Dev Blog: Let's Brainstorm about Housing

[Wemedge]

What about a roommate situation? I mean, you share the same house for your whole account. Then maybe have it where you can access your other chars storage, or at least maybe the main bank stash or something, for easy transferring of stuff without having to log out. Or even a much bigger transfer stash, that can be upgraded like the bank. Maybe storage mules don't fit into your grand scheme for the game, but I would say that most people that have played a decent amount use them. It would be a nice house perk that wouldn't take away from the main world, like a private garden or craft station would.

Or even have it so your other chars are actually in the house, like npcs. And have it where you can actually become one of your other chars there. Maybe a menu pops up as you leave the house asking which char you want to be, and that's the char that re-enters the world. No idea how hard any of these things would be to code, or if they are even possible, but with new races coming alting will be even more prevalant. And anything that keeps a player from having to fully log out to switch chars is going to be nice.

[Okeephe]

For me housing is about centralizing your belongings. You don't need to have a lot of storage in the house, per se, but it should at least allow the 'summon' command to work from all your other storage.

One benefit of housing is that, if you park there when you are offline, you accumulate a 'rested' bonus to xp for the next time you log in.

For starting out there should be apartments. Basic accomodation for a reasonable price

I would like to see a 'modular' approach to housing, where you start out with a basic layout with kitchen, living room, and 2-3 bedrooms that can be added onto as you progress and can afford it. Additions that can be purchased and added on, basements that can be finished, cold room for cheese/shrooms. Crafting rooms for leather, tailor, toolcrafting, etc.

In this way house 'grow' from single family dwellings to mansions, over time.

I like the idea of Bat/Spider caves, Cow barns, and for those that don't want to live in a cave, the ability that when you enter your house, as an animal, you turn into your non animal form, for the duration of your stay, then back to your aninal form when you leave.

AS for the social twits, who feel mmorpgs mean you have to be glued to your on screen friends...poppycock.

I am socializing with my guild members and in game friends even if we are no where near each other. I have discord, and in game chat to fulfill these things.

I am not going to tanning racks or cotton gins to be social there. I would love these things to be in my house.

A lot of the comments I saw are based on teh current size of the maps and population. These will change at release I am sure. Yes, the current population is small, but the goal is to have a much larger population, and therefore much larger zones.

I couldn't care less about marriage.

Skills to make furniture should be added to carpentry, appliances to toolcrafting/BS, painting, pottery, etc. can be added.

Roommates sound interesting for starting out. Where a home owner can sub let rooms for a monthly fee, with eviction a result of not paying.

Property taxes, and upkeep. Yards with gardens, workshops, brew house, the possibilities are endless

[Sheawanna]

For me housing is about centralizing your belongings. You don't need to have a lot of storage in the house, per se, but it should at least allow the 'summon' command to work from all your other storage.

One benefit of housing is that, if you park there when you are offline, you accumulate a 'rested' bonus to xp for the next time you log in.

For starting out there should be apartments. Basic accomodation for a reasonable price

I would like to see a 'modular' approach to housing, where you start out with a basic layout with kitchen, living room, and 2-3 bedrooms that can be added onto as you progress and can afford it. Additions that can be purchased and added on, basements that can be finished, cold room for cheese/shrooms. Crafting rooms for leather, tailor, toolcrafting, etc.

In this way house 'grow' from single family dwellings to mansions, over time.

I like the idea of Bat/Spider caves, Cow barns, and for those that don't want to live in a cave, the ability that when you enter your house, as an animal, you turn into your non animal form, for the duration of your stay, then back to your aninal form when you leave.

AS for the social twits, who feel mmorpgs mean you have to be glued to your on screen friends...poppycock.

I am socializing with my guild members and in game friends even if we are no where near each other. I have discord, and in game chat to fulfill these things.

I am not going to tanning racks or cotton gins to be social there. I would love these things to be in my house.

A lot of the comments I saw are based on teh current size of the maps and population. These will change at release I am sure. Yes, the current population is small, but the goal is to have a much larger population, and therefore much larger zones.

I couldn't care less about marriage.

Skills to make furniture should be added to carpentry, appliances to toolcrafting/BS, painting, pottery, etc. can be added.

Roommates sound interesting for starting out. Where a home owner can sub let rooms for a monthly fee, with eviction a result of not paying.

