Yes, yet another thread on rumored housing

chromaticwyrm

I know there is a lot being tossed about on housing but developers will have no idea what people want if they do implement housing so I am throwing out some ideas that may address a few issues and from what I have seen people want and still allow a boon for Zenimax.

Issue #1
No one wants to see the game world littered with housing

Here is my idea have a gate where a few faction related houses can be seen beyond for each faction giving the appearance of a small village. When a player clicks on said gate it ports them to their own instance of a small village that contains a plot for their house. Instances should be based on who has the crown in a party. This would minimize the impact of housing on the game world.

You could also do such a set up for guild halls that initiates a conversation for which of your guilds guildhall you would like to visit with purchase and upgrades limited to the guild leader this should be larger than houses and substantially more expensive

Issue #2 Cost
I don't think many people want to grind their life away for housing make is achievable by casual players to say 500k-to 1 million to start, additions can also have a cost if developers think we need a gold sink

Issue #3 what's in it for zenimax?
ESO is a buy to play so any development cash to pay a team and turn a profit else the game wouldn't be here comes from the crown store and those with premium so make houses buy able and additions and/or items for decorating as well as found/bought/made in game. Players can either grind away, buy with cash or use their premium allotted crowns or a combination of any of them.

Issue #4 several people wanted a display case for trophy's

Neat idea but that is a lot of work for developers as they would have to make a model for each trophy why not a case that displays a trophy for each category filled? This would cut developers and modelers workload to 1/5 if it was a trophy for each category. and still give players some bragging rights.

MrGrimey

scrap housing and give us something useful and actually gameplay related (arenas/battlegrounds)... Not only will it make city's less populated, but I don't see the point or draw to just hanging in your house all day in a game

gilbegger

Whats wrong with Phased housing?..Like in LOTRO. I agree with not having houses litter the countryside. It was like that in Asherons Call and I hated it.

But I DO want a house. And a pet monkey.

nine9six

Phased like LOTRO would be fine. ESO+ Members get the house for nothing. If you drop sub it gets repossessed and you have to buy it backfrom the Bank (we Hlaalus can help with this lol!).

I agree there are other things that need TLC first. Just having fun with the idea.

Eocosa

I would see any form of housing, really, being a cash cow. Making it a gold sink for those who want to spend gold on it, while also offering the houses/expansions/furniture/etc in the crown store opens up the opportunity for those who want to spend real cash to buy crowns and spend them accordingly.

Every MMO that has housing is a huge time sink as well that many people (granted not all) enjoy. The more time people spend doing activities like this the longer other content essentially spreads out as players are decorating their houses which means they have a LOT more to do outside the houses as well as they may have not gotten to it all yet. This, in turn, leads to players sticking around longer as they are less "bored".

I like your idea for housing as this game is most definitely not really made to just let people dump their houses wherever which essentially leads to either instanced housing in cities or single houses out in the wilderness such as Everquest 2 or Swtor, or else instanced "neighborhoods" as seen in Lord of the Rings Online.

UrQuan

MrGrimey wrote: »

scrap housing and give us something useful and actually gameplay related (arenas/battlegrounds)... Not only will it make city's less populated, but I don't see the point or draw to just hanging in your house all day in a game

Yes, clearly there's no point in doing something that's one of the most commonly-requested features in the game. Something that has generated hundreds of threads on the forums. Something that was one of the absolute most popular features in previous Elder Scrolls games. Something that is a staple of virtually all successful MMOs. Something that would be incredibly easy to monetize in the Crown Store to generate a ton of income for ZOS, even if the base housing is purchased with in-game gold. What excellent ideas you have.

The way I'd like to see housing done is with various housing towns - with one (or more) town for each province, so you can choose what style of town you want your home to be in. Want a Breton town? You've got that option. A Redguard town? Yup. An Orc town? Sure! And so on...

Each town would be a zone (not the size of a full-sized zone for the game, naturally, but you'd zone in via wayshrine or a gate or a boat or whatever), and when zoning in you get a screen similar to the campaign screen for PVP, so you select which named instance of the town you're going to, and on that screen it shows you the number of homes in that instance that are still available for purchase. If there are no homes available in an instance, that doesn't stop you from going there (so you can go and RP with your friends at their house, or whatever). This way they can start with a few instances for each town, and keep adding new ones as more people buy homes there and as new instances are needed.

