I noticed many developers say maybe we will have housing..but to have proper housing you have to build it with the game, not after release... implement housing at game core design.
Look at Ironforge...now imagine if all those buildings would be filled with house apartments from the very start back in 2005...can't afford a house near Auction house, well how about a cheaper alternative somewhere in the booty bay, etc etc.. Ironforge would be twice or triple times bigger than now.. and that would be for a reason - not for fake immersion of capitol with nothing else that Auction house and bank...Housing is probably one of the best money sinks in MMO.. you spend a lot but you get yourself part of the world where you spend many many hours of your game time.
If someone would actually design housing as part of the game - it would work, adding it later dosent seem to work...
from the point of view OP seems to talk from is from wanting a GAME, and not a GAME WORLD.
EQ2 housing is fun for the decorating, but it were putted in as abit of a side project Im sure...but if have to be instanced think they done it great and "force" ppl to visit them as they also are player shops, and made loads make carpenters, to make furnitures.....furnitures that can be turned into all kinds of other things, surely a strong point even if not perfect
hearing about SWG houses always makes me jeallous tho....houses but houses with a purpose too, and not just fluff.
After reading your article Mr Webb I have to point out some misinformation, both from my experience as a gamer, and as someone who hopes to create their own MMO world someday.
"Well, for maximum showing-off potential, houses need to first go in the major population hubs. Remember though, each town/city only has a finite amount of “space” and that some of the buildings are being used for other things (banks, inns, auction houses, vendors, trainers, etc.). Also, the content department has spent a lot of time designing the towns, crafting run times and adding quests/content that funnel players between different points of interest, so we’ll have to use existing buildings (making new ones is too expensive) – we can’t plonk down any new structures. Because there aren’t that many structures in the world, this means that there can only be a (smallish) set amount of player houses."
Here's the first point I want to debunk. Towns and Cities only have a specific amount of space? It's called city planning. If you want there to be say one thousand homes within the city you prepare for that much space. You leave the lots open, so that individuals can hire builders to build their house. Novel idea I know. Especially since it's based on the real world, real estate at that. Let's say you decide not to do that. You can always dun-dun, have people buy/sell homes based on how good the neighborhood is. You can have properties pre-designed (or based on a template), that players can buy. Like real estate, the more valuable the location, the more it's going to be worth. Players like having goals in mind, much like in real life. If they really really want that house, they're going to do what it takes to get it.
So the house is actually owned by a very powerful, very rich warlock who shoots first, and doesn't want to give up their house. What do you do? Well that's up to the PLAYERS, not the development staff. In most cases this involves finding option 2, option sixteen, option /42. Finding a city to build in, and where to build should be an interesting part of the game.
The problem? As illustrated in your examples, developers are lazy.Developers start by saying "Well we can only have 1 town/spot for housing". And then marketing gets involved "Oh, we can charge them to have a house." and art staff goes "I only want to create two houses so it has to be one of the two." Really? How about you add something fun with a new development staff? No marketing, no special promotion, no gimmick.
Developers want to put their money into the product and once it gets going they reduce the development team. The reason WoW shines to a lot of players is because they don't kick the developers. Blizzard uses them to keep building. Not 'Rpg 2', 'X alternate game', or even 'Evil version of game'.
As an example of this I bring up Guild Wars, the game I currently play. The development staff is severely limited because all their development staff went to Aion and Guild Wars 2. They've ignored creating in Guild Wars because they're lazy. That was a business choice, but because of deciding to go to GW2, rather then fix problems of GW, they will lose on both fronts.
If you're selling cookies, taking all your staff that made the cookie famous, and getting them to make a new cookie is going to lose money on both fronts unless you add more development team for both. Not moving, adding. You need more art staff? Hire them. You need more community managers? Hire them. We have an economy that needs jobs. If the company is making money, why do the stockholders need to make insane amounts of money? Can we reinvest the gains back into the game?
"For a new MMO, having sufficient content at launch is crucial. Third, making zones and filling them with interesting looking houses is very expensive on the art budget. Also, buildings are really complicated assets -- they take ages to make."
Oh? Really? That's really funny to hear you say. Yes a problem is content, the solution is easier then you've probably want to consider. It's called "Sandbox Mode". You see, players like myself, and others often just want to play. Development staff do not have to create 'stories' because players want to influence the world. They want to build npcs, houses, buildings, cities, and guilds. They want to craft out a niche within the world. Through crafting, housing, dungeons, epic loot, or even mounts.
Players want to tell their side of the story, and it's the one thing developers have the hardest time accepting. It's as if the developers are MMO Snobs saying "Well it's our world, and we can create better stories then the players can". It wasn't long ago that Cryptic/CoH gave players the ability to create missions, npcs, allies, and architecture. It was a big hit after the players spent a long time begging for it. Players could tell their own stories.
