Hosing is very important to me in MMO's. It's my little world that I can customize how I see fit. It's really the only thing in many games that IS yours. SWG probably did it best in my opinion. It's unfortunate though, the last time I tried SWG a year ago, after having quit a day after NGE, my houses were all gone for some reason. I will even take instanced housing over none. At least you can customize it and maybe show it off to your friends. Anyways, thanks for the article, good read!
My first house was in AC, I lost the first one I found as someone beat me to it. But when a new lot showed up a few of us camped them 24/7 with a rota system, we each had the others Phone # to call as soon as the houses showed up, in the meantime we had been collecting all sorts of things for that secret item needed on the day the houses became available. Guess what? On the day the one Item I did NOT have was the item needed.....lol. 3pm PST they came up for rent - that is when i got the Crucial phone call.......lol
I got my Mage in to make me a portal to the Hub and went there to see if I could buy the secret item needed [ the Hub was a player made Market ] ONE person had it, and sold it to me for al the money I had left bar the money I needed for the first rent! All the friends that had been waiting for their houses got theirs and - I GOT MY HOUSE!!!
I was soooooooooooooooo excited! Then we could furnish them - hang armour etc on the walls - put fountains outside - all sorts of things including some quests that gave us Speciality items for our houses, and of course the best was having ALL your characters tied to that house - so u could log them in to get items off them that were needed to use or to sell in the Hub.
Oh! Those were the days )
I am an Abstract sort of Creature Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint If you try to pigeonhole me I Will Break Free!
I loved the non-instanced housing that AC/Asheron's call had. There was clusters of neighborhoods all over the world. I had a notebook that I kept notes/coords in every time I would find a new cluster. The neighborhoods were all unique because the landscapes were all different.
I had my heart set on this one villa and I had a toon parked at it for a year. I would log her in every couple days to check on the rent to see if it might become available. It took me over a year but I got the house of my dreams upon a mountain, overlooking winding rivers in the valley.
Instanced housing just isn't the same. It feels generic...like a hotel.
Was that the one outside Qalaba'r? Not sure I remember rivers - so maybe not - but that one hidden on a hill outside Qalaba'r was lovely, know that took ages to come up as well.
The apartments were instanced though in AC
I am an Abstract sort of Creature Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint If you try to pigeonhole me I Will Break Free!
I love player housing in MMO's. Too me it's part of the game world. EQ2's is instanced, but I don't know how you could do it otherwise w/o being graphic intensive. Decorating in EQ2 is amazing what some people can do. Norrathian Home Show is worth a visit to see the truly creative.
I've always heard so much good about UO, AC and SWG - you'd think some developers would attempt to add some of those features.
I loved SWG's housing system, it has to be one of the best ever, running all over to various planets to put ur house down in a special area [I had one in the Guild city - and one out in the middle of nowhere - where the Scenery was spectacular] - great that houses could be put almost anywhere as well. I also liked the fact it was part of one of the Crafts, making the houses.
Their AH system was good too, putting in ur own advertisement for an item or items, and if u had ur own vendor, u could add the Co-ords in the advert, and planet, so players could locate ur vendor and buy ur goods, Brilliant!
AC was great - but SWG was really the best for me on housing, my house took a while to furnish - but was such fun to go from planet to planet to find the items I wanted for my house.
Ditto, I can't understand why WoW never put in housing either, they could easily do it, by putting them on a separate server and make them instanced. Not the best to have instanced - but even so, still would be great if they had housing.
I wonder if swtor will have housing? I doubt it - but hey u never know!
I am an Abstract sort of Creature Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint If you try to pigeonhole me I Will Break Free!
Couldnt agree more. There are two things that are universally asked for but almost always ignored by developers; lots of character customazation and housing.
One give a person a sense of individuality and uniqueness. The other gives a sense of ownership and society not just to other players but to the game itself.
SWG did a great job and in my opinion the best, but where they failed was the decay issue, it wasnt built into the plan.
This is how to deal with the urban blight of canceled accounts, its as simple as;
After three months the house is refunded into an escrow account along with the items inside. The only thing the person loses is his building lot, which becomes open for someone else to build on. Thats it, there is zero loss. The person can still build and refurbish his house just like he left it, and two there is no abandoned building ruining the view (taking up lot space).
