We're unlikely to wait 3 years for player housing ZOS

MornaBaine · February 2015

Yes, it took over 3 years for SWTOR to start offering player housing. However, SWTOR did not come from a line of previous games that had housing as an integral feature. Many of us were (and still are) appalled that there was no player housing system at launch as it was expected considering its prominence in the previous TES games. Even worse is your repeated answer to the question of, "When is player housing coming?" which is always, "Yeah wouldn't that be great? Sorry, we're not working on it though."

Additionally, in SWTOR you at least had your ship and you could take other players there and roleplay without being trolled by non-RPers. In other games you could group with players and go into a dungeon and it was a private instance just for your group. Many of these spaces are fantastic for roleplaying but since there are constantly others running through them immersion is broken AND you'll get trolled. And the B2P model is just going to make the trolling worse.

Plus, when the Justice System goes live players are going to be locked out of houses they've been using as their home for their characters. So now even that extremely imperfect solution is being taken away.

Now you've come out with the Crown Store and obviously your intention is to make money off of us there. Lots of it. So the very FIRST thing you need to be working on now is player housing DLC. Then sell items like USEABLE furniture, paintings, tapestries, storage chests, knick knacks, etc. for crowns in the store individually. Trust me, we roleplayers who have been desperate for housing from the beginning will fork over the $$ to get what we want.

What we very likely WON'T do is stick around now that you've, however inadvertently, wrecked there being any semblance of housing for players with the Justice System. Three years from now, when you finally get around to it, most of us will not be interested in returning. Trust me, I BRIEFLY reinstalled SWTOR and took a look when the player housing came out. It wasn't enough to get me to consider returning to that...game. It won't bring me, or many others, back to this one either once we've left. But if you tell us you are working on it NOW (and prove it) and give us an ETA of Xmas 2015 I can guarantee you we'll stick it out. But once we get fed up and leave and lose our established connections to the RP community, it's going to be almost impossible to get us back and I don't care if you offer me a private version of Evermore completely stocked with goodies at firesale prices.

So do us a favor and YOURSELVES an even bigger one. Stop ignoring the issue of player housing and start working on it NOW. Lots of $$ is on the line. Figure it out.

And for the love of the Divines... figure out what is causing the lag in Cyrodiil. You're actually making me feel bad for the PvPers at this point.

technohic · February 2015

I disagree right away that SWTOR did not come from a line of games that had housing as an integral feature. It is in fact the second Star Wars MMO and many of the people that play it, also played SWG and housing was a big deal.

That said, the 2 games were different enough in SWG being a sandbox, but that could be the same being said here where this is not nearly the sandbox that say; Skyrim is. It's also more difficult to have housing as you know it with this being an MMO as having a ton of player housing actually out in the world would be immersion breaking that so many TES fans harp about. So I think about their only solution would be what I think EQ2 had with instanced housing but with a physical front. Certainly not a teleport to thing like SWTOR is.

MornaBaine · February 2015

technohic wrote: »

I disagree right away that SWTOR did not come from a line of games that had housing as an integral feature. It is in fact the second Star Wars MMO and many of the people that play it, also played SWG and housing was a big deal.

That said, the 2 games were different enough in SWG being a sandbox, but that could be the same being said here where this is not nearly the sandbox that say; Skyrim is. It's also more difficult to have housing as you know it with this being an MMO as having a ton of player housing actually out in the world would be immersion breaking that so many TES fans harp about. So I think about their only solution would be what I think EQ2 had with instanced housing but with a physical front. Certainly not a teleport to thing like SWTOR is.

I didn't forget about SWG but SWTOR was never based on it nor did it make any claims to being based on it. ESO, on the other hand, wouldn't even exist were it not for the previous TES games. And ESO has always tried to convince us that it'll be ES online.

I do agree that housing is going to need to be instanced and that's perfectly fine with me.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2015

MornaBaine wrote: »

Yes, it took over 3 years for SWTOR to start offering player housing. However, SWTOR did not come from a line of previous games that had housing as an integral feature. Many of us were (and still are) appalled that there was no player housing system at launch as it was expected considering its prominence in the previous TES games. Even worse is your repeated answer to the question of, "When is player housing coming?" which is always, "Yeah wouldn't that be great? Sorry, we're not working on it though."

