A large fraction of the houses are damaged and decrepit.

A large fraction of them are dark.

A large fraction of them have icky mottled walls and/or sickly yellowish windows.

A large fraction of them look like lousy places to live because there aren't really any rooms, just hallways that might have enough room for not-very-private beds.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

A large fraction of the houses are damaged and decrepit.

A large fraction of them are dark.

A large fraction of them have icky mottled walls and/or sickly yellowish windows.

A large fraction of them look like lousy places to live because there aren't really any rooms, just hallways that might have enough room for not-very-private beds.

These are all problems that have kept me from buying many homes and, especially the poor layout you speak of, is what keeps me from being satisfied with almost all the homes I do have. It's obvious that whoever is creating these things has never looked at a real home's blueprint nor done any study of historical dwellings. While I realize that no castle is going to have all the rooms an actual castle would the way they are laid out is still extremely nonsensical. Maybe the housing dev team should spend some time playing The Sims.

Besides a scattering of inn rooms, I have: Twin Arches. (And the free Summerset mansion). So I have not bought: everything except Twin Arches.

Reason: While I -love- the housing system, I hate the prices. I pay for ESO plus both because I simply wouldn't play without the crafting bag and because I have a long standing vow to support the games my friends work on if I have any interest in the game at all. But I play ESO casually and seldom enough not to be able to join in the trading economy, so I don't make much gold compared to house prices, and I won't spend cash on the game beyond the sub. Add in that I did make a one time exception to get some extra crowns to get Twin Arches with full intention to set it up as my Redguard's home and then found myself never getting around to actually shifting all the furnishings around to my dream design and I realized that I'd truly be wasting my money buying homes I never did anything with.

I love seeing the video tours of creative house design posted in these forums, and I occasionally add more customization to the Summerset villa, but ESO offered complete freedom of item placement then made the houses and items cost so much in cash/gold/mats as to be prohibitive for me. I still hold it up as the almost-got-it-exactly-right MMO housing model when other games toy with implementing player housing, but this just isn't the game that gets my wallet open.

Most that cost crowns. Crown Store exclsive houses are way too expensive and not worth that amount of crowns, especially not when they are purely decorative.

Other than those, then the base game altmer houses along with the 3 faction mansions such as Daggerfall Overlook.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

mrsrobot wrote: »

I haven't bought Earthtear cavern as it is not time limited and I can come back to it later.
I went to preview it yesterday again and I swear it has changed a little. In the part where the furnished version has the bed, above there used to be space to build up over the area I swear. It looks like it got filled in with rocks. Am I remembering it wrong? I swear I planned on building up there.

I got the unfurnished house about a year ago. Is the area where the bed is located up the steps on either side of the waterfalls and then up the next short steps in the back center? I can’t remember for sure but that’s where I put the bedroom too. That’s pretty much all that’s up there.

Yeah that is where I meant. I mean high above there up near the top, I remember it being more open, not as many rocks.

I own every house that can be bought with in game gold, simply because I had to use my gold for something.

I have never bought any Crown store houses.

I haven't bought any of the crown only houses. Considering moon-sugar meadow, though. I have no issues with lucky cat landing but also no real interest in it since there isnt a real yard.

Main reason I don't buy crown store only houses is they are too... special and niche. Enchanted snow globe is just hideous with the whole, snowglobe aspect. I like the house itself but anytime in the yard it's just. Ugly snow globe. Alot are too extravagant for my taste and with the price point I'm not going to take something that I like only one aspect of any hate the rest. I like the boat in aldmeri colossal grotto but I hate the actual grotto. Grand topal hideaway has the active volcano that just seems like a hazard considering it's a small island and an active volcano. Most are too big to decorate so again paying that much for a house that has too many downsides and then really limited on how much you can put in it. Doesn't seem worth it at all to me. I have nothing against those kinds of houses existing but that sort of stuff seems to be the majority of what comes out. crown only and gimmicky.

As for houses bought with gold, I don't buy anything over 30K that doesn't have a yard. And most of the houses that do have yards have too much cobble stone path ways all over the place. There's bad house structures with open floor plans, And houses that are 3+ mil that have too much space for the item limit. And not enough structure in the house with different rooms. It's just one big box.

I've bought Autumn's Gate(First place) and Old Mistveil Manor(Main and fully furnished now). I have a very narrow taste wnen it comes to most things in this, and most, game.Here's a small list of what I thought about/would have bought: I did not bu Hakvild's High Hall because the layout of the Hall it'self. I did not buy Grymharth's Woe because it's Old Mistveil Manor without the courtyard(wish the latter was in the snow). I did not buy the snowglobe one because although it was finally a whole property in the snow in Eastmarch, it's Imperial. And finally I did not buy Hunter's Glade because I cannot justify spending that much money on Housing in this game while the functionality of Housing it'self is very limited.

There are a number of houses I wouldn't buy. In some cases I see little reason to buy anything other than the cheapest house if there are 2 - 3 in the same vicinity. It is odd that there are large zones with a few houses all clustered in one area but none in other areas.

