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Why did housing in MMOs degenerate after SWG ?
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No housing system to date can ever compare to Ultima Online's. You used to be able to set your house inside town where you can be protected. You can literally place your house ANYWHERE (besides inside dungeons) as long if the land fits the size. You can rob and even murder them inside their own homes. When AoS came out, the possibilities were even more endless with its customizable tiles and walls and doors etc. You basically can have everything a city has inside your house.
The game is dead, but the housing system owns.
Yeah, UO had a great system that I wished newer MMOs would get ideas from.
I never played SWG, but I do love housing.
One of the best housing I've seen in a game was in a social game (can't remember the name) but it was badazz. You could either build a home from scratch 1 wall at a time or buy a prefab skeleton of a housing project. Players could import different textures, import and play their music, setup video's, add furniture, pictures, art, decorate... Very very cool. But, the game itself was just boring, there was nothing to do and I mean that literally. You could dance and run around the city, and go on tours of other peoples houses, and that was it outside of dressing up your character.
More games need better housing options, that'll hold players in the game longer because they got something that is theirs, their own little part of the game. And they can tinker with it.
Godspeed my fellow gamer
So what are you saying, that the point of mmos is to make everything as practical and efficient as possible? In that case you should have speeders that can cover the entire world in five minutes at release. After all, exploring sure doesn't add anything practical to the game. Heck, it's a lot more practical to have auction house links in every small town rather than only in major cities.
It's the unpractical things that add so much depth to mmos. It's what allows variety to what is ultimately a boring grind for gear. It's the impractical that allows player creativity to shine. I argue that it's the impractical and "fluff" that seperates a mmorpg from a morpg.
That's clearly not what I'm saying. You're overdramatising.
It's purely a matter of resources, and developers would obviously choose to devote their time/money to creating content that will keep as many people happy (and therefore subscribing) as possible. Housing just isn't that "wanted" in the grand scheme of things.
I like "fluff" stuff too, but unfortunately most people don't. It's just one of those things.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Housing in SWG was far from a fluff feature. Housing developed community and supported player trade. It was an integral part of the game.
SWG wasn't really a game, it was more of a social simulator. It became a game after the NGE, but we all know how that turned out. Because it was a social simulator, I'd imagine housing was certainly an integral part of it. But we have mostly MMORPGames nowadays, which would easily answer the OP's question.
Of course swg was a game, and a full fledged mmo. Admittedly, their content was slim (imo the primary reason the game failed at wow's release) But you had plenty of dungeons to go to, plenty of missions to do, plenty of gear to collect, and more stats and variety to gear than most modern mmos. SWG had far more of a focus on social simulation than the vast majority of mmos, particularly modern mmos, however that doesn't mean there wasn't a base game to the mmo.
There needs to be a compromise here. There are lots of good things to having open world housing. Of course there are some negatives as well. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater (oh gosh did I really use such an aged phrase??!!) doesn't make everything great. Player cities add a lot to a game, and when selectively placed they add a lot to the game and the landscape.
Housing adds 10x more replay value than everything you've mentioned. Remember that housing is not just houses, it also includes player factories, guild halls, guild keeps, etc.
Let's put it this way. When I started SWG I came from D2. YOu couldn't come up with more disparate gameplay styles. I played SWG for two years based nearly solely on housing and player cities. I'm just as much into phat lootz and dungeons as the next guy, but ONLY loot and dungeons gets boring. Housing adds a high level of depth that turns a game from a decent mmo to a full blown AAA mmo.
Each to their own, but player housing is just useless crap to me. I play a game where there is such a feature, and haven't bothered with it in around 4 years because I just couldn't care less about it. If other people like it, fine, because I can just ignore the feature if I wish to. Happiness for all concerned.
Housing adds 10x more replay value than everything you've mentioned. Remember that housing is not just houses, it also includes player factories, guild halls, guild keeps, etc.