Additionally, in SWTOR you at least had your ship and you could take other players there and roleplay without being trolled by non-RPers. In other games you could group with players and go into a dungeon and it was a private instance just for your group. Many of these spaces are fantastic for roleplaying but since there are constantly others running through them immersion is broken AND you'll get trolled. And the B2P model is just going to make the trolling worse.

Plus, when the Justice System goes live players are going to be locked out of houses they've been using as their home for their characters. So now even that extremely imperfect solution is being taken away.

Now you've come out with the Crown Store and obviously your intention is to make money off of us there. Lots of it. So the very FIRST thing you need to be working on now is player housing DLC. Then sell items like USEABLE furniture, paintings, tapestries, storage chests, knick knacks, etc. for crowns in the store individually. Trust me, we roleplayers who have been desperate for housing from the beginning will fork over the $$ to get what we want.

What we very likely WON'T do is stick around now that you've, however inadvertently, wrecked there being any semblance of housing for players with the Justice System. Three years from now, when you finally get around to it, most of us will not be interested in returning. Trust me, I BRIEFLY reinstalled SWTOR and took a look when the player housing came out. It wasn't enough to get me to consider returning to that...game. It won't bring me, or many others, back to this one either once we've left. But if you tell us you are working on it NOW (and prove it) and give us an ETA of Xmas 2015 I can guarantee you we'll stick it out. But once we get fed up and leave and lose our established connections to the RP community, it's going to be almost impossible to get us back and I don't care if you offer me a private version of Evermore completely stocked with goodies at firesale prices.

So do us a favor and YOURSELVES an even bigger one. Stop ignoring the issue of player housing and start working on it NOW. Lots of $$ is on the line. Figure it out.

And for the love of the Divines... figure out what is causing the lag in Cyrodiil. You're actually making me feel bad for the PvPers at this point.

Were unlikely to wait six months after this next update just to get content promised a before the game launched while they finish the console, then bug squash. Because none of the promised content like DB and Thief. Will likely not be deployed until well after summer easily 10 to 12 months away.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2015

I don't know if the time it would take is any correlation to how long another game took to implement a feature.

I'm interested in the player housing so it would be nice to see it sooner than later IF its going to come.

AriBoh · February 2015

If the only thing you think will keep you playing is housing...... idk what to say to that.

KerinKor · February 2015

technohic wrote: »

It's also more difficult to have housing as you know it with this being an MMO as having a ton of player housing actually out in the world would be immersion breaking that so many TES fans harp about. So I think about their only solution would be what I think EQ2 had with instanced housing but with a physical front. Certainly not a teleport to thing like SWTOR is.

Not sure how many MMOs you play but most of those I play have housing and they show a variety of ways to do it:

FFXI - doorways to individual instanced house interiors
FFXIV, LOTRO - instanced zones containing a number of properties, the same zone is instanced many times but you only ever see 'yours'
Rift - the most extensive build-it-yourself system I've seen on-line of off-line, single 'outside' instance per player
SW:TOR - you know about
GW2 - doesn't

There's no immersion issue here, why is this regularly trotted out as a reason the sayer doesn't want to happen?

FFXIV and LOTRO both have small communities away from the main cities which are perfectly in-keeping with the game .. using a TES analogy you could easily have player housing based in, say, Balmora and it would work perfectly with in spirit and lore of the game.

This instanced-community works superbly IMO in those games and would work equally well here .. far better IMO that instanced doorways, though since FFXI was an early MMO (designed in 2000/2001 and based on EQ) that was probably a good way to go at the time.

Kalman · February 2015

YOU will wait and YOU will like it!
Long_line_of_German_prisoners_from_the_Siege_of_Tobruk_cph.3b18198.jpg

rawne1980b16_ESO · February 2015

I'm waiting on Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild and housing.

