I think it should be there in mmorpgs. was in UO, EQ's, SWG, AO, Vanguard, FFXI, etc, ect. but which one did it the most fun. I think the instance ones are ok. but I like the look of external houses you can actually see like the ones Vanguard tried to achieve or SWG. who concept gives much more to the game. It is a ROLE-playing game. can't forget about the capital R.

I really enjoyed the player housing and crafting of SWG... infact i still play it for that reason... walk into my mustafar bunker, have some classic starwars jams playin.. couple of rad paintings on the wall.. all kindsa goodies, love it..

Downside alot of ghost towns because lets face it... people jump on a bandwagon, and ride that shit home.. when it comes too games... PRENGC or w/e it was called, never played then, only fired it up after they "ruined" the game... and yet i havent had this much fun in a while

Its a feature that always excites me, but always became a lack luster feature for me in the long run.  I don't think its as vital as everyone makes it out to be.

Games like UO and SWG, it works well.  Player buildings became gathering places and made you feel apart of the world.  There was a definiate sense of ownership.

Games like DAoC and LotRO, it works but its just a bullet point to add to a  feature list.  I never felt like I "owned" anything.

SE did something interesting where depending on how you decorated your apartment, there were gameplay implications in combat, crafting, etc...  I found that both fun and intriguing.

Horizons and Vanguard had preset plots that you had to build up - this I liked because there was a huge sense of accomplishment when you finished your building.  However, I wasn't too keen on "preset" locations, and once you were done, you were done.

Originally posted by Skillzeroo

Really tired, too lazy to type out a big long post on it but does anyone else feel like player housing is sort of... needed in new MMOs? It obviously isn't limited by hardware and there doesn't seem to be an excuse to not get it out.

 

Mounts, faster travel? Been done ten thousand times over...

End Game raiding to look forward to in your "goals"? Been done ten thousand times over.

But player housing, while it has been done, has never REALLY been a standard for MMOs especially recently.. Why is this? Its something to work towards and something I'd definitely want... I remember my first time in LOTRO being amazed and spending an entire night just going around looking at all of the houses and things people put around them and inside of them.. Its something in the game itself that you can claim is "Yours".. Its something that doesn't disappear when you log off and come back when you're back online.. Its always there!

I don't think its necessarily player housing that is the key.  The key is that the player has something to call his own (or the illusion of this) in a world that is dictated by the game creaters.

There is a reason games like farmtown are so popular.  There is a sense of personal pride found in those games that cannot be found in many MMOs, save the time commitment it takes to reach max level.

More content that allows the player to feel attached to the world and that he is actually "making a difference" (can be just decorating his house or saving a life) is what the key is. Even if its merely an illusion.

Originally posted by Skillzeroo

Really tired, too lazy to type out a big long post on it but does anyone else feel like player housing is sort of... needed in new MMOs?

Persistent world customization with a purpose, specifically. Housing for the sake of housing is of little interest to most MMO gamers, especially when coupled with some kind of rent or maintenance system. Player owned areas or structures that can be effectively utilized for player interaction on any level - creafting area, store, meeting place, etc- seems to be what players enjoy most.

To facilitate that, some of the features that could be integrated are  

• quick and easy travel to/from the location
• group and individual storage with permission lists
• the ability to display trophy/unique items
• a system to broadcast to select groups events or gatherings at the location
• a system to securely transfer or sell previously owned locations

UO and Puzzle Pirates have great examples of functional and meaningful housing in an MMO.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Skillzeroo

Really tired, too lazy to type out a big long post on it but does anyone else feel like player housing is sort of... needed in new MMOs?

Persistent world customization with a purpose, specifically. Housing for the sake of housing is of little interest to most MMO gamers, especially when coupled with some kind of rent or maintenance system. Player owned areas or structures that can be effectively utilized for player interaction on any level - creafting area, store, meeting place, etc- seems to be what players enjoy most.

To facilitate that, some of the features that could be integrated are  

• quick and easy travel to/from the location
• group and individual storage with permission lists
• the ability to display trophy/unique items
• a system to broadcast to select groups events or gatherings at the location
• a system to securely transfer or sell previously owned locations

UO and Puzzle Pirates have great examples of functional and meaningful housing in an MMO.

This, in the most hardcore sense but I think LotRO's housing is almost enough for casuals.  It allows you to decorate your place within some limits.  The problem is those limits are a bit too restrictive for it to appeal to the farmtown crowd.

