Dont Pull the Star Wars Galaxies Housing system

As much as I loved Star Wars Galaxies for its crafting system, I completely hated the housing system. Imagine my surprise when I left Mos Eisley Spaceport, walked about 50 meters out of the city and found instead of a sea of sand, a sea of concrete houses as far as the eye could see. From space, Tatooine in SW:Galaxies would have looked more like Courscant than Arrakis, and that really took me out of the world.

Please do not make player housing such that it would choke the SotA world with houses across the landscape.

 

@macharborg: have you not been licencing to the dev chats, their is only a certain amounted of loted homes in the game, based on lots, so it will not be continues,

 

@macharborguy

Their plan at the moment (from what I gather) is to have un-instanced housing plots set aside in Cities Towns and Villages for players to purchase. They are trying to avoid what you are describing as it was one of the major issues that plagued Ultima Online (the sea of houses/castles that took up every open field in the game)

So by limiting the number of plots, and the Devs themselves chosing how they want to place them, that should fix that issue.

 

awesome. thanks for the info. i haven't had good chances to watch thru all of the dev chats yet, slowly getting to them though

 

@Grimkor is right, I think that this system is the opposite of SWG, and even different from UO. The people is not going to be totally free to live in any wild place, but this will make the wild places wild. Some people like, some people not, but is not like SWG at all.

 

I don't understand what's wrong with having houses in the wild.. That was one of the biggest draws to me in UO - getting to know/trust your neighbors and having valuable housing spots near dungeons etc. Sure, we don't want them EVERYWHERE, so just limit the areas in which people can place.

This game is sounding less and less like UO the more I read.. =(

 

This game is not now, or has ever been, stated to be a remake of UO or the mythical UO2.


That said, I believe it is still going to be a great game so perhaps let go of expectations and see what RG delivers this time?

 

Yes I agree

 

Yes, in some ways I like the houses in the wild... But this make the "wild less wild". Sometimes I saw supermarkets in front of a dungeons door. Thats a little bit stange. So I think that this system is just different, but not necessarily worst... And now we are going to have sieges and events in the villages!

 

I had a love / hate relationship with SWG housing, loved placing houses and creating cities and hated the artificial urban sprawl.

A good compromise may be that there is a limit to the number of charters for new towns which has to be earned from the local king or similar. Those charters would represents housing lots in area were a town would make sense. So as to minimize the empty city syndrome, a good number of those houses would Be NPC houses, common taverns etc. so as to make the town or village interesting on it own.

However, should the player base supporting the charter become inactive, then the it would be nice to see the town become a ruin, maybe attracting certain kind of monsters or villains reflecting the nature of the former inhabitants. Eventually, the area would be reclaimed by the wilderness.

Either way, it would be nice. Though I suspect it may be too complex.

Cheers

 

I also loved he crafting in SWG. However, it required that you have a house to sell from. I don't think it will be any different here. It's already been stated that everyone will be able to see every Player house. Most people will want to craft and have a house to sell from or just have a house to call home and not be willing to shell out $500 before the start of the game to get one. Getting a prime location is a fair benefit for infusing money into the game early. But anyone should eventually be able to buy at least a modest house.

The key, in my opinion, is to make the world BIG with a dozen cities, many villages, and lots of small towns (or dwellings in the wild) with TONS of space in between. So that you don't feel that your walking out of town to the doorstep of a dungeon. The multi level map lets you do this.