Housing for the poor

After much personal debate, I've finally decided that $500 (real money) is just too much out of pocket expense for an in-game house. Congratulations to anyone that can afford that but I just can't.

I don't have much concern that I won't be able to save up enough gold to buy one in game after whatever time is needed to save up for it.. but I have to wonder where will my character sleep or rest or store my personal goods during my wait?

The KS update #13: Housing Update... answered many of my housing questions and my thanks to the devs for that update.

but it didn't give any answers regarding a 'rent based' community type housing.

So, I'm mainly curious if there will be any types of hotels or inns that allow for daily or weekly rent.

Granted this would just be a small room (or maybe bigger rooms for more rent?) but should be enough for at least a bed, table, chair and maybe a chest, which I think would be enough to give us 'something' while we earn up our deed purchases.

Right? Or is this asking too much?

 

The big question here is.. what is the actual benefit of short term housing?

Separate long term storage services will no doubt be made available and short term housing requirng rent at the like is impractical for meaningful storage options. What happens for example, when you stop paying rent? How will your stored items be handled? Will they be lost? Inaccessible until you pay a fee?

The only benefit that really comes to mind is renting a room for a night for a place to sleep.. except many of us will be playing online where a character sleeping is very unlikely. So maybe you recover from wounds and spell effects faster while in your room? That could have immersion benefits but that assumes slow recoveries are normal.

One potential idea is some kind of 'well rested' perk that makes you more effective at using your skills for a time.

 

Wow QQ more? You honestly believe that you will never own an in-game house? Do you think the devs want people believing that? Do you think they would then make that goal totally unobtainable except for people 500+ on the KS? Dream on.

You do understand that you CAN have a house in the game without paying out of your real pocket, right?

You buy it with in-game gold, you pay the whatever per week/month on it with in-game gold.

 

Not only that but players will default on their homes as they stop playing. It's sad but it's true, people will stop playing. They will also sell their homes. I expect there will be a fairly respectable real estate market that will emerge here.

New lands will be added to the game also and new lands mean new town which means new houses to buy.

What we can't be sure of right now though is just how many active players there's going to be. But just because all the houess get bought up doesn't mean there won't be opportunities to aquire them from other players.

At the same time though, there will always be players who never own home. So what can you do about them? Some of those folks will want to RP having a place to stay too. Inns.. camping out perhaps? There's no harm is discussing the possibilities.

If you're really concerned about it though I suggest hooking up with a guild. Larger groups ARE going to pool their resources to ensure they have housing.

 

I can only see rentable housing being something worthwhile if it can theoretically be permanent and can include a vendor.

I'm also not too big on owning a house right now for the same reasons as the OP, my house will guaranteed have a maintenance fee because I can't afford the KS, I just hope the maintenance fee is not expensive, if it is it'll be best to just stay the homeless player with just the bank storage box which I hope won't cost too much to upgrade.

I think at launch there will be plenty opportunity to get a house plot for all players, you just have to grind a bit and place asap, the spots will fill up quick and the housing market will blow up because there aren't multiple shards, hope they don't add a time limit between placing houses, maybe just go for a village or town house but if you can shoot for one of the few city plots available you can become a tycoon.

 

I'll have either a town or city home (keep switching my pledge because I can't decide) and one of my main goals is to be able to rent out rooms. I'm hoping that I can have two or three people pay rent for a room and two or three that rent out vendor space. I get the steady income, people get a place to stay while they are earning to try to get a home. I don't see the negatives. There just needs to be a system in place where players either pay or they are evicted.

 

If you let the rent expire you can't access the house until you pay the rent. Seems easiest option. Whether to include back rent or not.

 

I'll Look for work evicting squaters.

 

It seems to me that if you buy a house and a plot of land (freely assuming you are able to do this) then you aren't paying rent. Why would you? You BOUGHT the house, you BOUGHT the land, did you not? Just make it so that you have to pay yourself for the maintenance..ie. go our and harvest the material (wood, stone etc.) to repair your own house or buy an NPC to do it for you..or some such thing.

The idea that you buy a house and a plot of land, only to be paying rent to some arbitrary non-existent person, is utterly ludicrous. Just saying.

 

The home owners don't pay rent. They will pay taxes (unless part of KS). Many home owners want to rent out parts of their house to users who don't have homes. It helps with the housing shortage and gives home owners steady income.

 

Dr. Hat, in the real world we call them property taxes.

