Guild Wars 2

Here are my ideas for items/pricing:

List of some things that can fit into each category:

Small:

• Beds, all books(have separate prices), cabinets, clocks, all dishware(have separate prices), fences, fountains, garden gnomes, plants, stone steps, wall mount, windows.

Medium:

• Beds, cabinets, clocks, dresser, fences, fountains, garden dwarves, all lights, plants, rug, stone steps, wall mount, windows.

Large

• Beds, Grandfather Clocks, dressers, fountains, fireplaces, gazebos, rugs, life-size statues, trees, wall-mounts, windows.

Epic:

• -Beds, fireplaces, larger-than-life statues of yourself(Legendary only), wall-mounts.

COSTS

Books:
Junk 10c

Common 20c

Uncommon 1s

Rare 5s

Unique 10s

->->->->->->->->->->->-

Basic Book 0

Leather-Bound Book 5s

Gold Embroidered Book 1g

Copper Dishware
10c

Silver Dishware
2s

Gold Dishware
30s

Size:
Small 50s

Medium 1g

Large 2g

Epic 3g

Rarity:
Junk 20s

Basic 30s

Fine 40s

Masterwork 50s

Rare 1g

Exotic 1g 50s

Legendary 2g

Addons: (Max of 1)
Second-Floor 20gold

Pools:

Small pool 5g

Medium Pool 10g

Large pool 15g

Epic pool 20g

Frontyard Land-Plot: (Max of 1)

Small 5g

Medium 10g

Large 15g

Epic 20g

Backyard Land-Plot: (Max of 1)

Small 5g

Medium 10g

Large 15g

Epic 20g

Pretty much everything you buy, you will one get 1 of that item per each payment.

• Exceptions to this would be:
  -Fences. You unlock that style of fence, but it has an unlimited supply.
  -Stone steps.

Bringing a dye bottle to a vendor, should unlock that color pain for your house, but NOT consume the dye. For example: I find a dye I really like, I bring it to the vendor, he unlocks it… Now I can consume it whichever character I’d like.

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-

Buying the house in the first place, completely empty:
20g

10 Unique, Gold-Embroidered Books 11g
1 Large, Legendary Gazebo 4g
5 Legendary Lights 15g
2 Large, Legendary Rugs 4g
1 Large, Legendary Fountain 4g
2 Large, Legendary Dressers 8g
1 Large, Legendary Grandfather Clock. 4g
1 Medium, Legendary Clock 3g
1 Large, Legendary Stone Steps 3g
1 Large-than-life Statue of yourself. 5g
1 Epic-sized, Legendary Bed. 5g
2 Legendary Trees 8g
1 Epic Legendary Fireplace 5g
1 Medium, Legendary Fence 3g
3 Gold Dishware sets. 90s
5 Medium, Legendary Cabinets 15g
6 Epic, Legendary Windows.24g
1 Epic Backyard 20g
1 Epic Frontyard 20g
1 Epic Pool 20g

Total: 191g, 90s.

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-

Then you can buy 10 Large, Legendary Garden Statues and create an epic stone-war in your frontyard. xD For 40g. xD

Or, deck out your house with Legendary Mounts to show off your amazing kills.
1 Epic, Legendary Mount 5g
2 Large, Legendary Mounts 8g
2 Medium, Legendary Mounts 6g
3 Small, Legendary Mounts 4g 50s

23g 50s more.

• So I mean, MAXING your house would cost a lot. But a pretty awesome house is still totally attainable with these prices.

My justifications:
1. I do not play much at I still have earned 4g after release.
2. Seems like a few people have Commanders books… Those are 100g a pop.
3. Houses are not supposed to be maxed instantly. They grow over time.
4. In all honestly, not everyone is going to want a Legendary house.
5. For someone that simply plays the game for fun, can easily accumulate enough wealth to progressively fill their house.

