Can we untangle Ultima and the Fantasy Real Estate Sim?

I never played UO, and i simply cannot fathom the obsession with player housing in this game.

For me, as a longtime ULTIMA player and fan, these are nothing but problems. They clutter up the towns and destroy the appeal of exploration (knowing that if i stray from the town square i'm going to have to wade through miles of digital tenements with absolutely nothing to offer me as a player). They needlessly expand the town geography, and i get mad having to walk past row on row of them to reach the actual interactive stuff in each town... and then there are entire locations that seem to ONLY be player housing, and nothing more to do. Plus the already-mentioned immersion-breaking nature of what a lot of people choose to do with their houses...

If the release game is like this, there's no way I'm going to want to visit towns any more than absolutely necessary. Sad that this is what has become of the developers whose motto used to be "we create worlds"... now they just seem to be interested in selling virtual real estate. Can those of us who care about the plight of the Avatar and want to once again walk the path of virtues get a forked version of this game that leaves out the player housing stuff?

 

Without having played UO it is easy to understand why you can not relate to or understand the need for housing.

As it is now, I understand, it could seem like you are surrounded by useless gaudy doll houses that serve no real purpose.
There will be a lot more interactivity in the future and you will almost certainly have a real desire to come visit player vendors at their homes. After launch players vendors will be a major source of the BEST items/materials in game.
Once the player based crafting/gathering economy is implemented it will probably become more clear.
Among many other reasons.

That being said.

There are almost infinite ways to enjoy a game and each person's joy comes from a different aspect.
Some people get their joy from dungeon crawls.
Some people get their joy from PVP.
Some people get their joy from exploring.
Some people get their joy from crafting.
Some people get their joy from getting rich.
Some people get their joy from being a murderer or thief or scoundrel.
Some people get their joy from helping and teaching and protecting others.
And there is also a whole group of people who play a MULTILAYER online game for pure RP purposes who could care less about slaying monsters and being the highest level anything.
They have decided to be a character and play as that character. They go to each others houses and share ale and tell stories.
They play a game of chess.
They have weddings and concerts and quarrels.
They take great pride and care into the upkeep and decoration of their home.
That is their joy.

A home is not just a utilitarian place for storing goods and having crafting stations. Homes facilitate a whole range of activities that people specifically come to this kind of game to enjoy.

Personally I enjoy all of the above to varying degrees and am extremely happy to have the opportunity do it all together in one game.

There is an ongoing debate about immersion and rules for decorating which is being heavily debated on other threads.
I would like to think common sense would prevail but sadly there is no base line for common sense.

I am sure at some point there will be a limit placed on decorations for purely performance issues just as there is a limit on the number of light sources you can place now.

 

With housing the way it is now, I plan to play in offline mode.
But this also means that the offline mode simply has to suceed as a true single player RPG in every way!
If I have to draw a comparison, then this games needs to be like Ultima 7 in single player offline. A true fully fledged SP RPG with a blievable world, companions, a great story, NPCs with their own schedules, etc. This game simply must not feel like an MMORPG in single player offline mode! Otherwise I fear that it will get ripped to pieces by fans and press alike...

 

I don't like setting restrictions, but I agree this is a great game immersion breaker.
There are people with great creativity creating wonderful performances,
in UO we had both magnificent creations and obnoxious monsters.

New games tend to incorporate more player customizable worlds, its one of the aspects I'd like
to see also in this game. But sure there should be some restrictions or some kind of moderation.

 

Hey hey hey... I "resent" that u put thief together with murderer n scoundrel. *indignant frown* Thieves in rpg's have always been as essential as your fighter or mage.

 

Generally all three of those types would be considered less virtuous.

Without the dark there is no light. The very existence of darker types allows the contrast with the lighter types making a whole world of various shades of grey.

 

For me, this could easily be solved by utilizing the dual-scale features of the map. Why not put the player housing in a separate overworld node from the rest of the town? Like a downtown vs suburbs? Then if we want to go to user shops and social events, we can do so, but if we just want to experience the core game, we don't have to spend extra time slogging past unreal estate.

Seems like a win-win to me, plus it would help performance and scaling issues.

 

"it could seem like you are surrounded by useless gaudy doll houses that serve no real purpose."

Exactly this.

What makes it worse for me is that it seems it will hamper immersive town building. Because I cannot tell the difference between npc homes and player homes (the single outside is not always visible depending on where your approaching from). So either I will have to wander through lots of unuseful locations to find and explore npc homes, or devs will have to avoid creating homes for them, which seems a shame given the Ultima legacy of characters with their own full lives.

Again, maybe this is all going to be solved by playibg offline, as I'm sure I'm not the only elderly curmudgeon who just wants to play the narrative.

 

Actually, large cities are some of my favorite places to walk and hang about in single player and multiplayer rpgs. I loved hanging around in Bree in LOTRO and Daggerfall in ESO, and wandering around the different cities in Elder Scroll games. Britain was always my favorite city in the single player Ultmas because of how large it was, and how much it was an environment in and of itself to explore and live in. I also loved Tenebrae in Pagan. I'll be kind of sad if they decide to shrink the size of Ardoris or make no more cities that size.