Development staff should work on 'templates' and 'objects' for the sandbox, and leave the content in the hands of the players. There might be some big world type storylines going on, but for day to day material, they can rely on the ten, twenty, hundred, five hundred thousand players in the game. Only relying on the developers storyline doesn't work, because six months in, their story has died. CoH, Everquest, DDO, and hundreds of others no longer have a storyline. They have modules which release new options, but the story is long since buried.
This goes for missions as well as housing. Games that have sandbox elements, for players to create become very popular. Don't believe me? Why was Never Winter Nights so popular? Why is it still popular?
Choice in players hands is the golden goose. Yet developers seem to be afraid of it. They want to be Gods, above everyone else, rather then working with their community. They're lazy when they refuse to hire more staff to make it a better game. They're cheap when a large part of the community requests something for a game and rather then even discuss it, they make PvP elements the priority.
Just because developers are scared to try new things, doesn't mean they're right. How many games regularly poll their players to find out what they want the game's focus to be going forward? Very few if any.
Player Housing is something very obtainable, it's not any more work then adding mounts, or crafting, or anything else. The only difficulty is convincing development staff to work on it and not push it off to a later date.You can decide how to run your game if you're a developer. You can decide what gets released and what is on the back burner forever. Saying it's not possible without even trying? Makes me really mad.
That's exactly what it is. Developers are either lazy, or baby clingers who don't want to relinquish control of their baby to the customer. I point to Eve Online as a perfect example of the developers letting the players run the show. It proves that given a chance the community can keep a game running with only minimal intervention from the developer.
This article, like many others, coming out of mmorpg.com are really starting to irk me. More whining than actual brainstorming of solutions as of late. I don't want to hear about rationalizations to why you don't do things; I want to hear about ideas of how things could be done.
To much these days MMOs are more about the money grab, absolute control, and maximizing short term profit. By short-term I mean 1-3 years. These studios don't want to think about long term. It is almost as if Bobby Kotick was teaching a business running class at some university somewhere on how to ruin gaming.
That's exactly what it is. Developers are either lazy, or baby clingers who don't want to relinquish control of their baby to the customer. I point to Eve Online as a perfect example of the developers letting the players run the show. It proves that given a chance the community can keep a game running with only minimal intervention from the developer.
This article, like many others, coming out of mmorpg.com are really starting to irk me. More whining than actual brainstorming of solutions as of late. I don't want to hear about rationalizations to why you don't do things; I want to hear about ideas of how things could be done.
To much these days MMOs are more about the money grab, absolute control, and maximizing short term profit. By short-term I mean 1-3 years. These studios don't want to think about long term. It is almost as if Bobby Kotick was teaching a business running class at some university somewhere on how to ruin gaming.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
I agree with the number of comments about SWG housing. It was simply the best application I've seen. The housing and endlless creativity players used to decorate their homes (and ships too) was hard core content in my opinion. They have a whole skill tree for city planning too. And I knew players that spent the balance of their time in-game helping other players manage their homes and cities.
It was so popular there was a space problem until they started demolishing inactive player homes (and the strange outcrys that caused).
EQII player housing avoids the space issue mostly, but at the expense of player city formation. They don't have the limitless decorative opportunities of SWG, but do well enough to make it feel like your customized home.
I never could afford the housing in Vanguard or LotR.
I guess my bottom line would be this: Player housing done right is CONTENT. I generally play MMOs for a balance of PvE, PvP and RP. But I found with SWG I spent a lot (I mean a lot) of time helping build a city community around our guild and make my ships and homes (office, primary dwelling, vacation home, etc) a...well, home!
Just a question for you guys that loved the SWG system and believe it was the best implementation.
Do you think that a system where in the main cities there's a tower where the entrance is instanced, and you can buy apartments in it would be a good compromise?
Like, you zone into the tower, and it asks you which residence you want to go to. So you can set your own apartment to be public, and everyone can just zone into it and browse. If you could do whatever you wanted with it, will that be a good compromise? I mean put vendors in, decorate, the whole shebang, but it was instanced like that.
Just a question for you guys that loved the SWG system and believe it was the best implementation. Do you think that a system where in the main cities there's a tower where the entrance is instanced, and you can buy apartments in it would be a good compromise? Like, you zone into the tower, and it asks you which residence you want to go to. So you can set your own apartment to be public, and everyone can just zone into it and browse. If you could do whatever you wanted with it, will that be a good compromise? I mean put vendors in, decorate, the whole shebang, but it was instanced like that.
It could if a proper balance between cost and uses was weighed in verses the Player cities and thier dwellings so both would not be irrevalent. I am for instance apartments with no thrills. Shops should be in the smaller structures more fitting to a shoppers bazaar but be either part of the crafters progression reward or of some high cost that doesn't allow that crafter to Wal-Mart that entire static city. There would have to be much consideration to this issue.
Just a question for you guys that loved the SWG system and believe it was the best implementation. Do you think that a system where in the main cities there's a tower where the entrance is instanced, and you can buy apartments in it would be a good compromise? Like, you zone into the tower, and it asks you which residence you want to go to. So you can set your own apartment to be public, and everyone can just zone into it and browse. If you could do whatever you wanted with it, will that be a good compromise? I mean put vendors in, decorate, the whole shebang, but it was instanced like that.
