Move house instancing to exterior

[SXTC]

Current issues:

Entering housing takes loading time so some people with slower connections that don't see a reason to enter will avoid going inside.

Houses have max item slots which for the large houses is still a bit too low, especially for the garden.

My suggested fix:

Move the instancing load to the garden/plot. Every time someone exits a duty they'd simply return to the front of the house like was already the case.
In this situation the slots and items (exterior & interior) will be shared and can be used everywhere on the plot. No more loading time means members are more likely to enter houses.

Since people might avoid getting on other people's plots due to the load time, you could tempt them to load it anyway by showing a clear number above each plot sign showing the amount of players currently on the plot. People who are looking for active FC's or simply someone to socialize with may find their way to you this way.

I realize this suggestion makes it more difficult to get to the market since you'd automatically get loaded into the housing instance and technically since the house and garden would now be 1 instance you'd have to load to get outside, so I suggest adding an option that allows you to teleport to the closes marketboard (free of charge).

Friends would ofcourse still be able to use the "teleport to private or FC house" but would teleport directly on the plot.
And I guess I don't need to mention that this option would allow you to place windows that allow you to see whoever walks outside the house in real time (as long as they are in the garden).

[SXTC]

Whats your opinion on this?

[tdb]

What would you show on the yard when looking at it from the street? And what about nearby houses when you're in the instanced yard? It seems to not be easy to share data between two different zones, since this is the reason given for why we can't enter the balconies of large houses. Would people just disappear from view as soon as cross the yard entrance?

[ItMe]

Current issues:

Entering housing takes loading time so some people with slower connections that don't see a reason to enter will avoid going inside.

Whats your opinion on this?

If your connection is sl bad you avoid going in houses maybe you shouldn't be playing an instance based game.
Do you, like... avoid doing duties too?

And wouldn't making the entire house (inside and outside) into 1 larger load zone just exacerbate your problem?

[Jojoya]

If your connection is sl bad you avoid going in houses maybe you shouldn't be playing an instance based game.
Do you, like... avoid doing duties too?

And wouldn't making the entire house (inside and outside) into 1 larger load zone just exacerbate your problem?

The problem isn't really the instances. Most instances have a static set of assets being loaded with most of the information already contained on the local client so the game only needs to communicate the few variables, like the other party members.

The problem for housing is the player customization of the wards. All the items chosen by players and their positions need to be communicated to the local client for display in addition to the other variables like players who are present in the ward.

With the current item limits in place, load times should improve substantially if the player is being loaded into the full plot instance instead of the ward since there would no longer be a need to communicate all the items placed in the ward then the local graphics engine needs to actually load the items that should be within normal view distance for display. You're looking at 234 items (furnishings plus fixtures) for a small plot, 347 items for a medium plot and 458 items for a large plot versus 970 items in the current wards. If item limits were increased substantially, then it would remain a problem.

[not_ya_wify]

I'm against this. This would basically turn neighborhoods into apartments and eliminate foot traffic. Having random visitors is the whole point of owning a house over an apartment to me.