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Lord British needs your opinion on Player Housing!

XDarkxMageX

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
A while ago, I had some ideas for player housing in an MMO or other online game. Housing should not be limited to just players placing solitary houses, but be able to build villages and even massive cities. Many of these ideas I have seen in other MMOs, but were poorly executed by their developers and thus could not live up to their full potential.

Player Housing and Cities

To place a house, a player must first purchase a deed from a housing broker NPC in one of the capital cities of their faction. Then they must find a spot of the appropriate size to accommodate the type of house they wish to place in a designated housing area where house placement is allowed. Players will not be able to place houses directly on roads, in front of dungeon entrances, or in any other spot which would otherwise disrupt the game play of other players. Once a player has the appropriate location picked out, and no other house already occupies the spot, the player will be free to place their house. Players will be able to own houses ranging from small one room cottages, to reasonably sized manors, to farm houses, to log cabins, to large towers and small keeps.

Houses placed in the wilderness will have to be maintained by the owner or those given special privileges with the house. Once a day the owner or those with the privilege will have to log on and refresh the house. This keeps the house immune to attack by siege engine. To refresh the house, the owner must access the house's control panel on the user interface. The panel option only appears while the owner, or those with the privilege, are in the house. If the house goes 7 days without being refreshed it becomes vulnerable to attack by siege engine and can be destroyed. If the house goes 9 days without being refreshed, the house collapses. Whether destroyed or collapse, all containers and objects in the house are left behind on the ground for anyone to loot.

Houses can also be purchased in NPC towns and faction capital cities. These houses will be ideal locations greatly sought after by players. However, to be able to keep these houses, players will have to pay monthly taxes. In the event that players cannot pay the taxes on their house, they will have 7 days to pay what they owe or they will be evicted from the house and all of their belongings stored in the house will be placed in their bank box.

Player houses allow players to lock down items in the house to secure them against theft and item deletion. Items left on the floor of a house and are not locked down or in a secure container will be deleted after a certain period of time like items dropped anywhere else. The amount of containers that can be secured and items than can be locked down depends on the size of the house. The larger the house, the more items can be locked down and the more containers can be secured.

Houses can also have add-ons. Add-ons can only be added on to a house if there is sufficient room around the house. These add-ons include workshops, small plots of farmland and wells.


Player run shops

Players who own a house, whether it be in a guild city, village or in a faction NPC city, will be able to turn part or all of their house into a shop which they can run. Players will need to hire at least one vendor NPC for other players to interact with so they can purchase items. Shop owners will also be able to set out display cases and armor display stands with items they are selling so customers will be able to see the kinds of wares the owner is selling.

Shop owners will be able to block off parts of their shop and keep them for private use. However, houses which are open to the public as shops can have their private sections broken into by burglars with sufficient lock picking skills. They might also find themselves the targets of thieves, murderers and other unsavory characters. For this reason shop owners will want to hire guards to protect their business. If a player's shop is in a guild city, NPC city or village, the local guards and town watches will guard their shops. Players who have stand alone houses outside cities and villages will have to hire their own independent guards.


Villages

Scattered throughout the wilderness are Village Stones. Village Stones mark off areas which can be turned into villages. When a player happens upon a village stone, they will be able to claim it and found a village. The player who first founds a village becomes the mayor. To claim a village stone, a player must pay a fee to officially declare their new village. Managing a village allows for the mayor to organize a town watch, hire guards, and build town walls and roads.

Unlike guild cities, villages can be run by non guilded players. Villages are smaller than guild cities and have lighter defenses. Mayors cannot demand taxes of the village residents and they cannot throw people out of the village.

Villages offer players more security for their house as opposed to houses placed alone in the wilderness. The town watch will guard all houses placed in the vicinity of the village. Residents of the village can also commit their own guards, hirelings and pets to protect and patrol the village. Town watch guards will patrol around the village looking for criminals or anyone who violates the laws of the village. The laws of the village are set by the mayor.


Guild Cities

Guild cities are for player run guilds who wish to build their own empire. Dotted throughout the wilderness are Founder's Stones. A founder's stone is required to begin building a guild city. Guild cities are substantially larger than villages and even more costly. In order to claim a founder's stone, a guild master must plant his guild's flag in the stone. This officially claims the stone in the name of that guild. Once the flag has been planted, the guild master can begin to build his or her guild's city.

The guild master will be in charge of placing the essential buildings for the city as well as the roads, walls, moats, draw bridges, portcullis, battlements, siege engines and defensive towers. This will cost not only money but resources such as wood, stone and metal to construct the walls, buildings and roads. Once the guild master is finished planning out the city it will be ready to have houses and shops placed by members of the guild.

Unlike a village, a guild city will be able to support buildings found in NPC faction towns. The essential buildings are as follows:



· Guild Bank: A localized bank where guild members can store extra items they find in their journeys. It also gives access to the communal guild bank where guild members can deposit items and resources for other guild members to have access to. They can also deposit money into the guild coffers to help keep the guild city running. During a siege, if an enemy guild manages to claim the city, all items in the guild bank will be ripe for the looting. Guild banks can also be destroyed during a siege. If they are, all bank boxes will be left on the ground and can be looted by anyone.



· Soldier Barracks: The Solder Barracks is the building needed to train guards for the guild city. The guild master can choose what type of guards they want for the city. The soldiers will range from poorly skilled but low priced, to highly skilled but very expensive. The higher the skill of the soldiers the better they will be able to defend the city and uphold the laws of the city. In the Soldier Barracks there will be a chest for the guild master and other guild members to place armor, weapons, and food for the soldiers to use. As the soldiers' armor and weapons become damaged, they will take new pieces from the chest to replace their gear. They will also take food and drink from the chest. Also the Barracks serves as the guild master's interface for controlling the city's soldier NPCs. The guild master can set the laws of the town, the priority targets for NPC soldiers to attack during a siege, and access the security functions of the city. Every city will have a maximum number of guards that can be trained. Once the city has reached this limit, no more guards can be trained. However, the guild master is still free to hire more NPC guards from other sources to supplement the city's defenses. These guards can be hired in NPC towns at various mercenary companies. However, unlike solider NPCs trained from a barracks, NPC mercenaries cannot operate siege engines.



· Siege Workshop: In these buildings, carpenters who also have the tinkering skill will be able to construct various offensive and defensive siege engines. Defensive siege engines are placed in the guild inventory for the guild master and any lieutenants who have the permission to place them on defensive towers. Offensive siege engines appear as mountable vehicles which guild members can enter and operate to get them to the battle. Both defensive and offensive siege engines can be sold to other guilds or independent players.



· DefensiveTowers: Defensive towers are needed to mount defensive siege engines. Once mounted on a tower, a defensive siege engine can be operated by player guild members or by the soldier NPCs. The number of defensive towers a city can have depends on its size. The larger the city, the more towers it gets.



· GuildCastle: The Guild Castle is the key building of the city. Castles are placed over the founder's stone to defend the stone against attackers during a siege. Guild Castles come in various shapes and sizes for a guild master to choose from. Guild Castles come with 5 of their own defense towers which do no count towards the city's overall defense tower quota. In the event that a city's outer defenses fall, the castle is the last line of defense for the founder's stone. Only guilds can place castles. This is to prevent individual players from eating up housing space by over placement of castles.



