Player housing

[Iylas]

Any rumor of player housing in the works?

I would love if Rift would take a page out of Vanguard and have player built houses on islands just off the coasts of all the continents.

Housing items could breath new life into crafting.

Just my 2 cents.

[SpaceMunkeyUK]

I have to admit I agree this would add a new level to the game. I was in LOTRO when they introduced housing and it was a lot of fun. For anyone who doesn't know, in LOTRO you could buy a house which would be in a village "instance", different size houses and a guild hall too. You could then decorate the houses with crafted, bought, and dropped items. I thought the addition of boss drop decorations was brilliant, out guild hall was decorated with boss drop items.

The only downfall in my opinion was you could just buy a house, I thought it would have been more fun and more of an achievement if you had to help "build" it, so provided certain mats like wood and stone, but that may have been too much to include.

But yes, I think having a house in Rift would be brilliant, but less than a year old I think this game will just keep growing, so who knows eh, fingers crossed

[Magetron]

Rift needs a lot of work on its immersion. Housing, larger sprawling cities, racial cities, and a number of other things. Don't get me wrong I love rift but I mean even free to play games have more/larger cities than Rift and most of them have housing now.

I think these issues are my biggest problems with the game.

[Cladari]

Housing / Guild Halls will empty the main cities of both factions. I hope Rift never implements either of them.

[RohanSA]

Housing is a great idea and it certainly would not be a "game breaking" element. I think the RP guys would love this as well.

[Wakaflockaflame]

Housing / Guild Halls will empty the main cities of both factions. I hope Rift never implements either of them.

Have them inside the city?

[Amuk]

Housing / Guild Halls will empty the main cities of both factions. I hope Rift never implements either of them.

I don't see that as being likely. Anarchy Online introduced Guild cities (which included guild halls as well as other buildings that just gave guild perk-like buffs and such) in 7 or 8 years ago -- with raid content specifically centered on them. Now they've had to add whole zones that are nothing but player cities. But despite the fact that AO has never had the kind of player population Rift has, the main cities still have plenty of people hanging out in them. It's all in the implementation. Specifically, player housing/guild halls/cities aren't going to duplicate all of the things one needs to go to the main town for (vendors, NPCs, porticula, &c). Player housing that allowed us to have extra storage (desperately needed in some form, regardless) and some fun add-ons (like, say, showing off our achievements), would add to most people's enjoyment without doing much if anything to the overall main city populations.

(Not that somewhat fewer people standing around semi-AFK in the middle of town waiting for their queue to pop/raid to full up would make that much of a difference.)

[Cladari]

It makes a difference to new players. With guild halls the guild members sit inside and the city itself is empty except for those passing through to the hall instance entrance. The city itself is empty.

See what guild halls did to the city hubs in most games and you will see what I mean.

Player housing with extra storage only without crafting perks etc would not be too bad but it is really the start of a long slope towards self contained cities called "guild halls".

[Machiko_Naguchi]

Housing / Guild Halls will empty the main cities of both factions. I hope Rift never implements either of them.

So you'd rather just have people stand around in main cities doing nothing rather than add a major feature that many people are calling out for and can be used.

Got ya.

I for one welcome housing and guild halls. Like every other MMO out there that I've played that has had them, I will use them AND the cities.

[Aldrat]

I'm not really sure what game he is playing where player housing emptied the main cities.

I know in LOTRO the housing communities tended to be deserted. People typically only returned to their houses to use it for storage or to decorate or for RP purposes. They didn't just "hang out." As long as crafting terminals are kept in the main cities, and dailies, and people dueling, and class trainers, and so on, then there is no threat of people abandoning the main cities.

I quit LOTRO awhile ago because of their F2P model completely destroying immersion. Still, one of my fondest memories is returning to my home in the Shire after a very long stint in the Mines of Moria. I am by no means a RP character, but it really drew me into the game and felt "homey."

If Rift adds player housing, I will definitely add many more months to my account.

[Telnedra]

Have them inside the city?

Like sectioned off apartments or something..meridian needs to grow

[Steelwind1]

Personally I have been hearing the "capitol cities will be empty argument" since 2004! Do you honestly sub to an MMO to sit idle in capitol cities and just chat? Denying new features in a game to simply support people standing mainly afk doesn't help me have things to do.

My thought it that housing NEEDS to give perks such as crafting tables, bank, portals etc. So the other argument to housing that it is fine as long as it doesn't provide anything of any value is also idiotic! The simple solution is to offer all the perks but allow the player to only select one for their house at any given time at a great expense. This way while they may have a crafting table, they still need to go to the capitol city for guild bank/bank, portals, vendors.

Sometimes I think people play these games to make up to a lack of a social life thus the stupid OLD capitol city argument. If I wanted to sit idle and chat, that is what /gc is for or well you know real life. I for one play to have fun and have things to do. I have been waiting for a MMO to add housing for years and all I hear are stupid reasons that equate to boredom from other players.

Truth be told that there is an outcry for sandbox elements in MMO's now and the first company to start developing towards that thus breaking the theme park mold will attract a huge subscriber base and housing is at the center of what players consider sandbox.

For those that prefer to restrain MMO's for the comfortable norm, there are plenty of MMO's out there for you, I just don't believe Rift will restrain itself like that.

Sorry for the rant but I am just sick to death with these arguments which also apply to LFG finders and how it ruins "community".

[Amuk]

Like sectioned off apartments or something..meridian needs to grow

Something else Anarchy Online has: Really spiffy apartments in the first expansion zones' city (futurist yet retro; they really are nifty). And, to go with it, a nice variety of items you could decorate with (art, lamps, plants, etc.). Base furnishings and amenities are uniform, but everyone can still make a pretty custom-looking pad for themselves.

So, despite having guild cities (with halls that had some of the stuff available in major cities) and player housing, AO still has a perfectly viable population of toons in the major cities. With a much smaller playerbase.

I rather like Steelwind's idea of only allowing some city functions in player housing rather than none or all. But, either way, it doesn't kill city community (that said, having this stuff also doesn't guarantee a massive subscriber influx, either--if it did, a lot more people would've played AO).

[Invincible Bard]

Won't happen.

I really want it to, don't get me wrong. But it won't.

Ultima Online was the first and last MMORPG to ever bother to innovate (own-able sail-able ships, own-able houses with complete customization, great stuff like that), and I'm at peace with that fact now. I no longer expect modern MMORPGs to aspire to anything greater than what they've launched with.

These days, developers make a giant modular combat system and squeeze as much out of that as possible so they won't have to add significant, separate features. Even weddings, while a welcome addition, only were added because it was convenient and didn't require any additions to the game's general architecture (equipables, an instanced dungeon disguised as a wedding ceremony, and a standard quest replaced with wedding-flavored text).

And actually, I take that back about just UO innovating; City of Heroes was the very last time a developer innovated by adding something completely new to an existing MMORPG. They made an entire base-building system from scratch as a content update.

As I said though, don't expect the same from Rift. Rift plays it very, very safe as far as "new" content is concerned, because there's an in-built base of people who hate when anything is different from what WoW taught them to expect. Some people almost exploded in rage just because weddings were added.

I know my post might sound mopey or bitter, but I'm just plainly saying how it is. The amount of features in MMORPGs dropped substantially after Ultima Online, and now all modern MMORPGs are almost 100% combat, and nothing else. I presume it will stay this way for the foreseeable future.

[Cladari]

You could own boats and ships in Vanguard.