I think a version of EverQuest 2 instance with World of Warcraft phasing would be great. You're walking along and then you're just in your area. You don't have to click on something or select something you're just walking along like any other area. They could have a little mailbox or flagpole if you want to visit someone else's area though.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Tabula Rasa did some interesting stuff. Towns/hubs were constantly raided by NPC's, and took some decent effort to defend/retake. Couple this concept with incentive for high level players to frequent these towns/hubs (like, spread out 'dungeon token reward vendors' and such in the world), and you got some interesting and dynamic content going on.
Also, don't lock crafting materials behind levels/tires rendering them useless after you crafted 21 Rough Leather Bracelets that you sold to a vendor. Let them free for more horizontal progression and give people incentive to visit all areas to find them.
Maybe have a more long-term plan for urban/suburban development in general? Most often a place is built during development and then it stays like that forever. Keep making small changes here and there to reinvigorate areas/towns. Even put up construction sites (GW2 did some of this but they destroyed the whole place first) to show growth and development just like in real cities.
- You can't trust players for house layout. If you let them free, they will make a mess. Awful urban sprawl in both UO and SWG.
-
You can't trust players for fair land sharing. The haves (aka the no
life) will get it all, leaving only crumbles (if anything) to the
others. Like it happened in Archeage for instance.
- If
you give advantages other than cosmetic to housing, players will go
there instead of towns. See guild housing in AC1, the garrisons in
WoW:WoD and more.
Solution? Instanced housing, but still part of the world.
Two
games nailed it apparently, since in both, all towns are still alive
and kicking, full of active players... Black Desert Online and Elder
Scrolls Online.
In ESO, housing is mostly
cosmetic, and even the ability to install crafting stations there
doesn't negate the many advantages you have to go in a real town. And
all housing locations are real locations in the real world, not some
"theme park" instances totally out of the world like e.g. LOTRO.
But
to me, the best housing system I've seen yet is BDO. Housing is part of
the world, and PART OF THE TOWNS too. And housing is actually useful
without turning cities into ghost towns. The node system is fantastic.
Granted, it doesn't give you the "freedom" to build whatever you want
where you want... but that NEVER ever turned out well in any MMORPG, and
has always been abused and resulted in catastrophic urban sprawls
destroying the wilderness.
Well said! Give the players freedom and all kinds of shit will happen
I haven't played BDO, but that sounds interesting. If one thinks about it, much of today's population live in apartments, not houses. And those do live in houses live in pre-made houses, not dream houses. Very, very few get to design their own homes.
For me, just having a room with a bed that I can "sleep in" (log out in) and storage to "put my stuff in" is enough. Crafting stations and other "amenities" would be icing on a cake, but not a necessity. Being part of a town would be awesome in my eyes
In single player games, I enjoy housing that allows freedom and creativity. In MMOs, that can be a huge detriment to my enjoyment.
[edit] PS: After reading a few more posts, it occurs to me that in the current "MMO scene", the usual playstyle is consume, go to next MMO and consume, go to another MMO and consume, then maybe the first one puts out more content, so players return to consume, then leave again.
In light of this "trend", housing is kind of silly and counter-productive, in my opinion. Players not playing consistantly (NOT constantly!) is the reason for ghost towns. A player needs housing for "non-combat" activities, which many MMOs lack these days because they're "boring activities."
Housing indicates that players have found a "home" in which to play in. That's just not happening often enough these days.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I've only played 2 MMO's that had any kind of housing.
BDO and Trove.
Now, in most of the other MMO's I played, I can honesty say, I didn't miss a lack of housing, as they were not really made or built with the idea of housing in them, and it showed. For most of them, a house would have just been a few extra bank tabs for hold more gear.
One game GW2, had a home instance, and they really dropped the ball not making it so that the home instance could be more personalized. GW2's Home Instance became more like DDO's buff barges. But, I think they could have done more to allow players to make it more personal, to make it feel like it was theirs.