Items in the house would be treated no differently than items in the bank of a canceled account.
Its simple, but developers think that all people want to do is kill and craft. And crafting comes in a distant second to killing (i.e. raiding).
It would be easy to have the exterior non-instanced and the interior instanced, you know like stepping into a dungeon.
Oh and SWTOR will have housing in the form of your spaceship. Kind of like a bank, a crafting center, a transport, and a house all rolled into one. But i seriously doubt you'll be able to land it anywhere you want, so it will end up being more like a lobby, than a true part of the playing experience.
I see it more like you'll have to land at one or several landing points, meaning you wont be able to land anywhere you want that maybe close to the action.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Great article. Funny thing, just a few days ago I did a housing article - A Base of Operations - in my EVE blog due to the potential for private quarters with the upcoming Incarna and the intro of the Captain's Quarters.
I've been a rather outspoken proponent of MMO housing since my early days in EQ (which didn't have housing at the time but I was aware of UO's housing. I believe EQ does have housing now though). When I moved on to EQ2, I was in 7th heaven. I spent the majority of my time working on my house in it's various iterations as I kept moving up to larger quarters, and we even held my Guild meetings there at the request of my members. EQ2's housing was simply awesome.
On the other hand, when LOTRO finally got housing, it sucked big time. The hook system is atrocious and is so limiting that every house is basically a cookie-cutter copy of the next one. LOTRO's housing is nothing more than a glorified walk-in storage closet. I fought with the devs for well over a year trying to get some changes in that housing and wrote a huge, very detailed housing suggestion that everyone (except the devs of course) loved. I finally left the game two years ago mostly because of the dumbing-down but the housing was a big influence too. Had it been better (and minus the hooks) I probably would have stayed.
Also, when I was in the Fallen Earth beta, I was actively seeking info on the promised housing but got very little detail from the devs (I never subbed the game so i have no idea if the housing ever materialized in FE).
Housing is, next to personal avatar customization, the most requested fluff item in MMOs, and is the best way to get players to feel as though they are a part of the game's world because they can 'own' a piece of it. It is immersion at its best. My house is my base of operations. It's where I rewind, take a break from the grind, prepare for the next set of quests or next extended adventure, entertain or just hang with my buds. And as for the age thing mentioned by others here, I'm 57 and started EQ in '99 and have been a housing lover the whole time.
Housing really does need to be in-world though, WITH DECAY, and it should be set up so that after a certain amount of time has elapsed, a structure is considered abandoned and may be claimed by anyone who wants it, but they would have to rebuild it and defend it to keep it. That would help to allieviate the ghost-town syndrome. With all of the MMOs that do or have had housing, and some of those have been really great, none has yet gotten it completely right. Housing could add so much to an MMO with wars fought over land, defending them from invasions of monsters and other players, community events, whole towns being destroyed, or reclaimed and rebuilt, etc., etc. The list of possibilities is nearly endless and yet most MMOs ignore this undeveloped potential. I'm really hoping that EVE does it right although in that game, housing will have to be instanced in the stations. Now Dust 514 is a completely different matter though (keeping my fingers and toes crossed!).
I find the argument - "Devs time would be better spent else where" rather specious. The reality is that once the actual system is in place the devs working on the house of a game are going to be mostly the art/asset team. The most time consuming part of a housing system is making the items, be they decoratations or not. These are not the guys who do the skill/class balances, these are not the guys who write, code or balance the next raid (aside from the art assets). While it is always wise to split an art departments time between different jobs having one of those jobs be housing is not going to change the the development cycle of most MMO's.
RoM(Runes of Magic) has an instanced house, though you can get all kinds of furniture for it and even expand your house. You can give friends your house pass code and invite them in. Have parties and figure a good game plan for your upcoming raid. I think housing is awesome. It gives you a place to go that is truly YOUR HOME.