I played a game that did that, i don't think they did vendors or crafting in the apartments though. The apartments were pretty small, maybe a couple of rooms. It was pretty cool. Set up kinda like how you describe it. Being in a tower, different levels etc.
If that's all they had that would be cool, but I'd much rather have a mixture of housing and something like a large piece of land to build whatever I wanted, then have the ability to let in or lock out certain people. And the ability to hold an open house. Maybe some players could only view the outside of the property, and those with permission could go inside.
I don't care if I can craft there and what not or not, I kinda like hanging out with a crowd doing that stuff anyways, but having the option to do that is always a plus.
Don't bother? come on!. Player housing in EQ2 and Lotro is working nice. Each one of them has it's faults but they work well and people is motre or less satisfied with it. Sure they are not perfect but at least is something working. Better to have some of playerbase happy instead of none.
Just a question for you guys that loved the SWG system and believe it was the best implementation. Do you think that a system where in the main cities there's a tower where the entrance is instanced, and you can buy apartments in it would be a good compromise? Like, you zone into the tower, and it asks you which residence you want to go to. So you can set your own apartment to be public, and everyone can just zone into it and browse. If you could do whatever you wanted with it, will that be a good compromise? I mean put vendors in, decorate, the whole shebang, but it was instanced like that.
In short; yes.
And as the entry above says, that's pretty much the way EQII and LoTR work. They provide different size homes available depending on the "tower" instance you select. It ranges from the low rent single room appartment to the two-story many roomed mansion in EQII. They provide vending in EQII. I don't believe crafting at home is allowed. Both were in SWG.
I can't really put my finger on it, but for some reason I always loved the way Dark Age of Camelot did thier housing. Now days, it's pretty empty in the housing instances, but back in the day you could go for a walk in your neighborhood and see at least 3 or 4 players. Then the fact that 99% of guilds had a guildhouse with everyone's private house in the same neighborhood, we were always visiting and dropping in, just like real life. However, since then, I can't find a single game (except Lotro, and FFXI after the invite to the house patch) that I liked the instanced housing. I think one of the biggest things is customization. The fact that you had to go out and hunt down rare and exotic monsters to hang thier head, tentacle, tail, etc in your house was fun. Instead of just buying it somewhere, you actually had to work for it.
Isn't the request for having housing in MMOs simply coming from the 'problem' that most of them are themepark rides where the player doesn't have any influence?
Games like EVE (and less so PotBS) have a changing world environment. In EVE you have stations, etc (yes, I hardly played it, but you know what I mean). PotBS is supposed to get an expansion that adds player governed ports (not specifically housing).
Though these themepark MMOs can be nice to play. I will always keep looking back to A Tale in the Desert. A small, indy MORPG. That game is completely built around player crafting, cooperation and achievements. You can build stuff almost anywhere. Make fancy sculptures from in-game materials, plant a nice garden with lots of different flowers. The ultimate influence the players have is trough the law system and the demi-pharaoh test (both ways where player accounts can get banned) and it lets the playerbase design new (test) content for the next tale if they managed to construct a monument.
With all the things players build in ATITD, there is no need for 'player housing'.
The game has plenty of flaws. It could do with quite some more players. But I think it wouldn't do good if it grew outside its small niche.
Housing I don’t think is all that complicated, yes it can be however we have seen several well implemented methods that provide location, a large enough amount of houses and fills the ability of the player to have an exterior and interior area. My favorite (honestly it’s the only one I have worked with extensively) was DAoC. Housing was all stored in an instance by the main city (all houses where in this 1 zone on a per faction bases {DAoC has 3 separated factions}). This area had merchants and what was basically a bunch of villages. Travel wasn’t hard plenty of taxi like hours paths, homes where of varying size from large villa like structures to small single story cottages. Player homes where highly customizable you could change the exterior materials (siding, foundation, roof, etc) as well as lawn type items not to mention interior decoration. You also had an address so telling a friend how to find you was easy this was suppressing like reality (you have an address most of us live in a subdivision, etc.)
Now I would personally like to see a hybrid system of the apartment system and subdivision system with perhaps a finite selection of larger (huge guild or alliance type) lot. the idea would be as simple to implement as those we have seen before; There would 1 large zone dedicated to the "subdivision" like housing option the middle class if you will would fill this and it should have enough housing lots for the logical max population of the server in most games this is highly doable in some cases you might need more than 1 zone and they should not be accessed through the same portal. The burbs style house would be rather costly and prolly not the first house of a player (much like reality) instead the first house would most likely be an apartment style this is the instances no exterior housing option much like we have seen in EQ2 and what not; a slight improvement would be more than 1 entrance per apartment complex such as was seen in AC, the apartments here where in a large building when you hit the door you selected the floor (instance) then once on the floor you walked to the room # (sub instance) to hit the apartment you could opt to port directly to the apartment but there where common areas on the floors where there NPCs and meeting areas. The 3rd and largest option is the major guild or alliance style housing AC had this as well it was a mansion or castle like structure out in the main world there where very few of them and they were epically expensive and required a solid active guild to keep the maintenance up they were great for RP events with jail cells, court yards banquet halls, etc, tons of storage like options and just generally fun aspects of the game even though a give player would likely never personally own one most would at leasted aligned with a guild that had one so everyone who wanted to would get the opportunity to enjoy the space.
