Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Housing - is it planned to be a major part of the game?

    • 70 posts
    October 14, 2018 11:24 PM PDT

    I think of housing in an immersive MMO as the following:

    - part of the actual world not a special 'housing zone'

    - try not to duplicate city services offered in actual cities, especially ones that would never be found in a house like bakers, teleporters and all sorts of vendor NPCs - make people shop in their local real town or city that their house is in

    - existing communities like the main cities and towns having regular streets dotted with player-owned houses, halls and such interspersed with NPC-driven places

    - outdoor porches and decks and gazebos are in the same live zone, whereas true interiors are likely instanced server-side to load balance. Another words, you can sit on your porch swing and watch as players and NPCs walking by on the street outside, but probably not from your interior living room sofa - it would be great if you could but the load might be too variableto allow this.

    - towns and cities have yet another reason to visit them as well as to reinforce the apparent population bustle, and see active players going to and fro to their houses

    - local NPC merchants are integrated with local residents: selling to them at a discount, offer special items for sale, or take consignments to resell only from local residents

    - earning faction levels could and should be tied to enabling players to own houses in certain places - in fact, in a game loaded with factional importance (like I hope Pantheon will be), I expect there to be factions whose only purpose is earning the right to purchase certain housing tier statuses

    Imagine entering Bree in LOTRO, and amongst the sprawling streets and alleys of that town (which is quite large, if you don't know LOTRO very well) are player houses, apartments and halls. The actual game has many doorways which are live, but they simply enter into some NPC place that could just as well be a player's home. When you enter a doorway, it is like an instance barrier and then you are inside - so they have the freedom to load-balance the hosting of housing any way that makes sense to VR.

    Then also imagine players being able to sell at a local NPC consignment shop but only if they live in that town or city. I prefer having a NPC-driven way to sell items that housing owners get the privilege of participating in, rather than each house having a magical NPC merchant like DAoC housing allows, because it keeps people trafficking the town or city itself and not simply disappearing into each other's houses (which let's face it would not be how anyone would really sell things - ala constant garage sale mode).

    Every merchant in town might have special deals they only offer local residents, or at least lower prices. And some will sell for you on consignment if you are a local.


    This post was edited by redgiant at October 14, 2018 11:25 PM PDT
    • 1019 posts
    October 15, 2018 5:17 PM PDT

    The DAoC housing zones where HORRIBLE!  I hated having to run for 10 mins one way just to someone's house.  Absolute waste of time.  I did it one time an decided that I never need to visit the housing areas again.

    • 3852 posts
    October 16, 2018 7:03 AM PDT

    I had more patience than Kittik. Probably did it half a dozen times. But it *was* pretty bad.

    • 3016 posts
    October 17, 2018 10:33 AM PDT

    Naunet said:

    philo said:It looks pretty good.  Does it get a lot of use by the community?  I never played Wildstar.

    Depends on what you deem use. Lots of folk like to visit peoples' plots to see their creations, kinda like a museum. It's also HEAVILY used by the RP community. The housing community in WildStar is a significant chunk of the playerbase, and those of us who engage in it will frequently wander around peoples' creations, share ideas, marvel at ingenuity, etc. Many of my friends in the housing community have a dozen+ alts and even multiple accounts just so they can keep creating new builds. It's all about creativity!

    There are also ways to make the housing plots more functional, if enjoying things for arts' sake or for RP isn't up your alley. You can place certain decors that have portals to specific zones, for example. There are also interactive FABkits that are like premade set-ups you plop down in a specified location. Many of these FABkits come with fun challenges you can activate and playthrough to earn fun rewards. Some even contain entire mini-dungeons within them (my favorite is one where you have to sneak through a ship that's overrun by super creepy monsters, avoiding combat at all cost). Others provide combat dummies, a dueling arena, personal bank access, etc.

    I guess I will soon be talking about all this in the past tense, though. :( One of the reasons I'm hopeful another MMO will take up WildStar's housing mantle...