For players, they make great staging areas for role-playing. Players can hold events, even in the streets -- parades, theater, guild meetings, etc -- they could even put vendors in the streets. The tools for home-building also enhance role-playing. For the purely solo experience, NPCs could also do business in the streets or hold events in the street. The devs could always also adventures that happen within the city, ie such as chasing down thieves.

But, you're right, currently if I walk through a POT it often feels like a complete mess. Its not some beautiful urban landscape that I'm walking through.

 

Of course not all rogues are outlaws, and not all outlaws are evil. Robin Hood!

 

GREY　FTW!

 

The OP has a valid point, I find it frustrating to have to wade through all the urban housing in order to get to what I want in town. ArcheAge got it right here, with segregated housing areas that each had their share of utility vendors nearby but NO houses in cities. I realize this is less "realistic" but in a contest between fun and realism, you know who wins.

Another solution (again from ArcheAge, sorry) is to have teleport locations right to the center of town.

Another point on housing: it works best when it has an in game purpose for other players. I can have the most beautiful house in the game but if there is no reason for anyone else to come to it, I'll be all dressed up with nowhere to go. Here, SWG got it exactly right, eliminating the AH concept for high end items and allowing crafters to place vendors at their houses. This guaranteed that players would come to player houses. There is nothing more pathetic than seeing some guy beg for people to "come check out my house". Um, why? So please, give housing a utilitarian game purpose for *othere*players, too.

 

I'm not opposed to player housing by any means, but I share your sentiments about the current design. I feel like player housing was included primarily as a vehicle to obtain funding, and that is ok (it certainly worked on me), but the way towns are being designed around it really concerns me. I still have a lot of difficulty navigating through towns and there is a lot of unnecessary clutter, most of which is player housing.

I just wish there was a clear delineation between NPC buildings and player housing. Thinking about Ultima Online, each town had a unique character to it and I can still picture them all in my mind. Player housing surrounded the cities, but did not interfere with business inside the city. That is how I think towns should be designed in SotA, but I fear that it may be too late for existing towns to be completely redesigned at this stage.

I honestly don't care how people decorate their houses. Let them do whatever they want with the tools that are available, but please just keep the lots out of the cities!

 

I agree that it takes FOREVER to reach the town center and I'm actually a bit worried about this for Single Player Offline because...without player housing, you're just walking past empty lots (other than the single lot you chose to build your home in). How will POTs work in Single Player Offline? Will they just not exist? 'Cause...without multiple players, they're just empty land.

 

I don't think I could disagree more, ignore the fact that the largest city Owls head takes hardly any time to leave but all medieval cities/towns were designed with the market/district at its centre with housing surrounding it. Nothing creates more immersion than going through the streets on your way to the keep/market in my opinion, its the one thing that annoys me continuously about WoW, all I see is shops/inns etc and no actual place where people live.

Then don't, follow the road out and carry on. If their is nothing in there for you, then don't go in.

We already know its not needlessly, it conforms to general city planning themes that have been carried on since ancient times, it is completely and utterly understandable why we have housing outside of town centres.

Which bothers you why? Don't go there then.

 

Takes about 5 seconds from entering kingsport to getting to the town centre, possibly a minute (possibly) to the owls head centre, lets at least be honest. Lots will be populated as multiplayer, but just with no one around.

 

It feels like forever. I don't care if it actually takes me five seconds, I don't want to feel like going to the town center is a chore.

That sounds terrible for Single Player Offline. Online I can understand 'cause same world but offline? Just empty houses? A world full of ghost towns? That's....discouraging.

 

I'm pretty sure if you find walking to the town centre a chore you'll struggle with most of the crafting elements in this game too, thats jut how it is.

As to SPO, yup, it will be a ghost town of houses, which is why people grumbling about immersion saying they'll go to SPO make me chuckle a little, as they wade through empty town after town.

 

Other than learning how to repair weapons/armor, I doubt I'll spend too much time crafting. That's for other players.

...well at least, I can avoid POTs.

 

yes yes yes yes. watching the environment in a game this expansive has always been one of my favorite pastimes.

that's because they are a hybrid right now - take kingsport for example in r12-r13. the inhabitants of port phoenix took it over. however, there's still a mayor NPC who talks to his people and I've even heard him mention in chat that he's STILL the mayor, by gods.


now, take ravensend as an example. that was created for the sole purpose of doing a stress test on how many items should be placable on a lot. almost every single lot was at 400 or so, i think a couple had higher thresholds..now, it is starting to develop a little life of its own since those who had the lots are starting to actually use them for things other than the test.

mostly though, i see that as a closer match to what i'd expect from most player owned towns. more of a suburban lifestyle that not much activity occurs except when the inhabitants organize it otherwise. don't get me wrong, i'd love to have a pot that has a life of its own, where i can watch all sorts of lives unfolding. but i see that happening less, for the concession of giving the players the ability to do those things.