Wrothgar is one very large zone that could have a few more houses. I got the Pariah's Pinnacle free as a part of the last New Life Festival but I can't see using it. It would be a decent guild hall but there's not much around it and no close by wayshrines.

In most cases I've bought houses for their accessibility to some town or region. It helps with getting lower level alts to places where they don't yet know the wayshrine and help my main get around without needing to find a nearby washrine or pay gold to teleport. In other cases I might just like the house or have design on furnishing one someday. I have bought a few time-limited houses like the Linchal Grand Manor, the Topal Hideaway and the Snow Globe home.

In many cases I've bought houses with the Crowns I get from ESO+ and a few I've bought with gold. My primary is the Sleek Creek house, close to an outlaws refuge, traders, daily writ pickup and drop-off. I have a banker and merchant at the house, all of the crafting stations, I keep all of the storage containers there and hang up all of my dungeon trophies.

Like others have mentioned many houses where there should be activity nearby feel dead but there's little you could do about that. It's the nature of instancing, although they could fake it with a few NPCs outside the house. So if I looked towards town I might see a few NPCs milling about, or see some hostile fishing near my creek.

Sporvan wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

6) Moon-Sugar Meadow, Lucky Cat Landing, Potentate's Retreat: This year was simply over-saturated with Elsweyr houses that were just the same thing with slight variations. We don't need five wood and stone cat houses in the same year that all have the same style. Especially not since we got the Hall of the Lunar Champion which already included everything - so the overlap and repetition in this year's houses was insane. As a result, I only bought 1 of the new houses this year, so I think dedicating so many house releases to a single style was a total waste.

We've had a year of exploring Elsweyr, what else did you expect their housing focus to be? Each Elsweyr house them has been very different in look and feel... Lunar Hall and Moon Sugar Meadow have been empty canvases. Lucky Cat Landing is run down and edgy. Jode's Embrace is sleek Elsweyr style perfection with a portal to a different plane. Potentate's Retreat is an Imperial / Khajiit Hybrid. In addition we got a Daedric / Vampire House in Wraithhome, a Dwemer house in Frost Vault. There has been a decent variety. If you want to blame anything it could be the new strategy of DLC + Chapter in the same setting that's at fault and caused a lack of new furnishings.

Erm...No. During Morrowind's and Summerset's Chapter cycles, we didn't spend 3 ouf ot 4 quarters of the year on the same style. They never did that before so I certainly don't think we needed to 'expect' that they'd take the lazy approach to housing as well. Especially when there are plenty of styles that have 0 or only 1 house dedicated to them (Ayleid, Dwemer, Murkmire reed style, Clockwork, etc).

Nothing forced them to dedicate house releases to cats throughout 3/4ths of the year. They released the Thieves Guild inspired P.D.Palace and the Dark Brotherhood inspired Erstwhile Sancuary in Q1 of 2018 which had nothing to do with the current DLC. They could have easily added unique houses this year too instead of slight variations on the same thing.

Because let's be honest, the houses definitely did not have a 'decent variety' . You want to see 'decent variety' check out Morrowind's Amaya Lake Lodge (Hlaalu style), Ald Velothi Harbor House (Bug-house style), Tel Galen (Telvanni mushroom house style), Saint Delyn Penthouse (Vivec canton-style). Those designs (all from a single Chapter I might add) have far more variety in them than Elsweyr-Scalebreaker-Dragonhold combined. That year also gave us the Observatory Prior and Pariah's Pinnacle. So there, that's a decent variety. This is not:

- Elsweyr wood: Sugar Bowl Suite, Hall of the Lunar Champion (3rd wing), Lucky Cat Landing, Jode's Embrace.
- Elsweyr stone: Hall of the Lunar Champion (base hall), Hall of the Lunar Champion (2nd wing), Jode's Embrace (Plane of Jode area), Potentate's Retreat (which also has two wood rooms but I didn't want to repeat it, the list is already bad enough).
- Elsweyr free-build: Hall of the Lunar Champion (1st wing), Moon-Sugar Meadow.
And that's on top of the base game Khajiiti houses (Moonmirth, Sleek Creek, Dawnshadow, Serenity Falls).

Sporvan wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Erm...No. During Morrowind's and Summerset's Chapter cycles, we didn't spend 3 ouf ot 4 quarters of the year on the same style. They never did that before so I certainly don't think we needed to 'expect' that they'd take the lazy approach to housing as well. Especially when there are plenty of styles that have 0 or only 1 house dedicated to them (Ayleid, Dwemer, Murkmire reed style, Clockwork, etc).

Morrowind wasn't a Chapter and DLC dedicated to one setting... It wasn't the entire year... Clockwork city was an entirely different setting. Understand??

My whole point remains true:

We've had a year of exploring Elsweyr, what else did you expect their housing focus to be?

No need to type 'Understand??' at me when you missed my counterargument - so your point does not 'remain true'.

1) I pointed out that 'current DLC' and 'current house releases' do not have to be determininistic. Did we have a Hew's Bane or Gold Coast DLC in Q1 2018? No. But they still released the Princely Dawnlight Palace and Erstwhile Sanctuary because they were unique homes and fulfilled a niche that no house covered so far. Did we have an Orsinium DLC in Q4 of 2017? No. But they still released Pariah's Pinnacle during the CWC DLC.