Fortunately for me there is no other content i've heard about that I have any interest in whatsoever so playing this game will be incredibly cheap for me once they drop mandatory subscription.

I can't really complain about the lack of those things now. The longer they delay them the longer i'll be able to play for free. Nothing else in the works worth paying for.

Theosis · February 2015

I agree with this game player housing is wanted at least for people like myself. One of the biggest problems for those like myself is that I expected it to be in the game at launch.

I am thinking Zos was a bad choice for making this game now. It's as if they are not even thinking about the players at this point.

At least they are not going to do what WoW is doing and adding twitter to the game. man I don't know what they are thinking..

Anyway.. perhaps asking the players what they want would have been a good idea months ago.

Roechacca · February 2015

You need a RL Mortgage to afford SWTOR in game real estate . That's not a joke btw .

rawne1980b16_ESO · February 2015

Theosis wrote: »

I am thinking Zos was a bad choice for making this game now. It's as if they are not even thinking about the players at this point.

People have said that since ESO was announced.

Quite a few folk weren't happy Bethesda weren't developing it. Then again, I don't think it would have made much difference. Some folk weren't happy about the prospect of an Elder Scrolls MMO.

Panda244 · February 2015

I fully support your issue Morna, I don't RP anymore so I'm not effected by it. But since ZOS seems to ignore Player Housing you're gonna have to wait a few months for them to acknowledge it. Then a few more months for them to say they're working on it. Then a year or two for them to finish it.

Wolfsspinne · February 2015

How do you weave housing for millions of players into the limits of Tamriel?

You can't just place 100,000 houses in the middle of nowhere, there has to be some kind of story to it.
In SWTOR that was not an issue at all, they did like: "Here you go three brand new planets and look they are filled with houses!"
In ESO that's a little bit harder, the Imperial City is like the biggest city of Tamriel but it has like 50 houses and that's it...

Wifeaggro13 · February 2015

KerinKor wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

It's also more difficult to have housing as you know it with this being an MMO as having a ton of player housing actually out in the world would be immersion breaking that so many TES fans harp about. So I think about their only solution would be what I think EQ2 had with instanced housing but with a physical front. Certainly not a teleport to thing like SWTOR is.

Not sure how many MMOs you play but most of those I play have housing and they show a variety of ways to do it:

FFXI - doorways to individual instanced house interiors
FFXIV, LOTRO - instanced zones containing a number of properties, the same zone is instanced many times but you only ever see 'yours'
Rift - the most extensive build-it-yourself system I've seen on-line of off-line, single 'outside' instance per player
SW:TOR - you know about
GW2 - doesn't

There's no immersion issue here, why is this regularly trotted out as a reason the sayer doesn't want to happen?

FFXIV and LOTRO both have small communities away from the main cities which are perfectly in-keeping with the game .. using a TES analogy you could easily have player housing based in, say, Balmora and it would work perfectly with in spirit and lore of the game.

This instanced-community works superbly IMO in those games and would work equally well here .. far better IMO that instanced doorways, though since FFXI was an early MMO (designed in 2000/2001 and based on EQ) that was probably a good way to go at the time.

Everquest 2 launched with housing. And probably the most customizable system i've ever seen. It was also tied into crafting making it even a more desirable and fun feature. Right now MMO's go for the big buck sales then cash out with fluff feature cash shops.

Slurg · February 2015

Well we definitely won't see housing by the end of this year but we might see it by the end of next year for one very important reason:

Crown Shop.

ZOS could make a good bit of money putting housing and decorations in the crown shop. If it's a feature that the new B2P and console players indicate willingness to spend cash money on, I think it will become a priority for development next year.

Digiman · February 2015

Not interested in player housing at the moment. I stay at an inn. Quite frankly it would be hard to implement at the moment when they are busy fixing and adding better progression.

Would rather that. While SWTOR had some excellent methods for housing, that was because it was set in a galaxy where you could travel from planet to planet so space was never an issue.

Look at WoW took them nearly 10 years to get housing and that was set in a utterly different timeline of Draenor.

I would rather wait at an inn then simply have lack luster housing on a broken end game.

