UO's custom housing system was/is fantastic. But I haven't played an MMO for years, including some of the games mentioned here, so I can't compare or judge them.
My desired game for a housing system would include player built cities and government controls of a soft nature for organization. Using a fully customizable housing system like UO has, but with caravans and expenses for importing construction materials that aren't "native", so as to limit the wild appearance of many houses (and other structures) that don't fit the area.
People praising "open world" housing (UO, SWG) forget the major flaw of such a system... there are the "haves" and the "haves not"... and both pay the same subscription price. Once there's no more room for housing, you won't get a house.
That is bad design in my book. All players should, given the same time and amount of effort and difficulty, have access to the same content. Content locked behind some "first come, first serve" mechanics aren't good for a MMORPG. The UO housing rush, but also more recently Archeage, are prime examples of how such a system is flawed. It was even worse in AA because you actually needed property for crafting.
One of the best housing system I've seen is in BDO. Property is actually useful, and while part of the world, still available to everyone. What kind of property you acquire, where it's located, the furnishing, everything is useful for your character. And unlike some other housing systems, this one keeps cities alive and full of active players.
I was going to say for me.. It was toss up between BDO and Trove.
I liked the way BDO was designed where you owned an actual apartment or a house, but the way it was instanced allowed you to do what you wanted with it, as you wanted. It felt more realistic and it was put in, in such a way that I as a player would never run into the problem of not being able to get a house.
Trove, had these really cool things called Cornerstones, which where like a pocket-house, that I could drop down and use as I needed. and move as I wanted. It was like a house I could put in my pocket and take with me as I traveled from world to world, and I could even have several of them, each having a various use or just for fun.
Not to mention Trove provided endless design things, from Fishing Trophies to Monster Trophies to decorate my cornerstone with, along with tons of patterns, interior and exterior design elements and a ton of various kinds of blocks to build whatever I wanted. At the same time, I didn't really have to do anything outside the basics.
So as you traveled you would see other players Cornerstones, some were amazing works of art, others looked like they were drunk, some simple, some complex. What players put in them were their own creations. Some went all out, others were very minimal. So being able to see all these other Cornerstones, was really cool, and sometimes it gave you ideas on what to do next, other times it left you wondering what they were thinking. But it was always cool to see what other people created.
On top of that, Trove also had Club Worlds, which, Imagine having your very own zone to play with, and do whatever you wanted with. Club Worlds were instanced, so it was private and only those that were a part of your club could see your club world, it was none the less really cool. I am in a few clubs, and I would travel around the various club worlds, see what others made, and right now I am working on making a castle in my own club world, (but I made a more private club, of just me as a place to play)
So, when it comes to a "housing" like system, I think Trove really had a great way of doing things, I would say one of the best. But I liked the way BDO did things as well, it worked well for their world.
Which I think is really the most important part of things, the system needs to work well with the world.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
People praising "open world" housing (UO, SWG) forget the major flaw of such a system... there are the "haves" and the "haves not"... and both pay the same subscription price. Once there's no more room for housing, you won't get a house.
That is bad design in my book. All players should, given the same time and amount of effort and difficulty, have access to the same content. Content locked behind some "first come, first serve" mechanics aren't good for a MMORPG. The UO housing rush, but also more recently Archeage, are prime examples of how such a system is flawed. It was even worse in AA because you actually needed property for crafting.
One of the best housing system I've seen is in BDO. Property is actually useful, and while part of the world, still available to everyone. What kind of property you acquire, where it's located, the furnishing, everything is useful for your character. And unlike some other housing systems, this one keeps cities alive and full of active players.
^Very much that. I liked UO's housing system back in the day, when I was a complete newb to MMOs. These days, I hate open world housing for all the reasons that were mentioned above. I love BDO's housing system. The way the rankings work is kind of shitty (Just cover every possible inch with Pearl Shop furniture and fuck aesthetics), but I've never wanted to be on the rankings anyway, so I can ignore that little flaw.
I do wish that there were advantages to chilling in someone else's place though. Even if it were simple things like a setting to let friends or guildies use the furniture. Stuff like cooking stations, buffs, etc. And with it some more functionality to control who enters your place, including a ban list like SWTOR had. But yeah, overall BDO's housing (and nodes!) system is one of the better features I've seen on an MMO.
It makes me curious about how AoC's "node" system will work. At first glance, it looks promising.
