Immersive Player Homes

Imhotep_Still_Juicy

Firstly, I’ll begin with a blanket statement that player housing is far too expensive for the design team or player-base to justify on any grounds other than “Well you don’t have to buy it”, which falls short of a real argument. It takes only a few moments for any player to determine that a player home in Elder Scrolls Online costs more than a brand new game at top price, and equates to a cosmetic that serves virtually no purpose other than storage, Guild Headquarters or showing it off to other players.

While I believe that the price for these homes should be lowered regardless, I also have ideas for improvements in this area of the game. This will increase the usefulness and worth in the purchasing of player homes, meaning the design team will in fact make more money in the long run from increased sales, which they would with a lowered price anyway, as many would buy homes if they could justify the pricing.

As the title suggests, immersion is the key, linked to the theme of the estate. But to quickly list ideas; Puzzles for players to solve which unlock secret passages underground or previously cut off areas of the home, free fully-voiced, placeable/moveable NPCs to fill up the home with and complement a theme. Such examples could include a Vampire Castle having actual vampires, thralls/minions, an Igor type character to greet you as their master and Daedric servants and beasties etc, or cut-throats, thieves and assassins gathering about your Thieve Den, or Daedric Creatures engaging in all manner of debauchery in the Soul Cavern. This way a player can feel their home is alive with activity, less empty and a place they might actually want to invest real time in. There can be greater immersion that allows a Vampire Lord to feel like the lord of something, as they sit atop a throne swirling a goblet of blood watching minions dance, groan and grovel. The voice acting can offer an opportunity for humour and some NPCs can be free collectibles that you have to grind for in game. Similar to storage boxes, your free NPCs should be placeable across all properties you own in case you want to build your Vampire lair or Thieve Den in a property that has a different theme. Searching for scrolls that unlock a spell that opens a secret room and so forth, are features that can create more purpose and immersion for the player home.

Essentially, you want the player home to be a quest in itself, prompting you to visit certain places searching for artifacts that will unlock the mysteries of the residence you have acquired (Like the Hall of the Lunar Champion). You want to feel that you already have a guild in your home, with NPCs interacting with you.

Imagine if you will, a scene in your Coldharbour Realm or in your Castle where a Daedric Seductress is whipping a poor fellow on the rack, as you walk by her, you get a “Do you mind, I’m working here”, followed by a playful laugh. Then as you sit atop your throne to observe your minions, she finishes her activity, walks over to a group of NPCs chatting, grabs a goblet of wine and proclaims to her group “Another hard days work”, and as she looks over to the rack where the poor fellow wheeps “Tomorrow, I’ll use the other arm”.
Think about Dwemer Robot House staff, glorious fountain systems, lifts and construction lines to create more activity in the home, think about spells which unlock gates and passages or underground lairs that only you can access. How about the possibility of owning a Tavern with drunks, musicians, bards and brawlers, fight club dens underneath, where you can invite players to duel.

I think if the cost of these player homes in Crowns, equals the equivalent in real money of a brand new games, then the home should offer more to justify that. If the Dev Team push the evelope, they will see the popularity of player homes rise significantly.

seecodenotgames

Imhotep_Still_Juicy wrote: »

Imagine if you will, a scene in your Coldharbour Realm or in your Castle where a Daedric Seductress is whipping a poor fellow on the rack, as you walk by her, you get a “Do you mind, I’m working here”,

Sorry, but lost it at this.

kind_hero

My impression is that housing is just a symbolic feature of the game, something that the devs originally wanted to expand, but changed their minds with time, so in the end, housing will most likely never improve significantly beyond what we see here. The focus is on fixing performance, classes, new one year chapters. That's why I doubt we will see things like you suggest. I made several posts months ago suggesting puzzles, minigames and teleporters in houses. The devs say little to nothing about what they plan to do with housing. It is exceptional to get furnishings that we asked. During live interviews, housing means a new house and some furnishings. Luckly we get some cool collectibles with the antiquities grind.

Housing will get a few houses each year and a limited number of furnishings, but other than that I don't see anything to make me believe they want to devote resources to housing. That is probably because the large player base does not decorate, and spends most of the time doing something else outside of houses, like pve or pvp.

