Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Community Debate - Open World Housing vs Instanced Housing

    • 1315 posts
    October 25, 2018 6:45 AM PDT

    So I think we have a few basic philosophy here, some are compatible and some are not.

    No Housing:

    1. Developing player housing takes away developer manpower from developing new dungeons and zones as well as new usable content and there for is unwanted.

    2. Housing gives players somewhere else to be other than the cities and therefor quickly makes the cities ghost towns, the more useful player housing is the more the cities become ghost towns.

    Instanced Housing Pros:

    1. Usually offers the most cosmetic customization. Those who enjoy arranging their personal space get a great deal of enjoyment out of it.

    2. Does not clutter up the open world with random houses and there for does not change the look and feel of the game world.

    3. Is usually fairly easy to implement from a game development standpoint.

    Instanced Housing Cons:

    1. Can be considered immersion jarring, everyone entering their own house from the same game world door feels a little odd.

    2. Can be considered a glorified safety deposit box for many users.

    Open World Housing Pros:

    1. Players get to really leave their mark on the world which tends to build personal attachment.

    2. The immersion factor of having real interactive space is also high.

    3. The pursuit of good housing locations is its own competition which some people enjoy.

    4. There are opportunities for Open World Housing to add content for players other than the owners.

    Open World Housing Cons:

    1. Some times players have no taste or sense of zoning so leaving their mark is bad for everyone else.

    2. Immersion factor of Open Housing is not optional. Even if you do not want to participate in housing yourself you cannot ignore the housing of others.

    3. Limited housing locations have caused HEADACHES in other games, place anywhere housing just creates jarring clutter in the prettiest zones.

    4. Good Open World Housing takes a lot of manpower to create in both Art Assets and Manipulation Coding.

     

    No or guild only housing is likely what Pantheon will launch with. Play Housing does take a lot of resources to set up and it is not critical to the launch of Pantheon as Pantheon is still primarily a theme-park game and not a persistent world game. Please ignore any negative connotations of theme-park games as there are good and bad ways to do it but ultimately set, repeatable, semi predictable, and unchanging content is a theme-park game.

    Ultimately though housing is actually not THAT development intensive as you can just reuse the art tiles that were used to build the cities and the return on player use-age vs developer time is much higher than making a new zone that only a select level range can really use. Eventually there will be some form of player controlled digital estate if for no other reasons than it is the gateway to a lot of other content options.

    Otherwise I think everyone is bring valid concerns to the debate between what is best when considering instanced vs open world. I can definitely respect Naunet's passion for crafting their own space and in a lot of ways instanced may be the only way to do that, though that sounds a shame as I think I would enjoy wandering through Naunet's spaces.

    Zoning control for open world housing would be an absolute must to prevent significant detraction of the game environment that player housing can cause. If the buildings are built into the game in such a way that they fit the environment then it should prevent the immersion jarring bad choices. I would avoid having crafting stations or vendors attached to player housing so that players need to still go to public areas.

    Mixing together both instanced options and open world will likely give the most flexibility to accommodate both styles without clogging up the world with player housing.

     

    • 1921 posts
    October 25, 2018 7:08 AM PDT

    After reviewing your summary, Trasak, I did have a compromise come to mind.

    The urban sprawl of UO and SWG were terrible, for all the reasons you've outlined.  If Visionary Realms makes open world housing an opt-in feature?  I guess I wouldn't care.  If you phase housing in such a way that I don't see it if I don't opt-in, then why would I care?  The world is exactly as it would be provided I never clicked that check box.

    Just make it a visibility toggle on the client. Player Housing Visible: [_]

    Of course, here's the trick:  You would need to prevent the client from loading -anything- (especially network related) related to housing as long as that checkbox was unchecked, and the user had opted-out of open-world player housing visibility.

    But under those circumstances, do whatever you want, because it affects no-one who doesn't want to be affected by it.  And yes, I'm aware of the development time, but if that's the type of system, and it is developed post-launch, all good by me.


    This post was edited by vjek at October 25, 2018 7:09 AM PDT
    • 107 posts
    October 25, 2018 9:33 AM PDT

    I'm in 100% agreement with Naunet here. People shouldn't want housing for crafting or easier gathering because the cities should serve for that purpose. Think of Skyrim. Many people bought up every single house in skyrim and decked it out to the core with all of their accomplishments and who did they do this for? The game is single player so it wasn't for the need to show it off to more than a handful of people yet people LOVED it. Housing doesn't need to be for anything more than art, or trophies to remember your accomplishments. VR says they want Pantheon to build memories like EQ did. Well housing is the place to display your memories so you can keep them forever. Because of this instanced housing is the only thing that can fulfill the power needed to hold that many pieces to make something perfectly customizable.

