Cities of AoC = Cities in Heroes of Might and Magic ?

Xris375 · July 2007

The city/castle feature sounds cool but there are something that the devs haven't afaik talked about in detail, and that is housing.

SWG got it right imho with being able to fill your house with stuff you have gotten from your travels.

I want a fireplace to sit by and and a moosehead above it I got from hunting it in the mountains!

Now the cities sounds more like the buildings you have in Heroes of Might and Magic.

Buildings gives you the right to build something or give you and your guildies special abilities.

Anyone who knows differently ?

Hengist · July 2007

They've spoken very clearly about housing. It isnt the game. They were very inspired by the old UO style housing, and would eventually like to be able to do something like that without it being a blight on the landscape.

As far as guild town buildings, no, no information yet.

DivineMessag · July 2007

smithies give you the ability to craft better items...

taverns are used for pvp fights...

shops are set up to sell items with NPCs...

players have their own housing but I don't they have gone into much depth with it...

city hall is your guild meeting place...

stable houses horses...

barracks spawns NPCs to guard your city....

Guard towers use npcs to guards the city....

catafract · July 2007

Originally posted by DivineMessag

smithies give you the ability to craft better items...
taverns are used for pvp fights...
shops are set up to sell items with NPCs...
players have their own housing but I don't they have gone into much depth with it...
city hall is your guild meeting place...
stable houses horses...
barracks spawns NPCs to guard your city....
Guard towers use npcs to guards the city....

Are above info be done on pvp servers (it looked like the pve setup ) and if yes then you can have an extra house on major city just in order your character can rest after adventuring in far away lands and empty his inventory?

Xris375 · July 2007

Originally posted by DivineMessag

smithies give you the ability to craft better items...
taverns are used for pvp fights...
shops are set up to sell items with NPCs...
players have their own housing but I don't they have gone into much depth with it...
city hall is your guild meeting place...
stable houses horses...
barracks spawns NPCs to guard your city....
Guard towers use npcs to guards the city....

So if I read this right, the buildings will work as thos in HoMM then ? I'm guessing that the NPC is there to guards against other NPC because there is no PvP in the city instance, right ?

Hengist · July 2007

Originally posted by DivineMessag
smithies give you the ability to craft better items...
taverns are used for pvp fights...
shops are set up to sell items with NPCs...
players have their own housing but I don't they have gone into much depth with it...
city hall is your guild meeting place...
stable houses horses...
barracks spawns NPCs to guard your city....
Guard towers use npcs to guards the city....

If you are going to make those kinds of comments, how about some dev quotes?

I'd enjoy seeing the supporting one where players have individual houses.

If you want to call a Guild City player housing, that's one thing, but they've been very clear that individuals will NOT have houses available at launch.

Here's the Search

Pertinent quotes that apply:

Housing, this has always been discussed as being very difficult to do right, and as such we do not want to do housing for launch. Our goal in implementing personal housing would be to have it "done right" using UO as our example. This requires a lot of code support to do and thus we would rather see it come later in an expansion.
For release the focus will remain on the player villages, hiving, and crafting.

I am pretty sure I stated this before but.. player villages are meant to be hubs for their player communities. We want people to hang out there and have stuff to do. It's nice to be able to decorate "your" space, that is fun. But there isn't a lot of usage of that space in general. hehe well.. except as Ziegler mentioned for people who generally want a err "private" location for activities. For release we are focusing on the village rather than an individuals private house. Of course it is all a balance, you all want the game to be finished, you all want it done now but then you don't want us pushing features you like until after release. I would not want to see the villages themselves suffer in features in order to put in individual houses.
You also have to look at the examples used here and how instancing of houses ruined it, but then think of the overhead on the server to track the thousands of items inside peoples houses. I distinctly remember in UO running past areas with lots of houses and the lag it caused even with how simple the graphics were at the time.
We all share the same opinion as you do when it comes to how housing can be cool, we are looking at the same thing but from another direction. It's like playing the Sims where you have your own house versus playing another game where you are building the whole little town.

Hengist · July 2007

Originally posted by Xris375
So if I read this right, the buildings will work as thos in HoMM then ? I'm guessing that the NPC is there to guards against other NPC because there is no PvP in the city instance, right ?

On standard servers (PvE) there isnt PvP in the Instanced PvE Guild Cities. How this will impact things on the RP-PvP server (which is the other announced type of server) has not been decided? Or perhaps it has, but they have not share that with us just yet.

You'll see a variety of buildings in a guild city, all of which will provide some benefit for the guild, either via allowing them to craft something, spawn something, or otherwise be an asset. What you will NOT see is SWG style housing.

