Indeed Homestead is a huge promise for roleplayers, but there are some disappointments that would be fixed or improved easily.
First of them, well, of course the prices. Prices are awfully high, whether in gold, or in crowns or in time grinding materials+blueprints. Many roleplayers won’t pay and grind so much, and they will just go back to (often free) other medium, notwithstanding the interest of ESO backstory.
But OK, let’s admit that ZOS won’t make sales / is still greedy / or anyway the home worth it and you’re still buying it (like me). Even then,
some things lower the expected result. Here are my two main "claims" (apart from an obvious bug reported here
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/319796/homestead-sharing-house-with-guild-is-broken ).
- Limitation to one "main house" per account/player
(-seems easy to fix)
The matter is that defining a house as one's "main house" is the
only way to make it open to guildmates when offline. Yet, we should be able to
allow more estates to welcome offline visits as long as we decide it.
Why the actual system is wrong? As a guildmaster of a rolepay or social guild, one may need to define
guild houses to welcome his/her guildmates. Even when he/she is offline. Because -maybe this kind of guild have
not to be like a totalitarian kingdom where no GM online means no interaction!...
For instance I need our guild houses to be from different types and atmospheres, one is altmeri, one is orcish, and so on. With the actual system I can only enable one house for offline visits (and roleplay). What is the point for me to buy more than my first estate in the Shop, then? Not any.
Thus I may not give this additional money to ZOS.
- Taking the renaming option into account for immersion. Avoiding the feeling of "co-property" on all the same houses. (-perhaps a bit harder to implement)
Indeed the nice little option to give a brand
personal name to our home is better than nothing!
But sadly it has not any incidence in the game. When guildmates or friends enter the house, when I enter the house - by a teleport, by a gate or by a door -
everyone sees exactly the same name and the same story as
any other player who bought this house...
Just imagine
how much more immersive that would be if you could really appropriate your property. Displaying your roleplay name for yourself and for visitors, in the UI - and even the loading screen!
For instance, this should be displayed when one enters our actual guild estate (I translated a part of the cutting in English for the purpose of illustration).
I hope these remarks will inspire the devs for improving all this.
Maybe you’ve got your own ideas and claims?