For a moderate, completely filled house, with a Legendary or two, it should only run you about 100g. Which should easily be obtainable if you plan to play Guild Wars for a decent duration. (That’s what the developers want anyways.)

The idea is not to buy everything. The idea is to represent yourself. And you can do that without having to buy everything ever. People like myself do not like outrageous houses. We like it clean, quite, and maybe a few Legendary Statues next to our huge kitten pool…

I think I made a typo and numbers maybe be like, 10g off. But this is just a general idea.

• Although I would like to see the house items sold via gems, I would also like to see the house items be regulated at a set coin price… I do not want to see my pool cost 2x the price overnight.

If you have any arguments against these pricings, please do make them.

I don’t understand what these “mounts” are. And, frankly, kills in GW2 are mostly worthless, as with other players you can kill anyone easily.

Well, I would like to see housing implemented. Whatever the “flavour”. However I am more keen for persistent housing.

When you look at the sheer size of the world, I’m sure that there is enough room to strategically place “plots” of land for purchase which players can then use to build their houses.

Essentially I’m talking about the sort of housing system used in Vanguard. Unlike SWG which allowed for housing anywhere, Vanguard’s persistent housing system allows for specific plots to be “rented”.

Now, for me, the actual interiors of the houses could be instanced (to save on server / client resources). But the exteriors should be persistent because housing helps to create a greater feeling of a “lived in” and “dynamic” world. Which is something that “true” instanced housing doesn’t assist with.

Instanced, because I don’t trust people to create nice homes that fit with the world. It wouldn’t be long before someone figured out how to draw kittenes all over their roofs or whatever.

Huma, in many MMOs that included “persistent housing”, players had very little control (aside from choosing from a limited number of style options) over how the exterior of their house looked. So the reasons you have against persistent housing are pretty weak at best.

Instanced housing is the way to go.

I played UO (Ultima Online) years ago. Housing there was not instanced, and there were some major issues that came about because of this fact.

1) Lack of real estate. Players had to choose an area of the game world to put a house onto. This decreased available monster spawn points because monsters would either not spawn when a house was sitting on the spawn point or they would spawn inside the house. In the latter case, the owner of the house would keep the monster confined so that they could either kill it when they wanted or just keep it off the map, usually for the simple reason that it eliminated a distraction while the owner was hunting players instead of monsters. UO was entirely open PvP.
2) Lag. Loads of crap inside of the house slowed down the game client when a player came near because they had to have the local objects loaded into memory in preparation for perhaps being able to see inside of the house. While GW2 is a different game, this could still be an issue.
3) Griefing. PvP guilds laid out neighborhoods like mazes, such that an open field became a maze of houses with numerous, literal “dead” ends. The PvPers knew the layout and camped the area, whereas the player trying to pass through typically did not. UO was entirely open PvP, so this won’t present the same issue, but the griefing factor this type of behavior can cause is still possible.
4) Map shrinkage. I’d rather leave the map areas open for questing, traveling, and hunting mobiles (mobs, for those of you more familiar with the abbreviated term) than clutter it up with housing. If houses are put on the PvE map, there is less space for actual playing every time a house is built.

No, I didn’t read all of your posts, and I don’t care if what I wrote makes it seem that way.

Leowulf, the worlds we inhabit now are huge. Times have changes. Not all persistent housing was done like UO.

1) Some games that came after UO proved that persistent housing can work if done right. SWG and Vanguard both had functioning persistent housing. And whilst SWG’s housing did allow for houses to be put down on spawn areas, Vanguard’s “plots” ensured that players could only place housing down in specific areas. It’s just a matter of the devs deciding how much is allowed and where it is allowed.

2) Lag issues can exist IF the engine isn’t capable of handling totally persistent interiors as well as exteriors. Do we really know the full capabilities of GW2’s engine? Besides, if the interior was instanced, but the exterior remained persistent, that could help to severely reduce potential problems in that area.

