Nerouyn wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

This would not be correct. Zenimax has control over what data is available via the API.

Even so, suggesting that ZO exclude such data would make any even remotely useful addons related to housing utterly impossible.

That data will still be transmitted to the machines of every visitor of every home. Capturing it in some not officially supported way probably wouldn't be very difficult.

@Nerouyn

That's not the case at all. The housing add-on has been very useful for years. It helps a player align their furnishings and save their own designs so they can easily reuse them and rotate among different designs.

In fact, this add-on used to require a player to have decorator privileges, which permitted the "owner" of the home to limit access to such data. The OP makes this clear. So, reverting this add-on / API setting to the previous design would solve the issue.

Instead of fixing the API, can we just have in-game courts to try copyright cases? Imagine being a lawyer in ESO - it'd be so much fun

Might take a player to enter one of Zos supported housing contests with a stolen build and being caught for them to show interest in the issue.
I hope not.

I saw a player talking about selling builds in zone chat. I wonder if it's the same player.

JJBoomer wrote: »

question as someone who uses EHT and was unaware of this whole thing.

Is inspection mode what allows you to view objects and see what they are called in people's houses?

because i like visiting houses and being able to see the names of furnishings i've never seen before, so i can look them up on uesp.

or is that another feature entirely?

Yes, that is inspection mode, and it's native to the game.

I have been dabbling in housing over the years, but only recently tried to take it to the next level. While reading up on it I naturally also found threads like this one and it's really disheartening to see that it has been 18 months since @ZOS_Kevin supposedly escalated the issue and still zero response so far.

Which baffles me, because I'm 100% convinced the housing community by and large is spending the most in the store and also has a recurring ESO+ sub. We are amongst your best customers ZOS, way to ignore us.

What's also crazy is that this unlimited inspect mode was implemented, that goes directly against the whole "limited visitor" idea. Just to put this into perspective, imagine any player who checks your guild trader stock could also see where you sourced the raw materials from and at what price. That would be a (less severe) equivalent and I'd like to see people arguing for that to be justifiable. You're more than welcome to look at the final product, but it's none of your business how I got there, unless I willingly provide that info. They are called trade secrets for a reason and housing projects are no different in that regard. Real world comparison: Opening my home to the public during an Open House festival doesn't mean they are automatically entitled to receive the blueprints and a daily routine of all inhabitants.

And to those people who compare it to looking at and trying to copy fine art: it's not remotely the same thing. If you go to a museum or gallery and look at a painting, you see the end result - nothing more. You have no option to peel off layers to look what's beneath it. You can't see the combination of pigments that were used to achieve the colours. You also don't get to see every single stroke and at which angle the brush was held by the artist.

But this is pretty much what the inspect mode allows every random visitor to do, regardless of permission level. And by extension EHT enables any visitor to make a zero-effort copy. I'm on Xbox and afaik this particular addon isn't available there. But I have seen several carbon copies of houses even on here, so there probably exists a shortcut on this platform as well.

As pointed out already, the housing community exists across all servers and harbours many of the most sociable and active players. If those people get disillusioned and stop playing out of frustration, guild chats will become more silent. Guild events will experience less participation, because let's face it, the silent majority hardly ever takes part in those. The silent majority normally also doesn't consider buying 14k houses or pricey furniture packs from the crown store *hint hint*. Cause why would you collect lots of expensive houses if you're not really into...housing, exactly.

ZOS, you have nothing to gain from remaining apathetic regarding this matter. It's always better to act before the first visible signs of decline, cause once it gains momentum it'll be way harder to turn the whole thing around and regain the good faith of the community. And from what I've seen trust levels aren't exactly soaring at the moment.

MoonPile wrote: »

This remains one of the top issues on my housing wishlist too.

I enjoy being able to Inspect in homes, I wouldn't want that to be disabled.<snip>

Really interesting list. Especially the ability to activate/deactivate the interactivity of objects on a case-by-case basis gets my full support. Blocking off access to certain doors while keeping others working is a real hassle currently.

I hope my first post didn't give the impression that I'm categorically against the existence of inspection mode. It's indeed very useful and I'd happily grant it to players that show some interest or even offer a guided tour. I just think that it shouldn't be provided by default.

From my perspective the different tiers exist for a reason, they represent a hierarchy of trust. Compare it to guild structures and ask yourself if you'd give all your new recruits full access to leadership chat on day 1. Maybe you would, but most guilds don't do that and it comes back to trust. So laying bare all the inner workings of a guild to just about anybody is generally deemed off limits, but somehow for housing projects the opposite stance is applied.

You can certainly argue this would make it slightly more complicated for the average visitor to get inspiration and this might be true to a degree. But then I ask myself this: If anyone honestly wants to improve their housing skills, is a "hi, like your house. how did you do x/y/z?" too involved? If this one-liner is already deemed too much, how are they going to realize a project of any scale? Players new to housing often need to source furnishings from other people, because of the lack of plans. So communication and asking for help is pretty much inevitable anyway, why not start with getting some good advice? Which will probably help more down the road anyway than just using x-ray vision alone.

I'm fully aware this attitude might come across as elitist, but I just don't get why we treat housing so much different than the rest of the game. What do you do if you want to improve in pvp? Just inspect people's inventory? No, you talk to active players and ask about their rotation and stuff like that and many will happily give advice. Why have we accepted that learning about housing has to be this hands-off experience, where information somehow has to be provided in a semi-automated way?

If someone makes the small effort of contacting you the chances that they turn out to be potential copycats goes down considerably in my experience. I'll happily add anyone that does that to a higher tier, no questions asked. But having the lowest tier not being able to open something as simple as a (placed) door but at the same time giving them x-ray vision and a pathfinder mode for every single furnishing feels like a major disconnect from my point of view.

Sythen here. Yea I did some bad acting in the very distant past with eth. Was it wrong? Yes. Do i regret it? Very much so. But I have also learned from mistakes and with much time and practice have been able to enhance my skill in housing 10 fold. Ive had at least 15 of my "own" works copied with out my knowledge and yes its disappointing to see. I have has many friends and customers watch me build from the 1st furnishing to the last one put down. I agree with the OP and about blueprints should only be viewed from limited decor. It use to be like this and I would assume it would be a Easy fix but I can't recall if it was from the beta version immaculate construction. Im gonna have to open that up and do some explore and research. Mabye some @ name zos tagging could help get this back on the road.


Ps. Past is the past so if anyone has a negative comment that does not nurishe the thread and what we would like to see happen.. don't cause your just putting yourself in the position of a bad actor.