     

    People may think that no one is looking to play this game for housing but I know I for one could get my wife to play this game with me if it has housing done right. When I played wow she had zero desire to play and the same went with Wildstar. She usually played minecraft housing community servers and loved those. So one day I showed her what I could do in Wildstars housing as I was building my first home. She fell in love with it and  actually tried an MMO. Before I knew it she was having fun going to dungeons with me to collect new pieces for her home. She was better  at it than I was. Sometimes we would even run around the open world looking at trees or sshrubs or terminals and wonder, "where do you think that drops, it would be perfect for my house". 

     

    As for whther its realistic to implement. Remember, all of the artwork is already in the game and has to be made. All you are doing is giving each tree or mob or whatever as a drop or craft of somekind then allowing them to resize and turn it any which way. It's not as complicated as you might think.

    • 1315 posts
    October 25, 2018 11:45 AM PDT

    @zewtastic

    You missed the first sentence where I said So I think we have a few basic philosophy here, some are compatible and some are not. I was intending to try and summarize the list of different opinions and reasoning expressed in this thread without putting a value judgment on it. I guess because you insulted my entire post line by line even though we actually share the same opinion on what we actually want done means I succeeded in being impartial, yay?

    It is key to remember that this is a forum we have all donated to be a part of. Everyone's opinion does mater and understand what they want and why they want it will lead to developing a great game with the widest appeal while keeping to the core Pantheon goals. I hope we can continue to discuss the concept in a friendly manor and maybe we can come up with a truly new idea that will satisfy nearly everyone.

    P.S. For better or worse I do actually have experience writing, coding, and 3D modeling for a game though it sadly never made it to market much to the financial ruin of my bosses at the time.

     

    @everyone

    An idea that I have depends on how VR ends up making the zone lines for the major cities. If you still effectively enter through a wall portal then an actual zone line can be created. The main NPC buildings could all be focused along a central corridor, presumably ending at the palace equivalent building.

    Rather than having a hard zone wall that end on solid exterior wall there can be soft side streets that appear to go off into the distance but are in fact zone walls.

    PCs and player organizations can purchase plots down these “soft zone-line” side streets possibly zoned differently for different sizes, style and cost options. Additionally there could be streets specifically for guild halls. Each lot will have an actual address that you can find either just by walking or using some form of taxi. The property can be developed in many ways as well as visited by players who are not the owners.

    The number of lots will technically be infinity as the exterior wall will always seem to be just another block away. As new lots are purchased side streets just extend and branch. I am not certain how this would be handled technologically but I bet it would not be too hard to figure out. There could even be some mechanism to re-compress the side streets as properties are abandoned. Figuring out how to do this for small villages that you can walk all the way around in game will be much harder artistically than for big cities with hard walls. One way could be a street with an arch is technically a zone wall so you actually have two overlapping spaces, one inside the other.

    By doing something like this you mimic a lot of the fun of open world housing while minimizing its effect on the outer game world. You also remove most of the negatives of the Open World by effectively instancing the Open World. There then becomes a lot of interesting options that could become available to this type of system, like having houses on a river that you use a boat to get to, or a plot of land behind your house you can farm, or a house on a wooded lot while still being part of a community.

    By linking outside space to multiple inner space zones you can also shorten the over all travel time to the neighborhood you want to get to by having multiple crossroad type rooms to walk through to get to your street. This way everyone's house would still be a short walk to the bank or other gathering spaces.

    Anyway just thoughts on how to get everyone what they want.

     

    • 646 posts
    October 25, 2018 12:05 PM PDT

    zendrel said:People may think that no one is looking to play this game for housing but I know I for one could get my wife to play this game with me if it has housing done right. When I played wow she had zero desire to play and the same went with Wildstar. She usually played minecraft housing community servers and loved those. So one day I showed her what I could do in Wildstars housing as I was building my first home. She fell in love with it and  actually tried an MMO. Before I knew it she was having fun going to dungeons with me to collect new pieces for her home. She was better  at it than I was. Sometimes we would even run around the open world looking at trees or sshrubs or terminals and wonder, "where do you think that drops, it would be perfect for my house". 