Property taxes, and upkeep. Yards with gardens, workshops, brew house, the possibilities are endless

As a full time animal going to my house /cave/barn should not turn me into a humanoid (its our home should be safe for us ) . I do not want to wait 3 hours for animal town npcs to speak with me … other then that I'm good with all Ideas . Except marriage n losing my npc favor sounds pretty harsh n not worth it .

[Silvane]

I would really like a garden area. And with it a new type of the plants we already have that work differently. Instead of growing instantly and having a low yield, they should have to be watered each day for three days and then give 10 crops instead of one or two.

Also plantable Oak, Maple etc trees that after growing them can be chopped down.

Also plantable Apple and Orange etc trees that can then be harvested every 24h once grown.

I would prefer a % buff to max health over an xp buff.

I would like to be able to have a house for each character I have.

Being able to place furniture freely without a grid and resizing, rotating freely would be great and the option for the really creative players to set themselfs on a list of public houses so that they can be shown off to others. I am not very great at building awesome houses, but I loved touring public houses in Wildstar where some people build incredible stuff due to being able to place everything freely.

[Kifyi]

Regarding instanced housing and more specifically neighborhoods, I think I would prefer a persistent neighborhood where I can actually get to know my neighbors or even be neighbors with my friends. I don't like the idea of a more .... fluid neighborhood. If that were the case I think I'd prefer just a small instance with only my own residence. However, I can see the benefits of this design so they don't feel stagnant, forgotten or empty.

You could potentially do a form that is neighborhoods in addition to isolated homes. So if you're someone that wants to live in a neighborhood you can. If you want to be on your own, you can. That kind of thing.

I really love the idea of marriage and having your NPC friends over. This kind of thing is generally sorely lacking in MMOs and even in most singleplayer games it often quite shallow and unrewarding. Definitely love this.

I agree with a lot of people I see asking for a small yard with a garden to grow plants and also to see your pets there. Even if they are standing around in/around a literal stable, would be nice.

Would love to see functioning armor racks, display racks for equipment. Bookshelves for books as well as other misc items and trophies of your accomplishments.

I am really excited to see housing added to this game, it's been something I've wanted for a long time.

[Kifyi]

Lets be honest, player housing is a meh idea and waste of dev time. It is such a niche crowd that you would be catering to. If instead of player housing I offer you a counter idea, player made dungeons. Player's could create their own dungeon, drop in monsters, traps, and then set a reward at the end. The player whos dungeon it is would be able to set an entrance fee, level rec (scaled based on monsters used), and treasure for completion. Now you have exponentially increased gameplay by way of new dungeons and by allowing players to tailor those dungeons.

You should play monolisk

[Unhandled Exception]

So, I should be added to the list of those that really don't see a need for housing at all. I am someone who spent about five seconds customizing his character, though. I realized shortly after streaming became a thing that most players/streamer actually do that customization stuff and *I* am the weird one. I have a long reply, but it's more tailored to what would make housing fun for me and me only. I wouldn't want customization of features so much as customization of gameplay.

As a system admin/IT worker, I very much understand the need to do instanced housing. There's practical problems that come up if you don't use instances. That said, if you're willing to ignore "housing" in the traditional sense and go crazy on the "instanced", I do have a few ideas that will run long.

As Ranperre and Delfofthebla have indicated, it might help to know more as to what this Housing is really intended to be. Do you want it to be somewhere the player spends 80% of their in-game time or more like %5 of their time? A good mix? Does the player-base really care about customization of something in-game? The Casino already works for me as a central crafting hub and I can make Flower Arrangement buffs to share with others who will help me with music during Gardening sessions. Is this housing going to somehow break the social aspects because people spend even less time sharing buffs? Do you want to spend a lot of time coding something unique that has never really been done before in an MMO like was done with Brewing or stick with tried-and-true housing with predictable customization?

One thing that was already brought up by ProfessorCat and others is more complex "Hang Out" options or stuff we can do in place of that for favor or otherwise. Maybe what we don't need so much of is instanced housing but instances based on social/crafting or combat activities with our players and NPC friends. Not like the Casino or other games, but more like a Sims game with NPCs made up of other players and our favorite NPCs.