The nice thing about the above system is that its implementation has been done before so nothing new and it provides several options that will cover the majority of your playerbases needs though not all of course. The apartments will fill the majority of players needs at least until they become long term citizens at that point they will have the option to upgrade to a standalone house or if they have the funds a larger villa style home, for those all powerful players with epic social skill you have the few but highly prized mansions/castles.
I've had housing in SWG, Vanguard, Anarchy Online, and LoTRO, Age of Conan (guild fort) and haha, yes, even Wizard101. Of all those games, SWG housing felt the most immersive (along with the factories, harvesters, etc). To cite some examples, on Tempest, we had Jedi Town, which was a city with walls that created a maze that made it hard for Bounty Hunters to kite Jedis. We had another town near the Krayt Dragon hunting grounds and that town fulfilled specific purposes by giving folks who needed to loot Krayt Pearls (a necessary ingredient for lightsabers) a convenient place to shuttle in, buy clone insurance, purchase equipment and get buffs. In other words, many of the towns served to enhance the content of the game (such as there was on SWG). In addition, some of the towns and homes were just beautiful pieces or artwork (not as fancy as 2nd Life).
Instanced housing has value as well, particularly apartments in populated cities (Anarchy Online), and is pretty essential as an alternative to the mail system (or guild bank) when moving materials between avatar alts (such as crafting alts). Still, I have to agree, your nice, decorated instanced home is not going to get nearly as much viewing by other players as a house occupying space in the game's play zones.
So, it again comes down to balance between sandbox (player created) and themepark (questing) elements of a game. If you want player cities and individual houses WITHIN the playzones (not instanced as in LoTRO, or segregated as in Vanguard), then you need a lot of real estate and a way to traverse that real estate. In SWG, you could get a very fast speeder on your first day (particularly if someone gave it to you). You simply could not implement player cities in small playzones that are tightly packed with quest npcs and mobs (LoTRO around the town of Bree really stands out in my mind). I would really like to play an mmo that made an attempt to achieve such a balance.
Obviously, I don't believe that sandbox and themepark elements of an mmo are mutually exclusive. True, it is difficult to weave these elements together but I would support such an effort with my playtime and subscription money.
Raise your hand if you own, completly, your own house. *crickets chirp as a few hands go up*
Raise your hand if you rent or co own a house or apartment? *knocked over by the wind gust*
Really it's that simple. Everyone doesn't own a 3 bedroom house IRL, and nore did they in the middle ages.
Create a explorable complex with each room being another player house, if you need to add more housing add another floor. Bam everyone has a house, and the uber rich can sink their money into private housing.
But, MMOs normally charge rent (upkeep), just like your apartment. And you can start with a cheap 1 bedroom for the average joe and work up to the mansion, just like real life.
I thought the housing in SWG was the best I've seen as well. Ironically with all of the bad things that have happened to SWG, the housing has actually been improved. It was pretty cool that you could also put the same interior items into a large spacecraft that you could use in housing.
For fantasy themed MMOs, I've always thought it might be cool to have a floating city system of some kind for player housing. That way you could have player housing mixed-in with the real world without needing to find some place to place it on the ground. You'd also have lots of room to add more as needed without instancing. I'm sure this has some serious limits as well though.
I think this is a good article but I'm a bit confused as to why housing is assumed to be 98% cosmetic and only 2% functional as extra storage? I think housing should be close to major hubs and should tie in closely communities. Dadown did a great job breaking down the different types of housing however I think those need to be all tied to functional communities. Communities could then build crafting equipment - hire vendors - (develop more things for guilds like player made guild quests for fun, can place items up for rewards - maybe even develop a faction - can make different player made quests with faction threshold so not just anyone can grab the quests) then make those communities expandable and make them about to grow upward and allow for player owned housing able to be rented out (condo/apartment type / town home style)... This eliminates the the problem of guild members running out of room to get housing next to each other. Most in game cities have tons of wasted space. I mean how many empty pubs or buildings with 1 guy standing inside does a city need? Utilize on city space that surrounds a Keep (where all the quests n' stuff are) as player made --- give people a reason to congregate and be social. (I really dislike out of the way housing zones. who wants to go out of the way to get to a zone with a bunch of unattended houses?) Make the cities bustle! Then there could be country side housing with more land surrounding them.. could make these expensive since they will be few and far between. On this land a large house can be built. farming can be done (LoTRO) or other crafting centers can be made... maybe have a merchant to stock up things like potions or other goodies that passing adventurers could utilize to restock... I think the biggest problem now is not the housing itself. its the purpose behind the houses that needs to change.. make the houses be part of something more than just a house. Players need more of a reason than just someplace to show off (not sayin' showing off isn't fun). Players need a place to call home, show off, socialize, and actually use the space they are renting for more than a bank. I think the idea of guild housing is more complex and perhaps should be incorporated into cities and make more of a elaborate show of styles and customizing ability. These should be the true 'oooo's and ahhh's' of the city. Country side guild housing could be used for those that would like to build their own Keeps or fortress like housing - again could be more expensive and more difficult to construct. These could come with larger land - maybe even allow guild only housing on the land.
