Ah, thats just me not being eloquent enough in english. Its a complex situation actually. What I meant was - in the online multiplayer part, you have people who have bought entire villagers, even some who are named Lords because of the packages they bought for real money. SOME of these housing options, deeds for land and so on are purchasable by in-game gold as well, in the online multiplayer sessions.
This means, that, seeing that this IS an online game, with lots of players, it has to be expesnive, and require a lot of gold, which requires a lot grinding , selling to other players and so on, to be able to amass this gold.
These housing options are available in the single player online and offline economy as well, but here, you CANNOT sell to other player, you CANNOT grind several places, because monsters don’t respawn in the same way and so on.
So - the economy is more or less broken, and showcases some of the difficulty you have with smashing together these three kind of different playstyles.
There is a lot more to it, but, basically - The game isn’t very good. That is aside from the horrible UI, the messy combat, the poor animations, but on TOP of all those things you have stuff like the economy which is just bonkers. Unless of course you have 100 hours to grind in your single player rpg, so you can purchase a cottage.
I am exaggeting some things slightly, but this is more or less the situation the game was in a few months ago, and has been for quite a while - I seriously doubt that will change much.
I hope this makes more sense! Oh, and no, you are NOT required to purchase any housing!