General Discussion

Originally posted by teiohFromSWG

 

 

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

 

DOWN WITH AUCTION HOUSES!

Word M8

in Swg Housing had alot to do whit the game

The crafter had to make a good looking house to se up vendors and then he had to send the word out that he had a shop there and there.... you really had to be a good bunisses man to get a good shop going.... auction houses makes i all way to easy.. 

and when your tired of grinding xp for a while you could go to your guild town meet up whit your friends or visit other town have a nice chat.... more personality into the game....

SWG was all around game...  

wanted to be Pvp you could do that

wanted to raid you could do that

wanted to be the ultimate crafter you could do that

wanted to dance in a cantina you could do that

you kinda could do anything in SWG

thats what made it so great untill SOE ruined it

sry bad english..

Say what you want about Shadowbane, but the city building/siege stuff was pretty cool.

Originally posted by eric_w66

Player housing and player cities do not bring much bang for the buck, especially player cities.

Outside of the simplistic UO and SW:G's vast stretches of emptiness, MMO's are about content. In most games there is no room for player cities and player houses. There are thousands of players on every server and they'd each have a house.... where do you put them all? And your engine has to be able to handle houses sprining up from the terrain, and you have to worry about them being planted in places with terrain in the way (say a stream crossing the middle, or a large rock).

Lots and LOTS of work for a bullet point on a wish list that won't draw or keep many players. How many people keep playing a game because their house rocked while the rest of the game sucked? Not too many I suspect.

How is an advanced city system with player controlled environment not content? I fail to see how more linear dungeons qualifies as content but a player created world it not.

MMO's are not about playing through what the designers made (What you call 'content'), they are about living in and altering a virtual world as you please.

You comment about ' wont draw many players' is horribly false. Just read this thread and see how many agree. Also, go look up the popularity of SWG and UO, then tell me these player structures are not desired.

Player Cities and Housing is one of the things that I play SWG for.   My house (well, really a bunker) is a public display of my achievements in the game that I can open up and show off to anyone due to the fact that SWG's housing isn't instanced.

People take alot of pride in their Player Cities, especially when they're the home of a particular guild - your guild's a nobody unless it has a City associated with it.  It's aspects like this that are the reason SWG has always had such a passionate fanbase.  You have the opportunity to mark a part of the game as yours and shape the game world in a semi-permanent way.  Due to this, no server looks the same.

While most cities are used as "economic hubs", where crafters set up shops and sell their goods, others are used as fortresses.  Guilds place bases associated to their faction and protect them against being attacked and destroyed by opposing faction.  In the past, these have left to some rather famous battles on many servers.  It's not as widly common anymore due to the systems needing to be revamped to be more inline with the current gameplay (planetry control doesn't have as much meaning anymore, nor do many of the City specialities) but it can still be the source of alot of fun.

Originally posted by Obraik

Player Cities and Housing is one of the things that I play SWG for.   My house (well, really a bunker) is a public display of my achievements in the game that I can open up and show off to anyone due to the fact that SWG's housing isn't instanced.

People take alot of pride in their Player Cities, especially when they're the home of a particular guild - your guild's a nobody unless it has a City associated with it.  It's aspects like this that are the reason SWG has always had such a passionate fanbase.  You have the opportunity to mark a part of the game as yours and shape the game world in a semi-permanent way.  Due to this, no server looks the same.

While most cities are used as "economic hubs", where crafters set up shops and sell their goods, others are used as fortresses.  Guilds place bases associated to their faction and protect them against being attacked and destroyed by opposing faction.  In the past, these have left to some rather famous battles on many servers.  It's not as widly common anymore due to the systems needing to be revamped to be more inline with the current gameplay (planetry control doesn't have as much meaning anymore, nor do many of the City specialities) but it can still be the source of alot of fun.

Agree 100%

Originally posted by Netzoko

I can't seem to understand why features like housing and cities are so overlooked.

The big success, WoW, doesn't include them. SWG which did, was a total flop. Maybe developers look at this and relegate housing/cities as nice (but non-essential) extras.

It's a big shame, cos player housing/cities is probably the no. 1 thing mmo devs can do to instil a real sense of players having a place in and impact on the gameworld.

Maybe if AoC is successful enough, we'll see a shift towards housing/cities being considered core features for future mmo development.

Originally posted by Netzoko

 

Originally posted by eric_w66

Player housing and player cities do not bring much bang for the buck, especially player cities.

Outside of the simplistic UO and SW:G's vast stretches of emptiness, MMO's are about content. In most games there is no room for player cities and player houses. There are thousands of players on every server and they'd each have a house.... where do you put them all? And your engine has to be able to handle houses sprining up from the terrain, and you have to worry about them being planted in places with terrain in the way (say a stream crossing the middle, or a large rock).

Lots and LOTS of work for a bullet point on a wish list that won't draw or keep many players. How many people keep playing a game because their house rocked while the rest of the game sucked? Not too many I suspect.

 

How is an advanced city system with player controlled environment not content? I fail to see how more linear dungeons qualifies as content but a player created world it not.

MMO's are not about playing through what the designers made (What you call 'content'), they are about living in and altering a virtual world as you please.

You comment about ' wont draw many players' is horribly false. Just read this thread and see how many agree. Also, go look up the popularity of SWG and UO, then tell me these player structures are not desired.

 

Advanced city system: Lots of empty, barren ghost towns. See SWG for good examples of this.

Dungeon = content for everyone. Some guild's empty city? Content for them, when they're online, if they're still playing.

MMO's are about having fun. Guild cities that can be plopped down in the middle of no where? Not much fun for most people. They cause urban blight, ruining the landscape for most people.

You want the Sims, not a MMORPG.

And this thread has some people who like houses (I like houses, but having them instanced is the better solution), and a few who think urban blight is a good thing. Hardly a convincing argument. I'm looking at the popularity of UO and SW:G, and it tells me... they aren't that popular. SW:G was never as popular as EQ1 which didn't have houses or cities. UO? It was only popular because it was the only one around for a while. And I seem to remember the screams of people who complained about there being nothing but vast stretches of player housing ruining the game.... funny, that.

Because being different in the MMORPG industry is a sin. Innovation scares developers into dark corners.

@ Eric'

..."MMO's are about having fun. Guild cities that can be plopped down in the middle of no where? Not much fun for most people. They cause urban blight, ruining the landscape for most people.

You want the Sims, not a MMORPG"...

  That is an MMORPG,  your just refering to the average MMOG and the cities could've always been private guild instances in a developing Ip.   The reason they became ghost towns in SWG was the NGE Exodus but the clan based instance that's open to all to visit wouldn't cause this issue.