I agree with this
I had a friend in UO that designed his house completly like a bar, He used kegs, made a bar, stools, etc. When customizable vendors came in he redid his vendor. It was cool.
It would be awsome to see housing have more funtion then just a house in mmos
I can the problem with player housing, but I think those can in most games be instanced away. Guild housing, on the other hand, is there no excuse for not getting right. Anyone played a game lately where there has not been an abundance of houses that are locked for the public?
Instancing housing like DAoC and LotRO has done is counterproductive in the long run, unless they regularly clean areas of abandoned houses (cancelled accounts) and keep the active houses together. Separate instances would achieve this. You cancel your account - your houses is switched to a different instance. In DAoC I recall running past many houses of players long gone, and wondering if they still played, just with a different character.
In DAoC, guild housing within the capitols could help make those areas more bustling. Too many houses are skeletons with a trainer or merchant hidden within. Why not let guilds compete for the honor of owning and decorating the house? There were plenty of 'empty' houses in the other cities to offer guilds options. Placing a limit on guild housing would also reduce the breaking up of guilds due to minor nuisances. If you are unhappy with your current leader, you might not be able to get hold of a new house. Better look for a different guild, and boost their ranks instead of forming your own guild.
In LotRO, there were plenty of houses (especially hobbit holes) and farms that would be awesome to make player housing. Enough has been said about LotRO housing, so I won't dwell on that more than instanced communities in the middle of nowhere doesn't work, regardless of how cool they look. It has to be close to the city. How awesome would it be to just rent a room at The Prancing Pony? For many players (especially those who have little use for houses except for additional storage) that would be sufficient.
Comments
I noticed many developers say maybe we will have housing..but to have proper housing you have to build it with the game, not after release... implement housing at game core design.
Look at Ironforge...now imagine if all those buildings would be filled with house apartments from the very start back in 2005...can't afford a house near Auction house, well how about a cheaper alternative somewhere in the booty bay, etc etc.. Ironforge would be twice or triple times bigger than now.. and that would be for a reason - not for fake immersion of capitol with nothing else that Auction house and bank...Housing is probably one of the best money sinks in MMO.. you spend a lot but you get yourself part of the world where you spend many many hours of your game time.
If someone would actually design housing as part of the game - it would work, adding it later dosent seem to work...
sandbox FTW!
my 2 cents + 5 soviet rubles.
from the point of view OP seems to talk from is from wanting a GAME, and not a GAME WORLD.
EQ2 housing is fun for the decorating, but it were putted in as abit of a side project Im sure...but if have to be instanced think they done it great and "force" ppl to visit them as they also are player shops, and made loads make carpenters, to make furnitures.....furnitures that can be turned into all kinds of other things, surely a strong point even if not perfect
hearing about SWG houses always makes me jeallous tho....houses but houses with a purpose too, and not just fluff.
After reading your article Mr Webb I have to point out some misinformation, both from my experience as a gamer, and as someone who hopes to create their own MMO world someday.
"Well, for maximum showing-off potential, houses need to first go in the major population hubs. Remember though, each town/city only has a finite amount of “space” and that some of the buildings are being used for other things (banks, inns, auction houses, vendors, trainers, etc.). Also, the content department has spent a lot of time designing the towns, crafting run times and adding quests/content that funnel players between different points of interest, so we’ll have to use existing buildings (making new ones is too expensive) – we can’t plonk down any new structures. Because there aren’t that many structures in the world, this means that there can only be a (smallish) set amount of player houses."
Here's the first point I want to debunk. Towns and Cities only have a specific amount of space? It's called city planning. If you want there to be say one thousand homes within the city you prepare for that much space. You leave the lots open, so that individuals can hire builders to build their house. Novel idea I know. Especially since it's based on the real world, real estate at that. Let's say you decide not to do that. You can always dun-dun, have people buy/sell homes based on how good the neighborhood is. You can have properties pre-designed (or based on a template), that players can buy. Like real estate, the more valuable the location, the more it's going to be worth. Players like having goals in mind, much like in real life. If they really really want that house, they're going to do what it takes to get it.
So the house is actually owned by a very powerful, very rich warlock who shoots first, and doesn't want to give up their house. What do you do? Well that's up to the PLAYERS, not the development staff. In most cases this involves finding option 2, option sixteen, option /42. Finding a city to build in, and where to build should be an interesting part of the game.
