Hello! I’m not really one of the forum folks, despite having played the game since beta, but I’d like to pitch my idea about added functionality for mounts, non-combat pets, and assistants when used as furnishings. I love the housing system-- I’ve designed several complete homes, including a guild house-- and considering Summerset is coming out soon and there’s no news of this added functionality, it’s something I’ve spent some time thinking about.

There are so many different mounts and pets available, and many of us have paid quite a bit of Crown currency to obtain a variety of these companion creatures! So I think it makes sense that we’d like to utilize these unique assets as much as we can. In my experience, mounts and non-combat pets are among the most common furnishings utilized in player homes, so it would be a furnishing asset widely improved for a large amount of players with a small amount of effort on ZoS’ part.

In my search for news on the topic I’ve seen a couple forum posts considering the issue of lifeless/ static mount and non-combat pet furnishing items, but some of those considerations are a little far-fetched. Although having pets actually wander your house sounds intriguing on paper, it could be a nightmare to actually implement, considering the way placing items into your house works and the raw variability of item placement. The same goes for interactivity for pets, such as hugging or petting your non-combat pet or mount; there’s just too much variety in pet/ mount size and shape to easily apply standard animations across the different creatures. Eventually the functionality of wandering pet/ mount/ assistants would be great but in the meantime a less resource intensive solution would be more realistic to actually implement. So I’d honestly like to move away from ridiculously difficult methods of making these assets more life-like and move towards a more simple function: giving alternative idle poses to mount, non-combat pet, and assistant furnishings.

The addition of alternative idle poses adds variety and realism to the use of mount, non-combat pet, and even assistant furnishings and although I am by no means a programmer, it seems like like this could be implemented into the game with relative ease. Many of the poses that mounts could assume are already in-game assets since many mount models are shared by monsters or NPC animals such as the senche tigers at Sleepy Senche Overlook which exhibit sitting, pacing, and laying idle poses. Similarly, almost all non-combat pets have a range of animations such as dog pets laying down or cat pets sitting. It would be preferable if there was a method of selecting a specific pet animation such as for nixad pets, an “eternally chewing on a torchbug” animation because it would add specificity to housing scenes. A war hound laying on a rug by the fireplace is much more charming than a war hound diagonally pointing in the direction of the fire. Obviously, not all different models of mounts already have idle animations pre existing in the game; for example, the wolf mount model has no sitting or laying idle animation that I know of. Some mount models, therefore, would need to have additional idle animations made for them-- which, to my mind, seems the most intensive part of adding this functionality. Some mounts could just go without them.

An important offshoot point, and arguably the most important pose to be added at all, would be “saddleless idle mount animations”. If no additional functionality is implemented, please please please at least let players remove the visual addition of the saddle when using a mount as a furnishing. Nothing makes the mount furnishings look more like taxidermied animals than 24/7 wearing their saddles. The other idle animations such as mounts sitting, laying and sleeping also make more sense to me without the mounts wearing their saddles. Again, the removal of saddle visual element on the mount doesn’t seem as though it would be difficult programming-wise considering there are plenty saddleless mount models in the world such as horses and senche.

As far as actual interface for different idle poses, I figure when you’re previewing a Collectible furnishing item such as a mount or a pet, there should be a dropdown menu with different poses for that collectible -- for example, Stand, Sit, and Sleep. The preview for that item would change to the alternative idle pose, and then you could place it in your house, just like you would have otherwise. Simple.

It seems to me you only win by making mounts, non-combat pets, and assistants double as attractive furnishing items to crown store patrons, because you’ll be able to make more money from crowns on persons who possibly liked one of the pet/ mount/ assistants but didn’t have a specific character in mind to actually use that asset. Added functionality broadens the spectrum of uses for said crown items.