1 Instanced House Per Account

Just because one thinks instanced housing ruins the game isnt necessarily true cause there are others who would say the same about pay to own lots. Its a subjective opinion neither wrong or right. But one thing that isnt disputable is that when money is invloved it leads to shady and unscrupulous backroom deals or at the very least entices people to somehow look for an advantage over others ie cheating.

Everyones pros and con list will look different. I personallysee way more cons in this system than pros as the lotential for abuse is astronomically higher wheb yu artificially limit things and actively exclude people where money is invovled.
It sortif seems like a cashcow venture rather than just making a fun game for EVERYONE. Most ppl are t used to having to buy hundred dollar chunks of content and mark my words. That will keep this community a tiny niche

This system is fraught with perils due to any well meaning companys ' inability to control players it will lead to abuse of anything and everything. It always happens if theres a way to get an advantage there are always willing and eager cheaters to abuse any mechanism that is abusable

 

I know this is a month old, but how conductive to RPing will it be when this isn't a massive "shard" like UO, but many little instance servers. You would probably never see your neighbors.

 

Hmm... Sorry, I'm not really following your train of thought here.

There is one single copy of the world for the entire game. Each time you enter a hex map, the game will do one of two things :

1. Sort you into an existing instance where other users are already playing, provided one exists that matches your play-mode.
2. If no valid instance exists for the hex map you enter, a new instance will be created, and you will be added to that one.

While playing OPO mode, you will be sorted into instances containing other OPO mode players. FPO mode sorts you into instances containing other FPO playing Friends.

It is only SPO mode where you will never see anyone. I'm sure there will be many who play this mode, however Role Players who want to play with other users will probably go for one of the other modes instead.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong, because chances are that I am.

When you place a house, it will be there across all instances. What are the chances that you will be on the same instance as your neighbors when the game gets very popular? I guess you could all friend each other..? Still, that would only leave so many people who can be on the same instance from your area.

 

That depends entirely on how popular your particular town map becomes.

During the latest testing round, the devs used a maximum of 64 users per instance. So once one reached 64, another instance was created for the town, and new users were added to it.

Now, given the size of the maps we saw in R3, reaching 64 users and still not seeing at least one of your neighbors is highly unlikely.

Once there are more than three maps to occupy (as there were in R3), the population will spread out, and the likelihood that you will be sorted into an instance with your actual neighbors (and not some transient population just passing through town) will be greater still.

The world is pretty big, and there is expected to be a large number of towns and hex maps to occupy.

I am not overly concerned with never seeing anyone I don't know, in my home-town. I would expect the bigger issue is ensuring you are actually in town at the same time they are, since adventuring outside of town could be a big draw.

 

Interesting! Perhaps this could be a negative to living in a popular city.

 

If they would allow player cities the players could interact and more would have input on which ones became most popular instead of mainly plot pre purchasers having most of the fun.

 

Or it might just be a reason the devs weight living next to someone very high on the list of people you'll encounter on a day to day basis. You bring up good questions, but I don't see any reason that the game can't be designed to out think these problems, do you?

 

I suppose not. But I wonder how it would work when your neighbors have their guildmates and friends around. Part of me wishes for the towns to be a MMO thing, which other areas can be the instances.

 

Yes because games cant be designed to think only do what someone tells them to do based on player decisions. Thats the reason the terminayor theory will never happen. Sorry all you futurists!

Hopefully this thread wont be deemed as outliving its fruifulness to me as log as people are willig to discuss its still a viable coversation

 

I think this is the best solution I have read so far, housing for me is my single biggest concern about SotA. I agree it will be great to have persistent housing that is well maintained and positioned, so that cities look well planned and appealing.

However, if the game is even moderately successful (which I'm sure it will be), it seems to me that the majority of players will be homeless. And housing lot prices will be so huge as to be unaffordable by normal players. The fact that the game is going to be a single shard also compounds the issue, since they cannot open a new shard if one becomes too crowded to provide room for new players to buy houses.

