Houses are an ok way of showing off accomplishments, but then again in games like wow and warhammer you are carrying those around on you at all times, anyone can see what you accomplished ingame and in a browser. Housing is worthless except if the developers want to give you merchant capabilities.
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Why don't more MMOs allow for housing?
- Thread starter Jon55
- Start date
Housing even without merchant mechanisms are not worthless. Housing represents more than just a display of your collected game items. Many players enjoy MMOs for the social interaction part, duh, and housing helps sell that. MMOs should start being developed more with immersion in mind, like games like Skyrim, that would make for a far better experience than just a grind to get the best items.
I never played an MMO with housing. In my current MMO of choice, Age of Conan, I can't see where having a house would be something I would make much use of. As storage space yea, or maybe gaining xp for spending the night there, but it would have to offer something practical to the gameplay itself to get much use by me. I can't see my adventuring Barbarian spending time sitting around the house admiring the furniture. He would live in some kind of primitive structure, not much of a house and nothing like a palace. What would I do with a house other than use it for storage, or to gain xp for sleeping there?
I am all for immersion in MMOs but I don't see where player housing would get me more immersed in the game. I would prefer content like better quests, or a larger more varied selection of armor and weapons.
I am all for immersion in MMOs but I don't see where player housing would get me more immersed in the game. I would prefer content like better quests, or a larger more varied selection of armor and weapons.
I guess I'm in the minority with you here. Frankly, I never gave a flying f- about housing in games. Why would I want to decorate or spend time in a house in a virtual world? I'd rather be out questing or killing stuff. If I want to play house, I'll play house and do something around my house. If I want to play a game, I'll log on. I will not play house in game. That's just super silly to me.
Just sayin!
EDIT: I'm not a packrat either so I have no use for extra storage.
This.
You have no use for extra storage because the game you're playing or how you're playing doesn't warrant it. If you played SWG as an architect you'd definitely need storage. You have to see beyond the mechanics of WoW or whatever other trite game your playing. There's an endless possibility of what MMO gaming could be like, sadly so far there's little innovation.
Doesn't even just using your house as a storage space create a bit more immersion? I remember it was kinda cool seeing all our resources stacked in our guild hall in SWG.
Maybe; I dunno having never experienced player housing. I tried The Sims years ago when the first one first came out, that is the closest to player housing I ever tried.
Well to each his own, I wouldn't call them trite games.
In EQ2 though, you essentially had professions that dealt with making stuff for houses, like tables, chairs, cases, etc. You could change your outdated epic armor or weapon to a displayable item to hang on the wall to show your conquest. Some people, like me just kept the small one room apartment that you get for essentially free, while some people went on to rent the higher end mansion type houses and they completely furnished them. I think it catered to some people that had an excessive amount of gaming time, but didn't want to spend it all questing/grinding/killing....
In EQ2 though, you essentially had professions that dealt with making stuff for houses, like tables, chairs, cases, etc. You could change your outdated epic armor or weapon to a displayable item to hang on the wall to show your conquest. Some people, like me just kept the small one room apartment that you get for essentially free, while some people went on to rent the higher end mansion type houses and they completely furnished them. I think it catered to some people that had an excessive amount of gaming time, but didn't want to spend it all questing/grinding/killing....
Well to each his own, I wouldn't call them trite games.
In EQ2 though, you essentially had professions that dealt with making stuff for houses, like tables, chairs, cases, etc. You could change your outdated epic armor or weapon to a displayable item to hang on the wall to show your conquest. Some people, like me just kept the small one room apartment that you get for essentially free, while some people went on to rent the higher end mansion type houses and they completely furnished them. I think it catered to some people that had an excessive amount of gaming time, but didn't want to spend it all questing/grinding/killing....
When I played EQ2 I don't think I remember a time when anyone was talking about anyones house, or even really cared about theirs. For the most part people with housing just built it to spend their cash.
Housing isn't worth the development time, developers sees this which is why they don't put it in. Every MMO I've played that has had housing except for UO the housing was ultimately a joke, highly talked about going into the beta/live and forgotten soon after.
griffinhart
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2005
- Messages
- 1,294
When I played EQ2 I don't think I remember a time when anyone was talking about anyones house, or even really cared about theirs. For the most part people with housing just built it to spend their cash.
