General Discussion

I can't seem to understand why features like housing and cities are so overlooked. Everyone I know lists their favorite SWG feature as the player city and house system... it was simply amazing. I could go off about how MMOs are no longer virtual worlds but rather single player RPGs, but that's a different topic.

Why is it that this hasn't reemerged in new upcoming games like AoC, Aion, WAR... It seems all these developers worry about are fancy graphics and more quests. Maybe the typical MMOer jas changed, but I can't get over the fact that this isn't a massively desired feature.

Thoughts?

My guess is this.

Because all games currently in the mmorpg market are grind games people don't have enough time to build houses, furnish them, and run them.  Even vanguard, which offers housing and player made cities, is a huge time sink. There is no way the majority of players can spend 4-6 hours a day playing an mmorpg. The majority of mmorpg subscribers never even make it to max level in most games, wow excluded. So in reality, it is my impression that most gamers in the mmorpg scene play about 2-4 hours a week, because they also play other games too. For example mass effect, tfc, etc. etc.

So the answer to that question based on my own perception is that games don't offer it because no one has time to do it. I think that's why uo was so successful with its housing. Everyone who reached maxed level had a house, furnished, and loaded with items and npcs. It made walking in the wilderness fun. But in uo you could reach max level in a month of casual play. In these other games it takes like five months of casual play. Maybe i'm slow, or maybe its the fact that after playing for five hours once a week and only gaining 2 levels, I get burned out. But i can imagine that most gamers are like me, and less like the hardcore, since they require food and water to live.

Well for one thing AoC does pretty much have Player Owned Cities, no house's that i know of but a guild city is good enough if not better.

And another reason is what gameplay aspect does player housing really bring to the game? its a nice little added o,  ill go afk  in my house or maybe store items in there or something but really id rather have a developer work on the gameplay aspects such as combat, dungeons, crafting before any player houseing was involved.

And if you really want a player house go play sims, you can buy furniture, set people on fire, murder your family it's a fun game if you want to buy a new sofa and put up some pictures.

Also about the whole MMO's no longer virtual worlds there geting more virtual then most previous MMO's, look at DAOC, and there RvR, and new AoC's upcoming Seigeing (should be alot of fun or a flop, well see)

Think about it. What would a player house do except to be a glorified bank vault? All the hack-n-slash games are focused on combat & adventure. Players will not be spending a lot of time in their house.

Development resource is limited. I would much rather a developer spends their resources on new areas, new quests and new items as opposed to player housing.

Originally posted by mulcher

Well for one thing AoC does pretty much have Player Owned Cities, no house's that i know of but a guild city is good enough if not better.

 

And another reason is what gameplay aspect does player housing really bring to the game? its a nice little added o,  ill go afk  in my house or maybe store items in there or something but really id rather have a developer work on the gameplay aspects such as combat, dungeons, crafting before any player houseing was involved.

 

And if you really want a player house go play sims, you can buy furniture, set people on fire, murder your family it's a fun game if you want to buy a new sofa and put up some pictures.

 

Also about the whole MMO's no longer virtual worlds there geting more virtual then most previous MMO's, look at DAOC, and there RvR, and new AoC's upcoming Seigeing (should be alot of fun or a flop, well see)

player houses are an integral part of any decent player run economy.

DOWN WITH AUCTION HOUSES!

PoH and things like that are for the role-players really. Nice feature to have, but think about it. People play games for fun. ESPECIALLY casual gamers. The more a game can focus on the action combat and glorious gameplay, the less people will wanna spend time in their virtual home. Isn't the real life version hard enough to maintain? Hardcore gamers would love it but I'd imagine the vast majority of players wouldn't use it enough to make it worthwhile. My 2 cents

Originally posted by Ascension08

PoH and things like that are for the role-players really. Nice feature to have, but think about it. People play games for fun. ESPECIALLY casual gamers. The more a game can focus on the action combat and glorious gameplay, the less people will wanna spend time in their virtual home. Isn't the real life version hard enough to maintain? Hardcore gamers would love it but I'd imagine the vast majority of players wouldn't use it enough to make it worthwhile. My 2 cents

MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online ROLEPLAY Game.

If the roleplayers do not get what they want what MMO Gamers are?

A player owned housing system does not have to be a long tedious grind like many aspects of current MMOs. I think it would be a great feature of an MMO if implemented correctly. Not only would it bring the same sense of individuality that comes with detailed character customization, but it would be a sort of sense of pride - the same way a person wears his highest tier Robe of Wisdom fully decked out with glowing trim.

Whether or not it's practical in the gaming sense all depends on the developer's imagination and creativity. If devs really want something to work, they'll make it work. The MMO community just needs to let them know.

(ps: Ascension08 was not bashing your post at all, just using yours as a starting point)

Housing and cities require a lot of coding and a lot of server resources.  It's difficult to market and "sell" these ambiance elements in a game, since they are like the icing on the cake.  The gameplay, however, is the cake itself, and there's more payoff for resources placed in there, as opposed to ambiance elements.

But I have to disagree that the casuals don't want player housing.  To me, it's the hardcore that always complains about things like "why spend all this time on this foofoo crap when [insert class here] is broken?,"  or "we just ran encounter x, y, and z fifty times, weneed more content ASAP!"  After all, there's nothing more "casual friendly" than decorating a house.  But because the hardcore just want phat lewts and to pwn all, developers are compelled to do nothing but provide phat lewts and limit everything to the quest to pwn.

Originally posted by Funseiki

 

Originally posted by Ascension08

PoH and things like that are for the role-players really. Nice feature to have, but think about it. People play games for fun. ESPECIALLY casual gamers. The more a game can focus on the action combat and glorious gameplay, the less people will wanna spend time in their virtual home. Isn't the real life version hard enough to maintain? Hardcore gamers would