The problem? As illustrated in your examples, developers are lazy.Developers start by saying "Well we can only have 1 town/spot for housing". And then marketing gets involved "Oh, we can charge them to have a house." and art staff goes "I only want to create two houses so it has to be one of the two." Really? How about you add something fun with a new development staff? No marketing, no special promotion, no gimmick.
Developers want to put their money into the product and once it gets going they reduce the development team. The reason WoW shines to a lot of players is because they don't kick the developers. Blizzard uses them to keep building. Not 'Rpg 2', 'X alternate game', or even 'Evil version of game'.
As an example of this I bring up Guild Wars, the game I currently play. The development staff is severely limited because all their development staff went to Aion and Guild Wars 2. They've ignored creating in Guild Wars because they're lazy. That was a business choice, but because of deciding to go to GW2, rather then fix problems of GW, they will lose on both fronts.
If you're selling cookies, taking all your staff that made the cookie famous, and getting them to make a new cookie is going to lose money on both fronts unless you add more development team for both. Not moving, adding. You need more art staff? Hire them. You need more community managers? Hire them. We have an economy that needs jobs. If the company is making money, why do the stockholders need to make insane amounts of money? Can we reinvest the gains back into the game?
"For a new MMO, having sufficient content at launch is crucial. Third, making zones and filling them with interesting looking houses is very expensive on the art budget. Also, buildings are really complicated assets -- they take ages to make."
Oh? Really? That's really funny to hear you say. Yes a problem is content, the solution is easier then you've probably want to consider. It's called "Sandbox Mode". You see, players like myself, and others often just want to play. Development staff do not have to create 'stories' because players want to influence the world. They want to build npcs, houses, buildings, cities, and guilds. They want to craft out a niche within the world. Through crafting, housing, dungeons, epic loot, or even mounts.
Players want to tell their side of the story, and it's the one thing developers have the hardest time accepting. It's as if the developers are MMO Snobs saying "Well it's our world, and we can create better stories then the players can". It wasn't long ago that Cryptic/CoH gave players the ability to create missions, npcs, allies, and architecture. It was a big hit after the players spent a long time begging for it. Players could tell their own stories.
Development staff should work on 'templates' and 'objects' for the sandbox, and leave the content in the hands of the players. There might be some big world type storylines going on, but for day to day material, they can rely on the ten, twenty, hundred, five hundred thousand players in the game. Only relying on the developers storyline doesn't work, because six months in, their story has died. CoH, Everquest, DDO, and hundreds of others no longer have a storyline. They have modules which release new options, but the story is long since buried.
This goes for missions as well as housing. Games that have sandbox elements, for players to create become very popular. Don't believe me? Why was Never Winter Nights so popular? Why is it still popular?
Choice in players hands is the golden goose. Yet developers seem to be afraid of it. They want to be Gods, above everyone else, rather then working with their community. They're lazy when they refuse to hire more staff to make it a better game. They're cheap when a large part of the community requests something for a game and rather then even discuss it, they make PvP elements the priority.
Just because developers are scared to try new things, doesn't mean they're right. How many games regularly poll their players to find out what they want the game's focus to be going forward? Very few if any.
Player Housing is something very obtainable, it's not any more work then adding mounts, or crafting, or anything else. The only difficulty is convincing development staff to work on it and not push it off to a later date.You can decide how to run your game if you're a developer. You can decide what gets released and what is on the back burner forever. Saying it's not possible without even trying? Makes me really mad.
That's exactly what it is. Developers are either lazy, or baby clingers who don't want to relinquish control of their baby to the customer. I point to Eve Online as a perfect example of the developers letting the players run the show. It proves that given a chance the community can keep a game running with only minimal intervention from the developer.
This article, like many others, coming out of mmorpg.com are really starting to irk me. More whining than actual brainstorming of solutions as of late. I don't want to hear about rationalizations to why you don't do things; I want to hear about ideas of how things could be done.
To much these days MMOs are more about the money grab, absolute control, and maximizing short term profit. By short-term I mean 1-3 years. These studios don't want to think about long term. It is almost as if Bobby Kotick was teaching a business running class at some university somewhere on how to ruin gaming.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I agree with the number of comments about SWG housing. It was simply the best application I've seen. The housing and endlless creativity players used to decorate their homes (and ships too) was hard core content in my opinion. They have a whole skill tree for city planning too. And I knew players that spent the balance of their time in-game helping other players manage their homes and cities.
It was so popular there was a space problem until they started demolishing inactive player homes (and the strange outcrys that caused).
EQII player housing avoids the space issue mostly, but at the expense of player city formation. They don't have the limitless decorative opportunities of SWG, but do well enough to make it feel like your customized home.
I never could afford the housing in Vanguard or LotR.
I guess my bottom line would be this: Player housing done right is CONTENT. I generally play MMOs for a balance of PvE, PvP and RP. But I found with SWG I spent a lot (I mean a lot) of time helping build a city community around our guild and make my ships and homes (office, primary dwelling, vacation home, etc) a...well, home!
Just a question for you guys that loved the SWG system and believe it was the best implementation.
