The FFXIV Fanfest is broadcasting this weekend and I have hopes to hear about two things for the next expansion in particular: the new melee class and the Island Sanctuary.

Yesterday, I read an interview with Yoshi-P at MMORPG.com. The most exciting part was what he had to say about the Island Sanctuary vs. housing.

MMORPG: With Ishgardian housing coming as well as the Island Sanctuary, players are wondering — what will the overlap be, if any, between Housing/Estate activities and Island Sanctuary ones?

Yoshida: I won’t say there is no overlap in the gameplay, but they are fundamentally two separate pieces of content. If anything, we plan to incorporate many things that you can’t do within the housing/estate system into the Island Sanctuary. We’ll have more details down the road, so please stay tuned for further updates on this.

-Interview

I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic about this quote, but as a person who longs for the life skills and fluff in an MMO, this could be hinting that FFXIV could finally be working on providing all the things that I find elsewhere (BDO) that I’d love to see in Eorzea.

We all know that the current housing system is rubbish.

People like me who love the game and are lucky enough to own a house still think it’s rubbish.

Oh, the houses themselves are mostly fine. Though I could do with a lot more outside decoration slots and storage since all I could ever get was a small house… and every year, in game events keep piling more cool outdoor decorations on us.

The trouble comes because housing is extremely limited due to the non-instanced nature of the neighborhoods, that you have to camp for hours and pray you claim a spot when you do find an open lot, and the instanced housing we do have (apartments) are quaint but hardly a replacement for the size and functionality of a house.

While it’s cool to have neighborhoods, I think the FFXIV playerbase now understands the value of instanced housing and would be more than happy to take an instanced house with greater flexibility rather than (in many cases) no house at all.

I know I’m not the only one hoping that this new Island Sanctuary might be the instanced housing solution that we’ve needed for years. However, while the above quote could be taken to mean the Sanctuary is filling that blank, it could mean a lot of other things, too.

Saying “we plan to incorporate many things that you can’t do within the housing/estate system into the Island Sanctuary” could indicate that things like animal raising (which was mentioned already) couldn’t be done with the existing housing system but can be done here. It doesn’t necessarily indicate that Island Sanctuary is going to be additional instanced housing that every character can have, though.

So while I want to be hopeful for this feature, I’m also being cautious to curb my hopes. What I really want is for S/E to blow my mind when they do release information about the Island Sanctuary. And I do hope to hear more about it during Fanfest – I think they know that this particular feature has garnered interest in the community.

But for now, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what we get this weekend!