It's unfortunate, I mean, I wish for a Homestead celebration, with tons of new furnishings and improvements to housing, but I doubt this will ever happen. Most likely they will address housing when the game will get old and people will move on to play something else.

Imhotep_Still_Juicy

Hi 'kind_hero', thanks for your reply.

I do get the feeling you're right on this, but I also feel its worth the try. It's nice to hear you suggested the same things with regards to puzzles and so forth.

I always believe, no matter what the product or service a business provides, they should want to make it the best they can. To be able to take pride in your work, I think it's more rewarding to say I made money, but I provided a quality product. Housing is too much for too little, so if they could lower the price, they would likely see increased sales of housing overall as more would be enticed to part with crowns for homes.

If they have someone designing the homes to start with, then I say give them longer or have them work with the wider team to include placeable, fully voiced NPCs. Anything to fill up the space. Better to have one home per region in place of a few nice designs, but devoid of real substance.

Appreciate your comment though. I guess selfishly I'd love to complete the idea of being a Vampire Lord sat on the throne, with something other than a Keepy-up Cadwell for company (Which you pay more Crowns for).

GeorgeYung

Good ideas really. I'd also like to see some housing furniture, that allows you to earn a skill based achievement. I'm thinking about housing objects you were able to place in "Wildstar MMO".
In more detail:
A platform that spawns red circles,triangles and what not and you have to avoid them, missing only one step and you fail the achievement. I think it took 2mins to do it and it was fun and challanging.

It would be also nice if you can build an arena ( I know there is a house for it, but it's still not satisfying and also not available)
I imagine a large housing item that is a big platform where you can duel and random enviromental hazards or line of sight opportunities arise.

Also I really miss some herbalism/gathering skill line that allows you to grow and harvest resources on a given cooldown in your house. While the current nodes would not really worth the time investment, an increased loot drop on these special nodes would make it viable and fun.

Special NPC's you can place and provide daily activities -> I'm thinking something like the daily crafting quests with a bit more spice

Special "portals" that generates a random dwelve for you once a day, or just port you to one of the dwelves randomly. It also gives you a time based quest that yields some special rewards.

So yeah all in all, the current housing system is just a gold and crown sink, it would be nice to see some more value return both in gameplay and social activity

Imhotep_Still_Juicy

Hi George, thanks for your response,

Yes I like the sound of those ideas. I really think there is potential to turn player homes into another avenue for players to invest their time. As you suggested, furniture that's earned in interesting ways, some through collecting, others through challenges. Again, your idea of growing some items for use in provisioning etc, is a nice element.

You mentioned the possibility of an Arena, which again, I think is perfect because it allows guilds or friends to battle in a more exclusive or private setting. Similar to my last idea of having your own Tavern with drunkards and brawlers mucking up the place, and through a private access door, leading down to the cellars, is the arena/fight club, where you can have fighting dummies and fight pits etc.

For me personally, I really want some free fully voiced NPCs that you earn or collect and can place across any home you own. When I think about Skyrim Mods like Sophia the Funny Follower and how that injected some humour into a serious setting. It could flesh out the empty rooms.

Anyway, cheers for the comment.

GeorgeYung

Totally agreed, one of the outstanding element of ESO is voice acting and story telling. ESO revolutionized MMOs, atleast in my eye for the better. I'm really looking forward to them enhancing the housing system, so we can finally enjoy it in a way, that was never seen before.

If anyone can do it in the current market, it's ZOS.

I hope for the best and maybe the end of this year or somewhere in the next we can see some update on this era.

Also Thanks for the thread, I'd like to see other ideas from the community. There are a lot of unexplored potentials in this category. Let's explore them

kind_hero

For me, when Homestead launched, housing was about decorating an empty house or, better said, a room, because I started with an inn room. It was quite difficult to gather resources and money to craft what I wanted, but with time I befriended players who could, and housing became enjoyable.

