Player Housing and Additions

[Kyrin Fireheart]

Ok so I know that adding in Player Housing will be far in the future but I had several thoughts about it which I wanted to get the communities viewpoint on and hopefully we can get something worked out for the wonderful devs to do.

So I'm not a coder or programmer so I'm not sure on how exactly this all works but I'll go on with this under a few assumptions(please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll try and revamp my suggestions). I'm assuming that to save on landscape and clutter and lag that it will be easier to have instanced player housing(separate zone for each person). Honestly if you're not adding in lots of decorative gadgets and gizmos there's not even a need to allow other players to visit. That being the case there is a few things I WOULD love to see being able to have.

1. Ability to add a cellar for aging of wine/beer and cheese. No more need to run around trying to find those damn creepy mushrooms to port you into their cave!

2. Ability to add your own garden to grow crops. Not anything like an automated system or such as that changes the fundamentals on how Gardening works but its nice to have everything in one spot.

3. Ability to add a well near your garden. This is a must of course if you add a garden area.

4. Ability to add a barn/ranch area. This is something I'd REALLY love to see but obviously in order for this to work you'd need the ability to either tame cows and chickens and bring them to your house(escort quest?) or find a special dealer to sell them to you. This way you have a steady source of eggs and milk and don't have to chase them around Serbule.

Now obviously none of these are game breaking or anything. Yes they are convenient but not something that takes away from something. And obviously you can't get something for nothing. So what I'm proposing is three things to "pay" for this privilege. Hopefully it stays in the same vein as this game's skill/quest system.

1. Quest. Each section requires you to find a different and very specific craftsmen who of course won't work for just anyone. Do quests to gain favor enough for them to work on your property(hopefully its not as severe as the normal NPC's though as that could take months for the casual player which is a bit hard to swallow).

2. Materials. You can't just pay to have someone build it, you have to go collect all the materials yourself. Obviously could have a good effect on the Player Economy for those that have time to gather extras to sell.

3. Councils. And last but not least you have to pay for the services of the craftsmen.

Now there's a lot to discuss on how this could be implemented and also about whether this should be permanent(harder on the servers) or the player pays a fee for the land monthly(easier to do away with the old instances when players quit the game, as is bound to happen(and I'm talking in game currency not a cash shop)). Problem with the second method is the server will still have to store the data somewhere for if that player comes back(and of course starts paying for the land again) and all their stuff is still there. Though I've heard there's already something like this, albeit on a very small scale, for player merchants.

Anyways hope this peaks the interest of the players and we can get enough support to beg the devs to do it!

[ShieldBreaker]

From Developer Info Round-Up (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?286-Gameplan-Old-Forum-Discussion)




...
There will be housing.
Housing will be pretty basic at first, but after the game has launched we'll make it nicer and more elaborate in the bimonthly updates. Most housing will be instanced, meaning that when you enter the door to your house you're transported into a private little house interior that's exclusively for you.

(If you're wondering how we can have instanced housing but not instanced dungeons, this is a special case. The server can handle instances where no combat is allowed. So you won't be able to fight monsters inside your house! But you'll be able to craft and shop and have visitors and much more.)

Guild halls will have a shared-world public area (where guilds can set up vendors, for instance), as well as a private backroom area for guild members only.
...


Hopefully they won't forget to add an option for a water source, I like something akin to running water in my house. :)
I'm thinking home ownership will not be a requirement for Animal Husbandry (i.e. ranching) but it might be something that could also be accessed from the house.

These houses get too nice and I might become a shut-in. That makes me wonder about a Hermit skill, one that makes humans immune to loneliness. I might be interested in leveling that skill I'd probably be good at it. :)

[Murk]

The trouble is that if you were to allow all this "good stuff" as part of housing, no one or thier dog would be seen in the towns. This is quite bad in my view and I think this very issue has affected other games.

The other thing that has negativly affected other MMO's (again, in my view) is easy transportation; you then never see anyone running around on the roads / hills whatnot. This is a corollary to the housing: the world becomes empty except for the dungeons and places eveyone wants to get to. This is why i think it would be bad to have teleports everywhere, despite the fact it can be a bit of a bore running round all the time... but then one could learn to fly.., and; mounts are planned for the future, which should sort out the transport situation.

[ShieldBreaker]

Another idea,
At least one of our pets should be able to roam around our house, when we have them in stable(i.e. they are not called by AH). Maybe even when we are not in game. Although if people came to visit Hector, it might interfere with my Hermit Leveling. :)

[Esoteric]

Hahah, in these sort of unforgiving sandboxes, I think I have some ideas and notions to throw in. If a person(s) became too fixed on their home for sanctuary and becoming less active in the community, you should get negative points in social(?) status, or would it be Civic? As in, someone becomes slowly a Recluse, and townsfolk won't sell, talk or hold your wares anymore, therein other ghastly effects take hold, such as: Inability to speak(use of languages), perhaps even leper symptoms, and lastly, hoarding problems. :D I was thinking hoarding could run the risk of endangering said home environment, and potentially becoming a health hazard and/or possibly death to overwhelming junk buryin' you. >:D

[Crissa]

Well, the player housing was only partially meant to be instanced; it could be that the exterior of some housing would look like little villages with people's vendors and perhaps gardens and such showing up. That would allow housing to be some 'good stuff' and some 'social stuff'.

There's a balance between people being in and out of town that's desirable, of course.

In Horizons, I was part of a town that had gardens and public features shared amongst those who lived in that part of the town. The idea of building the town didn't quite work out in that game, but something less specific and rigid and hoping for players to 'get along' but instead little villages that players could invest in that would upgrade like little towns in those kingdom-builder systems might be what people are thinking about; the public resources would be shared, but only would exist as long as those who bought into the town kept them up?

[Kyrin Fireheart]

Ok so having a community area for gardening and ranch and even possibly a community cellar would be cool and would definitely cut down on the hikkikimori lifestyle