Player Housing - Something to be done right

Lord_Wrath

Player housing HAS TO BE DONE RIGHT! Some of us read in some articles that ZoS know this. The possibilities fill my imagination with what it could add to the game, and I get myself excited even though theres no time frame for this, so why not add our ideas out there? Im sure most of us can agree housing will be instanced, so lets go with this assumption. How would housing to you be 'done right' if it were up to you?


Lets start with choosing where you live. You should have the freedom to choose where in Tamriel you want to live, and purchase property from the capital.
- Each providence has their environmental themes and animals.
- Different areas to choose in each providence. This gives choice of variety for each Providences appropriate environmental layouts. (rivers, woods, a cliff etc. surrounding the property for immersion and a little exploration).
- Properties must be reasonably large enough to expand on.
- For extra achieving players, dungeon/cave/daedric temple housing.


But what are we working with here? Customization will be absolutely everything here. Therefore I think that woodworking, clothing, and metalworking skills should be implemented here along with racial motifs. Wood materials from maple and beyond yew would each look different. Example being if I built my chair out of maple, it would appear lighter in color than hickory. Same would apply for clothing and metalworking depending on what they're used for. Would need something for building stone material though. Construction of anything would work like researching an item, using a countdown until complete.


Building your house:
- House style reflects appropriate providential area.
- It can be as large as you put time and materials into it but reasonably limited according to the map layout.
- No limits to amount of rooms.
- Can be two stories high, and have a cellar.


Crafting furniture and other items...I cannot stress enough that customization will be absolutely everything if housing is to be done right. Chairs, tables, shelves, rugs, fireplace, etc. All used by crafting materials, and freedom to place wherever.

*Crafting tables should allow ONLY the use of housing craft-ables. This way the towns crafting stations will still have their use.*

About building your house....how about building a property? This should your 'happy place', a place away from the hustle and bustle of PvP/E. It should look, be placed, and feel the way you want it. The outside of the house should be customizable too.
- Planting plants/trees
- A den for vanity pets
- Stables for horses
- Gardening area
- Fishing area for by the water
- Fences and pathway


Housing should reflect your player, meaning we should be able to display our achievements on our walls or something for others to see.

It also goes without saying that you should be able to have your friends/guildies invited, and maybe ZoS can add some activities to encourage social activity between player homes.

So yea, thats my two cents on something im excited for. I know its gonna be a long time before this pops up, but I hope my two cents count for something, maybe yours will too?

Phantax

Housing should scale to your character too. By that I mean, early in game you get access to smaller housing, as your reputation/level grows you should get access to bigger and nicer buildings.
Hell lets face it, you've saved Tamriel from a God, your faction leader owes you their life and you've saved dozens of villages/towns from war and destruction. The least you should get is a small castle !

Me in my castle, just chillin by the fire-


Just need a dog, a Bard and a lusty Argonian maid...lol

daneyulebub17_ESO

I like all the suggestions here.

I really hope it's not just another cookie-cutter, limited-placement, instanced, dead-neighborhood implementation. They should shoot for the stars here, blow people away.

Goibot

You are describing EQ2's style of housing. Take look at what they have moved to in Landmark. This will be incorporated in EQ Next. But this is way beyond what ESO is capable of.

Phantax

Goibot wrote: »

You are describing EQ2's style of housing. Take look at what they have moved to in Landmark. This will be incorporated in EQ Next. But this is way beyond what ESO is capable of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XGLQhe-mLaw

Wouldn't say beyond what ESO is capable of. Beyond what Zenimax care about doing then yes.
The housing in those vids was great, but just imagine what it could look like with ESO textures and lighting !

shanersimms_ESO

A resounding yes....

Evergnar

At this point I really don't care if it's done right or wrong in beginning. Just give me a shack for starters. Whatever they do initially will probably end up needing to be fixed anyways so just get it done.

I'm not sure the whole "We want it perfect, so it will take time" approach has worked out real well for Zos so far. Rather than shooting for moon maybe just go for something basic and solid that you can expand upon later.

The_Sadist

If they don't include Telvanni Towers in the inevitable personal housing system I'm going to be relatively bemused.

Dusty5

Good point but your way early..like 2 years to early same for your justice system and 100's of bugs that are not dealt with. ZOS has a console bridge to launch everything else is well we will get around to it. Get a brace for your sore wrist and some baby oil you got nothing but time in your...uhmm on your hands.

Lord_Wrath

I'm not concerned with other games or what other people think ZoS is going to do with it.

SystemiK

a lot can change in 2 years...not much sense getting all worked up over it now.

Zorrashi

The only thing I have against the idea is that it seems to be so freelance that players can basically set up a house wherever they want. I foresee player "trailer parks". Which is fine, but I really hope that it doesn't lead to big lag and ghost towns.

