Frustration over Final Fantasy XIV’s housing shortage has come to a head after two players angered a lot of others by buying up 28 homes in the land-strapped massively multiplayer online game. Now, players are questioning whether virtual housing is an equal right or a privilege meant for the rich and over-dedicated.
The two players bought their homes in a formerly vacant corner of the game, a server called Mateus, where they could pursue dual ambitions of opulence and privacy. Their critics say they’ve hoarded land from dozens of FFXIV citizens, who feel they deserve a chance at housing. That criticism has gotten ugly as players hotly debate whether their elitism—or desire for mass amounts of property—has any place in a game where everybody pays the same fee.
Martyr Igeyorhm and Seraph Altima
“Given we both came to Mateus for the quiet, it’s distinctly uncomfortable to have others come in and insult us,” one of the bulk home-owners, a player who goes by the name Martyr Igeyorhm, told me during a tour of their two-occupant neighborhood today. “We’ve had to report people for harassment a few times.” Her housing partner Seraph Altima agreed, adding, “I think it’s wrong that people ignore the work and just see themselves being deprived.”
FFXIV has had housing drama as long as it’s had houses. When producer Naoki Yoshida introduced housing to FFXIV in 2011, he emphasized fair land distribution. But in the intervening years, housing has become a contentious topic in the game as speculators and thick-pocketed players monopolized property on big servers. Other times, players didn’t even use the houses they buy; it’s just a status symbol.
About 2,500 houses are available for each of FFXIV’s servers, which on average host over twice that amount of players. Houses aren’t a necessity in FFXIV, but owning one means having your own space to invite new raiding friends, host parties and, most importantly, decorate. Players paste ornate wallpaper to their walls, fill rooms with carved wood chests and candles and decorate with garlands and gold trimming. They cost several million FFXIV gil, unfurnished. Fur rugs, wall-to-wall bookshelves, portraits and hot tubs garnish the homes of more thick-pocketed players who choose to sink their resources in home decor. Smaller apartments remain available too, but without the grandeur of a garden or street entrance (and on some servers, houses are still available.)
Out of this design frenzy, an FFXIV adaptation of Cribs has even emerged. A year ago, it featured the player Seraph Altima and her “sanctuary,” complete with a lush garden, an attended full bar and stone partitions.
The reporter’s alternate account in Altima and Igeyorhm’s home
Altima had carved out sanctuaries on two of FFXIV’s most populous servers. There, not even apartments, the less sought-after housing option, remain on the market. Publisher Square Enix has been adding more plots to keep up with demand, and will add more in the future, but right now, there’s not enough to go around. Over e-mail, a Square Enix representative told Kotaku that players are only able to purchase one house per character. But because both individual players and Free Companies—FFXIV’s guilds—can own property, players break that mandate a lot.
Last year, Altima fled the game’s more populous servers and established her new home on the quaint Mateus. At that point, it was one of the only servers with a wealth of land. She and Igeyorhm claimed 28 plots and thought they’d have that space to themselves. Likely, their land avarice wouldn’t have become a problem if thousands of refugees hadn’t recently fled booked-up servers searching for fresh housing frontiers.
Square Enix started offering free server transfers prior to FFXIV’s June Stormblood expansion, so players who wanted to avoid the influx of returning fans could game in peace. Mateus, which was unofficially designated a new role-playing server and was still a pristine (and cheap) housing frontier, was quickly full of home-scouters. Eventually, the housing options in that server filled up, too. When incoming transfers realized that they could no longer purchase plots on Mateus, of all places, and noticed that two players owned a plush 28 plots, accusations of greed and unfeeling avarice spread. Over Facebook and Reddit, hundreds of players had angry words for the alleged gentrifiers who felt “entitled” to own all that property when so many recent transfers (and players still saving up) never had a chance to carve out a home on Mateus.
