Justice System and Housing Update!

rioinsigniab16_ESO

Sakiri wrote: »

crowfl56 wrote: »

player housing is a complete waste of time, and always has been. Make the bank system realistic and useable.

Wouldn't need a better banking system if they put housing with containers in.

Also, waiting 2 years for housing is unacceptable. Sorry ZOS. Get working on it. Should have been in at launch.

Agreed. In Skyrim you didn't store items in a bank. The restriction on bag space encouraged players to buy a house and store their items in there. Items that they wanted to keep either for aesthetic reasons, or practical ones.

Skyrim had not one, but TWO forms of housing system. And given how popular the game and its expansions where, I'm quite baffled as to how Zeni think it's only a good idea to implement years after launch.

To me, that's a lost opportunity in the making.

For the last decade or so, SOE has been making strides in creating situations were "emergent" gameplay is at the core of their designs. That's the sort of gameplay that can help keep players playing the games.

Zeni should be learning from history. Not making the same mistakes as certain blinkered companies (I'm looking at you Bioware)

Sakiri

The only thing I really miss about EQ2 was the housing. Combat and such was a lot like other MMOs and kinda meh means to an end but I really did like the housing.

Of course, I can't go back. Just doesn't feel right anymore since I quit in 2012.

rioinsigniab16_ESO

Sakiri wrote: »

The only thing I really miss about EQ2 was the housing. Combat and such was a lot like other MMOs and kinda meh means to an end but I really did like the housing.

Of course, I can't go back. Just doesn't feel right anymore since I quit in 2012.

There's plenty of inspiration for Zeni to pull from. From MMO's (SWG, EQ2, Wildstar, etc, etc) to single player games.

Skyrim AND Fallout 3 had housing for cripes sake:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/My_Megaton_house

This is one of those /facepalm moments that I can't make my mind up which is the actual truth: Have Zeni just made up a feeble excuse because they don't have the time to do it, or that they TRUELY believe that it's best to wait for a few years?

kccaine

This is my first elder scrolls game, so I can't compare to other games. In terms of player housing, if it isn't highly customizable and beneficial to creating an immersed community (player cities, vendors in houses, etc) it will be lackluster. I have yet to see a player housing model that was as superior as Star Wars Galaxies.

Justice system sounds like a neat addition. I don't know the details, but would that include bounty hunting?

Vendersleigh

curlyqloub14_ESO wrote: »

Player housing is completely useless, except to "show off" as some people have mentioned. If you like to build things and spend hours arranging your pixels, go play a sim game. Want to roleplay and have "parties" where you sit there staring at each other's pixels and /emoting back and forth? Go play Second Life. Want to be the "mayor" of your pixel town? Go check in on FourSquare or Farmville or whatever those ridiculous FB games are. Want to "show off" your pixel trophies to your friends? Grow up, this isn't 2nd grade, we don't have show and tell anymore. No one cares about your trophies.

Not to mention the valid and significant questions/concerns that could arise with player housing, which @Catches_the_Sun already mentioned just a few posts above.

.

Nor are we 8 year olds running round going "pew pew" and arguing if our shot killed another person. That is in essence what PvP is .

You argue for people to be tolerant then insult those of us that choose to play differently to yourself.

I do not PvP and I tolerate questing only as a way to fill time between the content that I create for myself: roleplay and to a lesser extent crafting and exploration. Yet I recognise as valid the desires to PvP or PvE.

I created a great deal of content in SWG for thousands of players over the years, drawing in also PvPers and non-RPers who did not think they enjoyed RP but did enjoy the events myself and others created, like races, fishing tournaments, dance-offs, space combat competitions, bases erected to fight over, etc.

Housing is something that creates "stickability". PvPers and those that finish the quests then moan what to do next tend not to stay in a game as long as those who are more invested in the world, almost literally, through their creations (housing and events) and the social connections they build.

So please try to practise what you preach and be tolerant to the other ways people have of enjoying MMORPGs .

Vendersleigh

rioinsigniab16_ESO wrote: »

"it's one of those things that when you have a game that's been running a long time"

WS has housing at launch.
EQ2 had housing at launch.
SWG had housing at launch (iirc).
Plus others.