Housing isn't worth the development time, developers sees this which is why they don't put it in. Every MMO I've played that has had housing except for UO the housing was ultimately a joke, highly talked about going into the beta/live and forgotten soon after.
You either spent very little time in EQ2 or never really looked at housing. While there are many people that just use them for selling and storing stuff, There is a fairly large number of people that really get into the housing. There are people and sites dedicated to creating all sorts of stuff for them.
There are dozens of house styles, and now there is even a "house" that is just land for people to construct what they want. Guild housing is a part of the system as well. the EQ2 housing system is one of the richest out there.
You either spent very little time in EQ2 or never really looked at housing. While there are many people that just use them for selling and storing stuff, There is a fairly large number of people that really get into the housing. There are people and sites dedicated to creating all sorts of stuff for them.
There are dozens of house styles, and now there is even a "house" that is just land for people to construct what they want. Guild housing is a part of the system as well. the EQ2 housing system is one of the richest out there.
It has been a while since I played, this land thing wasn't in when last I logged in. If it has picked up now then good for them, but back then it was a storage place. Cool that they are building on it. I love it when stuff gets its own community of supporters.
EQ2 was the only game I really played that had a SOLID housing system in place, for the most part in the beginning it an after thought.
UO had the best housing system followed by SWG, which had pretty much the same basic system.
You could plop your house down pretty much anywhere you wanted. It was NOT instanced, Instancing kills housing for many people, because part of the joy of it is that it actually "exists" in the world and people can randomly stop by, see it, etc.
Housing brings a LOT to the table, not only for those interested, but for those other players as well.
For example, In UO, you could easily be out adventuring, need to buy something (regents, new weapon, armor, etc) and you could find a crafters house out and about while travelling. You could go up to it, look at what they have on vendors (usually at the front doors) or even go inside if the crafter was actually there.
There was a time where I was just out exploring in UO, didn't have a house of my own or anything and I just stopped by some random crafters house to look for some things. He was actually there in his house at his forge making things. He didn't have what I needed on his vendor, so he saw me looking and asked me if he could help, I told him what I was looking for and he made it for me. after this we got to talking about things, the game, real world things, etc. Struck up a friendship and I ended up pretty much becoming friends with him and geting my things from him all the time.
Housing makes the world of the mmo feel "Alive." it doesn't feel as static as in most mmo's, because houses change, they come they go, new people move in. This sets up small towns, it increases social interaction.
At the guild house we had in UO (east of Britianna) there was a large guild that had a house a bit over from us, they would hold fighting tournaments that players would enter in and fight for in-game gold, etc. Even GM's for that server would come (Lake superior).
Without housing, there wouldn't have been NEARLY as many great memories about either UO or SWG for me.
In SWG I remember going to a random guild house one day, while explorering, and they were actually having a parrty inside with real people, Just handing out free stims/buffs, having a raffle, dueling each other, all kinds of things. It made the world so much more memorable.
Also for those that say housing will make the NPC cities "Dead" that is just plain WRONG.
In Both UO and SWG many of the big cities were HEAVILY populated with real people. Why?
In UO it was because of the banking system (Where you could store things, without having a house). It was also where people hung out and peddled goods, traded creatures, recruited (not spamming, like in many mmo's today, but actually recruitment), and many other things.
In SWG it was also partly because of banking, but allso for vendors, peddling goods, buffs/healing at the clubs, etc.
Player housing can add a TON to mmo's, not just for the rper's or the "house decorators" but for every single person, even those of you that don't think so.
It just needs to be open world, non-instanced to work well. That killed housing in EQ2 imo, I didn't give two shits about my house becaues no one would ever see it (not a crafter or anything so meh), never once explorered anyones house either).
You could plop your house down pretty much anywhere you wanted. It was NOT instanced, Instancing kills housing for many people, because part of the joy of it is that it actually "exists" in the world and people can randomly stop by, see it, etc.
Housing brings a LOT to the table, not only for those interested, but for those other players as well.
For example, In UO, you could easily be out adventuring, need to buy something (regents, new weapon, armor, etc) and you could find a crafters house out and about while travelling. You could go up to it, look at what they have on vendors (usually at the front doors) or even go inside if the crafter was actually there.