Altima and Igeyorhm’s underground library
Altima estimates that their 28 homes, the majority of an entire ward, cost around 150 million gil. If they had bought that gil, it’d have cost $375. On FFXIV this morning, Igeyorhm described themselves as “omnicrafters,” or players who “make all of our own items and sell other items for profit.” (To save a few bucks, most of their decor was made using FFXIV’s crafting system, too.) It took a lot of time. And she doesn’t feel sorry for players who put in less effort, or got to Mateus later along with the crowds. On a now-viral Tumblr post in response to public outcry, Altima wrote, “Many people feel entitled to own a house. They feel that even knowing there are only 2,160 plots (soon to be 2,880) on any given server, they can and should be allowed to go at their own pace and have free access to any content they like, including housing. They want a house of their own, but they don’t want to accept that lots of other people want it badly enough to work harder for it than they did.”
“Good lord,” a Redditor wrote. “People who aren’t rich enough to afford houses just aren’t TRYING hard enough? Not wanting neighbors putting up ‘ugly’ Paissa houses in ‘MY neighborhood?’ It’s like the most stereotypical rich snob attitude I’ve ever seen, except it’s apparently REAL (other than being in a video game).” Another described their actions as “selfishness because this person wanted to make a bastion of single-player content in a multiplayer game.”
Altima and Igeyorhm’s cake shop
I met Altima and Igeyorhm at the entrance of Goblet Ward 12 on FFXIV’s Mateus server. There, they fielded my questions while we toured through their saccharine two-floor cake shop, picture-perfect schoolyard, somber church to the FFXIV deity Zodiark and many, many gardens. Igeyorhm excitedly pointed out ice crystal formations and bubbling fountains between dives into hand-designed underground libraries and the like. I asked whether home construction was something she pursued in other games.
“Not really,” she said. “A lot of people like to ask us, ‘Why not play the Sims?’ Because we do so much other stuff!” Igyorhm said that, after her husband died, she hasn’t decorated much in real life. A few months later, she met Altima, and together they’ve spent an estimated thousand hours curating their 28 plots.
Neither thinks they’re unfairly eating up FFXIV’s limited housing resources. They blame Square Enix for not accommodating players’ passion for home-ownership—at least with houses. Although more cramped apartments are available on some servers and more housing will be added soon, the problem is more of philosophy than accessibility: Are players entitled to property in FFXIV—any more than they’re entitled to raiding mounts or veteran rewards? Is it the richer players, or the ones with more free time to grind out crafting exp, who are more entitled to take up space?
Altima and Igeyorhm’s schoolhouse
I asked Altima and Igeyorhm whether they’d give up any one of their plots for a new transfer desperate for a home. They paused. “These are our memories. Our precious time spent together,” Igeyorhm said.
Of course, some players still think they should be able to get those houses. “Not everyone needs everything in-game,” counters Altima. She argues that she’s not depriving anyone of housing; the plots were empty for years before they took them. “For example, not everyone deserves the Savage raiding mounts if they don’t do Alexander.”
Today’s 4.1 update to Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood introduced new player housing in the scenic, Far Eastern-themed district of Shirogane. Servers went online at 6AM, putting 720 new housing plots on the market. The choicest locations were gone before many players could even clear the login queue.
In order to acquire one of the new housing plots, players had to be fast. Grabbing one involves making their way as quickly as possibly to the area their preferred plot is located in and staking a claim before anyone else. One helpful tip circulating for players hoping to score a home this morning involves setting their character to busy, so other players can’t attempt to interrupt the purchase by opening a trade window. It’s a cutthroat game that’s over in a flash.
The login queues did not help. The launch of a new update is a busy time for any popular MMO, and the 4.1 “The Legend Returns” update is pretty huge. According to reports gathered in game and in the Final Fantasy XIV forums, many players who had prepared for today’s land rush found them stuck in login queues, their hopes of a new home ticking away with each passing minute.
The new Shirogane district features its own hot springs, suitable for bathing and fishing.
Final Fantasy XIV’s housing system is notoriously bad. Where other games allow players to carve out a private space for themselves or their guild as they see fit, Square Enix’s MMO keeps available housing limited. Up until today’s patch there were three housing areas in each server. Each housing area features 12 wards, with 60 plots of varying sizes in each. That’s 2,160 spots for players and free companies (guilds). Taking into account players who like to horde housing or free companies attempting to buy up plots en masse, that’s not a lot of space.
