Homesteads - acquiring a homestead elsewhere in Tyria

[Pure Heart.1456]

Dear Anet,

Thank you for producing another excellent expansion, and boldly exploring the difficult problem of player housing.

Moving forward, please allow for the possibility to acquire a home in other parts of Tyria.

[starlinvf.1358]

please no.   theres enough daily grief about guildhalls and home instances as is.  If its about building, are the rest if us willing to risk then going hard on selling building materials, objects, and structures in the gem store. And the inevitable campaign to get more people to spend money on it. 

 

[Pure Heart.1456]

Frankly speaking, the homestead functionality is rather unnecessary in its' current format. It is merely a glorified home instance that we have had since launch day one.

I was hoping that they would have released several home buildings that you could select to build, and then place in the world. (instanced, even).

That way, at least everyone's home would indeed be unique in its' placement within the world, and everyone's home wouldn't be a completely identical iteration of everyone else's.

If they aren't going to expand homesteads, then what the hell is the point of it all? I for one am not interested in going to other people's homes that look identical to mine with all the same limited selection of objects.

[Luthan.5236]

I don't really need it to be "elsewhere in Tyria" - though I want an option to fast-join without a door (that others might see). Put it in the top UI letting us access stuff like with the guild window. (Checking the deco storage for example.)

Then it would be nice to have ... different "skins" for the main building + sawmill/farm/mine. Racial style in each of the 5 cities + LA (pirate style). Inculding maybe different layouts for our main home building per racial style. (For starters a few to select from in Kodan style would be nice.) Could be "end game" regarding the Homsteads. Once you unlocked the base stuff that seems to just unlock other rooms for now. (So they would not have to care about rooms being locked in other layouts.)

[costepj.5120]

I think "a home in other parts of Tyria" and "different skins for the buildings" is essentially the same thing?

[Chichimec.9364]

51 minutes ago, starlinvf.1358 said:

please no.   theres enough daily grief about guildhalls and home instances as is...

Sorry, but I don't understand your objections. What do you mean by "daily grief abut guildhalls and home instances..."? Every day, one of my guilds invites both  guildies and non-guildies to harvest  in the home instances of members who have all the nodes. It's a simple process - everyone who is interested meets in Rata Sum and enters a home instance from there. I also harvest the nodes in three different guildhalls on a daily basis. There's no "grief" in any of that.

Quote

...If its about building, are the rest if us willing to risk then going hard on selling building materials, objects, and structures in the gem store. And the inevitable campaign to get more people to spend money on it. 

I don't understand this objection either. After almost six years in Tyria, I've gotten just about everything I want from the gem store. Every once in a while, something new will pop up there that I like and I'll get it. If Anet "went hard" on selling homestead mats and "campaigned" to get folks to buy homestead stuff, I'd barely eve notice it myself. I'm not arguing with you, I'm actually just asking you to explain your objections a bit more so I can see if there is something I'm missing.
 

[Dean Calaway.9718]

I'd be surprised if we don't get different homestead instances in the gem store like we have different VIP lounges, I quite frankly hope we do because there's a massive potential there for super cool locations.

[Albadaran.1283]

The whole idea of housing is to be able to get more than 1 house, in different maps. And use them as a base to teleport to. So yes. Of course we should have houses in other parts of Tyria!

[Linken.6345]

35 minutes ago, Albadaran.1283 said:

The whole idea of housing is to be able to get more than 1 house, in different maps. And use them as a base to teleport to. So yes. Of course we should have houses in other parts of Tyria!

I thought it was to have a house as in singular.

[Albadaran.1283]

3 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

I thought it was to have a house as in singular.

And apparently so does Anet. That is exactly the problem. Players ask for things like fishing and housing because they like it in other games (WoW, EsO, etc). We ask for it because we want something simular, but than Anet turns it into something completly different. No! We ask for it because we like the way other games do it, not something different!

[jokke.6239]

10 hours ago, Pure Heart.1456 said:

Frankly speaking, the homestead functionality is rather unnecessary in its' current format. It is merely a glorified home instance that we have had since launch day one.

I was hoping that they would have released several home buildings that you could select to build, and then place in the world. (instanced, even).

That way, at least everyone's home would indeed be unique in its' placement within the world, and everyone's home wouldn't be a completely identical iteration of everyone else's.

If they aren't going to expand homesteads, then what the hell is the point of it all? I for one am not interested in going to other people's homes that look identical to mine with all the same limited selection of objects.