3) The issue you raised is based on the concept of being able to put down houses absolutely anywhere. Not all games that had/have persistent housing did it that way. See above.

4) See above. Besides, the WP system has already shrunk the map down to the distance between WP’s.

Mounts. lol. As in the head of a monster, glued to a piece of decorative wood and nailed to your wall. :P Google it please. xD

My reasons for instanced neighborhoods:
-Houses belong in cities., not in the wilderness.
-When I quest, I do not want to find houses. I want to find jumping puzzles and dungeons.
-When I leave the city, I do not want to go out of my way to impede on other people’s property, nor do I want other people intruding mine.
-Any proposed landslots you’ve mentioned… Everywhere I’ve been, you cannot place a house without ruining the atmosphere.
-This is a role-playing game. Not Second Life. I want this to be my (and my friend/guild’s) epic journey. Not my journey mixed with millions of people and their houses.
-Having plotting land limits the user’s decorations to only items that match the surroundings. I want my house to be my house. Not fit into specific guidelines like those people living in gated communities with set rules on which trees you have and what color your house paint must be.

This is probably jumping back to the original post a bit much, but…
I actually support instanced housing. When I go to my house, I want to go to /my/ house. Not my moderate but nice house and the five huge monstrosities next to me built by people that just want to show off wealth. Or, I want to visit my moderate but nice house, and not a slum of claimed plots with barely a hovel.
Also, if houses are not instanced, they’ll have to cost some sort of rent/maintenance fee in gold to make sure that inactive players aren’t claiming spots all over the world. I do not want that. I want to buy my house things and keep them.

Instanced neighborhoods wouldn’t be too bad. They would actually be pretty awesome if they do something like create a neighborhood (or village or town…) of all your guild member’s houses around your guild hall. You would still need to be able to enter houses individually (since people are in multiple guilds, if you leave your guild, etc), but the exterior models could all be grabbed and displayed together.

I would really appreciate NPCs that can be set to “live” in your house. Family members, pets, and (in the case of human nobles!) servants. There would need to be 2-5 preset models of each type of NPC (like 3 versions of Grandmother, 5 children (per race!), 2 cats, 3 maids, etc), and they would need to be selectable/purchasable individually (it wouldn’t do to have Mom wandering around the house if she’s dead). Making them renamable once set to be in the house would be fantastic, but not needed. Being able to set them to wander certain rooms and not others would be handy (I don’t want the whole household in my personal bedroom!).

As much as I would love to have a plant house for my Sylvari, a Divinity style mansion for my noble human, an LA style home for my streetrat human, and a nice steading for my norn, I actually wouldn’t mind if houses were account based instead of character based. Prices for anything that wants to cost more than about 50s would be more affordable to those who actually play their alts instead of using them for mules (me!), and it would cut down on server-side needed things, allowing Anet to let us make better houses.

Last note: Please do not make houses cost gems! Having some /decorative/ furnishings for gems is fine, but 95% of the housing features should be based on gold and accomplishment (like a Zhaitan trophy mounted on your wall for completing the story, or a jack-o-lantern lamp for attending halloween).

Lillium,
I believe you worded everything perfectly. Very nicely said,; I cannot agree with you more.

Renting is just all bad. Let me put it this way, even without bots. Someone plays the game more/has more gold, you will get kicked out of your home because they play more. Simple as that. THAT, or it is first come, first serve, and you never get a home. Instanced is the only way to go for everyone to get a home, and have the home be a fair price for all, even those who play the game for a social life more than a grind.

I am ok with Gems for housing, but I want it to be a set amount/fix rate because I do not want my house to inflate ridiculously. Having gems up as a option, allows people who really want the house more than anything else, to spend money to help the developers have more money to put into the game. And you can always convert Gold into gems.

I would however, like to see items earned exclusively from completing in game titles/events.

I love player housing, and look forward to getting a house.

Ultima Online had “freeform” ability to place houses. It was awful and should never be repeated.

