Dev Discussion #23 - Housing & Decor Tools

LieutenantToast

Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.

Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!


Dev Discussion #23 - Housing & Decor Tools
Decorators, what sorts of things do you like to do to make your home something special? What sorts of decoration tools are your favorite, and are there any tools that you really wish Ashes of Creation would include?

Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion topic regarding overgearing!

Arrunet

I Love it when there are different Types and colours of lighting and different Types of plants to use.

MountainKingUK

Like to have some options for walls and flooring (carpet, wooden etc). Plants, rugs, paintings, Ornaments and furniture (chairs, beds, tables, shelving etc)

Edit: As for tools, simple but effective is key for me. I like to have plenty of options but not having to use a bunch of different options. For colours a simple scrollable slider would be fine.

Object placement, free form placement would be great as it allows for more customisable interiors. With RMB hold to rotate, scoll to zoom and lmb to place.

(will update if think of anything else)

Heroma

I think it would be really cool to have Character Statues. Maybe with customizable descriptions, and different poses. Also maybe like weapon showcases where you can store specific weapons or weapon duplicates that you think look cool. Would be sick If you could click on an certain object to open a secret door as well.

Sylkie

I think a great example of housing in mmos is the housing tools in elder scrolls online, specifically the number of hooks and ability to place and stack items however you please allow players to build unique furniture of their own through combining objects. I dislike how the decoration system works in swtor because the hooks are specifically placed and designed for certain sized objects. I think more freedom is better. Maybe even let them choose variations of house layouts for the same house? Walls and the ability to build your own rooms is great. The ability to customize furniture, such as changing the colors would also be a great feature! I hope that the furniture will also be adaptive to the race like the armor is.

Rabbit

I'm a minimalist. I need just enough room to setup my crafting stations and storage, without having to run all over the damn place. My perfect in-game house only has two rooms: Crafting and Banking. Unless I'm doing one of those two things, I'll be out in the world.

Buffy

Mementos from adventures that the player had that can be placed about rooms. Like a mounted head from a monster you killed or trinket that had been found at the end of a long, hard quest. Little things that can make players look at and have fond memories.

Jane

I would love to see different kinds of lanterns especially different colors like a blueish/teal one looking like it's a soul lantern or a greenish more druid style lantern etc.
In addition, armor stands would be really really awesome as well as something to hang up your weapon on your wall.
Other than that, I can only think of different kinds of tables fitting your profession, like a table with alchemy tools or a table with enchanting formulae (all cosmetic ofc)

Xenellia

I'd like for a placement tool that doesn't force clipping. It's rather restrictive when you're forced to place certain items in specific ways.

It would be nice to have craftable walls we can place wherever, too, so that we can partition the house however we want instead of being restricted to pre-constructed floor plans.

Velein

Freeform over hooks is always better, I would also love to see options to rotate objects on the XYZ axis, as well as scaling. Some objects, like interactable/chairs wouldn't work with this, but most could. One of the best parts about the housing system in EQ2, Rift, Wildstar was the ability to merge items together to create something new. Wildstar took it a step further in allowing the object to link items together and move them as a whole. A layout feature is also a must, allowing people to save the layout of a house so they could have have sets lined up for different events/holidays. As long as they still had the items in the house/inventory, they could apply the layout.

ObviouslyGrimm

Well for me I like It when games give you the ability to put up a wall mount or a stand where you display anything you find from your travels. Anything the obvious things like weapon mounts/ racks, armor mannikins as well taxidermied animals/ monsters . Displays for rare stones and other oddities from our travels around the world. It would be smart to add a "item mount" that you can use to display any item on.

nick10281

I suck really bad when it comes to interior design in games. so much so download prebuilt homes in fallout 4. if possible id like to have prefabs i can use and mess with or have other people make plans and then use those for my housing. like i said, i SUCK at interior design. but if we are talking about defensive structures then look no further.

kabookiegirl

Different flooring and wall color options, different lighting, curtains for the windows, maybe rewards statues or shield or something to place in the home that we earn. Also, unique items that would make the home immersive to the land - i.e. furniture styles for the races. Also the ability to maybe have 1 or two items outside the house as well - like light or sign over the door, or a chair on a porch.