Anyway, I loved how BDO had housing, and how you rented/bought a plot of land and that is was instance based, so it did not clutter up the landscape, or give the feeling of dead areas. Which is really the ideal way to handle the issue of housing, as too many players will often swam a game, buy houses, or land, or whatever, and then in a few months quit. So instance based Housing is really where things are at.
But, I think BDO was trying to hard with their whole node/citizen thing going on, and I would have liked it if I could have accessed my home from any town or major city, depending on the kind of home I had.
In that front, I loved how Trove had a Cornerstone System, where I could put my Personal Cornerstone on any existing blank Cornerstone.
Also, Trove made it so that the game itself gave you many things to put into your personal cornerstone, from fishing trophies to kill trophies, they provided you with amble things to display what you have done, this giving you a reason to play with your Cornerstone to begin with, not to mention that a large part of your crafting/recovery was done at a Cornerstone, they were a big part of the game. and some of them were downright amazing to see. Some players made them into huge sky scrapers, some had tiny huts, but, big or small, it all up to the player with what they built. Also, Cornerstones could be seen and accessed by another other player, but only modified by the Owner of the Cornerstone.
Now, when a player left a world in trove, or quit the game, their Personal Cornerstone left with them, leaving the cornerstone plot free to be used by another player.
So, I think a hybred system, like a fusion of BDO's instance based house idea merged with Troves Cornerstone idea, where a player could rent a House, Plot of Land, Apartment, Etc.. then customize it as they liked, but it would be instance based, and they could access from any similar structure. So if they bought a Single Room Apartment, they could access their single room apartment from any Single Room Apartment (which all Towns and most villages would have)
The idea of a shop could be done this way as well, with several "Open Shops" available for rent, but the shops would not be instance based, they would work like a Cornerstone in Trove, and would not go away, a long as the player logged in daily to maintain them, and pay rent.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Have more or less instanced housing, but with a large number of locations for players to choose from. As a player approaches a structure, the game picks which other player's version of a house there it shows the approaching player. A player always sees his own house, and it should prioritize guildmates or friends over strangers. It should also prioritize active players over inactive.
That way, if a player who owns a house goes idle, the house isn't unused. The game just picks a different player whose house is at the same site as the one to be visible to other players and the game world seems as active as before.
Also give players bonuses for logging off in their own house, and then if another player would see your house as he approaches, he sees your character, too, even though you're offline. That way, the player housing areas don't seem like a ghost town.
You are kinda describing BDO housing system.
It is an instanced housing where the house is always there you just pick "which" house you'll enter.
No, I'm describing something far more expansive. The game picks which particular player's version of the house it will show you for you. The door is open, and you can walk in and see how that particular player decorated his house. Players could override the game's default choice of whose version to show you, but the person casually running by would see a bunch of houses belonging to active players with the players' characters standing there in many of them.
It's honestly not that different from what BDO has. The only difference being giving you the option of overriding the game's default choice of which version of the house you see in the world. In BDO, by default you just see an empty house, but once you choose a house, you can open the door and without even stepping inside see the owner(if they're present) inside and all their decorations/etc.
If land is finite, there will eventually be a problem with people who no longer play having in-game characters owning property. The best solution is instanced neighborhoods.
It might be possible if enough people want to build in a certain area, a neighborhood could 'spawn' at that location. When a certain % of the properties are sold, a new instance could appear there. That might make it simpler for some to accept the instanced housing concept without everyone having the 'magnificent view' and 'defensible location'.
This is not a problem at all. It's as simple as rent. You don't pay? You lose the land. A player that is no longer playing obviously ain't gonna be able to pay their rent, they lose their land and it goes back up for sale.
Land being finite brings other problems though, namely for players who joined the game later and all the land is taken already or for the more adventure capitalist types that gobble up all land just cause they have the funds to do so.
Two
games nailed it apparently, since in both, all towns are still alive
and kicking, full of active players... Black Desert Online
Sorry to nitpick here but BDO is not full of active players. It's a bonafide fact that it's full of inactive players.
Disagreed. Want screenshots for proof ?