Dark Age of Camelot had the most awesome housing(houses where all in the same zone, seperate from other zones) in any game I’ve ever seen, but the ability to put the merchants on and in them destroyed the major cities, which ruined community centers and was a mistake.

EQ2 had great housing. It was instanced, customizable almost on par with DAOC, and didn’t seem to take away from the game. In my opinion, this is the best model to emulate for player housing.

Lillium.6481:

Last note: Please do not make houses cost gems! Having some /decorative/ furnishings for gems is fine, but 95% of the housing features should be based on gold and accomplishment (like a Zhaitan trophy mounted on your wall for completing the story, or a jack-o-lantern lamp for attending halloween).

In my opinion, cash shop items is a great motivation for developers, as they’re getting money from it. I would prefer greatly customizable housing with a lots of features and with 50% of stuff being sold in cash shop to some free, but primitive “here’s-your-house-you-can’t-do-anything-with-it” work.

I would like pets to show up in my housing instance Like cats and dogs. And more friendly npcs from my personal story. Right now my home instance doesnt feel like home. allowing some customization would be nice. eg. furniture and decors.

I’m really looking forward for the housing content too.
I hope they release the content as early as possible because the game is at it’s prime.

I want houses that are customisable, not like skyrim when everything is stationary.
It should have some “the sims” element.

You actually already have a personal “home” in your city usually. It gets updated with some npcs from story mode as you progress through it but at the moment it’s just an undercooked feature without much reason to go back into. At the moment it seems like something that is low priority but they’ve got the foundation in there to expand it later.

I am seeing that they have room for custom vendors, upgrades, cosmetics etc and maybe even unique quests that you can invite friends to do. It will probably come in time.

Having buildings that a guild can rent out to be their hall in the major cities would be nice. Just have it set that the “lease” needs to be renewed every few weeks and an auction happens for the monthly rights for that spot. Sort of like Kurz/Luxon posts being controlled by guilds. It’d be a good way for gold to be sunk back into the game.

“Housing” like GW1 style Guild Halls would be perfect.

I dont see why it would be impossible to “own” a part of divinitys reach, or other areas, make “homes” that are houses and a part of the area ..several to choose from, from cheap to elaborate, make those persistant but make the home instanced, where you click on the door and zone to an instance, with the ability to visit others who may live in the same instance by clicking the door and having a list of people who live there from your server. Pretty much what eq2 had, is what I would love to see.

I gave a suggestion in a previous thread before.
I’ll share it here too.

Housing have the potential be be an excellent end-game/carrot for gw2.

1) To build the house and craft furnitures, players must collect and hunt for the materials (chop woods, hire builders).

2) It’s very customisable. They can add furnitures and decorations by player’s own will. (Sims-like).

3) Competitive nature. Since the game throw out competitive progression in pve and pvp, there’s really no end-game element in this game. Make it a way that players can compare how big or small and how beautiful their house is with each other from their efforts. Players can acquire rare materials from dungeons to craft rare furnitures. In a way, it’s also cosmetics but it’s uniquely different than other mmos.

4) They can also acquire optional trophy 3D items from bosses and showcase it in their shelves. It helps in making players feel special and progressed.

5) Every week, there’s an update for house furnitures catalogue. They can also put in timed rare furniture items in the catalogue. It keeps players anticipated and excited each week.

6) Make it mandatory to have guildmates to build/upgrade houses. It helps bonding and promotes the purpose of having a guild. There isn’t much purpose of having a guild these days. Please make a guild to be meaningful.

Remember that joyful experiences comes from the efforts we make. People appreciate something from efforts. If everything is spoonfed, there’s no fun in it. People will get bored fast and lead to another “no end-game disaster”. A good mmo should have some content that will constantly appeal players to log into the game. Since gear progressions are not feasible with this game design. They should add other elements into end-game. Something that appeals effectively. Cosmetic gears isn’t effective because all other mmos have cosmetic gears along with their gear progression. Therefore, the housing can be a good solution to the current end-game tragedy if being approached the right way.

