First Day Housing

Instanced / Mass housing would hurt the values of all homes and should be avoided.

Casual players of maybe an hour or two a day wouldn't really need a house as they wouldn't be able to accumulate enough items to require one for storage purposes nor do I see them spending their time in game specifically to try to decorate a home that doesn't get much use.

Regardless of the players in-game time, if they want to own a home, they would have to work a profession / grind / quest / etc to raise the funds necessary to own a home. This puts all non-donors on the same playing field and forces the players to be creative with a profession / play style to find profits and move them into a higher wealth bracket. If you put in the time / effort, you should have no problems finding someone willing to sell you a nice home location and this is the basis of a real-estate market. Not being able to contribute to the project will not hinder your ability to own a home.

The project supporters do receive nice perks such as rent-free property, including extremely limited houses such as the city level homes. While some may argue this perk isn't fair, it's not much different that tiered bonus items / content offered by most games for pre-orders and limited edition copies. A lot of the pledge amounts are far greater than any of the pre-orders / limited edition copies of other games, and those who have pledged larger amounts, should be rewarded equally.

"I mean.. I really want a house, but 500 bucks?"

The $400+ tiers seem to be geared more toward those who want an active roll in directing the game design and the fans of past games from this team. Free housing is a great bonus, however, I'm confident any active player will be able to afford a home with moderate in-game time even if they have to buy it directly from another player with their earnings.

As a Baron level, I chose to donate such a large amount because I have been a fan of UO since 1998 as well as enjoyed Tabula Rasa from Beta and would like to see Richards team succeed again without needing a major publisher who will force their opinions on development. I'm also under the impression that I will have the opportunity to review the proposed direction of the game features and have my suggestions considered.

 

If any casual players or players joining after the first month can never aspire to own a house (unless they want to buy one on ebay), then I would worry about the number of players this game could keep playing for the long term.

All players hard-core 24/7 grinders or people who dip in for an hour once a week, benefit from a large player base and thriving community. I?m of the opinion that placing a house in game, in a real location, is exactly the sort of thing that keeps people login in long after they have run all the content and progressed their character as far as they can.

I think it is important that all players can work toward the goal of home ownership, no matter how slowly or whenever they pick up the game. Of course people who put more effort in want to be rewarded and the biggest housing lots should reflect the serious effort involved.

I am still trying to decide which level of pledge to make. The $500 level is a lot of money for me, but I could probably just about stretch to it. On the flip side I actually want to go through the process if earning my house, not just have it delivered to my inventory on day one, so even if I can find the money I might pledge lower and take my chances. I?m just worried that if I don?t take the financial shortcut, I may never be able to own a house in the game.

Having said all this, I would still rather own no house than see instanced housing /yuck. Hopefully the devs can come up with some suitable solution that can make home ownership an achievable goal for all.

 

As a non-hc player I'm settling to maybe craft my own tent and sleep in the woods... I know with the amount of possible houses I won't make it in time to have one. 10-15 years ago I would've had a house in the city though, when I had the time to play hc

 

To me housing was the crucial aspect of UO that allowed you to be who you wanted to be. I'm older and a lot of what I want to do is explore, craft and sell things. I popped for the $500 Citizen level because getting in on something like this comes around once. Those who pop for the money or worked very hard in the beginning will be set.

 

I must admit, I'm very disappointed with the thought that large amounts of the player base will simply not be able to own a house. Anything that encourages a player to set up roots within a game has to be a good thing for retaining players, retaining the feeling of a busy world and offering people the chance of interaction through other players.

While it's the least endearing choice, some sort of instancing or "permanent rental" of a tavern room in lieu of being able to have a full house is really a minimum requirement in any socially-inclusive game. People have to be able to engage and prosper in their world whenever they start to take part, without having to take the ebay route just to pick up an in-game item.

 

I know there was mention on the video streams of the 5 different expansions, and that as they were released, there would be more towns and villages, meaning more available lots for homes.

I think initially, it might be hard to acquire real estate, but as the map opens up, the casual players that have stuck with it for a bit will probably be able to grab lots.

