House Blueprint idea

[Liquid_Ape]

I have designed and re-designed houses countless times. I wish there was some way of preserving the house aside from just screen shots. I have designed a cool house, only to pull it up and place a new plot someplace I would rather be. Then I have to take the time to re-design everything. I either reproduce my old house from screen shots or just start over. What if a home owner could buy a special tool of some sort and produce a blueprint of their house?

This way, you could preserve and showcase a bunch of designs without having to own a bunch of houses. If you get a new house in a new location, it would allow you to keep your design. This would also allow someone to sell their house designs. There are lots of people who want a nice house, but do not know how to make one or do not have time to make one. These are the people who make big boxes because they need something with four walls and a roof, but do not want to take a week to make something look cool, so they settle on "meh". I know there are a lot of people that would love to have something besides a big box, but aside from hiring someone to go through their house and make it look nice, it is never going to happen.

There are designers right here that are far more amazing and creative than I could ever hope to be. How would you like to be able to design a house then sell blueprints?

 

[Bill Gates OSD]

I really like this idea!

 

[AtlanticVlad]

This kind of idea has come up a few times it would be great but nothings come of it yet...

Don't know how doable it is development wise... either way I think they would need to make it so you could save deco with it... in order for it to be truly worth while.. maybe mark everything like for insurance to go into the blueprint... or something but I bet that would be to much to store the house designs themselves probably could be done more easily then that.

Don't really see it happening though. Heck they still haven't fixed our char statues yet... Don't think deco is a major concern of the current dev team.

 

[DragonSlayer]

I also think this would be excellent. Heck, even if we could save multiple designs for the same placed house would be great.

 

[Liquid_Ape]

I would think it wouldn't be "difficult" since when you are in customization mode, you can backup a design. All you would have to do is save that associated data in a way that can transfer it to a different plot.

 

[MalagAste]

It's been suggested before that it would be awesome if we could make "housing design" deeds that could be traded or sold.

Would be great for all those seriously awesome designers out there.

Also suggested was a function you could add to the housing menu to set a designer.. for 1hour or 1 day or something like that. This person would then have access to the design menu but nothing else.

 

[Faerunner]

Yeah, this thread's a bit old but I had to get excited over the idea...

I'd love to have "designer/Architect" access to a plot, if it could be coded. Building a house for someone would be nice!

It'd definitely be amazing if we could save our house designs as "blueprints", too. I don't see why not! If we could link a saved house design to a scroll or something through the house sign menu, so it became "a house blueprint", it could work! I don't think saving deco would be easy or necessary, really. People could buy the blueprint, then hire a decorator or deco it themselves. Otherwise you'd run into account-age issues (for instance, I can't yet use the age reward Ankh, so if I used a blueprint that included that item, would it not show up or just not work?), among other things.

Anyway, I've already had moderate success selling small ready-to-make deco "kits" for things like lamps (a bag with a statue, a kasa, and a candle, or lanterns and bracers) with a book inside for directions. It wouldn't be hard to sell ready-to-place deco for an entire house; with full instruction books and the blueprint included! Think what a great source of income it would be for designers!

 

[Omnius]

it would be truly awesome to SELL house designs.

 

[Lord Essex]

I second, third, fourth anf fifth this idea..!!

 

[unified]

I really do hope this idea is looked at hard by the Devs. It makes common sense. Designing a house is fun when you've done the same design for the fifth time. On the sixth time, you'll want to set it afire.

I move a lot, and enjoy exploring the lands on foot. All of my characters on one account each have a house design tool. When I find a better spot for a house I have, it's time to move. But, I dread repeating that design over again.

Also, it will be a wonderful way to restore community in this game as it will open a new market where players will actually be able to sell something that others may actually not be able to do themselves. Maybe even the designs can be locked in such a way that they can't be customized further. For example, maybe the designs can be like the original house deeds so people really can't copy them and pass them on as their own?

 

[DevilsOwn]

add a line to the house sign: Original Design by _______

 

[AtlanticVlad]

The reason I would suggest finding a way to do items in the designs is just the simple fast that 60% of the deco I do personally requires multiple times in and out of custom mode in order to do... so If i were to sell a blueprint to someone it would be completely worthless if they didn't know how to deco those parts... so perhaps the best option is an architect mode... and allow us to perhaps for a price pay to save a design into scrolls so we architects could design in advance walk up go into that mode and apply it... then go in and deco it... *Shrugs*

I gotta say I'm a bit exhausted keeping up with my lists of accounts and passwords and calling people IRL to get there info so its safe... But so far that does seem to work if people trust you...

Admittedly on some of my projects those phone calls have been quite useful in getting info from the owners that will help me create things they will like... But still I wish we had this option...

Something involving the trade window preferably actually no... Involving the vendor style selling... so we can charge correct amounts for our work... =)

 

[Liquid_Ape]

The reason I would suggest finding a way to do items in the designs is just the simple fast that 60% of the deco I do personally requires multiple times in and out of custom mode in order to do... so If i were to sell a blueprint to someone it would be completely worthless if they didn't know how to deco those parts... so perhaps the best option is an architect mode... and allow us to perhaps for a price pay to save a design into scrolls so we architects could design in advance walk up go into that mode and apply it... then go in and deco it... *Shrugs*

I gotta say I'm a bit exhausted keeping up with my lists of accounts and passwords and calling people IRL to get there info so its safe... But so far that does seem to work if people trust you...

Admittedly on some of my projects those phone calls have been quite useful in getting info from the owners that will help me create things they will like... But still I wish we had this option...

Something involving the trade window preferably actually no... Involving the vendor style selling... so we can charge correct amounts for our work... =)

When I wrote my original post, I was coming off a "moving around spree" where I moved quite a bit. I must have designed and re-designed houses close to 50 times. It got old. More recently I have settled into a small semi-permanent "village" and set about properly decorating everything.

I totally see your point about the decorating. It far and away more difficult - especially if you are "detail oriented". I can spend a couple of hours in the house designer making a nice house then spend a whole day working on one room to get the carpet, furniture and everything to work just right. Breaking stairs, chopping items, making long stone tables, doing kitchen counters isn't something that just happens without putting in some decent effort.

That said, not everyone is looking for something with the "OMG! Thats beautiful!" factor. Some people are just looking for more variety than one of the pre-made custom houses.

 

[DevilsOwn]

I totally see your point about the decorating. It far and away more difficult - especially if you are "detail oriented". I can spend a couple of hours in the house designer making a nice house then spend a whole day working on one room to get the carpet, furniture and everything to work just right. Breaking stairs, chopping items, making long stone tables, doing kitchen counters isn't something that just happens without putting in some decent effort.

and somewhere amidst all the chopping, locking, lowering, raising and fiddling an even better floorplan comes to mind and ya start all over again....