Yeah, you have AFK fishers, it's part of the game, but beside that every single town and village has live player activity, that's real people behind the keyboard playing their characters and attending various activities.
Unlike games like WoW, LOTRO and similar theme parks where most activity is centered in the latest expansion capital.
Go to Heidel. Guaranteed there's more afkers than active players. Doesn't matter the channel. You'll mostly find afkers processing, fishing, horse training, with some strength training. There's very few actually active people in towns/villages mainly due to the little need to be there beyond visiting marketplace/bank/first time visit checking out the sights.
Two
games nailed it apparently, since in both, all towns are still alive
and kicking, full of active players... Black Desert Online
Sorry to nitpick here but BDO is not full of active players. It's a bonafide fact that it's full of inactive players.
Disagreed. Want screenshots for proof ?
Yeah, you have AFK fishers, it's part of the game, but beside that every single town and village has live player activity, that's real people behind the keyboard playing their characters and attending various activities.
Unlike games like WoW, LOTRO and similar theme parks where most activity is centered in the latest expansion capital.
HMm .. Bree is still the most active capital/city on every LOTRO server , and its the starter town ..
Limiting the houses/land one can own per account is a must for non-instanced housing. Not just "make it expensive" but literally limit it to one plot/home per account. Accounts that go inactive immediately start a timer to remove the home. Once the home is removed, the player can repurchase a plot and place it back down as it was when it was removed from the game world.
Much like in real life, devs should "zone" certain areas for residential development within the game world to avoid players trying to use their house to cause issues or glitches the game world. I would recommend, generally, a "halo" around cities in which players could build, as that would concentrate players into commercial hubs. There should be well-defined roads running into and out of the city that are not zoned for residential development so folks don't, again, attempt to do something stupid like place a house right up against a city gate.
EDIT- I would add that guild halls may be best placed according to a system like ESO/BDO. Instanced inside the city's "guild hall." This would obviously severely limit any exterior decoration for guild halls, but the interior could be decorated and stocked as the guild wishes.
Two
games nailed it apparently, since in both, all towns are still alive
and kicking, full of active players... Black Desert Online
Sorry to nitpick here but BDO is not full of active players. It's a bonafide fact that it's full of inactive players.
Disagreed. Want screenshots for proof ?
Yeah, you have AFK fishers, it's part of the game, but beside that every single town and village has live player activity, that's real people behind the keyboard playing their characters and attending various activities.
Unlike games like WoW, LOTRO and similar theme parks where most activity is centered in the latest expansion capital.
HMm .. Bree is still the most active capital/city on every LOTRO server , and its the starter town ..
You perfectly nailed the "problem" One active town, everything else dead and empty.
I did not say that , but it does get the most Activity , Dead and empty for Dale etc is far from the truth ..
Limiting the houses/land one can own per account is a must for non-instanced housing. Not just "make it expensive" but literally limit it to one plot/home per account. Accounts that go inactive immediately start a timer to remove the home. Once the home is removed, the player can repurchase a plot and place it back down as it was when it was removed from the game world.
Much like in real life, devs should "zone" certain areas for residential development within the game world to avoid players trying to use their house to cause issues or glitches the game world. I would recommend, generally, a "halo" around cities in which players could build, as that would concentrate players into commercial hubs. There should be well-defined roads running into and out of the city that are not zoned for residential development so folks don't, again, attempt to do something stupid like place a house right up against a city gate.
EDIT- I would add that guild halls may be best placed according to a system like ESO/BDO. Instanced inside the city's "guild hall." This would obviously severely limit any exterior decoration for guild halls, but the interior could be decorated and stocked as the guild wishes.
Still not good enough for the issue you're trying to prevent with that solution. Unless the game in question had 0 player trading, not much stops people from having a 2nd account, trading gold to that 2nd account to buy more land.
Limiting the houses/land one can own per account is a must for non-instanced housing. Not just "make it expensive" but literally limit it to one plot/home per account. Accounts that go inactive immediately start a timer to remove the home. Once the home is removed, the player can repurchase a plot and place it back down as it was when it was removed from the game world.