Guild masters will also be able to set the laws of their guild city(s). They can choose which laws are enforced, the level of alignment allowed and what factions can enter the city.

And thus, housing is a more intricate part of the game and more than just a place to store your excess stuff.

Granted, most of these ideas are for a game that allows for seige warfare between guilds, but the basic principles are still sound.
 
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Krythorian

Guest
The houses should be expensive and not something you can get from playing 5 hours a week.

What I would love to see is player built shops that players can own and then put stuff in for sale with a vendor in them selling the stuff the owner put in to other players, the player owning the building of course gets to set the prices and such.

I also want it to be possible to rob a house but it should be so you can't rob a house if the player have been logged out for more than 45 minutes or something to prevent people to log out to make robbers not getting what they got but it also helps players so that they don't feel that they'll be robbed if they leave for a week, a possibility to stop robbers could be the possibility to hire guards or train guard dogs or other beasts.

All furnitures should be interactable if it looks like they should be able to be interacted with for example a chair should be able to sit on and not just stand there look pretty, a flower should be watered daily or else it dies or just that you can water the flower at all.

In order to make it feel like a town that the players built it should be possible for guilds to build taverns and stuff. Maybe even make an area so that only people from the guild can build houses there but of course that should cost loads of money to be able to occupy a place for a guild to create a guild town.

Guild castles (guild house or what you want to call it) is something I would like to see in different shapes for example a craftsman guild could have a big house with anvils forges and tables when maybe a guild that focuses on fighting buys a big keep to keep the enemies out of there.

I also believe that houses should have gameplay impact and that it should be useful to own a house for example storing stuff in, grow flowers made in potions, have an anvil in and other stuff so it's easier to craft.

Maybe make a skill that gives you possibility to make floor designs and furnitures?

The possibilities are endless!
 

Velvathos

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
We would like to provide as close to the open housing methods that we provided in UO, but perhaps improving the "urban sprawl" issues. We definitely want player towns to be possible and worthwhile. Please give us your opinions and ideas about player housing.

Thanks,
Lord British
A lot went wrong with UO in terms of housing, player and RP guilds had immense trouble forming player towns because there wasn't an incentive to forge one, even though we would try our best, this is something I hope Ultimate RPG corrects itself in, I wouldn't mind maybe seeing some sieges on these player crafted towns as well... Or maybe that's just it, players should be able to buy plots on the map where they would build a town and personal housing would be in instance.. I also feel that storage space in UO was a big problem, I definitely feel there needs to be infinite amount of storage space in either a player home or the bank, so that if plots are limited, people would place not so big of homes (if it is anything like UO...)
 
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Woodsman

Guest
Those people who think you should have to pay a bunch to keep your house going or have to login once or twice a day and refresh it, my god, people play games to escape reality, not be reminded of real life and rent and bills.
 

senescal

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Those people who think you should have to pay a bunch to keep your house going or have to login once or twice a day and refresh it, my god, people play games to escape reality, not be reminded of real life and rent and bills.
That doesn't mean the alternate reality you chose shouldn't have rules. You are sharing that escapism with a few hundred, maybe a few thousands other players and the experience should be pleasant to each one of them. Hence the creation of rules to prevent problems from turning the whole game experience unpleasant.

Singleplayer sandboxes can afford to be much more flexible though.
 
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H3atmiser

Guest
Those people who think you should have to pay a bunch to keep your house going or have to login once or twice a day and refresh it, my god, people play games to escape reality, not be reminded of real life and rent and bills.
Upkeep in static housing is actually a necessity, otherwise the housing market would plateau at an incredibly early stage. The vast majority of newer players would be denied a house simply because of the older players negligence to remove their house when they decide to quit playing.

And remember in UO, amidst all of this "real-life drudgery", spawned the house hunters: players who would roam the world looking for IDOC (In Danger of Collapsing) houses, only to loot the valuables inside (or shall we say outside?) House hunting became one of the few, unique professions in Ultima Online that was entirely skill-less, and I wouldn't mind it one bit to see it in the URPG, either.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
Upkeep in static housing is actually a necessity, otherwise the housing market would plateau at an incredibly early stage. The vast majority of newer players would be denied a house simply because of the older players negligence to remove their house when they decide to quit playing.
If somebody quits playing, automatically dump all of their crap into some kind of moving crate that is stored on the server and yank their house after 30 days of no payments. It's really not that hard to implement if you are building a new game from the ground up.

If you have to implement a complex rule system for housing to keep freeing them up, then you're doing it wrong and you didn't plan from the beginning. Instanced housing in the cities, in addition to non-instanced plots in the country, is the way to go.

If you want to talk about older players vs younger players, newer players will have a more difficult time of obtaining and keeping a house under some kind of system where there's upkeep and tasks required. Obtainable housing is/was a huge draw for UO. Start making it difficult to keep a house in UO, and players would leave. There are people who don't login, but pay their $10 or $13 a month to keep their houses. Remove those people from the equation, UO will be canceled due to lack of revenue. Housing could be a huge hook for drawing in and keeping paying customers in Ultimate RPG.

If you're going to do housing, do it right, don't do it half-assed to where you are having to implement all kinds of rules that discourage people from owning a house. There are plenty of places for adventure and risks in Ultimate RPG. Housing shouldn't be one of them.
 
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H3atmiser

Guest
If somebody quits playing, automatically dump all of their crap into some kind of moving crate that is stored on the server and yank their house after 30 days of no payments. It's really not that hard to implement if you are building a new game from the ground up.
This method isn't really a "better" way of doing it; it's just a matter of preference. I believe that if you don't log in for a period of time, your housing area and items within should be fair game to the rest of the world. There was no better equalizer than the IDOC system, but that is just my opinion, and I am very well aware that I'm probably in the minority when I say that.

If you have to implement a complex rule system for housing to keep freeing them up, then you're doing it wrong and you didn't plan from the beginning. Instanced housing in the cities, in addition to non-instanced plots in the country, is the way to go.

If you want to talk about older players vs younger players, newer players will have a more difficult time of obtaining and keeping a house under some kind of system where there's upkeep and tasks required. Obtainable housing is/was a huge draw for UO. Start making it difficult to keep a house in UO, and players would leave. There are people who don't login, but pay their $10 or $13 a month to keep their houses. Remove those people from the equation, UO will be canceled due to lack of revenue. Housing could be a huge hook for drawing in and keeping paying customers in Ultimate RPG.
I don't understand how one can perceive a simple upkeep fee as a "complex system which will drive away new players". Simply take it out of the player's bank every week/month -- the process can be done automatically, for all I care. This system isn't just to refresh one's real-estate, it's to provide another gold-sink so that the economy can stay stabilized. Many newer MMOs make the common mistake of providing a plethora of gold "faucets", yet not enough gold "sinks", leaving the economy hyper-inflated with gold having little to no value. I've seen many a game shrink from having a gold-based economy to a trade-based economy because of this.