My ideal fantasy game would have a wide variety of housing options from a room at an Inn to a secure Keep all to yourself. It would also have a greater variety of housing than we have hitherto seen in most MMO's. I've love to see Guild Halls especially get more attention, making them more interesting than the usual Large Castle, I'd also love to see Guild Halls have the option of providing every member of the Guild their own rooms, this would have to be instanced (The Guild Hall would be real world the rooms would be instances accessed from the hall) of course, but it could do so much to bring Guild members together.
Great article and I could not agree more with the OP's pov. For me non instanced housing thats well done....deep crafting and faction conflict.DAOC had these elments and got my subscription money for 6 years.And now I'm looking (and not finding) for something close to that experience.
i dont care about housing. i never decorated my instanced appartment in EQ2. it was just a place for storage.
BUT, if it would be non-instanced, and if i could buildt my house like i want with all possible flexibility, stone by stone like in Minecraft, even a new Neu-Schwanstein and not just according to a predefined blueprint, .... then it would be great and i would welcome and use this feature heavily.
I'd like to see fully fledged crafting of houses, stores, with an added dimension of real estate trading in my ideal game. It's something that people will be able to work towards. Owning their first house, their first guild hall, their first pub, and then when they've had enough of the neighbourhood, selling up and moving on to bigger and better things.
I really wish that someone combine player housing with guildhall/city. Let each guild own a small city with player owned shops, pubs and maybe even minting their own coins.
With that certain guild could specialize in making and selling certain stuff. Say you need a special sword then you go to the golden stags city and check their merchants.
Of course there could be a nice option for small guilds to share a town as well.
And yes, I know that you in certain sandbox games can do parts of this but I want the guilds to be like a small city states. Preferably with their own knight or guard order that keeps the order, their own coins, guild taxes set by the grandmaster and so on. Mines and farms the guild or players owns that deliver resources for the crafters.
And it doesn't have to be a city, monster guilds could build a dungeon or knight guilds could build a huge castle.
Second Life can be an MMO if people could grasp the concept. The problem is that people log in to it but jsut don't get it and never return. The thing is, it can be whatever you want. Want to be a ninja and fight other ninjas and role play? Theres hundreds of player made ninja worlds out there, fantasy worlds, etc and thousands of weapons to choose from. Its a limitless virtual world, where players can set the limits on the land they "own". Its not reall "more like a sim" like the article says.
Don't get me wrng, its not the best thing in the world, the company that runs it sucks. The customer service is non-existant, and when the game currency is based n real life money, thats a big problem, so you'r on your own 99% of the time.Theres also a lot of crazy people in there. But for what it is, its great for creative people. You don't just set down premade stuff (although you can if you want to) you build from scratch and upload textures and stuff.
I couldn't agree more with this article. I love SWG housing and If a game with a similar system for housing and in depth crafting/character customization were to come out I would probably play it forever. Sadly though I think the days of those kinds of games, and the housing systems they used, may be gone for good.
I love the idea of real world housing but my problem with it is two-fold.
One, having acres and acres of abandoned houses really isn't a good thing. My thought on this is that houses in general should deteriorate if players cancel their subs. If they resub it stops the detioratioin but they then need to spend time building it back up. If they are unsubbed for a while then they could just lose the plot. That's my take on it anyways.
Otherwise you have plots that will never be used and abandoned structures that might just stand there.
Two, are there really going to be enough plots in the game world for thousands upon thousands of houses?
I love the idea of civilized areas and areas that are not civilized. But given that these games worlds aren't really too large, I wonder if thre really can be enough room for everyone without completely wrecking the landscape.
I would agree that having abandoned houses just sitting there would be a waste. If after a given time the payment isn't paid(if this applies) or the sub has ended then it should be able to be purchased by another or the plot be cleared (escrow account for the orignial or last owner) and the plot be available again to others. I only know how it works in Lotro. This is instanced of course and if the upkeep is not paid then after given time the items are put in an escrow and the house becomes available for purchase. I don't see why this wouldn't work for open housing too. I didn't know Atlantica had housing though. I played it for a bit but after a patch was not able to log in and support was not helpful in correcting it , so I uninstalled.