Do you think that a system where in the main cities there's a tower where the entrance is instanced, and you can buy apartments in it would be a good compromise?
Like, you zone into the tower, and it asks you which residence you want to go to. So you can set your own apartment to be public, and everyone can just zone into it and browse. If you could do whatever you wanted with it, will that be a good compromise? I mean put vendors in, decorate, the whole shebang, but it was instanced like that.
It could if a proper balance between cost and uses was weighed in verses the Player cities and thier dwellings so both would not be irrevalent. I am for instance apartments with no thrills. Shops should be in the smaller structures more fitting to a shoppers bazaar but be either part of the crafters progression reward or of some high cost that doesn't allow that crafter to Wal-Mart that entire static city. There would have to be much consideration to this issue.
I played a game that did that, i don't think they did vendors or crafting in the apartments though. The apartments were pretty small, maybe a couple of rooms. It was pretty cool. Set up kinda like how you describe it. Being in a tower, different levels etc.
If that's all they had that would be cool, but I'd much rather have a mixture of housing and something like a large piece of land to build whatever I wanted, then have the ability to let in or lock out certain people. And the ability to hold an open house. Maybe some players could only view the outside of the property, and those with permission could go inside.
I don't care if I can craft there and what not or not, I kinda like hanging out with a crowd doing that stuff anyways, but having the option to do that is always a plus.
Godspeed my fellow gamer
Don't bother? come on!. Player housing in EQ2 and Lotro is working nice. Each one of them has it's faults but they work well and people is motre or less satisfied with it. Sure they are not perfect but at least is something working. Better to have some of playerbase happy instead of none.
In short; yes.
And as the entry above says, that's pretty much the way EQII and LoTR work. They provide different size homes available depending on the "tower" instance you select. It ranges from the low rent single room appartment to the two-story many roomed mansion in EQII. They provide vending in EQII. I don't believe crafting at home is allowed. Both were in SWG.
I can't really put my finger on it, but for some reason I always loved the way Dark Age of Camelot did thier housing. Now days, it's pretty empty in the housing instances, but back in the day you could go for a walk in your neighborhood and see at least 3 or 4 players. Then the fact that 99% of guilds had a guildhouse with everyone's private house in the same neighborhood, we were always visiting and dropping in, just like real life. However, since then, I can't find a single game (except Lotro, and FFXI after the invite to the house patch) that I liked the instanced housing. I think one of the biggest things is customization. The fact that you had to go out and hunt down rare and exotic monsters to hang thier head, tentacle, tail, etc in your house was fun. Instead of just buying it somewhere, you actually had to work for it.
Isn't the request for having housing in MMOs simply coming from the 'problem' that most of them are themepark rides where the player doesn't have any influence?
Games like EVE (and less so PotBS) have a changing world environment. In EVE you have stations, etc (yes, I hardly played it, but you know what I mean). PotBS is supposed to get an expansion that adds player governed ports (not specifically housing).
Though these themepark MMOs can be nice to play. I will always keep looking back to A Tale in the Desert. A small, indy MORPG. That game is completely built around player crafting, cooperation and achievements. You can build stuff almost anywhere. Make fancy sculptures from in-game materials, plant a nice garden with lots of different flowers. The ultimate influence the players have is trough the law system and the demi-pharaoh test (both ways where player accounts can get banned) and it lets the playerbase design new (test) content for the next tale if they managed to construct a monument.
With all the things players build in ATITD, there is no need for 'player housing'.
The game has plenty of flaws. It could do with quite some more players. But I think it wouldn't do good if it grew outside its small niche.
Housing I don’t think is all that complicated, yes it can be however we have seen several well implemented methods that provide location, a large enough amount of houses and fills the ability of the player to have an exterior and interior area. My favorite (honestly it’s the only one I have worked with extensively) was DAoC. Housing was all stored in an instance by the main city (all houses where in this 1 zone on a per faction bases {DAoC has 3 separated factions}). This area had merchants and what was basically a bunch of villages. Travel wasn’t hard plenty of taxi like hours paths, homes where of varying size from large villa like structures to small single story cottages. Player homes where highly customizable you could change the exterior materials (siding, foundation, roof, etc) as well as lawn type items not to mention interior decoration. You also had an address so telling a friend how to find you was easy this was suppressing like reality (you have an address most of us live in a subdivision, etc.)
Now I would personally like to see a hybrid system of the apartment system and subdivision system with perhaps a finite selection of larger (huge guild or alliance type) lot. the idea would be as simple to implement as those we have seen before; There would 1 large zone dedicated to the "subdivision" like housing option the middle class if you will would fill this and it should have enough housing lots for the logical max population of the server in most games this is highly doable in some cases you might need more than 1 zone and they should not be accessed through the same portal. The burbs style house would be rather costly and prolly not the first house of a player (much like reality) instead the first house would most likely be an apartment style this is the instances no exterior housing option much like we have seen in EQ2 and what not; a slight improvement would be more than 1 entrance per apartment complex such as was seen in AC, the apartments here where in a large building when you hit the door you selected the floor (instance) then once on the floor you walked to the room # (sub instance) to hit the apartment you could opt to port directly to the apartment but there where common areas on the floors where there NPCs and meeting areas. The 3rd and largest option is the major guild or alliance style housing AC had this as well it was a mansion or castle like structure out in the main world there where very few of them and they were epically expensive and required a solid active guild to keep the maintenance up they were great for RP events with jail cells, court yards banquet halls, etc, tons of storage like options and just generally fun aspects of the game even though a give player would likely never personally own one most would at leasted aligned with a guild that had one so everyone who wanted to would get the opportunity to enjoy the space.