We all have our take on whether or not instanced housing should be allowed to any degree. Your method of instanced housing in the city vs non-instanced housing in the outer world is, however, very interesting to think about. I cannot help but wonder if the non-instanced houses would be greatly undervalued though, due to the ease of access/protection the city houses would have. Back in Ultima Online, it was considered a pretty nice bonus to have a city by/inside the city guard limits; not only were you protected, but your vendors would often thrive with business because of the location being so near to the bulk of other players. In specific, I can recall the lucky bastards who owned a house by the Britain moongate -- man those guys made a killing selling whatever they had.

I am of the opinion that any sort of instanced housing kind of degrades the system in general. Without land value, there isn't much of a "housing experience" to provide, save for decorating it.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
This method isn't really a "better" way of doing it; it's just a matter of preference. I believe that if you don't log in for a period of time, your housing area and items within should be fair game to the rest of the world.
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I don't understand how one can perceive a simple upkeep fee as a "complex system which will drive away new players".
Sorry, wasn't just addressing you, but some of the other posts in the thread about making things complex or difficult as far as owning a home. I should have made that clear.

I guess it comes down to how you view in-game housing. I've played many MMORPGs, and the vast majority don't have housing, the ones that do, don't match UO's. For me, UO's housing is a kind of a retreat/base/workshop of sorts. You hang out with friends, plan things, work on things, display trophies, etc. Other games that have housing come nowhere near matching the utility of UO's housing. It really is a draw for UO, and anything that makes owning a house difficult reduces the chances of players continuing to play or pay.
This system isn't just to refresh one's real-estate, it's to provide another gold-sink so that the economy can stay stabilized. Many newer MMOs make the common mistake of providing a plethora of gold "faucets", yet not enough gold "sinks", leaving the economy hyper-inflated with gold having little to no value. I've seen many a game shrink from having a gold-based economy to a trade-based economy because of this.
In my view, if you design the game right from the very start, you don't need to worry about artificial gold sinks like rent or anything of that nature. If you say from the start that there are going to be problems and might as well build in gold-sinks, then you should address why there would be a need for such gold sinks to begin with.

To me, that means you look at how gold is coming into the game, and how much is coming in. Besides scripters, that's UO's biggest economic problem - the ease with which gold is created, whether it's farming monsters or selling to NPCs. It's especially troublesome and tricky if we are talking about F2P games, where the tendency is not to create new items (vanity items for instance) to act as gold sinks, but instead to create new items for the cash shop.
Your method of instanced housing in the city vs non-instanced housing in the outer world is, however, very interesting to think about. I cannot help but wonder if the non-instanced houses would be greatly undervalued though, due to the ease of access/protection the city houses would have. Back in Ultima Online, it was considered a pretty nice bonus to have a city by/inside the city guard limits; not only were you protected, but your vendors would often thrive with business because of the location being so near to the bulk of other players. In specific, I can recall the lucky bastards who owned a house by the Britain moongate -- man those guys made a killing selling whatever they had.
It depends on how big the game world is and what solutions are in place for housing. I don't know how big the world of Ultimate RPG will be and how many servers there will be and how many players each can support. If you can design from the outset to have the majority of players on a server have their own houses and be able to build townships on their own, then great.

I've thought about it because I've experienced it, only it was instanced neighborhoods in LOTRO and it just didn't have a community feel about it. I've often wondered as well why World of Warcraft's designers don't have instanced housing within the cities, since they are deliberately driving players to use the cities frequently. That creates a situation where you are running into other players. They have other reasons for doing this, but I've thought it would work well within WOW.
I am of the opinion that any sort of instanced housing kind of degrades the system in general. Without land value, there isn't much of a "housing experience" to provide, save for decorating it.
I agree to an extent, however I've thought it would be really nice at times to be able to live in a city, amongst the NPCs and other players running around, and where all of the surrounding buildings resemble a medieval town.

There really isn't a good solution for that, outside of instanced housing. Take New Magincia for instance - very few people can participate in the system as it is now, it came nowhere close to being what was originally promised - a player-run or player-driven city, and you lose your sense of immersion when you see really crappily designed houses.

When I came back to UO last year, for a brief while, I lived out of my bankbox and in Britain while scouting for a house, and I thought about instanced housing a lot. I would have gladly given up some things to have some kind of instanced housing in amongst the towns.
 

Rhiannon

Sage
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I wanted to add a couple more thoughts here:

I think the housing areas should be safe. It should be possible to have outdoor neighborhood parties without being attacked by PKers or monsters. Home should be a safe haven after a day of adventuring or crafting or whatever you did that day.

Secondly, I wanted to reemphasize how important home ownership is to keep the player in the game. So there needs to be a way for newer players to have a home, even if a very small one like I mentioned in my first post on this subject. I remember having my friend visit my tiny house that had room for two chairs, one chest and that was it. But it was mine. I tried the "living out of the bank box" thing and it just didn't work for me. I had no emotional connection to the world.

You wanna pull me in fast and keep me? Let me quickly earn enough hold for a small home and a dream of working hard to have a big home someday. People just starting out in UO today on the full server have no chance of that. Why would they stay?
 
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Zyon Rockler

Guest
I would Like to see it done mostly the same but remove alot of the problems like floors are to thine stuff comes though from other floors and things on the wall do not always have the room they need. Letting stuff into a home that is way to big and not having a place for your pets to wait out side in the first place.

The way they are set up to let others live with you or allow them space of their own. Like a room and a chest that can be set to them for x amount of time at cost.

The way ppl used any wall tile and built swamp houses or something that was not fitting at all. I would make it so in the borders of said city you could use only typ tile. So homes look fitting to each other.

Farms should be part of houses as to say placing a home aside a farm plot might grant you owner ship. This could be done with small house and large farms or small farms and large houses. So you could get lucky and maybe get both a large farm and house or even just place the house right to own two farms. Depending on rules of placement.

Mills with water wheels depending on how close to a river or docks if you place off the sea. The things you use can make you extra money in the game and be used by workers who help you.

land that is made for houses that can be made bigger never make the land so you can never make it any bigger then a small house. You need to beable to expand as time goes on. So trees roads anything that would stop placement need to be planed well and you have to plan ahead for things that might be added later.

Cities should allow for you to live in rooms or even build small and large homes. I would even allow players to run shops and take profits.

Owning two homes should be something you earn after so many years but you should need to refresh.

I think as long as the player is paying they should get one house and one boat that is taken care of by the system. Only if they stop paying should it begin to decay. Also if they pay and keep the account active it should earn them extra time it will keep the house and boat standing. so after playing a few years you would have a buffer to protect your home and belongings.

I would even set up better store added things to make more money for the game so ppl can add to there homes and make the game better for everyone by adding things. Like paintings plants rugs fire place. I would also have a way to get them in game it would just be easy to buy. So you could add everything almost and just let it up to ppl to ether buy or earn it in game.

How about house pets ,guards,vendors.

