Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time... because the more time you spend doing "epic/herioc" crap, the less it will seem as such. Besides, how many times are you going to rehash that one epic dungeon for lootz when you cap? Are you really satisfied with doing that ad infinitum until the next one comes - then doing that one over and over again?

Housing falls under "metagame", and it's hardly something you can burnout on - and in the cases like UO/SWG/Vanguard/EQ2 - it adds a crazy amount of new content for collector types. What does junk loot mean to you? Wanna guess what it meant to a SWG player that has a place to display it?

It's really something for people that have initiative, though. People with no sense of personal direction in a game are never going to see the true value of it.... there's no points to grind or tangible rewards (like shiny shoulderpads). It's simply like a personal zen garden that you update regularly.

~and people don't just "sit" in their house all day, get real.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time... because the more time you spend doing "epic/herioc" crap, the less it will seem as such. Besides, how many times are you going to rehash that one epic dungeon for lootz when you cap? Are you really satisfied with doing that ad infinitum until the next one comes - then doing that one over and over again?

Housing falls under "metagame", and it's hardly something you can burnout on - and in the cases like UO/SWG/Vanguard/EQ2 - it adds a crazy amount of new content for collector types. What does junk loot mean to you? Wanna guess what it meant to a SWG player that has a place to display it?

It's really something for people that have initiative, though. People with no sense of personal direction in a game are never going to see the true value of it.... there's no points to grind or tangible rewards (like shiny shoulderpads). It's simply like a personal zen garden that you update regularly.

~and people don't just "sit" in their house all day, get real.

That is a good summary.  When I played PnP as a kid (whether it was DnD, TopSecret, Traveller, ICE, etc) we didn't just go out and kill stuff on a mission.  We built worlds, castles, forts, strongholds, hideouts.  We owned businesses and had diplomatic adventures.  We spent a lot of time elaborating on the environment around us.  Having a small piece of the gameworld to customize isn't much different on a more simplistic level.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

You know, the Ancient Samurai used to go fight huge, bloody, epic battles and then when they returned home they would enjoy a Tea Ceremony, Meditation in a Zen garden and writing poetry.

They believed the heart of a warrior was not limited to just fighting.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
... It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. ...

Well, the current themeparks make the great adventurer fight 10 rats and collect apples instead. I find that more odd than to decorate the bedroom ...

I like to think of the house actually having a pretty decent function in the game, but I come from the days of UO. I see the house in the game as a place to show off your accomplishments to other players, even when you're not online. It also is a great place for the player to meet up with other plays on their own terms. It's the only environment where you can control who enters, leaves, what's locked versus unlocked. This is from the view of UO style housing though, as I haven't personally seen any other game give it more than a half-assed shot.

I think the main reason player housing has gone away or poorly executed is it does not fit with the typical mmo design we now see.  The mmo experience today has a beginning and end and anything that is not relevant to that progress is extraneous and thus irrelevant.

A lot of people don't understand player housing and it's inclusion makes no sense what so ever.  They need defined carefully developed and driven content.  Anything open ended is foriegn to their mindset.

I don't think it's really generational, but certain things appeal to certain types of people.  When I was a kid, I was not one of those people saying, "There's nothing for kids to do around here."  I invented activities to keep me occupied and entertained.  Now days everyone has so many forms of entertainment to choose from, so the idea of creating your own entertainment is a foriegn concept to many people.  I think we have become to a great extent passive consumers of others creativity, so when a developer says here's some tools, do with it what you will, a lot of people scratch their heads and say 'huh'?

Also, for a lot of people gaming is ego.  They want to be the best.  They want fame or infamy among their peers.  Decorating your house doesn't really equate with that mindset most of the time.  It's seen more as a side activity which is basically wasted energy toward acheiving superiority.  