I prefer games to treat housing as optional, like crafting.

I don't like crafting, so I don't want to be made to craft in a game. If other people want to craft, that's fine.

I don't care about housing, so I prefer a game that doesn't make me deal with it.

I don't want to have to have a house to bind in a city, or have to have a house to use the auction system, have to have a house to store my items, etc.

All I need is a "bank" and I'm good. I really dont' want to decorate, spend time by myself inside my "house", etc.

If you want to play with housing, cool. It's a great feature for those that are entertained by it.

I think it's subjective. I don't think player housing is needed.

I have to admit that I rarely used the housing in eq2 when I tried the game and though I bought something in LOTRO, I also never used it.

I would use it if there was extra storage or there was some benefit. I have to admit that I don't like the idea of crafting in player housing becuase that then takes people out of the cities.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I prefer games to treat housing as optional, like crafting.

I don't like crafting, so I don't want to be made to craft in a game. If other people want to craft, that's fine.

I'm the same way. I despise crafting the way it's done in games. I'd rather just buy things off of people who like crafting. If a game requires crafting or if it looks like I'm going to undergo a lot of hardship if I don't craft I tend to stop playing that game.

If there's 1 thing that LotRO kinda solved when it came to housing it was the whole "instances vs non-instance" by placing you in a instanced neighborhood that you shared with a certain number of other people because each neighborhood had a limited number of house slots. Now, if houses actually served any purpose other than as your strong boxes, there could've been some neighborhood-level cooperation stuff (quests or other activities).

Originally posted by Cephus404

I honestly don't care about player housing, except as a place to store things I don't want to lug around with me all the time.  In any game I've ever played where they had player housing, I've never once done anything there that meant anything.  I don't think anyone ever came over to my "house" more than a handful of times, I don't think I went to anyone else's "house" very often either.  Therefore, decorating my "house" seems pointless if there's hardly anyone who will ever see it.

I'm there to play a game, not show off.  Most people are the same.

Wow, this is the first time ever. I'm actually in complete agreement with Cephus!

I've really never seen the point of player housing except as an extended bank. I'd rather be out playing the game than, you know.. logging into a game from my house to.. be in my house. Give me dragons to fight and undead to battle in an MMO, if I wanted to build a nice house I'd load up a game of Sims 3.

I like player housing.. it gives me a hobby to fool around with like fishing.. lol

No offence, but I think questing isnt' needed in a GOOD mmo..  Oh granted, there are times doing an epic quest would be fun, like the EQ1 one's..  But running back and forth from a quest hub (town or camp) to the mob to gain MOST of your exp is boring and agrivating.. I mean really...

Quest Giver says, "I need for you to kill 10 orcs"  ------- (quest complete)

Quest Giver says, "well done, however did you happen to collect their teeth, I need 5 of them"........... ( GRRR quest complete)

Quest Giver says, "excellent, oops did I tell you to kill the named one too in the back tent?"......... ( 3rd trip back to the SAME FREAKING CAMP.. quest complete)

This shit was stupid, lazy and a royal pain the arse..  I don't ever remember Frodo or Sam running back and forth to quest givers..   Why can't MMO's just be more like adventuring camps.. IMO todays mmo are to focus'd on NPC involvement and questing.. it's almost like gamers need someone to hold their hand.. 

I also don't care a bit bout housing, at least not in the sens it is being implemented in any game i had chance to play, namely purly cosmetic vanity thing.

There is a way to change it: logging out in your house could grant you some bonuses, rest xp etc. after coming back. The house's workshop coud be a crafting stations that improves crafing abilities depending on the quality of appliancs it is equipped with and so on, but so far housing is simply to useless and pointless to care for.

Housing wasn't enough to offset the generally lackluster feel of EQ2 for me.  It's solid fun, but I wouldn't call it the key to enjoyment.

wizard 101 has player housing.

it serves both as a vanity thing and has a crafting station.

many drops from monsters are furniture.

you get a dorm room for free and can upgrade for relatively cheap and get a basic castle and upgrade from there.

They are buyable with ingame gold.

there is Vanity housing which costs real money. (the latest let's you duel at your home.)

Not for me or many I know.

It just never pans out to be all people expecti to be or that companies hype it up to be.