Maybe have some cool packs for guild homes ,casinos,auctions,extended farm ,fishing-dock. And the list goes on.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
I think the housing areas should be safe. It should be possible to have outdoor neighborhood parties without being attacked by PKers or monsters. Home should be a safe haven after a day of adventuring or crafting or whatever you did that day.
I think that's a given, when you read Richard Garriott's latest interview he emphasizes the importance of non-combatants and how too many MMORPGs put an emphasis on combat. It would not make much sense for there to be a big emphasis placed on players being able to be crafters or whatever, and then force them into combat at their house.
Secondly, I wanted to reemphasize how important home ownership is to keep the player in the game. So there needs to be a way for newer players to have a home, even if a very small one like I mentioned in my first post on this subject. I remember having my friend visit my tiny house that had room for two chairs, one chest and that was it. But it was mine. I tried the "living out of the bank box" thing and it just didn't work for me. I had no emotional connection to the world.
Exactly. Pull somebody's house if they don't make a monthly payment (sub for UO players), but otherwise, look for ways to get people into houses, not restrict them from owning houses.

Encouraging home ownership is a better path than discouraging home ownership. I know some want to make it difficult to own homes because they want homes to represent their status in the game, and let them have their castles, but leave the other players alone. It should be about making the game better and more immerse, not about stroking somebody's ego.

One of the great things about this is that the devs can design this from the ground up to accommodate the idea of everybody having some kind of housing and building communities within the game.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
I think as long as the player is paying they should get one house and one boat that is taken care of by the system. Only if they stop paying should it begin to decay. Also if they pay and keep the account active it should earn them extra time it will keep the house and boat standing. so after playing a few years you would have a buffer to protect your home and belongings.
I'd rather they just build it into the system that if you stop paying, your belongings go into some kind of crate/container like Dark Age of Camelot. You lose your house, but you don't lose your belongings. When you come back, you go to an NPC to retrieve them. Even though DAOC has a rent system (which I disagree with if you are paying a monthly sub), they got it right on keeping your belongings. I know a lot of UO players who have lost all of their stuff for one reason or another and just walked away as a result, and they would have come back if they hadn't lost them.
 

Rhiannon

Sage
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'd rather they just build it into the system that if you stop paying, your belongings go into some kind of crate/container like Dark Age of Camelot. You lose your house, but you don't lose your belongings. When you come back, you go to an NPC to retrieve them. Even though DAOC has a rent system (which I disagree with if you are paying a monthly sub), they got it right on keeping your belongings. I know a lot of UO players who have lost all of their stuff for one reason or another and just walked away as a result, and they would have come back if they hadn't lost them.
Earlier this year, I went back to UO after a two year hiatus and really got into it. Bought a new house, had a friend give me vendor rental space in Luna (Thanks Andra!!!), setup a shop at my house, and purchased a Britannian ship for my fisher. And that's where I spent most of my play time. I LOVED that ship. Filled the hold with fish to fill deeds. Got my first ever MOBs and had a blast fishing them up. It was awesome. Then I went away for a while (new job, family, no time, etc.). Came back after maybe 3 weeks? Ship was gone. I had paid $13 for something that vanished because I hadn't had the time (or remembrance) to pop in an refresh it. And this isn't a free-to-play game.

I was so angry, I haven't played since. And I probably won't until September when the 15 anniversary comes around.

It's relevant to this conversation because it's important to know why people get mad and quit and prevent that from happening in UPG.
 
P

Pforsthoff

Guest
First I just want to say that Ultima Online was and still is the best MMO ever!

So many things we're perfect about the original game, most importantly it's depth and FUN! There were frustrations but overall it was hard to stop playing and extremely addictive. If I were to try and narrow it down to the single most important thing that made the game great I would say RISK! The one thing that is missing from all MMOs is RISK, you die and there is no consequence, I understand that some people were turned off to losing stuff when they die but while this sometimes sucked it was also what made the game so brilliant. Housing was perfect in UO, I would change very little, I do kind of agree with only having internal customizations but I think limited external customization would be the best. I loved the fact you could have a castle in UO, largest I ever had was a keep but I loved the housing model, the game was so ahead of its time in so many respects. Please let me mention a couple of things that I think ruined MMOs after UO.

  1. The auction house - this is the single most important thing that ruined MMOs, in UO you were forced to travel all over the lands to search for things, reagents, rares, etc.
  2. Instances - completely ruined MMOs, they actually defeat the purpose of MMOs
  3. 3D first person - Hated it, if UO looked like Diablo 3 it would be amazing.
  4. Risk - losing nothing when you die, nothing was more intense then wandering around, mining or exploring and a Red appear and chase you for miles, made you get your running and hiding or fighting skills up.
  5. Please make some servers have full risk like the original UO, if people are that opposed to losing things and being pk'd they can play on the other servers.
Thanks for soliciting feedback from the people who help make the world a success!
 
B

Bombadil

Guest
Those people who think you should have to pay a bunch to keep your house going or have to login once or twice a day and refresh it, my god, people play games to escape reality, not be reminded of real life and rent and bills.
Very good point. Realism is good, but only while it is "fun". Implementing bills and taxes sounds good in theory, but in reality it would be a annoyance. When people play a game, they want to escape to a beautiful new world that isn't associated with the pressure of capitalism and government that currently revolves around us. Everyone will want their little own place, maybe even a shack, but a place where they will want their own little safe haven. By making it too hard to upkeep it the illusion will be ruined. I think there should be some restrictions, maybe house decay or nominal feels for upkeep, but nothing too drastic.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
When people play a game, they want to escape to a beautiful new world that isn't associated with the pressure of capitalism and government that currently revolves around us. Everyone will want their little own place, maybe even a shack, but a place where they will want their own little safe haven. By making it too hard to upkeep it the illusion will be ruined. I think there should be some restrictions, maybe house decay or nominal feels for upkeep, but nothing too drastic.
My restriction would be to make it part of a subscription. If you don't pay for 30 days, your belongings go into some kind of moving crate that you can pick up from an NPC in a town later on or unload in a new house once you subscribe again, and then your house falls.

People may find that bit about the crate odd, but it's something I like with Dark Age of Camelot, and I think more importantly it would help bring people back. With the hardware restrictions of the 1990s and early 2000s gone, almost all MMORPGs save characters, save bank box contents, and it would not be hard to do something that DAOC and others do. When I've taken breaks from UO, I have let houses fall with stuff in them. It didn't really bother me because pixel crack doesn't mean much to me, but it would have been cool to come back to. More importantly, for the people for whom pixel crack does matter, it would be a huge motivation to come back.
 
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H3atmiser

Guest
Very good point. Realism is good, but only while it is "fun". Implementing bills and taxes sounds good in theory, but in reality it would be a annoyance. When people play a game, they want to escape to a beautiful new world that isn't associated with the pressure of capitalism and government that currently revolves around us. Everyone will want their little own place, maybe even a shack, but a place where they will want their own little safe haven. By making it too hard to upkeep it the illusion will be ruined. I think there should be some restrictions, maybe house decay or nominal feels for upkeep, but nothing too drastic.
Meh, I wouldn't mind a billing system at all, if and only if it helped out the game's economy system at all. But I'm probably in the minority, here.
 