Those are some of the reasons I can think of.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

Ever played a game that did it correctly? The thing is in my opinion housing is kind of pointless unless there is a partial loot/full loot system. I probably wouldn't of thought housing was so great in UO if there wasn't a chance to lose your stuff. That to me is what made having a house beneficial for one, but it was also great because it served a purpose and wasn't there just cause.

It's also great for guild meetings, grouping up and getting organized among other things like building neighborhoods or guild towns. Good shit. Games don't have "Gate" spells though anymore or ways you can mark locations on a rune or what have you. See, in UO it was great because everyone would meet at their 2 story, their tower, maybe their castle even. Then we would open a "gate" into one of our marked areas (wherever you wanted in the game) and just gate our entire guild in and cause havoc.

UGHHHH!!!! COME BACK GTO MEEEEEE!!!!

ps - people also used their housings for cybering (no joke), cause as a ghost in UO you still see the game and can run wherever..so..at one point you could run into houses as a ghost, which then caused all sorts of exploited, but funny when you ran into a couple cybering in their house.

Player housing has to be done from the start.  The world has to be designed with player housing in mind.  The game play needs to support player housing.   

A true sandbox game needs to give players reasons to quest not only by "themepark" quest but dynamics that drive a player to do something.   Tools that allow other players to influence each other.  Interdependence that players succeed working together or rely on each other.  Player structures can fit be important part of a gaming world.

I've always believed a sandbox world to reach full potential will need some form of FFA PVP.  But there must be safety and repercussions for killing outside the the game design if it's say guild vs. guild.   Risk vs. Reward game play would be needed as well.  A large open gaming world without fast travel into unknown parts.

For example lets say the best items are player crafted except very rare drops.   Crafters get new recipes for new powerful armor and weapons but to make the items it requires a metal that's found out in the great wild.  You have prospector adventure types who can find these metals.  One guy  who find it set up mine because it's valuable metal because it's rare.   To protect the mine and monpolize the resource the players guild sets up a city around the mine.   Three things a new recipe for crafter, new armor and new resource can create player intrigue and bring value to player structures and use.  

There should still be stuff like raids, the starting area's should be typical MMORPG fair, but to experience more players should venture out and form their own cities to get the best loot and best crafting materials.   I think it's a fair compromise to themepark and Sandbox.  

Originally posted by GTwander

 

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time..

 

Well, play farmville. No adventure. No dragons. No demons. Lots of farming stuff. Perfect for you.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by GTwander

 

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time..

 

Well, play farmville. No adventure. No dragons. No demons. Lots of farming stuff. Perfect for you.

Nah, there was once full featured MMORPGs. I'll take that in new forms. Thanks though.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by GTwander

 

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time..

 

Well, play farmville. No adventure. No dragons. No demons. Lots of farming stuff. Perfect for you.

Or, if the idea of a 'virtual world' doesn't mean as much as the 'game' itself, and all you care about is non-stop erogenous kill grinds and corpse looting, then *you* can go play Duke Nukem Forever.

I hear it has so much testosterone that it'll make your balls drop 4 inches. Perfect for you.

mebbe they think it takes to much time encode and balance?

or perhaps not enough ppl wants  player owned housing?

i dunno but id like 2 ave a house n chest to dump off some of the junk i usually carry oin me at times :)

I think it's largely due to the current design theory that caters to casuals. Casual players want to log on, kill a few things, maybe pug a dungeon or do a few BG's then log off.

They have neither the time nor the interest in owning player housing and all that comes with it.

TBH Player housing is something I would say suits a sandbox more than a themepark anyway. And that brings us back to current trends in MMO design, themeparks for casuals with some raids for the more "serious" players. I use the word serious loosely.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time... because the more time you spend doing "epic/herioc" crap, the less it will seem as such. Besides, how many times are you going to rehash that one epic dungeon for lootz when you cap? Are you really satisfied with doing that ad infinitum until the next one comes - then doing that one over and over again?