I love housing in a game. I play Lotro and that is the one feature I love and spend time redecorating and such. I find though that placement is restricted and the choice of what goes where is not well thought out but I have no comparison to other games. There are things that I would place differently but can't due to set hooks. I still love the housing. I do wish there was houses laid out different to make them unique to the player and a way to expand without abondening a house to purchase a bigger one.
Great article and one I really hold close to my heart for gaming fun and purpose. Not just the slash and hack grind.
Second Life can be an MMO if people could grasp the concept. The problem is that people log in to it but jsut don't get it and never return. The thing is, it can be whatever you want. Want to be a ninja and fight other ninjas and role play? Theres hundreds of player made ninja worlds out there, fantasy worlds, etc and thousands of weapons to choose from. Its a limitless virtual world, where players can set the limits on the land they "own". Its not reall "more like a sim" like the article says.
Don't get me wrng, its not the best thing in the world, the company that runs it sucks. The customer service is non-existant, and when the game currency is based n real life money, thats a big problem, so you'r on your own 99% of the time.Theres also a lot of crazy people in there. But for what it is, its great for creative people. You don't just set down premade stuff (although you can if you want to) you build from scratch and upload textures and stuff.
The problem there is that there's no one theme to SL. If you want a fantasy world or whatever, well, it's not. It's too open and has no consistency.
This is also a problem in UO, although to a much lesser degree. It sort of blows up just a little when you are in Yew, a supposedly wooded area, and seea bunch of marble houses. Yet you don't want to completely restrict some of this. I think there's a way to add some control to this in a true sandbox game, via costs to transport building materials and risk to do so. So local materials become much cheaper to build with. Add material requirements for maintenance, and thus the costs, and you have a system that allows for anything, but will maintain the local "flavor".
SWG had the best housing for me. I liked the noninstanced aspect. My buddies and I founded a city and it was fun planning and decorating it, as well has having random explorers pass through town, checking things out.
I had a house I built a little ways from the town's cantina and shuttle port, so I had a nice view of traffic through town and would wave or talk to peeps from my balconie. My best friend lived next door and a nice girl I made friends with lived close by. We used to visit in each others houses, decorate, admire each others creativity or trophies that were displayed. It was so much fun.
It's still the same system I believe, they've even added some new houses. If only they added decay atleast so crafting could feel viable again. Oh well.
Housing is not at the top of my list but makes it to at least number 2 after the action in the game. There are so many possibilities in the concept area, many which are covereed in the above posts. I looked forward to the inclusion of 'housing' in ships of STO (Star Trek Online) when it was expanded at the ferocious input from the forums, I still find myself rarely going around in my ship. I finally realized, as I read this OP also, that the inability to 'fly' my ship down to a planet and cruise around and land anywhere then it felt just simply like a minor 'thing' added to my game play. Don't get me wrong, I like it and the expansions for ship 'housing' interiors that are coming but it does not satisfy for immersion since we get new and different ships at different levels and rarely replay our old ships.
SWtOR is going to have ship 'housing' as stated in their website. Different character types have different ships. There may be some customization although from a point made by a staff member at PAX Boston it is doubtful it will be much or increased much in the future (Interview came from TV show on G4).
What surprises me most is that the incredible customization of characters in CoH as well as Champions has not filtered thru to many other MMO's. It seems a simple fact that the more personal customization (character/clothing/weapons/items etc..) in the game the more attractive it is. The same I believe holds true for housing. Can you imagine a housing concept with that level of customizing?
Finally I think that the space problems for in world housing can be a serious problem for coding/art and computer storage space.We could perhaps create a house and store it on our own computer wjhich could be uploaded when we enter the house in game. How about instead of rent we are paying a mortgage and after a certain period of game sub then we get title. We could sell if we like etc...ie the 'real estate' suggestion above. Please, no housing bubble in game!
Overall player housing in game will increase immersion and thus increase (I believe substantially) the sub length for many players. Good OP!
I realy loved housing in SWG. Every server was different and the world was changing, this is an aspect of gaming that an mmo should have.
What I wonder most about wow is how many people say that their favorite things are: mounts, pets and dances. So there are many people who enjoy a non combat part of the game, but what you can do in wow is just minimal. They realy should implement housing along with 1-2 professions. Its a great pity that they did not take the chance to implement some housing areas in the zones when they redid the whole world.
