MMO Housing - town planning with a purpose

[Moloch]

I was reading a Tabula Rasa interview (yeah I was bored) and was impressed by what they plan to do with housing. If I understand it correctly, they intend to make the housing 'estate' separate from the gameworld (so no more UO-like real land rushes or Shadowbane-like city baning and defending) and allow it to become a trophy case where players can display material earned in game and their creativity (UO fish tanks anyone?).

All well and good, but it could be so much more in a PvP game.

Have a unified housing 'estate' for the gameworld, a separate instance if you will. If needs be restrict access to the 'hubs' of this instance to specific races, but have a central hub where the trophies of conflict are available to see.

Assign ownership of 'houses' and public utilities in the hub(s) according to in game achievements. Hold a particular resource spot in the game for a week and gain control of a vendor for the next week. Hold a particular PvP goal for a specified time and have the right to name (subject to Dev approval) a street or park. Be granted access to a particular class of dwelling or a location due to your guilds PvP ranking. There might only be one castle, three keeps, ten mansions, one hundred houses, and as many shacks as there as peasants. Possession of a high ranking dwelling becomes a visible sign of in game success, bragging rights follow. Each type of building should also give access to in game privileges, more storage space, crafting locations (if you're going to use a forge/anvil type locational mechanism) etc.

Add in game drops or crafts that allow buildings to be personalised according to their guilds wishes (perhaps ala Civilisation throne room styles). Add one of a kind rewards such as statues, banners, fountains, wildlife, alters, rock types (marble, snadstone, basalt, etc), stained glass windows, heads, skins, display cases, that can be placed in these earned dwellings (perhaps locked into a specific rank) or in a public place. If the guild/individual loses the right to this place then the rewards are placed in storage until the right to that dwelling is regained.

If you need a value sink have the buildings assigned a maintenance cost, which (automatically please) is deducted from a bank account.

I reckon the killer /achievers would be ecstatic.

[Vali]

If we've got hubs with all services available, why then go to the town (apart from getting to your hub)?

We could say replace the town, with a hub. But then everyone would use the towns resources and forget their own hub - based on convenience.

If its small enough - Id expect top end guilds to attempt to control their own hub, completely. Otherwise Id expect some animosity. Why should player A have access to resources guild A has fought so hard to get and maintain? Simply because they've been able to get a house in guild A's hub?

About the most consistent argument I've seen for going down a path that allows a group of players to remove themselves from a portion of the main game world is that its anti-community building. But I think we forget that a MMO is not one big community, its a composition of many, many smaller ones.

Most people dont communicate outside their guild (community) with any frequency. Much like I dont go to downtown and start up a conversation with the random people I could meet.

So my idea - would be akin to yours Moloch - but based almost exclusively around guilds. Each hub would support a guild and then Id have a communal hub or two for everyone else. Most services would reside within guild halls, but not within the communal hubs. Quick travel options so guilds can bypass the town, for many day to day circumstances - however still viable for the masses.

(The nice thing about hubs - It doesnt really matter what happens to the town. If its captured by an opposing faction, your hub simply goes to the previous town you controlled)

-V

[Damon]

What we have is similar to what you guys are talking about, but its a bit more inclusive. I brought up the point of instancing guild halls for us and housing and it posed the Anti-Community aspect of instancing. I think we found a great way of giving the players the feeling of being included in the game world and as well as the ease of using instanced based hubs for housing and guilds. It is actually very ingenious that our tech department came up with.

[ruination]

I don't think housing will ever be an important/real useful aspect of MMO's...
I just can't think of anything that they would really innovate.
Besides wasting obscene amounts of cash on :-\

But what I got from your post moloch is that Tabula Rasa is like EVE online
please enlighten me!

[Vali]

I don't think housing will ever be an important/real useful aspect of MMO's...
I just can't think of anything that they would really innovate.
Besides wasting obscene amounts of cash on :-\


Your just not thinking of it in the right way. Your thinking in terms of "pretty" but thats ok, that fairly well sums up what weve seen from most mmo's to date.

There has to be some form of game mechanic geared towards making it useful for the day to day play. Such as (and in WoW terms for simplicity)

Convenience -

Guild halls with bankers, vendors, and auctioneers
Guild halls with anvils, forges, dark iron forges.. etc.

Just doing that alone would provide incentive for players in WoW to have a guild hall. But you could go a step further

Portals to other major cities
Portals direct to instances
An extra hearth stone to the guild hall
Spirit healer, with an option to rez at the guild hall when death occurs anywhere in the game world

Or even further

Instanced guild halls with game world points of entry
Customizable guild hall layout with defense options
Encourage guild hall raiding - with some form of victory reward

Or even further

- Game world points of entry with defendable upgrades - allow for semi mobile game world placement
- Use semi moble guild hall "points of entry markers" to control resource hubs
- Either attack or defend your "points of entry markers" against other guilds


Just some crap off the top of my head. But you get the idea, and Im sure there are thousands of other ideas out there.

-V

[Damon]

One of the things l like most about shadowbane was being in Compton with the city itself being your guild hall. It had Banking, trading, and your own vendors that all have specialties. Trainers with their own unique buildings and defenses. It really made guilds feel apart of something. So I agree with so many of those points, and of course burning the towns around someone’s ears was abit of fun too. I feel ashamed :(
Oh no, reminiscing about the past not good!