Valice Belgraham

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
If you're going to do housing, do it right, don't do it half-assed to where you are having to implement all kinds of rules that discourage people from owning a house. There are plenty of places for adventure and risks in Ultimate RPG. Housing shouldn't be one of them.
Agreed 100%

and it wouldn't even be that hard to implement a system that lets you gain access to owning more house or keeps as you grow as a player in a social world. Owning a house in game should be a fun and enjoyable experience. Heaven forbid if a player has a real life crisis that prevents them playing the game for a year or two, only to come back to a drained account that they might have been playing diligently for 2+ years prior. I didn't have a crisis situation in my life, but i just couldn't play for 5 years after the first 2 years of the game launch due to life. I tried logging back in with my original UO account, and EA's billing system updated so many times that they lost the account, even though I had the original cd jewel case with my account number on it. I knew I had awesome one time only items on that account that i was never able to access, so i never played more then a month after that. I miss the original days of UO so much, and EA bombed that one right into the ground.
 
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Runald Humphrey

Guest
I'd rather see housing and building of player run towns to be a collective project rather than an individual right. I'd prefer to see a game where players are more dependent of each other. Houses should demand labor of various sorts. Not just farming gold in a dungeon.
 

ArturoGurrola

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
I think they should give you a small house with your account (1 per account, not per toon).
That way you can aspire to something bigger and better, but you already own your little piece of land as soon as you come in; ownership is a great thing.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
and it wouldn't even be that hard to implement a system that lets you gain access to owning more house or keeps as you grow as a player in a social world. Owning a house in game should be a fun and enjoyable experience.
It should be fun and enjoyable. Games should not be 100% work, especially persistent worlds - people should have places to wind down and just hang out and chat. If a company is going to try and make housing difficult to own or build for players, then they should just put the resources elsewhere.

Housing can keep people around and help keep a persistent world populated if it's done right.
 
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lil_eddie

Guest
I never used houses in official UO servers, so excuse me if this is how it is, but this is what I think is best:

1) No insanely large houses. I think a house 10x10 is big enough. If you want bigger, go UP not sideways.
2) Clicking on the house sign allows bank access
3) No 'keys'. Access to be given via the house sign by targeting a player to add to the house.
4) Clicking on the house sign gives options to 'lock' an item to the house so it cannot be moved until 'unlocked' via the house sign. If a chest is locked, only those with house access can open it.
5) Allow PvP in a house. This is one the best PvP experiences in a close combat area, if someone manages to follow you in to your house before you shut the door. This makes people think before placing a house in the middle of a popular pvp area.
6) Weekly rent, payable up to 4 weeks in advance, if you do not pay your house vanishes and its contents go in to your bank. Keeps it clean.

As for placing them, a 2 tile space between other houses should be required.

I think in a modern day game, instanced housing areas makes more sense, but I think it ruins the fun of them a bit. You want to live in the real world, with players running past on their journeys. You want Murderer players to walk too close to your town by accident and have 5 members of your town see him and chase the little *@)%^£$^ down.
 
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rareitem

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
We would like to provide as close to the open housing methods that we provided in UO, but perhaps improving the "urban sprawl" issues. We definitely want player towns to be possible and worthwhile. Please give us your opinions and ideas about player housing.

Thanks,
Lord British
I have been playing UO for 11 years and UO housing gave me a lot of fun

The chance to xplore the lands and find a plot that suited my dreamed place.
The chance to show my valuables to others.
The chance to place vendors to sell my loot or my crafted stuff.
The chance to create a neighborhood to meet people anc create a comunity.
The chance to have a secure place to run my bussines.
The chance to have a place to meet with ingame friends.
The chance to have a lot of fun decorating my house.
The chance to see other people houses and enjoy their creativity.
The chance to run any kind of building, hospital, restaurant, church, tavern, smithworkshop, etc, and play a real RPG game.
and many many other great things that I just cant remember now :)


So please dont make an instanced housing system UO housing is great do something similar.

I would just add something like guild strongholds that give bonuses to guild members via teamwork and guild achievements.
 
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Roberto Donnini

Guest
Home, shops and services... all kind of services... why not ... build a museum..... or an art gallery.....or a theater where people can enter and watch other players role an act of something...... build a new world.... a new economy......an home with junks in the garden... or with a dog in order to protect against thieves.......
 
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Lady Jemma

Guest
I am so excited about URPG. I absolutely loved the housing in UO. I would like it to be very similar in the new game. I would like to see house blocks set between roads, parks, ponds, etc and pay extra for the better block positions. I like the idea of purchasing the land. I then would be free to do with it as I please. I would like to be able to go on holidays and not have to work my house was going to fall down though. If I was hospitalized, I wouldn't want to be worrying my house was being looted LOL. I would definitely want to have the house totally customizable. If streets and the like are pre-placed so the house blocks fit perfectly, there wouldn't be any issues getting around or over crowded. I can't wait. Hurry, hurry please I am ready to play now. I find WOW a very inferior alternative.:danceb:
 

snoozer

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
We would like to provide as close to the open housing methods that we provided in UO, but perhaps improving the "urban sprawl" issues. We definitely want player towns to be possible and worthwhile. Please give us your opinions and ideas about player housing.

Thanks,
Lord British
I had just commented on the PvP option post but have some to share for housing as well. Coinciding with my feelings on PvP, housing should remain open. Please don't instance it, or creating housing only areas (like Age of Shadows presented). People enjoy the ability to find that one exclusive place and settle in. I would boat around and find islands with a small stone and plaster and it was just because of its location that the owner would maintain it. Having the little house in the woods or the impromptu guild town in a wide open space gave a fluctuating and ever-changing world map. If cluster housing is viewed as problematic, a simple solution would be making guild towns possible (and customizable / able to be added on to). The biggest thing for housing was the ability to decorate with ANYTHING, people made fishtanks with colored cloth and fish - one of the coolest things was going around seeing everyone's house and things they would do with the basic materials. Other games that attempt to do housing don't allow items to be dropped on the ground (all 3D mmos) so you lose 90% of the housing concept immediately.

Limiting players and number of houses they are able to own. Requiring land deeds or a certain status with the near by town (if applicable) may be an attractive requirement as it will prevent people from making new accounts to get around simple "limit" restrictions. An elegant rearrangement of the economics, mainly gold, and overall accumulation of wealth would prevent housing sprees as well. UO was the symbol of wealth collection and overall status in the electronic world and given the Richard Garriott style, I would imagine its here to stay (as it should) but perhaps altering what determines wealth would lead to a much more robust long term gameplay and bar gold selling and such by default. More over, having less space than what would be appropriate creates a housing market, of course you wouldn't want half of the players to be able to place houses and the rest be left out of the experience but 5-10% gives housing an additional sense of worth.

Ultima Online's weak points from my perspective would be naval capabilities (the sailing was about as plain as it could get, but again players made it into something and it was one thing to do out of nearly an endless list), the fishing, lumberjacking and mining experience, options for ui (note: not strictly enforcing a ui, but allowing players to set up bars if that is what they feel comfortable with), crafting (having something to feel more personal, and give someone a name beyond their numerical skill value), currency management / town structure (ranging from investing to politics), and faction structure (allowing a type of voting or promoting through the ranks to allot faction wealth for various benefits). Of course, this is a hard-light examination of UO's intricate scope, the game was an undisputed masterpiece.