Naoko.7096:

Housing have the potential be be an excellent end-game/carrot for gw2.

Exactly. Housing is able to fix the biggest problem of the game, which is lack of end-game content.

Naoko.7096:

If everything is spoonfed, there’s no fun in it. People will get bored fast and lead to another “no end-game disaster”. A good mmo should have some content that will constantly appeal players to log into the game.

This game already spoon feeds you everything. It is only alive because people have no had time to exploit its few values

Being forced to make furniture every week would put quite a burden on the developers. As for mandatory: If you tell many people they “must” you guild will be empty in no time. If your Guild is good, I will donate on my own.

Cosmetics is the great all be-all end game solution. It worked perfectly for Guild Wars 1. Problem now, is we have nearly nothing from Guild Wars 1 inside of 2, and the game is very restricting. Limited. Bland.

The only was to make end game not be cosmetic, is to add grind or progression of some kind.

Naoko.7096:
If everything is spoonfed, there’s no fun in it. People will get bored fast and lead to another “no end-game disaster”. A good mmo should have some content that will constantly appeal players to log into the game.
This game already spoon feeds you everything. It is only alive because people have no had time to exploit its few values
Being forced to make furniture every week would put quite a burden on the developers. As for mandatory: If you tell many people they “must” you guild will be empty in no time. If your Guild is good, I will donate on my own.
Cosmetics is the great all be-all end game solution. It worked perfectly for Guild Wars 1. Problem now, is we have nearly nothing from Guild Wars 1 inside of 2, and the game is very restricting. Limited. Bland.
The only was to make end game not be cosmetic, is to add grind or progression of some kind.

Compared to games like WoW or SWTOR, this game HARDLY spoon feeds you anything. The main idea Anet encourages is exploration and finding stuff on your own, such as quests, vistas, crafting mats, etc. You have to explore in this game to find all that, where as in WoW/SWTOR/etc, it tells you exactly where to go, gives you the quest, puts a nice little waypoint on your map for you, etc etc. Then when you’re done, you return to the quest giver, go points you to the next quest giver/gives you the next quest, and the cycle continues. No exploration or discovery there my friend, all spoon fed. So in contrast to those games….GW2 is hardly a game that spoon feeds you!

Well kitten dude, Anet doesn’t even have to do anything now, you did all the work for them! :P Great ideas!

I really like how housing works on Aion. I wish they could add something similar.

There are appartments, that are instanced and everyone can have one and there are a uninstanced housing district that are expensive, limited to four hundred people.

Aeson Thackery,
Yeah, check my sign. I’ve been doing Anet’s job for about a month now. xD Bought ready just to delete my account because Anet is not the Anet I used to know. They are a Blizzard now.

Thanks for the compliment though.

LanceHavenbay.2067:

Aeson Thackery,
Yeah, check my sign. I’ve been doing Anet’s job for about a month now. xD Bought ready just to delete my account because Anet is not the Anet I used to know. They are a Blizzard now.

Thanks for the compliment though.

Eh idk about that, i think they’re doing an amazing job from a PR standpoint. It is unfair to knock them about game elements in GW2, as one that’s always personal opinion, and two GW2 is vastly different than GW1, so obviously a different approach must be taken.

i want a studio home made of Orichalcum. Orichalcum furniture, sinks, etc.

Make housing/guild halls like Rift’s Dimensions. Please. That would be incredibly epic. I don’t care if I have to wait a long time for it to get in the game. I think that is what GW2 needs.

Players being able to be creative and build minecraft-esque structures would be a lot of fun. You could make jumping puzzles and invite people in to try it out. Giving/taking editing privileges from people so a guild can work together to build something.

Please please please.

Hope there will be an underwater housing option too..

Aragnor.4250:

Hope there will be an underwater housing option too..