There was a time where I was just out exploring in UO, didn't have a house of my own or anything and I just stopped by some random crafters house to look for some things. He was actually there in his house at his forge making things. He didn't have what I needed on his vendor, so he saw me looking and asked me if he could help, I told him what I was looking for and he made it for me. after this we got to talking about things, the game, real world things, etc. Struck up a friendship and I ended up pretty much becoming friends with him and geting my things from him all the time.
Housing makes the world of the mmo feel "Alive." it doesn't feel as static as in most mmo's, because houses change, they come they go, new people move in. This sets up small towns, it increases social interaction.
At the guild house we had in UO (east of Britianna) there was a large guild that had a house a bit over from us, they would hold fighting tournaments that players would enter in and fight for in-game gold, etc. Even GM's for that server would come (Lake superior).
Without housing, there wouldn't have been NEARLY as many great memories about either UO or SWG for me.
In SWG I remember going to a random guild house one day, while explorering, and they were actually having a parrty inside with real people, Just handing out free stims/buffs, having a raffle, dueling each other, all kinds of things. It made the world so much more memorable.
Also for those that say housing will make the NPC cities "Dead" that is just plain WRONG.
In Both UO and SWG many of the big cities were HEAVILY populated with real people. Why?
In UO it was because of the banking system (Where you could store things, without having a house). It was also where people hung out and peddled goods, traded creatures, recruited (not spamming, like in many mmo's today, but actually recruitment), and many other things.
In SWG it was also partly because of banking, but allso for vendors, peddling goods, buffs/healing at the clubs, etc.
Player housing can add a TON to mmo's, not just for the rper's or the "house decorators" but for every single person, even those of you that don't think so.
It just needs to be open world, non-instanced to work well. That killed housing in EQ2 imo, I didn't give two shits about my house becaues no one would ever see it (not a crafter or anything so meh), never once explorered anyones house either).
D
Deleted member 204526
Guest
Great post. It really brings back some great old UO memories.UO had the best housing system followed by SWG, which had pretty much the same basic system.
You could plop your house down pretty much anywhere you wanted. It was NOT instanced, Instancing kills housing for many people, because part of the joy of it is that it actually "exists" in the world and people can randomly stop by, see it, etc.
Housing brings a LOT to the table, not only for those interested, but for those other players as well.
For example, In UO, you could easily be out adventuring, need to buy something (regents, new weapon, armor, etc) and you could find a crafters house out and about while travelling. You could go up to it, look at what they have on vendors (usually at the front doors) or even go inside if the crafter was actually there.
There was a time where I was just out exploring in UO, didn't have a house of my own or anything and I just stopped by some random crafters house to look for some things. He was actually there in his house at his forge making things. He didn't have what I needed on his vendor, so he saw me looking and asked me if he could help, I told him what I was looking for and he made it for me. after this we got to talking about things, the game, real world things, etc. Struck up a friendship and I ended up pretty much becoming friends with him and geting my things from him all the time.
Housing makes the world of the mmo feel "Alive." it doesn't feel as static as in most mmo's, because houses change, they come they go, new people move in. This sets up small towns, it increases social interaction.
At the guild house we had in UO (east of Britianna) there was a large guild that had a house a bit over from us, they would hold fighting tournaments that players would enter in and fight for in-game gold, etc. Even GM's for that server would come (Lake superior).
Without housing, there wouldn't have been NEARLY as many great memories about either UO or SWG for me.
In SWG I remember going to a random guild house one day, while explorering, and they were actually having a parrty inside with real people, Just handing out free stims/buffs, having a raffle, dueling each other, all kinds of things. It made the world so much more memorable.
Also for those that say housing will make the NPC cities "Dead" that is just plain WRONG.
In Both UO and SWG many of the big cities were HEAVILY populated with real people. Why?
In UO it was because of the banking system (Where you could store things, without having a house). It was also where people hung out and peddled goods, traded creatures, recruited (not spamming, like in many mmo's today, but actually recruitment), and many other things.
In SWG it was also partly because of banking, but allso for vendors, peddling goods, buffs/healing at the clubs, etc.
Player housing can add a TON to mmo's, not just for the rper's or the "house decorators" but for every single person, even those of you that don't think so.
It just needs to be open world, non-instanced to work well. That killed housing in EQ2 imo, I didn't give two shits about my house becaues no one would ever see it (not a crafter or anything so meh), never once explorered anyones house either).
M
MantisIT
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