Much like in real life, devs should "zone" certain areas for residential development within the game world to avoid players trying to use their house to cause issues or glitches the game world. I would recommend, generally, a "halo" around cities in which players could build, as that would concentrate players into commercial hubs. There should be well-defined roads running into and out of the city that are not zoned for residential development so folks don't, again, attempt to do something stupid like place a house right up against a city gate.
EDIT- I would add that guild halls may be best placed according to a system like ESO/BDO. Instanced inside the city's "guild hall." This would obviously severely limit any exterior decoration for guild halls, but the interior could be decorated and stocked as the guild wishes.
Still not good enough for the issue you're trying to prevent with that solution. Unless the game in question had 0 player trading, not much stops people from having a 2nd account, trading gold to that 2nd account to buy more land.
You're not going to stop everyone from stuff like that. Even if you don't allow trading, the "no lifers" will just purchase a 2nd account and grind it.
EDIT- if you really wanted to try, you could attempt to tie IP addresses directly to the limit, and/or attempt to EULA out the use of multi-accounting.
Two
games nailed it apparently, since in both, all towns are still alive
and kicking, full of active players... Black Desert Online
Sorry to nitpick here but BDO is not full of active players. It's a bonafide fact that it's full of inactive players.
Disagreed. Want screenshots for proof ?
Yeah, you have AFK fishers, it's part of the game, but beside that every single town and village has live player activity, that's real people behind the keyboard playing their characters and attending various activities.
Unlike games like WoW, LOTRO and similar theme parks where most activity is centered in the latest expansion capital.
HMm .. Bree is still the most active capital/city on every LOTRO server , and its the starter town ..
You perfectly nailed the "problem" One active town, everything else dead and empty.
I did not say that , but it does get the most Activity , Dead and empty for Dale etc is far from the truth ..
If you compare this to any town in ESO, it's ridiculous.
Go figure, the latest ESO expansion is Summerset, and indeed, the town of Alinor, is teeming with player activity... but so are all the other capital cities and even smaller towns!
The cities in all sub-regions have active players all over the place.
That's what I call "good design".
What I call "poor design" is games which are heavily expansion dependent for player population and tend to concentrate all their players in two general areas, the new expansion center of activity and the most convenient major town, Bree in LOTRO and Stormwind/Orgrimar in WoW for instance. The rest of the world is as good as dead because less convenient (up to not convenient at all and counter productive).
Stop ..plz with your ESO bravado in every thread we know you like it ,
1. its a newer game than LOTRO
2. Its a Mega Server Tech ( very different ) ..
3 . many of us play ESO also me inculded and it has the same problems on smaller areas and , Main capitols are still the most active as in yes Elden Root is Most active .. I just checked .. And it will always be the most active ..
So it seems logical to you to have a pissing contest with an 11 year old game with older server tech than a 5 year old game with Megaserver tech.. get a grip
It is true that some people who have a lot of time would have a huge advantage. I'm not sure why people get so upset about this. There are tradeoffs in real life for spending a lot of time in a game.
It becomes a big problem when property is essential for crafting, like in Archeage. When you can't even own a simple garden, you know something is wrong with the game design.
Archeages problem was the amount of land they allowed people to own during launch. Even with this issue and land rush it was/is still very easy to get a simple garden going 8x8 or 16x16. Problem is having these aren't sufficient to do much later. Archeage got some things right. Building off of their system and correcting the mistakes they made would be great.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
So newer games doing things better is a thing that we must not talk about? No, I won't stop where it's relevant to mention ESO. Just as I won't stop to mention LOTRO, or WoW where it's relevant (LOTRO still being an example to follow for RP features). I've run a LOTRO site for a long time (LOTRO Vault)... I even made a custom web page for patch notes. I wouldn't have if I hated the game. Our very own @BillMurphy was also part of the team btw.
