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Static Housing Discussion!

Hi all,

I know this has probably been discussed a good amount (if not, I would love to get the ball rolling!), but it is an aspect of MMOs that I fell in love with.

First off, I am a longtime member of the EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies communities so it is an understatement to say that I am excited for AOC to come into alpha at the end of 2017! Over the years I have played in tons of different MMOs with anything from Wildstar, ESO, Tera, to Everquest, WoW, SWTOR, GW2. I waited years for EverQuest Next to come out and almost shit my pants when I began to see bits and pieces coming along, but as Murphy's Law states "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." EverQuest Next was discontinued in 2016 with the developers stating "it just wasn't fun anymore" which to me was extremely upsetting as diehard fans have waited for the next installment for ages. All in all, I have not stopped watching and lurking in the forums since the game was first announced months ago so lets get to business!

Static Housing

If any of you have played EverQuest or SWG you have encountered static housing on an advanced level to the point where decorating was an actual "job" in the game. I would spend countless hours for friends and clients working on decorating a house with a budget that was set by them only to find myself immersed into the game that I would be thinking about what type of tapestry to hang while I laid in bed at night.  :# From decorating basic housing (simple houses with 2-3 rooms) to prestigious housing (basically mansions with multiple floors and 2 rooms on each) I never seemed to have a dull moment while taking my planned break from questing or plowing through dungeons with my guild. Not only was this just a leisure activity, but it gave way into sales too as in EverQuest one of the most important aspects was that if you wanted to purchase an item that was very expensive you would take the time to go to the seller's home and purchase it from a sales display as you cut out the broker fee's. There are so many aspects that I would love to see in AOC that would just make me love the game even more because I always believed that there are specific areas that developers could spend more time on and it connect with a large player base. Are there any specific aspects of housing that you have seen on other games? (EVE online, FF, Wildstar to spark ideas)

Crafting System

I won't touch long on the crafting system, but there is one aspect that I believed EverQuest hit on when selecting a profession. There is a tradeskilling system when crafting specific items that is literally like your hotbar for combat, but these abilities add to both the progress and the durability of your item. The goal was to fill the progress bar faster than the durability bar was degrading (although if you let the durability bar go below certain marks then the quality would decrease). In the picture below, you can see that there are six abilities with some increasing your progress while sacrificing durability and vice versa. While tradeskilling, there would be crafting events that would call for you to hit a specific ability in certain time frame which would be crucial to gaining control over your two bars. This was quite possibly one of the biggest reasons tradeskilling was so much fun and felt like when you asked someone to craft you a set of Mastercrafter armor it would take such skill and time to make sure that the quality of the armor was the best. 

Also, hierarchical style of classes allowed for the best way to understand which type of profession you wanted to do. 
Artisan: levels 2-9; dabble in all different types of professions
Class: levels 10-19; Craftsmen, Outfitter or scholar
Subclass: At level 19 you must choose a subclass of the class you chose at level 10
  • Craftsmen choose from ProvisionerWoodworker, and Carpenter.
  • Outfitter choose from ArmorerTailor, and Weaponsmith.
  • Scholar choose from AlchemistJeweler, and Sage.


Some websites detailing what you were capable of designing
http://www.eq2designgallery.com/

https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/09/some-assembly-required-swg-housing-extravaganza/#gallery=78359&slide=919960&index=0  (mind you that every piece of furniture seen is placed by the decorator so it's very impressive!)

TL;DR
 
The static housing in AOC should look at what was successful in other MMOs such as EQ2 and SWG. Crafting should be more than just a "gather materials, hit craft" so that there is more reward to spending your time on crafting. 

Comments

  • Thanks for your detailed post @Repugnancy :) If you scroll to the bottom of the following page you will see that Intrepid has a few staff that worked on EQ and EQ Next, so hopefully they are mindful of your sage advice.

    https://www.ashesofcreation.com/the-team/
  • Adding to what's been said :3
    • Static Homes (Node stage 3)
    • Apartments (Node stage 4)
    • Freeholds (Node stage 3)
    These are the three housing types we will have in Ashes.