UO:  Was tolerable but made a mess of the landscape

AC1: Looked nice, implementation was a nightmare IMO, totally under estimated demand

AO: horribly lacklustre

SWG: was ok but ended up being, as someone above said an extended bank, littered the landscape, I did like you could set up a vendor

EQ2: boring, but I did like the fact that you could set up a shop from your instanced apartment

LOTRO: implemented I think just to shut people up about since nothing has been done with them since, nice looking but no real reason to go there other than to drop off loot.

Well, I think you get the idea.  The only time I liked player housing was probably SWG.  The world was vast enough it wasn't too littered with houses, you could set them up anywhere for the most part, and you could set up a shop out of your house.

The problem I have with housing is implementation.  If you make housing too useful, the cities are empty.  Not useful enough, empty houses litter the landscape and they serve as little more than virtual vanity decorations.

Other than that, I think they are a waste of time and development resources.  If I want to play house decorator, I'll play the sims...or better yet, decorate my own house.

All that being said, I have no problems with them in game for others, I just have no use for them.

I absolutely grow to LOATHE games that don't care enough about my suspension of disbelief and feeling of "belonging" in their game world to offer me player housing.  It literally PISSES ME OFF.  If you don't care enough to give players that OPTION....I will eventually (if not right away) cease to care about your bloody game. Period.

And when I say player housing.....I mean highly customizable housing like in EQ2.....NOT like in LotRO.

Originally posted by Rydeson

This shit was stupid, lazy and a royal pain the arse..  I don't ever remember Frodo or Sam running back and forth to quest givers..   Why can't MMO's just be more like adventuring camps.. IMO todays mmo are to focus'd on NPC involvement and questing.. it's almost like gamers need someone to hold their hand.. 

Frodo and Sam were *cough* spending days~weeks in Mordor avoiding the orcs and everyone else while pretty much traveling a small distance everyday, thanks to Frodo's illness with the Ring.

Now, you wouldn't want to play that, right? Because, after all, just travelling is booooooring when translated to games. How about days of travelling the similar-looking expanse of land with no clear indication of how much further it is till you reach the Mountain? Boring. Even Tolkein cut short the "traveling" bit by just skipping ahead a few days in the book because when put down into narrative form, it's also boring.

I'll amend my first comment to state: Housing isn't necessary in themeparks such as LOTRO, but for games where you can fit housing in without jarring gameplay/lore/etc, I would greatly recommend it, even if it might not be to everyone's tastes. It's one of the few features these days that don't directly involve killing monsters/etc.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by honoursword

The best player housing I have ever played is definately SWG. That game had so many things wrong with it but had Crafting, Resource Gathering and Player Housing years ahead of any other game in terms of quality. In fact it still does.

Player Housing is apprently quite resource intensive in terms of hardware and databasing. Most games that have it will do it from the ground up, in other words will add it while they developing the game engine initially. I remember a Blizzard dev saying somewhere that if Player Housing was a 5 minute job then it would definately be in WOW by now. Unfortunately, it isn't and takes a lot of planning and dev work to certainly do right.

Would love to see another SWG housing system developed in an MMO.

The italic part is wrong actually.

Blizzard Dev said player housing doesn't fit their vision for their game. Which is to give the players a social feeling through lots of chars on your screen when you are in WoW. Except PVE/PVP group content they prefer people are actually in the 'world' and not holed up in their own 'home'. You lose that 'massive' feeling.

Someone always brings this housing up and I always ask (never get an answer though). How would you solve the problem where everyone don't 'see' each other (since they are all in their house) if you want to give that social experience to your players?

Is it really worth the time to do it right (so old houses don't clutter your world) if it doesn't benefit your players or runs counter to the vision of your game?

And yet instanced dungeons and the phasing mechanic are used quite liverally in WoW, with the same effect of segregating the player population... however most people don't even care.

I think housing is a great addition to an MMO if done well. Not necessarily the 'key,' but definitely worth the time if done correctly. I have memories of people designing and decorating their houses to hold auctions in, it's where guild meetings were done. People would set up an entire casino, or turn it into a large shopping mall with their own vendors.

None of this stuff is necessary. All that can really all be done effectively in a small space where you put an auction house, a guild chat, and a dice mechanic without having to give an individual player anything special, but the point was to offer immersion and freedom.

Having a place to decorate was never important to me. So a random piece of data that only I could access I don't really care about. Having my own house in a world with limited space, where not everyone would have one, made it something I aspired to someday afford.

All depends on how it's done I guess.