1 Instanced House Per Account

I discovered SotA late and just got on board with my pledge and forum access. But I'm a long time Ultima fan (my whole life actually, I'm almost 4 decades old).

1. I couldn't justify pledging enough in my budget to get a house plot. Also, I want to retire someday.

2. That said. I am not a fan of instanced housing.

3. Why are the housing plots so huge?


If the goal was to have the towns and villages be where all the available housing is, why not design it like real villages and cities? Some spaces above business buildings. Some in connected buildings. Some smooshed up really close with multiple roads weaving through. Everyone doesn't need a huge yard and a mansion. Designed to the right scale and perspective you could fit a lot more housing into each area. Outlying areas could have long roads of small cottages with smallish yards out back. Seems you could build 1 building, or a block of buildings in the space one plot currently takes up and have it pre-placed and existing with many living spaces purchasable inside. Just make the cities bigger, and more densely populated but with open areas for people to mingle.

But that still doesn't get past the fact we're trying to mimic a populated area with people living in persistent houses on finite land, when the owners will not be logged into the game much of the time. Fitting characters who only really "exist" in the world some of the time into an area that we want to behave like its populated and lived in all the time. So the solution is to have homeless people fill in and populate the cities while 70% of the house owners in that city are logged out.

The homeowners with good spots get to have the best of both worlds. Have a cool house, and always have people around the area the house is located because its an actual town in the world.

The only solution I've seen is games like the now defunct Haven and Hearth where the the game world was just gigantic and procedurally generated and was truly just a blank canvas for people to go start settling and banding together with friends, new friends, or their guilds. Everyone was so spread out but there was a lot less people in the game and it was 2D. It can't be a hand crafted world by a dev team. And that's not what Ultima is about.... its an existing world hand crafted by the devs.

Its like trying to cram a sandbox into a snowglobe.

 

In game most of the yards are not that big (and most of the houses are not mansions at all). Anyway I think they did a simple house lot system with three (ot four) sizes to make it simpler and cheaper to produce. The objetive was not to put more houses in less space. And here is supposed to be a little more harder than UO to have a house.

I think that you are losing here why not instanced housing is important here (and in UO).

 

Another interesting game, very much Not main stream, and so non-PvP that there isn't even a combat system...

A Tale in the Desert

People could build anywhere. Of course, the population was low enough and the map big enough that Urban Blight was not an issue, and real communities emerged, and emerge every time a new tale starts... because, unlike other persistent worlds A Tale in the Desert ends, and resets, and restarts periodically. The populace can affect what happens in the next tale by what they accomplish in the current tale.

Was very interesting for a while, a good diversion, utterly boring for a lot of most people.

 

It is too bad that the housing system, which is pretty awesome. Is really only intended for those that can afford to buy one or get one of the few actually in game. I guess single player offline is the way most of us will have to use housing.

 

Except you, Rune74. I got you that plot remember? You have to pay the tax on it yourself though (think of it as an incentive not to get lost at sea.) Hope you get back to land by launch.

sent from the future using my Coleco Adam

 

Why do I have no ide what you are talking about??

 

I stand corrected Thank you very much 3devious!!!!

 

Tell that to Americans...

Yeah, that will never work. Who wants people living in their house ?

However, I hope the game does have like, lodgings or even the richer people like Barons and Dukes might could be able to rent out rooms or the like. That would be cool for the poorer citizens of the realm

that don't want or can't afford instanced housing. To have a place to lie their head at night and dream of that Duke's Castle being theirs someday

And honestly, who isn't going to invite other players into their houses all the time anyway ? It's going to be boring to be in there by yourself. I see a great many LoTM parties going down Great Gatsby style.

 

Haha, what I meant was people to populate the city around their house. Not live in it with them. Because that's the one of the main reasons to have a sweet non-instanced house, to show it off and feel proud of the excellent spot you have in town.

 

LOL, my first thought was "nuh uh!" Then I realized that my dream home is a little shack on acres of land...

I was hoping to place my knight's keep on some LoTM's area sort of like some sort of protective gatehouse. Maybe if I had an alt that was a squire or something, it could live in a barracks.

 

Hmm, from what I read it seems that you won't be able to get a house, if you didn't pledge "Citizen" or above? Or am I misunderstanding something?

I find it kind of sad, being an old fan of UO I really, really would have like to have a house...

 

There will be houses in game to buy....

 

For an as yet unknown and probably massive amount of gold or resources.