SWG was by far one of the best designs, mixing housing and crafting. I think we are forgetting (or possibly some never did this) ships and the fact you could design those. I remember that free cruiser everyone got that you could design the interior. I went into some of my friends ships and they looked awesome inside.
I thought the fact you couldn't "dock" with one another made the whole ordeal to time consuming. I thought it would have been interesting to pull up to a friends ship, "dock" with them and just hang out in their ship. That was my hopeful dreaming though...
I freely admit that SWG was my first MMORPG and I have spent a lot of time on my house and with friends creating nice looking player cities.
My second MMORPG was WoW. Surprisingly I never missed houseing there.
I still play both games on a regular basis. So I do agree that there is an enjoyment for housing and I would like to see it in many games. But I also understand it when a game is designed deliberately around not having housing and do not really feel that game is at much of a disadvantage.
Comments
Hosing is very important to me in MMO's. It's my little world that I can customize how I see fit. It's really the only thing in many games that IS yours. SWG probably did it best in my opinion. It's unfortunate though, the last time I tried SWG a year ago, after having quit a day after NGE, my houses were all gone for some reason. I will even take instanced housing over none. At least you can customize it and maybe show it off to your friends. Anyways, thanks for the article, good read!
I love housing in-game.
My first house was in AC, I lost the first one I found as someone beat me to it. But when a new lot showed up a few of us camped them 24/7 with a rota system, we each had the others Phone # to call as soon as the houses showed up, in the meantime we had been collecting all sorts of things for that secret item needed on the day the houses became available. Guess what? On the day the one Item I did NOT have was the item needed.....lol. 3pm PST they came up for rent - that is when i got the Crucial phone call.......lol
I got my Mage in to make me a portal to the Hub and went there to see if I could buy the secret item needed [ the Hub was a player made Market ] ONE person had it, and sold it to me for al the money I had left bar the money I needed for the first rent! All the friends that had been waiting for their houses got theirs and - I GOT MY HOUSE!!!
I was soooooooooooooooo excited! Then we could furnish them - hang armour etc on the walls - put fountains outside - all sorts of things including some quests that gave us Speciality items for our houses, and of course the best was having ALL your characters tied to that house - so u could log them in to get items off them that were needed to use or to sell in the Hub.
Oh! Those were the days
)
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
all**
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
Was that the one outside Qalaba'r? Not sure I remember rivers - so maybe not - but that one hidden on a hill outside Qalaba'r was lovely, know that took ages to come up as well.
The apartments were instanced though in AC
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
I love player housing in MMO's. Too me it's part of the game world. EQ2's is instanced, but I don't know how you could do it otherwise w/o being graphic intensive. Decorating in EQ2 is amazing what some people can do. Norrathian Home Show is worth a visit to see the truly creative.
I've always heard so much good about UO, AC and SWG - you'd think some developers would attempt to add some of those features.
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
I loved SWG's housing system, it has to be one of the best ever, running all over to various planets to put ur house down in a special area [I had one in the Guild city - and one out in the middle of nowhere - where the Scenery was spectacular] - great that houses could be put almost anywhere as well. I also liked the fact it was part of one of the Crafts, making the houses.
Their AH system was good too, putting in ur own advertisement for an item or items, and if u had ur own vendor, u could add the Co-ords in the advert, and planet, so players could locate ur vendor and buy ur goods, Brilliant!
AC was great - but SWG was really the best for me on housing, my house took a while to furnish - but was such fun to go from planet to planet to find the items I wanted for my house.
Ditto, I can't understand why WoW never put in housing either, they could easily do it, by putting them on a separate server and make them instanced. Not the best to have instanced - but even so, still would be great if they had housing.
I wonder if swtor will have housing? I doubt it - but hey u never know!
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
Great article!
Couldnt agree more. There are two things that are universally asked for but almost always ignored by developers; lots of character customazation and housing.
One give a person a sense of individuality and uniqueness. The other gives a sense of ownership and society not just to other players but to the game itself.
SWG did a great job and in my opinion the best, but where they failed was the decay issue, it wasnt built into the plan.