I definitely think housing should be something players need to work for, and so bigger houses/rooms in good areas require a big investment of time and money, but I also think that every player should have the opportunity to get some sort of home if they work for it.

Having a scenario where, by definition, its impossible for a large proportion of your player base to have their own home at any one time seems a real shame. Especially since so much work is going into the house customisation stuff. Currently, there will be a large section of the game I will probably never be able to play if things say the way they are.

 

it will always be possible for someone who really wants a house to put forth the effort to buy it from another player with ingame currency or with real world cash. they may choose it's not worth their effort but that's a decision that they make themselves.


there will be an expansion per year with more housing lots (probably issued to the community through pledges which cost real money for most of the lots) this helps fund the game and adds more housing lots.


it's good that there will be homeless because it's not a necessity and it will give people something to strive for and it will build community as people can add their friends as kindred and friends to their house. also maybe 4 or 5 people will band together to raise money for a house, etc

 

Nonsense.

That is simply impossible. If you pay attention to all the housing threads, you will know that housing will remain rare, no matter how much land mass you think they're going to introduce.

If you say stuff like this, you're just resurrecting me in this thread. Honestly, I cannot see "good," and will always champion for those who are not as fortunate.

Nowhere in the real world does anyone, except perhaps someone who's a bit nutty, think homelessness is good. Everyone deserves shelter. Not the same level of shelter - and they should have to earn it - but more than living on the streets and exposed to elements.

For some reason, there are some people who think gaming is different than the real world, in what people really want.

The only people who think it's good are the ones who own houses, and those who want to profit on those who don't.

 

if you want a house work for it, either in game gold or through real dollars. or have a friend let you stay at their place.

 

Call me the next time someone physically dies because their character didn't have a house in the game, kay?

I've heard plenty of people say that they want to play the wandering character life. I'm pretty sure they have shelter in real life.

 

It has nothing to do with me wanting a house. I already stated people should have to work for it. The game concept does not appeal to me, and many others.

 

Sorry I am just catching up on this thread. I 100% agree that housing should be character controlled. From everything I have heard from LB, this world is not going to be handed to the players in the sense that you buy whatever you want, where ever you want. I for one, will be happy to rent a room, a house, a garden, a water front property for trade or in game $$. Let the owners decide what they can do and allow the free market to dictate what will and will not happen.

My 2 cents

++Lord Teden++

 

This is my first time posting on the forums, for a reason. I've been periodically checking in for information every month or two, hoping for some good news about housing... but the experience has been generally disagreeable. I was extremely excited when I heard Garriott was putting together a kickstarter for a spiritual successor to Ultima, so I founded it without much worry. But then after the fact, taking in what information was being given, I read the oft mention quote about housing 'being rarer than UO,' and that it was likely all the plots would sell out to pledges by the time of release. That killed this game for me. That destroyed any thought of pledging more money, to even following the development of the game. That's not a game I want to play, and it's definitely not one I'd want to support. So, I'm hoping that's not true. I'll wait for release, see how it looks and well. There's too much advantage to home ownership if it resembles in anyway the mechanics of UO. People can trump up immersion, the importance of things carrying worth and meaning, they can say that it's good that there will be homeless people. But I really can't fathom the thought of how a fantasy roleplaying game derives immersive consistency by relying on our socioeconomic standings in the real world.

 

There honestly needs to be a creative solution for housing that doesn't involve simply creating a landed aristocracy.

All this is going to do is effectively discourage people from buying the game. Not everyone wants to pledge a large cash outlay for housing, and many prefer to see housing as the result of in-game work. Some form of instanced housing or even smaller persistent housing needs to be seriously considered and implemented.

At the end of the day, lacking such an option for casual players will cost $$ and the game itself will suffer.

 

What would you propose, keeping in mind that promises have been made, the game funded, and becoming a reality on the backs of those promises?