Are player run inns still a thing?

I do not check it but I guess all rooms of the village sized inns have the same room measurements no matter if it is a elven or kobold inn and that way it might be easier to create a fitting predefined deco-set that can be used for every NPC rented room.
Maybe in a later step rows and basements could get a similar predefined deco-set but this would take a lot more work.
Thinking about it maybe all NPCs not renting a “standard inn room” or all by NPCs rented rooms in general simply use the items the owner of the inn has placed. This has of course the possibility of misusing (like inappropriate room decoration) but it would make it a lot easier for the devs…but this would also mean that the NPC would just stand in the middle of the rented room as I think NPCs cannot recognize on their own that there is a bed to sleep in the corner or a chair to sit down if the usable item is not very close to their current position. Even worse would be if the NPCs would overlap with some by the e.g. row house owner placed deco items just becaus they are placed at the same spot the renting NPCs is allways going to (e.g. a split NPC with one half above and one half below a table) and the devs might have to create some tech to avoid it.

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I was afraid of. I thought I'd seen something about work on renting UI for Episode 2 a while back though... In any case, I was more thinking about it for kicks rather than profit. I found the idea pretty cool that I could put up newer players. But I don't have the patience to do it the manual way, so an automated interface would have been great imho!

Then of course I thought of the NPC rent-a-crowd too, that would also be great! Some pretty epic suggestions in this thread on that.

It's things like this that would really differentiate SotA in the market and serve to highlight the housing gameplay too... I have visions of animal husbandry and proper farm gameplay later on down the track or things like constructing my own trading fleet by Episode V! But I guess that's a whole 'nother thread.

 

That's exactly what a Recall scroll is, or is supposed to be, but it's currently only limited to one place. If teleport scrolls have been expanded to any zone, why not extend recall scrolls too? If you have more than one lot, have it bring up a list with your one bind point plus all the lots you own. And here's where it can go further: if the player has an inn room set up somewhere, add it to the list too! After all, now it's easy to get your first lot, and no place after that matters because Recall is only single-target. (Also don't limit it specifically to "inns", as some basements can make great housing too. It's okay if this binds to the parent lot, but it could take you inside the basement entrance too.) This could be a way for newer players to have a "house" in an NPC town without needing a PA deed.

If we get an inrush of new players, this could be great. And if we don't, it'll be business as usual. I'm even okay with waiting to implement this until after significant population increase, when there will be more player base to pay for development.

I'd be happy if it just caused 3-day buffs (and maybe devotional buffs too) to freeze in place and not expire while logged out. Those are enough of a pain to get that they can motivate using beds when logging out. That would be enough to break me from the habit of logging out in the street in front of my house because of not wanting to have to open the door to get out when I log back in.

I think I'd be okay if they had to manually design a room layout template for every type of building, since there are only a few types of houses and basements usable as inns (all the village cottages are right out), and that could still end up better than a system where the access is by door. But they would have to figure out what to do in basements where two rooms connect to a third room between them.

 

Yah I pretty much agree.

I could see the recall scroll staying as-is, as the cheapest form of fast travel. The "travel to home/inn/basement list" scroll can cost perhaps 2.5x the reagents to create or something, and require higher alchemy skill, just to make the game more diverse and reflect the expense of jumping around the world. I wouldnt argue if regular recalls just started doing this though.

Also my inns and apartment rentals are basements - they provide a much nicer UX (the framerate in basements rules), allow for lots of deco, consume way less system resources, and have snappy fast loading screens. As an aside, I keep all my personal crafting stuff in basements for the same reason.

Not a bad idea.

I actually would also like to see a debuff that happens after a few Earth days of not interacting with a bed, getting worse with each day. I know that adding detriments is quite unpopular though .

I actually often log my avatars out in their respective bedrooms. I like the mental immersion of "heading home," unpacking things, switching into the "townie" outfit (I love crafting outfits!), and getting in bed. Then when its "adventure time," I swap the armor back on, eat a meal at my fine dining table, say goodbye to my clan (vendors), kill that duck that always spawns out front, and head out. I think this makes the game a lot more enjoyable, I often "RP" my way through game elements that I think should add buffs/benefits (or cause debuffs/detriments when neglected, like bathing or lack of merry-making).

but there are quite a few suitable as "apartment" rentals (the stone and timber ones come to mind, also the town sized stone basement has killer apartment-sized "studios")

 

I have an inn and one tenant that I don't charge rent to. They are waiting till then can afford a bigger lot in the POT. That being said, had they made the inn rooms a tad larger, maybe suites. . I think this would have had a bit more draw .. on top of the being able to rent without and innkeeper present.

I agree that buffs for inn stayers would be a great idea (something like a social entertainer buff or cure like SWG did with cantina dancers), but maybe inns should be bigger than Village lots.