Let's put it this way. When I started SWG I came from D2. YOu couldn't come up with more disparate gameplay styles. I played SWG for two years based nearly solely on housing and player cities. I'm just as much into phat lootz and dungeons as the next guy, but ONLY loot and dungeons gets boring. Housing adds a high level of depth that turns a game from a decent mmo to a full blown AAA mmo.
That is your opinion, not representative of all players. How successful SWG with its housing? Not very. Look at all the big successful MMOs ... all of them know that player housing is NOT an important feature.
To me housing added maybe an extra month of gameplay in SWG. It was a very nice feature but there was only so much you could do with it before you were into 'Barbie's Dream House' territory. Like pretty much all of SWG it was a neat feature that was never properly expanded on.
Housing adds 10x more replay value than everything you've mentioned. Remember that housing is not just houses, it also includes player factories, guild halls, guild keeps, etc.
Let's put it this way. When I started SWG I came from D2. YOu couldn't come up with more disparate gameplay styles. I played SWG for two years based nearly solely on housing and player cities. I'm just as much into phat lootz and dungeons as the next guy, but ONLY loot and dungeons gets boring. Housing adds a high level of depth that turns a game from a decent mmo to a full blown AAA mmo.
That is your opinion, not representative of all players. How successful SWG with its housing? Not very. Look at all the big successful MMOs ... all of them know that player housing is NOT an important feature.
You do realize that SWG was one of the more successful mmos right? Just as many players as EQ. If I'm correct, all-time mmos in order of population retention would be: wow, l2, l1, eq/swg, everything else.
Please also realize that the vast majority of "mmo players" were new to mmos with wow, and have never experienced housing in any quality form. So to claim that housing is not important to most mmos players really doesn't mean anything. It's certainly not quantifiable, that's for sure.
I would agree that SWG had the best housing out of any MMO so far.
Since there aren't a lot of games out there that have player housing so companies don't run the risk of people leaving their game because they don't have it. Since there is no real downside for not having it they just leave it out so they dun have to do the work.
The other thing to consider is that most recently MMO worlds aren't really all that big and there just isn't a lot of room in the zone design to add housing locations (unless they're instanced)
UO - I didnt like running through a forest only to hit a housing area and having to zig zag my way through for half an hour. That wasnt fun and it made the game ugly with nothing but clutter.
SWG - How many times did I run into an invisible wall that was a house that didnt want to load? I lost count. It was a mess.
I can handle housing like EQ2 but thats it. I never play another game where houses can be placed anywhere.
Housing and 90% of SWG PRE NGE set a perfect standard. Did things need some adjustments, yes. Every MMO out there has done major fixes.
From what I see in most of the negative comments about SWG is either with the AWESOME housing or game play. It appears to come from people who couldn’t understand how someone else could enjoy being a doctor or dancer, who hated the fact they couldn’t craft (most likely it was too complex for them), who couldn’t figure to how to make money so they had broke gear all the time and they cried about decay or they just couldn’t function without a little ring or arrow pointing them to another task.
Housing on landscapes with factional fighting, bases and enemy patrols around the towns set an awesome standard. Huge faction battles around the cities where Politicians had players design the city to make it a more effective and defendable city was AWESOME. The fact that people could just randomly go into houses and check things out to see what you accomplished was AWESOME.
All the other MMOs? What do you get? Super limited housing that is not even worth using except for the limited storage you get.
I suppose SWGs housing did suck if you wanted a no brain, simplistic taste of what player housing should be like. Just enough to satisfy some people and easy enough to implement without having to actually but forth an effort. Good job other MMOs.
Don't forget being able to setup merchants in your houses. I loved the level of player trading and that was possible because of the house merchants.
Even if it was nice to set our houses anywhere in SWG, it came with some issues like having stupid houses names displayed in your face and houses ruining the beauty or wilderness of the spot.
Most player cities were a big mess, too often removing the players from the social major hubs if not ending as ghost cities. The system lacked pre-designed mandatory city plans choices and textures for roads, grass, and things like city walls. The item placement would have needed a specific UI and a roll left/right feature.