My favorite has always been the small items that make the home "liveable" - bo9ttle of wine, a loaf of bread, pair of boots, or a comb or mirror...things that could be part of quest reards as well or cash shop item.

daveywavey

I remember that ESO had a cool decoration feature, where when you beat a Raid Boss in Hard Mode, you got a wall mountable head of that boss to put up in your home. It was really cool to have a trophy wall of Raid Boss heads.

I also like doing the whole Sims-style housing layout, making sure I have different areas for different sections, like a bedroom, a treasure vault, an s&m vault... erm... errrr..... shhhhhh... They actually had different sized piles of coins as decorations in ESO, that were linked to different Achievements you could get in-game. They unlocked at the decoration vendor at various levels of the particular Achievement.

Cool statues, funky-looking plants of different styles, heights, colours, etc. Different types of lighting, campfires, braziers, torches, etc. An outdoor area to style as well is always good.

Nagash

I want my mausoleum!

nick10281

LIMITS ON COLORS AND DESIGNS FOR EXTERIORS
only because you walk through the city then go to housing district and it goes from one aesthetic like rustic then right into mario kart rainbow road and the audacity of harry weasley the last of the mohican bike riders. Kills the whole mood.
@Nagash No mausoleum for you. only a Grab

tikkeni

Rift has one of the best housing programs I have used. Actions to rotate, move in 3 directions, resize, can buy simple decorations of all types (lights, beds, walls, rugs, plants, etc.) while in the "house" (dimension really).

Mojihn

Personally I really enjoyed the housing tools offered in BDO. They allowed you to place multiple housing items in any way you see fit even allowing you to rotate them or stack them on top of each other.

One thing I feel that devs dont go deep enough with is lighting.
Give us lots of lighting options, chandeliers, candlesticks, jars of fireflies, glowing rocks, huge glowing beetles, glowing moss, Natural Window Lighting, sunroofs, etc...

Having interactable items in your house is a must. Give players a reason to go into their housing area to do things such as wardrobe customization's, interactable kitchen, etc.
Not sure if your planning on adding interactable minigames but I would love to bring people over to my place and play a game of cards.

daveywavey

Sylkie wrote: »

I think a great example of housing in mmos is the housing tools in elder scrolls online, specifically the number of hooks and ability to place and stack items however you please allow players to build unique furniture of their own through combining objects.

People in my guild built floating platforms as an adventure course, so we all had to jump from platform to platform to reach the finish. Was great fun!

They also organised themed competitions around things like Halloween, Christmas, etc, and we had to decorate our houses accordingly.

So, yeah, I think ESO did housing really well.

WizzyMcNasty

Good housing can make or break an MMORPG for me. Wildstar and Rift both did a fantastic job of giving their players a level of housing customizability that made housing fun and a central point of the game for people like myself. The x,y,z axis adjustment and size adjustment are a necessity. While having different options for flooring, lighting, and walls are a huge bonus. As far as game play, in Wildstar having the ability to go out into the world and track down lore objectives to complete a housing item collection (Tales From Beyond The Fringe Poster Collection) was one of my favorite activities to do with friends. Looking forward to the carpentry crafting profession, and interior design in the world of Verra.

Veil Mistwarden

I really enjoy decorating my houses with the seasons, Holidays, and events!
One of the major drawbacks housing in FFXIV has, is they don't have Holiday decorations, or Holiday themes, to put on the outside of your house. Something as simple as being able to hang Christmas lights on your house trim would go a Long way. Also, being able to set theme music for your Outdoor, and Indoor housing would be a very nice feature - especially during the Holidays.
Another major housing issue FFXIV has, is the amount of available outside decoration slots for each house size type is far too little to actually decorate each Holiday, AND the selection of Holiday / Seasonal outdoor placeable decorations is very limited.. For instance Halloween is coming, and after 10 years they still only have 4 outdoor decorations for Halloween, AND not a single one of the outdoor decorations are dyeable either. Also, being able to make entire house decor "presets" that you can click to decorate your house in a saved style would save a LOT of time during each holiday season. Just like you're using a one-button layout to redecorate your home after it's destroyed, it would be incredibly helpful to be able to redecorate from a saved set of themes you've created.

Please take these points into consideration when designing Ashes of Creation,
and always remember, Glamour, and Housing Decor IS THE REAL ENDGAME, thank you!