Think of it this way, in SWG you had the politician class, and with each jump your city took in population, the more buildings you could place, more advanced as well. So you might start with a guild hall, then progress to a city hall, a cantina, a med center, eventually you could place a shuttle site and so on. That's what you'd be getting here, without player housing.

Hehe, a city without housing, just a commercial and industrial district, no residential at this time.

Eichenkatze · July 2007

Personally i kinda like the whole idea of having player cities... but with a lack of player housing... as the landscape can clutter very nastily like in SWG. Once beautiful views turned ugly by hundreds of houses all cramped inside designated areas. Leaving the only open areas nearby cities or ugly locations no one wanted to walk out into every day.

Maybe down the road they can instance a seperate island for housing.. or perhaps they'll do what Blizzard did with WoW. "Sure! We can do housing! Look! shiny! Go get it!" and toss other stuff in front of us that we can chase around, suddenly void of any ideas about housing until the shiny stuff gets old and dull... then they throw new stuff at us!

But hey, the taverns will be fun enough to have. Sit around. Watch a few fights, have a drink... get drunk and maybe even have a fight or two yourself! For now that will do me... but i always do like to have my own private space for my junk and just... well private space. Just for the sake of having a house of my own.

Ghost12 · July 2007

You want a house for your own? Alright, fine, go out and buy one in real life, SOB!

Lol j/k.

On a more serious side note, it looks like AoC isnt going to be one of those games, and Funcom has probably seen the visual effects of a bunch of houses do on a landscape. Probably alot of information usage that could be used towards something else (maybe big server battles?)

I never really understood why you would want to use the already limited resources to something as superficial as a couple sprites anyway.

Sturmrabe · July 2007

A: "X game = Y game" are completely retarded no matter what game is X and Y...

B: Individual housing is not slated for release but its said they plan on adding it in

Xris375 · July 2007

I am not comparing the games but the features to understand them better. AFAIK the feature comparison isn't that bad

Oh well, I got the answer I was looking for. Thanks to those that contributed in a positive way!

JPR1985 · July 2007

They said no housing at launch, but they intend to do it ala UO, which to me is a great thing. Player housing that is not instanced to me is the best, since it adds a layer of rp. Having a huge battling berzerking warrior that has no home to is kinda sad. I like to display all my trophies and accomplishments, albeit its more for myself than others. If AoC keeps my attention till the expansion, I beleive I will def buy the expansion.

Also as a sidenote, I like player housing not being integrated yet in the game. It gives more casual players like myself more time to gather the neccesary resources to get a house and plot of land, so we dont get stuck with the crappy plot of lands that are in the uglier side of the world.

Xris375 · July 2007

BTW barbarians,if there is such a class, should not be able to build cities or houses unless they are made out of animal hides surrounded by a timberwall

doogi · July 2007

to be honest I would rather be chopping peoples heads of or having a fight in a tavern than be sitting in my house drinking some tea

Zorvan · July 2007

More than likely, player cities will be more or less the same as they are in Anarchy Online. I do hope they mange to implement them a little better in AoC, as they are just empty buildings providing buffs and alien raids in AO. Noone goes to a player city at all, unless they need a tradeskill buff,wanna fight aliens, maybe to use the plastic surgeon, or buy something from a player shop.

And the AO cities have large meeting halls and gathering areas that just sit silent. And they take up large plots of land that they don't need for the little bit that they do for the population.

The housing/cities has always been my only real complaint against AO, especially since they were supposed to be the same thing FC is stating them to be in AoC: hubs for players to hang out. And sadly, they never have been and probably never will be.

Hengist · July 2007

Originally posted by Zorvan
More than likely, player cities will be more or less the same as they are in Anarchy Online. I do hope they mange to implement them a little better in AoC, as they are just empty buildings providing buffs and alien raids in AO. Noone goes to a player city at all, unless they need a tradeskill buff,wanna fight aliens, maybe to use the plastic surgeon, or buy something from a player shop.
And the AO cities have large meeting halls and gathering areas that just sit silent. And they take up large plots of land that they don't need for the little bit that they do for the population.
The housing/cities has always been my only real complaint against AO, especially since they were supposed to be the same thing FC is stating them to be in AoC: hubs for players to hang out. And sadly, they never have been and probably never will be.

It's going to depend on how you define meaning...

I'm thinking that AoC PvE Guild Cities will at least have some meaning, simply because of the hive AI, and the resultant NPC city that will spawn. You'll have to go there and the surrounding resource areas on at least a semi-regular basis.

It may not work out that way, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

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