hope to make housing like FF14 online.
Yep, that’s my impression as well. I find it interesting tho, because the way I see it, it fixes absolutely nothing. We were flying, we are still flying, and faster at that! The gain (active player input) seems like a rather desperate attempt at something which accomplishes very little.
I fully agree with you tho that the things it would take to revert the damage, would create far too much friction. That in itself would damage the game even more. In that sense I think that’s done, there’s no going back. The only changes I could see working out well would be to ease up a bit on difficulty and pace, and create a more holistic experience again as a community that way.
I think the problem with places looking so empty is the sharding.
I doubt the player houses will have things like personal AH, bank or something. While you can basically carry all those with you, I still feel often inclided to use the AH and bank in cities. Which ever happens to be closest to me.