Opinions on player housing?

Hello all! I just wanted to pick some brains and get some opinions. What is your overall feeling on player housing? Is it a needed addition to a game or is it needless fluff that takes up valuable developer time and game rescources?If you read the forums on any major gaming website the community seems to be split 50/50, but the same could be said about any system built into a game. Be it PvP vs PvE or crafting.

My personal opinion is that if implemented right, Player housing can greatly benefit a game, add to its immersion and serve vital functions. For instance, being able to set vendors and sell crafted goods in player houses. This only works in games where crafted goods are as good or better than dropped items. And it also seems that houses which can serve this function work better when in a sandbox format as opposed to instanced housing.

Personally, I like the idea of having a place to horde my loot and vanity items like that lvl 10 Staff of Uberness which I've outgrown or the head of some dungeon beast it took our guild 10 tries to defeat. But to each their own. Let the discussion commence!

I loved housing in EQ2. I remember on Christmas I spent days decorating a friend's house up for the holidays because he had this big free dwarf house that was just begging for furnishing ans he'd left me as admin on his houses. Its one of those things that when its done in a way that gives players a huge amount of control over it can totally become an awesome game in itself. I wish more games would pay attention to player housing!

I like the idea of player housing, but in practice I don't think I would use it much other than to dump stuff I can't carry. However, guild halls, like in GW1, I would LOVE to see come to GW2.

I enjoyed player housing in SWG, LoTR Vanguard and EQ but my most played games, WOW and War hammer didn't offer it...so I am ambivalent.

Housing is a win if it's done right. In daoc the housing area also served as a crafting area, banking, guild banking, and marketplace. I wouldn't call that needless fluff. Plus you could collect trophies from other guilds on the battlefield in the way of banners and in pve by killing certain trophy mobs. So it provided 2 mini games as well. More content and a useful place for some of the things in game seems like a win to me.

I think housing would be a nice addition, but much later down the road, maybe in a year or two. I like to see games polish their game during its first year, rather than push out a lot of content additions. We're not paying a subscription, so there should be less pressure from players for Anet to add, add, add content as quickly as players can consume it.

For GW2 I don't see a need for individual player houseing, but a guild hall with individual player rooms would be cool. My past experience with housing is its basically a loot drop or vanity place. For Skyrim i have an add on for a huge house and i use it to put all the cool armors or weapons i've collected on maniquins and walls. I do love it and i'm always going back to it. Guild halls would be cool to host parties, hold meetings etc. Yea you can do all that with raidcall but i really like to see the other members too not just listen to an etheric voice in the void with no referrence. Maybe its just the roleplayer in me. I love player housig of any kind really but it really doesn't much purpose unles they create one for it.

Everquest 2 has the player housing I am most familiar with, I would be in favor of more games having that. If there was a choice between player housing and flexible group size raiding though, I'd go for raiding.

Player housing isn't something I think about often. However, I really liked my hobbit house in Lotro. Having a home I could port to for free, use as a bank, and display my trophies in was quite nice. I spent some time decorating it so it was a content extender for me. Similarly, I like my ship in SWTOR. Even though I couldn't decorate it. Having it fill up with interesting NPC's was cool In GW2 I'd find the home instance much for useful if I could port there for free, bank there, or craft there. I might even push my story quests past level three if I was spending any time there. As it is, I've never returned to mine after discovering the point of interests there.

I love player housing, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem like many games make use of it. Seems like those people against it are the loudest, always with the tired "it takes away dev time from our pvp/raiding!" being tossed around. And those are usually the types that troll roleplayers hard. I know roleplayers would typically make great use of player/guild housing, but they are typically such a small subsection of a playerbase that if someone does come up with player housing, it is usually horribly done and an afterthought (speaking of my experience with LotRO's housing, mostly). Of course, I can say the same thing when it comes to the crafting in most games. Crafting seems to be there only as a facilitator for player-run economies via auction houses. And that really makes me sad, as crafting is something I absolutely love. But like player housing, it is horribly done and an afterthought in most games, and only exists for the purpose of making a player-run economy a viable thing for the game. Disclaimer: The above statements are my opinion only.