Eq2 isn't that bad but LotRo is far from SWG, not only the item placement is very limited but instancing the player cities neibourhood made all of them ghost cities.
While player housing is not for everyone, especially the younger ones, it adds a tremendous game play diversity to an MMO and a feeling of ownership.
edit: 2x post.
I did this as well. My first house got too cluttered so I bought the largest Naboo house available and redecorated.
How bad was it? When I was out on a mission and saw a furniture vendor, I would look for something to add to my house and then save the waypoint to come back later.
A few months ago, a friend and I reloaded SWG just for kicks. Before my 1 month adventure was over, I had reinstated my house (which was in my datapad and I had to pay a ton to be able to use it) and redecorated it. I spent the last week of my month just on my house.
I miss having a house in an MMO.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
Agree.
Agree.
Old school?
I will be 42 this year, and started video gaming back in late 70s.
There is nothing old-school about liking your game to be a RL sim. Old school was playing Pac-man and Asteroids on a 2600 as kids in early 80s. Now if you mean PnP then sure...but we are talking about video games here.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying sim type games. The problem is when you expect companies to make mainstream games into niche-centric titles. Which is basically what goes on daily at MMORPG.com...."games need to be sandbox blah blah".
No they dont.
This assertion is supported by the fact that themepark games have ruled the MMO world since the launch of EQ1.
Housing is a nice after thought. That said, unless a game is catering to the sandbox crowd, it would be totally moronic to include housing ala SWG into a themepark game. If you allow the players to utilize the land for housing, wherever they want, then where are the themepark rides coming into play?
The answer is that they arent.
Which defeats the purpose of a themepark to begin with.
With the static landmass that the themepark provides, Devs are able to fill in areas with even more content.
The only way I ever see a company allowing player housing in a themepark, that isnt instanced, is if it is limited to a very fixed area. Cause as I stated, if they allow it everywhere then folks are taking up the space that was to be utilized for the "rides" in said themepark.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Because SWG had HUGE areas and no game wants to put in the time and effort to make it so you can kill stuff to level and make a community of player housing. My first time playing SWG I though the whole player towns was the best thing ever and still think it is. Now there is only instanced housing which is okay but noting at all like SWG. I would like to see it again but highly doubtful we will ever see anything like it again.
I'm almost willing to bet that if SWG dropped their subscription billing price and went to a box price only that that game would fill up with players who love housing in games. You'd find alot more players who's main interest was the housing. Then they play the rest of the game for what it was/is.
Godspeed my fellow gamer
Housing doesn't get nearly the amount of love it deserves for what it can add to a game. People deride it as "worthless" or bitch about it because it doesn't have to do with either PvP or grinding gear, but everyone overlooks the impact it has on bringing the community together, creating more of a "virtual world" and "place" feel, and even for those who can't appreciate those things, the effect it can have on the game economy and how it can vastly improve crafting systems. Items that can be crafted for houses NEVER go out of style, and it can ALWAYS be expanded upon. So where as regular crafting ends up running into a brick wall of "well are we going to make the best equipment crafted or dropped" which ends up either pissing off the entitlement players when they need to buy crafted equipment, or making crafting worthless because random drops become a better deal, supplementing all crafting trees with some form of housing items can keep crafting in a game from becoming "worthless". Bonus points if you can actually craft and modify the houses themselves.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
And i bet if WoW started off with player housing or within the first year when it was still smaller, everyone would be going woooo WoW has the best housing EVER!....
You know guild halls and places to put trophies and decorate...seeing that alot of women play it and im sure might like that stuff, hang out with friends instead of having to sit in a dungeon for the 100th time just to do something, or on some hillside or inside lagforge with people spamming or running around / dueling while bored.
Keep Banks, crafting and auctions in the cities and they would thin but not be dead. Like how many of the main cities are dead lately anyways with everyone in Dalaran.
Is it really needed, well no ....cause most new generation MMO players just want instant gratification, even if they spend months doing very little while waiting for content.