So, keeping in mind that housing itself isn't what we're looking for, here's some ideas:

0) For the purposes of the discussion, I'm going to refer to housing instances as "Neighborhoods". I'm kind of assuming this all happens in Statehelm, but "Villages" or "Burroughs" could be used, as well I suppose. These will be instanced not per set of people, but the whole are will be instanced PER PLAYER. I think it would be nice if you could still invite other ONLINE players to your specific instanced village as-desired, though. That said, even though these are called Neighborhoods, they only look like that to the player and are a per player instance.

1) Add a new "Standings" feature to the Friends and Guilds options whereby you can set your own feelings toward a player to Soulmates, Like Family, Best Friends, Close Friends, or Neutral standing with you. I'm not sure if the feeling should be required to be mutual or not. I think it'd be okay to have it be "Not" for now. If you add Marriage as a "Standing" I suppose it would have to be Mutual.

2) Add a new feature similar to Title where you set two Combat and two Crafting "Specialties". Other players will be able to see these or they wouldn't be private. You may be encouraged to set these to your highest Combat skills and highest Crafting skills. I think manually set might provide for more options, but I could see arguments for automatically having them set. Could maybe be the two highest skills you have in Combat and Crafting.

3) When these Friends and Guild mates from #1 above are OFFLINE, they show up in your "Neighborhood" or Housing instance. They are more likely to show up in order of Standing and Friendship (if a Guild mate is also a Friend and is at Soulmates standing they will basically always be there when offline). In this way, housing could be instanced, but still be mostly made up of people that you know.

4) Imagine a scenario where your Soulmate Friend who is also a Guild member is Sword/Psych and Gardening/Cooking, here's a series of things that could take place:

4a) Your PC (now NPC) friend provides you with Sword and Psych training at reduced costs (for Councils which could even actually maybe go to that player?). This could be through a buff or otherwise. Imagine you need a Sword Skill from Janet Lews but haven't gotten your Favor up with her. Maybe your Soulmate friend acts as a go-between to give you that Favor or reduce the cost of the skill. Maybe they are high enough level they qualify to sell you the skill themself. On a related note, aside from spamming guild chat for everything I loot, one problem I have with picking up combat skills I've already learned is not being able to easily provide them to guildmates for free in large guilds that have a limit on storage but no limit on players they can add. Sure I can sell items at a stall for money, but my guild mate doesn't get a reduced price. Something like this might provide such an option. Perhaps Statehelm has a storage for items we can give or sell at reduced costs to guild members.

4b) A Garden and Cooking Stove in your instance based on the two craft skills.

4c) Maybe you have an option to train or Do Favor for these PC-NPCs that gives one or the both of you some small amount of experience according to level or quest difficulty.

4d) Maybe you just can come back to get small one-hour buffs on Combat or Crafting for these types? Maybe just exp buffs?

4e) Possibly add the ability to even Hang Out with these PC-NPCs.

5) Having a fully-instanced Neighborhood to yourself opens up some really interesting options for "WarCache-like" combat scenarios based off of who your Friends and Guild mates are. If you could also invite online Friends to participate in these quests, that might be pretty fun, too. What's also nice is that you could put instance-changing events in here for a more traditional customization. Perhaps you and your online friends go on a quest for a guild mate to slay some Demon Boar that got away from him and then, when finished, you can mount the head on the fireplace in your home.

6) Okay, so this next part is a bit further out there, but what if you could cash in on your Notoriety and Combat Wisdom in some manner to show up as an NPC like above in other people's housing instances for a period of time and get experience, materials, or money? Here's my idea broken up into sub points. EDIT: And yes, I realize there may be a plan to use Notoriety and Combat Wisdom in different ways so these two could just be exchanged for some other terminology that is gained via some other manner if so:

6a) Add a new measurement called Crafting Wisdom to the game. Upon creation of a yellow (or after X number of crafts), you gain a Crafting Wisdom point.

6b) Add the above features with two Combat and Craft specialties. Add the "Standings" feature as above. Have some of these (again, only when OFFLINE) players show up in your Neighborhood instance as masters of their craft, even if not strictly friends based on the Standings.

6c) Every day or week, players may bid or some system (5%?) will automatically bid using either Crafting or Combat Wisdom into a "pool" based on one of their two set Combat or Crafting skills or set a percentage of their Crafting and Combat Wisdom to be used and split to all four skills.

