Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why did housing in MMOs degenerate after SWG ?
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
At least omce a year I resub, or take up a promotiom, to EQ2.
JUST to visit my house!
All my heritage items, lore books, numerous other books, other important quests that reward housing items.
It is a great way to remember some very found times.
Oh, and all my pets, I have MANY.
The thing with items like that is that they keep their value, it even increases, wereas combat gear gets obsolete with each expansion or major update, your housing items gets more preeecsiouus.
Kind of like in WOW, the one thing I have that I like the most is my swift Zulian tiger mount, it was hard to come by and no matter what I will still use it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I was a great fan of housing in SWG it's just like everything that's really good. A little is great - get too much and it's ruined.
Player cities and the beginning of the NPC city Merchant lines (Vendor housing). Really great. When I signed up for my first player city I really did feel like I was living in a community. Social stuff, faction bases etc.... it was great. If I needed to go shopping I'd pop into a NPC city and then head out of town to where the vendor housing lines started.
Then it became 'leaving Bestine and hitting tons of lag producing buildings on your way to Anchorhead'. Wall to Wall buildings you had to duck and weave through just to travel. And it wasn't just there but everywhere.
And even to this day when I visit for a Vet trial you still find acre's of dead buildings littering the landscape, multiple cleans up having not even putting a dent in them.
Housing can be good or bad, and to the poster commenting on LotRO's housing. Yes it's nice. A bit out of the way and generally not much reason to hang out there unless something is scheduled but it is nice. Very limited on the number of items you could put in one (Small LotRO = 7? items, Small SWG = 200 items) but I liked how you could have theme music in your house, the mouse was cool, different floors or wallpaper. Some very good points.
Why put housing into games? Because you want to attract as many paying customers as you can. You say RP'ers are a small number of a games players. OK fine, but theirs and others like them that might come into the game just for the housing put $15.00 a month into the companies bank account just like the PvE or Pvp'ers. I'm sure theres a cost break for housing dev time vs income, but if you make it, wouldn't it be smart to bring in all the money you can?
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Housing with perfection?I don't know about you,but the doors on my house actually work,i do not warp into an instance to enter my house.Also hosuing is pre made,take it or leave it,you really have no choice to where yo uwant your house.
IMO i have already seen SOE look closely at what VG did in some of it's ideas.I fully expect EQ3 to add in a tad bit better ideas like housing.I expect to see more islands where players can build houses,larger land mass with choices to build houses.SOE is known for creating a lot of artwork,so allowing tons of housing may even look unique rather than 20 million houses all looking the same.
I would also like to see a land tax as in real life rather than paying rent,you could have guilds or even players own large land mass,that players have to pay tax to ,it creates a more realistic game world.The PERFECT scenario would be for the game to give the players the tools to create their own hosing meshes,so every house would look unique.SWG was an ancient game with an ancient game engine,it was cool for it's time but really outdated now.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Bad argument. Same resources can be used to implement combat features, or new dungeon content which attract a LOT more players.
There is a previous thread citing research that shows that only 5% of the player base are hard core RPers. That is too small a potential market to cater to for big games.
I'm not trying to insult anyone, but I've always though player housing was a dumb concept. There are plenty of players who probably like it, but if I was developing an MMORPG, I wouldn't bother.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
for Sandbox MMOs, the housing and player built towns/structures ARE the content for the game. The more you allow the players to build their own world, the more successful and fun the game is. for a Themepark game, housing isn't about building the world, but about having your own little place to show off your trophies and have a few friends (or an entire guild over). Themepark games with instanced housing and guild halls add another element to keep people playing.
It all depends on how the rest of the game systems and game world work.
SWG had very little 'developed' land outside the NPC cities. there were some POIs and 'themepark' areas like Jabba's Palace and the Imperial 'retreat' on Naboo. the rest of the worlds were wide open, unclaimed space. Building houses and later towns was part of the game, and it worked with the other systems in the game. It worked because there was a lot of player crafting, so players needed a place to put their shops (in their houses). Then politics and cities came out and the players with vendors could move farther from NPC cities and form towns with shuttles to allow convenient access to their shops, along with the crafting bonuses conferred by being a citizen in a particular type of town. Other players (non-crafters) moved houses into those towns to be near friends and the activities centered on the cantinas and the mission terminals (another feature of towns). Tack on some more features allowing a town to be declared for a particular faction and allowing PvP 'bases' to be built inside the city limits and you have an enhancement to the Galactic Civil war. It all worked together and it worked fairly well at the population levels pre Combat upgrade and pre NGE. And it wasn't all in place on day one, first houses, then politics and cities then more features on top of that, but it all worked because the game systems at all levels supported it, starting with the wide open and uncluttered world and the sandbox style that allowed players to do their own thing, and provided them with the tools to build their own universe.
