In-Game Housing [Merged]

[Parthenos Polias.5683]

There is the idea and then there is the technical aspect.

Mobile house should be collidable. You don't want any character moving through the walls.

► So implement the object on the server side, not the client side. Same way as siege weapon, the server resources would be used.

► Then collision means how do you mess with the Ground Slope Angle ; not every terrain is flat.
► Not every terrain is flat, and your object would have a great radius, so it may fit in the center, but not on the side because of the relief.

► Furthermore, collision means NPC (ally or enemies) should collide with the "mobile house". I don't know how GW2 implement collision but anything like a navemesh would turn this point to a headache.

► Even with a easy implementation, you must prevent player to use "mobile house" as a way to block any npc.
► Other technical issues.

That's why I guess we won't see any "mobile house " for GW2 or any other MMO.

[Steinbeck.2105]

I like the idea, but I agree with some of the other people's sentiments. When designing this feature, look to the way players will abuse it. And I think people will abuse it by making the world more ugly.

My take - neighborhoods in each zone, with a "rental" or gold sink cost attached to it. Each person's house is essentially an "airship" that can convert into a house, and you can choose to set down roots in a zone's neighborhood. First, this would allow immersion because you get to interact with real players with your house, as well as being able to build game features around neighborhoods (community goals etc.). Second, this places constraints on how housing would be placed as they would be sectioned off to a particular spot. And third, this adds a gold sink / prestige to the game, as the rents would probably vary wildly based on the particular zone neighborhood (this is what ANet really cares about, think about what's in it for them).

Overall, I think houses should be a social feature and not a solo instanced one, otherwise why not just spruce up the home instance? (Don't do that, the home instance is boring!)

 

[Donari.5237]

The "spend resources on something else" response has become practically a mantra or meme, when it's not associated with clarification on what else is higher priority or why the specific disliked idea is too resource intensive.  I pretty much just ignore posts that only contain that sentiment as I find them nonconstructive at best.

 

As to portable housing, I do like the start of the idea.  But as others noted, the immediate first thought is how do we prevent abuse.  Anything big enough to count as a decorateable space containing a number of friends at once is going to take up a lot of ground and block a lot of vision.  Maybe instead it could be a very small interactable (a portal?  a standing stone?  a brazier?) that takes those with permission into the instanced space you've decorated, and can't be placed within X units of necessary game interactables.  I know you want something that everyone nearby can see and wander into, but I just don't see how that can be done without carpeting the world in randomly tossed down houses.

 

After experiencing housing in a lot of games, I still prefer the way ESO does it.  Visible homes in the world, a very wide variety of sizes from inn rooms to massive estates, and all architecture fitting into the surroundings, and each player can buy any or all of them and decorate each.  The interior is an instance, so eg every player could own Cadeucus' Manor, and then set their permissions for what subset of the player population is allowed in, and what subset of that is allowed decoration privileges.  Add in the ESO massively flexible furnishing system.  Take out the absurdly high real money costs of the housing and prohibitive amount of specialty mats needed to actually make a piece of furniture.  And never ever ever put in ownership decay (ie monthly taxes that if not paid mean you lose the house).

[Siddius.3917]

There already is a Topic about player housing and the possibilities and implications etc.

This is the thread, maybe these discussions can be merged

Edited August 26, 2021 by Siddius.3917
Forgot something

[Donari.5237]

2 minutes ago, Steinbeck.2105 said:

I like the idea, but I agree with some of the other people's sentiments. When designing this feature, look to the way players will abuse it. And I think people will abuse it by making the world more ugly.

My take - neighborhoods in each zone, with a "rental" or gold sink cost attached to it. Each person's house is essentially an "airship" that can convert into a house, and you can choose to set down roots in a zone's neighborhood. First, this would allow immersion because you get to interact with real players with your house, as well as being able to build game features around neighborhoods (community goals etc.). Second, this places constraints on how housing would be placed as they would be sectioned off to a particular spot. And third, this adds a gold sink / prestige to the game, as the rents would probably vary wildly based on the particular zone neighborhood (this is what ANet really cares about, think about what's in it for them).