     

    As for whther its realistic to implement. Remember, all of the artwork is already in the game and has to be made. All you are doing is giving each tree or mob or whatever as a drop or craft of somekind then allowing them to resize and turn it any which way. It's not as complicated as you might think.

    Aww, this is really sweet. :) A good friend of mine got into WS the same way (through housing)!

    But yeah, developing an instanced housing system like Rift or WildStar (or ESO, for that matter) isn't harder than anything else, and a lot of the hardest work is already done in that devs can just use all the zone art assets they already have. Carbine essentially just took the dev tools they already had for building up a zone, neutered them a bit, and drafted up a more user-friendly interface for controlling placement/rotation/size/etc. I'm not familiar with how exactly Trion built their Dimensions system, but I would expect it has similar roots. Once you have the foundation, adding more customization down the line (more decor, more skybox options, lighting, music, ground, etc) is ridiculously easy in terms of development.

    [edit] @Trasak: You're more than welcome to install WS and come visit my and others' housing plots. They're all public - thus easy access! Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to finish my mega-project (a 5-plot community designing a coastal-mountainous zone with a mysterious Eldan cave and some Torine ruins) before the servers close...


    This post was edited by Naunet at October 25, 2018 12:09 PM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    October 25, 2018 12:12 PM PDT

    This is getting a bit ...nasty.

    The purpose of the forums is to discuss ideas and hopefully VR will get useful feedback about (1) what this community thinks, (2) alternative ways of doing things that they may not have considered, and (3) plusses and minuses of the various possibilities.

    Comments about each other helps to accomplsh none of this. 

    Even definitely proving that your post is better worded than someone else's post won't add a bit to the game or these forums.

    Can we please try and stick to the plusses and minuses of instanced and non-instanced housing as requested by the OP?


    This post was edited by dorotea at October 25, 2018 12:13 PM PDT
    • 844 posts
    October 25, 2018 12:15 PM PDT

    dorotea said:

    This is getting a bit ...nasty.

    The purpose of the forums is to discuss ideas and hopefully VR will get useful feedback about (1) what this community thinks, (2) alternative ways of doing things that they may not have considered, and (3) plusses and minuses of the various possibilities.

    Comments about each other helps to accomplsh none of this. 

    Even definitely proving that your post is better worded than someone else's post won't add a bit to the game or these forums.

    Can we please try and stick to the plusses and minuses of instanced and non-instanced housing as requested by the OP?

    Yes you are probably right. Frankly I would just like people to be more contemplative about what they post on specific subjects such as this.

    • 107 posts
    October 25, 2018 1:50 PM PDT

    dorotea said:

    This is getting a bit ...nasty.

    The purpose of the forums is to discuss ideas and hopefully VR will get useful feedback about (1) what this community thinks, (2) alternative ways of doing things that they may not have considered, and (3) plusses and minuses of the various possibilities.

    Comments about each other helps to accomplsh none of this. 

    Even definitely proving that your post is better worded than someone else's post won't add a bit to the game or these forums.

    Can we please try and stick to the plusses and minuses of instanced and non-instanced housing as requested by the OP?

     

    Agreed. Getting insulted constantly instead of someone making a valid arguement against content is pretty annoying.

    • 96 posts
    October 25, 2018 2:57 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    Open World ... but housing in general is very low on the priority scale of what's important to me in an MMO.  I hope it's shelved until the first expansion.

     

    This. That is all. :)

    • 9115 posts
    October 25, 2018 3:21 PM PDT

    Thread cleaned up, personal posts removed, off-topic posts removed, posts with coloured text removed (MY EYEZ!!) please be respectful of others opinion or ignore them and please don't use coloured text, it is tough to read and it comes across as trying to force your point over everyone else.

    • 2752 posts
    October 25, 2018 3:24 PM PDT

    It just hits me as an oddity for people to come in vehemently requesting instanced housing when it has never been a focus of Pantheon or aligned with the design/philosophy. 

    One of Pantheon’s tenets is "Engage the World!" not "Hide from the World!" and as far as I can remember "Building Outposts" and "Non-Instanced Housing" have been on the Pantheon Difference page. Then of course there is "A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics."  Just seems like walking into a pizza parlor and telling them they should really also sell legos because some people like legos. 


