Houses are in limited quantity? ? (Dev) Replied

Thank you owain. I couldnt have said it better myself.

 

Korrigan, if you want to have a house but not have to compete with other players, the offline mode of the game is a perfect solution. Let's face it, even if there were infinite houses available, not everyone would be happy because not everyone could get a house in the City of Britain, some would have to live in the Village of Paws. So then the outcry would be that everyone should own a city house...but that's still not fair! Because the business owners would complain that they can't have a house on the busiest streets, they're stuck on the outskirts where no one walks.

The cities will be huge from the sprawl, where you spend 20 minutes walking from the "outside" past all the residential areas, to get to the center of town where the services are located. Or the game goes the route of adding a "houses instance." But again, the cry of "it's not fair" rises up, since the person who owns a house in a real city next to all the essential services gets far more trafic than the player who lives in "Housing Instance 846." So everyone gets struck in the houses instance to make it fair.

So now we've killed off the real estate market and added instances to a game envisoned to be a single persistent world where players can make their mark on the actual cities. And what did we benefit from this exactly?

Offline mode is there for a good reason.

 

Thank you Marthos for detailing well the big picture. Its exactly what the developers are going for. If having your own house is that important to you, drop the $500 now. It will likely be a good investment. If that is too much money for you, then you'll have to work in game. To many players the greatest joy they'll get in the MMO component of this game is when you finally snag their first village home. I'm sorry if some of you feel like second class citizens. The truth is the Barons and all their city homes are nearly gone and they deserve those houses because they are taking on the most investment risk.

 

Baron houses aren't the problem. They paid for it, they deserve them. I don't mind getting just a village home, I'd actually personally enjoy it more than some city house. Problem is, every player, no matter his play style, should be able to claim some kind of housing when he achieves getting the required currency. No matter if it's just a hut in the woods or a three level castle, each player willing to should be able to get a land plot where he can build something of his own. Any other way would be unfair towards customers.

The actual concept ignores that this is just a video game. That could be the biggest mistake to make when creating... a video game. I can't imagine any decent game designer thinking that cutting a part of his player base off a significant part of his game's content is a good idea. Because housing isn't only some virtual roof, you have all the activities that go with it, like trophies, decoration, etc... Denying that to a large part of your player base just because they play slower, have a life outside of the game, or even just bought the game later is very bad design, and if they stick to it, it will have bad consequences.

 

They did say that they would potentially expand village housing a bit if there were housing issues. I also think that that you will be able to buy village property from people for in-game gold. Prices will be high, but most people will understand that.

 

I totally agree with the limited housing and lot philosophy that is being implemented. Nothing worse to me than the style that was implemented in UO. Those castles cluttering up the landscape really got annoying after a while.

Korrigan does have a point that I support though. Everyone should have access to some kind of housing. This would be good for the game in general and not particularly difficult to make happen, especially based on the instanced design of the game.

Just put a flop house or boarding house in every town, city and maybe even village and let people rent a single (instanced) room. At this level of housing there would be no vendors on site and it would only be accessible by the renter and maybe his friends list. Even better, it would be a gold sink due to both the rent and the decorating.

In my opinion, everyone needs their own little slice of heaven and it doesn't have to be as awesome as a castle.

 

I also think some form of housing should be accessible for all who want their own place, it might take time and lots of ingame gold, an instanced slum district maybe with a community fishing hole, or Instanced rooms in existing housing districts.

Important thing here is not to take away all hope of ever owning your own little room to hang your helmet.

 

"Problem is, every player, no matter his play style, should be able to claim some kind of housing when he achieves getting the required currency."

What's the problem? You can do exactly this! You gather the "required currency" and buy the house from the initial NPC or the player who owns it. It sounds like the issue is that you don't want to interact with and do trade with other players, which is why there is an offline mode where you just access NPCs.

You need to think of a house as just another item. Not everyone is entitled to a superior crafted two-handed sword of justice. You can want it all you want, but you still need to acquire the gold to buy that sword from that crafter. Houses are the same, just more expensive (maybe, that sword does sound pretty sweet, maybe you could trade that sword for a house?).

