The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Kydi]

Housing is a concern for anyone just joining the game.

Myself and several other friends from other MMOs have just joined the game on a busy server. We have a FC now, but our only way of getting a house will be to purchase one from someone else at an inordinate amount of money.

My suggestion, expand on Airships. Rather than gate behind FC crafting, allow purchase of an instanced airship. It could be limited in terms of decoration - for instance a general bridge area inside and personal rooms for individual FC members at low cost. Chocobo stables could be made available through purchasing an additional room in the airship, as could gardening plots etc. I'm envisaging this to be the sort of size of the Tantalus airship in FF9. It would be accessed through the Airship Landing of each major city, or could otherwise be teleported to using an Aetheryte as with a house. In terms of size, it would only ever be a similar sort of size to a medium house if everything was unlocked - an officers room and bridge deck (for everyone), an exterior deck and a cargo bay or something like that. Chocobo stables would go in the cargo bay and gardening on the deck. Set the cost to ~20m gil or so for the basic, and charge 5m gil per extra room. Personal rooms would be same cost as in a house (300k gil?).

It would open up a social area to newer Free Companies, wouldn't devalue having a house as they would still be exclusive and the only permanent areas for FCs and solve the housing crisis (IMO) in one.

[Waeksyn]

Instanced housing could be as varied and exciting as development budget will allow. Think of having 20+ different options (for different prices) when you purchase your instanced home - each with different building design, overall landscape theme and amenities (garden plots, stables, etc). They could feed into a "lobby" area that has things like MB and bell and housing related NPCs (things that you need to leave your current house to access in the wards now) to preserve a "community" gathering place.


The only thing that would be missing is the ability to show off your house to the general public and even that could be included (I'm thinking the ability to set "open house" to invite the public to tour your house, or to restrict access to those in your party, FC, LS, etc.). I think that would be a fair trade-off to enable EVERYONE that pays a subscription to have access to housing and all of the content that is gated behind housing (gardening, stables, workshop, airship ventures, etc).

[Makeda]

Instanced housing

The only thing that would be missing is the ability to show off your house to the general public and even that could be included (I'm thinking the ability to set "open house" to invite the public to tour your house, or to restrict access to those in your party, FC, LS, etc.). I think that would be a fair trade-off to enable EVERYONE that pays a subscription to have access to housing and all of the content that is gated behind housing (gardening, stables, workshop, airship ventures, etc).

That is what Wildstar does. You csn set access to private, friends, neighbors, or public.
Neighbors is determined in some method I'm not knowledgeable on.

Everyone gets a plot at level 14 (of 50), for free, and you have to buy the building, furniture, trees/landscaping. But the basic buildings are cheap.

[Makeda]

"Instanced" housing will *never* be worth what I paid for my house, "refund" or no. "Instanced" plots would all have the same look and view, to save on server stress and resources, with no individuality save for the building and minor landscaping. "Instanced" housing has no neighborhood feel.

Obviously tou never played Wilsstar.
Hint: the housing deaign community is larger than the raiding community. Tthere is a crafting profession that makes furniture and its the only still valuable profession (they failed to boost crafting in their tier bumps, but everyone needs a chair and new walls).

People make custom houses, gardens, even recreations of starship bridges and etc.

Housing contests and showings are a huge scene there.

And the upcoming patch will add instanced neighborhoods.

You are thinking EQ2. The difference is 10 years of MMO history.

[Bishop81]

If some people just want a house to have it "seen" for a strange form of epeen boost or arousal lol then thats a totally personal issue that needs some counselling imo. Theres being proud then there's...just plain being odd.

Ha!

Trove (as I said probably apple vs oranges) allow you to do just that though - show off your house I mean.

While the plots where you can put your house down are "fixed", your house is portable.

One of the most common spots are plots around the hub island (one of its many copies anyway; i.e. it's instanced, once it has reach it population limit, a new instance is spawned for incoming players logging in) as it's one of the few places where Shadow Invaders won't spawn to interrupt your AFKing or fishing.

Other players occasionally drop in to check out your place, use your work benches, refill their potions (it's free and unlimited) or just to try to disturb you while you are fishing. -_-

I personally have seen some pretty crazy designs - including pixel art. For most part it's actually something you can show off, since you built it vs using something pre-made - kind of like showing off a costume you made yourself vs showing off a store-bought one.

[JediShecky]

Just make personal Housing instanced. Like both Wildstar and Everquest 2 do.
- There's a new MMO and a very old MMO - both having found a working solution. Compare them to see how a decade changes the concept, but keeps the basic notion in tact.

I loved the instanced housing in EQ2. Huge houses, tons of furniture, vendors and being able to convert quest items so they can be displayed in your home was very cool too.

[Bishop81]

On a side note, housing for the masses is something they need to get working ASAP.

It's one of the few avenues where players can flex their creativity instead of just "doing content" (i.e. run errands demanded of you by NPCs) - which either runs out pretty quick as players will clear content faster than developers can make it or it gets dragged out into a boring grind (and some players just say "Screw this, man." and throw in the towel; i.e. they have nothing to do again).

PS: Content driven MMOs are IMHO unsustainable gameplay-wise. There will always be frequent content droughts. Developers IMO should not be creating the "paintings" but instead the "brushes and paints", i.e. the tools. Provide a well equipped playground for players to play in.

[Dante_V]

They should def instance personal housing but that's a moot point now, it never should have been added in the first place (as it is now) honestly. That was where they messed up big time.

[Waeksyn]

They should def instance personal housing but that's a moot point now, it never should have been added in the first place (as it is now) honestly. That was where they messed up big time.

Its not really a moot point. SE has the ability to fix this by designing a new, personal housing system that is instanced and able to handle everyone. Combine that with a clean way for folks to move their existing house into this system in order to free up ward space for FC houses and you're all set.

SE is throwing good money after bad by trying to make their current system work by tweaking here and there. Time to admit defeat and provide a real option.

PS, thank you for using the word "moot" instead of "mute".

[ApolloGenX]

The solution: We pay a subscription and they should have decent infrastructure to support game play. Period.

The excuse "server capacity" is completely unacceptable in a pay 2 play game. SE's lack of foresight or investment is unacceptable.