    This post was edited by Iksar at October 25, 2018 3:24 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    October 25, 2018 3:53 PM PDT

    I agree with Iksar.  It's been stated countless times that instancing will very rarely be used except for storyline purposes.  Eliminating competition has never been stated as a design goal.  I look at land real estate the same as I do valuable loot, rare spells, named bosses, etc.  This isn't a single player RPG where everybody is "entitled" to access all content.  It's an open world MMO where competition for resources is inherent.  That includes housing if/when it is eventually added to the game.  Instancing for any reason goes against the core values of this game and considering it in any capacity would have me scratching my head and wondering what happened to the underlying principles that Pantheon was founded on.  In any event, non-instanced housing is indeed listed as a "future" feature on the "Pantheon Difference" page and only 22% of people polled said they would prefer instanced housing.  I'm far more interested in discussing features that are actually planned for launch like progeny, colored mana, etc.  We haven't heard anything about progeny in a really long time and whenever it comes up the official response is that we're still a ways off from really understanding how it's going to work.  I would love to see the development team engage us on a meaningful topic like that.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at October 25, 2018 3:57 PM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    October 25, 2018 4:34 PM PDT

    @Iksar and @187

    From your perspective how do you feel about my overlapping space concept? Basically its a single passageway that has multiple off shoots that lead to a neighborhood. Spatially it is a short walk with obstructed views that open up to plotted neighborhoods. Map wise its a single path that zones you into a small map with 1 entrance and 6 exits, each of which is also leads to another map with the same which could be then linked to a 3rd or 4th. 6 sets of choices 3 times would end up with 216 neighborhoods each which could have 20+ land plots that look like they are in the city where the tunnel started, that's over 4000 housing plots from one tunnel point and 3 path choices. If the zone lines are smooth enough you might not even notice you were zoning but only the neighborhood you entered would have to load fully for you.

    Would this count as instancing or just clever open world? Would it feel immersion breaking or invalidating of the Pantheon mission? Is there a way you can think of changing it that might help? The number of branches could still be limited in number so that there is still some competition for plots.

    In a city like Thronefast I could see the neighborhoods themed as shanty Town, Town homes, walled estates, mature tree glades but still in the city or even palacial. Additionally there could be a guild house and storefront “Tunnel” as well all within the city but theoretically limitless in quantity and overlapping the same physical space within the game world. There is no reason that the smaller cities could not contain a version of the same but most likely few style options.

    While I personally wish that the world were big enough to support true open world housing that would require map space along the lines of the combined 900+ square miles (there were 9 10x10 planets with looping map walls) that existed in SWGs base release size. Much short of that and I think we will end up feeling that housing is crowding combat content or just taking up too much of the world. Even if the world were that big I would set a lot of restrictions on develop able land to control where housing can be. Actually I would love to see the game world to be 50,000+ square miles of wilderness and have the ability to sculpt the land, found cities and run our own fiefdoms but that's for a different game.

     

    @Naunet

    I'd love to see pictures comparing the base housing map to what you have done with it and it breaks my heart a bit to hear that's its all just going to go poof. Oh and curious what you think as well of my multi path open world but overlapping space housing idea as you are coming from the opposite end of the open vs instanced.

     

    Anyone else feel free to respond as well, just singling these three out as they have strong opinions on the matter and would specifically like their feedback.

     

    • 3237 posts
    October 25, 2018 4:51 PM PDT

    I'm pretty much always interested in your ideas Trasak.  I don't think I can fully comprehend what you're describing here but if it achieves the same things as instancing I'm probably against it.  I feel the same way about "shards"  --  they serve as a duplicate copy of an overland zone.  Technically it's not instancing but it serves the same purpose in my eyes and it's jarring to the kind of experience I want out of Pantheon.  Shards were used in EQ1/EQ2/Vanguard (known as "picks") for the sake of content accessibility.  I prefer for content to be limited because that's the only way it will feel meaningful (in my eyes.)  VR has stated that when it comes to competition they plan on alleviating it to some degree by managing server populations.  They want to make it so the world doesn't feel so crowded that you're constantly running over other players but not so barren that you can never find a group.  There is a sweet spot in there somewhere and I'm highly interested in seeing how they go about finding it and making the most of it once they do.  I really hope that Pantheon will be a truly open-world experience with FFA competition as it was stated to be so long ago.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at October 25, 2018 4:52 PM PDT
    • 1479 posts
    October 25, 2018 4:59 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    I'm pretty much always interested in your ideas Trasak.  I don't think I can fully comprehend what you're describing here but if it achieves the same things as instancing I'm probably against it.  I feel the same way about "shards"  --  they serve as a duplicate copy of an overland zone.  Technically it's not instancing but it serves the same purpose in my eyes and it's jarring to the kind of experience I want out of Pantheon.  Shards were used in EQ1/EQ2/Vanguard (known as "picks") for the sake of content accessibility.  I prefer for content to be limited because that's the only way it will feel meaningful (in my eyes.)  VR has stated that when it comes to competition they plan on alleviating it to some degree by managing server populations.  They want to make it so the world doesn't feel so crowded that you're constantly running over other players but not so barren that you can never find a group.  There is a sweet spot in there somewhere and I'm highly interested in seeing how they go about finding it and making the most of it once they do.  I really hope that Pantheon will be a truly open-world experience with FFA competition as it was stated to be so long ago.