The good news is you can still buy lots in the add-on store for 185 bucks that come with a crappy free house, that you get sick from apparently, lol.

And you can still buy add-on house models.

 

185 RL bucks seems a tad bit much for a virtual house.
If I remember correctly in UO any decent kind of house went from 450k gold and up - that's just the house deed without any plot or anything. I might remember wrong though, if someone knows better, please correct me.

As far as getting a house (plot) for ingame money - again pleasde correct me if I'm wrong:
From what I read the people who pledged citizen and above will have first choice of plots.
Afterwards the people who bought a plot in the add-on store for bucks and it could even happen that you won't get any if you bought a plot deed too late.
Last in line are the people who bought a plot with gold.

So it could even happen that you bought a plot and don't get one - IF I understand the FAQ etc. correctly...
If it is indeed that way - it's not right..

On a side note: Once the game is released I'd mich rather pay a monthly fee and everything else is available for "free" (= reasonable amounts of in-game money), than having to buy stuff for RL money if I want a chance to get certain items.

Well I'll keep watching how things go - in the worst case I "loose" my pledge because I won't play, but that's fine.

 

I agree... Selling lots that can't be placed would be wrong.

Portalarium has stated on many occasions that they will never sell more lots than are available, and that there will be lots available after launch to be purchased in game.

 

This isn't UO. People have paid up to 12,000 dollars for a LOTM Manor and Castle Plot in this game.

How much virtual gold do you think it is "worth" to account for 12,000 dollars, or 5,000 or 3,500 dollars for LoTM, Dukes and Barons?

It's going to be *a lot*. They haven't even announced how much yet, that's how much. Also we don't know how many plots are going to be available.

If R5 is an indication of how scarce housing will get, I wouldn't hold my breath. 185 bucks is a steal compared to what many have paid to get these houses.

It goes by Royal Founder, Founder and then Benefactor, and within each of those tiers, it goest LOTM, Duke, Baron, Lord, Knight, Edelmann, Citizen in order.

So yes, assuming you can buy with in game gold, you aren't going to get anywhere close to first picks.

 

True, at the same times those were for donations to fund a project. They can make the amount 1 gold and on the first mob kill you an buy one.

I would hope(and pray) that they stick to kickstarters suggestion of the reward being 10% of the pledge! This would mean that $12000 castle is worth about $1200 real world money. Now the question is, what is an appropriate conversion rate? In other word, how much time should I need to spend 'grinding' on resources and mobs to get enough items to sell for gold that I can buy a castle in game.... I like to think the answer is 'still a lot'.

For me a castle should be for a 'kingdom'. There are thousands of people in a kingdom ages ago. However for a game I think you can only really count on a faction of that level of participation because a game has only a fraction of the worlds population in it at any given time AND that fraction is only there to play and have fun for a short period of time.

So the delema, amusing a castle is worth 10% of the pledge and thus worth $1200 american; is how many hours is that? Certainly one persons hours are worth more than another. A doctor requires more training than a janitor so a doctor working full time and comes home to play a game probably doesnt want to be grinding for a million hours. BUT... a doctor has MONEY and means to hire someone to grind for him... that brings us back to, how much an hour is a persons time worth. I could hire someone in a third world country to grind for me at $1200 for close to $2 an hour. Cause its a game kids in Asia are more than willing to play FOR pay. That sets it at about 600 hours by my estimation.

That is 15 40 hour weeks; 25 full days; or one Latin GRAMMY® special edition Gucci watch.

How much will the SotA team value a castle? Who knows... but good god, I hope its not the full $12,000. These are PLEDGE rewards after all. Not meant to be an equal transfer. Fingers crossed everyone.

 

I think they will handle it by making you have to craft each brick for the castle...so figure out how many bricks go into the castle and figure out how long it takes to craft each brick....

 

This has been done to death.

If you purchase a plot via either citizen of above or from the addon store you will be guaranteed a plot. in addition to these plots there will be an additional set making up 'x%' of the total that will be available to in-game purchase with gold.

 

I suppose it will come down to how much gold the average player could make in a week. Houses are meant to be scarce and players would have to work hard to purchase them.....I would imagine maybe around 3 months of gold collecting would be reasonable.

After all plots have gone, the housing market will be set by buyers and sellers. It will be based on size of plot and probably more importantly the location. I can see a village plot in the right location selling for more than a city lot in the wrong location. As for $ value, once again that is up to buyers, if someone is will to buy a plot for $10,000 and someone is willing to sell....that's the price it is......all very subjective.