Now, how would you do housing in WoW, as the game stands right now. How and where would housing fit into the world? The game has world PvP and PvP servers, so in general you probably don't want people to be able to place houses 'anywhere' in the world. So, restrict it to capitals (multi unit structures and maybe guild halls) and lower level areas near the capitals (cottages, manors, towers, inns). Because the public world is a theme park, with points of interest, quest hubs and quest objectives covering every square inch of the map, the housing would have to be instanced past the front door. You could throw a few cottages, manors and such across the landscape in the starter areas and use up some of the NPC buildings around the capitals for entrances to housing without too much impact on the 'world'. Player to player trade is personal or through the auction house, so adding hawkers to personal houses isn't an option. As for what you could do, 'everything' you can imagine, since WoW is all about the accessories. Personal teleporters to/from capitals (if you live outside a capital), mannequins to show off old suits of armor or other clothing sets, allowing your critter pets to roam your house, shelves for trophies, a stable/garage to park your spare mounts, fishing spot, forge, anvil. and some way to allow friends to visit so you can show off all our loot.
Another option for WoW and other 'established' themepark games is to reuse old dungeons/content. Cataclysm is coming to WoW and the old world is being rebuilt. Why not turn Blackrock mountain into a high rise apartement complex or take the Outland and expand the inhabited portions. Ragnaros is moving and we've killed Illidan already, why not finish off the job and make their old dungeons and environs more habitable and inhabited? Who wouldn't want to have an apartment in the Black Temple or Blackrock Mountain? Or a house on one of the floating islands scattered around Outlands?
One big reason to forego player housing is because a bunch of people are going to get pissed off when the developers need to destroy them.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
We're not talking about hard core RP'ers. Out of the 5 of us in my family that played SWG none of us were RP'ers (well my wife did some light stuff when she was an entertainer) yet all of us had a house and together we had a guild hall. So the 5% figure is lower than the actual market.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
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.
zaxxon, there's a small percentage of the WoW fanbase that wants housing. If you played wow, you'd be in that faction.
From what I've observed, the we want housing faction in WoW is too small for the devs to listen to. There's not enough bang for the buck.
Maybe you should try EQ2
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Didn't the Sims Online have amazing housing...OOOPS that failed=) Wasn't that the ultimate housing MMO?
What?! No...the masses were building entire cities and holding town events. I remember there being tours of player cities. I don't remember anyone in SWG saying they don't need housing. I do remember a lot of people crying to fix the bugs and fights over prime lots.
No wonder Sony said SWG in its original form was unsustainable...all you had were people who wanted to socialize and look at virtual bedrooms=)
the only games that housing felt viable to me were in pvp games; uo and shadowbane. in pve games, such as eq, vanguard, etc, i couldn't really care less; albeit vanguard housing is one of the better modern ones.
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.
zaxxon, there's a small percentage of the WoW fanbase that wants housing. If you played wow, you'd be in that faction.
From what I've observed, the we want housing faction in WoW is too small for the devs to listen to. There's not enough bang for the buck.
Maybe you should try EQ2
I don't believe you understood my point. How can people know whether or not they want mmo housing when they've never played a mmo with housing? I'm guessing roughly 60/70%, maybe even more of wow's population have never played any mmo other than wow. Admittedly that's a guess, but it is an educated guess given the size of mmos pre-wow.
deleted...I should know better than to respond to a troll...
Wow talk about ignorant. If you'd actually read two pages of this thread you'd realize the idiocy of your post.
Read his other posts on the subject...he's just trolling to get a rise out of people.
Geeze, lighten up. Joke!!!! Obviously, housing had nothing to with it. Touchy are we?
IMO there is nothing spectacular in SWG's housing system. Housing should be more useful. It is not another cosmetic feature like costumes and non-combat pets. Housing systems appeared in MMORPG long before SWG. For example, players used their houses in Tiber to showcase their wealth and rare loot, rejuvenate (by sleeping on their beds), etc.. There were dungeons and other things underneath the houses. Nowadays, housing in almost MMO is for cosmetic purposes only.
