Player Housing Coming

[bhodi]

This is WoW. They won't be revolutionary, they will take what has worked and tweak it a bit. Just like I said. They will take FFXI housing (single entrance, instanced) into a "guild hall" type of thing, with a shared guild bank vault inside and a decoration mini-game of some kind (probably a secondary skill to make decorations). They will let you take people in your raid/party into your guild hall, so that you can show it off. FFXI didn't let you do this.

They aren't going to mess their pretty world up with urban sprawl, even controlled urban sprawl. They also hate the idea of causal people not being able to achieve what the catasses can, so they won't do a small number of non-instanced houses because that breeds resentment.

An instanced housing is easily patched into the game world and requires little special connecting coding and makes lots of people happy. It provides a guild bank which people have been clamoring for forever, and an additional 'renters' and customization money sink as well. They will probably offer a 'basic guild hall', since you can find anyone to sign a guild charter than kick them out afterwards, basically *everyone* is guilded in the game, so that takes care of the 'everyman should have housing' bit.

You can make the free guildhall the equivalent of a one-room house, and then you can rent larger halls for more cash. Presumably larger ones would have things like a fireplace, and more room for the decoration mini-game, and a bigger bank that goes along with it. Your beginner guildhall might only be able to store 1k gold, and have 20 shared slots, so you could hook people on the upgrade for a monthly deposit even if they didn't want to play the decoration game.

It's all moneyhats. Nothing revolutionary here, just giving the general populace what they want.

[Morfiend]

I would think they wuld take DAoC's Housing system. Open up a big empty space, and then let people build there. But the space is instanced. Since its instanced, and people can build their own houses, each instance looks different, but it is the same zone. You can freely hop from zone to zone. The only problem was the first time I was in there, its was "OH MY GOD, IM LOST GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!!!". So maybe the WoW devs will make it a lot easer to navigate.

[bhodi]

Too much on the database backend for WoW. WoW does not lend itself to customization; I'm sure they will have 7 or 8 housing 'levels' that you pick, each one has a standardized floor plan. I never saw the DAOC housing but it sounds pretty database intensive.

[Venkman]

If they made the houses themselves separate zones, they could probably get away with alot more. But then, separate zones aren't very inviting to the browsing-shopper/looksee'r.

Like I said earlier, I doubt much in the way of groundbreaking will come. They are best when they improve upon success. In terms of systems that just work, I think EQ2 has close to the best one for games that want to control what players do. I'm not a huge fan of apartments, but it makes sense as part of a tech tree from rental apartment to guild house, all already placed in the world.

[eldaec]

I'd be surprised if houses aren't individual zones at least technically. Having a zone for each house makes it easier to manage a wider variety of decoration, and makes it easier to play tricks like having the interior slightly larger than the exterior.

Since the house would be a very small zone, loading pauses should also be small.

[Koyasha]

Things I care about in housing are this - different styles for each city.  The last thing I want to see is Stormwind to be the only city where housing is available, or to see the wrong style of housing in various cities.

Second, chairs.  You'd think this would go without saying, but the fact that Darnassus, Exodar, and I think most Horde cities have no chairs or very few chairs is asstarded enough already, and you'd think it would have been obvious that a few chairs would have been nice.  A little more work on some sitting animations would help too (have you seen the new Blood Elf style chairs?  Wtf.)

Now, things I would like to see are many, including customized decorations, layout, wallpaper/motif, etc.  Also, the idea of instanced neighborhoods with multiple houses in them sounds awesome.  Zone into an instanced neighborhood and walk to my house, that way it has an exterior, I have neighbors (who I will of course hate, but that's not the point) and so on.

[Jayce]

Things I care about in housing are this - different styles for each city.  The last thing I want to see is Stormwind to be the only city where housing is available, or to see the wrong style of housing in various cities.

Second, chairs.  You'd think this would go without saying, but the fact that Darnassus, Exodar, and I think most Horde cities have no chairs or very few chairs is asstarded enough already, and you'd think it would have been obvious that a few chairs would have been nice.  A little more work on some sitting animations would help too (have you seen the new Blood Elf style chairs?  Wtf.)

Now, things I would like to see are many, including customized decorations, layout, wallpaper/motif, etc.  Also, the idea of instanced neighborhoods with multiple houses in them sounds awesome.  Zone into an instanced neighborhood and walk to my house, that way it has an exterior, I have neighbors (who I will of course hate, but that's not the point) and so on.

Koyasha wins.

[angry.bob]

Koyasha wins.

pssssssst...

All he did was describe DAoC's housing. Like exactly, down to the letter.

[tazelbain]

Only one question matters: Can I have a lawn gnome?

[Koyasha]

Hm, Daoc's housing is like that?  Cool.  Then yes, that's exactly what Blizz needs to rip off.   :-D

[Lantyssa]

Only one question matters: Can I have a lawn gnome?

Only if you tie him down to prevent running.

[Paelos]

Only one question matters: Can I have a lawn gnome?

Only if you tie him down to prevent running.

I find dipping them in lucite first to be the key.

[Lantyssa]

That saves on feeding costs, but the non-lucite versions really liven up the yard, and people might think you bought a cheap, plastic knock-off...

[Slayerik]

I've got it. I'm a genius.

Use the now abandoned Molten Core as the housing instance. Finally, a use for that Hydraxian Waterlords rep I have!!!

I CALL DOMO's PENTHOUSE SUITE!

[Dren]

I've got it. I'm a genius.

Use the now abandoned Molten Core as the housing instance. Finally, a use for that Hydraxian Waterlords rep I have!!!

I CALL DOMO's PENTHOUSE SUITE!

I pictured you yelling this as I looked at your current avatar.

I chuckled.