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Good Housing System?
Anything out there that has a good housing system? Since I don't like raids anymore after EQ and WoW, I want something to build aside from my character. High end gaming is boring to me because its all raid focused now and I hate raids with a passion after doing them for almost 10 years.
I have tried these games and found them lacking:
Anarchy Online: housing was underutilized, not alot of things you could do with it
FFXI: housing was bland, alot of stuff to do, but you couldn't really own a house, it was an apartment
Shadowbane: housing was great, but could only put them into cities, and taking up city space meant less defenses, no one let you place houses in towns
DAOC: a large flat plane with subdivision style housing, it seemed more like a warehouse than a home
I'm looking for more Indie style of a game, would even try 2D sprite based if the housing is cool
Comments
Ultima Online has a great housing system, if you can find a spot to place a house and/or have the money to buy one.
I'd say UO or SWG... Those two I Know have good housing.. as for housing I haven't tested I've heard good things about Vanguard and Lord of the Rings..
EQ2 I haven't heard much about..
In SWG you can put your house almost anywhere, gameplay doesn't appeal to me though, but housing is still good.
Vanguard did a lot of things wrong, but it has one of the coolest housing systems I've seen, yet.
Your house's appearance depends on its size and location. Houses can be built in Thestra (with a European style), Qalia (Middle Eastern feel), or Kojan (Oriental feel). You can have a one story, two story, or two different variations of two-story-plus. Houses can only be built on specificed housing plots that you own - you can only own one plot at a time.
Your house has cosmetic and practical uses. Your house acts as a free waypoint that you can teleport to once an hour; you can also have storage chests there (number of chests is dependant on the size of your house) which is vital if you intent to pursue more than one line of progression. You can also buy various types of furniture to decorate your house, which is just plain fun
Houses are all located within one "chunk" of a crafting outpost, with vendors, crafting stations, etc. Many houses are also located near a flying mount rental station - making it easier to get off the island that your house is probably on.
A guild leader can build a guild hall instead of a house; this takes a massive amount of resources and work, but the size of these things is...breataking. My two-story-plus had 3 rooms and a little hallway; it took me 10 minutes to explore a guild hall, and quite honestly, they're PALACES. New additions to the game with Update 3 give some perks to guild hall owners, such as buffs if you have special guild hall trophies
Think that covers it. EQII also has a great housing system, but I haven't played around with it in a while. If anyone has more experience with EQII housing, please expound!
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
Wurm online has an interesting housing system, but almost sure that a game like that is not what you are looking for :P. Beside that I do not think there are any game with good housing system in place of what I played.
This one is pretty easy for me. Housing in SWG is the one thing I still give them props for, although it hasn't changed since 2003. Cities were very integrated into the guild system, and they have a building type for every need. I haven't played vanguard, but the system sounds good, just needs more people and fewer cpu cycles.
Secondlife is a very building driven place as well. If you can find something to do there, which takes some looking. Luckily I own land in the only mainland combat sim left.
Hmm. Wouldn't EvE rock the boat if they derived some sort of player housing in stations after they introduce out of pod? That, would truly, be the best game on the planet if they did eventually.
Played (more than a month): SWG, Second Life, Tabula Rasa, Lineage 2, Everquest 2, EvE, MxO, Ryzom.
Tried: WoW, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Everquest, WWII Online, Planetside
Beta: Lotro, Tabula Rasa, WAR.
Having a one room house where I had access to so much was a lot, but I met this friend of mine and went to his house one day. He had a basement, main floor, spiral staircase up the middle, two top stories. You can basically own mansions. As long as you can pay it off though!
Living in certain cities also meant what your house looked like, but you could always pack up all your belongings and move out. Hope this helped!
I remember playing "The floor is lava" in EQ2. Rules: Jump around, don't land on the floor. Yeah, rugs count as floor.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
EQ2's great. I love the Maj'dul ones especially.
-------------------------
I'll add in that I like DAOC housing system as well.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
I think Star Wars Galaxies probably has one of, if not the best housing systems.
You're free to place your house on 7 different planets in practically any area of these planets outside of an NPC city. Houses come in various sizes from a small one room house to a mansion with multiple levels and rooms. Different planets have different styles of houses that can be placed.
How you use your house is really up to you. You could simply use it for storage or you could get creative and decorate it with any item within the game. Houses do not come pre-decorated so you're free to create your own theme using whatever you can find - it's pretty interesting to see the objects some people use to combine together to make something completely unique. For instance, using various items, someone managed to make a Star Destroyer replica within their house. Houses are not instanced in SWG either, so as long as you have entry or the owner has set the house to public, you can go into houses and look around.
You also have the oppotunity to become part of a Player built city - or build one yourself. These cities can be built on any planet that can have houses and can range in size from being just a small outpost to being a Metropolis with all the features you'd find in an NPC city. Just like houses, they can be built anywhere outside of NPC cities (and a set distance from other cities) however there are caps on how many there can be at each rank.
Haha! We used to play that in AO, only in Job the apartments were two stories so there would be this long trail of bookcases, chairs, and desks leading upstairs. For added difficulty the walls were made of lava as well. Only the most epic lava jumper made it to the top.
Yes, you are right that the EQ2 housing system is well done. I always considered EQ2 to have more in common with SWG than any other game (in general systems, choice, char cust, etc). They really did a good job with EQ2, just sad many won't try it given their previous (one game) experience with SWG. No comment on how to right that, just sad they never really tried.
Played (more than a month): SWG, Second Life, Tabula Rasa, Lineage 2, Everquest 2, EvE, MxO, Ryzom.
Tried: WoW, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Everquest, WWII Online, Planetside
Beta: Lotro, Tabula Rasa, WAR.
I have played SWG Pre-cu and i have played many other mmo's and all i can say is that the housing system of SWG is simply just the best! (imo) I don't really have to explain why, the guys above me clearly have everything explained why SWG housing system is great! the only stupid thing was (atleast, i don't know if this is still in the new SWG?) there were practically houses every where, it kinda killed the environment seeing thousands of houses all over the planet
Banzai!
Nothing beats Vanguards housing system. EQ2 is also very good. Both game have great player made items...but vanguard has player made items from all three continents and with their own unique styles. Listen to the MMORPG.com managers
Guild halls are truly amazing...but guess what? I have yet to see a large one...think actual castles in size and scope.
I play all ghame
These are some screenshots from a large Kojan guild hall. Every object is either crafted or bought and placed in the hall. The original thread with more pictures can be seen here.
Here is a very nice video of a large Thestran guild hall.
i have to agree with most here that vanguard has the best housing system of the games i played. it has a lot options and the houses are not in instances they ar out in the world.
Follow ups are SWG and EQ2, they both have great decoration option too. SWG interface for housing as i can remember it is not that great you had tro rely on console commands often enough to get thhings placed on right position but all things in game had an apearance when placed in houses. The downside of housing in EQ2 is that it all rooms or houses are instances, the good thing is that there are different styles of housing ineach city, and that there are lots of furniture items in game which can be palced inthe houses. If you want to see what people did with their houses in EQ2 the Norrath homeshow forum on official eq2 forums is a good place to go to.
While we're showing screenshots, here's a guild hall (3 stories, this is the main room on the ground floor) from SWG that's been decorated:
A room from my bunker:
These are some basic decorating though, some more complicated designs (although many get even more complicated then what's in these links):
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/news_archive.vm?id=67328&month=072007
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/news_archive.vm?id=67317&month=072007
As a side point, some people even get into landscaping
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/news_archive.vm?id=67307&month=062007