Overall, I think houses should be a social feature and not a solo instanced one, otherwise why not just spruce up the home instance? (Don't do that, the home instance is boring!)

 

I thought the neighborhood idea was great in LotRO, until I ran into the problems with it.  Limited slots per neighborhood, so unless you are in a very small guild, you simply can't get everyone sharing.  And it had the ownership decay I mentioned in my post above, so when I missed paying rent one month, I lost my house.  All my furnishings were recovered, but someone else not in my guild came in and bought the house while I was out of game for a week or so and suddenly I couldn't live where my friends were.

 

You ask for a gold sink rental cost.  That just won't work in GW2, where the game is designed to let people be gone a long time and return and still have all their stuff.  I'm not sure if you mean the neighborhoods to be instanced or not.  If not, then you get virulent flame wars and griefing associated with land grabs, as I've seen in game after game.

[Steinbeck.2105]

33 minutes ago, Donari.5237 said:

I thought the neighborhood idea was great in LotRO, until I ran into the problems with it.  Limited slots per neighborhood, so unless you are in a very small guild, you simply can't get everyone sharing.  And it had the ownership decay I mentioned in my post above, so when I missed paying rent one month, I lost my house.  All my furnishings were recovered, but someone else not in my guild came in and bought the house while I was out of game for a week or so and suddenly I couldn't live where my friends were.

 

You ask for a gold sink rental cost.  That just won't work in GW2, where the game is designed to let people be gone a long time and return and still have all their stuff.  I'm not sure if you mean the neighborhoods to be instanced or not.  If not, then you get virulent flame wars and griefing associated with land grabs, as I've seen in game after game.

I think the rental cost could be remedied by having a "neutral" floating zone, where you are essentially instanced high in the sky, with other floating airships. If you don't feel like paying rent or it's been a while since you logged in, then your airship will float over your zone of choice and you can save up or bide your time there. 

I imagine neighborhoods would prioritize the guild feature, and possibly could be guild based, where a guild will pay for the overall neighborhood and if the entire guild can't make rent, then they will forfeit the property and join the neutral zone in the sky. Lots of ways around this technically, but the idea is that there's some form of investment for your house, otherwise it just becomes another home instance that no one cares about. People want to show their houses off to other people, and I think that's really the entire point of housing in an MMO.

[Donari.5237]

I do understand your logic in this and you make a good argument.  I still don't think it's right for GW2.  Nothing else in the game causes you to lose progress if you don't interact with it for a while.  It can get harder to do things as cheese methods get fixed or the player population moves on to the new shiny, but whatever you've collected, bought, or worked on is still there in the same state as when you left.  Just look at the recent hot take names thread to see the reactions to the idea of losing something even after a long absence to imagine the backlash if ANet made it possible for a gold-bought item (housing spot, in this case) to be usurped by another player.

[Steinbeck.2105]

In this case, it's more of setting expectations for the player. People aren't dumb - they know in other games that houses are instanced, therefore if the house is not instance in GW2, something's gotta give. The expectation must be set in that if you're renting a spot in a neighborhood, you are renting it, not buying it forever. The baseline is still an instanced house, which the players would never lose if they take a break from the game, i.e. it follows the standard of other games. But the feature itself needs a stretch goal, otherwise it's buy a house, you're done, then log off because you ticked the checkmark off in your head. There's no engagement if there's no prestige and no ongoing investment.

 

 

EDIT: I also just wanted to add that I like the idea of a real estate market developing around specific zones being more desirable than others. First, it creates prestige around having beachfront property etc, and also creates cheap markets where people who don't want to pay much will just live in a grittier zone. But most importantly, it addresses a big problem with the open world in that many zones are never visited because there's simply no reason to. You can create a dynamic where zones now have neighborhoods and associated costs with them, breathing life into dead zones. This is really what ANet wants, a cost effective way to boost player engagement in old content while recycling as much as possible.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Steinbeck.2105

[Donari.5237]

I see what you're going for now.  I can't say you're wrong, but I can say I personally would hate dealing with such a system.  I've seen a few games with open world housing spots.  Even a totally non-PvP game like Horizons had serious player hatred going during land grabs whenever a new neighborhood was released.  The forums were a flaming mess.