 

In UO, there were times when it was really tough to find a place/property to set down your house deed, creating a building to put things in; your own home, or your guild's building. You had keys, and you'd better WATCH over those keys carefully (keep them in the bank box as much as possible) or you'd be killed and robbed of them, having your house plundered, etc. Your bank box and your packs of inventory had limited room though, and unlike the games of today, in the Ultima world, you could stack chests on top of each other, filling them with packs and packs of stuff. You could also place things down as furniture -- useful things, like looms and ovens, and also decorative things, and so forth. There were runes to 'mark', and if your magic skill was high enough (which any 'Class' could achieve) you could 'recall' to any rune you marked, including your home or guild building. When I first found out that real people were selling UO game homes for real money, I about flipped. The sellers were making hundreds or thousands of dollars! Craziness. Kudos to them, but I was never that ambitious. The guild I was in would often go to work en masse to raise enough in-game gold to buy a new guild building or whatever, which was a lot of fun to do. It's nice to have your little corner in the 'world', but I will have to wait.

 

The real question is will vendor homes open up in Shroud. As an Ultima Online player I used to run houses full of player vendors in both Brit and Luna. The thing is, although I had no interest in selling things or providing a service at my house I was able to make money by renting vendor slots. I'd like to see this, that way people who don't get city homes can still take advantage of the increased city traffic to sell player crafted goods. I am however curious how many housing slots at launch.

 

I agree with the disappointing sentiment that some of us may just not be able to own one.

I tend to go through games fairly slowly, put them down and pick them up again years later in many cases. Even if I play mostly offline it sounds like if I connect to get the world updates then houses will suddenly start popping up, and then I won't be able to have my own house ever!

Not that that's the end-all be-all, but it seems like it would be nice if there was a happy medium. For instance, allowing us to rent a personal, instanced room in a hotel that we're free to decorate or whatever.

 

I don't think a house is something that will be easily obtained hence the $500 thing on Kickstarter. But that is a good thing, something to work for and something to keep you in the game.

 

@Tekkamansoul as an extremely long time Ultima Online player I'll admit I was jealous of my friends who owned homes. However, I had one that made me a co-owner of the house and let me decorate and setup a room. Eventually after several years of playing I was given my first house. I can remember how excited I was to get one. If a home was "easy" to get it wouldn't be one of the happy memories I have looking back on UO.

I want scare homes because getting your first home should feel like buying your first new car. You should be ripped off by the salesman and still be excited!

 

Housing was definitely a big part of my UO experiences. As an early player, I tailored shirts night and day until I could afford a small boat, which became my "house." Later I had enough money from tailoring to get a house deed, and then the fun was to find a place that I could place a house in.

I searched and searched, and finally found a spot on a small sandy beach far to the South and West of Trinsic. The house was mine and I spent a lot of time decorating it. At that time, the biggest advantage of a house was that you could be inside and no one could PvP you! There were many other things to learn with crafting and exploring, but my best skill was always GM Running.

I do wonder what PvP will be like and how difficult it will be to avoid. But if Avatar is half as fascinating as UO was, I'll be happy!

 

I'm wondering if players who obtain land deeds during the Kickstarter can select a lot and place their stead on Day 1 of Live? Has this been answered?

 

I am also a happy citizen ($500) backer. Seeing how homes were implemented in UO, I am sure my $500 investment will be worth a lot more when Sota is launched.

 

In one of the video's i saw Richard said that if all the houses where sold in the kickstarter, that was all there where, they might add a few villages over time, but not many. Seems most players won't own a house unless they back it good.

 

They are not going to come close to selling all of the houses on Kickstarter. People, like me, are not just paying to get a home. They are paying for the opportunity to have a choice of all of the available lots.

 

It was also said that every player will have the option to have housing. The only thing with the kickstarter is untaxable housing and a place inside protected towns. Unprotected towns are where the average player will have to place their homes. I would think that the only possibility of running out of houses would be localized only to protected towns. There will be enough room for everyone eventually i'm sure. Wouldn't make any sense to have a bunch of untaxable houses taking up the entire housing market now would it????

 

I believe Garriott said that no more than 3-5% of players will ever have housing. As player numbers increase so will the number of villages, towns and cities, thus increasing the number of purchasable plots, but the number of housing lots will probably never be greater than 3-5% of the player base.

He's also stated that in Ultima so many people would plop down a homestead and they would eventually go vacant. Apparently there were a tremendous amount of vancant homes littering the map and I believe he wants to steer away from having this happen in New Britannia.

 

I initially thought that 5% sounded low but doing a little math that might be right.

 

Will wait for a month and make do with the crappy spot to settle down with since October 2014 I'll still be away so can't make it on launch.