This is how to deal with the urban blight of canceled accounts, its as simple as;
After three months the house is refunded into an escrow account along with the items inside. The only thing the person loses is his building lot, which becomes open for someone else to build on. Thats it, there is zero loss. The person can still build and refurbish his house just like he left it, and two there is no abandoned building ruining the view (taking up lot space).
Items in the house would be treated no differently than items in the bank of a canceled account.
Its simple, but developers think that all people want to do is kill and craft. And crafting comes in a distant second to killing (i.e. raiding).
It would be easy to have the exterior non-instanced and the interior instanced, you know like stepping into a dungeon.
Oh and SWTOR will have housing in the form of your spaceship. Kind of like a bank, a crafting center, a transport, and a house all rolled into one. But i seriously doubt you'll be able to land it anywhere you want, so it will end up being more like a lobby, than a true part of the playing experience.
I see it more like you'll have to land at one or several landing points, meaning you wont be able to land anywhere you want that maybe close to the action.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Great article. Funny thing, just a few days ago I did a housing article - A Base of Operations - in my EVE blog due to the potential for private quarters with the upcoming Incarna and the intro of the Captain's Quarters.
I've been a rather outspoken proponent of MMO housing since my early days in EQ (which didn't have housing at the time but I was aware of UO's housing. I believe EQ does have housing now though). When I moved on to EQ2, I was in 7th heaven. I spent the majority of my time working on my house in it's various iterations as I kept moving up to larger quarters, and we even held my Guild meetings there at the request of my members. EQ2's housing was simply awesome.
On the other hand, when LOTRO finally got housing, it sucked big time. The hook system is atrocious and is so limiting that every house is basically a cookie-cutter copy of the next one. LOTRO's housing is nothing more than a glorified walk-in storage closet. I fought with the devs for well over a year trying to get some changes in that housing and wrote a huge, very detailed housing suggestion that everyone (except the devs of course) loved. I finally left the game two years ago mostly because of the dumbing-down but the housing was a big influence too. Had it been better (and minus the hooks) I probably would have stayed.
Also, when I was in the Fallen Earth beta, I was actively seeking info on the promised housing but got very little detail from the devs (I never subbed the game so i have no idea if the housing ever materialized in FE).
Housing is, next to personal avatar customization, the most requested fluff item in MMOs, and is the best way to get players to feel as though they are a part of the game's world because they can 'own' a piece of it. It is immersion at its best. My house is my base of operations. It's where I rewind, take a break from the grind, prepare for the next set of quests or next extended adventure, entertain or just hang with my buds. And as for the age thing mentioned by others here, I'm 57 and started EQ in '99 and have been a housing lover the whole time.
Housing really does need to be in-world though, WITH DECAY, and it should be set up so that after a certain amount of time has elapsed, a structure is considered abandoned and may be claimed by anyone who wants it, but they would have to rebuild it and defend it to keep it. That would help to allieviate the ghost-town syndrome. With all of the MMOs that do or have had housing, and some of those have been really great, none has yet gotten it completely right. Housing could add so much to an MMO with wars fought over land, defending them from invasions of monsters and other players, community events, whole towns being destroyed, or reclaimed and rebuilt, etc., etc. The list of possibilities is nearly endless and yet most MMOs ignore this undeveloped potential. I'm really hoping that EVE does it right although in that game, housing will have to be instanced in the stations. Now Dust 514 is a completely different matter though (keeping my fingers and toes crossed!).
~ Adder ~
Quick, Silent, Deadly
I find the argument - "Devs time would be better spent else where" rather specious. The reality is that once the actual system is in place the devs working on the house of a game are going to be mostly the art/asset team. The most time consuming part of a housing system is making the items, be they decoratations or not. These are not the guys who do the skill/class balances, these are not the guys who write, code or balance the next raid (aside from the art assets). While it is always wise to split an art departments time between different jobs having one of those jobs be housing is not going to change the the development cycle of most MMO's.
RoM(Runes of Magic) has an instanced house, though you can get all kinds of furniture for it and even expand your house. You can give friends your house pass code and invite them in. Have parties and figure a good game plan for your upcoming raid. I think housing is awesome. It gives you a place to go that is truly YOUR HOME.