Housing falls under "metagame", and it's hardly something you can burnout on - and in the cases like UO/SWG/Vanguard/EQ2 - it adds a crazy amount of new content for collector types. What does junk loot mean to you? Wanna guess what it meant to a SWG player that has a place to display it?

It's really something for people that have initiative, though. People with no sense of personal direction in a game are never going to see the true value of it.... there's no points to grind or tangible rewards (like shiny shoulderpads). It's simply like a personal zen garden that you update regularly.

~and people don't just "sit" in their house all day, get real.

 

There really isn't a lot of you.

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by GTwander

 

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time..

 

Well, play farmville. No adventure. No dragons. No demons. Lots of farming stuff. Perfect for you.

Nah, there was once full featured MMORPGs. I'll take that in new forms. Thanks though.

Hmm in which MMORPG you can own a FARM and raise crops? (I suppose it will be WOW after MOP).

Originally posted by GTwander

 

Or, if the idea of a 'virtual world' doesn't mean as much as the 'game' itself, and all you care about is non-stop erogenous kill grinds and corpse looting, then *you* can go play Duke Nukem Forever.

I hear it has so much testosterone that it'll make your balls drop 4 inches. Perfect for you.

Nah .. there is no progression. Personally, i go with Diablo 3. No virtual world. Just good random levels and co-op non-stop GLORIOUS mowing down of mobs (except the elite/champ packs which are hard in Inferno).

And there are MANY perfect games like that. Even WOW .. you can play it without minding stuff like farming at all. No wonder it is so popular.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by GTwander

 

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time..

 

Well, play farmville. No adventure. No dragons. No demons. Lots of farming stuff. Perfect for you.

Nah, there was once full featured MMORPGs. I'll take that in new forms. Thanks though.

Hmm in which MMORPG you can own a FARM and raise crops? (I suppose it will be WOW after MOP).

Probably Mabinogi.

~and Archeage, but that has yet to be seen.

Again, though - this thread is about housing, not farming... and if it's a crack about my mention oif "moisture farming", then you have no idea how the process works.

Originally posted by dorugu

mebbe they think it takes to much time encode and balance?

or perhaps not enough ppl wants  player owned housing?

i dunno but id like 2 ave a house n chest to dump off some of the junk i usually carry oin me at times :)

 

Probably not enough people. Dev monitors what players demand as features. That is why Blizz made LFR so fast after LFD.

Personallly, i don't care less about player housing. If i want to play house, i go play SIMS.

Originally posted by 3-4thElf

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
I've never really seen the point of housing, it's just a weird thing to want in a game, unless you're playing the Sims or something. It's like you're a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons, but also like to spend time decorating the bedroom and making the garden look nice. Um.. odd. Even weirder is when I consider that I'm sitting in my house playing a game that involves someone sitting in their house.

Personally, I'd rather be delving dungeons and alternative planes than worrying about what wallpaper I should put up in my living room.

A lot of us don't care to be a great adventurer fighting dragons and demons 100% of the time.

Some of us want to be moisture farmers and own a ranch house on our off time... because the more time you spend doing "epic/herioc" crap, the less it will seem as such. Besides, how many times are you going to rehash that one epic dungeon for lootz when you cap? Are you really satisfied with doing that ad infinitum until the next one comes - then doing that one over and over again?

Housing falls under "metagame", and it's hardly something you can burnout on - and in the cases like UO/SWG/Vanguard/EQ2 - it adds a crazy amount of new content for collector types. What does junk loot mean to you? Wanna guess what it meant to a SWG player that has a place to display it?

It's really something for people that have initiative, though. People with no sense of personal direction in a game are never going to see the true value of it.... there's no points to grind or tangible rewards (like shiny shoulderpads). It's simply like a personal zen garden that you update regularly.

~and people don't just "sit" in their house all day, get real.

 

There really isn't a lot of you.

is this a gut feeling, a statement intended to provoke, or do you have some proof beyond the subs for WoW?