Rather than instancing homes at the door, though, instancing whole towns allows friends to possibly buy homes next to each other, decorate the lawns, etc, and you can always tell someone "yeah, my home is in Khajiittown, Moonsugar instance".

Starshadw

chromaticwyrm wrote: »

I know there is a lot being tossed about on housing but developers will have no idea what people want if they do implement housing so I am throwing out some ideas that may address a few issues and from what I have seen people want and still allow a boon for Zenimax.

Issue #1:
I've never worried about the world being littered with housing. But yes, adopting something similar to LotROs "instanced neighborhoods" (which is what you're describing) would likely work well here. I'd love to see it be possible for a guild to create its own village/town, so that all its members could have housing in that village/town. LotRO never managed this because their housing neighborhoods had only a certain number of houses and you could never add more, so I'd love to see ZOS figure out a way for folks to "build" onto their neighborhood.

Issue #2:
The starting cost you've listed? Will leave ALL casuals out in the cold. I'd suggest the following:

Basic House
Small one-story, containing living room, kitchen, one bedroom
No external yard
100,000 to purchase, monthly maintenance fee of 100 gold.

Medium House
Slightly larger one-story, containing all of the above, with a second bedroom, perhaps a parlour/extra room of some kind
Small yard
250,000 to purchase, monthly maintenance fee of 250 gold.

Small and Medium home owners would be able to purchase a single housing container for 100,000 gold - for small home owners, that container would give an additional 50 slots to store items in. For medium owners, that container would give an additional 100 slots to store items.

Large House
Two-story home, containing all of the above plus a third bedroom, and adding in a cellar location
Large yard
500,000 to purchase, monthly maintenance fee of 500 gold

Extravagant House
Very large two-story home, containing all of the above, plus several additional rooms
Very large yard
750,000 to purchase, monthly maintenance feel of 750 gold

Large and Extravagant home owners would be able to purchase two housing containers at 100,000 gold each - for large home owners, each container would give an additional 100 slots to store items in. For extravagant owners, each container would give an additional 150 slots to store items.

Eventually, I'd love to see guilds be able to have a Guildhall. Once that's in, then perhaps the Banker in the village only offers access to the personal bank. There could be a Steward in the guildhall, where you'd access the guild bank and guild stores.

Other things I'd like to see in housing neighborhoods:

• A crafting location, with all necessary stations
• A banker, for personal/guild vault access
• A tavern
• Common areas - things like parks, fishing ponds/rivers (where you can actually fish) and so forth
• The ability to have functioning flower and vegetable garden/s in your yard (so you could grow things like potatoes, tomatoes, columbine, etc. It wouldn't eliminate the need to go out and gather, but perhaps you could grow 5 columbine a week and so forth.)

The above is so there are reasons for people to hang out in their village, so that houses and neighborhoods aren't just ghost towns, where people only go to grab something from their house.

Issue #3:
As you said - the money-maker is in decorations. However, ZOS' single biggest issue right now with its Crown Store is lack of affordable things to buy. It's continued to baffle me, the paltry offerings there, and the outrageous prices. What they need, to truly start the microtransactions flowing, is a LOT of items, in the 10-500 Crown range. Housing is perfect for this.

Offer basic options in the game - people can purchase stuff for gold. In this case, perhaps one style per race (so you could furnish your home Bosmer-style or Breton-style, or a mix of several racial styles). In the Crown store, you offer more items not available in the game itself. And you offer them at affordable prices so people can mix and match.

So a single chair might costs 5 Crowns, a large kitchen table costs 25 Crowns while a small nightstand costs 10 Crowns, etc. And in the Crown store, you offer "nicer" versions of the basic racial styles, plus other styles. You also offer: rugs of various sizes, tapestries, paintings, antler trophies, other house decorations (for the kitchen, you can offer garlic braids, hanging poultry/rabbit, etc). They could offer "festival/holiday" decorations as well, for various Tamriel holidays and celebrations.

In addition, you let people decorate their yards. You offer trees, bushes, flower boxes and rows/patches of flowers. Things like wheelbarrows, chicken coops (and wouldn't it be cool if there were actual chickens there), etc. Smaller homes wouldn't be able to use some items, because their yards wouldn't be big enough - so incentive for players to buy the larger homes and thus have to be in game to make sure they can keep up with their monthly maintenance fee to avoid getting locked out of their house.