Edit: AA's open world housing system is also what saved me from making the mistake of investing into that game. I read how it worked and just opted out on the entire thing. Definitely one of my better decisions when it comes to MMOs.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
I believe there may be co-existence between instanced and non-instanced housing. If you rely entirely on one or another there will be a drawback, but by combining both of them a balance can be achieved. As for my part housing is something important in MMO, its your own kingdom. There could be a way of having semi-instanced house as LOTRO or EQ2, so everybody can have their own house and in the same time putting higher end house in the world, like city or road.
House should be a mean of expressing our own creativity, being able to acquire a variety of decoration (from Crafting, loots, quests, gathering, event, raid, vendor, achievement). It should also be a way of acquiring resource. Using NPC, by upgrading it.
WoW is the only MMO I'm actively playing right now, and it still annoys me that they really have no world-building extras like housing, multiplayer bar games, good crafting, and stuff like that. I liked EQ2's housing a lot (though I didn't play the game long), and always enjoyed ending my sessions back in my apartment with my personally crafted furniture and named pets.
I wish more games had tangible rewards to housing and hanging out together, like party and raid buffs if you spend a certain amount of time together in the same house or guild hall (large, fully decorative guild halls with banks and crafting centers would be awesome). It would encourage friends, family and guilds to maybe end their sessions chatting and taking care of their busy-work together to get that buff that carries over into their next session.
People praising "open world" housing (UO, SWG) forget the major flaw of such a system... there are the "haves" and the "haves not"... and both pay the same subscription price. Once there's no more room for housing, you won't get a house.
That is bad design in my book. All players should, given the same time and amount of effort and difficulty, have access to the same content. Content locked behind some "first come, first serve" mechanics aren't good for a MMORPG. The UO housing rush, but also more recently Archeage, are prime examples of how such a system is flawed. It was even worse in AA because you actually needed property for crafting.
One of the best housing system I've seen is in BDO. Property is actually useful, and while part of the world, still available to everyone. What kind of property you acquire, where it's located, the furnishing, everything is useful for your character. And unlike some other housing systems, this one keeps cities alive and full of active players.
Just means the world should be bigger.
So you'll have big wastes full of nothing but player houses nobody will ever visit except the owners... and we come back to the problem of all fully instanced housing.
Or you allow players to form towns with community planning, plots and zoning to help focus things. You also make localized content viable by not having a lot of perm content. You make housing in communities highly protected and those outside highly unprotect and/or expensive to protect.
SWG, being able to enter and see how people decorated their houses was great. Also being able to use your house as a store by placing vendors in them. Being able to pack them up and move them to other locations when you wanted a change of scenery. If you wanted something bigger, you could buy your own guild hall and use it as a home or store. Player created cities. Being able to use your Yacht as a home in space and decorated it.
I still play on SWG Legends.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
As much as Archeage has its downsides, I still prefer their housing. First off it's open world. It's part of the environment for anyone to stumble across. YOU choose the style of housing you want. There are a lot of options for farms and housing. And decorating is pretty versatile. Put this in a more successful MMO and I'll would toss money at it.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
WoW is the only MMO I'm actively playing right now, and it still annoys me that they really have no world-building extras like housing, multiplayer bar games, good crafting, and stuff like that. I liked EQ2's housing a lot (though I didn't play the game long), and always enjoyed ending my sessions back in my apartment with my personally crafted furniture and named pets.
I wish more games had tangible rewards to housing and hanging out together, like party and raid buffs if you spend a certain amount of time together in the same house or guild hall (large, fully decorative guild halls with banks and crafting centers would be awesome). It would encourage friends, family and guilds to maybe end their sessions chatting and taking care of their busy-work together to get that buff that carries over into their next session.
What are you talking about? They have housing...It's called the garrisons! /s
I think BDOs housing system was pretty good. If you go slow, it's great but you can also entirely skip it. If the best equipment came from that system it would be even better. It would require player interaction. The best housing system from a game I played was The Sims Online, but alas that game is no more.
The only MMORPGs Ive played enough to utilize the housing systems were EQ2 and FFXIV. I liked EQ2s housing initially (the very first iteration of apartments in cities) but it did quickly feel like your instance would just get buried under everyone else. I also found the initial selection of decorations lacking cohesion and the "creative" way people created their own decorations by like, stacking 20 pianos like legos to make a refrigerator to be downright stupid. The ability to set your own music was cool, even though only you heard it.
FFXIV had more bells and whistles but was implemented HORRIBLY. First it was hyped and pushed back far too long after ARR launched. Then, of course, only the elite lizard-people upper class could afford to swoop in and suck up the limited real estate for like a year. Thankfully I was in a big guild that could afford a medium house but even that didnt have all the buffs, crafting stations, and eventually rooms that gave it ANY utility for a while. Buying decorations or getting them crafted could be robbery for the prices so I peaced out on that. I feel the game would have benefited from a hybrid open-world housing and instance where there could be instanced existing houses in the zone settlements and villages along with the cities to allow for peoples personal tastes to be more spread out and not overwhelm burrows like Lavender Beds being owned by like 1 guild. I would have loved a home in Camp Bronze Lake.