Same, this would be really cool…

Although some people might be battling this in real life right now with Sandy…

Since next update is not related to Thanksgiving, I think there is a slight possibility of getting PS and GH.

boat travel to Ring of FIRE WOULD BE AWESOME

Housing for everyone, persistent, would be impossible.

Right now, I’ve got 11 character slots, and I plan on buying more. I don’t think anyone’s reached a limit, but it was 35 in GW1.

2 million players, evenly spread across the 52 servers, would be 38,462 people per server. That’s 1,346,170 persistent houses per server. Think about that.

I think they will go instanced with player and guild housing but I’d love an option for you to choose to make your instance public so others can enter your instanced home even if you’re offline. It’d be fun to show off your creativity, and a driving force with gem sales for “epic” items that you would want to show off to the world.

I think there’s a HUGE opportunity for cash item sales if you allow a lot of creativity to make custom player and guild housing. I hope ArenaaNet takes full advantage of this and offer us a lot of customization with housing. I’d happily wait another year or even two for a robust housing system rather than something restrictive.

I love to see character houseing!…..I hear about guild halls as well I hope those will hurry and come out!

The best housing I’ve ever seen was for EQ2. The reason I personally consider it to be as such and voted it better than SWG was because it was instanced. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the amount of freedom that came with SWG housing as far as decorating, but unless you made macros it could be a little cumbersome to get things just right. Eq2 on the other hand had very simple mechanics for placing objects and it was entirely possible to do things with a lot of the furniture that was not intended originally (using the backs of bookshelves as wall paneling for example).
The whole system for me was very cool and was almost a mini game within the game. I’m all for instanced.
That being said though, we do have a home district in our respective cities, so it would probably be possible to do housing within that personal instance that would accommodate having a yard and stuff.

For housing, you should get the ability to live in what zone you want, since most zones are different from each other or in other words, themed housing.

To enter your house, you use an asura portal.

Let say that I want to live in Malchor’s leap. The environment will be very similar to Malchor’s leap and I get a plot of land to customize my house anyway I want to.

If I want to live in Metrica, I get to have a tropical area as my instanced housing. But I still have to build my house.

If I want to live in Wayfarer Foothills, maybe I can get that four epic statues of the spirit of the wild in the far horizon. This way, it feels like you are living in Wayfarer foothills instead of some cold mountains.

In Strait of Devastation, I can live on an island but there would be airship flying around battling the Lieutenants of Zhaitan.

I would also like to live in dungeons themed housing too. CoE, AC, and Arah seems wonderful places to live if you get rid of the mobs. HoTW doesn’t seem bad either, I could go for CM as well.

This way, as a RPer, I could say that I live in Dredgehaunt cliffs instead of some area in the mist.

The Pact is struggling to set up camps in Malchor’s Leap and Straits of Devastation. I don’t think someone’s house can survive such conditions.

ANET can make good rent money with these ideas… I would probably pay for it.

runeblade.7514:

For housing, you should get the ability to live in what zone you want, since most zones are different from each other or in other words, themed housing.

To enter your house, you use an asura portal.

Let say that I want to live in Malchor’s leap. The environment will be very similar to Malchor’s leap and I get a plot of land to customize my house anyway I want to.

If I want to live in Metrica, I get to have a tropical area as my instanced housing. But I still have to build my house.

If I want to live in Wayfarer Foothills, maybe I can get that four epic statues of the spirit of the wild in the far horizon. This way, it feels like you are living in Wayfarer foothills instead of some cold mountains.

In Strait of Devastation, I can live on an island but there would be airship flying around battling the Lieutenants of Zhaitan.

I would also like to live in dungeons themed housing too. CoE, AC, and Arah seems wonderful places to live if you get rid of the mobs. HoTW doesn’t seem bad either, I could go for CM as well.

This way, as a RPer, I could say that I live in Dredgehaunt cliffs instead of some area in the mist.

