added Worlds that do not have that much gil in circulation can wait for these prices to come down. The price will be reduced every six hours.

* In-game footage of the Small size house from Ul'dah is shown in the video.

1:40:53
Q: Will we be able to place furniture outside of the house?

A: This will not be possible. Garden furnishings are meant for the garden and housing furnishings are meant for the house. They have been specifically set into two different categories so that benches and other items that are similar to housing furnishings can be distinguished easily.

1:41:32
Q: Will it be possible to stack furniture or place objects on top of furniture?

A: Yes, it'll be possible to place objects such as lamps on top of tables and what not. The amount you can place and what you can place is limited, but you'll be able to place objects on top of suitable furnishings such as tables and desks.

1:42:37
Q: Will we be able to see the sunlight coming through the windows and also be able to view the scenery from within a house?

A: We've made adjustments for the amount of light that enters though the windows, but you will not be able to see the scenery outside. I understand there have been requests for this, but there are a lot of other houses outside and a lot of people passing by, so if we were to make this possible it would cause an increase in the limitations for the objects that can be placed in your houses. We decided to prioritize allowing you to place as many things in your house as possible.

1:43:39
Q: Can you expand to an M size or L size house from an S size house?

A: This is not possible. You would have to tear down your house and build a new one on open land. The reason for this is due to the fact that these houses are shared and the objects that are inside and outside of the house don't belong to one single person, so you can’t change it back into a deed until you completely disassemble the house. Once you resolve what belongs to who, you can take down your house and then rebuild a new house.

1:44:56
Q: Will we be able to sell our houses (including the furniture)?

A: This will not be possible. You can only trade the deed, so you would have to revert your house back to a deed to do this.

* In-game footage of the Large size house from Ul'dah is shown in the video.

1:48:22
Q: Will you be able to have individual rooms in your free company house?

A: We are planning to have this after patch 2.2, but we'd like to decide whether we implement individual rooms or individual housing based on server capacity after we implement housing. However, we are planning for both. We'd like you all to be able to build a cool personal space for yourselves.

1:49:42
Q: Will you add any feature to prevent FC members from taking the furniture?

A: In the housing permissions settings you can indicate which rank members can do certain things with furnishings.

1:50:35
Q: Are you looking into mini-games or other elements where free company members can gather and play?

A: I think some staff members are starting to think about a card game…

1:52:17
Q: What type of facilities will we have access to within a housing area other than the market board and retainer?

A: First, you can have a crafting workshop in your house to be used by any crafters in your free company. Also, in the event you need a large amount of low level materials for crafting, we're planning to make it possible to place NPCs in your house that would sell these materials. We'll be adding on to features such as this over time.

1:53:09
Q: What are the advantages of making things in your underground workshop?

A: You'll be able to build airships and go adventuring with them. We were stuck on deciding whether to go with boats or airships, but we decided to go with airships first. We'd also like to do boats, but for now crafters will be able to gather together and build airships in these underground workshops. We'd like to introduce this before the first expansion.

1:54:10
Q: Are there any plans to implement any seasonal exteriors for houses (snow-themed exterior during Christmas, witch-themed exterior during Halloween, etc.)?

A: While I don't want to rule the idea out, I would first like to focus on the implementation of additional housing parts. I do love the idea of seasonal exteriors, but I would prefer something like a blacksmith or armorer-themed exterior which can be then used to sell actual equipment. However, for a house like this, you would not be able to swap out the exterior housing parts. If we made these exteriors customizable, implementation dates will be pushed back due to the vast number of housing parts we have to take into consideration. Please keep in mind that I still like the idea of seasonal housing parts, but I think players will get bored of them, and would have much more fun with content that can be enjoyed for a longer period of time.

We do have plans to implement additional housing parts. While we have many ideas regarding seasonal items, we are currently discussing which ones players will enjoy the most.

* In-game footage of the housing area from Gridania is shown in the video.

1:56:32
Q: When will the chocobo farm be added?

A: The current plan is to implement it after patch 2.3. We are also planning to add more housing content through the future patches.

1:57:08
Q: Are there fish in the bodies of water in the housing areas?

A: Yes, so get your bait and fishing rods ready!

1:58:18
Q: Will there be any way to you breed animals that drop materials so we can harvest them?

A: Currently we do not have plans for this. There would be a number of problems such as how to design the AI, or how to handle animals if players don't attend to them. However, as we previously mentioned, the development team has brought up ideas such as being able to release all your minions within a house.

1:59:27
Q: About how much furniture will we have access to when the housing system is implemented?

A: In patch 2.1, without including the exterior parts of a house, there will be about 220 furnishings to choose from (40 exterior furnishings and 180 interior). Please note that this only refers to the initial numbers and more will be added through future patches.
* Video introduces concept art of furniture and equipment.

* In-game footage of the Medium size house from Gridania is shown in the video.

2:09:23
Q: Can we lay in beds and hammocks in our houses?

A: Yes, you can.

2:09:53
Q: Will we be able to place mannequins within the house so that we can equip them with our armor?

A: The current plan is to implement that feature after patch 2.2.

2:10:44
Q: Will there be frames in which we can place art? If so, will it be possible to take a screenshot and place it within the frame?

A: Yes, there are frames which you can place artwork in. Please check out the various artworks our art team has prepared for you!

As for the screenshot feature, we previously had a request for players to be able to design their free company crest by using screenshots and we stated that it would be difficult to judge what images can and cannot be allowed to be used. Therefore, we currently have no plans for players to be able to use screenshots.

2:12:28
Q: Let's say we place walls within a large room to separate them into smaller rooms. Will we be able to place doors within the walls?

A: While you will be able to place walls, you will not be able to place doors. After carefully reviewing factors such as collision detection and allocating space for the door to swing open, we determined that it was too difficult to implement doors within the walls.

2:13:49
Q: Can you set individual entrance restrictions for L size houses that have two floors and a basement?

A: No, you cannot.

2:14:07
Q: Will there be a system that allows free companies to collect gil from their members when buying a house?

A: No, there will not.

2:14:36
Q: Can you place an Ishgardian wartable in your house like the ones found in Coerthas (Dragonhead)?

A: We decided to add this based on the community’s feedback.

2:15:25
Q: Will we be able to change the wallpaper and flooring design?

A: Yes, you will.
* Video introduces examples of the wallpaper and flooring design.

* In-game footage of the Small size house from Gridania is shown in the video.

2:17:59
Q: Will there be any interesting furniture such as lights you can turn on and off, cabinets you can open and close, etc.?

A: Yes, you will be able turn the lights on and off. In addition, there will be furniture that is interactive. While there won't be a great deal of interactive furniture due to the challenges of creating them, we will increase the number of interactive furniture pieces in future patches.

2:18:34
Q: Will we be able to place an aquarium in our houses?

A: While there are currently no plans to implement an aquarium, I'll be sure to forward the request to the person in charge. We'd first need to have designs drawn up for the aquarium, then create a translucent appearance that's as realistic as possible, so it's quite difficult.

2:19:20
Q: When will individual housing be implemented?

A: It will be around half a year after patch 2.1's release. Currently, we are split between implementing a personal room within a free company house or personal housing. Since the decision will have a huge impact on how many additional servers we'll need to prepare, we have to carefully consider the balance of the housing system. We believe it will take roughly six months to have everything planned out and prepared.

 

Source:  http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/113554-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-IX-Q-A-Summary-%2810-30-2013%29