Adding 720 more plots per server doesn’t help much, especially when they’re fresh and new and oh-so-pretty. The forums and Reddit are filled with nightmare stories about today’s chaotic land grab. It’s the worst part of an otherwise excellent patch. It’s souring the entire experience. Players are talking about canceling their accounts. My free company leader mentioned hearing someone suggest the Shirogane area’s name be changed to “Shiogane” (“shio” is Japanese for salt.)
All housing areas now feature swimming, so that’s something.
It’s a rough system, to be sure. It’s been rough for years. When housing was introduced in Final Fantasy XIV back in 2011, I was excited at the idea of owning my own little home and decorating it with all sorts of virtual FF items. Then I saw the exorbitant prices for player homes and the relatively slim chance of actually getting one, and I gave up. I am a bold adventurer. I have conquered gods, demons and kings and averted world-ending catastrophe on several occasions. My home is wherever my sword or fishing rod takes me.
To be honest, my character can’t even afford an apartment.
Seriously though, please fix this, Square Enix. I am fine with anything. Build us a Final Fantasy-flavored slum and I will live under a box, as long as I don’t have to fight for it.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Danais a great action role-playing game marred by a shoddy localization. Following fan outcry over grammatical errors, inconsistencies and typos, NIS America announced today it’s doing the whole thing over again.
In a letter addressed to “All Customers of Ys VIII,” NIS America president and CEO Takuro Yamashita acknowledged that the localization had not reached an acceptable level by the company’s standards, and an internal investigation was being held to discover how it occurred as well as ensure it doesn’t happen again. More importantly, the company is having the entire localization gone over again to fix the existing problem.
As for Ys VIII itself, we will have a new translator and editor go over the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations. For the script, where necessary, we will re-translate and re-edit the game including updating voicework to reflect these changes.
That’s some pretty substantial bending-over-backward to make players happy right there, but an appropriate response given the scope of the flubs and fumbles made in localizing the eighth game in the venerable role-playing series to English.
One of my favorite examples involves a place named the “Crevice of the Archeozoic Era” in Japanese. It sounds so mysterious, doesn’t it?
Not only did this place already have a perfectly good English language name, the translators opted to translate “crevice” as “big hole.” Big hole.
Along with poor translating, localization errors also led to food recipe names being swapped, leaving players confused over which buffs were received when eating in-game meals.
The images in this post are all derived from a gallery linked on the Reddit page for fans of Ys developer Nihon Falcom, which organized a write-in campaign aimed at letting the Japanese video game maker know how poorly North American publisher NIS America had botched the localization.
Yamashita said the company plans to offer the results of the re-localization as a free download to PlayStation 4 and Vita players next month, with the delayed PC version launching with the updated translation.
In 2001, after a mere nine issues ending with an unresolved cliffhanger, popular fantasy comic series Battle Chasers was put on hold so creator Joe Madureira could pursue game development. If recently-released turn-based RPG Battle Chasers: Nightwar is any indication, it was a good move.
The Battle Chasers comic book was pretty huge in the late ‘90s. One couldn’t walk by a comic shop or bookstore without seeing posters emblazoned with bright and colorful fantasy characters wielding giant weapons. Creator Joe Madureira is often credited with bringing the influence of manga art to Western comics, and Battle Chasers felt like a Japanese role-playing game in comic book.
But Joe had trouble getting the comic book out on a regular schedule. Between switching from creator-owned label Cliffhanger to DC and eventually Image, Battle Chasers averaged a whopping six months between issues. The series’ cancellation was not unexpected, but it was still very disappointing for fans who’d stuck it through.
Sixteen years after Battle Chasers got put on hold, Battle Chasers: Nightwar gives fans of the series a chance to get reacquainted with the comics’ group of stalwart heroes as they embark on a mildly unrelated adventure.
The game opens with sulky swordsman Garrison, hulking golem Calibretto, wizened mage Knolan, wildly irresponsible bounty hunter Red Monika and hard-punching nine-year-old Gully flying their airship over an unfamiliar island. Suddenly attacked by unknown forces, the party is separated, their airship trashed. Thus begins an epic adventure to bring the band back together, figure out why they were targeted and deal with those that targeted them in spectacular turn-based fashion.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar combines Diablo-style exploration with dynamic turn-based battles to create a clever little amalgam that’s quite fun to play. First we’ve got the overworld map, where players move from point-to-point, battling creatures and harvesting crafting materials and treasure. It’s not the most thrilling way to get around the map, but it works.