2) Even when their DLCs took place in a unique zone, and brought unique architecture with them, they still didn't release two houses in the same style. Murkmire had the stone architecture and the reed-style homes, but we still only got a giant Xanmeer. Clockwork City is absolutely unique, but we still only got one house. Hew's Bane has the blue tiled palace style and the muddy harbor houses, but we still only got one house, and only in the fancy style. Arteum has unique Psijic architecture but we have no penthouse there - despite the many portals that exist in the tower.

3) So the what-else-would-they-have-done insinuation of your 'what did you expect?' complaint is wrong for that reason. There was no reason to expect that literally 6 out of 9 of this year's houses would be the same Elsweyr style. They often released unique houses that have nothing to do with the current DLC, so there was nothing to suggest they'd only copy paste cat stuff for the rest of the year. Especially when previous DLCs had far more varied styles than Elsweyr-Scalebreaker-Dragonhold and still only got 1 house per style.

Sporvan wrote: »

For heaven's sakes. You're focusing on building materials? Really? The buildings are entirely different and functionally different as well. Look I'm not going to get into a futile argument with you, but this seems particularly persnickety.

Like I said before, ZOS did fine with the Elsweyr housing options. They were magnificent in fact.. but I'll caveat that with IF you like the styles of Elsweyr. I'll freely acknowledge they aren't everyone's tastes so if you didn't like the style you were locked into a year of cat homes. ;-) For those of us that do it was a treasure trove of beautiful homes with different purposes and functionalities. Your argument that they didn't have enough variety is bogus. You just didn't like the style of Elsweyr.

So you think that Daggerfall Overlook is not a Breton house because it's made of stone? Or that Gardner House isn't a Breton style either because part of it is stone masonry and part of it is the normal Breton timber+plaster? Come on. They're all Breton homes, just like the 6 houses this year were all the same Elsweyr style.

I brought up the material because we could make the case that the 'stone Elsweyr' and 'wood Elsweyr' styles are different. The same way we could consider Hlaalu Dunmer and Tevanni Dunmer to be different, or Xanmeer Murkmire and Reed Murkmire to be different. I was doing you a favor by differenciating Elsweyr homes by stone/wood, because if I didn't it would be even more apparent how there was very little variety. Especially when far more diverse styles only got 1 house each. Hlaalu, Bughouse, Telvanni, and Vivec architecture (Morrowind) is far more different than anything in N+S Elsweyr yet there's only 1 of each.

So it has literally nothing to do whether someone likes Elsweyr's style or not. I like the Imperial style, but I'd still complain if they released 6 Imperial homes one after another, and wouldn't claim that the house releases were in fact magnificent and they did a good job. You can't look at that and say that there was 'decent variety'. That's objectively wrong.

Edit: Thought I'd add it in case the picture isn't obvious at first glance (and with so much copy-pasting why would it be) - the images are from Sugar Bowl Suite, Lucky Cat Landing upstairs, Lucky Cat Landing downstairs, Potentate's Retreat, Jode's Embrace, and Hall of the Lunar Champion. So much for the 'decent variety'.

I bought Daggerfall Overlook because I love the classic castle feel. My only complaint is it is impossible to light the interior properly. I have so many lights and it's a black hole for all the lighting.

I also bought Linchal to make a hostel for all the races, each garden section features decour from difference racial zones, and the barn house has been made into a hostel with the three sections decorated for the three factions. The main house remains an Imperial manor as it is a meeting place for peace and delegations. This is the only home I bought furnished because Imperial decorations cannot be crafted.

I also have Goronir Estate, Ald Velothi, and a few other smaller homes, but I kinda burnt out on decorating as it takes forever to farm mats and I will not buy what I can craft. I may get the Elsweyr meadow at some point as I can just buy the trees with in game gold, and I really want Hakvalds because of the Dragon mound (Pure Skyrim baby) but I'm waiting to see how game balancing goes in the next year before I invest as I'm still smarting over the year of yoyo balance swings and nerfs. I love housing, but I want to play a game too.

MornaBaine wrote: »

Minyassa wrote: »

Enchanted Snow Globe Home: The view outside the globe. Yuck. No thanks. Would have snatched it up in a heartbeat if it was someplace outdoors, or like...not in a snowglobe.
.

You make a ton of excellent points in your post and thank you for being so through! I did just want to point out that if you use one of the EHT skies on the snowglobe home they completely obliterate the ridiculous snowglobe sky and then just look like a regular sky. Once that's done it's an adorable place. I like this night sky a lot for a very stark look:



And this is another EHT sky I use at Linchal to give the place a foreboding look:



So, just some ideas!

Thank you for pointing this out! I hadn't started using EHT when the Snowglobe house came out, and I have messed with it a little bit now and played with some skydomes the other day and they look way better than I expected. I think I might have a snowy home for my frost warden next time this comes out and I can just cover up that unsightly view.