    I remember visiting other people's housing..it was wonderful to see all the various ideas, and what people had accumulated.   It's another way to expand the game longevity in my case.   I like to collect shinies (fill up book cases for instance)  or how about those collectable music boxes (EQII)  that played some of Everquest's recognized theme music.  :)    And then those veteran rewards - special pictures to hang on the wall, and if you clicked them,  they zoned you into an entirely new zone..with lots to do there. :)    I realize this is all probably pretty intricate and involved programming...but maybe "some day"?  :)  "real" window panes that you could look through to see your outdoor patio,  which was yet another area you could decorate..all instanced of course. :)  Vanguard had windows like that too..in their stand alone player built homes.

    Cana

    • 3016 posts
    October 17, 2018 10:34 AM PDT

    Kittik said:

    The DAoC housing zones where HORRIBLE!  I hated having to run for 10 mins one way just to someone's house.  Absolute waste of time.  I did it one time an decided that I never need to visit the housing areas again.

     

    Yeah didn't like DAOC's housing zones,  didn't participate.  :)

    • 193 posts
    March 28, 2019 4:49 PM PDT

    Aradune said:

    Hesitant to say much because all of this is post-launch, regardless of the details.

    The general idea on how to make housing work in a non-instanced world is this:  the location of the house/outpost/player owned structure is not fixed.  It's more like covered wagons moving west back in the old days in RL.   A group of people (likely a guild, but don't automatically assume huge uber-guilds only) moves into a level appropriate area with the intent of staying there a while, learning the zones both outdoors and the dungeons in the region.   In certain areas, if not already occupied, the group/guild can lay down an Outpost (I'll just use that term for now).  The Outpost would offer the group a place to camp out, to meet up at, etc.  Items could be stored in some building types.  NPC Vendors could be placed.  NPC Guards could be hired to watch the structures as they have 'hitpoints' and will be attacked by wandering mobs... the closer to a dangerous area you choose to place your Outpost the greater the chance it will be attacked often.  Buildings can be destroyed and it would be costly to fix them.  Keeping an Outpost up and in-game would require upkeep costs.  Other players can access and benefit from using certain structures -- there would be both public and private building types.  The owners would actually need other players in order to have a functional and beneficial Outpost -- this makes sure more casual gamers, or perhaps hard core players but those not affiliated with their own Outpost, benefit as well.  Interdependence, as usual, is key to these ideas just as it is behind most things Pantheon.  

    When you out level the area you pack up your Outpost and make the trek to the next region, place and build up your Outpost yet again.  Some aspects of the Outpost must be restarted or rebuilt each time, while others will save.  For example, a residence could be decorated just like in the instanced housing you've seen in many MMOs.  

    One of the very key components is, of course, that it doesn't stay in one place and can only be built in areas designated and that make sense.  This way the Outposts you come across will not always be there, we wouldn't need to allocate large regions ala Vanguard that just get filled with housing.  Additionally, while you can decorate and have people over for a beer just like you can with instanced housing, the Outpost also serves a purpose from a gameplay standpoint, again for both the owners and for visitors.  What benefits?  We've not dug that deep yet, we certainly have a lot of ideas but it's far too early to start listing them -- that said, would love to hear your ideas. 

    *snip*

    Ok, that's as far as I'm going to go -- again, nothing here set in stone and absolutely post-launch.  I know it's fun to talk about the Grand Vision (plans for the game post-launch, expansions, etc.), but obviously these systems aren't getting a lot of thought and planning behind them right now as that would make no sense.   

     

    Apologies again for bringing back a dead thread, but I and probably lots of newer members here find this interesting.

    Have to say, I like the idea of outposts. A place to call home that goes with you as you level. I do wonder if that could eventually expand and lead to bigger settlements, perhaps even small towns with npcs populating them. There would have to be limits, of course. You wouldn't want something the size of a capitol city right outside the entrance of a great xp/loot dungeon, for example. I guess this ties in a bit with the dynamic world and content that's been batted around in other threads. Maybe as a zone/area gets busier, the town grows (to a point), when the traffic slows, the town shrinks, possibly disappearing altogether. That would be a fair representation of the old west wagon trains and associated towns, imo. Again, you'd want limits and restrictions, but it would be cool to see the landscape change like this.