However, things changed when the devs started releasing very large manors and empty patches of land. With the right building blocks, one could build something totally original. If you look on this forum, total conversions or original builds are the most appreciated creations. This is ESO housing at its best. Unfortunatelly, our means to build the stuff we imagine are very limited by the short supply of furnishings available in this game, even after years of requests. Most of the time, people requested objects and mechanics that we already see in the game. A very common example is a planter filled with soil. But people who really like to build are more keen on getting the building blocks the developers use to create the world. I think Elsweyr got the most building blocks of any style, even though people are requesting such blocks for each architectural style.

What you are requesting is miles away from even the basic things we keep begging for, and not getting. Of course it would be amazing to see those things, but I am not holding my breath even for seeing a planter soon.

My previous suggestion was to have more ways to travel within large houses and even from houses, by means of a wayshrine, because some houses are quite remote. Wouldn't be amazing to be able to create your own Dragonguard training ground? To place grappling points and create challenges, even timed, for your guests or yourself? Also it would create new opportunities for building your "house". Also, having teleporters could help you create mazes, floating towers, traps, or simply useful shortcuts throughout the larger houses. The arena suggestion from above is also a great example. You could have a large round floor section which will behave like a dueling/pvp area, and with other mechanics, such as traps, grappling points, teleporters, timed doors/shields, sliding walls, etc, you could create arenas to have fun with friends.

The main issue is not with the quality of our requests. ZOS does not have the communication of a start-up or kickstarter dev team, they do not share their plans unless its really necessary, and they do not engage in feedback. Most likely they won't even read this thread. It's the way they do their business, and probably they are a victim of their own success. There will be enough people will play this game for years, so catering for a small fraction of players who want to build stuff in their houses is not important to them. I guess.

It just frustrates me. This game is so awesome, you see it can have this and that which could make you so excited, yet you'll never reach this carrot on a stick. This is not only about houses. Some classes have a lot of issues, performance is poor, and so on, but the game is still great. It is like a gem that still needs polishing. It baffles me why the company does not hire more people. Why they engage so little with their community. I am not sure when I have seen so many people playing the game. Some areas are packed with people, Cyrodiil is full, quest hubs in Elsweyr or Summerset are busy, so the game looks like it's at its peak.

Imhotep_Still_Juicy

Hey Kind Hero, I like those ideas you suggested. The possibility of using our own designs to create mazes and challenges or timed challenges would introduce an expansive dynamic element to the game to be sure. How much fun guilds would have designing a maze with paltforms, traps and so on, like you mentioned. Great ideas! It's a shame as you say, that this untapped potential likely will remain so.

I agree that the community engagement is lacking, and quite frankly it's lacking from most games companies. One game company that has this area cracked, is Warframe. They have fun, regular Twitch broadcasts with the major players in the design team explaining the roadmap clearly and talking about every aspect of the game. I know ESO has had Twitch streams recently, but they feel a bit drab and dull and more of a showing off for the purposes of marketing, rather than engaging with the community.

But I do agree with your points and I realise the the Devs likely won't see this stuff. But I always believe in trying. If forum posts could gain traction and following the support behind ideas, that led to a petition of sorts for players to sign. Then ESO would perhaps get a list of priority fixes and new developments. Where the players heads are at so to speak.

But I do understand that for many players, their priorities are 'fixing' classes, balancing etc, not potted plants and other nick-nacks.

Cheers

GeorgeYung

In the last 3years the community was waiting for a massive increase in furniture caps and other special item caps.
Well from the last post they made it's kinda obvious it wont happen any time soon or even never...

What we were discussing here could be very much a nice alternative on how to provide more value in housing, while they don't have to touch the furniture cap.

I completely understand from a business perspective, than only 0.1% of the player base want to build from blocks. I don't even want to build from blocks...
Creating 1furniture, that is actually a dueling arena with all the traps and moving walls and what not, would provide more value with the same furniture cap and also give communities reason to be in the that house.

For a given problem there are many solutions. Just because what we were talking about is light years ahead of what the community were asking, it does not mean it cant be closer to reality

GeorgeYung

From a technical perspective, a furniture that looks like a given part of the city, that does the same behaves the same sounds the same to everyone is easier to handle, than a random collection of thos little models that is made up from. Meaning if we have an option to build any kind of arena is a lot harder on performance, than having an option to place one type of arena down in your house