     

    Not allways agreeing but I'm on the same vibe here. Anything simply duplicating zones to make the world feel less crowded isn't feeling right. Sharding dungeons creates sharding named spawns and loots, and it's killing the idea of a specific mob, a specific spot, and the flavour / pride to do it. It's also easy to exploits as things fall quickly under datamining and theorycrafting, ultimately letting people know how to generate a shard for duplicate farming.

    • 3852 posts
    October 25, 2018 5:45 PM PDT

    I am more receptive to instances than most people here but I still feel strongly that they need to be used with great moderation lest we lose that shared world feel.

    Duplicating zones to make the world feel less crowded - well that depends on how crowded things are. 

    In general I am not a fan of the idea but suppose VR expects population to spike the first week, go down after a lot of the not very serious people decide not to subscribe and then go up as word spreads how good the game is. Rather than have too many servers in order to handle the initial crush of people it almost surely is better to have multiple versions of the initial zones. When you no longer need them you just have one version. A lot less disruptive than merging servers and it doesn't give the false impression that the game is already failing.

    Duplicating dungeons - maybe a few but not as a rule. I can see it for a dungeon used to tell a story - a story that wouldn't work with a lot of groups there. I can see it for a dungeon with a boss you need to kill to unlock a major chunk of content - lest people be barred from a large part of the game because it gets camped or is just too popular. But not just so that everyone can have an easier shot at getting a particular shoulder piece.

     


    This post was edited by dorotea at October 25, 2018 5:45 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    October 25, 2018 5:50 PM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    Anything simply duplicating zones to make the world feel less crowded isn't feeling right. Sharding dungeons creates sharding named spawns and loots, and it's killing the idea of a specific mob, a specific spot, and the flavour / pride to do it.

    That's exactly how I feel.  I don't view "crowded areas" or "competition" as bad things at all.  In fact, I look at both of them as the exact opposite.  In my eyes ... it's a wonderful sign when players are willing to crowd up in a given area or compete for a given resource.  To me, these are the kind of things that provide the "X" factor that I have been longing for in an MMO.  It means that players are willing to spend their time doing something for a chance to walk away with what they were looking for.  This kind of opportunity cost has been mostly non-existent for a long long time.  FFA competition is the way to go.

    Players will naturally fan themselves out for favorable opportunities but at the end of the day there will be certain mobs/locations/items that are so desirable that multiple groups of players are willing to dedicate time toward doing something even when there is no guarantee (or even high probability) that they will be rewarded.  This is the kind of scenario that will yield an audible "Woot!" from me when my effort and commitment pays off.  Not everybody has a tolerance level to deal with these kind of things ... I would almost argue that most don't and that's why casual MMO's that focus on content accessibility have been so popular.  Pantheon has been dubbed as a hardcore MMO  --  anything that detracts from that, in any way, is automatically suspect in my eyes.

     

    --  As a quick edit (after reading Dorotea's comment), I would not be opposed to using shards very sparingly in the first few weeks or month of launch or expansion releases, particularly with the first couple tiers of content.  I think the congestion is so potent at that point in time that it's seriously worth considering options to ensure that people aren't having a miserable experience.  After a month or so it's time to take off the training wheels and let people play the game the way it's meant to be played.  Explore the world and find your place in it.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at October 25, 2018 5:55 PM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    October 25, 2018 6:47 PM PDT

    @187

    In my mind I am thinking of the stacking housing zones more like a game of 3D chess. On the 2d map of the city you only have 1 8x8 area but through the splitting tunnel you can access 8 different versions of that same 8x8 map. They all look like they are open to the sky and surrounded by the same city-scape but are their own map. In this case it would be 3 sets of 2 paths to make 8 destinations. It is more of a space saving and map creation simplification tool as well as limiting how far you have to walk if you bought your house late.