MMO cul de sac zones are hideous nightmares to me. Use your damn world and force your community to naturally develop their centers of domesticity. And make a home worth a player returning to and using for development or utility. Playing interior designer just gets old quickly to me and is dictated by the developers rate of content release for housing materials. Why do I have a damn house when I cant store my armor and supplies in it!? Dont implement housing to echo some real world supply and demand bs either. I dont WAIT to enter a dungeon to kill a boss anymore so dont put walls up to hinder me from housing.
I tihnk this is one of the lesser known reason Everquest Landmark never went further. Mainstream players just arne't sandbox-oriented. They wnat everything instanced and relatively easy to get unless it's gear--even then it must be soloable.
I'm for open world housing. Hate insanced housing with a passion. Instances are like soloing. They destroy the massively multiplayer in MMORPG. It's a virus, like a trojan horse, poisoning MMORPGs.
There's a reason Ultima Online 2 wasn't made. Playes wanted World of Warcraft. It was true then and stil true today. Devs appeal to it.
was pretty nice done, not having each house in it's own instance, but having a neighborhood. plus, they had a looooot of trophies to hang onto your walls, and an own vendor where you could sell your stuff to players visiting him/her. also it had "public" market places for each neighborhood.
Noecron was less customizable, but i liked the idea that you basically had instanced zones, accessed via numpad. apartment raids were fun, hehe
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
SWG. No other MMO housing system comes even close.
All the decoration options you can think of from newer MMO's were available in SWG. SWG just had more.
- Everything players used, including houses and furniture, was crafted.
- Everything you looted, every singly junk item, had a 3d model, so you could place it inside your house. Ive never seen this in a different 3d MMO.
- All the backpacks you used in your inventory, to store loot in, could be placed inside your house. These could be named and the names would be visible, so you could easily organise all your loot.
- Apart from backpacks, there was loads of furniture that had storage capabilities. All could be named and placed and stacked how you wanted. People had walls full of chests, making it look like large cabinets, to organize their resources.
- Of course you could sit on chairs, benches etc. With different idle animations too.
- Crafting machines could be crafted and placed and used inside your house. This was very useful, because they could be higher quality then the npc ones in the city.
- You could place merchants in your house to sell your items. People search through all items on player merchants on city bazaar (computers), this would then create a waypoint to the said player's house. You then had to travel to the player's house to collect the item.
- Because clothes and armour could be made in a gazillion different colours, it was usually preferably to just visit a well known shop to just browse, instead of using the bazaar search computer.
- Any pet or droid, could be placed in your house and would have their idle animations.
This is just personal housing. The way this becomes even better when placed in a player city is too much to type.
Not to mention that SWG had harvesters and factories that had to be placed in the world. Multiplayer spaceships that required a crew of players to use (next to single seat spaceships ofc).
SWG player housing was a must for everyone, if only for storage. If you were a crafter, you NEEDED housing. There was no way to otherwise properly organise your resource. If you were an entertainer, you wanted to have a cantina in a player city. Doctors had a use for medic buildings (this changed later on). SWG was most immersive MMO that I played.
Also, SWG crafting and resource gathering, same as housing , no other MMO comes close in amount of features unfortunately. This is starting to be forgotten.
SWG. No other MMO housing system comes even close.
All the decoration options you can think of from newer MMO's were available in SWG. SWG just had more.
- Everything players used, including houses and furniture, was crafted.
- Everything you looted, every singly junk item, had a 3d model, so you could place it inside your house. Ive never seen this in a different 3d MMO.
- All the backpacks you used in your inventory, to store loot in, could be placed inside your house. These could be named and the names would be visible, so you could easily organise all your loot.
- Apart from backpacks, there was loads of furniture that had storage capabilities. All could be named and placed and stacked how you wanted. People had walls full of chests, making it look like large cabinets, to organize their resources.
- Of course you could sit on chairs, benches etc. With different idle animations too.
- Crafting machines could be crafted and placed and used inside your house. This was very useful, because they could be higher quality then the npc ones in the city.
- You could place merchants in your house to sell your items. People search through all items on player merchants on city bazaar (computers), this would then create a waypoint to the said player's house. You then had to travel to the player's house to collect the item.
