The Inn

There were indeed inns in Medieval times. You’d seek a place at around dusk or earlier, as if it were nightfall you may be too late for a bed, especially if it was market day or there was a fair in the vicinity. .

Many people would be prepared to share their lodgings and victuals with you. Yet social rank is important; if you’re a lord you’ll be entertained almost wherever you go (though not in your enemy’s lands). If you’re a peasant you’ll be turned away from the bishop’s palace. In all, it’s best to send on your servant to the inn to ‘book’ you a bed; if you look poor, the landlord might refuse you by claiming you’re a vagrant – as they will point out, the inn is not a charity.

Your host is legally responsible for you during your stay. Therefore at a monastery, manor house or inn you’ll be expected to surrender your sword and any other weapons. Innkeepers are often stout, no-nonsense men. If a traveller loses his money in a game of dice, his pleas of poverty will fall on deaf ears when he has to pay his bill. The landlord will turn him out without his possessions, his horse and even without his clothes. He will also be thrown out if he causes trouble.

You arrive at the Angel. You see the handsome stone structure from some distance, with a wide street frontage and an arch in the middle. The image of an angel is painted on a board hanging above. Innkeepers are required to advertise their inns with a board. Riding under the arch you come into a courtyard. Either side are wings of accommodation, two-storey timber-framed buildings with steep roofs. These have doorways on the first floor, reached by external staircases and galleries. A stable boy will take care of your horse. You will make your way through to the hall to find the landlord or his wife. The hall is very high, open to the roof beams, with a hearth set on flagstones in the centre. The trestle table where the other guests are eating runs down one side. Smoke rises and exits through a louvre in the roof. Here of an evening you and your servant can sit with other travellers, while ale, pottage, bread and cheese are served.

The hall is often characteristically aromatic on account of the amount of mouldy food, stale drink, mud, horse dung (trodden in from the street) and the urine of talbots (guard dogs) mixed in the rushes on the floor. The best inns will see such noisome rushes quickly removed and replaced with fresh, mingled with lavender, rose petals and herbs; the worst will replace them infrequently without the herbs. In the evenings the only light apart from the fire comes from candles made of tallow (animal fat), or rushlights supported on metal stands. They smell acrid and the light is poor. If the toilet facilities are close that will probably smell too. The usual toilet is a barrel and seat, emptied every morning by some servant into the nearest brook or cesspit.

As for sleeping, you might lodge in a chamber adjacent to the hall. If not, you will have to go outside and climb the wooden staircase to your bedchamber. There you will find several beds, sometimes a dozen or more. Each bed may accommodate two, three or even more men. Women will be expected to share the same quarters, although females hardly ever stay at an inn by themselves. Married couples have the advantage that they pay double for a bed.

The beds are made of wooden frames strung with rope. A straw mattress, encased in a hemp or canvas cover, is placed on top of this. In a good inn you will probably have a second mattress. In the best inns, with just one or two beds per chamber, you may also find a chest for personal possessions and a pitcher of water and a brass basin for washing hands, faces and feet. You may need to relieve yourself in the night, so will have to make a short walk in the darkness.

A bed for the night will set you back about ½ d-1d, plus 1 ½ d-2 ½ d for a meal (more if with meat and more again if with wine). You will pay extra for your horse to be fed and looked after, which is very important. Also bed and board for your servant. If you have been well served, you will tip the landlord as you leave.

Although there is no special night-time attire, one should wear what is appropriate according to how private your accommodation is. Women should either remain in the chemise they have worn during the day or replace it with a similar clean garment for bed, together with the ubiquitous night cap (which everyone wears). Only when sleeping with a lover should you be naked. Men have more leeway as male nudity is less taboo. Thus you might keep a shirt on at night, but equally you might choose to wear nothing but a night cap, even when sharing a bed at a hospital or an inn. However, men who have a sense of decency keep their braies (breeches) on when staying away from home.
Source(s):

"The Time-Traveller's Guide to Medieval England" by Ian Mortimer

 

For those without housing, I've come up with the solution.....The Inn.

The goal is to make an Inn as attractive as owning your own house or even better !! Hear me out...

An Inn provides lodging, a place to stable your horse (when we get horses), food and drink.

Inns had to have food and drink brought in for its lodgers. What if player cooks and brewmasters provided sustenance? An inn could have work orders to be filled by players. Now, i'm not sure if food and drink will offer buffs or cool emotes that scales with quality. But if it does, then some inns might have ale superior to what you might find at a player run vendor (at their house). There would be an advantage to visiting an Inn. You might find a rare player made cake that gives a superior buff that you can't find anywhere else. The work orders would provide gold and perhaps some reputation points. With multiple cooks and brewmasters supplying an Inn, there would be more options to choose from.
(Food and drink : Advantage Inn)

Lodging : Each room (would not be instanced) could contain a chest , which is linked to your bank box for conveinence. You don't have to go to a bank, where as a player with a plot of land would have to. Where you log out you can also bank at.
(Storage : Advantage Home Owner) (Bank : just a matter of conveinence)

Main Hall : The main hall of an Inn could be a great place for roleplay since a majority of the player base might need to find lodging. In the main hall, maybe player musicians could play music that could provide buffs while you rest, eat and drink. Even resting in an Inn could provide a buff, 10 - 15 minutes for a half hour XP bonus or something. Just think of all the people you can meet this way. Forming up a party to adventure with would be easier. You will make countless friends...and enemies
(Socialization : Advantage Inn)

Stables ? If we ever get mounts, your already staying at the inn so the stable would be right there.

Furniture? What if carpenters had work orders for inns too? Providing chairs, beds and tables. Maybe after a enough work orders for an Inn are filled, its interior improves or changes in relation to the skill of the carpenters filling the orders. (I'm reaching here)

What am I getting at? I want an Inn to offer something a house on a plot of land can not provide. If the majority of the player base has no place to call home, lets at least make the Inn a viable solution.