My ideal fantasy game would have a wide variety of housing options from a room at an Inn to a secure Keep all to yourself. It would also have a greater variety of housing than we have hitherto seen in most MMO's. I've love to see Guild Halls especially get more attention, making them more interesting than the usual Large Castle, I'd also love to see Guild Halls have the option of providing every member of the Guild their own rooms, this would have to be instanced (The Guild Hall would be real world the rooms would be instances accessed from the hall) of course, but it could do so much to bring Guild members together.
Great article and I could not agree more with the OP's pov. For me non instanced housing thats well done....deep crafting and faction conflict.DAOC had these elments and got my subscription money for 6 years.And now I'm looking (and not finding) for something close to that experience.
i dont care about housing. i never decorated my instanced appartment in EQ2. it was just a place for storage.
BUT, if it would be non-instanced, and if i could buildt my house like i want with all possible flexibility, stone by stone like in Minecraft, even a new Neu-Schwanstein and not just according to a predefined blueprint, .... then it would be great and i would welcome and use this feature heavily.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
I'd like to see fully fledged crafting of houses, stores, with an added dimension of real estate trading in my ideal game. It's something that people will be able to work towards. Owning their first house, their first guild hall, their first pub, and then when they've had enough of the neighbourhood, selling up and moving on to bigger and better things.
/T2opcat
I really wish that someone combine player housing with guildhall/city. Let each guild own a small city with player owned shops, pubs and maybe even minting their own coins.
With that certain guild could specialize in making and selling certain stuff. Say you need a special sword then you go to the golden stags city and check their merchants.
Of course there could be a nice option for small guilds to share a town as well.
And yes, I know that you in certain sandbox games can do parts of this but I want the guilds to be like a small city states. Preferably with their own knight or guard order that keeps the order, their own coins, guild taxes set by the grandmaster and so on. Mines and farms the guild or players owns that deliver resources for the crafters.
And it doesn't have to be a city, monster guilds could build a dungeon or knight guilds could build a huge castle.
Second Life can be an MMO if people could grasp the concept. The problem is that people log in to it but jsut don't get it and never return. The thing is, it can be whatever you want. Want to be a ninja and fight other ninjas and role play? Theres hundreds of player made ninja worlds out there, fantasy worlds, etc and thousands of weapons to choose from. Its a limitless virtual world, where players can set the limits on the land they "own". Its not reall "more like a sim" like the article says.
Don't get me wrng, its not the best thing in the world, the company that runs it sucks. The customer service is non-existant, and when the game currency is based n real life money, thats a big problem, so you'r on your own 99% of the time.Theres also a lot of crazy people in there. But for what it is, its great for creative people. You don't just set down premade stuff (although you can if you want to) you build from scratch and upload textures and stuff.
I couldn't agree more with this article. I love SWG housing and If a game with a similar system for housing and in depth crafting/character customization were to come out I would probably play it forever. Sadly though I think the days of those kinds of games, and the housing systems they used, may be gone for good.
Retired: EVE, SWG, STO, EQ2, Ryzom, AO, LotRO, FFXI
Currently Awaiting: SWTOR, TSW, ArcheAge
I would agree that having abandoned houses just sitting there would be a waste. If after a given time the payment isn't paid(if this applies) or the sub has ended then it should be able to be purchased by another or the plot be cleared (escrow account for the orignial or last owner) and the plot be available again to others. I only know how it works in Lotro. This is instanced of course and if the upkeep is not paid then after given time the items are put in an escrow and the house becomes available for purchase. I don't see why this wouldn't work for open housing too. I didn't know Atlantica had housing though. I played it for a bit but after a patch was not able to log in and support was not helpful in correcting it , so I uninstalled.
I love housing in a game. I play Lotro and that is the one feature I love and spend time redecorating and such. I find though that placement is restricted and the choice of what goes where is not well thought out but I have no comparison to other games. There are things that I would place differently but can't due to set hooks. I still love the housing. I do wish there was houses laid out different to make them unique to the player and a way to expand without abondening a house to purchase a bigger one.
