add some life to the villagesFollow

Dear SE, yesterday I made my way to "Owl's Nest" in Coerthas - a cute little hamlet. But there is no reason to stick around - nothing to do there - no one there. It is a waste to have nothing in these towns.

Please make it a high priority to AT LEAST add a couple vendors. There is already a weaving NPC and a cooking NPC - why not have them sell goods and crafting buffs at the very least. That way people might at least visit the town to unload some vendor junk or synth up some drops. It wouldn't be very hard to add some vendors, would it?

And the world needs more vendors anyhow.

This got me thinking, and keep in mind I think an idea like this would have to wait until they manage to make the game more playable: but perhaps they could re-institute mog-houses (I.E. instanced domiciles "owned" by each player) and allow players to choose which village to set their home in. They should definitely add NPCs to villages, but having players populate them would solve the ghost town problem the game seems to have right now.

This would give you a place to store your items other unloading them on your retainer (but would require you to travel to the village to retrieve the items), have a place to craft free from lag (since each house would be an instance, accessible only to the player and those who are in a party with them), somewhere to instantly regain HP and MP to full, and a place to store furniture items (which would make additional markets for Blacksmiths, Clothcrafters and Woodworkers, who could make items such as chairs, tables, bathtubs, cauldrons, beds, rugs, drapes, etc.).

As in FFXI, different furniture might give different status effects:

-Beds might give "Well Rested" status after leaving your house, which might reduce the Stamina cost of actions by a certain amount (depending on the bed) for a few in-game hours.
-Kitchen utensils and cook ware might enhance the duration or potency of food effects slightly when used in your house.
-Fireplaces might grant Ice elemental resistance if you stay in their glow for a short time.
-Bookshelves might give you increased magical accuracy or defense for a time after leaving your house.
-Wind chimes might give you Fire elemental resistance for a short time after leaving your mog house.
-A bathtub might periodically shave off a little bit of time from your fatigue for certain jobs (a cast iron tub would reduce the fatigue level for DoW, a brass tub would do likewise for DoH, a porcelain tub would affect DoM, and a pond or well in the back yard would refresh DoL classes).

New jobs could be devised around the "housing market," like
-Artisans (Disciple of the Hand): sculptors, potters and workers with clay, can create pottery, statuettes, and even golems that will follow and assist a player in some way for a short time before crumbling to dust.
-Masons (Disciple of the Hand): architects dealing with stone-working, modifying houses to change their appearance or add features such as new rooms, and also building obelisks with elemental power enhancements, statues for visual effect, etc.
-Surveyors (Disciple of the Land) agriculturalists dealing with landscaping, farming, gardening, fung shui, etc., allowing for the addition of outdoor features such as trees and hedges, gardens or vinyards, wells, streams, etc.
-Merchants (Disciple of the Hand): A class that gains experience through buying and selling items, granting special abilities such as reduced costs from vendors, retaining a percentage of the gil paid to other players for goods and services (although the other player still gets the full amount), additional storage space in their house, and the ability to open their houses to non-party members to create a shop.

Well, ok, I'm just rambling now. But like I said, you got me thinking :)