Suggestions? What else could an Inn provide? If people are using Inns, lets give them some perks as well.

 

I love the inns. Starr Long has said this: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...d-housing-article-on-polygon.3288/#post-51561 So, to my surprise, it sounds like there will be no provided inns, but that Players can roleplay an inn. I had heard 'no inns' early on as well, and thought it odd. I do love the inns and rooms though, and used them often in UO.

 

I spent my first year and half living out of an Inn in UO. Loved it, met so many people early on. I can use my house for trophies and decor, but my nights will be spent at the local tavern or Inn !!

 

I like the idea of an inn. But what does it mean? You're not likely sleeping while you play. In a single player game, it makes some sense to press the camp button and zoom through 8 hours of relative time; but that's not the case here.

WoW sort of introduced the idea of rested xp for logging out in an inn. But this is meaningless at max level. (And we have no idea how something like this might map to SotA.) I could see some concept where a small amount of good stuff happens and / or bad stuff doesn't happen because you logged out with a designated sleeping place. Perhaps a nice room "repairs" your armor and cloths because they are assumed to be cleaned or otherwise maintained.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I like the idea that there’s some kind of “culture point” system for RP and crafting activities. So if I craft something in my house, I get whatever crafting skill points, plus some points are generated for using my crafting location, plus something is generated for the town as a whole. So if I owned an inn where people slept, that would generate some “good stuff” for the inn and for the town. So if lots and lots of people sleep at a certain inn at a certain town, that inn and town would get more important over time.

 

Right, Inns could gain in repuation. I like...

 

Hmmm...why couldn't the room be instanced? Pay a monthly rent like the people who will be paying monthly property tax. This way players who can't afford a lot and a building could at least have a room of their own.

 

I feel the primary need of housing is storage. If the mechanics are anything similar to UO, you should be able to give a person access to his/her own chest. If this remains possible, you can "rent" people storage, basically an area in your house to use in exchange for a (weekly?)monetary payment. This wouldn't require any additional mechanics, the players could build and maintain one themselves.

 

I respectfully disagree. Say you have a house and you're renting storage chests. I rent one from you. To accomodate this, you must "friend" me to the house. One day you decide that you no longer like me, "unfriend" me, and now I no longer have access to my gear. Same example but everything is cool between us...but something personal happens (god forbid...) and you do not log in for a couple of months. You don't pay your taxes, you forfeit your lot and your house (with my gear) lands in your personal inventory. Both examples, I have done nothing wrong and my hard-fought goods and supplies are gone.

And these examples are just off the top of my head. I would much rather see this sort of thing handle within the game mechanics.

Also, the "primary" need of a house may be storage...but the secondary is just having a place to call home...even if it's just a small room at an Inn.

 

Instancing would decrease potential for interaction and encounters with other players. If you both run into a room to access your bank via a chest in the inn room, then you might either (1) meet someone new (2) run into one of your friends.

If you just jump into an instance when you enter a room or inn, your taken out of the game world (visually).

Think of an Inn in UO. Players coming and going etc. More of a "Live" world.

 

Oh...I apologize. I love the Inn idea and everything you guys came up with. I was just envisioning that one goes to the Inn, walks through it to a back room and then gets access to his/her personal instanced room. So everything you said still holds...it's just this way 80% of the player base can have at least a little room to call home.

 

I suppose that could work too. Everything is real world until you open and enter a living area. I just don't think they want any instanced living quarters.

But i'd support your idea as well Knoxinn

 

I see your point, however, why should the game mechanics hold the innkeepers hands to make sure they get paid? Why should the game mechanics make certain that a renter is 100% safe from the landlord? I think the player-run aspect is having your cake and eating it too. I see it as a risk you take when staying at someone else's house, just as in the real world.

 

Except that analogy falls flat when it comes to online gaming because of any lack of applicable consequences or structured laws that are enforced, as in the real world. There is very little that keeps the average player on the right side of any situation in online communities without something, or someone that has the power to enforce it.

Oh sure, in close communities it can work, but not in a game wide scenario like here. "Risk" in and online world such as this takes on a whole new meaning.

 

Mainly because the developers have said that they are not going to have instanced housing. Or inns.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea.

But when the developer has said inns and instanced housing is out, what is the point in talking about it like it is a possibility?

 

I remember a game that pulled it off.

 

One other thing to think about, if a town is invaded or there is some event (lizards attacking brit). You wouldn't want everyone to just ... warp .. into their instanced area.

Monsters raiding the INN !!! That would be fun

 

Pulled what off specifically? Sharing of chests? A functional player run inn system?

I wouldn't say UO, except in the very early days, pulled that off terribly well. Oh it worked, but not well. Now take that, and try to think about instituting that now, with today's gamers. Only a man with money and items to burn would attempt that.

Maybe I'm jaded, maybe not. I hope that those who play SotA surprise me and prove me wrong, I really do. But I have little faith in the majority of today's gamers and ethical in game actions.

 

Successful implementation of in-game mechanics based on real world conditions/properties. Roomsharing, chest sharing, sure.

I will admit that the idea would be incomplete without a method to exact revenge for being done wrong. I just want to see a virtual environment where players create the rules and consequences. That's just me though, I likely draw from UO nostalgia because it was simply the only worthy contender for my gaming preferences.

 

And I absolutely agree with you there I think of all the games of its like, UO was the best. It wasn't perfect, it had its issues and faults, but I certainly enjoyed it. But it was a different time, honestly. Do I wish we could go back to that? Absolutely, and I dearly hope that we can! We will have to see how much the current time and online gaming enviroment influences player behavior in such a setting.