Yes, this is exactly what i would like as well. I dont want to be forced into an area, i want to be able to pick wherever.

daemonlama.5413:

I look forward to it. I really enjoyed my house in EQ2. I invested quiet a bit of time and money in decorating it. And know I will here as well.

I played Everquest 2 aswell, and my friend who was a carpenter had alot to do helping me out with things

I like the idea of Private Neighborhoods, but I’d prefer Semi-Private Neighborhoods.

The way I see it is the Neighborhood is created by a guild (With a Minimum number of members) The guild can upgrade the size of the Neighborhoods to accomidate more houses. (Large Guilds possibly would need multiple instances that are interlinked via a Guild Hall.)

To Start, a Guild would need to select a Theme for their First Neighborhood. Next would be it’s Size. Smallest might hold up to 10 houses, next up would hold perhaps 20 and a space where the guild can build their Guild Hall. Finaly I’d say at most 40 with space for a Guild Hall and an Asura Gate Network. Additional Instances would hold maybe 50 houses, a link to the main guild Neighborhood and an Exit to the Neighborhood’s Theme related city.

Neighborhoods would be accessabel via a “veriable” gate in any city they have an Asura Gate for (All would have at least one Asura Gate based on the Theme). One enters the gate, then selects the name of the guild they wish to enter the Neighborhood for. (With quick links for any guild they are a member of.) In addition the owner of a house could just select to transport to the instance containing their house.

Plots within the Neighborhood would be of a set size but the houses can be customized within the limits for the area’s theme (Bigger “better” houses costing more.)

A Guild running a Neighborhood could purchase Neighborhood Upgrades and place “public” decorations. Including additional Asura Gates linking to other cities and major hubs. (Like Fort Trinity) Possibily limiting the extra gates to the “Main” instance where the Guild Hall is.

There would also need to be “Public” Neighborhoods where anyone can place their house reguardless of Guild. These would be selected by Theme.

One possible enhancement for these “Public” Neighborhoods would be to award Neighborhoods points similar to Guilds with their Influence. Members of a given Neighborhood would esentualy be part of an “invisible” guild. Visiting the Neighborhood would be like Representing in reguards to daily Influence you get. Grouping with Neighborhood members would be the same as grouping with a Guild Member without the need to represent the same guild (You can only be a member of one Neighborhood at a time after all.) Additionaly, “donations” of gold and crafting materials could be used to add to the Neighborhoods “influence” for upgrades.

To spend points within the community members would vote on upgrades (Every member of the comunity gets a vote.)

For the inevitable Ghost towns (when all or most members of a Neighborhood stop playing the game) Houses should be able to be transfered to a same themed Neighborhood they are allowed to build in or deconstructed and a new house of the same tier built in one of a different theme. Any Neighborhood where no members have logged in for a set ammount of time (A Month perhaps?) Their house should be “packaged” and the Neighborhood deleted to save space on the servers.

There is no way a non-instanced housing system would work in this game, too limited ammount of space for everyone, and unfair to “new” players on an “old” server to not let them get one because all the spots are taken.

wtb Guild Hall… please ;D

I think instanced is the way to go as well but not an instance that you can only take party members to.

I am imagining a guild hall portal in every major city that will whisk you away to the guild hall of whichever guild you are representing. You can bring non guild members in by having them in your party (that will also prevent trolls from coming to your guild land just to be obnoxious).

The guild hall and homes will be furnishable with things that can be used, chairs, tables, beds, fireplaces, etc.

There will be a variety of guild hall models but the terrain surrounding it will be a standard model. It will be large (so there is minimal fighting over house building location), have pre-set building sites (on which you can pivot your home 360) and be surrounded by a a variety of terrains, a snowy mountainous area going down into a deep forest with a river running through it until it turns into a waterfall that leads to a green valley with wildflowers, bees and brooks. A barren, rocky place with a fissure that lava bubbles out of, a large cave, a small sea, etc. There will be a waypoint in each major terrain area to facilitate getting home fast.