Things get much more exciting in the game’s dynamically-generated dungeons. The view shifts to something a little more isometric, giving a much more detailed look at the game’s lush environments. When not engaging in battles, players are free to explore and search for ancient texts, rare crafting materials and powerful equipment. There’s even a basic fishing mini-game, because no fantasy adventure is so urgent that we can’t have fish.
The downside to dungeons is that developer Airship Syndicate tied most of the story’s plot progression to events that take place deep within their winding pathways. Odds are if the next step in your quest is to get to a point on the overworld map, there will be a mandatory dungeon between the two points that’ll take a good half hour to clear. There are subtler ways to impede player progress.
The dungeons can sometimes feel like little more than filler between battles, but when the battles are this good, I don’t mind filler so much. Joe Madureira’s signature art system animates beautifully in Nightwar’s simple-yet-sophisticated turn-based combat.
It’s a finely-honed system that encourages using the parties’ complementary skills to maximize damage and efficiency. As battles increase in difficulty, the party is forced to work together in order to juggle buffs and debuffs, healing and damage. Spamming basic attacks is hardly ever the answer.
Plus it’s so pretty.
Now that the Battle Chasers video game is out, word is there are more comics on the way. I’m not so sure we need them anymore. Gully and friends feel more at home in Nightwar than they ever did on the printed page.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar is now available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A Switch version is in the works.
2004’s Spider-Man 2 is fondly remembered for being a pretty good movie tie-in game with some amazing web swinging. New York is a blast to zip through, but one speedrunner decided to see how fast they could complete the game without using its most exciting feature.
Slyfincleton decided to speedrun their way through Spider-Man 2 without ever using the superhero’s iconic web swinging. In Spider-Man 2, the fastest mode of travel is to toss out a line of webbing and swing around the city. Slyfincleton forgoes all of this in favor of furious wall running and long jumps that turns Spider Man into a bouncing daredevil, ping ponging from building to building like a jittery flea.
The only time that he ever employs webbing for movement is a web zip, which allows Spider Man to quickly shoot some web to pull himself forward. It gives a quick burst of movement but can’t quite match the momentum of a full swing. Using zips might feel like a bit of a technicality, but it proves essential for sequences where Spider Man is meant to spend extended time in the air, such as a battle above the Hudson River against some UFOs created by the special effects mastermind Mysterio.
Slyfincleton’s run is a bit of a gimmick; it’s the only complete “no swing” run. He finished with a time of 1:43:31, bouncing all over the place. It’s a silly run that shows off how nimble Spider Man is even when he’s not web slinging.
Fancy construction sets are nice, but there’s plenty of building to do in Minecraft proper. The first wave of Minecraft Adventure Figures from Jinx are the perfect way to just hang out at your desk with Steve and the gang.
Available this month at Walmart, Target and collectible retailers like Gamestop (they also dabble in video games), Minecraft Adventure Figures are a series of six lovingly-crafted vinyl statues celebrating the life and death of Steve, Alex and their various enemies.
I’m not normally one for toys that don’t actually do anything, but there’s something about the design of these that implies action without actually imparting any. The slight curve to the characters’ bodies, the sway of their blocky arms. They are ready for adventure, even if that adventure never comes.
The initial assortment includes Diamond Steve, Enchanted Alex (aka Hawkeye), Zombie, Zombie Pigman, Skeleton (or jack-o-lantern with Skeleton friend) and, of course, a Creeper. They run $9.99 apiece and surprise—they are sold in window boxes, so you don’t have to worry about doubles.
Check out some shots of the Minecraft Adventure Figures in relative action in the slideshow below.
You can’t go wrong with good old Diamond Steve. While staying true to texture, the Minecraft adventure figures give the characters’ bodies a slight curve, adding a sense of momentum to the stationary toys. He is charging towards a thing, and that thing is probably adventure.