    Another thought I had was about the argument that instanced housing, guild halls that had everything, etc. turned the game cities to ghost towns. What if there were dedicated spaces scattered about within each city where players could build or rent? If you're a crafter, maybe you'd want to rent the room a shopkeeper had. Have great faction with the crown? Maybe you'd be allowed to purchase a small area to build. Playing both sides against the middle? Maybe someone in the guard knows of a place you could rent that would give you better access for intelligence gathering. The possibilities are plentiful. Could also have server events where players could compete to either unlock the ability to acquire land and homestead or help with a large invasion. After the defeat of the great throng of enemies, the crown decides that a new area of the city needs to be constructed (to help defend against future attacks) and allows a certain number of players (based on whatever criteria) to live there. 

    Lots of possibilities, lots of questions. You'd need some sort of upkeep/deterioration mechanic in place to prevent land locking if say, someone quit the game or didn't log on for a year. If you had a house that was faction dependent and your faction dropped by a certain amount, you'd probably get kicked out. If you were the double agent and someone ratted you out, it would be quite necessary to make other living arrangements very quickly. In fact, it might be fun and necessary to make houses difficult to keep, if they're that much a part of the game. That way, it's not a permanent fixture and you'd have to really work to keep it.

    • 228 posts
    March 29, 2019 7:14 AM PDT

    What I find most interesting is that it suggests that I'm on the same page as Brad when I say that I don't want a world where you can get more or less anywhere within 15-30 minutes. Such outposts would only be meaningful if it was a necessary means for a guild to do their raiding and whatever activities far from the closest city without spending a lot of time on traveling. I firmly believe that a sense of being confined to a relatively smal subset of the world by the time it would take to go to the other end of it is an important key to meaningful travel in a huge world.

    • 2138 posts
    March 29, 2019 9:41 AM PDT

    I totally forgot about that concept. I like the idea of the player outpost.

    It would also be good for large guilds for advertisement and allow non guilded players to find respite in the hard zone. If the guild is able to hold the oputpost so big that it had some guards and maybe a merhant.(banking would need to be done in cities) "oh look, the {weasles of enchantment} are here, figures, this zone is just above their level, looks like they are doing some raiding. At least we can camp out there safely and sell some, get provisions"

    Maybe even smaller guilds can create one tiny camp, just for safe camping. "whoah, what are the {gypsies} doing here, none of them are higher than 5 levels below this zones low and maybe 10 members tops. Looks like they've been here a while...how..?" 


    This post was edited by Manouk at March 29, 2019 9:43 AM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    March 29, 2019 10:33 AM PDT

    If "outpost" means housing that can be attacked and lost I do not like the idea at *all* as a substitute for housing.

    Go on holiday or take even a short break and you can easily return to find you have nothing left. Heck, go to sleep for the night and by the time you wake up .....

    There are a lot of real time games like that and they basically rely on cash shops where you can buy things like immunities to protect your possessions. Not what any of us want here.

    I did say as a substitute for housing - I have no objection to it as something extra that I can and will totally ignore.

    • 230 posts
    March 29, 2019 10:42 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    If "outpost" means housing that can be attacked and lost I do not like the idea at *all* as a substitute for housing.

    Go on holiday or take even a short break and you can easily return to find you have nothing left. Heck, go to sleep for the night and by the time you wake up .....

    There are a lot of real time games like that and they basically rely on cash shops where you can buy things like immunities to protect your possessions. Not what any of us want here.

    I did say as a substitute for housing - I have no objection to it as something extra that I can and will totally ignore.

     

     Agree. And as this game only seems to be aimed at a certain group of people I don't think housing would turn into a god-awful sprawl.

    • 1785 posts
    March 29, 2019 11:03 AM PDT

    My read on Brad's post regarding outposts was that they were a sort of "housing-like" system, but not necessarily the same thing as player housing.  I thought of them more like SWG camps, to be honest.  And I think that sort of thing would actually be pretty neat to see.

    But I would still want to see "real" player housing at some point, even if it's in an expansion so that things can be set up to properly support it.

    • 3852 posts
    March 29, 2019 11:10 AM PDT

     

    Vanguard housing had some good points and some bad points. Since Vanguard is one of the games I expect ideas to be taken from for Pantheon (less than EQ, of course) its housing system is worth keeping in mind. For the benefit of those of us not familiar with Vanguard (and not all that interested in reading through an 11 page thread):

    1. It was open world not instanced in any way.

    2. It was widely spread out both on islands and on mainland areas. There were no giant urban sprawls - housing in any area was quite limited.

