Housing is ruining the game

Yes, it's this time of the year when Lord_Darkmoon begins to criticize again but I try to explain why I think that housing is ruining the game.

First let me tell you that I am totally aware that many like the housing in SotA and I know fully well that the housing is playing a big part in the funding of the game. So it is important but it is also ruining the game. After reading about the "town" sieges I became fully aware of that.

The devs have said that there can be no instances of housing zones - yet every single city in the game is also a housing zone. This leads to the following problems:

- There can't be real consequences to our actions in cities. Yes, Portalarium is working on a system which substitutes one NPC for another so that we get the impression that we have an impact on some NPC's life but the more I think about this, the more this goes against atmosphere, immersion and the "Ultima" feeling. So basically NPC A will get arrested for his crimes and vanish (will he reappear in jail?) but in his stead another NPC appears. Now where did NPC B come from? Where does he live? What is his story? Where has he been before? Do the others in the city know him? So basically nothing changes due to our actions besides the NPC getting a different name and the player gets confused because suddenly, out of thin air, a new NPC appears. This also has a negative impact on the quests. Because we know beforehand that nothing we do will have a real impact besides spawning a new NPC out of thin air. Also no town can be burned down, the population of a village can't be eradicated like this was the case in Serpent Isle... The quests and the story suffer from this.

- Strange house decorations are ruining the atmosphere. Some may call this creative freedom, I call it ruining the atmosphere. So I arrive at a refugee camp and see wealthy houses, furniture stacked into the sky, a snowman standing in front of a door, an army of cloned merchantes selling goods, messages written with fruit on the lawn and somewhere popmusic from earth is playing from a jukebox... And suddenly I am ripped out of the game, out of the story and I don't care about the refugees anymore.

- The "town" sieges... Oh well... So actually those are no town sieges. Those are sieges in the wilderness. Someone is besieging a forest for whatever reason... Why? Because of the housing. No instances of housing zones, house owners probably would be angry if their houses would be burning, whatever... So instead of the cool burning city we saw in this video (siege-scene startes at minute 3:15), we get a wilderness scene with some enemies and siege weapons... Also are the NPCs in the city aware of the siege? Does this somehow affect the city? The economy there? If no one cares about the siege, what is the purpose of it? Nothing changes, nothing happens aside from some enemies in a forest.

Housing is important, yes but the compromises that have been made in favor of the housing are WAY too many. Because of housing the story and the quests suffer, the visible consequences suffer, the atmosphere suffers, the town sieges suffer... To me this seems as WAY too many essential gameplay elements suffer because of one single feature.

Now when SotA will be released how will the game be reviewed and judged? As "Housing of the Avatar"? Even if the housing will get a good score, the story, the quests, the atmosphere etc. won't because they suffer too much from the housing. The housing then can't make up for the negative scores of all the other features.

Is this really how the game should be? Inferior quests, inferior consequences, inferior atmosphere, inferior town sieges simple because of housing?

I don't think anything will or can change at this point in development. It seems to late. Still it is a disappointment that because of one feature the whole game is suffering...

 

...
Im entirely too tired to tackle this from you right now.
Ill come back.

 

I enjoy housing. Its fun but not integral to the game. I would say is the unique and defining part of this game. Else it just be like any MMO in the market. However, I must agree with you. Some deco are outright disturbing, Some are outright distasteful like halloween paired with snowman, vulgar display of expensive rares in lawn. But that is celebrating diversity, just like real life. If there is no ugly deco, beautiful ones will be under appreciated.

 

Perhaps one day town sieges and towns being instanced will be possible.

 

If there was no housing most players would not be here including me. The game would not be here as backers backed because of housing including me. The money the game is making now is mostly from players buying anything related to housing

 

Sure but in the end, the features I mentioned suffer from this. The storydriven RPG full of choices and consequences suffers from this. In the end one feature will probably lead to an inferior game...

 

I am not here for the housing, although I am a Knight Marshal backer I am here for the single player offline game. I just gave the money to support the development of this game

 

Which is very telling, isn't it? By which I mean, I totally agree with you. It's been a draw for players and it has brought Port a lot of funds, for very little work. But is this an MMO, or at best an RPG... or a housing simulator?

 

Housing is not going anywhere, it is a main feature of this game and has zero effect on quests and story.