I don't care about prestige even though I think I am pretty good at decorating game houses.  Not imaginative, some of the ESO creativity has my jaw dropping, but I make plausible, elegant, functional spaces.  I only need my friends to see it, though.  I do care that the GW2 philosophy be maintained:  be happy to see another player, not freaking out that they're about to click the rental npc 2 seconds faster than you and now you can't have that spot.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Donari.5237
removed blank space from a double-enter

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Marikus.1875 said:

 

I feel like I've argued you before in the WoW forum with that exact response. Can you please show me the data where you see the "larger portion" of the playerbase is against player housing?

I never stated that a larger portion was.  However, based on the multiple housing thread topics in the forums (although even here is not a full representation of the whole), it is apparent that there are more people that would prefer resources be spent on something less niche.

[Steinbeck.2105]

1 minute ago, Donari.5237 said:

I see what you're going for now.  I can't say you're wrong, but I can say I personally would hate dealing with such a system.  I've seen a few games with open world housing spots.  Even a totally non-PvP game like Horizons had serious player hatred going during land grabs whenever a new neighborhood was released.  The forums were a flaming mess.

 

I don't care about prestige even though I think I am pretty good at decorating game houses.  Not imaginative, some of the ESO creativity has my jaw dropping, but I make plausible, elegant, functional spaces.  I only need my friends to see it, though.  I do care that the GW2 philosophy be maintained:  be happy to see another player, not freaking out that they're about to click the rental npc 2 seconds faster than you and now you can't have that spot.

I think it's more about players understanding how a system could work. The problem you mention about house competition is actually what makes the property desirable in the first place. You could add an auction system to it, where you get a limited number of bids. Sure, the richest players will win, but it is what it is - that makes the house legendary and something to behold if it's in a very scenic spot. But in the ideal scenario, everyone gets a house in whatever zone they want, just put them in an instance in the sky, and let them aspire to one day set roots in their desired zone. And there's nothing stopping you from inviting players to your own instance like you would with the existing Home Instance.

[Marikus.1875]

2 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

However, based on the multiple housing thread topics in the forums (although even here is not a full representation of the whole)

 

So despite the fact that you know that your making assumptions such as:

 

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I'd rather resources be spent on something that a larger portion of the playerbase would enjoy.

 

Based solely on anecdotal evidence...you still try to pass it off as a statement of fact? Lol? 

 

3 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

it is apparent that there are more people that would prefer resources be spent on something less niche.

 

No...that's not how that works and nothing is apparent unless the data demonstrates so. I can just as easily argue against your position by stating, from my own anecdotal evidence, that player housing is a cherished cornerstone of every MMORPG that has ever had it. 

[kharmin.7683]

2 minutes ago, Marikus.1875 said:

 

So despite the fact that you know that your making assumptions such as:

 

 

Based solely on anecdotal evidence...you still try to pass it off as a statement of fact? Lol? 

 

 

No...that's not how that works and nothing is apparent unless the data demonstrates so. I can just as easily argue against your position by stating, from my own anecdotal evidence, that player housing is a cherished cornerstone of every MMORPG that has ever had it. 

I have never passed this off as a statement of fact.  You really shouldn't make such characterizations.

[Siddius.3917]

4 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

it is apparent that there are more people that would prefer resources be spent on something less niche.

Is it though because there are a lot of topics on the forum about the subject, all with their own ideas about how it should work, be it renting or instances or updating the home instance. 

So if people keep mentioning it, bringing it up and inventing ways how it could work and people keep agreeing with it then perhaps those people are the majority. 

 

The Naysayers just give very long explanation about why they think it's a bad idea but I don't believe they are the majority. 

Perhaps most people are skeptical that is something I could believe but not that the majority is against it 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't understand the concept of these 'neighborhoods'.

Where on maps, especially L80 maps, are there large swaths of land that are flat and have no events or other structures where a housing tract/neighborhood be placed?

 

Or, is it expected that the Devs will create, somehow, more land in existing maps for said 'neighborhoods'?

 

Or, maybe, it is being suggested that only a few percent of the playerbase would have access to the very limited spots on a map?

 

I'd surely want a housing system that everyone could enjoy (and nothing like the Home Instance or Guild Halls). 

