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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Lord of the Rings Online  |  Topic: Player Housing? 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Bandit
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on: June 01, 2007, 07:04:58 AM

I have avoided the LOTRO main forums, and come here for my information....but there are a few things I am wondering about future plans for LOTRO.  I was hoping someone more attuned to development side of the game can answer.

Are there any future plans or comments about Player Housing? I was a big fan of housing in EQ2 - not because I spent a lot of time in my room, but because I thought adding trophies to throw in your room added a sense of accomplishment as your room became pimped out.  Along that same stream, it was definitely cool to start with a cheap ass 1 room apartment, to having a 5 room fricking mansion.  I think this feature would be ideal for LOTRO.

Numtini
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Reply #1 on: June 01, 2007, 07:22:16 AM

I'm pretty sure they said it would be coming in the fall release.

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Riggswolfe
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Reply #2 on: June 01, 2007, 07:30:46 AM

The last Dev comment I saw said it was coming, possibly in Fall but that they hadn't finalized plans for it yet, which leads me to think Winter might be more realistic. They're still debating over how to do the housing AFAIK. I think popular opinion, which I agree with, is that the best possible way to do it is with some form of instanced housing. Urban Sprawl in LOTRO would ruin the game IMO.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Zonk
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Reply #3 on: June 01, 2007, 08:09:19 AM

My impression is that instanced housing is 'the thing' for the future. Nobody (except Vanguard) wants to put the time into finding 'space' in the gameworld for housing. I always thought FFXI's approach was pretty classy. Having an adventurer neighborhood on the edge of the city - very exclusive.

The Blizzard folks have confirmed they're working on housing for sures ... that'll be interesting.

Numtini
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Reply #4 on: June 01, 2007, 08:37:23 AM

I think Turbine got it right in AC. Small villages decorately and sanely placed on the landscape and virtual instanced housing for everyone else.

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cmlancas
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Reply #5 on: June 01, 2007, 02:32:59 PM



With so many undone houses and hobbit-holes I've seen with non-working doors in Bree/The Shire, why can they not turn that into housing?

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Johny Cee
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Reply #6 on: June 01, 2007, 10:07:26 PM



With so many undone houses and hobbit-holes I've seen with non-working doors in Bree/The Shire, why can they not turn that into housing?

Because that's no where near enough space to fit people,  and those choice locations would go fast.  You or I would end up with a shitty one room house in the middle of the Lone Lands.

Instanced housing is the easiest solution.  It's also the least immersive.  Seems to be at odds with the way Turbine has handled development so far.
Venkman
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Reply #7 on: June 02, 2007, 04:03:23 AM

My guess is they'll start with Kinship housing and then go with player housing in instantiated zones. I wouldn't call this the "future" though Zonk. AO was the first of the modern MMOGs to do this with instantiated apartments, and those were in place when it launched :)

I would love AC1's model with public-space housing relegated to non-adventure zones you needed to run through content to get to. Sorta adventure/housing hybrid, makes it interesting.

But that is a lot more work than just creating apartments entered through zonegates in currently unused content.

Also, while it may appear there's a lot of unused "buildings" in population centers like Buckland or Bree, most of the rendered buildings are nothing more than texture and light maps. This is why I think the zonegates approach could work. Remodel these places to have doors, open door, enter gate, enter apartment. But given their quantity, these places would need to be high-rent ones for Kinships only or something.
Hound
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Reply #8 on: June 02, 2007, 06:25:15 AM

Looks as if it will be DAoC style instanced style neighborhoods according to the Euro Dev chat

http://lotro-forum.onlinewelten.com/showthread.php?p=1663605

Quote

<Mimogu> Hello Idryal, here is my question to the Devs: Can you tell us a little about housing? Especially about where (instances?) and how it will work in the future? Thank you very much.
<LOTRO_Tens> Good question Mimogu. So, let’s talk about housing!
<LOTRO_Tens> As you may or may not be aware, we are currently trying to get our LOTRO housing system up and running by the fall of this year.
<LOTRO_Tens> Without going into too much detail, our current plans are to implement housing in the form of instanced "Neighborhoods."
<LOTRO_Tens> Gah... ok. So Patience tells me that's all
<LOTRO_Tens> I can really say right now.
<LOTRO_Patience> He didn't mention the part where I started hitting him with a chair.
<LOTRO_Tens> Haha (it's true)
<LOTRO_Tens> But yeah, you can look forward to more details emerging on LOTRO's housing system over the next few months.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Venkman
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Reply #9 on: June 02, 2007, 07:04:21 AM