Slash8915

If we ever get player housing, I see it being like what Rift has.

Lord_Wrath

SystemiK wrote: »

a lot can change in 2 years...not much sense getting all worked up over it now.

Maybe someones idea here could gain attention and have an impact 2 years later, do you have anything constructive to add?

Zorrashi wrote: »

The only thing I have against the idea is that it seems to be so freelance that players can basically set up a house wherever they want. I foresee player "trailer parks". Which is fine, but I really hope that it doesn't lead to big lag and ghost towns.

Not if its instanced.

randy.wehnesb14_ESO

I played EQ2 for a number of years and I absolutely LOVED the housing. Not only could the players craft furniture and sell it but there was a whole sub set of people doing interior design. Since everything was free form placement I had a freaking swimming pool in my basement with lava pillars and tons of stuff.

Another part of it was the heritage quest system. You earned books and other things for collecting the parts of monsters and you could create an entire library detailing your exploits for everyone to see. We get trophies in this game, in EQ2 you would take the trophies and display them in the house as well.

Zeno can't copy other games stuff but man I really hope they look at what EQ2 did and then come up with an AWESOME product of their own.

I want player owned housing and I hope it comes soon.

MercyKilling

Oh, it'll be done so wrongly. I have seriously lost all faith in this development team when it comes to implementing things correctly and with any common sense.

Dyes, for instance. Instead of using those achievement points that we've been getting to BUY what colors/dyes you want....they make the points more useless and tie the best colors to the worst activities.....heck, ANY activity at all.

Justice system? Pff. More like "Just Us" system. Horrible mechanics and implementation all around.

Crafting nerfs...then writs? Argh.

Housing will be so horribly botched. I'm convinced.

TheDarkShadow

Add an NPC in the outlaw den that trade stolen items for housing items. There're many stolen items would be great as a housing items like picture flames, skulls, toys, stuffed animals, torchbug jar, paint set, cups, flasks, urn, bowl, statues, Armor Stand, book stand...

The NPC can sell some "combine set", like 4 knifes + 4 forks + 4 dishes + 4 goblet = 1 dinner set. This set work like a motifs material. A woodworker can add this "motifs material" while crafting a "table" to make a dinner table.

Gidorick

Evergnar wrote: »

At this point I really don't care if it's done right or wrong in beginning. Just give me a shack for starters. Whatever they do initially will probably end up needing to be fixed anyways so just get it done.

I'm not sure the whole "We want it perfect, so it will take time" approach has worked out real well for Zos so far. Rather than shooting for moon maybe just go for something basic and solid that you can expand upon later.

I agree with @Evergnar. We need SOMETHING soon and waiting until they have everything all at once just doesn't work. It's like the sitable chairs. If this is something they ever plan to add (it better be ), they need to add it to updates that are upcoming and fix existing areas in the future. Why didn't outlaw dens have sit-able furniture?

But I digress... Back to Housing. I have suggested a 3 phased approach:

Phase 1: Allow purchase of pre-existing homes within city boarders.
Phase 2: Allow purchase of pre-existing homes in the wilderness that have material farms attached to them.
Phase 3: Allow the purchase of in-world instanced plots of land where players will construct their own homes.

I go into (too much) detail on each phase here:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/145287/another-housing-suggestion-a-3-phase-release-plan

Gidorick

Slash8915 wrote: »

If we ever get player housing, I see it being like what Rift has.

That would be great @Slash8915.... looking at videos of Rift Dimensions makes me want to play Rift...

Gidorick

randy.wehnesb14_ESO wrote: »

I played EQ2 for a number of years and I absolutely LOVED the housing. Not only could the players craft furniture and sell it but there was a whole sub set of people doing interior design. Since everything was free form placement I had a freaking swimming pool in my basement with lava pillars and tons of stuff.

Another part of it was the heritage quest system. You earned books and other things for collecting the parts of monsters and you could create an entire library detailing your exploits for everyone to see. We get trophies in this game, in EQ2 you would take the trophies and display them in the house as well.

Zeno can't copy other games stuff but man I really hope they look at what EQ2 did and then come up with an AWESOME product of their own.

I want player owned housing and I hope it comes soon.

I actually think what EQN is doing would be too much for ESO. I don't think we need all those freeform "sculpting" tools. I'm hoping ZOS finds their own "flavor" on how to do housing.

Blutengel

The only thing I care to have out of player housing is more inventory storage space lol.

Gidorick

Blutengel wrote: »

The only thing I care to have out of player housing is more inventory storage space lol.

I do NOT think that we should be allowed to access Home Inventory from anywhere... we should have to travel to our home to access it.