Everyone in the guild can build their homes in the areas outside the guild hall (guild leaders will have a permissions box they can check to determine which ranks can build on the guild land) but just as we have light, medium and heavy armor attached to professions there will be restrictions on what kind of home you can build depending on the location so in the snowy mountains there would be say, 5 possible base models. You can build more Norn looking homes and have furs draped all over, build a snow burrow home, a cabin, etc. In the grassy areas sylvari homes or human settlements, etc (so it doesn’t look hideous).

Exterior customization could be as simple as a blueprint page (like character creation) where you can scroll through different options for model, roofing material, chimney, door, number of stories, color and then once you settle on it a foundation appears on your building plot and you can start gathering the materials for it..for example a slate roof could require ore whereas a mat one could require plant fibers, etc. so a house requires a lot of gathering but anyone should be able to “craft” it once they have the materials. Once the home is crafted very bare bones versions of necessary furniture appear but players will want to switch them out for nicer ones.

While exterior model and appearance will be fairly standard for aesthetic reasons the interior layout and decor of homes should be more customizable.

The soft furnishings could be incorporated into existing professions (tailor/leatherworker) as could decorative items (artificer/jeweler), furniture (huntsman/weaponsmith/armorsmith) and more foods to serve guests or display (cook).

I would be fine with a certain number of gems to unlock housing but not rent. Crafted furnishings should be something that players can sell on TP. Special furnishings available for gems would be fine as well.

Each guild can host one “open house” a year that will be accessible from a point in every major city and allow others to visit their land and enjoy guild sponsored activities or refreshments.

Ok…I’ve had my flight of fancy.

I also hope it is instanced. persistant houses sounds great on paper, until you’ve experienced the lag that comes with all that housing, not to mention destroying the aesthetics of the beautifuly rendered environments.

I think a decent alternative to instanced housing ala EQ2, having reserved zones exclusively for free standing houses where one could vendors out on the porch extc. It’s hard to get buyoff on house, due to so many people that consider it a waste of time, myself, I can’t wait for it…no matter how it is implemented.

Bump please.
Being a former Animal Crossing fanatic, this idea absolutely appeals to me. I could literally spend ages decorating my pad and shuffling around furniture (I had the Lovely set). These are perfect gem store items that I would definitely want for my character. Preferably you would have instanced communities to give a feeling of realness, and the ability to invite players to your pad.

My suggestion is to implement instanced versions of the home area for each race (Imagine being able to access those far up-areas in Divinity’s Reach and looking out across the city, or having a leaf styled house inside the Grove), alternatively a brand new housing area.
You could also implement achievements for the system if you wanted as well (Bake 3 cookies for your neighbor and get 5 silver). If implemented well I don’t see why this could not become a great success.

I like how DAoC did it. You had housing zones which were instanced. Inside the instances were neighborhoods and it told you who owned the house. If it was a guild house, it told you which guild. It also let you display your guild banners on your house. You could decorate and make it so your house was locked or others could come in to look at things. If you killed things, you could take it to a taxidermist and have it mounted to display on the walls in your home or on stands. (I had little colorful fairies nailed to a board hung on the wall, lol.)

I would not want people to just be able to build houses anywhere. The bots would have slums next to all of the DE’s!

LotRO has the best housing system to date, imho. Finding some way to improve upon it would be ideal.

I’d like my house to reflect my achievements in game. By the door a huge map that changes depending on my map completion in the world. Along the hall trophies from the dungeons I have beaten and suits of armor displaying the gear I have collected. I suppose it would be a homlier version of the hall of monuments. I hate all these dollhouse suggestions, I wouldn’t enjoy that kind of housing at all personally.

Inaccordance.7910:

LotRO has the best housing system to date, imho. Finding some way to improve upon it would be ideal.

Houses in Lotro are too bland and boring,imo. I also dislike neighborhood system, it takes away feeling of being unique.