In each game, housing was well received and enjoyed.

To put housing "on the back burner" is a boneheaded move, because housing can be a MAJOR factor that keeps people playing the game. Why? Because if people can decorate their houses with items they get from the game, that gives them one more reason to go out and hunt for those items they covet. Whether they are crafted or drops, easy to get or hard to acquire.

It doesn't have to be "different". It just has to be implemented well.
Take Skyrim's housing (both the original version, and the expansion). To me, those are perfect foundations on which to draw inspiration. You could have city/town based instanced housing, as well as highly sought after "plots" of land in the game world on which to build.

The above is what I posted on massively.com's article regarding the interview.

The average "shelf life" of an MMO that relies almost exclusively on combat and quest is getting shorter and shorter with each new release. TESO has gotten a lot of flak over the last few months. Some for appearing too "samey" and "mediocre" and others for straying too far from the Elder Scrolls formula. And whilst I don't completely agree with all such criticisms, nevertheless I do think that the devs have only a small window of opportunity to set TESO aside from the pack post-launch and onto greater potential.

Zeni, don't be stupid. You need to work FAST and get these kind of "emergent" gameplay activities into the game as quickly as possible if it is to stand a chance at keeping hold of a decent sized playerbase, and possibly prevent itself from falling into the F2P trap.

Yes, combat alone does not keep people playing a game. Social interaction does, along with a growing sense of achievement and feeling of being invested in a game, that is most easily provided by housing.

rynth

I like what Vendersleigh just said about stickability.

If you play as fast and as hard as you can to finish the game and lvl up to where you can't go any higher so quickly then what do you think is going to happen???? No MMO can ever dish out continuous content to keep up with the speed of players lvling and finishing all game quests/content. And all you preachers of doom aren't you guys kinda putting the horse before the cart. The game is only two months old. I think you guys mistake mmo's for single player type games. MMO's develop slow to a medium pace not all at once at the same time.

So relax take a deep breath....Remember the two bulls: Dad bull and a son bull sit atop a hill over looking pasture of cows. Son bull says to Dad "lets us run down there and **** us a cow". Dad bull looks to his son and says "slow down son, lets walk down there and **** them all." (movie colors).

zaria

TheBull wrote: »

I would choose the justice system, w/o a doubt. Housing is way overrated. If it wasn't people would be going nuts over Landmark. I think the people who demand housing is even smaller than the RP only community.

I thought player built fortresses was the big thing in landmarks, imagine building your own resource node in Cyrodil or taking one from the enemy.

Player housing is nice but after 15 minutes its just extra storage space and perhaps some nice features.

As for the justice system, as I understand its an requirement for thief guild / DB to work. And yes its an far larger update to the core game than the current update.

Still I'm a bit disappointment it will not come sooner, yes I expect the next update to be smaller some dungeons, perhaps an new trial and some extra features on top.

Avidus

I love it, so many people are saying, nope I wont stick around that long for that content, I should already have it..
Get real, that is stupidity at its finest.
This game needs to churn out content in order to keep people invested in it.
Otherwise they add everything and make the perfect game and you rush through it in 2 months and claim there is nothing to do.
That is that the MMO community does, its how they work.
So you then bring out lore destroying, poorly planned and terrible expansions like WoW, and you charge people for them.

Note, no ZoS member ever said you would pay for expansions.
So do make that assumption.
Next in line, they are bringing out content as per their promised timeline, this is a good thing.

And here is a good thing to remember "I wont play for that long"
Right, but you probably will, and if you don't?
Then why should they rush out poorly made content to try to kiss-ass somebody who does not want to even play the game?

You would think that after your constantly whinging and complaining every day about bugs and bots and whatever the hell else you think is a problem that they are going to be extra sure that this initial error they made that made your butt so sore does not happen again.

Sarcoth

The last couple of games I played provided me with no interest for player housing. The only way I will use player housing is if they allow us to store more goods, have access to the bank from our house, have access to crafting stations (via upgrades would be fine), have the ability to sell items to the public from our house (like a store), and allow us to upgrade the housing.

