Housing lots visibility should be put on a hotkey

Discussion in 'Housing & Lots' started by XiDragon, Nov 3, 2013.

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  1. XiDragon

    XiDragon Avatar

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    Hi,

    I watched the 6-month-progress-video and one thing jumped at me and that was the visibility of the housing lots! I did not like it at all. Therefore I suggest to put the housing lots visibility on a hotkey. As long as this hotkey is not pressed the housing lots should not be visible and the plots should just look like any piece of land. And please put some trees and what not on them so that they blend into the scenery. I do not like how they jump at you!

    Greets


    Update:
    After thinking a bit more about it I do not like the housing as of now at all. I would prefer it be more like in UO where you had to search for a place where you could place a house. This had the advantage of not every las plot beeing visible at once for every idiot that comes a long and therefore gave the clever surveyor a chance to find a plot others have overlooked.

    Further I would love to see things between player houses like a stable, a tavern and the like and therefore making the area look more organic. As of now the housing areas look very sterile and ugly.
     
  2. RTM

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    Plots are a lot better IMO. That's the way things should be in a village, town, or city. I'm sure different villages will have different layouts then the ones in the video. I'm sure they will have a variety of layouts with all sorts of taverns and inns in between plots. I also bet you will have some plots out in the middle of nowhere as well.
     
  3. Vyrin

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    Regarding seeing plots.. Remember that most of the plots will be filled once the game gets underway and it seems the houses will have fences around the yards. If they wanted to keep empty plots unmarked they could simply have a placeholder like a sign that would show the lot as you approach or click on the sign.

    Plus, the whole point of specific plots is to make housing limited. UO was in some sense quite out of control with housing all over the place. To me, that would kill the feel of a settlement more than a lack of trees/stables, etc.
     
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  4. Lesni

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    If you would place trees in the plots, you could not place all the houses - because the tree would block it. Oh the rage - "I have this city size plot and I can place only edelmann on it!" (This for reason that the maps are not "destructible" or there would then be extra steps to modify the map on the fly to everyone). It would totally ruin towns with fields around them (that have that gradual sift from 0 house to town centre ) - by having zig zag of housing where ever (like in middle of hey field - gotta love that in UO ;) )

    More so it would open some good grief options for placing few large houses say inside the walled city to block ton of othre houses. + you would not have lawn like in UO. So the system is to level it to be equal for all and have control where there is player housing.

    Now that being said, consern of plots not blending and areas with too strict plot - plot - plot square plan have been voiced out on other thread. And like having more trees, fountains, barns etc spacing out the plots.

    ps. you dont have to see emthy plots, just wait 1 week from launch before you join in and there will be absolutely none left ;)
     
  5. Dorham Isycle

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    Seeds!!!! Plant a tree, shrub, flower bush, Mandrake plant, Corn. MMMmmmmm Seeds...
     
  6. smack

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    If you turned off the visibility of fences around empty lots, would you run into invisible fences? Would you be seeing other players run into invisible walls which aren't invisible to them?

    That actually raises another question. How will you place houses if there are players running around inside the lot? I noticed in the 6-month video that even the lots with for sale signs had an opening in the fence. Perhaps that opening will be closed by default or is magically impassable until the lot is bought.

    Maybe that's the real reason why you can't jump in the game! They don't want LoneStranger to jump over people's fences and squat on their land!
     
  7. XiDragon

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    Why not make player houses an integral part of the city? Honestly when I first read about the housing ideas Richard had for Shroud of the Avatar I thaught that he ment it would be like that. I thaught that player housing within cities would work like this: Player ownable houses are at least mostly already build and maybe inhabited by NPC's and scattered throughout the citiy. If a player buys a house or lot he than will be able to just use that house or demolish it to build his own house on the lot. Further I imagined that players would be able to create shops in these houses where they can place vendors. I never ever imagined that player housing would be a more separated thing like it seems to be planned now. As of what I've seen in the latest videos it looks as if player housing will be as useless as in most nowadays MMO's. Player housing ghettos; No Thank You!
     
  8. Dorham Isycle

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    I would like those fences to be invisible borders that anything can run over. Let there be a forsale sign but no visible borders. When you click the sign, the borders could appear for the player who is using the sign for reference sake. Players could build their own borders with fences or hedges if they choose to. When placing a house, the system simply removes any mobile & places it off the lot but it may be easier to simply make the lot impassible when forsale since there could be 1000's on it through all the instances.
     
  9. smack

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    Ok, so fences are turned off completely for everyone. It will only visually appear for the person that's using the For Sale sign, but nobody else sees them nor are they real physical fences. if the player walks away or stops using the For Sale sign, they visually disappear for that player. But if purchased, the fences become real objects for everyone, visible by everyone.

    I'm wondering if all of those For Sale signs along the road next to empty land is going to be an eye sore for most people. The fences give visual purpose to those signs.
     
  10. Count Napoli

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    I would imagine that the vast number of lots will be occupied pretty quickly and those that aren't...well, it's just a matter of time. What's an eye sore today will be occupied tomorrow.
     
  11. Dorham Isycle

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    I would prefer if they didn't, just can't place objects off of your property, that way you can access plot from any angle. You or your neighbour could plant hedges on the border as an option. If you don't have a neighbour on 1 side you would accually have more space because you can run in from the side. At least make the border visibility an option.
     
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  12. smack

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    I'm actually hoping that the fences can be customizable. There's always going to be an internal border as to what is your land or not, but perhaps you can remove them visually completely or only on one side or whatever, or put in brushes or trees or whatever instead of the current wood and stone fences...sure, that would be great.

    Looks like we need a house exterior and land decoration video :)
     
  13. XiDragon

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    I agree the fences as well as the signs can be invisible as long as the player is not interested in seeing them. And I would also prefer customizable fences or hedges.
     
  14. Knoxinn

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    *starts to envision players wearing white and black*
    *pictures them "trapped" by the invisible fences*
    *silently screams at the coming of the Mime Invasion of 2014*

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. Kilhwch

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    Empty plots look like opportunities to me, so I don't fell there is an issue with the aesthetic. I imagine it would be cool to place your house between two empty plots and wonder who your neightbors are going to be.
     
  16. slandrew

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    I think they could just put placeholder housing in the lots with for sale sigms in the yards. Seems like an obvious solution.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
     
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