TheBull · February 2015

Housing for the sake of housing is the biggest waste of resources a developer could make. It did nothing for RIFT, SWTOR, or Wildstar. Instanced housing does nothing but take people out the game world.

Now if there was a housing system tied to territory control and politics that would be cool. ESO is not that type of game though.

rophez_ESO · February 2015

I'm a pretty big ESO fanboy, but they need to do some serious work in 2015 to keep me around - too many options around the corner - Crowfall, Star Citizen, etc., etc.

Demeos · February 2015

I know one thing's for sure, no MMO has ever come out with a world large enough to provide non-instanced housing for everyone without it looking like it's taking up way more space than the land can accommodate. ArcheAge being the most recent MMO I can think of that has such a system and there simple isn't enough land available for everyone who wants to own a home to have one. And the houses in that game look way too out of place to the rest of the enviroment.

ESO in my opinion just doesn't have enough empty space to build homes that'll still feel like a natural extension of the game's world. At least not for an entire MMO population that would want to own a home.

Now camp sites on the other hand might be doable. They're temporary, they're small, and wouldn't be out of place for an adventurer to use. Include phasing into it and you could have a camp site as a means to log out quickly from and when you log back in, so does your campsite without having to worry about it over-lapping with the camp site of someone else (thanks to the phasing mechanic already in-game). It could also double as place to do some cooking.

Gix · February 2015

MornaBaine wrote: »

However, SWTOR did not come from a line of previous games that had housing as an integral feature. Many of us were (and still are) appalled that there was no player housing system at launch as it was expected considering its prominence in the previous TES games.

Please enlighten me. Which Elder Scrolls game had housing an as integral feature?

I personally have no experience with Area and Daggerfall but:

Morrowind? Didn't you had to murder the previous owner to unofficially "own" the place?

Oblivion? Mage Tower, Thieve's Den and Vile Lair were DLCs.

Skyrim? Hearth DLC.

As far as I know, no, player housing has never been an integral feature.

Leijona · February 2015

Wolfsspinne wrote: »

You can't just place 100,000 houses in the middle of nowhere, there has to be some kind of story to it.
In SWTOR that was not an issue at all, they did like: "Here you go three brand new planets and look they are filled with houses!"

No, they didn't. In SWTOR you can own an apartment on one of the already existing planets in one of the already existing cities. And there is only one apartment for each city. But as you are teleporting into your home, it doesn't really matter.

MornaBaine · February 2015

Demeos wrote: »

I know one thing's for sure, no MMO has ever come out with a world large enough to provide non-instanced housing for everyone without it looking like it's taking up way more space than the land can accommodate. ArcheAge being the most recent MMO I can think of that has such a system and there simple isn't enough land available for everyone who wants to own a home to have one. And the houses in that game look way too out of place to the rest of the enviroment.

ESO in my opinion just doesn't have enough empty space to build homes that'll still feel like a natural extension of the game's world. At least not for an entire MMO population that would want to own a home.

Now camp sites on the other hand might be doable. They're temporary, they're small, and wouldn't be out of place for an adventurer to use. Include phasing into it and you could have a camp site as a means to log out quickly from and when you log back in, so does your campsite without having to worry about it over-lapping with the camp site of someone else (thanks to the phasing mechanic already in-game). It could also double as place to do some cooking.

I really hope they will offer campsites at the Crown Store. That would be awesome. I absolutely DON'T want to see player housing littering the countryside. Each zone simply needs one more city. It should have a castle, a nice manor home, and some cottages and a nice outdoor park-like center square. It doesn't even need a bank or vendors, let the "real" cities remain that. A tavern might be nice though.

Then, players purchase the home they want in the city of their choice. Say you go middle of the road and buy the manor home in the housing city in Bangkorai. That's the same outside facade for everyone, the same door for everyone. But, if course, the door is instanced to you and you can bring in anyone who is grouped with you. Really, this stuff is pretty easy at this point.

Catsmoke14 · February 2015

MornaBaine wrote: »

Really, this stuff is pretty easy at this point.