Not tryin ,to rail on ya Jean Luc , but its really not a fair comparrison , different times different tech .. BDO would be a more accurate gauge vs ESO in these regards
So newer games doing things better is a thing that we must not talk about? No, I won't stop where it's relevant to mention ESO. Just as I won't stop to mention LOTRO, or WoW where it's relevant (LOTRO still being an example to follow for RP features). I've run a LOTRO site for a long time (LOTRO Vault)... I even made a custom web page for patch notes. I wouldn't have if I hated the game. Our very own @BillMurphy was also part of the team btw.
Not tryin ,to rail on ya Jean Luc , but its really not a fair comparrison , different times different tech .. BDO would be a more accurate gauge vs ESO in these regards
You're not going to stop everyone from stuff like that. Even if you don't allow trading, the "no lifers" will just purchase a 2nd account and grind it.
EDIT- if you really wanted to try, you could attempt to tie IP addresses directly to the limit, and/or attempt to EULA out the use of multi-accounting.
Did you read my solution to that on the first page? It essentially makes it so only active players (or a group of semi-actives that pool their influence) can own good properties. Cheaper properties are much easier to acquire and maintain but cheaper properties only serve decoration and storage functions.
TLDR - A faction standing system called "influence" that loses X% of accrued standing per Y units of time, and tasks that can't easily be multi-boxed are heavily favored in influence generation. Owning better properties requires a certain amount of influence.
If land is finite, there will eventually be a problem with people who no longer play having in-game characters owning property. The best solution is instanced neighborhoods.
It might be possible if enough people want to build in a certain area, a neighborhood could 'spawn' at that location. When a certain % of the properties are sold, a new instance could appear there. That might make it simpler for some to accept the instanced housing concept without everyone having the 'magnificent view' and 'defensible location'.
This is not a problem at all. It's as simple as rent. You don't pay? You lose the land. A player that is no longer playing obviously ain't gonna be able to pay their rent, they lose their land and it goes back up for sale.
Land being finite brings other problems though, namely for players who joined the game later and all the land is taken already or for the more adventure capitalist types that gobble up all land just cause they have the funds to do so.
While rent is an aspect of solving this problem, that rent needs to be effective. Most MMORPGs set rent prices far, far, far, far, far too low, compared to the average adventurer's in-game income. It also neglects things like taxes. If I can spend 5 gold of 130 gold and pay the rent for 25 RL months, it's going to be 2 years before the system evicts the tenant making the site usable again.
I've thought the problem might be better solved by 1) not allowing more than 2 payments in advance, and 2) basing the rent on Game-time rather than RW time. This would force the player to log into a character every 2 game months in order to pay the rent. At least that way, you know that a lack of places to build is because there are active players, not someone who dumped 0.001% of their in-game wealth into upkeep, and will probably do that again, if they're still playing 3 RW years from now.
When the cost of a mansion is a few chicken spleens, wolves will live like royalty.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think rent, lack of usage speeding up degradation and repairs from that needed to be done by craftsman would keep people from just logging on and paying a taxes.
You could also add in PvP that make unplayed towns easier to pick off.
1. A modular map, so you can grow it by inserting a row of new terrain into the middle of an existing map as needed.
2. The terrain is split into urban (NPC buildings only), suburbs (player construction allowed), and rural (monster, dungeon, and resource farming)
3. Player-build constructions are limited to land claims owned by that player, and these claims decay fast if the player does not log in daily. Generally players get one large main claim and 1-4 small ones for crafting camps if the gameplay requires these.
4. Regularly resetting servers - no one really likes a stale 3 year old world, even the people with the most elaborate estates in that world.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
If land is finite, there will eventually be a problem with people who no longer play having in-game characters owning property. The best solution is instanced neighborhoods.
It might be possible if enough people want to build in a certain area, a neighborhood could 'spawn' at that location. When a certain % of the properties are sold, a new instance could appear there. That might make it simpler for some to accept the instanced housing concept without everyone having the 'magnificent view' and 'defensible location'.