Then, you can start offering "bundles" of decorations. So, for 100 Crowns, someone might get living room furnishings, or kitchen furnishings, etc. 50 Crowns might get someone a dining table and four chairs. 200 Crowns for indoor/outdoor holiday decorations.

(All of the above is the reason you have to give people more bank space - because people will want to buy things to decorate and redecorate and they will need a place to store decorations they aren't currently using)

Sausage

chromaticwyrm wrote: »

Issue #1
No one wants to see the game world littered with housing

Why cant they put some houses there? I'd love to show my Castle to new players. 18 zone, 5 house per zone, thats 90 houses already. Most people needs to be put on some private island, but there could be some very expensive and hard to get houses on normal zones too. I think even 3 unique Houses per zone could be awesome idea, something what really gets envy on people's face.

altemriel

and make the houses buyable for ingame gold, not for crown store real money!

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Chieve

Why put so much thought in aomething that hasnt been launched yet

Faunter

Starshadw wrote: »

Other things I'd like to see in housing neighborhoods:

• A crafting location, with all necessary stations
• A banker, for personal/guild vault access
• A tavern
• Common areas - things like parks, fishing ponds/rivers (where you can actually fish) and so forth
• The ability to have functioning flower and vegetable garden/s in your yard (so you could grow things like potatoes, tomatoes, columbine, etc. It wouldn't eliminate the need to go out and gather, but perhaps you could grow 5 columbine a week and so forth.)

Your list gave me an interesting idea. What about including something like investing gold in specific taverns or shops like the other Elder Scrolls games along with housing to get some income or something at set intervals? They already have a hireling system in place, and this would be an interesting addition. Or maybe it could be something like the Guild Trader system where you bid on shopkeepers. Or even, why not have PLAYER CONTROLLED CITIES AND ZONES AND... Okay I'm getting carried away here.

UrQuan

Chieve wrote: »

Why put so much thought in aomething that hasnt been launched yet

Because after it's been launched it will be too late.

Necrelios

I suspect there will be an entire DLC for housing, with an associated quest line such as taking back some alliance territory and building your castle/fortress/altmer/orcish/dunmer/dwemer/daedric/ancient elf/etc. style structure there with motifs and pieces you collect throughout the DLC (imagine a house built with glass motif? Hmm.... don't start throwing rocks yet I guess). I don't see this happening until long after thieves guild and dark brotherhood though.

Xendyn

Please just Don't use those stupid attachment "hooks" like LOTRO.
I want to put my stuff where I want it.

Sevalaricgirl

I think the listed prices for houses is way high unless I can get it from the crown store. That is totally unreasonable for any new player and we have to assume new players would come to the game for housing. I have 5500g among all of my characters. 100K is out of the question for all low level player. My highest character is level 35. Granted I don't get much time to play but think of Wildstar where housing starts at level 14 and you obtain it by doing a quest line. You don't try to get new players into the game by saying you have housing then make it impossible for them to even get it.

Dragonnord

Starshadw wrote: »

I'd love to see it be possible for a guild to create its own village/town, so that all its members could have housing in that village/town...

I like this a lot, but question; what happens if you (for any reason) leave the guild? You lose your own house (the one you paid a lot to build and then decorate) and need to build a new house in another place?

Gidorick

Necrelios wrote: »

I suspect there will be an entire DLC for housing, with an associated quest line such as taking back some alliance territory and building your castle/fortress/altmer/orcish/dunmer/dwemer/daedric/ancient elf/etc. style structure there with motifs and pieces you collect throughout the DLC (imagine a house built with glass motif? Hmm.... don't start throwing rocks yet I guess). I don't see this happening until long after thieves guild and dark brotherhood though.

This sounds about right @Necrelios

Elsonso

Last year, I was pretty excited and interested in ESO housing. This year...


Now that B2P has come out, there is pretty much no way that it will not require significant amounts of cash (real money) do anything meaningful with housing. I am sure that you will be able to get the equivalent of an abandoned outhouse in the game for gold, (or some insane grind where you have to find 10 wood molecules, combine them into a stick (motif) that can be used with 1,000,000 sticks to make an outhouse. Molecules will have a drop rate of 1.0E-20 percent. ), but the Crown Store will be the central focus and, as far as ZOS is concerned, only focus.