One of my least favorite things about housing is sometimes property is too expensive. If I purchase the cheapest plot, I then have to sell it later to get something better. Instead, allow everyone to start off with the lowest form of housing and be given the option to upgrade it when we can afford to do so.

Catches_the_Sun

Sakiri wrote: »

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

While I'm a huge fan of the idea of player housing, I am extremely nervous of the potential negative impact that it can have if not implemented correctly. With us playing on a megaserver, this means housing would certainly have to be instanced. This brings up a host of questions, such as:

How do we determine who is in the same housing instance? The could provide different instances in the same way that they do campaigns, where you could "join" a housing instance & look for your plot of land within.

How do you implement instanced housing without negative impact on in-game community? Towns feel alive...how do you implement housing without making the existing towns feel dead?

What compelling reason do we have to NEED housing? If the answers to this question are increased storage space or owning your own crafting stations, I'm concerned as to how this would effect overall balance of the game & the community. I enjoy the towns feeling alive right now...what happens to that feeling of full, alive towns when everybody is crafting in their instanced homes?

Instanced housing.

Done.

You don't build your houses in EQ2. You click on a door or a portal(to some of the fancier islands and whatnot) and either go to yours or pick from a list and go to someone else's.

And how does that add to socialization? I played EQ2 with it's instanced housing...which is the LAST thing ESO needs. That is exactly the type of system I'm afraid of.

Blackwidow

crowfl56 wrote: »

player housing is a complete waste of time, and always has been. Make the bank system realistic and useable.

QFT.

Especially if housing is not going to be here for at least two years. (probably 5 years if ever)

Audigy

Housing is the most requested feature by the forum crowds, they cant shift it back for two years.

It would be a major disappointment for many ES and MMO fans.

You also have to question what content updates they do in future if not DB, Thieves guild and housing. They always said they don't focus on raid content alone, but on wild spread content for all types of players, so I honestly don't believe that the interview is authentic.

epoling

I wish housing were coming sooner, but hope for a good and unique system for it. I enjoy getting everything just the way I want it. In EQ2,some of the bigger ones actually encourage the player to build their own homes. Our guild then has home shows, decorating contests, etc. There is a lot that can be done with a robust housing system that encourages socializing and continuing interest in the game.

On the other hand, personally, I have never experienced the justice system in Elder Scrolls games or played either of the two evil guilds. I tend to be a good, moral person in real life and see no reason to stray in my game play. However, if others want to, that is fine - not saying they shouldn't be allowed to. Just not a feature I care about. (While I do not understand the desire to play a thief, assassin, vampire, werewolf or other evil option as long as you don't turn around and start doing those things in real life all I can say is "have fun at it!!")

Beretic

This is just a ploy to draw attention away from obvious broken mechanics for the class of NB. FIX the class.

ChairGraveyard

Personally I wish they'd had the justice system and Dark Brotherhood/Thieves' Guild as the first major content patch.

Instead they catered to the game-hopper/content locust crowd by doing Craglorn. The game-hoppers have probably already left anyway, and even if they haven't, they won't be waiting another whole month or two for the next max-level update, anyway.

Catering to content locusts (i.e., the types that just exploit to max level on day one, then whine that there's no content) is a failing business model - it ignores 99% of your player base, and the people it caters to don't actually care about it, and will never be satisfied with it.

But I'm just crazy, thinking that adding content to the *entire game* is better than catering solely to game-hopper content locusts and adding a smidgeon of content only at max level.

For the record, too, I am VR. I still would rather have the justice system/DB/Thieves' Guild, because it adds new gameplay across the ENTIRE game, for ALL players, and isn't just about appeasing a whiny vocal minority of game-hopper content locusts that exploited to max level in one day.

Nazon_Katts

If housing is still away two years, I expect doing it right means full player buildable towns and keeps, a municipal and political system and guild vs guild warfare to raze and raid what others have built. Nothing less.

randomriffyrocksprerb18_ESO

I hope were getting our own planes of Oblivion for housing, since building houses on the actual world of Tamriel would be stupid. Imagine the place chuck full of houses, unless its instanced that is...