Except for the already excisting houses, you have freedom to build as you please

I've been having fun building a big tower jumping puzzle. Chances of finding an identical version of my homestead I would think is close to zero

Edited September 1 by jokke.6239

[jokke.6239]

2 hours ago, Albadaran.1283 said:

And apparently so does Anet. That is exactly the problem. Players ask for things like fishing and housing because they like it in other games (WoW, EsO, etc). We ask for it because we want something simular, but than Anet turns it into something completly different. No! We ask for it because we like the way other games do it, not something different!

If the only point is teleporting to a base, then we already have waypoints though

I think the point is to have fun and be creative, creating a home

Edited September 1 by jokke.6239

[Rogue.8235]

18 minutes ago, jokke.6239 said:

Chances of finding an identical version of my homestead I would think is close to zero

Khosrow accepts your challenge.

[Timey.6853]

At least given the size of the homestead instance and the fact you can currently only bring in a small 5-person party, I doubt we'll see full instance reskins in the gemstore. I think the monetization will come through exclusive decor items and door reskins, which I'd still be perfectly fine with. They've gotta find a profitable model to sell SOME kind of cosmetics around it just to justify this system to investors, just like jade bots, skiffs, mounts, gliders... Basically everything else that's come before. Never forget the true endgame: fashion wars.

That said, I DO hope we get more instances in the future, I just doubt it'll be via the gemstore. I think it's more likely that new instances would be tied to future expansions, with the main 'benefit' just being that you can have new spaces to decorate with their own separate decor caps, styles, and so on. Considering how previous expansion features have been set up, I imagine that the mastery line for unlocking features within the homestead would still be tied to JW, just like you need HoT for glider masteries, PoF for raptor/jackal/skimmer masteries, etc etc. Though I don't know that we'll even get that much, given the small party limit in particular.

Long before they introduce new skins and/or instances, I'd much rather see them expand and polish the current functionality to make them more appealing to use. They currently strip jade protocols on entry which makes them a less than thrilling option for fast travel, and the small party cap makes large-scale interactive builds like jumping puzzles, obstacle courses, and race tracks kind of hard to utilize since you can only have up to 5 people in there at a time anyway. The cap should be raised to 10 at the very LEAST imo, but I'd more honestly like to see full squad implementation so you could have spectators from your guild(s) drop in during those gatherings, too. I mean there's entire guilds organized around racing, for example; I'm sure members there would have a blast designing their own personal tracks to challenge each other. That alone feels like a HUGE loss of potential.

All that in mind, I do really like the bones of what's there, I'd just also like to have more of a reason to use it past the decorating stage. Building stuff is great and all, but once it's done what then? I'd really like to see this system get some long-term relevance, given the amount of detail that went into its development. In its current state I fear it could eventually just go the same way as the home instances it's replacing, with there being no real reason to ever go back there other than gathering once you've had your honeymoon phase with it.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I would like them to introduce new maps or alternatively make it so we can completely alter the instance to have different ground and remove permanent objects or have different buildings. When I first saw the house I want it to be a single decoration we could remove and use a different house, but new they made it a premade hard stuck structure.

We can only hope they improve it in the future. The way it is currently designed has immediately noticeable limitations.

[Astralporing.1957]

17 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

I thought it was to have a house as in singular.

A house singular as in "you have only one house". Houses plural as in "you have access to a wider selection of houses" or "you can customize how your house looks like".

Not every housing fan is into rural farmsteads, after all.

[kharmin.7683]

 I would prefer resources be spent elsewhere, like other content that would engage a larger portion of the playerbase.  New maps, for one.  I don't play WvW, but I know that content could use some love.   Personally, I feel that housing (much like fishing) was a waste of resources, but that's my opinion.

[ShatteredStars.6548]

23 hours ago, Albadaran.1283 said:

And apparently so does Anet. That is exactly the problem. Players ask for things like fishing and housing because they like it in other games (WoW, EsO, etc). We ask for it because we want something simular, but than Anet turns it into something completly different. No! We ask for it because we like the way other games do it, not something different!

Gw2 isn't like other games, so no, they shouldn't follow other games.

Edited September 2 by ShatteredStars.6548

[ShatteredStars.6548]

9 hours ago, Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

I would like them to introduce new maps or alternatively make it so we can completely alter the instance to have different ground and remove permanent objects or have different buildings. When I first saw the house I want it to be a single decoration we could remove and use a different house, but new they made it a premade hard stuck structure.

We can only hope they improve it in the future. The way it is currently designed has immediately noticeable limitations.

This is an old game, they did what they could, with the engine they have and resources and tools.

Edited September 2 by ShatteredStars.6548

[Astralporing.1957]

16 hours ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

Gw2 isn't like other games, so no, they shouldn't follow other games.

One does not need to feel bound to follow the designs made by others, but abandoning a good idea for a worse one for no other reason than to be different does not sound smart to me.