This is not a problem at all. It's as simple as rent. You don't pay? You lose the land. A player that is no longer playing obviously ain't gonna be able to pay their rent, they lose their land and it goes back up for sale.
Land being finite brings other problems though, namely for players who joined the game later and all the land is taken already or for the more adventure capitalist types that gobble up all land just cause they have the funds to do so.
While rent is an aspect of solving this problem, that rent needs to be effective. Most MMORPGs set rent prices far, far, far, far, far too low, compared to the average adventurer's in-game income. It also neglects things like taxes. If I can spend 5 gold of 130 gold and pay the rent for 25 RL months, it's going to be 2 years before the system evicts the tenant making the site usable again.
I've thought the problem might be better solved by 1) not allowing more than 2 payments in advance, and 2) basing the rent on Game-time rather than RW time. This would force the player to log into a character every 2 game months in order to pay the rent. At least that way, you know that a lack of places to build is because there are active players, not someone who dumped 0.001% of their in-game wealth into upkeep, and will probably do that again, if they're still playing 3 RW years from now.
When the cost of a mansion is a few chicken spleens, wolves will live like royalty.
True enough, but casual players want houses, too. And if they're completely locked out of it, then it will reflect poorly on the game.
Of course, you could mimic real life. Cheaper housing that's affordable for the casual gamer could be instanced with a single exit/entrance (ala an apartment style unit, but working just like BDO/ESO housing), while the much more expensive housing would occupy space of its own within the game world.
Again, though, dev zoning is hugely important. Allowing players to build all willy nilly is not ideal. Casual players could also look to pool resources and purchase a guild hall that is placed in the game world itself.
More options is always better. I personally would likely only purchase a slot in the "apartment" building unless I was heavily into the game and playing it almost exclusively to other titles.
You're not going to stop everyone from stuff like that. Even if you don't allow trading, the "no lifers" will just purchase a 2nd account and grind it.
EDIT- if you really wanted to try, you could attempt to tie IP addresses directly to the limit, and/or attempt to EULA out the use of multi-accounting.
Did you read my solution to that on the first page? It essentially makes it so only active players (or a group of semi-actives that pool their influence) can own good properties. Cheaper properties are much easier to acquire and maintain but cheaper properties only serve decoration and storage functions.
TLDR - A faction standing system called "influence" that loses X% of accrued standing per Y units of time, and tasks that can't easily be multi-boxed are heavily favored in influence generation. Owning better properties requires a certain amount of influence.
I like the idea of A) discouraging multi-boxing, and offering a spectrum of options. I'm all for stratification within the game with things like this so long as it's a result of players actively engaging with the game or pooling resources with one another. Both result in a better overall experience by enticing engagement and cooperation within the game world.
Concept: Relocate houses to "prime" locations over time. Maybe the best are central of at ground level in a tower or at the front of a zone - whatver. Reloacte based on one or more factors that are used to generate an overall "score"
Possible factors - each factor having some sort of weighting.
1. Cost of house maybe.
2. Have rents not just for the house - as mentioned usually to low - but also rent for the site. Site rents determined by auctions held every week or month (along the lines of the guild merchant locations in ESO.) Your bid will relate to a certain grade of site that will get contribute to your overall score. You will be charged!
In addition though you will need to specify whether you will pay extra! For if your final score qualifies you for a better plot this will cost more than what you bid. Will you be prepared to pay the extra - or accept a lower level location.
3. Active time spent at the house. Ideally the game should check for activity - some games do this and disconnect inactive players - but there are bot programs that move an arm or leg now and then so ideally it should be able to detect this. Active time at house per day could be capped.
4. Stuff on display with items given some sort of value. If items earned rather than bought carried a higher score this would create a conflict. If you are out adventuring you won't be getting credit for being at your house; it may generate a reward though.
5. No of times visited - with a certain (maybe unspecified) length of time having to pass between visits.
6. Votes cast by other players - again weighted with votes decaying over time.
The same set of criteria could also be applied to guild houses - which should result if big guild houses being the most prominent. Which is what should happen.