I'd really love to talk to a developer and see where the progress is and possibly elaborate on my economic ideas.
 
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Rhiannon

Sage
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I had just commented on the PvP option post but have some to share for housing as well. Coinciding with my feelings on PvP, housing should remain open. Please don't instance it, or creating housing only areas (like Age of Shadows presented). People enjoy the ability to find that one exclusive place and settle in. I would boat around and find islands with a small stone and plaster and it was just because of its location that the owner would maintain it. Having the little house in the woods or the impromptu guild town in a wide open space gave a fluctuating and ever-changing world map. If cluster housing is viewed as problematic, a simple solution would be making guild towns possible (and customizable / able to be added on to). The biggest thing for housing was the ability to decorate with ANYTHING, people made fishtanks with colored cloth and fish - one of the coolest things was going around seeing everyone's house and things they would do with the basic materials. Other games that attempt to do housing don't allow items to be dropped on the ground (all 3D mmos) so you lose 90% of the housing concept immediately.

Limiting players and number of houses they are able to own. Requiring land deeds or a certain status with the near by town (if applicable) may be an attractive requirement as it will prevent people from making new accounts to get around simple "limit" restrictions. An elegant rearrangement of the economics, mainly gold, and overall accumulation of wealth would prevent housing sprees as well. UO was the symbol of wealth collection and overall status in the electronic world and given the Richard Garriott style, I would imagine its here to stay (as it should) but perhaps altering what determines wealth would lead to a much more robust long term gameplay and bar gold selling and such by default. More over, having less space than what would be appropriate creates a housing market, of course you wouldn't want half of the players to be able to place houses and the rest be left out of the experience but 5-10% gives housing an additional sense of worth.

Ultima Online's weak points from my perspective would be naval capabilities (the sailing was about as plain as it could get, but again players made it into something and it was one thing to do out of nearly an endless list), the fishing, lumberjacking and mining experience, options for ui (note: not strictly enforcing a ui, but allowing players to set up bars if that is what they feel comfortable with), crafting (having something to feel more personal, and give someone a name beyond their numerical skill value), currency management / town structure (ranging from investing to politics), and faction structure (allowing a type of voting or promoting through the ranks to allot faction wealth for various benefits). Of course, this is a hard-light examination of UO's intricate scope, the game was an undisputed masterpiece.

I'd really love to talk to a developer and see where the progress is and possibly elaborate on my economic ideas.
A few of your ideas are good. I'd like to make a few comments on this as well.

First off, I think 99.9% of us are in total agreement that instance housing sucketh. You are right that one of, if not THE unique feature that UO has that people love so much they will keep paying after 15 years for is the housing the the ability to be so amazingly creative with it. I'm always amazed when I look through the housing forums for design ideas at exactly how creative people can be. So if we're looking to make the ideal sandbox MMO, you gotta have custom housing.

You begged to not have housing only areas. I personally think we need one or the other: EITHER have housing only areas OR only town housing. The problem we have now is that because we can't search vendors via the existing mechanics of UO, the easiest way to find what you're looking for is to shop Luna. That leaves the other 95% of the population out in the cold if you want to be a merchant. Prior to Luna, people picked up runes at the bank and/or scoured the countryside looking for good vendors. I DO like the idea of being able to "live in town". I also like the idea of living on the shore of a vast sea. UO is talking about implementing an in-game vendor search system. If that happens, then we have the ideal. People CAN live in the middle of abslutely no where but still get traffic to their vendor. I think it's easy enough if you're in current production design to make it so that houses aren't on top of one another. Put a row of plants that makes the houses far enough apart. Make the world big enough so that all those who want house (who doesn't) can actually find a spot to have one.

The other thing I wanted to comment on is that I think it's been a while since you've played UO. With the High Seas expansion, we now have the ability to have cannons on our HUGE ships and have naval wars. There's also NPC pirates out there to watch out for. There are scores of new fish and fisher quests to get certain kinds of fish and deliver them to various ports. The reason I bring that up in this discussion is again: if we're shooting for the ideal MMORPG, we need to take what's awsome and working from other MMORPGs and incorporate it into the new game. So we need to make sure that the developers are aware and up-to-date with what's going on right now.

The UI for the UO Enhanced Client is a vast improvement over the Classic Client. I have the ability to have short cut menu bars, customize them however I want, one button to completely heal myself, etc. I can move the bars anywhere on my screen. Again, that's what is working for some and something I think the development team needs to look at.

I totally agree that UO is an undisputed masterpiece. From what I've read from RG, he agrees. He just felt it went a few directions that he never intended. Hopefully the new game will GO in that direction and if he's at the helm, it will STAY in that direction.
 

snoozer

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Rhiannon

Housing in towns have been attempted with instancing in large titles which has been terrible, and some in private UO servers. Housing in UO was ultimately a competitive market, this is why crafters and such had drive to create wealth and purchase the houses close by towns for people to run vendor malls / runebook malls. I haven't played on original UO servers since a bit after AoS release because it just got awful. EA had their intentions buying UO and carried them out as so. Aside, my ideas for housing would be restricting near town housing to "land deeds" that would require reputation, status, or some resource vital to that town that would place a different type of access to the near-by "vendor housing". Housing in towns was done on small scale through UO private servers, it turned out to be a nightmare because of its nature. I understand where you're coming from, in similar time periods in reality where you are basically fulfilling the role of a town hand. The private servers handled it by basically 'renting' empty buildings, which in turn gave housing properties to that lot but it didn't do much to add to the game at all and kept players from leaving the town much. To me, in town housing becomes impractical because of volume of demand and boils down to non-competitive markets. House location is part of the placement plan, if you want to place a castle next to a town, you're going to pay for it.. but you're going to have massive business if you choose that route. Also, renting vendor space has always been an attractive reason to purchase housing close to towns if the owner doesn't craft himself. And again, reaching vendors was part of the exploring process, going to the most obscure of locations to find an amazing vendor with great items / rares / prices. You always have the option of marketing yourself, dropping runes or running promotions and allowing people to then mark that vendor location.

The ship core that UO had was kind of terrible, never really had much to it - mainly through navigation.. felt like the 70-80s games; making something a bit more smooth is all I was getting at. Similar to when you were exploring, you felt like you were exploring.. when you were sailing it was just kind of eh.

While I mentioned UI, I think there was something to be learned from throwing new players into a town with next to nothing on their screens, it really set the tone for the game. The greeting was essentially an overview of what to expect from the game; make your own experience. Though I know from personal experience that it was discouraging to some players, but ultimately I don't feel those players would be the type for a UO-esque game. UO, while accommodating a multitude of play-styles, still required that 'curiosity' element for people to drive themselves to learn and get started. So finding that medium would be beneficial to recreating the UO experience.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any notes on design or features other than what's on portalarium's website. I honestly don't have exceedingly high expectations for this project, in terms of being a truthful "Ultima Online 2" because of social media interaction Richard seems to want to integrate. If the whole game's experience is tailored to be equal on mobile (phones, tablets) as on PC, there's no feasible solution as you have a far more simplistic interface design. Most of this will be settled once a screenshot or release of some sort describing the intended camera / graphic style / movement.
 

