the Garrison is also NOT player housing.
Its not any more a player’s house than a factory is a factory worker’s home.
its a hub that puts all your gathering nodes in a personal instance. that is not player housing? does your house work like that? running a garden to sell the plants, digging up ore in the back yard to turn into steel. using the barn to mass produce leather and cloth. the front yard has crafting stalls to turn the raw materials into products. a Trading post on the side of your house? a fishing pond on the other side? a Bank across from your trading post?
player housing is NOT that. that has NEVER been the housing fantasy. 99% of people do not live like that. unless you are Elon and even then he has a home, even if its modular/ replaced like an old car for the newer model
its like saying to the homeless, “you are not homeless, because you can go to a homeless shelter.”
in any case… something something free phones with sub is a good idea? 
but really that isn’t the point. the point is, don’t make it mandatory UNLESS you are willing to give everyone a phone with the game. or bring back the key chain ones and ship it to everyone.
you CAN say, you have less custom controls unless you get one but it isn’t realistic to require it in order to play. the sub count would flat line. there’s barely a pulse as it is.
ideally, everyone would have an Authenticator.
just like ideally, everyone should have healthcare insurance.
but there are right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. and everything in between.
…
now back to the player housing, it would need to have a few things to be a player house.
1, rested Area
2, a separate hearthstone to it, preferably a toy so it doesn’t take up more bag slots.
3, a portal to the main city
4, needs to have a bed.
5, you NEED to be able to move ANY object to ANY place within the player house.
*some examples, Minecraft, FF14, Sims, WildStar(about the only thing they did right imo)
6, the ability to invite people to your home.
7, IT CAN NOT AND MUST NOT have QoL things that bypass crafting and gathering professions. a home is a place to rest, not a place to get stuck working long after hours.
(granted some jobs are basically fun/ the same stuff people would do in their free time but thats more of an exception. some people might find watering plants fun and other will see it as a chore that they would rather not have to do but if it provides an advantage then it will be seen as required and cause burn out as well as an over saturated market.)
- is optional but is essential to making a player house a game play loop.
Furniture, decorations, etc needs to be added to the loot tables. crafting professions need to be able to make housing décor as well. putting all these rewards into the world gives players a reason to keep playing that is not tied to player power.
loot drops need to be consistent so that players get carrots and not in a point where they see no gains for time invested. a good way imo to address this is to always drop materials for items rather than low rng drops. a npc crafter could make a number of things or trade décor for those drops for items that are too unique or common to be left up to a player only market.
(like a way one could regulate the lego prices is to have an npc that would offer to make the lego or a random lego at a lower price. maybe 30k or 50k which would put an upper cap on the lego prices because an npc can make it cheaper. then there isn’t that 250k for a lego base item no one can use for 3 weeks)
but that aside, player housing needs to be a place where players can quantify their achievements and express their creativity. a place they go to for fun but have no built in functions that replace their needs to go out into the world.