VeilMistwarden
ArchWizard

Schlol

Hello Devs!
Here is some pointers me and my friends would like to have in the game.

• Take screenshoots of your adventures with your friends and hang them up on the wall.

• Preview of how wallpapers/flooring etc would look in the house.

• Stands to show your achievements, like a copy of your legendary armor set, wepons, hunting trophies etc.

• Mannquine with different setups depending on what you would like to do that day.
Example: Gathering, Crafting, PvP, PvE and much more.

• Pets.

• Being able to change small color details on furnitures to match your deco.

Best Regards, Schlol and his friends.

RyanTheSiren

Lots of lighting options!

Lots of decorative plant options!

Freeform placement of items like you can in games like ESO.

It'd be cool to have living NPC people/guards/farmhands/cooks/maids that we can place on the Freehold to stand in a place or even add pathing to have them walk around and emote. ESO just added a system like this called Houseguests.

Let us place our pets and mounts as static items in our Freehold, but still let us use them out in the world?

I'd also like to have mannequins or hero statues that we can "Dress up" in armor sets and cosmetics that we own.

Particle effects like glows, fireflies, butterflies, smoke, etc. are always cool tools.

I also really hope we can share furnishing permissions and ownership with family members and spouses. Since freeholds will be limited it'd be nice to share one with my friend.

Ty for always asking your community for feedback, you guys are the best ♥

Nostra

Lighting, Ambiance are high up there. I do hope that you are UNABLE to layer too many things on top of each other. Example - a rug on a rug on a rug on a rug... that breaks immersion as the height isn't correct to the amount of over-layering adornments

Celestial Scythe

I love the custom pose armor stands like they have in Monster Hunter World.

Alternately, being able to display weapons/gear on the walls would be cool! Mounted monster heads like Runescape are always a nice touch.

For Decorating tools, I feel the Warframe route seems to work pretty good for room customization.

xilodon

The main thing I look forward to is the ability to upload images to decorate flags/sails/signs etc however we want like in Archeage, as that will be a great way for players to express their creativity. There just needs to be a clear indication of what kind of content is allowed and a robust reporting system to deal with unacceptable displays. The sub fee and potential loss of thousands of hours of progress is a strong deterrent , but there's always someone stupid enough to throw it all away so they can be edgy.

Sokken

What I quite liked about the ESO housing is that they had small things like food and plates, plants and rocks etc. Just something to spice up an eventual garden space if available or some small house plants. Decorating a table with bread, plates and mugs just made it a lot more immersive than an empty wooden table would be. With a lot of small items being able to be freely placed you also have more room for player creativity when it comes to combining individual decorative items.

I don't really know what I think about tools for decorating. Free cam placement of items with the ability to rotate, and the ability to toggle aligning objects to surfaces or not, is all I want.

I don't know wether this is relevant to the posed questions, but regarding the artisan classes and decorations I do have a few suggestions. I know carpentry is the class for furniture crafting and I love that concept, but I would like other artisan classes to be able to craft a few minor decorative items relating to their class:

Cooks would for example be able to get recipes that combined cooked food with a preservative formaldehyde-esque material that would render the food inedible, but can now be placed as a decorative item.

Blacksmiths would be able to forge a selection of small decorative items out of metal etc.

Nothing too fancy that invalidates the carpenters specialization, but just some minor stuff to allow other artisans their niche in the decorative items market.

daveywavey

Schlol wrote: »

• Take screenshoots of your adventures with your friends and hang them up on the wall.

Ohhhhhh man, you just blew my mind! That would be AWESOME!

Soolcheg

FF14 has a grate interior redactor. One day I bump into a website where people share looks of their houses and I was amazed. There I saw Render like interiors for some IRL projects. But it was just a game. And Definitely, we must remember a WildStar that was the best housing I saw yet. (RIP WildStar)

UPD: Found it https://housingsnap.com/

Madclergy

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread, and I haven't read all the way through it yet, but I think it'd be cool to do multilevel structures, portals or tunnels to other cities or even be able to port to a friends home (with their permission)

George_Black

1) smooth function access options for friends fam guildies. It would be nice to see fully functional room mates, instead of just RP visitors.

2) fast functions for essential gameplay features for those who dont want to spend too much time indoors getting rdy to head out.