Vanpry

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I know most people hate instances housing but I think if it is done properly it could be the best option to give people houses without making the world feel like an urban sprawl.

Where all instance housing has gone wrong is they have no point to the area. Your house just sits there for storage.

I think AoC guild city zones was a great idea but they put to much emphasis on guild and not enough on individual player housing. So I'd start with that basic design except make the zones much larger with a couple player cities and a bunch of evil npc castles, cities, towns, forts, caves, etc. The npcs would at some set time raid the player cities and if you were not there to defend your home you would have some additional upkeep costs to repair your home. Players could build walls, hire npc guards, build catapults and all kinds of different defensive. You could go to other player cities and help them defend. You would receive rewards for defending your town and other towns. These zones should scale in difficulty. They could also scale in city size so the solo person could own a village or a guild owns a large city. You could also have pvp zones there there is no npc cities.

There could also be theme type events like a survival event where each city tries to survive as long as the can verses an enemy that can't be defeated.

There could be caravans that travel from player town to player town that could be raided. Protecting these could net you some reward.

If you really make the player city a center piece instead of a storage after thought there are a ton of different things that you can do.
 
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Selurnoraa

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Please no player customized housing. While alot of them were well done a significant portion are terribly done or just barren plots.
 

Eternal Wyvern

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Hello Lord British,

I am a big fan of UO as a player and shard developer. I studied civil engineering in real life which would explain my recommendation below:

I love UO for the multiple professions that are offered. My recommendation for housing would be to add a new profession that would increase the social experience of the game, landscaping/urban planning. Those who choose that path would be able to buy large territories and create roads and designate lots that people may buy to place their houses. This would allow for neater communities, and prevent many of the UO concerns. The method would still give player freedom but would be limited to the profession. During the time when I created my UO shard I built hundreds of new houses. Allowing players to create/ submit a design through some player ran filtering system would allow creativity from players and unique player designed towns/communities.

The landscaping idea would not be hard to implement and would eliminate many concerns.

The player designed housing system would be harder but with a well designed filtering system it is possible and would be a great addition to Ultimate RPG.

Thank you in advance for reading and considering my recommendations.
 

Kirthag

Former Stratics Publisher
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
As a long time gamer (D&D since the late 70's, MUDs, and now MMOs - king of which and my true love being UO), one of the key features of getting players to keep coming back is to give them a sense of ownership - that they somehow affect how the game is run, develops and in the end, is played.

UO attained greatness with player housing. It served the purpose of giving players the ownership necessary to have them log in consistently and even create more paid accounts regardless of consistent reverts, PK-ing, buggy setbacks, thieves, growing pains, bad story arcs, RL cross-overs and more. It kills many who become addicted to the pixels when those pixels "disappear" - be it by house decay or some other mishap - and UO has pandered to the collective by grandfathering, auto-locking, setting housing preferences that take away from the (dare I say it) reality & risk of ownership.

Put that risk of ownership back into the formula and that will once again bring a rise to any game. Rather than having a bunch of homeless setting up tents on the street of the city, I'm akin to a bit of urban leasing as well as mortgaging properties within the game. AHA! Reality again!

Below is a section of an outline I made for shard development and some of which I actually dinkered around on within a shard I set up on one of my own computers. No, I didn't host... but I love building things. :) This is only a section of the entire outline so some things reference other systems/feature sets. Yes, I am a software & website developer (ecommerce).

Some of this may have been mentioned before - but I am late to coming into this thread (just found it today) so please, if there is a repeat, don'g bash me for it. :)