    3. Housing often was fairly far from civilization - it didn't cluster around major cities.

    4. Housing was crafted by players - you bought the land but then different parts of the house were made by different crafts. For a large guildhall this was a major effort just to harvest the materials.

    5. By the standards of many MMOs houses were small, cramped and not especially convenient to decorate. I suspect they were something that the developers had great plans for but with all the problems Vanguard had they were never developed as intended.

    • 230 posts
    March 29, 2019 11:20 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

     

    Vanguard housing had some good points and some bad points. Since Vanguard is one of the games I expect ideas to be taken from for Pantheon (less than EQ, of course) its housing system is worth keeping in mind. For the benefit of those of us not familiar with Vanguard (and not all that interested in reading through an 11 page thread):

    1. It was open world not instanced in any way.

    2. It was widely spread out both on islands and on mainland areas. There were no giant urban sprawls - housing in any area was quite limited.

    3. Housing often was fairly far from civilization - it didn't cluster around major cities.

    4. Housing was crafted by players - you bought the land but then different parts of the house were made by different crafts. For a large guildhall this was a major effort just to harvest the materials.

    5. By the standards of many MMOs houses were small, cramped and not especially convenient to decorate. I suspect they were something that the developers had great plans for but with all the problems Vanguard had they were never developed as intended.

     

     That sounds a lot like Istaria housing. Everyone could help with building houses by providing processed raw materials (bar/boards/essense), some could even make the subcomponents. But the actual arches/columns/walls were made by specific craftsmen.

     As to location they spread it out kind of like you described, but there were decent population centers around some towns and cities. They later added an island or 2 that had small communities on them.

    • 153 posts
    April 1, 2019 10:47 AM PDT

    i think stuff like this is wasted resources which could be used to create a new game or add actually playable content to the current one

    • 153 posts
    April 1, 2019 10:49 AM PDT

    i mean next thing you know it will be Pantheon: My time in Pantheon (my time in portia/stardewvalley/nothing to do with dungeons and dragons and loots or strategy

     

     

     

     

     

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    • 1033 posts
    April 1, 2019 11:09 AM PDT

    Other than the dangers of it how it has an effect on the environment and that it does not provide game play abuses (ie cheats in travel or other areas), I am indifferent to this topic.

    UO housing was horrible, a crime against game play, and open means for players to harass and ruin the game. I am dead set against player housing that is "open world" where a player can setup a structure anywhere. 

    The game needs to have designated zones that follow the same rules as cities in terms of proximity to content. Past that, I really don't care, but if I am running out into a zone and see player built cities everywhere, I am not playing. UO really killed the game with this sort of allowance. 

    • 6 posts
    May 1, 2019 8:43 AM PDT
    Imho i dont like the idea of instanced housing. The problem with in world housing is simply not enough space for all this housing but with right mechanics its possible. I recommend a system of “property taxes/rents”. So every city and some small villages/outposts have a set amount of land spots and apartments. When a land spot/apartment is vacant a real estate npc in town would take bids on what people want to pay per month in rent for that spot/apartment. This auction is opened for a week or so (after the first bid). The rents especially for the best spots would be high thus the housing will usually be rented by groups of individuals (i.e. guilds, trade associations). If the monthly rent is not paid the property goes back on the auction block and the prior renter’s stuff is put on a cart. To prevent someone from holding a low rant spot forever, ever 6 months or so the lease on the property expires and new auction is done. The old renter gets discount in the new auction. This way rents would be around market rate but still encourage people to retain their property. Apartments would be somewhat customizable but plots of land would allow full customization inside and out. To justify the monthly cost of rent the housing needs to serve some purpose. Few ideas could be allowing tradeskill equipment to be added inside, allowing a npc merchant to be hired to sell to anyone visiting the building, guild meetup spot especially if property is close to raid zone, guild bank, etc.