I get that ZOS has to make money and that housing is prime for that, but this is one train that I am happy to see leave the station without me.

Starshadw

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

I think the listed prices for houses is way high unless I can get it from the crown store. That is totally unreasonable for any new player and we have to assume new players would come to the game for housing. I have 5500g among all of my characters. 100K is out of the question for all low level player. My highest character is level 35. Granted I don't get much time to play but think of Wildstar where housing starts at level 14 and you obtain it by doing a quest line. You don't try to get new players into the game by saying you have housing then make it impossible for them to even get it.

A brand-new player doesn't really need a house, though - and I do believe a house is something that should be earned. 100,000 is a decent amount, but is not difficult to earn quickly if one wants to make it a priority to do so. Just general exploring and questing, selling the drops, will get you to 100k fairly quickly, if you aren't spending it on other things. But certainly, my pricing was just a suggestion - they could easily decide to go for 10-50k for the small beginner house, and go upwards from there.

CarbonHD wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

I'd love to see it be possible for a guild to create its own village/town, so that all its members could have housing in that village/town...

I like this a lot, but question; what happens if you (for any reason) leave the guild? You lose your own house (the one you paid a lot to build and then decorate) and need to build a new house in another place?

I think that in that case, an offer to "move" your house to another neighborhood could be offered. I don't believe you should have to lose the house itself, simply choose another location for it.

Hell, in addition to allowing guilds to have villages, there should certainly always be "general" villages for those who aren't part of a guild or for whatever reason, don't want to be located in a guild village. So if you decide to leave a guild and your house is in the guild's village, you should be able to go to any of the "general" villages where space is available, and move your house, whereupon it will show up in the general village and not the guild one.

I'm up in the air as to whether a player should be allowed to purchase more than one house (since most of us belong to multiple guilds, we may find ourselves wishing we could have a house in more than one guild neighborhood). But, a simpler option might be that your house simply shows up in the neighborhood of all your guilds. So if you are a member of 5 guilds, once you purchase a house, it is accessible from any of your five guild neighborhoods (if all five of your guilds have one - and here is where ZOS could have guilds have to purchase a guild neighborhood. That would give reason for guild members to make donations to the guild bank - so perhaps for 1 million gold, a guild can purchase its own neighborhood). So, if you leave one guild, but are still in two others, your house is still accessible from the other two guild neighborhoods - otherwise, you choose a general village to move to.

nine9six

UrQuan wrote: »

Chieve wrote: »

Why put so much thought in aomething that hasnt been launched yet

Because after it's been launched it will be too late.

lol gdi beat me to that.

Alucardo

I'm a simple man. Just give me a tent I can hitch up any where with a small camp fire out the front and I'll be fine.

ShadowMage

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

I think the listed prices for houses is way high unless I can get it from the crown store. That is totally unreasonable for any new player and we have to assume new players would come to the game for housing. I have 5500g among all of my characters. 100K is out of the question for all low level player. My highest character is level 35. Granted I don't get much time to play but think of Wildstar where housing starts at level 14 and you obtain it by doing a quest line. You don't try to get new players into the game by saying you have housing then make it impossible for them to even get it.

No, I think 100k is pretty fair. A horse is 40k afterall. That said, I also wouldn't be against having a "starter home" locked behind a quest. Something small and very basic.

CJohnson81

Let's be honest here, housing in ESO is essentially enabling all you hoarders.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vcx6UbMCtfI

I would love my own house and would get one as soon as possible no matter how it's implemented. But similarly, just allowing us to hang out in the existing taverns with friends and interact with the furniture would be just as rewarding, I think.

I don't know for sure or if it's been discussed, but our inability to react to the world must be tied into the mechanics of allowing us all to experience the world differently (isn't the weather different between players in the same place at the same time?). Mobs can be friendly to one player while aggro'd by another depending on the quest progression. To me that means the world is all just an illusion and that in the code, we are not actually "in" the world. It's like the Matrix.

ShadowMage

CJohnson81 wrote: »

Let's be honest here, housing in ESO is essentially enabling all you hoarders.

Exactly!