Complaining about the implementation of seiges before they are even implemented? Come on.

 

How can you say that? Of course it is negatively affecting the quests and the story. Can there be a quest in which a city is destroyed by the evil army? If not then why is everyone fearful of the evil guys? Nothing can happen. Can an NPC be killed (and not be substituted for another appearing out of thin air)? Could there be a quest in which we can decide to kill a dragon or let him live and he then attacks a village, burns it down and eats half of the villagers?
In Ultima 7 Serpent Isle releasing the banes lead to all of the cities being destroyed. Can this happen in SotA, too? If not because of housing, then housing IS negatively impacting the story and the quests.

 

Housing has nothing to do with it - the issue is the player experience...one guy wrecking another's quest and so on.

And as for why it's not possible at all - that's more to do with the lack of technology to do instances specific to a player (Elder Scrolls Online does this btw). If Port could muster that, then it would be a go as your actions for example wouldn't impact other players and wreck their game.

 

I'm not here to justify housing, we have it, it is staying, and it costs real money in a lot of cases and people should be able to deco as they like. This is that kind of game. But also in hearing of the first renditions of town sieges I am not totally happy about the work-arounds to preserve the housing atmosphere.

I would love to see random towns get sieges and a pop up that is not too irritating along with a catapult on the map saying something like this (example only) : "please help Wizards rest next to Owls Head is under siege calling all Avatars". creatures could be running through out the town and players would have to lock their doors if they were around to avoid the siege. It could be be a community/game effort to squash out the creatures to restore the town to every day life. The town affected would be under siege until it was done or a timer has expired with rewards for best times granted participants depending on time is was squashed. If no one is around at the time then time will expire on its own no harm no foul.

Ahhh Remember these days, now this was fun well a pain sometimes

 

I share your concerns but hope that Portalarium at least finds a technical solution to make the siege more impactful.
There must be a difference with temporary changes to towns compared to permanent or individual changes.

Cf https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...making-of-the-forest-siege.70634/#post-701339

 

@Lord_Darkmoon
I agree with your points about the shortcomings of the quests, consequences and immersion due to how the game is designed. For me, personally, they don't ruin the game but are compromises that I accept in light of other aspects of the game (multiplayer mode, housing) that I enjoy.

I feel the same way about housing decorations ruining the atmosphere. Although I would really enjoy a game mechanic which made it possible to permanently burn down lighthouses.

 

And throw rocks through their windows.

 

Without housing, this game wouldn't exist. Complaining that housing is ruining the game is like complaining that crowd funding is ruining the game. It's the thing that allowed it to exist in the first place.


Yes there are some backers who paid for large pledges out of the sheer goodness of their heart, but I'd say it's a safe wager that the vast majority wouldn't have given as much for the development of this game without the housing features. Period.

 

I think it was a mistake to make housing available in every city of the game. At least the story-related cities and villages should have been without housing to enable more visible consequences. NPCs could have died, daughters could have been reunited with their mothers, houses could have been destroyed...
This way every story-related city and village could also have been designed with a unique look and they wouldn't be ruined by strange player-decorations. Also real town sieges would have been possible.

You are right. Without crowdfunding the game would not have been possible. A crowdfunding campaign that got a lot of money from people who expected a true single player part with real choices and consequences and a great atmosphere...

 

No these things would not be possible, I did explain my reasoning on this above. At this point you're repeating what you have already said without digesting or reacting to new information/viewpoints.

Whether or not there is housing in this game, we would not have permanent changes made to the game by one player that affect how another player experiences the game. Housing has nothing to do with this.

 

The devs have said that there can be no instances to housing scenes.
But there can be instances to other scenes. For example Solace Bridge. So it would be possible for one player to enter an instance of a scene in which a city would be destroyed while another player would enter an instance of a scene in which the city is not destroyed. According to how they completed a quest and which flag would be set.
Of course if players team up in a party they would have to enter the instance of the party leader no matter how they completed the quest.
But according to the devs this is not possible because of housing and not because it wouldn't be possible to generally create different instances of scenes.

 

That's a technical limitation.

But you would never see two players sharing the same town instance whether or not there was housing in it, where random NPCs had been killed by another player forever affecting their game. The changes would be scripted and done by the server, not by a player.

And nothing to do with housing.