Agreed. I "coded" a house for myself in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim using the Construction Set they provided with each game, supposedly just a cut down version of what the devs used. All the art assets were there already...but anybody who has played an ES game this century knows all that.

I find it hard to believe a similar tool is not used with ESO. I've never instanced, but conceptually it looks trivial.

So I'm scratching my head here. Housing must be against their religion.

Darlgon · February 2015

Sorry, Just from your title...

I never wait for fluff like that, or even expect it by a certain time.

Its like saying, "Give me my candy now or I will hold my breath until I turn blue." Funny thing about that. If you hold your breath, eventually you will pass out and your body will force you to breath.

Wolfsspinne · February 2015

Leijona wrote: »

Wolfsspinne wrote: »

You can't just place 100,000 houses in the middle of nowhere, there has to be some kind of story to it.
In SWTOR that was not an issue at all, they did like: "Here you go three brand new planets and look they are filled with houses!"

No, they didn't. In SWTOR you can own an apartment on one of the already existing planets in one of the already existing cities. And there is only one apartment for each city. But as you are teleporting into your home, it doesn't really matter.

There aren't that many apartment buildings in Tamriel.

MornaBaine · February 2015

Darlgon wrote: »

Sorry, Just from your title...

I never wait for fluff like that, or even expect it by a certain time.

Its like saying, "Give me my candy now or I will hold my breath until I turn blue." Funny thing about that. If you hold your breath, eventually you will pass out and your body will force you to breath.

It's not actually a temper tantrum. It's just a statement of fact. They are counting on roleplayers to be their prime cash cows. Who the heck do you think is going to really buy all that stuff? Yeah a few burly Nord males are gonna pick up the wedding dress and PvP in it for lulz (Of which I totally approve by the way!) but by and large it's going to be roleplayers shelling out the "crowns" for all those goodies. We are traditionally the most ignored segment of the player base in virtually ALL MMOs and yet it is we who get hit in the pocketbook as soon as a cash shop appears. That being the case, they would be wise to go to a little trouble to give us what we actually want now that they can make us pay for it.

Valencer · February 2015

I think there's more exciting stuff to be done, honestly. Real content like the imperial city that is worth spending lots of time in and has some significant impact on the way the game is played. Or even spellcrafting.

Housing is neat and all, but it mostly seems like something you'd spend a little bit of time with playing around and then you'll hardly look back.

And instanced housing isn't nearly as fun as buying a home in oblivion or skyrim (where it was just you in the world). There the houses you bought were really your personal property.

MornaBaine · February 2015

Valencer wrote: »

I think there's more exciting stuff to be done, honestly. Real content like the imperial city that is worth spending lots of time in and has some significant impact on the way the game is played. Or even spellcrafting.

Housing is neat and all, but it mostly seems like something you'd spend a little bit of time with playing around and then you'll hardly look back.

And instanced housing isn't nearly as fun as buying a home in oblivion or skyrim (where it was just you in the world). There the houses you bought were really your personal property.

You underestimate the desire of roleplayers to have places to roleplay where they won't be constantly trolled.

Dragath · February 2015

you won't have to wait 3 years for player housing.
there will be no player housing.
they will barely have enough time to make playable content to keep the playerbase.

AlexDougherty · February 2015

MornaBaine wrote: »

Yes, it took over 3 years for SWTOR to start offering player housing. However, SWTOR did not come from a line of previous games that had housing as an integral feature.

Your ship was your house, well prior to them adding houses, you stored stuff there, you went back regularly (sometimes so you could go to the fleet for PVP, but nevertheless you went to your ship regularly).

But I agree people are unlikely to wait that long for housing here, housing is a part of the TES games.

technohic wrote: »

I disagree right away that SWTOR did not come from a line of games that had housing as an integral feature. It is in fact the second Star Wars MMO and many of the people that play it, also played SWG and housing was a big deal.

Well yes and no, it was Star Wars, but it was also from the Kotor line, which used the ship as your base of operations/house. It both was and wasn't a house, it acted as your house, but was still a ship. (I still miss the Ebon Hawk).