At the end of the day something dynamic whose mechanism is applied on a regular enough basis that old, unused homes should be moved to the outskirts, out of sight, where they can decay and be torn down. Meanwhile the looked after ones - even if looked after means gaming the system - will be the ones that people see first.
Comments
Also, don't lock crafting materials behind levels/tires rendering them useless after you crafted 21 Rough Leather Bracelets that you sold to a vendor. Let them free for more horizontal progression and give people incentive to visit all areas to find them.
Maybe have a more long-term plan for urban/suburban development in general? Most often a place is built during development and then it stays like that forever. Keep making small changes here and there to reinvigorate areas/towns. Even put up construction sites (GW2 did some of this but they destroyed the whole place first) to show growth and development just like in real cities.
I haven't played BDO, but that sounds interesting. If one thinks about it, much of today's population live in apartments, not houses. And those do live in houses live in pre-made houses, not dream houses. Very, very few get to design their own homes.
For me, just having a room with a bed that I can "sleep in" (log out in) and storage to "put my stuff in" is enough. Crafting stations and other "amenities" would be icing on a cake, but not a necessity. Being part of a town would be awesome in my eyes
In single player games, I enjoy housing that allows freedom and creativity. In MMOs, that can be a huge detriment to my enjoyment.
[edit]
PS: After reading a few more posts, it occurs to me that in the current "MMO scene", the usual playstyle is consume, go to next MMO and consume, go to another MMO and consume, then maybe the first one puts out more content, so players return to consume, then leave again.
In light of this "trend", housing is kind of silly and counter-productive, in my opinion. Players not playing consistantly (NOT constantly!) is the reason for ghost towns. A player needs housing for "non-combat" activities, which many MMOs lack these days because they're "boring activities."
Housing indicates that players have found a "home" in which to play in. That's just not happening often enough these days.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
BDO and Trove.
Now, in most of the other MMO's I played, I can honesty say, I didn't miss a lack of housing, as they were not really made or built with the idea of housing in them, and it showed. For most of them, a house would have just been a few extra bank tabs for hold more gear.
One game GW2, had a home instance, and they really dropped the ball not making it so that the home instance could be more personalized. GW2's Home Instance became more like DDO's buff barges. But, I think they could have done more to allow players to make it more personal, to make it feel like it was theirs.
Anyway, I loved how BDO had housing, and how you rented/bought a plot of land and that is was instance based, so it did not clutter up the landscape, or give the feeling of dead areas. Which is really the ideal way to handle the issue of housing, as too many players will often swam a game, buy houses, or land, or whatever, and then in a few months quit. So instance based Housing is really where things are at.
But, I think BDO was trying to hard with their whole node/citizen thing going on, and I would have liked it if I could have accessed my home from any town or major city, depending on the kind of home I had.
In that front, I loved how Trove had a Cornerstone System, where I could put my Personal Cornerstone on any existing blank Cornerstone.
Also, Trove made it so that the game itself gave you many things to put into your personal cornerstone, from fishing trophies to kill trophies, they provided you with amble things to display what you have done, this giving you a reason to play with your Cornerstone to begin with, not to mention that a large part of your crafting/recovery was done at a Cornerstone, they were a big part of the game. and some of them were downright amazing to see. Some players made them into huge sky scrapers, some had tiny huts, but, big or small, it all up to the player with what they built. Also, Cornerstones could be seen and accessed by another other player, but only modified by the Owner of the Cornerstone.
Now, when a player left a world in trove, or quit the game, their Personal Cornerstone left with them, leaving the cornerstone plot free to be used by another player.
