Sorry in advance for the lengthy post, but that is it's nature.... read on if you so choose...


I believe I heard in one of the more recent ESO Live broadcasts that Player Housing is on the docket for eventual implementation. It seems to me that ESO may focus more on community feedback in the more immediate time before new content goes live for fine tuning purposes, but that doesn't allow player feedback to have a play in the foundation of that content, only in terms of minor tweaks and adjustments. That is why I'm making this post now instead of in the days immediately prior to the player housing update. I also understand that I'm one voice in a vast ocean of voices, but if I neglect to put in my two cents, I can't be disappointed with the results.

I imagine the plans for player housing may be something akin to our experience in Skyrim whereby the player may be able to purchase one or more residences, probably specific residences in specific locations, throughout Tamriel. That would be fun and rewarding on it's own. However, I'm hoping that it may venture beyond that, or at least be staged to allow for future development beyond just that. (As a side note, I'm hoping that should this be the limit of the plan, that there be a more functional decoration/customization tool than we had in Skyrim).

Ultimately, I envision a "player housing" system whereby I can ultimately become the ruler of a large prosperous city that starts out as a mostly vacant land. Every city starts out this way. Maybe it starts out as a farm. After generations the family grows and you have a smith and a tanner and a miller. Then, as the farm becomes a small settlement, then a village, then a town, then a city... etc. In this case, speed it up a bit. Perhaps the player is rewarded with this piece of land as a generous reward for their devoted and unwavering service to their people (as if saving the world wasn't enough right). The player can then build their settlement over time.

With so many players, it would be impossible for each player to own a piece of Tamriel in the world instance, so I would envision this as having to be a gated instance type zone. Perhaps there are multiple instances available set in different zones so the player can choose which zone they wish to acquire their land and therefore the quest line they want to complete in order to obtain that land.

The settlement would grow over time depending on the number of new settlers arriving, which could be worked into new quest lines to encourage or seek out new settles of specific interest or skill to move to your location. Taking points a skill line might help here as well. I would suggest that the development of the player owned settlement could be developed to be as hands on or as hands off as the player desires. If the player isn't interested in managing a settlement, perhaps they make some little income from what use there is. The player may also have less availability of services like a Bank, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, Stables, etc. If the player chooses to work at developing their settlement, I can envision quest lines to get the Mages Guild to agree to build a guild hall in your city once their are enough settlers to warrant it. Same with the Fighters Guild. I imagine the Thieves Guild will just happen on it's own once there is enough wealth in the city to attract their attention. Initially though, the player would be looking to acquire tradesmen like an alchemist, enchanter, stableman, blacksmith, clothier, woodworker, etc. Those could be obtained either through a skill line (as will be described below) or through quest lines. The more services established in the town, the more attention it will attracts and the more settlers... leading to more important and valuable services... like the guild halls.

Once the player acquires their land, which could theoretically be the size of a small zone considering it is instanced, a new Skill Line becomes available named something like "Lord of the Land." This new skill line could contain features like:

* Commerce - Increases profitability of town commerce, thus increasing tax revenue
* Community Services - provisioning of healers, tradesmen, religious services, and guild faction representation draw new and varied settlers from afar.
* Delegation of Duty - you have hired wise and skilled people to assist you in the management of the daily affairs of your city. Your city will now run more efficiently on it's own without the need for your regular intervention. Probably with less change of success or less optimal results.
* Justice for All - You employ a and train a superior city guard to protect the interests of the city and it's inhabitants. With assurance of protection, a wealthier class of merchant develop an interest in taking residence.
* City Defenses - You order the construction of city walls, siege defensive weapons, as well as defensive architecture and landscape to deter incursion.
* Diplomat - increases the chance of success when negotiating with other settlements.
* Blessings of the Divines - Your investment and support of the religious houses of the divines garners favor from the Aedra. Increases the general health, prosperity, and happiness of the populace.
* A Dark Pact - You negotiate with the Thieves and Assassins guilds to allow them to operate within your walls, but with certain concessions.