Nothing special about housing in SWG? What other MMO out there gives you the options for housing like SWG? As stated before, player cities with mayors who actually influence and design the cities, the fact that you can display anything in the house with all sorts of commands to move it wherever and however you like, crafting vendors, places for the old school Docs to set-up shops. There are a lot more things that could be done in that game, than if you combined all the other MMOs housing options together.
Now days, MMOs just make housing to say yep you can buy a house in our game, then once you get there and waste your money....all u can do is dump 30 items in a chest and place a few items in preselected spots. Of coarse it falls back to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) i mean really who wants to be able to have choices in a game and be able to setup cities and waste their time with complex crap like that.
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
What are you basing the "suburbia and out of place" comment on? Free-for-all house placement never hurt a single game where it was used. UO and SWG, being the only two I can think of that did it, both benefited from such a system, UO is what, almost 12 years old now and housing is still at a premium on most servers. And dont even get me started on SWGs player cities that were, along with its crafting system, probably the best thats even been.
It pains me to think that paying customers (gamers that is) may never be given that level of freedom ever again.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
What is so good about EQ2 type of housing (FF XI had the same type)?
What I want in housing in MMOGs is a somewhere in the world which I can say it is mine. EQ 2s housing was completely detached from the world and could might as well be in space.
No, UO/Asherons Call type of housing was much better. There you had a choice where you wanted your house to be placed in the actual world and not at some detached instance.
Naturally you need some kind of restrictions so you cant place a house everywhere and turn the wilderness into an urban area but that is just a problem that needs to be solved. And instancing is not a good sollution since it takes away the whole feeling of living in a virtual world.
My gaming blog
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
What are you basing the "suburbia and out of place" comment on? Free-for-all house placement never hurt a single game where it was used. UO and SWG, being the only two I can think of that did it, both benefited from such a system, UO is what, almost 12 years old now and housing is still at a premium on most servers. And dont even get me started on SWGs player cities that were, along with its crafting system, probably the best thats even been.
It pains me to think that paying customers (gamers that is) may never be given that level of freedom ever again.
If a game attracts many players who likes to have their own house then it will look like some american suburbia where it once was wilderness at the beginning of the game.
It will be better if the housings are only in existing buildings, you can have small guild towns in the countryside but those buildings will be created by the developers and not in an uncontrollable amount by the players.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
What is so good about EQ2 type of housing (FF XI had the same type)?
What I want in housing in MMOGs is a somewhere in the world which I can say it is mine. EQ 2s housing was completely detached from the world and could might as well be in space.
No, UO/Asherons Call type of housing was much better. There you had a choice where you wanted your house to be placed in the actual world and not at some detached instance.
Naturally you need some kind of restrictions so you cant place a house everywhere and turn the wilderness into an urban area but that is just a problem that needs to be solved. And instancing is not a good sollution since it takes away the whole feeling of living in a virtual world.
I think that EQ2s housing system is far better than SWGs for the reason that you mentioned in your post and I have never played FF XI so I wouldn't know anything about the housing in that game.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
This is by far the best system for housing.
If you let players build their own houses wherever they want it will quickly turn into a gigantic suburbia and I think that that is a little out of place unless you play Sims Online.
For me I only needed the one room housing at the Inn.
Maybe EQ2s type of housing will return some day to a future MMORPG?
What are you basing the "suburbia and out of place" comment on? Free-for-all house placement never hurt a single game where it was used. UO and SWG, being the only two I can think of that did it, both benefited from such a system, UO is what, almost 12 years old now and housing is still at a premium on most servers. And dont even get me started on SWGs player cities that were, along with its crafting system, probably the best thats even been.
It pains me to think that paying customers (gamers that is) may never be given that level of freedom ever again.
If a game attracts many players who likes to have their own house then it will look like some american suburbia where it once was wilderness at the beginning of the game.
It will be better if the housings are only in existing buildings, you can have small guild towns in the country side but those buildings will be created by the developers and not in an uncontrollable amount by the players.
"It will be better..." sounds like something someone would say if they had never actually seen an open world housing system in place. You never played UO or SWG did you?
"It will be better..." cannot be applied to either of those games because they were designed to accomodate an open world system. It was always going to be that way. EQII's housing system works for it because an open world housing system wasnt ever considered, because, to be honest, its far easier for Devs to tack on an instanced housing system at a later date.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.