    Since this game is trying to be more of a social game, I see housing being less of an individual thing but more of a group achievement.
    • 13 posts
    May 2, 2019 5:29 AM PDT

    Interesting concept on Outposts. Would never have thought of it at all. Perhaps we could add something extra to it like maybe the Outposts can be set up by the guild so that individual guildies could set up their own vendor and wares (from drops and crafting); for all sales, the guild would get a percentage and the game would take a percentage while the rest goes to the player.

    This should make it more interesting in that people would then really have to travel around to find stuff to buy as a way to resolve issues regarding certain people’s concerns regarding auction houses. The originally planned central hub can also exist to perhaps cater for solo players maybe ?

     

    • 264 posts
    May 3, 2019 12:00 AM PDT

     I consider player housing unnecessary, however if it is to be implemented it should be a status thing only. Something that requires a massive amount of resources to purchase/maintain and only placed in limited areas in certain zones. From what I have seen in MMORPGs good player housing does not make them succeed (Wildstar, ArcheAge). Because of the design goal of Pantheon there should not be any instanced housing of any sort, and from what I experienced in ArcheAge if you make player housing in any way advantageous players will gripe nonstop and even quit the game if they cannot get property. So in my view it is crucial player housing NOT be required for ANY form of progression, that it be strictly cosmetic to show off what a very weathly player or successful guild has done. Some games such as Shoud of the Avatar (SOTA) gave fancy plots to crowdfunders/donors...and while I understand why they did that I strongly disagree with this type of system as well, player housing should be acquired by in game means especially if it gives any sort of player advantage but in my view even if it doesnt it should still be something players are striving for rather than opening their wallets for.

    • 3852 posts
    May 3, 2019 6:47 AM PDT

    One benefit to a housing system is that done well it can slow down progression to maximum level for many players and give us an incentive to visit and explore more widely.

    What do I mean, you may ask. The search all over Terminus  for the perfect house or lot? Not at all.

    Housing decorations. 

    Let each culture and each area have its own unique decorations. Let different animals drop, rarely, trophies like a body that can be mounted - no not *that* way - for display. Or a head to go on the wall. Let harvesting resource nodes give a tiny chance of a display item. There is no end to the way we can encourage the compulsive collector or decorator to waste time looking for these - some of which should require perception to find.

    ((and should VR feel compelled to sell cosmetic items to make ends meet - which I and everyone else hopes will never happen - housing items, cosmetic outfits and mounts are three classic good sellers and housing items the least offensive since we don't need to ever see them unless we visit someone's house))


    This post was edited by dorotea at May 3, 2019 6:47 AM PDT
    • 4 posts
    May 7, 2020 12:41 PM PDT

    I really enjoyed the way Star Wars Galaxies handled player housing and resource (collection and stats).

    Now the game had a lot of issues and short comings, but player housing was a great start that I would love to see this game improve on.


    This post was edited by talchwi at May 7, 2020 12:42 PM PDT
    • 49 posts
    May 11, 2020 6:36 PM PDT
    A little scary when the official response points us to a FAQ that is over 3 years old.
    • 1273 posts
    May 11, 2020 8:51 PM PDT

    nexus said: A little scary when the official response points us to a FAQ that is over 3 years old.

    Not if their stance on the topic hasn't changed.  But yeah, it's hard for us to know if that's true because some things have changed and the FAQ hasn't, haha.

    • 2001 posts
    May 11, 2020 11:23 PM PDT

    nexus said: A little scary when the official response points us to a FAQ that is over 3 years old.

    The age of the FAQ is even less relevant when VR posted a thread only 18 months ago asking our preference between instanced and open world. If they were leaning towards dropping housing from the plans, they would have no reason to bring it up for discussion. And if they were re-assessing player attitudes, then the poll they ran on Twitter showed ¾ of the respondents wanted housing.

    • 1479 posts
    May 12, 2020 2:21 AM PDT

    Jothany said:

    nexus said: A little scary when the official response points us to a FAQ that is over 3 years old.

    The age of the FAQ is even less relevant when VR posted a thread only 18 months ago asking our preference between instanced and open world. If they were leaning towards dropping housing from the plans, they would have no reason to bring it up for discussion. And if they were re-assessing player attitudes, then the poll they ran on Twitter showed ¾ of the respondents wanted housing.

     

    Kilsin's poll are not dev questions or reworking intents. They are just community entertainment and sharing.