This feature could entail, at the players choosing, a system whereby they speak to the equivalent of a "house carl" (but at the city level)... essentially an adviser, on a daily basis and the adviser acts as their eyes and ears for what is going on in the city. Perhaps today the crime rate is up and the player is given three options, one that will cost some of the city resources to hire a master thief to identify and thwart the source of the activity... another option might be for the player to take advantage of the crime and gain some little additional income at the cost of city prosperity and their popularity with the city folk... and then additionally the player could play more directly into it by getting involved themselves which would be completing a daily quest line.

The advisor's daily news could involve such things as the health of populate...
* Perhaps there is an illness that is taking route among the people and the player would have some options as to how to resolve that.
* Perhaps there is a visiting emissary from a neighboring settlement looking to negotiate trade, a martial alliance, a land dispute, etc. Diplomat would help with this.
* Perhaps an invading force has been seen on the move heading toward the city (this could probably only occur once the settlement reaches the size of at least city), this is where the City Defenses skill line can help to put off the invaders or maybe even make it less likely that opposing forces would even attempt an invasion. I would suggest that an invasion would have to be unsuccessful in the end else the player be harmed too much, but the results could vary in terms of the cost of repairs, the confidence of the citizenship, etc. The presence of the Mages and Fighters Guild should have a large impact on the success of the city defenses... if the player chose to complete those quest lines and negotiate the construction and presence of those guilds.
* Perhaps your adviser tells you that they've discovered there is espionage occurring related to the cities plans to build a naval fleet of trading ships to expand their commerce routes. A Dark Pact could help with this. Justice for All may help with this.
* Perhaps an assassin has infiltrated your staff and is assassinating your most trusted advisors. A Dark Pact could help with this.
* Perhaps there was a blight on the local crops and you need to ask another city for aid... but at what cost? Blessings of the Divines may help prevent this.Diplomat may help resolve this.
* Perhaps you've invoked the anger of some Deadra cult who is bringing death or misfortune to your people.Blessings of the Divines may help with this.


My hope is that there would be an in-game player "construction kit" that allows the player the tools to customize their land (exterior), as well as to customize their farm / village/ settlement/ town/ city, as well as any individual buildings, as well as visitor quest lines. This would have to be a hybrid of something like the Skyrim Creation Kit, the housing system in Ultima Online, the quest building system from Neverwinter, the decorating system from Wizards 101, the garrison feature of WoW.

Ultimately... this is the key... the Skyrim mod development community has proven beyond any measurable doubt, that the player community is willing and capable of designing game content just for the sake of improving the game (free of cost). We need to get that ability in the hands of the modding community. When I build my city, I want a snap-to grid to design my city layout with land lots of varying sizes that become available as my city grows. Then I want to be able to choose from a selection of player designed buildings in an open development landscape that fit into that land plot and just plunk it down. These can be categorized into building types (Shop - Alchemy, Shop - Blacksmith, Vendor - Enchanting, Vendor - Bag Merchant, Guild - Mages, Guild - Thieves, Community Service - Bank, Community Services - Jail / Dungeon, Community Services - City Hall, Player - Palace / Manse/ Castle, etc., Player - Shop, Player - Warehouse, Player - Naval Merchant Ship, Player - Naval War Ship, etc.

I would prefer to be able to design my city layout however I want in a kind of nav mesh interface, laying out the center of the city for the player reserved land for castle, etc. a wall surrounding that area, a noble district outside that wall with another wall outside that, then the wealthy merchant district surrounded by another wall, then the high end shopping district, then the middle class housing, then the common folk shopping district, then the poorer housing district with the seedy side of town. Or perhaps I would prefer to design my city in a hub and spoke district design instead of an ever widening ring structure. The point being I should be able to design it to my preference. Once you've designed the overall layout, then you can design each district with snap-to lot designations, which can later be filled with ESO and player designed structures designed to fit within those confines.

Another thought that occurred to me, and I hinted at this earlier, is that players should be able to design quests within their city that other players can then complete within your city. I can see a player ranking system for player developed quest lines on several factors including fun, immersion, length, difficulty, reliability / stability, etc. (similar to the Neverwinter system). I can see a daily quest hub for players to chose which player city quests they want to pursue with a relevant reward system.Etc.

There is a lot more potential here, which I may expand on at a later time, but I've spent over two hours outlining this so far.This could all be introduced over several DLCs over time, but obviously it would need to be structured properly to building on what has come before.

If you've made it this far, thank you for following along.