    It could even be non stacked areas just accessed through a series of paths. The longer the walk the easier it is to believe that the zones are not stacked. In a cheesier way you could get on a carriage and say to the NPC which neighborhood you wanted to go to and they would zone you to that housing area but I like the idea of being able to walk there as it feels more real. We as game players know they are effectively using a zone way to stack areas but in character it would be plausible that it is not stacked.

    The alternative is that in the city map there would be just 16 housing plots to fight over in the area that would be stacked into 128 plots.

    Its really hard to say if it is a case of instancing or just zone linking where a new zone is not available to purchase a plot in until all the other plots are purchased and then a new path opens. If you limit the number of layers available you are still limiting the total available and we just don't know the target population for each server. If there is a target of 5000 players online at a time on average and 3 hours a day per player then you are projecting 40,000 active players on a server. Add into that an additional 50% of the active players as players who cycle in and out of being active players and you could have close to 60,000 desired plots per server assuming only one per account. If one account is allowed to have more than one house then it could even be as high as eight times that assuming everyone has 7 alts and all want houses (480,000 plots).

    Now I will readily admit that 5000 active user per server may be high on average and you will see periods in the 10,000s and others in the 2000s but I am not sure over all I am that far off of the target average online population. I really don't see how even a quarter of accounts active on the server can have a single open world personal house without some form of clever map stacking or thousands of square miles of wilderness zones.

    Hmm wilderness zones . . . . I wonder if we could have them add wilderness zones in certain areas that don't really have much in the way of monsters or resources but do allow player buildings and are quite large. I think it would likely turn into a cluttered mess that takes a long time to get to but it could still serve some purposes, maybe in conjunction with the in city stacking maps.

     

    @shards

    I'm also not a fan of shards but launch load balancing is a ***** and you usually want something in place, the stacking map could actually work a bit for that as needed but out side of the starter zone during peak times I am against it as well.

     

    • 168 posts
    October 25, 2018 6:48 PM PDT

    How many people have walked through ANY and EVERY MMO city ever made and the door to a building doesn't open? Sure there is art that indicates that the building is there and it has a door and a window and even sometimes a second floor.... but it is just art. It was not made to be interacted with. Now remember some of the mmos and single player games where there were occasionally  doors that opened or signs that could be read or windows you could look through. Now imagine Pantheons main cities with every filler building actually functional between the stores that the Devs want you to visit. Now you have functional but still empty buildings, they are in the cities and towns and they can be considered "housing".

    Ok let's check the boxes; Its in the open world and isn't instanced, It's in the cities and by default causes a draw to the citys (community/ intermingling/ yadayada). Oh it fixes a huge mmo problem thats been around since the last millenia of non-interactable environments. I forsee fairly steep competition in this scenario as there wont be enough space for everyone that wants it. It gives housing to those that want it at the expense of .... nothing spacially to those that don't (again those that don't were already dealing with artwork only, non-interactable environs and they are used to that from previous games).

    I really see this as an oppurtuny that may appeal to most. It's taking dead space and making it living space. I am very pro housing, I enjoyed it immensely in DAoC (and I am not a lore or RP fan even in the slightest). I really got off on hanging my raid trophies on my walls. I really enjoyed having my vault. I, a big PvE group and raid guy, enjoyed my house. The games PvE design and mechanics draws me in initially, the guild (the RL peeps of the guild) keeps me loyal to the game (Sticky), but, the lighter things that are mine and mine alone to do with as I please (houses, gardens, crafted boats) keep me happy within the game.

    • 2752 posts
    October 25, 2018 7:18 PM PDT

    @Trasak

    I made a doodle of more or less the only way I could see non-instanced housing implemented in a way that doesn't feel like a total mess nor take away from the feel of cities and players holding community/congregating within.