The nice thing about the above system is that its implementation has been done before so nothing new and it provides several options that will cover the majority of your playerbases needs though not all of course. The apartments will fill the majority of players needs at least until they become long term citizens at that point they will have the option to upgrade to a standalone house or if they have the funds a larger villa style home, for those all powerful players with epic social skill you have the few but highly prized mansions/castles.
I've had housing in SWG, Vanguard, Anarchy Online, and LoTRO, Age of Conan (guild fort) and haha, yes, even Wizard101. Of all those games, SWG housing felt the most immersive (along with the factories, harvesters, etc). To cite some examples, on Tempest, we had Jedi Town, which was a city with walls that created a maze that made it hard for Bounty Hunters to kite Jedis. We had another town near the Krayt Dragon hunting grounds and that town fulfilled specific purposes by giving folks who needed to loot Krayt Pearls (a necessary ingredient for lightsabers) a convenient place to shuttle in, buy clone insurance, purchase equipment and get buffs. In other words, many of the towns served to enhance the content of the game (such as there was on SWG). In addition, some of the towns and homes were just beautiful pieces or artwork (not as fancy as 2nd Life).
Instanced housing has value as well, particularly apartments in populated cities (Anarchy Online), and is pretty essential as an alternative to the mail system (or guild bank) when moving materials between avatar alts (such as crafting alts). Still, I have to agree, your nice, decorated instanced home is not going to get nearly as much viewing by other players as a house occupying space in the game's play zones.
So, it again comes down to balance between sandbox (player created) and themepark (questing) elements of a game. If you want player cities and individual houses WITHIN the playzones (not instanced as in LoTRO, or segregated as in Vanguard), then you need a lot of real estate and a way to traverse that real estate. In SWG, you could get a very fast speeder on your first day (particularly if someone gave it to you). You simply could not implement player cities in small playzones that are tightly packed with quest npcs and mobs (LoTRO around the town of Bree really stands out in my mind). I would really like to play an mmo that made an attempt to achieve such a balance.
Obviously, I don't believe that sandbox and themepark elements of an mmo are mutually exclusive. True, it is difficult to weave these elements together but I would support such an effort with my playtime and subscription money.
But, MMOs normally charge rent (upkeep), just like your apartment. And you can start with a cheap 1 bedroom for the average joe and work up to the mansion, just like real life.
I thought the housing in SWG was the best I've seen as well. Ironically with all of the bad things that have happened to SWG, the housing has actually been improved. It was pretty cool that you could also put the same interior items into a large spacecraft that you could use in housing.
For fantasy themed MMOs, I've always thought it might be cool to have a floating city system of some kind for player housing. That way you could have player housing mixed-in with the real world without needing to find some place to place it on the ground. You'd also have lots of room to add more as needed without instancing. I'm sure this has some serious limits as well though.
I agree with this
I had a friend in UO that designed his house completly like a bar, He used kegs, made a bar, stools, etc. When customizable vendors came in he redid his vendor. It was cool.
It would be awsome to see housing have more funtion then just a house in mmos
I can the problem with player housing, but I think those can in most games be instanced away. Guild housing, on the other hand, is there no excuse for not getting right. Anyone played a game lately where there has not been an abundance of houses that are locked for the public?
Instancing housing like DAoC and LotRO has done is counterproductive in the long run, unless they regularly clean areas of abandoned houses (cancelled accounts) and keep the active houses together. Separate instances would achieve this. You cancel your account - your houses is switched to a different instance. In DAoC I recall running past many houses of players long gone, and wondering if they still played, just with a different character.
In DAoC, guild housing within the capitols could help make those areas more bustling. Too many houses are skeletons with a trainer or merchant hidden within. Why not let guilds compete for the honor of owning and decorating the house? There were plenty of 'empty' houses in the other cities to offer guilds options. Placing a limit on guild housing would also reduce the breaking up of guilds due to minor nuisances. If you are unhappy with your current leader, you might not be able to get hold of a new house. Better look for a different guild, and boost their ranks instead of forming your own guild.
In LotRO, there were plenty of houses (especially hobbit holes) and farms that would be awesome to make player housing. Enough has been said about LotRO housing, so I won't dwell on that more than instanced communities in the middle of nowhere doesn't work, regardless of how cool they look. It has to be close to the city. How awesome would it be to just rent a room at The Prancing Pony? For many players (especially those who have little use for houses except for additional storage) that would be sufficient.