Moonchilde

To use an example, City of Heroes was a very successful MMO that was still making money when NCSOFT yanked it (for non financial reasons, won't get into that here). They had guild bases which were very successful and encouraged player interaction in terms of design, base warfare, and base alliances. You could set your base to PvP mode and schedule raids - the winning group took resources for their own base, and the losing group had to fund repairs. That is a PvP, crafting, RP, and economy feature.

They had no gold seller issues because they made it possible for any player to earn enough currency to cover costs - respecs were easy, you could run a mission to get a respec token as often as you wanted.

The main benefit of a player base in that game was pure practicality - you could build and install teleporters to any zone you had the markers for. That meant that a well established group with a good base had a travel advantage, which is significant as an MMO grows in content, and the world gets so big that it helps save you a lot of time.

In ESO, you have a wayshrine every 20 paces or so, and that is useful for places you have been before. But if you haven't, you can't cross multiple zones to participate in guild events. If future expansions exist in regions you cannot wayshrine to, then a guild teleport feature becomes invaluable. In this case, it would be Oblivion gates.

The same could be said for guild house crafting stations. If you are in the middle of a zone with a full pack, if you could summon your guild Oblivion portal and appear in a crafting room to break stuff down and bank.. then port back to the spot you left, would that not be advantageous?

Just a few thoughts on this - its hard to judge the value of a feature if you don't know what else they are going to add yet, or the implecations of new zones and content.

phairdon

Housing in this game could be an interesting concept.

What level could you start building your house?
Would it involve new quests to acquire the materials?
Would bots hinder player progress in gaining said materials?
How advanced would the housing become? For example if you could build all types of crafting stations it would make them practically invalid in any of the cities/town & random locations as we see them now.
Chests & safes as seen in previous titles? Does away with the need for banks.
Could you build your own stable?
Grow your own resources?
Would you need to hire guards to prevent enemy npc's raiding & looting your house (could tie in with a justice system).

I don't care either way. Guess we will all find out in the future.

Kewljag_66_ESO

Personally i want the Darkness Falls style Imperial City Dungeon more than anything. after that i would like Thieves guild...

reagen_lionel

Setting the time frame that long is a reeaaally bad idea for such defining features that people want. That is definitly a cause for concern.

ShedsHisTail

I'm way more excited about the justice System than the housing anyway.
My house would likely end up like my horse, largely ignored. Seriously, it's a good thing we don't -have- to feed those things.

dodgehopper_ESO

All I can say, is that I'm glad I built my heroic Templar first.

That being said, I do look forward to the thieves guild and the dark brotherhood. Regarding the thieves guild, I'd really like to see them have a light (robin hood) path and a dark (bandit) path in terms of quest choices. Not every thief, even in Elder Scrolls has to be a villain. With regard to the Dark Brotherhood, I am somewhat hoping that Morag Tong will be an option. I've always liked these guys, even if they are the pariahs of the assassin world currently. Lets face it, they're assassins and local governments will deal with them no matter which side of the dark mother coin they are on.

LexonLightbringer

So it seems we are divided on Player Housing, yet united on the Justice System. For those that want Player Housing, what would justify the One-Two Year Development? Is there anything you can think of that you would want included in Player Housing?

OmniDo

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

\If you launch an MMO with all the content already in there, that MMO will not last long.

Thats a flaw of poor foresight, not one of implicit logic.

Keeping players occupied while developing "Additional" content is not difficult, and the initial product should stand on its own.
Blizzard accomplished this in WoW to a limited extent with Raid Attunement.
Sure, some players hated it because they actually had to earn their shot at more advanced content, but the content was there from the start and the prerequisites for said Attunement could be achieved with the assistance of others, which promoted group play.
Either players had to work together to complete content that was designed to be accomplished as a team, or they simply didnt see said content at all.

Telling your customers that they will have to enjoy their burger without any meat for a year or two, does not justify said "burger" joints failure to provide a completed product, or at the very least, equally desirable alternatives.