 

And these property taxes should be high. Taxes will help with inflation problems that plague most online games. Property will be rationed and if you want it you better be expected to pay and maintain it. There will be people in this game that are more than happy to get a home and pay taxes. Offline single player is there for those who do not.

 

I agree, ironman2008. In that way, the property tax serves as both a gold sink and a replacement for UO's house decay system. Instead of seeing a house In Danger of Collapse, one might see a house In Danger of Foreclosure. Keeping the taxes high will ensure that the largest, rarest houses are held by the richest, most active players, exempting the tax-free housing sold through the Kickstarter, of course.

 

Hate it that you can't send personal replies to people on this forum.. but if "InsaneMembrane" knew how to read then he'd clearly see from my original post that I have every intention of saving up in game gold and buying a house deed..

The whole point of my question was wondering what affordable housing options we'd have while we were saving up for our houses.. but if the amount of rent we'd have to pay equals the taxes for the actual houses, then it's a mute point to start with..

If the devs want to add something like this then I'm sure they'd add in a rule as part of our rental contract that if we failed to pay then they'd do something along the lines of locking us out until we paid up the rent.. Seems only fair.

 

I really like where anuuk is coming from because i think he represents a large group of people that know the cant afford a ks home but are more than willing to work in game. Best of all, he isnt whinning. I hope devs see that housing will be a much smoother issue with renting, house co ownership, and maybe inn type housing

 

Thanks Ironman2008... It's nice to have someone understand what I was trying to say and see that I wasn't at all trying to whine..

If anyone reads my other housing threads then you can see I owned many UO houses and all of them I worked hard in game to achieve. I've also said that I'm always in it for 'The Journey" and never "The Destination" in the process of playing MMO type games... So as Ironman2008 determined.. I'm not at all whining in regards to any type effort we'll have to put forth, so we can be rewarded with our own house...

I don't remember it's name but the largest UO house I ever owned that was a pre-built house deed (before we could customize houses).. was all white and had a really nice wrap covered front/side porch on it.. Had it out near Minoc and used it almost exclusively for mining/smelting/black smithing... Loved that house.. Also had several houses placed around Yew and Empath Abbey that I customized off the money I'd earned from Bow-Crafting..

Anyway.. I totally look forward to 'the grind' to work up to owning my own in-game house.. but was just curious what or if any housing options we'd have to 'live in'.. while we earn that money.

 

I think the idea of being able to rent a place is a good idea. It could be handled both by npc's or even players buying a plot and building a complex with rooms for rent? Maybe.

As for not paying rent and what could happen with anything you may have had in the rented property. Easy. If your rent lapses an in game message is sent to your via in game mail advising you rent has lapsed and you have a week or two to renew.

If you renew all is good, if not then all your possessions are sent to an escrow npc. Another message is sent advising all items have been removed from the property. You could then have the option to pay a small fee to have the items moved to your backpack and/or bank storage. If 2 weeks passes and they have not been claimed they turn to dust.

A similar kind of thing could be put in place for owned property if you have upkeep to pay. Default on your upkeep and loose the property. Items sent to npc for retrieval.

Undoubtedly, people will buy property and stop playing the game for whatever reason. That property should then eventually be made available to the current populace, imo.

 

This comment has no place being in this thread but thought I'd throw it in since we're still kinda on this subject...

Would be kinda cool if someone failed to pay their property taxes (or their rent) and had been given plenty opportunity to pay it up but they still failed to do so.. then what if all their belongings in their stored chests got sucked into a community auction? No use all their items just sitting in cold storage waiting for them to come back...

I see though, how this sounds kinda harsh as maybe their reason for not paying their in game taxes/rent was due to a real life emergency or something totally out of their hands..

So, maybe make this the last step of a multiple step process.. First if they don't pay their taxes/rent.. then they are locked out of their house with 2 weeks to pay up.. then if they still fail to pay then their house is removed from its location and their deed is sent back to them in the in-game mail but their items are all packed up in a special chest that's bound to their in-game bank account and then if another 'x' amount of time passes and they still haven't collected them, then they are moved into a community based auction. Something along those lines.. not terribly harsh but still due-process occurs in a set amount of time.

 

People will come and go so auctioning off their stuff would probably unbalance the game with too many great items divided up between too few players. As far as I can tell it's no different than too much wealth. It makes games too easy and therefore less fun. If we're just buying auctioned items, the manufacturers don't benefit so neither does the economy.

 

You will have a bank to dump your stuff in while you get a job to buy a house.