    On the left I was thinking Thronefast, the right area was a quicker mock of Wild's End/Halfling city. I am 100% sure this could be designed far better but it's just a rough idea from someone that isn't a city planner. (The corner plazas could have more merchant stalls, fountains, NPC merchants, or whatever else)

    With Thronefast this would house 262 players, a handful of other houses could be made available in smaller surrounding villages (4 or 5 total here and there for those). With Wilds End (a way more crude draft) there could stand to be MUCH more housing than Thronefast if the trees are tall enough as there is a TON of potential vertical space to work with and depending on tree density, there could easily be 300+ player dwellings. If each race had at least 250 dwellings on average (some would surely be harder to make work) then that would roughly be 2,250 houses (more like large apartments/condos) for players in a server. Slap some windows on the houses too so players can see those inside and likewise owners can chill out inside and watch the city life.

    I'd imagine they would have to be somewhat expensive, limited to 1 house per account per server, and have some measure of maintenance fee paired with play time/login requirements within a reasonable period of time. Maybe other stuff too.

     

    Just no instanced housing or outdoor housing just for the sake of having it that moves players out of central hubs where even those not interested in housing will be hanging out or otherwise have reason to be.


    This post was edited by Iksar at October 25, 2018 7:21 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    October 25, 2018 9:43 PM PDT

    Nothing wrong with that, Iksar, from my perspective, as long as it's all invisible if I don't want to see it, load it, or have it in any way affect my game client, bandwidth, or latency, with a visibility option/toggle.

    I have seen what you're describing in Shroud of the avatar (in Unity) and frankly, it's an abuse of the engine in every measurable way.  There's no density of placeable dynamic objects that you could have that wouldn't be detrimental in some way for players who have no interest in participating or even viewing it, or even knowing that player housing exists in any way, at a particular arbitrary location.

    • 1281 posts
    October 26, 2018 9:20 AM PDT

    I think you can have both.

    In the game world you could have premium lots, basically, which are going to be the static open lots that everyone see's in game.

    Then you could have, what I like to call appartments, which are basically instances of player homes that players can access say within a city building, or possibly even player driven. These would obviously be smaller inside. If player driven, the "owner" of the apparement can charge a certain rent each month and have a certain amount of instances to sell to players.

    If we want to use this to remove money from the economy, then make appartments only available by NPC's.


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at October 26, 2018 9:26 AM PDT
    • 217 posts
    October 27, 2018 2:08 AM PDT

    Wow quite the thread! Way to get people to actively use the forums through lovely debate!!

    Im sad to see how people dont have enough self respect to be adults and respect others opinions.  Its kool to debate their opinion or show why you don't agree with it or show how it may not work, be a tech challenge, instill a way for people to exploit that idea or that you just arent for it, for one reason or another. But people no need to get all riled up and sassy.

    I have read every post on this thread and its enlightened me on many aspects of this debate that I may not have known or understood.  So before I posted an idea I reflected on everyones ideas and opinions to change my idea and try to solve the issue in a way that "might" be most pleasing to most or maybe once in a lifetime.. able to make everyone happy. Hahaha doubt that, theres always someone..

    So, I will attempt to eclectically solve this challenge.  First, alot of folks are on one side of the fence or the other of the word instanced and I get it. But lets look at Pantheon... its NOT an open world, its more aptly called a zoned free roaming world.  Well, zones in theselves are a form of instancing, I would label Permanently Instanced Public Access Areas (fancy words for zone). Ok now that we can get over that pesky word instancing by knowing everything is instanced in some form..

    I suggest to make housing have a few different options. Rentable instanced apartments at inns for cheap available at level 5 with a small chest for some extra storage, maybe 10 slots. With some small options for decorating, change the wall color and ability to put some furnishings, hang trophies and such within.  Next be able to upgrade to an instanced plot or area like Naunet is speaking of, with nearly limitless ability to feed your creative urges, highr upkeep costs of course and available at lvl 20 and increased storage space available in the form of player created chests, not in any way associated or connected to the bank system or auction house (or whatever they come up with) system but pretty much a ton of storage all connected to how many chests ya own. This will help with being able to store materials for future building etc. Never used WildStars system but sounds fun and was obviously a successful way of going about customizable player created instanced housing areas.

    Thirdly make actual housing "zones", within city walls but a zone just like any other city zone with various plots of land of differing sizes and allure. Each costing a sizeable amount but also a faction with the plots city of amiable and having an upkeep cost but also must keep their faction in good standing or risk losing your plot. These plots should be works in progress others can see as buildings take shape.  I played Horizons and loved their mechanic for house building.  You had a cornerstone and clicked it. Paid for your plot and went into architect mode to design your layout. It showed what resources would be required to complete it and you could even allocate money rewards for others to give resources to your plot through the cornerstone.  This gave gathereres a way of making cash wether a consumer/customer was on line or not as well as created community "build events". People who werent into building could have their home built by others if they had the money. These plots would also have bonus storage and like aforementioned it would not be linked to the banking or auction sytem. Plots also would be less customizable being they would be a Permanently Instanced Public Access Area (Zone).  The best perk is that its your design and everyonencan readily see it, as well as contribute to its creation if wanted. Available at lvl 35.