Squishy

LexonLightbringer wrote: »

So it seems we are divided on Player Housing, yet united on the Justice System. For those that want Player Housing, what would justify the One-Two Year Development? Is there anything you can think of that you would want included in Player Housing?

One-Two year timeframe? Hell no. Like many have said already, this is something kinda expected in both a MMO and an ES game. Since there are a fair amount of empty spaces between factions/cyrodiil on the map, I'm assuming they already have a lit of future maps/content, OR, 1/3rd of what's left is reserved for player housing. As much as I'd love a SWG type of player housing, with instanced bits of the map, and the lack of space in them, I doubt we'll have open world SWG like houses, the game is simply not designed for it.

They'll have to either create a new map, for player housing only, or instances a bit like LOTR. LOTR houses was not my favorite way of doing it, but it kinda worked, although the exterior of the houses weren't really customizable imo.

Otherwise, the easy way, being a portal to our own house/oblivion plane/instance.

Housing needs to include a VERY large amount of storage. It has to be customizable, and if possible can be decorated a bit like SWG. I spent quite q few credits with house decorators in SWG, quite a lot... a huge amount actually, considering I had many houses/alts and theatres for my group's performances (organized buff, but we also had stand up comedies nights organized in our town).

Guild are in serious need of social loving, so anything linking housing to guilds will be a plus in my books. Being able to have a guild town/village would be quite awesome. I'd totally go for an instanced village for each guilds, with different houses, if possible that can be built on lots, and customized to some degree while the house is being built.

Let's assume for now, that only 3 sizes are available, small, medium and large. the area would need to cover 3 plots per players. the set of 3 plots would be locked to each player buying the first one, so houses could then be upgraded.

I believe the guild limit is 400 people? so that's 1200 small houses in size, plus roads and townhall/crafting stations if they're not included in the houses for whatever crazy reason .

Once you have your basic instance designed, instance it to each guild. I guess you could have more than one house, since you can be in 5 guilds, but I would recommend limiting it to 2houses per players, and one if they are mayor.

I'd really love to have sets crafting stations in my house, as having to go to X spot in a low level area to craft some items, adds no value at all for me. Simply make it so once you created let's say 3 items of a set, you can buy the stations for your house.

I'd also like to be able to send items to my house, straight from my inventory. We could summon a house carl (with a long CD of 2hours to avoid abuses), so he/she could move some of our inventory stuff back home (let's say 10 stacks tops?).

If we have a house, I'd like to have a npc merchant there, to be able to sell SOME stuff. Unless the guild store is seriously redesigned, my own merchant will be the only solution for my stuff to be sold, and beside, it makes more sense too immersion wise. The whole WTS/WTT stuff in guild chat, is just, boring to me.

Unfortunately, there's very little we can do at the moment with the way the guild store is working. And no, I do NOT want an AH. If npc merchants, or the idea of convoys I suggested in another thread before are implement, we need to be able to see the account name/all character names of the account, so if we see ssghfghsghfsghsf in there, we know we should avoid buying from there.

LexonLightbringer

@Squishy Thanks for the well thought out comment, you make some very good points and have great suggestions.

Squishy

LexonLightbringer wrote: »

@Squishy Thanks for the well thought out comment, you make some very good points and have great suggestions.

^-^ I do try .

Leijona

The fact, that justice system and the two last guilds wont be in the game before the end of the year is not too bad for me, if they bring some other interesting and long lasting content. And with that, I don't mean the next veteran dungeon coming with update 2, as at the moment there is no reason to do dungeons more then once. Nevertheless, I thought it should have been in the game from the beginning, as it is an essential part of Elder Scrolls games.

The fact, that housing wont come within the next year and maybe not even the next two years is more annoying. But mainly, because it seems they haven't even planned it before release. I don't mean the fact, that they didn't planned it for release, but that they just weren't working on it before release at all. Paul Sage stated, that they don't even have plans for it yet. So if they start working on it now, they might find out that their idea doesn't work and have to start over. And then we have to wait another two years.

I know, that many MMOs bring housing later. But it is not necessary to do so. WildStar will have housing from the beginning (and please don't tell me to play WildStar, they have other things I don't like) and for many players this will be something they can spend a lot of time with.