 

@marthos

"What?s the problem? You can do exactly this! You gather the ?required currency? and buy the house from the initial NPC or the player who owns it. It sounds like the issue is that you don?t want to interact with and do trade with other players, which is why there is an offline mode where you just access NPCs."

Do you really think players will want to sell their precious unique housing location? I mean the legit players of course. Of course they won't.

This reminds me of another problem which will obviously occur with the actual system. You can be sure the gold farming companies will RUSH on this game if they keep this limited housing quantity. And you, even if you play hardcore 8+ hours a day, can NOT compete with them. They have people working in shifts 24/24, 7/7, 365/365. So even "hardcore" players will most likely end having to buy their housing plot for huge amounts of real money from the gold farmers.

It's bad design, all over the place, and it WILL fail and harm the game badly if it goes live. You can bookmark this post of mine and quote me after the game is released if you don't believe me.

 

I do hope they do consider a one deed per account limit. At least with taxes the gold farmers holding houses would have to pay houses they are holding. Your concerns are valid though Korrigan. Hopefully the Dev team has some tricks up their sleeves to at least minimize gold farming. No auction houses is a big one.

 

Yes Korrigan, players will sell their precious unique housing location. Players will be moving from one location to another across the globe, businessmen will move their houses to wherever the playerbase is at, people who own villages will get tired of their house be inaccessible and upgrade to a town. All of this creates a buying/selling environment.

It's designed to be an economy. If no one is selling or no one is buying, then there is a problem and the devs will find a way to fix things (make taxes harsher, etc).

Offline mode is there for a reason. If you don't like the idea of an economic system, that is where you're going to have your fun. Those of us who like the idea of limited resources and a vibrant economy will play multiplayer mode, even if that means that I don't get a house because others worked harder than me for it.

There is a version of this game for everyone.

Let's assume a million players buy this game. Where would you put those million houses? What's your solution to get around UO's urban sprawl or LOTRO's hundreds of dead/emply housing instance neighborhoods?

 

@marthos

Your online mode with that so fantastic economy will be worth crap if nobody plays it because of the restrictions.

And you missed half the arguments I was making too. No, UO's sprawl or LOTRO's dead instances aren't a solution, but neither is the actual plan for housing for this ONLINE game. If they do it as it's described now, it will fail. Mark my words.

 

Maybe making deeds untradable and limiting to one per account (as ironman suggested) would tone down gold farming problem?

 

So Korrigan, what would you do with all of these houses? Where are these houses going to go? What is your suggestion?

In the meantime, you may want to look at EVE Online for an example of how limited real estate (in the form of solar systems) can create a vibrant online game.

 

I'd hardly call Eve Online vibrant. It's more of an interactive screensaver with an awesome soundtrack.



as long as I'm guaranteed a house because I pledged for one, and the real estate quantities grow with the playerbase, I am good to go.

 

Honestly, one solution off the top of my head COULD be, to allow housing in designated spots all over the map, but to make it an option if you want to see houses (other than your own) outside of cities/villages/towns.

They are doing this with players already, adding houses to the filter options wouldn't be a big thing imho.

Or there could be islands made in the ocean, only for housing, not as cramped as uo... Those areas would only have nothing to do with the main map, can not see how they would disturb anyone there... (or if that area is emptier than others for that matter)

That way everybody could decide for himself... I for example, found all the houses in UO quite charming Loved it actually, looked great.

 

LB stated yesterday they are considering nomad, camp, and inn like limited housing. The rest of the housing will be limited by design

 

Now it would be pretty cool if one of the upgraded houses we can own would be an Inn, and players could rent out rooms to each other the same way as the NPC Inns. There are a lot of player interactions possible here!

 

I like that Marthos. City lots could have an Inn. Town lots could have a bed and breakfast type place.

 

The part about nomad, camp and inn housing is good news.

There's another potential problem with limited housing though. Let's say a player owning a house spot stops playing the game to never come back. I hope they have some kind of system to free up the hogged housing spot after a specific duration. I've read somewhere that they won't be an upkeep for house spots, that's not a good idea in my opinion. Players not playing anymore should not be able to hog resources an active player could use, be it housing spots or anything else.