Unless ZOS decides that Housing is not a profitable investment beyond what it is. I expect them to add much more to it over time. This can either go the way theyve treated Guilds or the way they approached Motifs and Mounts.

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Can somebody please clarify a few things about house ownership? More specifically, is there actually a solid reason to go about embarking the grindy and RNG-based journey?

From what was explained to me, houses don't actually provide anything of actual value outside of a few mediocre things. These things being: A DPS dummy, crafting stations at your home, an instance to park your characters (????), and a means to let loose your creative side (if you have the gold, materials, and or crowns).

Is it true that any: Closets, desks, trunks, etc. won't actually be able to usable? As in they're there for show, and actually serve no purpose? Because if so, what is the point of owning a house if you can't actually store items inside of it? Isn't the point of a home, a place to rest and store things? I'm confused.

I've also been told that books don't work, if stacked neatly. And become unable to be interacted with. Therefore causing you to have a messy bookshelf, if in fact you do wish to read books. Please tell me that isn't true, as I was a huge neat freak in Skyrim. And organized my books like a fiend. Please tell me this isn't true.

Edit: For those curious about the point of this thread, it's so that I can get clarity on the things I listed above. The Homestead update launches on PS4 on Tuesday, and I'm contemplating whether or not I should go through with getting a house. Therefore I want to weigh the cons and pros, and see whether or not it is worth it or not to dump some crowns and gold into a housing project.

Ok so ignoring your judgments infused throughout this post and looking at the questions:

DPS dummies, crafting stations, parks and fun if you like it - yes.

Storage: there is no storage function now in a house - other than obviously - storing furnishings. All indications are storage will come later.

interactive books can be obtained from the mage's guild and can be interacted with and can be read. It is possible to place ANY interactive item in such a way that it becomes inert - that applies to books as well as other things.

As for the "why would someone do it then" kind of editorial questions - because it offers something they want. Function is in the eye of the beholder.

its possible to run duels in houses.
houses are instanced and you have control over entry.

So, if one is interested in dueling without interruption - like say running a dueling tourney that one can stream without having really annoying interlopers running into the duel and causing interruption after interruption to your broadcast - a house works very well for that. that is a capability the house can provide that cannot be gained elsewhere.

if one want to do so, one can create crafting stations for PVP zone sets and DLC sets and harder to get to sets and place them in your home and invite others (perhaps your guild mates) to use them without going to the PVP zone or owning the DLC. . that's a capability not otherwise available. one could even "rent" the home for such uses for gold if one wanted.

there are lots of other "functions" or more properly "capabilities" that folks can find "uses for" in their housing - in addition to whatever fun it brings them in its own right.

One can always ask "what does it do for me?" and get a very small picture of anything.
One can also always ask "what can i do with it or what can i get out of it?" and often get a much broader, richer more robust perspective.

The one's looking at housing now and asking the latter are gonna be the ones ahead of the curve.

In homestead housing is potential - potential fun, potential use, potential gains - and like all potential it requires creativity, time and effort to turn it from potential into reality and some will choose to do so and others won't.

People will enjoy the illusion even if they know there is no practicality.

Much of the reason I have not done much with my house is actualy an lack of preview of items and items in blueprints.
Its an preview in the placement editor inside the house where its totally redundant.

And huses are not very functional today, hopefully this will change.

zaria wrote: »

Much of the reason I have not done much with my house is actualy an lack of preview of items and items in blueprints.
Its an preview in the placement editor inside the house where its totally redundant.

And huses are not very functional today, hopefully this will change.

I agree with this. I've outfitted one, very small house and my biggest complaint would be that. Also the previewer shows no sense of scale. I can be like "well that looks small enough for this corner" and end up with a table that's huge or looked better in the editor. But hey, it's too late cause had to buy it just to see it in the place.

Haven't played TheSims in years but it brought back memories of at least hovering something in a space and clicking to purchase which was great in at least figuring out if you really wanted the thing.

Not much function in housing right now that is true but it doesn't have to be a grind to furnish a house. I had planned on getting a house for the practice dummy only. Our guild decided to get both practice dummies though so was no need for me to get one.
I wasn't going to get a house but I have a character I am trying to get as many achievements as I can with. Right nos I am doing the fighters guild dolmen dailies and the thieves guild pickpocket dailies to get those achievements. I don't want it to become a grind so I don't do them every day. I mix things up so the game doesn't get tedious. Just doing the dailies and taking the time to kill/gather everything I see when getting from point A to point B I found I was getting a lot of housing related items. So I got a house and started placing things.
Turns out (for me) it is more fun than I thought it would be. I spent an hour seeing how high I could stack some rocks. While waiting for our trials group to get organized I used to fish (have two characters with master fisher title) and now while waiting I goof off moving things around my house.
The short of it being it doesn't need to be a grind. It can be just something that you do for a bit of a diversion, and all the goodies you need you can get/find while doing other things.
Don't run out and buy a mansion right off if you are unsure but maybe purchase one of the smaller places and see what happens. If it turns out you do not like it you are not out much and if they do improve functionality later you will already have a home.

Yeah I myself am pondering making an investment in the player housing, PC player feedback so far leads me to believe that it's not a worthwhile investment which is a shame,

But I guess we will have to wait and see.

Acts as a free wayshrine if you're stuck in an awful, enemy-filled area and the nearest trek to a wayshrine is a LOOOONG way away.

Also, you can craft there if you can get the crafting stations. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get the crafting stations unless you buy them with real money in the crown store.

Otherwise, the houses are nice to have for role play, dueling and guild meetings/parties.

Even if there was more functionality to the houses (i.e. more items you could interact with) has that ever really been the point of housing in an MMO? They're always for showing off and there are actually some decent customization options available here and I'm sure we'll have many more items and decorations down the road (hopefully through in-game crafting and not just the crown store).

I'm not someone who is generally into housing in MMO's but what ZOS has put together is objectively pretty standard for MMO housing. They have plenty of opportunity to expand on it in the future but I don't feel like the lack of functionality makes it a broken launch.

disintegr8 wrote: »

Like every other new thing that has come into the game, if you don't like it, leave housing alone and let those who want to enjoy it do so without judgement. Some like PVP, some like the challenge of vMSA, some enjoy trials, others enjoy farming, trading and some may enjoy housing. There is no right or wrong.

I am interested in the skeletons and the tunable crafting stations but am waiting to see how the master writs go before I know if I will get them (waiting on console release). I will buy a house or two anyway and see if I want to take it any further - partly because I have the gold and partly because I like to try before I judge something.

It will probably be that I end up with a lot of homes because there is nothing else for me to spend my gold on and I enjoy making gold in the game. Housing might simply give me incentive to keep making gold.

I have suggested in another thread that I may set a goal to buy all of the houses with in game gold - just for the fun of it.

I decided to get each of the characters I play their own house. I originally got just the one and was putting in the trophies my main had earned. Also put some things in there I thought would fit her personality and it kind of hit me I have a racist Khajiit that will only wear Khajiit armor so no way he would dwell in a house that was not Khajiit or had any non Khajiit furniture in it. So now each character I play kind of regular gets their own house. Any trophies in their individual houses will have to be earned by that character. I will let them take advantage of my master crafter though.

STEVIL wrote: »

its possible to run duels in houses.

While I agree with everything else in your post and am also a huge fan of housing (both in its current incarnation and in its potential), it's worth noting that player-made dueling arenas are very underwhelming at the moment, because knockback pushes you through placed walls/terrain (similar to outpost/keep horseshoe grates).

Housing offers insane potential for custom dueling, but until they make the player-placed terrain behave properly it's extremely limited.