[Danikat.8537]

I don't like the idea of players being able to dump tents on top of other stuff in the game. GW2 has relatively few genuinely empty areas, most places which appear empty are either sites where events take place or paths between locations and having either covered by tents would be annoying.

 

If Anet wanted to do some sort of portable housing I'd prefer it to be a small portal that leads to a private instance. That way players can have a space big enough that it's possible to do some actual customisation and there's no risk of it being used to troll other players or taking over areas.

[Farohna.6247]

Interesting take on housing, I commend the idea.  Not something I'm personally interested in seeing, nor in housing.  I really don't see the Commander as a pop up tent or cottage kind of person with a couch and pots and pans.   

[Lyssia.4637]

I love the housing in ESO, but I have to say, I think housing in general would feel really weird and out of place in GW2.  I'd be more supportive of making the home instances more interesting, myself.  Which I don't imagine in the form of making it like housing, in the sense of creating a living space; more like bringing some element of the festivals to the home instances (at least decorations), events/collection quests to add various NPCs with interesting dialogue... something more along that line.  I get the fun of housing in roleplaying, but I have to agree that the only reasonable way I could see it implemented is in instances, and I don't see that as adding anything I'd find worthwhile to the game.  It's really not a game I see with a particularly domestic aspect, as the Elder Scrolls games always were; competitive "neighborhood" style housing seems go completely against the cooperative focus GW always prided itself on.  It would feel like something from a totally different game, drastically against the basic feel of GW, in my opinion.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Lyssia.4637
typo

[decease.3215]

personally i want it to be like a lounge, but player can build and arrange like guild hall/eye of the north.    which should include all the home instance node and able to teleport back.

[Siddius.3917]

16 minutes ago, decease.3215 said:

personally i want it to be like a lounge, but player can build and arrange like guild hall/eye of the north.    which should include all the home instance node and able to teleport back.

That does sound like the Anet way, either by updating the home instance and making it more personal and giving players to edit it or creating a home instance outside of the racial cities. But knowing Anet their way of creating something like it would be instance based and based on stuff they've already made in the past of the game.

6 minutes ago, lokh.2695 said:

No.

Care to elaborate?

[Beleron.9347]

Sure, why not? Let's turn the storied heroes of Tyria into trailer trash...

[Marikus.1875]

30 minutes ago, Beleron.9347 said:

Let's turn the storied heroes of Tyria into trailer trash...

 

Lol, this made me chuckle. Little extreme hyperbole but I understand your distaste for the idea. 

[Beleron.9347]

1 minute ago, Marikus.1875 said:

 

Lol, this made me chuckle. Little extreme hyperbole but I understand your distaste for the idea. 

Ah, but you misunderstood: I love trailer trash!

[anninke.7469]

9 hours ago, Steinbeck.2105 said:

I think the rental cost could be remedied by having a "neutral" floating zone, where you are essentially instanced high in the sky, with other floating airships. If you don't feel like paying rent or it's been a while since you logged in, then your airship will float over your zone of choice and you can save up or bide your time there. 

I imagine neighborhoods would prioritize the guild feature, and possibly could be guild based, where a guild will pay for the overall neighborhood and if the entire guild can't make rent, then they will forfeit the property and join the neutral zone in the sky. Lots of ways around this technically, but the idea is that there's some form of investment for your house, otherwise it just becomes another home instance that no one cares about. People want to show their houses off to other people, and I think that's really the entire point of housing in an MMO.

Oh my gosh, now I ABSOLUTELY NEED an airship as my home. (Mostly ignoring the rest of your post, because my brain is now stuck on "I want my own airship. Airship. Airship...")

Ehm... 😅

[Eraden.8740]

4 hours ago, anninke.7469 said:

Oh my gosh, now I ABSOLUTELY NEED an airship as my home. (Mostly ignoring the rest of your post, because my brain is now stuck on "I want my own airship. Airship. Airship...")

Ehm... 😅

Next best thing is to hop aboard the travelling airship at Dragonfall. You can take a tour around the island. I've done this several times during brief periods of boredom/rest and I've never ever seen anyone else make the trip to the airship.