    Lastly, theres guild structures.  Its been mentioned a few times there may be some sort of buildable outposts.  I feel something like this is cool but would religate to elitist groups. Meaning, just because you have a guild doesnt mean you can just build an outpost. It will be hard to obtain the rights to build, the monetary assets to purchase, the resources to build it and the ability to provide sustainable upkeep. There would initially only be a few available, somewhere smart like midway between hometowns, something like Highhold Pass.  But as expansions come so would more available as Devs see fitting due to Guild population growth.  Also I feel the initial outposts should be small and upgradeable to much larger facilities.  All should be treated as sanctuaries for all to utilize but there should also be a private guildhall.  As upgrades go there could be crafting stations added usable by all, eleviating day long treks to just process your materials into goods at your home town only.

    For the guilds sake the devs could set a price for nonguild persons to enter the outpost and that monetary value be given to the guild to help with their upkeep. Using the crafting stations should also come at a price to nonguilded persons. Again Dev set prices so as to not be prohibitively set by the guilds.  There could be a place you visit to buy a day pass for entry, as well as crafting station use.

    Additionally I feel all forms of housing should have the bind ability and possibly recall as well. Each account can only own one apartment and either one instanced home area or one plot in the housing zones as well. I am now super tired as its 2am and Ive been at this post on and off over the last 4 hours while working so I will wrap this up now.  These are my ideas, feel free to pick them apart or add to them, love them or hate them. They are my thoughts as a way to make most everyone happy an eleviate many of the aforementioned problems with housing.


    This post was edited by vigilantee13 at October 27, 2018 3:47 AM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    October 27, 2018 7:21 AM PDT

     

    @iksar

    First, how do you post images? I'm forum stupid.  I like both of your over all layouts.  The concept is right on the money.  Combining our ideas would only require facing the player properties at each other and putting a zone line at the end of the ally.  That way you can run around the city without needing to load all the player modifications (@vjek I believe this should cover your system resource concern of player housing).  It may not even need to be a zone line just code that unless you go through a certain arch nothing modified loads.

    Where my folded space idea would come in would be more along the lines that there are say small court yards at either end of each strip.  How you walk through it will put you in one of say half a dozen versions of the same street.  Its not really instancing it is more condensing map space within the city itself.  Town homes, shacks and store fronts are super easy for this method.  Doing major guild hall and estate style plots takes a little more work but basically opens to mini maps rather than a single street.

    @vigilantee13

    If I am reading things right I think you and I are 95% pointed in the same direction and I am guessing the difference is just down to writing style honestly.  One idea that just occurred to me though is what if the Rented spaces are just Public Storage mini warehouses.  For that mater we could say that banks don't hold items, warehouses do.  You can get a small box for super cheap to store stuff in but the bigger the warehouse the more it costs and the more you can put in it.  This will also totally squash the concepts of linked banks, though you could set it so that other characters had access to take and place items in your warehouse. 

    @Naunet

    Correct if I am wrong please. You are not against open world housing existing you just want to also have the option of a significant sized space that you can sandbox with world objects to your hearts content. Realistically the size you are hoping to work with would be unrealistic to get a hold of in an open world competitive land system so the only real choice is an instanced space.


    This post was edited by Trasak at October 27, 2018 9:54 AM PDT
    • 178 posts
    October 29, 2018 1:45 AM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Community Debate - Open World Housing vs Instanced Housing, which do you prefer and why? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters

     

    Twitter Poll: https://twitter.com/PantheonMMO/status/1054326414256685056

     

    to be honest, i think the poll is not good enough.

    what about option 5: no housing in the game at all?

     

    why not?

    instanced personal housing and guild housing remove players from the world, making the world empty and barren.

    open world housing combines clutter- ugly player cities emerge where they shouldnt be , and replacing the main cities as the social hubs, players desert the "real" cities for the player made ones.

     

    player cities option should be integrated in the game core, for example:  all the existing cities are starter villages, and the real cities and fascilities are made by players, and even contested city vs city.