Great article and one I really hold close to my heart for gaming fun and purpose. Not just the slash and hack grind.
Gikku
The problem there is that there's no one theme to SL. If you want a fantasy world or whatever, well, it's not. It's too open and has no consistency.
This is also a problem in UO, although to a much lesser degree. It sort of blows up just a little when you are in Yew, a supposedly wooded area, and seea bunch of marble houses. Yet you don't want to completely restrict some of this. I think there's a way to add some control to this in a true sandbox game, via costs to transport building materials and risk to do so. So local materials become much cheaper to build with. Add material requirements for maintenance, and thus the costs, and you have a system that allows for anything, but will maintain the local "flavor".
Once upon a time....
SWG had the best housing for me. I liked the noninstanced aspect. My buddies and I founded a city and it was fun planning and decorating it, as well has having random explorers pass through town, checking things out.
I had a house I built a little ways from the town's cantina and shuttle port, so I had a nice view of traffic through town and would wave or talk to peeps from my balconie. My best friend lived next door and a nice girl I made friends with lived close by. We used to visit in each others houses, decorate, admire each others creativity or trophies that were displayed. It was so much fun.
It's still the same system I believe, they've even added some new houses. If only they added decay atleast so crafting could feel viable again. Oh well.
Housing is not at the top of my list but makes it to at least number 2 after the action in the game. There are so many possibilities in the concept area, many which are covereed in the above posts. I looked forward to the inclusion of 'housing' in ships of STO (Star Trek Online) when it was expanded at the ferocious input from the forums, I still find myself rarely going around in my ship. I finally realized, as I read this OP also, that the inability to 'fly' my ship down to a planet and cruise around and land anywhere then it felt just simply like a minor 'thing' added to my game play. Don't get me wrong, I like it and the expansions for ship 'housing' interiors that are coming but it does not satisfy for immersion since we get new and different ships at different levels and rarely replay our old ships.
SWtOR is going to have ship 'housing' as stated in their website. Different character types have different ships. There may be some customization although from a point made by a staff member at PAX Boston it is doubtful it will be much or increased much in the future (Interview came from TV show on G4).
What surprises me most is that the incredible customization of characters in CoH as well as Champions has not filtered thru to many other MMO's. It seems a simple fact that the more personal customization (character/clothing/weapons/items etc..) in the game the more attractive it is. The same I believe holds true for housing. Can you imagine a housing concept with that level of customizing?
Finally I think that the space problems for in world housing can be a serious problem for coding/art and computer storage space.We could perhaps create a house and store it on our own computer wjhich could be uploaded when we enter the house in game. How about instead of rent we are paying a mortgage and after a certain period of game sub then we get title. We could sell if we like etc...ie the 'real estate' suggestion above. Please, no housing bubble in game!
Overall player housing in game will increase immersion and thus increase (I believe substantially) the sub length for many players. Good OP!
I realy loved housing in SWG. Every server was different and the world was changing, this is an aspect of gaming that an mmo should have.
What I wonder most about wow is how many people say that their favorite things are: mounts, pets and dances. So there are many people who enjoy a non combat part of the game, but what you can do in wow is just minimal. They realy should implement housing along with 1-2 professions. Its a great pity that they did not take the chance to implement some housing areas in the zones when they redid the whole world.
SWG was by far one of the best designs, mixing housing and crafting. I think we are forgetting (or possibly some never did this) ships and the fact you could design those. I remember that free cruiser everyone got that you could design the interior. I went into some of my friends ships and they looked awesome inside.
I thought the fact you couldn't "dock" with one another made the whole ordeal to time consuming. I thought it would have been interesting to pull up to a friends ship, "dock" with them and just hang out in their ship. That was my hopeful dreaming though...
Ryzom has it all.
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I freely admit that SWG was my first MMORPG and I have spent a lot of time on my house and with friends creating nice looking player cities.
My second MMORPG was WoW. Surprisingly I never missed houseing there.
I still play both games on a regular basis. So I do agree that there is an enjoyment for housing and I would like to see it in many games. But I also understand it when a game is designed deliberately around not having housing and do not really feel that game is at much of a disadvantage.