6d) Players who contribute Combat Wisdom points will show up in other online and active player's housing instances at a rate equal to their contribution to the pool plus whatever necessary modifiers (maybe exp in that skill), but only while they are OFFLINE. Additionally, they maybe only show up one week per year or one day per month or something and then go off-rotation per player. This involves some interesting math and database updates to do as the formula changes based on who is online or offline, but the idea would be if you are going to vacation from the game for a day/week or whatever, you could load up on a bid (unless the system is automatic bid, in which case you'd have to grind) and then you will show up in other player's instances and come back to a lot of money/materials/XP or whatever.

6e) So, instead of getting money from training, materials from fetch quests, or what-not, another option is that you gain Notoriety based on the interactions you have with players via this system while offline. This can be used in Statehelm for some other undefined reason later on. Obviously by showing up for more players more often you are going to be a more well-known name, even if briefly. A really interesting thing I was thinking about was actually spending Notoriety to unlock much more involved "combat quests" for you and your friends or Guilds. Quests that would be at least as complex as the Dailies if not more so. After all, if everyone knows who you are, how likely are going to be asked to solve some Alharth-level problem?

6f) I've been trying to think of ways this system could be "gamed" and while I think some of that could happen, the XP or Material or Council gains could be tempered by simply adjusting them or making them not that significant to begin with.

7) Add a new "Visit" option to select one NPC that has YOU at Soulmates or higher to come visit you at your instance (within reason). Their menus and options will always be available to you and anyone else here. Some NPCs might be ineligible because they'd be broken if they were this easily accessible (Hulon) and some might be ineligible because they have a "job to do" that explains why they maybe could never leave their location (Sir Arif). No comment on if "Storage" options should be available here or not, that seems best left unaddressed by me (though it does make sense to have Council Storage in Statehelm somewhere). Alternatively, maybe it should be more than just ONE NPC among your Friends/Soulmates should be allowed to visit, too?

8) I could see some further customizations based on your favorite gods. Perhaps something buff-related.

9) Speaking of Gods, I was trying to think of an explanation about "interdimensional" item storage being available due to some weird story where Janice Alberith went on an adventure looking for a rumored but unknown God (Bogdelle) that appears to have wiped herself from existence and is only even rumored due to Janice having a "dream too real" -- sent by Miraverre -- of such a lost God. In the process of resolving the existence of this God, Janice discovers an ancient Himamanav device that was prized, then experimented on and finally, over time, dragged to Statehelm and allows players to store any one (two, three, more?) item(s) an unlimited number of times. Maybe with Gadgeteering and some crystals or other materials and a few quests you could even construct a device to be able to access one or two of these "unlimited" inventory slots from anywhere in the world (food, snacks, fire dust, etc would all be great candidates for these slots).

Such an "unlimited of one item" inventory option would let Greenberg store lemons indefinitely and some of us that do nothing but grow Cotton for user or sale later would have a place where we can store it till it's really needed without affecting our other available inventory. If such a place existed, I'd probably visit it at least once every other day probably (unless the Gadgeteering device would allow me to access all of it remotely, obviously). It'd also be just different enough from existing storage that it wouldn't completely replace the Casino as a hub for someone like me while being a place that would still be worthwhile enough to frequent.

9) "Instance buffs" in a Neighbor instance, either being bought using Combat or Crafting Wisdom or Notoriety or via quests or something would be a way to lure us all out of the Casino to instanced-based crafting/gardening if that is something to be preferred. I could even see players making a Flower Arrangement buff to lure others to their instance to start, but then as more players showed up, the "instance buff" could take over. Multiple ways to do something like this, too.

10) Selective portals. If we do have instanced housing, maybe make the portals such that you can put in the name of a person and some council machine sets the coordinates to go to their Neighborhood instance for you so we don't have to use codes or other oddities (or maybe players use codes to choose where they want their house to be to begin with, something so we have something a little bit more involved than "Statehelm Burroughs #001-100 ".