So, I think a hybred system, like a fusion of BDO's instance based house idea merged with Troves Cornerstone idea, where a player could rent a House, Plot of Land, Apartment, Etc.. then customize it as they liked, but it would be instance based, and they could access from any similar structure. So if they bought a Single Room Apartment, they could access their single room apartment from any Single Room Apartment (which all Towns and most villages would have)
The idea of a shop could be done this way as well, with several "Open Shops" available for rent, but the shops would not be instance based, they would work like a Cornerstone in Trove, and would not go away, a long as the player logged in daily to maintain them, and pay rent.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Much like in real life, devs should "zone" certain areas for residential development within the game world to avoid players trying to use their house to cause issues or glitches the game world. I would recommend, generally, a "halo" around cities in which players could build, as that would concentrate players into commercial hubs. There should be well-defined roads running into and out of the city that are not zoned for residential development so folks don't, again, attempt to do something stupid like place a house right up against a city gate.
EDIT- I would add that guild halls may be best placed according to a system like ESO/BDO. Instanced inside the city's "guild hall." This would obviously severely limit any exterior decoration for guild halls, but the interior could be decorated and stocked as the guild wishes.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
EDIT- if you really wanted to try, you could attempt to tie IP addresses directly to the limit, and/or attempt to EULA out the use of multi-accounting.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TLDR - A faction standing system called "influence" that loses X% of accrued standing per Y units of time, and tasks that can't easily be multi-boxed are heavily favored in influence generation. Owning better properties requires a certain amount of influence.
I've thought the problem might be better solved by 1) not allowing more than 2 payments in advance, and 2) basing the rent on Game-time rather than RW time. This would force the player to log into a character every 2 game months in order to pay the rent. At least that way, you know that a lack of places to build is because there are active players, not someone who dumped 0.001% of their in-game wealth into upkeep, and will probably do that again, if they're still playing 3 RW years from now.
When the cost of a mansion is a few chicken spleens, wolves will live like royalty.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You could also add in PvP that make unplayed towns easier to pick off.
2. The terrain is split into urban (NPC buildings only), suburbs (player construction allowed), and rural (monster, dungeon, and resource farming)
3. Player-build constructions are limited to land claims owned by that player, and these claims decay fast if the player does not log in daily. Generally players get one large main claim and 1-4 small ones for crafting camps if the gameplay requires these.
4. Regularly resetting servers - no one really likes a stale 3 year old world, even the people with the most elaborate estates in that world.
Of course, you could mimic real life. Cheaper housing that's affordable for the casual gamer could be instanced with a single exit/entrance (ala an apartment style unit, but working just like BDO/ESO housing), while the much more expensive housing would occupy space of its own within the game world.
Again, though, dev zoning is hugely important. Allowing players to build all willy nilly is not ideal. Casual players could also look to pool resources and purchase a guild hall that is placed in the game world itself.
More options is always better. I personally would likely only purchase a slot in the "apartment" building unless I was heavily into the game and playing it almost exclusively to other titles.
Possible factors - each factor having some sort of weighting.
1. Cost of house maybe.
2. Have rents not just for the house - as mentioned usually to low - but also rent for the site. Site rents determined by auctions held every week or month (along the lines of the guild merchant locations in ESO.) Your bid will relate to a certain grade of site that will get contribute to your overall score. You will be charged!
In addition though you will need to specify whether you will pay extra! For if your final score qualifies you for a better plot this will cost more than what you bid. Will you be prepared to pay the extra - or accept a lower level location.
3. Active time spent at the house. Ideally the game should check for activity - some games do this and disconnect inactive players - but there are bot programs that move an arm or leg now and then so ideally it should be able to detect this. Active time at house per day could be capped.
4. Stuff on display with items given some sort of value. If items earned rather than bought carried a higher score this would create a conflict. If you are out adventuring you won't be getting credit for being at your house; it may generate a reward though.
5. No of times visited - with a certain (maybe unspecified) length of time having to pass between visits.
6. Votes cast by other players - again weighted with votes decaying over time.
The same set of criteria could also be applied to guild houses - which should result if big guild houses being the most prominent. Which is what should happen.
At the end of the day something dynamic whose mechanism is applied on a regular enough basis that old, unused homes should be moved to the outskirts, out of sight, where they can decay and be torn down. Meanwhile the looked after ones - even if looked after means gaming the system - will be the ones that people see first.