i think player housing could be a great thing if introduced right. Maybe even player relationships lol, just a thought from sword art online haha. I havent really played any games with player housing other then runescape way back when. but that was kinda lame if you ask me, mostly because of the outdated graphics. but i think in a game like GW2 it would be really cool, especially if there was maybe certain quests that you could only start from your house or something like that. Im not really a big fan of crafting in GW2, i have master crafter and i honestly NEVER use any of my crafting skills bacause everything i make i can get from PVE in some way or another. not including legendaries but i find that legendaries are just a waste of gold/time. maybe if they were like WoW and were actually considerably better then the next lowest tier of weapons but they are nothing other then fancy exotics and serve me no purpose. anyways thats my 2 cents :)

The addition of a housing element would only make me happier with GW2. DaoC housing gave me more to accomplish in game, especially through the trophies attained from the trophy mobs. Just being able to customize the home would be a mini-game in itself for me. I would just hope that housing would be instanced, as in EQ2, instead of a limited amount available in a specific area. Of course, I also consider any achievement not yet accomplished as something that needs to be done. :)

I would like Player Housing if it is done with a purpose - and the only purpose it would have is to make the game more fun and meaningful. My Concept: Put player housing in its own instance or "map" in the world. This "map" would still be "occupied" by mobs. These "mobs" are not friendly and are out to get you and the things you own. I'm not speaking of a continual horde of undead, but the occassional skrit burglar or bandit. Random missions would pop up stating "you have been robbed (you really should invest in better locks)" and to get your back you need to track down . Or "your door has been tampered with, track down to find out the reason for the intrusion". Now nothing too drastic should happen - but give me little side missions with some spunk and a possible reward (like finding the skrit burglar's stash). Give me the ability to upgrade my house so that it has guards (maybe I come back one afternoon and find my guards dead - revivable of course - and they have a strange story to tell me), fortified doors, shutters on the windows, a moat with a drawbridge (ok, maybe no moat) .... a kitchen to cook in... a room for tailoring, leatherwork, or jewelcraft, a forge outside for armorsmithing and weapon making, it all costs coin - or karma - or both... I can share my home with family and friends - a co-op so to speak. So that we can actually have a sorority for us gals, a fraternity for you guys - or just a "family" which would be totally different than our guild housing. Let me have a cave with a big wooden gate in front of it - or a house on a cliff or in a swamp up on stilts - as I said I want a complete map. I had housing in SWG - and the player made city was great. I probably used this house the most. I had a house in LOTR and in GW2 - but hardly ever went there - I didn't really need to go there. I want the housing to actually be a more integrated part of the game - have more purpose and generate some missions all to themselves. If not, I doubt that I will invest the time or coin into one. But that is just me... I know some people love the decorating, etc. Safe Journ

» Edited on: 2013-03-29 15:11:04

I personally love player housing, although I haven't seen a game do it the way I like since Ultima Online. The houses were placed by players, different sizes and designs, from a tiny cottage to a massive castle. You can't place them IN town, but anywhere you find an appropriate amount of space out in the world. You might buy a house for a small amount because you're new, poor, or cheap; perhaps spend a ton of money on something close to town, a dungeon, or market. Decorate your house however you want, use it for storage, placing your personal vendors to sell your wares, etc. Lock it, or don't; give your friends and guildies permissions to do things in your home, or allow them storage access. They also served quite well as PvP safe houses, allowing for restocking, reviving fallen allies, even attacking from the roof or castle walls. Some of my favorite times in that game were hanging out at my house or a friend's house, using generic objects to create decorative items not found in the game; for example, stacking blue cloth and some shells, fish, etc. to make a "fish tank". Players would come up with some really original, imaginative deco plans.

I'd like to see player housing or a guild hall, but I'm OK without them, too.

I like having player housing. My experience with it is from AC, LotRO, and SWTOR (the ship). It's nice to have but is in no way a deal breaker if a game doesn't have it.

I think it might be great to have a guild hall with the option of instanced player rooms, rather than instanced player housing. However, I've never actually played a game with either so we'll see how I feel when I actually do have some experience with it. :)

I definitely don't think it's needless fluff. Give players the ability to make a home and decorate it over time and you have another form of endgame that keeps them invested in the game over a longer period. Trophies gathered from epic adventures can be hung over the fireplace. It could even work for RvR type of play, say you capture a keep that has been claimed by an enemy guild, a trophy could be a sword and shield with their heraldry that you can hang on display. Things like that.

I think it can also be a very useful money sink to keep inflation in line. I really like what Wildstar looks like it is doing with their housing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8MyI75JzS0E http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ScEliEh2_Xo

» Edited on: 2013-04-04 06:01:26