    Static Homes - Static Homes are restricted in quantity and become available when a Node reaches Stage 3. If you are one of the lucky ducks to buy a Static House you can watch it grow with the node and can scale up to a mansion (Stage 5)
    Pros: Close to local amenities within the node, property increases in value when node levels, better defences during a siege. Cons: No added bonus when it comes to crafting, might be difficult to sell at high Node levels, devalues if sieges are successful.


    Apartments - Apartments become available when a Node reaches stage 4 - but they also require the player made government to "choose" to implement them (and to add more). These are static housing but are instanced so many players can choose to "rent/buy" housing. When the node levels I imagine the  property value/rent will scale with Node stages.
    Pros: An affordable way if having housing within the node, near local amenities and has better defence during a siege. Cons : Fixed size, rent/costs may increase when Node levels, No added bonuses when it comes to crafting.

    Freeholds - Also available at Stage 3. A player will be able to purchase blueprints from npcs (multiple appearances will be available for architecture). Freeholds are placed not within the node but within the ZOI (zone of influence). There is discussion that where you locate your freehold will provide various benefits. For example location next to a river may provide a bonus to harvesting themed processing. Placing you freehold next to a "trade route" might encourage players to come visit your tavern etc
    Pros: Lots of space for you to build what you want, location bonuses for crafting/business , you can choose the architecture of your housing. Cons: Far away from local amenities, Vulnerable during a siege.


    To decorate as a profession I would really like (as a person to rent a decorater) because it's a chore I dislike ^^ Decorating is something that puts me off player housing because I seem to lack any talent on making my home look good.
    I would love to see how they could implement it in Ashes.

    1. I would love to see a "jobs wall" where players can put up notifications for various kinds of jobs such as farming materials or offering their services for defending caravans etc. Perhaps these only display when the player is online? You could post to decorate housing. If you both agree to the conditions then you can start :3
    2.  I would like to see in the Market Stalls - perhaps some players that enjoy specialising in furniture. Together you can choose items with decorater advising. The home owner needs to buy the products
    3. The home owner can invite you to their home and give temporary rights to move furniture (not to take but to move around) and you can then decorate the place :3
    In addition I'd love to see (IF housing can be purchased out right /not by renting) when you choose to sell the housing you have an option "leave furniture" to add value to the house. XD

  • @lexmax That is awesome! I actually had not scrolled all the way to the bottom to see what projects individuals have worked on in the past. They seem to hit spot on with finding team members that have worked in many different backgrounds and it will prove beneficial (if it hasn't already) when discussing what aspects are successful and new projects to incorporate into AOC. I would love to see a short video interview of each about their favorite aspects of specific MMOs or answering questions from forum members about specific games they have worked on.  :)

    @Diura Thanks for the input and the explanation of housing types along with the pros and cons to each. :) The market stalls for furniture is a great idea as it could be both a place where a service is offered (a contract between decorator and client to decorate some housing unit) and somewhere to sell furniture that was created. I used to play an MMO called "2Moons" that had the same market stall type trading system where you would sit down and "open" up your shop where you had a specific amount of slots to sell your items (based on how big your items were; axes took up 2x6, swords 1x6, amulets 1x2, etc.) and it was an awesome aspect because any time you walked into a major city you would see 100+ players sitting around with the name of their shop above their head so you had an idea of what they were selling. It made the cities feel populated at all times and improved their concurrent players by having individuals selling items so it would be cool to see how the trading finalizes into Ashes.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited September 2017
    Hope this helps, @Belewyn told me to post it for her :)
  • Tirithel said:
    Thank hun, I was trying to post that but it kept failing ... GG =P
  • Haha....looks familiar.
  • Belewyn said:
    Tirithel said:
    Thank hun, I was trying to post that but it kept failing ... GG =P
    Hey guys, thanks for the update! I played AA a good amount in alpha/beta/full access so to see that game develop was really awesome. I, personally, will be very excited about the sieging of nodes and how it incorporates housing. :smile: Also, can't wait to start the adventure of finding a perfect plot of land! 
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