11) I'm not gonna lie, not a huge fan of the vendor stalls in Serbule, though I do see how it provides more skills and serves a purpose for player-based selling. I also realize it can be a fun old-school way to do buying/selling. Auctioning and auction houses are in games now though because they were always a superior way to handle a player economy. On top of the #9 item where you have one or more "unlimited item" storage options, why not also make it that you provide a price for each item stored in such a manner? That way, if my primary good I sell is Cotton, I could first pay or quest or something to have that slot available for unlimited use yet price the Cotton that it is high enough that if someone did somehow buy it all, I'd be happy. It'd be different from the player stalls, and could lead to "Auctioneering" being an advanced skill above Retail Management or Industry or something. With multiple players selling multiple items at varying prices, someone looking for a specific good at the lowest price wouldn't have to travel to stalls, they could just buy straight out of a player's "unlimited" inventory spot and then buy from the next lowest price from another player. No traveling and price look up involved. The one concern about such a system would be that it might be so superior that few people would use the Serbule Keep anymore. (unless newbies were somehow restricted from using Auctioning till like level 40/50 Industry or something).

12) There can also be more traditional quests that grant a user Civic Pride or something.

EDIT: I do like the Front Door option, I'm just thinking it might be easier to think less of this as traditional "housing" in a instance shared with multiple players and more of one single personalized instance built dynamically based upon PCs who the players know and NPCs they Hang Out or gain Favor with already in game.

[Dumdidum]

Housing reminds me of the one game that got it perfectly right (for me): Ultima Online (UO).
Housing was part of the world, not some instance. There was a reason why this was very important:
1) prime locations were hot because it allowed you to have a vendor up, with loads of people passing willing to peek at your wares
2) you had prefabs and player designs, so houses were often showcases and perls of creativity. UO allowed trophies and rares to be displayed in your houses for others to enjoy
3) it was a place where you could install your crafting stations, store your raw materials, and make it a one stop crafting station for your gears, brews etc. Its all lovely and all to have to run to 20 different places to craft 1 thing, but it will be offputting and boring in the long haul.
4) if you didnt pay rent eventually your house would collapse, with all loot basically falling on the ground. Everyone with time to spare would gather to try and loot some rares or materials which made for a lot of laughs and giggles.
5) Houses were part of the emerging world, not some instanced thing nobody else would ever see apart from maybe 1 or 2 people on your friends list.

Houses were endgame, so it gave you a reason as a player to save up, trade, play the game, to eventually be able to afford that prime location for your castle. Meanwhile new players could settle for basic small houses until they were ready for more.

I would urge our lovely mod/dev team to watch some YT videos about Ultima online housing if they never played the game themselves.

Lastly: i am personally not at all interested in marriage, nor am i interested in instanced housing. I would (maybe) use it if it gave me crafting/storing convenience, but that would be it.

[Aunshalee]

Showing up to this party late! Player housing is exciting and daunting and I'm eager to see how it fits in. A few of these suggestions may already be in circulation, but here's my two cents:

Limited Property Ownership. A player should only have one house for the entirety of their account, regardless of housing district variety that may be available. However, a player may "relocate" the property to a different housing district for a cost, should other districts exist. If player-to-player property sales will be possible, this should be a limit of two properties per player without the option to "relocate" a property to a different housing district. Limiting housing in this way ensures that players are less likely to be taken out of the game at large to play Real Estate Mogul: Gorgon Edition.

Modular Housing Expansion. Modular expansions allow players to more flexibly dictate the size of the property they want to manage. Certain expansion options may only be available to specific creature forms (like a barn for cows, an attic for bats) or made available by accomplishing feats and befriending NPCs in the world. There should be a modest upper limit for expanding one's house, so additions can be meaningful and players aren't sucked into decorating vast, echoing halls for eternity if player-made placeables will be an option. Being limited, it should be possible to "remodel" an addition, replacing it with a different one. In a hypothetical, a house starts the size of a studio apartment, but can be expanded by up to 5 additional rooms if the player meets criteria. This ties into...

Building Permits. The Civic Duty skill already provides the framework for something like this in player housing. A player would be able to expand their house based on how involved they are in the community, along with resource or monetary costs for the "construction" via Building Permits for Modular Expansions from the lead authority NPC in the city where the housing district is located. In a hypothetical, a player looking to add additional rooms to their estate in Serbule would go to Sir Coth to obtain a Building Permit. Limit one Permit per one module expansion. Remodeling an existing expansion should cost 75%-50% of whatever the cost of a module would be. The "relocation" option of Limited Property Ownership would also be a Permit-based cost.

