Player Housing

[Ssinurn]

In AO player cities (which are essentially guild halls) give needed buffs to tradeskills you can't get otherwise (like using a Quantum Physics device in the lab). These buffs stack with existing world buffs/gear so it was balanced. And people outside the guild don't have access. Other items are portals to major world hubs and the grid (another virtual portal system). Even access to a plastic surgery clinic for a cool 50mil you can change your face permanently (basically char creation again).

The coolest part of player cities (guild halls) in AO is that you farm up an item (CRU) upgrade your city controller. The entire planet is under constant alien attack and randomly strikes player cities. You have a cloaking device, but over time eventually the aliens will find you. So you schedule a time to decloak and take the aliens on. They are after the CRU so once it is gone your city is safe for x time. During this time the aliens attack based on the level and number of players in your city and you can board their mother ship for phat lewts.

So in AO, guild housing (player cities) are places where high end raids occur. If your guild doesn't have one, you have to beg to be let on a raid to get this gear, and there are a limited number of world plots.

[Karthun]

What about implementing non-instanced fortresses and castles for guilds and instanced land (and I actually mean 40 aces) where the private player can do what they want with?

[Emrok]

NON INSTANCED!

limit houses per city... allow houses to be built anywhere...

allow keys to your house to be shared with other people, allow break ins so people can get into houses... would make it interesting...

to go to a town after hours, break into houses, steal some valuables... have community look outs etc etc...

once you take the short route on something you ruin the game...

+1 to abolishment of instances.

allow guild cities, when you join a guild you can opt to have your house moved to a guild town, which has a guild hall...

vanity things like this should be expensive and hard to do, allow everyone to assist in building houses...

gathering wood, designing a house... should be part of the game, the crazy guy in your guild should have a crazy looking house..

[Bloodfrost]

Originally Posted by Emrok

NON INSTANCED!

limit houses per city... allow houses to be built anywhere...

allow keys to your house to be shared with other people, allow break ins so people can get into houses... would make it interesting...

to go to a town after hours, break into houses, steal some valuables... have community look outs etc etc...

once you take the short route on something you ruin the game...

+1 to abolishment of instances.

allow guild cities, when you join a guild you can opt to have your house moved to a guild town, which has a guild hall...

vanity things like this should be expensive and hard to do, allow everyone to assist in building houses...

gathering wood, designing a house... should be part of the game, the crazy guy in your guild should have a crazy looking house..

Actually I like this idea. Would add a touch of realism to it all. Characters hiring themselves out as Guards. X amt of gold for so many hours. And mercenaries and assassins who hire themselves to kill said guards and rob the houses they protect. Would be a nice touch

[Renolin]

I really like the idea of player housing, but here's how I envisioned it.

Why not take all of those empty storefronts and random buildings that make up most towns and create legitimate housing and stores. Sure sure, each city would take an immense amount of work, but bear with me. For example, you have an NPC storefront with what's supposed to be an apartment over it. Make stairs up the side and make it sellable. Next, use all those storefronts that aren't NPC stores buyable PC stores.

So there's limited housing and storefronts; how do you handle this? Everyone pays rent. If you don't pay the rent, you lose your place. You create an auctionhouse-like system wherein housing is bought and sold. This can be artificially controlled but will go up as population increases. You can also include instanced housing for those people who want a home but don't want to shell out the money for it.

Next you allow guilds with guild halls discounts on the housing market or somesuch, so that they can congregate in specific towns. This discount can even be extended to vendors, so that there's some incentive to everyone being a part of a guild (if that is indeed your goal).

Anyway, non-instanced housing, like in real life, is a pretty good idea. Make it useful with shops and inns while also preserving some NPC storefronts (you don't want every purchase or sale to be the hands of a bazaar).

[Faille]

Personally, I like the idea of the City taxing all transactions, ideally to be used in RTS style city building.

You then have different levels of stores for people to sell stuff at, with the more expensive ones having better benefits, like more sell slots, or cheaper tariffs. You could have open markets, small stores, bigger stores etc.

The players running the city get to decide how much to set the tax at. Too high and they get lots of money, but either people don't go there to trade, or they try to blackmarket it. Too low and they might not make enough to do what they want.

Smuggling would also be viable then, but you would need to have emotes that show trades happening. So you would want to smuggle in out of the way places, where no one can see you. The city would also probably offer bounties to people who report when they see smuggling, and thus they can make those people KOS to the city guards.

Unfortunately, all this might be a little too contrived to actually be fun in a game 8(

[Bloodfrost]

I think with a little work it wouldn't be so bad. But smuggling + guards ftw

[Fattyfat]

Building off failles idea with an emphasis on implementation.

I could easily see plots of lands marked out sim-city style. A structure takes up X x Y plots. You get a deed and find the right space and setup your building. The building doesn't go up right away, maybe it spawns some foundations or npcs that look like they are building. On the next maintenace, the server goes through and fills any active deeds with the houses creating an updated zone.

Just like with what faille said, each building has a set of properties for space and upkeep...

You can even go the UO route with *illegal* activities flagging you for pvp for 30-60 seconds. Although you need a penalty for death to make the actions risky. Maybe dying while illegal (meaning you were caught) creates a modifier to the world that increases the cost of everything, such as repair, travel, supplies, etc. This modifier would go down over time.

Sounds fun to me and totally doable.

[Ghiest]

DAOC had a similar type style with plots of land being able to be bought, with bigger guild halls costing allot of money (to buy and upkeep). But they also had a different zone for the entire housing section rather than the city itself (which consquently I prefer the city idea mentioned above).

And the rentable store fronts are an excellent idea, not only brings life to the city itself without having to populate it with random_seller_001 walking about you would have player supplied sellers by players buying plots and renting the space and even possibly the rentable upgraded NPCs who are going to sell your goods 24/7.

So you could go from a small flat above some persons store to a almost a department store style with many vendors selling sectioned type goods within your store. Each NPC would hold a certain amount of goods (for example 25) they would take a tax off the goods they sold via a percentage or you could hire them by the day/week/month to sell your wares or you can opt to have your character real time selling goods (aka bazaar style) if you can't afford to hire the npcs.

So much possibilities

[James]

Originally Posted by Faille

Also what sort of features should be included in Guild Hall type setups?

Guild bank management for sure. Options to allow guildmembers to donate in items, options to allow guildmasters to set prices of items going out. Common, and perhaps uncommon depending on the level of Guild Hall you buy?, reagents and stat foods. Perhaps a teleporter system to various raid/dungeon zones after you have completed them (i.e. 9 bosses in a dungeon, you kill boss #9, you get a port right outside the dungeon).

Basically just a place to make it where your guildmembers should go to quite frequently, and for staging raids!