- Because clothes and armour could be made in a gazillion different colours, it was usually preferably to just visit a well known shop to just browse, instead of using the bazaar search computer.
- Any pet or droid, could be placed in your house and would have their idle animations.
This is just personal housing. The way this becomes even better when placed in a player city is too much to type.
Not to mention that SWG had harvesters and factories that had to be placed in the world. Multiplayer spaceships that required a crew of players to use (next to single seat spaceships ofc).
SWG player housing was a must for everyone, if only for storage. If you were a crafter, you NEEDED housing. There was no way to otherwise properly organise your resource. If you were an entertainer, you wanted to have a cantina in a player city. Doctors had a use for medic buildings (this changed later on). SWG was most immersive MMO that I played.
Also, SWG crafting and resource gathering, same as housing , no other MMO comes close in amount of features unfortunately. This is starting to be forgotten.
Comments
My desired game for a housing system would include player built cities and government controls of a soft nature for organization.
Using a fully customizable housing system like UO has, but with caravans and expenses for importing construction materials that aren't "native", so as to limit the wild appearance of many houses (and other structures) that don't fit the area.
Once upon a time....
I liked the way BDO was designed where you owned an actual apartment or a house, but the way it was instanced allowed you to do what you wanted with it, as you wanted. It felt more realistic and it was put in, in such a way that I as a player would never run into the problem of not being able to get a house.
Trove, had these really cool things called Cornerstones, which where like a pocket-house, that I could drop down and use as I needed. and move as I wanted. It was like a house I could put in my pocket and take with me as I traveled from world to world, and I could even have several of them, each having a various use or just for fun.
Not to mention Trove provided endless design things, from Fishing Trophies to Monster Trophies to decorate my cornerstone with, along with tons of patterns, interior and exterior design elements and a ton of various kinds of blocks to build whatever I wanted. At the same time, I didn't really have to do anything outside the basics.
So as you traveled you would see other players Cornerstones, some were amazing works of art, others looked like they were drunk, some simple, some complex. What players put in them were their own creations. Some went all out, others were very minimal. So being able to see all these other Cornerstones, was really cool, and sometimes it gave you ideas on what to do next, other times it left you wondering what they were thinking. But it was always cool to see what other people created.
On top of that, Trove also had Club Worlds, which, Imagine having your very own zone to play with, and do whatever you wanted with. Club Worlds were instanced, so it was private and only those that were a part of your club could see your club world, it was none the less really cool. I am in a few clubs, and I would travel around the various club worlds, see what others made, and right now I am working on making a castle in my own club world, (but I made a more private club, of just me as a place to play)
So, when it comes to a "housing" like system, I think Trove really had a great way of doing things, I would say one of the best. But I liked the way BDO did things as well, it worked well for their world.
Which I think is really the most important part of things, the system needs to work well with the world.
I do wish that there were advantages to chilling in someone else's place though. Even if it were simple things like a setting to let friends or guildies use the furniture. Stuff like cooking stations, buffs, etc. And with it some more functionality to control who enters your place, including a ban list like SWTOR had. But yeah, overall BDO's housing (and nodes!) system is one of the better features I've seen on an MMO.
It makes me curious about how AoC's "node" system will work. At first glance, it looks promising.
Edit: AA's open world housing system is also what saved me from making the mistake of investing into that game. I read how it worked and just opted out on the entire thing. Definitely one of my better decisions when it comes to MMOs.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
House should be a mean of expressing our own creativity, being able to acquire a variety of decoration (from Crafting, loots, quests, gathering, event, raid, vendor, achievement). It should also be a way of acquiring resource. Using NPC, by upgrading it.
I wish more games had tangible rewards to housing and hanging out together, like party and raid buffs if you spend a certain amount of time together in the same house or guild hall (large, fully decorative guild halls with banks and crafting centers would be awesome). It would encourage friends, family and guilds to maybe end their sessions chatting and taking care of their busy-work together to get that buff that carries over into their next session.
Of course, this is non tradition MMORPG thinking.
I still play on SWG Legends.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Getting too old for this $&17!
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
...I'm sorry, I'll see myself out.
The best housing system from a game I played was The Sims Online, but alas that game is no more.
So What Now?
ESO some nice amazing houses but 150 bucks a pop wow.
was pretty nice done, not having each house in it's own instance, but having a neighborhood.
plus, they had a looooot of trophies to hang onto your walls, and an own vendor where you could sell your stuff to players visiting him/her. also it had "public" market places for each neighborhood.
Noecron was less customizable, but i liked the idea that you basically had instanced zones, accessed via numpad. apartment raids were fun, hehe
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
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