Open-Air Housing District. Similar to the courtyards players congregate in currently, housing should be located in an open-air district where neighbors can congregate. This would also allow for player shops, a community garden, etc.

Community Garden. The garden always produces a set table of common vegetables, fruits or both, with a tiered harvest list paid out at the end of a period based on contribution. The garden will not wilt or die without tending, but players that spend time tending it will be rewarded when the harvest triggers with resources based on their contribution, as well as additional benefits like a week-long buff or Civic Duty experience. The payout shouldn't be exorbitant for high contributors, but should encourage involvement. The community garden could also be a target for local pests, like pesky rabbits!

House Maintenance. With a cleanliness de/buff system already in place for players, it would make sense to have a similar for housing as well. A well-maintained house may entice more positive visitors, whereas a poorly-maintained house may invite trouble. Buffs and debuffs may also be doled out based on house state.

"The Help". If servants will be an option, they should not trivialize the resource costs associated with the player's adventures by being ridiculously adept at acquiring resources or money for the player. However, they should be able to help a player maintain their house and standing in as a point of contact for features like the Work Order Board, reading off or composing the player's mail, or collecting earnings from stall sales. One of their functions could also be as the interface for storage access, negating the need for "physical" storage in a home. Servants should have quarters of their own, taking up a house expansion module.

Furniture, if it isn't pre-fab with the housing additions, should be meaningful and texture-consistent with the resources used to make it (i.e. all oak furniture should look like it's made with oak wood).

Since we're also discussing interpersonal aspects....

Marriage. Named NPCs being available for marriage is an excellent idea! I would also suggest that servants can be married, if they're implemented.

Matchmaker for players who aren't interested in existing NPCs, a Matchmaker NPC is an option to help find a player true love by matching criteria against a modest list of "hidden" suitors. Offering hidden suitors may make the experience more personalized for players! In a hypothetical, a player would visit a Matchmaker NPC and select from a trait preference list (similar to the interests current NPCs have now) and the Matchmaker will take up the offline/Hang Out time to look for a match. The match may not be perfect! Some "extra hidden" suitors may only be available if the player meets certain criteria themselves, like being a werewolf, having a high Compassion level, etc. After a match is found, the suitor will show up at the player's house when they're home to socialize. If servants are implemented, they should also be able to "ring" for the Matchmaker for convenience, who will then be a visitor with all the usual features that NPC provides.

Brothels would be a racy alternative to marrying an existing NPC or a Matchmaker suitor, depending on the degree of openness sexuality will see in Gorgon. It would function somewhat similarly to the Matchmaker -- just with 100% less potential commitment! The player would make a request of a Proprietor based on criteria they set, the tryst would take up the offline/Hang Out time and provide specific buffs (and possibly painful reminders to address with your physician!). Seeing the same companion could increase the type of buff they provide (if they provide specific buffs based on their character), titles can be associated with the frequency of Brothel feature use, and repeat companions may eventually be available for marriage.

Players should also be able to designate friends as family, or even life-partners through marriage. In a hypothetical, if a friend is listed as "family", both players inherit each other's in-laws as potential visitors.

Apprenticing. Players should be able to mentor other players in a specific skill by "renting" out a room of their house for a period. In this case, apprentice quarters would be a house expansion module choice and would be required to take on an apprentice.

I'll stop here, or I'll spend all day typing a novel. I look forward to seeing how housing is implemented!

[Dibbuk]

Entirely my personal opinion, here is what I would like to see in housing:

1) Storage access. Once in your home, you should be able to access ALL storage in all zones and dungeons, so you can arrange and consolidate it as you wish.

2) Portals. A commons should have the portal back to the town your housing is tied to,.

3) Guild Portals. The commons should also have a guild home portal that you can access if you are a member of a guild. Guild homes should have a housing portal like the one in town that takes you back to your housing commons, again only if you are a member of a guild.

4) Decor. Using dye skill, you can dye the walls in the color and pattern of your choice. Furniture can be crafted to add accents.

5) Equipment. Commons might also have amenities such as tanning racks, cotton gins, water taps, community gardens, work benches, and meditation pillars, etc.