  • Player owned properties
    • Reinstate the use of keys
      • keys cannot be transferred or lost (blessed items)
      • give thieves a chance to break into a property and perhaps steal something? (higher the skill, the better chance of breaking in)
      • The chance of success for thieves is greater in rural locations than it is in suburban, and is extremely tough in urban areas
      • properties that are paying taxes are almost impossible to break into (security is better)
      • taxed & mortgaged properties cannot be broken into (extreme security provided by the bank)
      • Risk of Ownership!
      • Could also lead into more actual role playing opportunities as players can work as guards for security purposes
    • Instill property taxes based on property type (to use in place of property upkeep) which will keep property from decay SO LONG as player account is active.
      • taxation provides the following benefits to urban & suburban properties:
        • increased protection from thievery
        • no decay of property
        • player automatically gains "landlord/lady" citizenship with special title to display if they wish it
        • urban property owner
          • has voting status in city improvement decisions
          • free attendance to any city & suburban event (another idea drummed up for balls, parties, fairs where players pay to attend and get special prizes gifts - that falls under an Events Outline I have as well)
          • Can "paint" and do limited decoration on outside of building within X number of squares
        • suburban property owner
          • has voting status in suburban improvement decisions
          • discounted attendance to any city event, free attendance to any suburban event
          • can paint and do limited decoration on outside of building within X number of squares
      • If a player's account goes inactive for XX period, then housing decay begins
      • taxes automatically comes out of bank, but players may pay it forward if they wish by visiting mortgage broker at the bank
      • if bank doesn't have enough gold for taxes, player has 15 days to bring balance back up to cover taxes or decay sets in and security lowers
      • if taxes are not paid with 30 days, player loses the option completely and property goes into non-taxed status falling under the non-taxed rule set
      • if taxes are not paid with 60 days, player totally loses the option to have the added benefits that comes from taxation
    • If a player opts to NOT pay taxes, they must upkeep their property on their own to prevent decay
      • option at time of property purchase to opt-in for taxation
      • if taxation is not chosen with 60 days, player totally loses the option to have the added benefits that comes from taxation
    • Multi-house ruleset
      • depending upon the type & location of property owned, players may have secondary properties
      • Of course, this is available ONLY to those with the gold... (see more within outline for the balance)
      • players CANNOT have houses on multiple shards - they must choose one shard for housing
    • Mortgage System
      • Players may "borrow" from banks to help purchase properties in Urban or Suburban locations to help develop those areas ONLY if they pay taxes. No taxes, no mortgage!
        • Yes, you must already own a property to get a mortgage
      • Rural area properties cannot be mortgaged
      • Depending upon size of property is how much can be borrowed (no full-price mortgages)
      • mortgage term maximum should equate to the size/type of property being purchased
      • players may only have 1 mortgage at a time
      • players may re-mortgage property for new development/expansion
      • should a mortgage fall into default, property decay will commence regardless of taxation status
      • player has 30 days to catch up on mortgage payments
      • if mortgage payments are not caught up within 30 days, the house falls & all contents will be dropped on the ground for anyone to grab (risk of ownership)
  • Urban Property Development
    • Set plots within urban areas can be purchased
      • Usage of plot must be stipulated at time of purchase
        • Primary Residence, Rental (Apartments only), Player Guild Hall, Commercial (includes vendors and/or crafters)
        • Use of plot within urban areas will be checked - if misuse occurs, owner is penalized; ie: primary residence being used as apartments, commercial property being used as guild hall, etc. (and this gets more into other game systems I can write forever about such as law enforcement, prison system, BOUNTY system, etc.)
    • Newbies get to stay at a "shelter" during their initial training period. When they reach a certain level of skill, they get booted (as they should be able to pay their own way) and must find apartments
    • Staying at an inn is okay, but should only be a temporary (and slightly expensive) solution.
      • Rooms within an inn allow for a certain amount of storage within provides chests/wardrobes/desks (depending on suite size)
    • Apartments can be leased based on character needs/desire/revenue
      • NPC Guild apartments, similar to the YMCA
        • discounted rents, only slightly better than the inn
        • limited decorating ability
        • No vendors
      • City-owned apartments, similar to project housing
        • slightly higher rents with more storage and limited decorating ability
        • No vendors
      • NPC owned apartment buildings
        • rents are higher, apartments are bare
        • full decorating ability INSIDE the apartment, but cannot change layout/floorplan
        • storage capacity dependent on the size of the apartment
        • No vendors
      • Player owned apartment buildings
        • Most likely owned by the very rich (can we say gold-sink) or even an entire Player Guild
        • Fees paid to city by the owner to balance the income (property taxes)
        • Rents to Player Occupants are stipulated by the Owner (free market)
        • Owner can expand/change apartment layouts and even add floors ONLY if building is unoccupied
        • Occupants can decorate inside the apartment
        • storage capacity dependent on the size of the apartment
        • Owner may place only 1 vendor on the bottom floor of the apartment building (ie: lobby gift shop?)
        • Owner may have one other residence OUTSIDE of the city limits as a primary residence
    • Commercial
      • one word: Luna
      • Unlimited vendor count (or maybe limit the number of vendors?)
      • Vendor rental deeds can be used (unlimited?)
      • owners can have one other residence OUTSIDE of the city limits as primary residence
    • Primary Residence (within city)
      • Owner must live in the house and this will be the ONLY house on the account
      • Limited commercial activity (only 1 vendor, no vendor rentals)
      • similar to current UO housing rule set, but add on urban property taxes
    • Player Guild Hall
      • ownership is by the guild and must list 3 different players (read-by account) as co-owners
      • co-owners can have another residence OUTSIDE of the city limits as primary residence
      • guilds pay less property taxes than residential or apartment owners
      • guild members are allowed free access (guild flag check)
      • non-guild members must have key or password, or must be able to break in (thief)
      • Guild members may have vendors within the hall for free (1 per player)
      • guild may have a set number of vendor rental stalls (for alliances/friends of the guild?)
  • Suburban Property Development
    • Housing outside of city limits, but still with guard zones
    • Property use includes:
      • Primary Residence
        • Owner may have 1 other building within city limits
        • limit 2 vendors (no rental deeds)
      • Agricultural
        • For the farmers
        • at least 40% of the property must be used for farming type of activities
        • This gets into a whole farming feature set which includes plants, livestock and horse breeding as well as creature breeding
          (imagine, a special line of nightmares from a particular breeder that has the ability to train over the standard limits!)
      • Commercial
        • Mini-malls
        • Vendor limits
      • Player Guild Hall
        • similar rules to urban
  • Rural Properties
    • Players may only own 1 property and is limited in use to:
      • Primary Residence
        • Limited to 4 vendors
        • no taxation or mortgage ability (too high of a risk for the city to invest in - UNLESS becomes part of a township)
      • Agricultural
        • at least 25% of the property must be used for farming type of activities
      • Guild Hall
        • Managers of property default to Guild Leader, Guild Second, Guild Treasurer (see outline of Guild Feature Set)
        • similar rules to suburban, but no option for taxation or mortgages UNLESS becomes part of a township
    • Limit number of vendors
    • similar to how housing is done in UO now, but add in security levels, keyed access and limit size of development
      • perhaps use current housing system in place?
      • custom houses limited to 13x13 size
    • NO APARTMENTS
    • Several Rural properties within a certain proximity of each other may apply to the nearest city for township status
      • typically a guild area
      • see Township outline
  • Townships
    • several owners (typically a guild or guild alliances) with properties within a specified distance of each other may apply for Township Status from the nearest city/district (vote by city & suburban land owners)
    • Once a township is approved, GMs will stipulate boundaries with markers (colored stone?)
      • Township area receives limited guard protection
      • Taxation is available at a lower rate than suburban and only provides for added protection against decay, not thievery
      • Mortgages are NOT available to Townships
      • Townships cannot have Apartment rentals
      • Properties within a township may decorate within X number of tiles outside of properties provided egress around the property is not hampered
    • Area within the township may be customized within a 30 day period with limitations
      • static map items cannot be removed
      • all egress in and out of the township cannot be hampered
        • at least 2 ways of egress into and out of the township is required
      • a common area may be designed in a "sandbox" area (Green Acres?) and once approved can be setup and locked by GMs
      • fencing around the township can be requested so long as egress rule is followed
      • a "fort" township will fall under predetermined design at GMs discretion
        • no traffic blocking gates are allowed
        • gates can be used, but never locked
      • Any and all customization will be paid for by the township at NPC prices
        • specialty decor must be applied for and approved at GM discretion
        • specialty decor will be paid for by township
    • Township leadership (mayor, treasurer, etc) will be voted upon (similar to factions?)
    • Townships must pay taxes to city (taxes collected from township members + 5%)
    • Townships may lose their status within a year by city vote
      • yes, politics do apply here
      • townships are in trail status for 1 year
      • at the end of the year, the city & suburban land owners will be asked to vote for the township's permanent status
      • if no vote is given, townships will stay in trail status for another year
      • township growth cannot take place until in permanent status
    • Township Growth must be approved by city vote (that means by city & suburban residents)
      • Townships may "grow" (add more buildings into the township) only on their anniversary date (once a year)
      • Township growth must be voted on by all members of the township
      • new properties to be added into the township must opt-in to be part of the township
      • invites to new township members can be acquired through the year
There's a whole lot more, but this post is rather long already... I have a lot of ideas.... :)
 

Krellian

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Would it be possible to have areas of the world actually physically expand the terrain in response to housing being placed to accommodate an increase of housing in the area? On that note, with a dynamic terrain, you could even have it respond to natural disasters, severe blizzards, hurricanes, etc. with flooding effects, fault lines opening up, volcanoes...

I know UO (and many others) had an extremely static terrain that was a nightmare to change but, maybe a more dynamic terrain would be fitting, more interesting than instanced solutions.
 

Krellian

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
We would like to provide as close to the open housing methods that we provided in UO, but perhaps improving the "urban sprawl" issues. We definitely want player towns to be possible and worthwhile. Please give us your opinions and ideas about player housing.

Thanks,
Lord British
Actually it just occurred to me - a game that doesn't have housing problems (it's in a different genre, and doesn't have any pvp or pve at all, it's strictly an economic game) is called "A Tale in the Desert" -- this is mainly because of their enormous map. (your entire map doesn't have to have unique facets to it's environment, so long as you can get players to the interesting ones relatively easy) I think it's worth looking at for ideas.

Players can build quite a lot of housing and not cause a dent in the free space of the world. They can also grow crops, chop trees totally down (they regrow), etc. Gives a whole new purpose to the idea of a moongate too.
 
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