Great! Hopefully they go this route. Nobody wants urban blight, and the world's not structured to ask mobs and NPCs to move :)
Numtini
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Reply #10 on: June 02, 2007, 08:35:13 AM

I think if they were brutal enough on the cost and upkeep requirements, including some kind of "active" upkeep where you needed to quest for something or other, they could keep the demand down for outside houses and/or just limit it to guilds. I was in a pretty big kinship in AC and we were always scrambling to get the stuff for upkeep on our mansion--not like it was ever going to not happen--but it required enough effort to make you think and to make it so you either needed a lot of people or were insanely devoted to it.

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Tmon
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Reply #11 on: June 02, 2007, 09:41:40 AM

If I'm not mistaken the insides of all structures are instanced anyway so they could let anyone 'own' any building not used for quests and such.  I imagine that they could do something like have a key ring that holds the keys to places you have been given access to so you could only enter those places you'd been invited to.  It wouldn't do much for the folks who like to decorate outside their houses and wouldn't be the most immersive thing in the world but I'm sure plenty of guilds and players would pay a premium to have a house located closer to questing areas than the player villages would likely be located.  What I'd really like to see is a way to set up a player owned shop either in your house or by renting a market stall or something.  The AH is a pain and it doesn't really facilitate building a relationship between seller and buyer.
KyanMehwulfe
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Reply #12 on: June 03, 2007, 12:39:22 AM

The AH is a pain and it doesn't really facilitate building a relationship between seller and buyer.
Which would suit the game more. The AH model it uses may suit certain streamlined games that are fairly socially isolating and genre-relative streamlined, but I'd likely accept a slower rate of trade for a stronger avenue of social bonding in LotRO. Even something like more personalized mail (eg; a custom greeting, an accurate character potrait) would at least help remove that sense of anonyminity and isolation. You might as well be buying from NPCs most of the time and that's a wasted area of community building for the sake of loot (not exactly what's going to primarily sustain LotRO against much more loot-focused and driven games).

By the way, as an extra housing development detail, at the end of beta it was one of the focuses of a big email questionare they sent out. To the extent that it was fairly telling that they were either still in early concept stages or at least considering the re-design of whatever they already had started on, if need be (based on the community response). Their scope of questions covered most every housing option at that point.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2007, 12:42:11 AM by KyanMehwulfe »
Tannhauser
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Reply #13 on: June 03, 2007, 08:18:49 PM

Here's an idea to improve the social community and including housing.  A 'barn raising'.

So heres the deal.  You buy a plot of land.  Then you must gather components, wood, ore, hammer, nails, etc.
THEN you need to somehow get folks to help you build it!  The more folks build your house, the lower your maintenance
cost, the easier for upkeep.  Maybe the nicest houses need 6 folks to build it.  So you group up, build the house, say take 20 minutes and it's done. 
 
  Those determined to go it alone can indeed build their own house, but it will be a simpler affair, like a Unabomber shack. :)
It might also take longer since he/she is doing it solo.

Just a rough idea but it would encourage players helping each other out, make it like an epic crafting session.  We got epic pve (raids), why not epic crafting? 
Xanthippe
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Reply #14 on: June 05, 2007, 12:12:48 PM

Ugh.  No thanks.  If I can't solo play something, I won't play at all.

Sometimes I like to group and be social, but I don't want to be forced to.
CmdrSlack
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Reply #15 on: June 08, 2007, 11:24:51 AM

Housing in October according to Zonk's interview over at Slashdot games.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
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