Game Director’s Letter – May 2013

[Civilix]

I think you should let the resource zones stay unused until the systems team have time to come up with some mechanics(like pve sieges).

[Yennefer]

Give us PvE sieges then like some people have suggested, for example Nemedians (however you spell thous guys) would invade Pointain cities, Vanir would go for Cimmerian region and so on.


Just a suggestion.

[Radek87]

"The second phase, which involves the merging of same ruleset servers, will be completed as early as possible this summer."

thanks for imprecise information, what do you think? More people waiting for new pixels or new faces in AoC "NOW"?

[Zatochi]

Also PLZ DO post the "200" changes. we need to able to read to believe and also to test if it really works..

Why should they post different changes to the network layer which you dont understand at all? it only makes sense to post changes that will change they way ppl "feel" or play the game.

patchnotes for changes to the engine and other technical changes dont make sense.

[wharmaster]

Great news, but I actually expected nothing less. For once I feel that I can be optimistic, without being cautiously so

"For what it's worth, you've made a believer out of me."

[KephaPT]

well-played

Quick ideas about the resource zones after the crafting revamp:

• Dust off the idea about PVE sieges: When a guild city hits a certain level, NPC armies will be drawn to its riches; they will start build up camps and cities over time, eventually launching attacks on the player city (which can be delayed by spoiling attacks by players). The (new?) top tiers of guild city building becomes about upgrading defenses and counter-attacking for spoils.
• Random boss monster spawns or quests: a big dragon; a zombie army; a traveling ambush that can be rescued or attacked
• Allow the entire zone to be developed into one city or network of cities by a single guild: roads, "player houses" (just cosmetic ... or not??), large cosmetic-only buildings like apartment buildings and bazaars. (Alternatively: consolidate all the guild cities so there are 3 per zone. Then allow build-up of mutually usuable -- for profit? -- resources like wagoneers, etc.)

A Guild City Raid & 6-Men Instance please!

[freneticfangs]

well-played

Quick ideas about the resource zones after the crafting revamp:

• Random boss monster spawns or quests: a big dragon; a zombie army; a traveling ambush that can be rescued or attacked
• Allow the entire zone to be developed into one city or network of cities by a single guild: roads, "player houses" (just cosmetic ... or not??), large cosmetic-only buildings like apartment buildings and bazaars. (Alternatively: consolidate all the guild cities so there are 3 per zone. Then allow build-up of mutually usuable -- for profit? -- resources like wagoneers, etc.)

Player housing!

The money I would spent to be able to decorate on a Skyrim level would be ridiculous. Let me move everything from an alchemy vial to a candle. Give us furniture crafting. Let us take over the region with housing.

With that said, I still would like to see us be able to decorate guild cities. They all look the same except for node placement, which honestly doesn't change much.

ArcheAge is a GREAT example of player housing done right. In PvP servers, players can fight over the land and even impose taxes on people living on their conquered lands.

Please, for the love of god, sell many different types of homes and make them large. The bigger the home, the more furniture you can sell in the cash shop - the more $ Funcom makes.

[Yennefer]

Player housing!

The money I would spent to be able to decorate on a Skyrim level would be ridiculous. Let me move everything from an alchemy vial to a candle. Give us furniture crafting. Let us take over the region with housing.

With that said, I still would like to see us be able to decorate guild cities. They all look the same except for node placement, which honestly doesn't change much.

ArcheAge is a GREAT example of player housing done right. In PvP servers, players can fight over the land and even impose taxes on people living on their conquered lands.

Please, for the love of god, sell many different types of homes and make them large. The bigger the home, the more furniture you can sell in the cash shop - the more $ Funcom makes.

I couldn't agree more, awesome idea!

Here is +1 from me

[Yennefer]

Excitement, achievement, ownership, and belonging, these are a few feelings that I get when I think of player housing in MMORPGs. For me player housing has always been an important factor in whether or not I commit to an MMORPG long term. In many instances player housing is an important factor for many other players beyond myself. So why is it so important to us, why do people cling to virtual homes that have little meaning to the overall game?

Ownership

The first thing that comes to mind with player housing is ownership. When games allow players to own a piece of the game world it makes us connect in a way that we never did before. In Everquest 2 when you buy an apartment in Northern Freeport you can say to anyone "I'm a citizen of Freeport, that’s my city," and the truth is it is your city. It’s the same thing that happens in the real world. When you buy or rent an apartment in the real world your home city instantly becomes the one you're living in. I recently moved from my home town of over sixteen years and within six months my new home had begun to feel familiar and my old home had become less familiar.

The truth is player housing gives players the ability to feel like the own part of the world, in some cases like Ultima Online players would log back on even if they were burnt out of the game just to check in on their house. Back in 1999-2000 I remember waiting outside of a "decaying" house (the player had neglected to pay their rent on the house and it was pending deletion) desperate to build my own house for at the time Ultima Online had limited space for housing. It was such a big deal in UO that websites and third party companies built on land in the hopes of selling it for real money. Back in those days if you wanted a castle (the largest house type) you often had to buy up more than one "plots" of land next to each other so that you could build such a large building. At the time castle plots were so rare that the average cost was around $500!

Purpose

Player housing gives players the feel that their characters are "real" in that world and not just random avatars that pop in/out of the world. These characters have homes in the world which often inspires non-rpers to RP in some small way. The truth is I've always found the strongest RPing communities to be found in games with player owned housing.
On another note for purpose it can be said that loyalty can be created. In Star Wars Galaxies (which had a housing system similar to UO) many players opened shops in their stores. Often I found myself going back to the same players over and over again to buy the things I needed. No longer were sales "random" auction bids but true transactions. Often players would spend hours just going from player shop to player shop looking for the best prices on an object. Which then created a whole new time-sink in those MMOs, and the truth was it was fun. I always felt overjoyed when I found a good deal and then I would advertise to all my friends that "Wookiee-Nook's House of Bargains" was the best place for composite armor.

Longevity

Aside from the obvious bonuses to players, player housing influences the longevity of games. Most of the games I've seen get shut down in the recent past lacked housing of any kind. Tobula Rasa, Earth and Beyond, APB, and many others lacked any true mechanic to draw players back into their worlds other than raw gameplay. Obviously raw gameplay isn't enough to keep games running (unless you're Blizzard). Ultima Online, Everquest 2, Ashron's Call, and even the infamous Star Wars Galaxies are all still alive while some of the above games that lacked true player housing died out. The fact that SWG is still alive even after 95+% of MMOers have hate for that game is amazing. I'm not saying that housing is keeping SWG alive but it’s fair to assume it could be a factor.

An interesting example of housing having some sort of influence is the Ashron's Call story. Ashron's Call 1 added housing to their game. Ashron's Call 2 was launched and died within one or two years of launch. It’s sad to say it but AC1 was one of those rare instances where its "child" game died before it did, AC1 is still alive even though it looks like it’s from the gaming stone age. Now as mentioned above player housing can't be attributed to have saved AC1 but the truth is it really could be a factor.

The Bottom Line

Player housing is obviously good for both players but developers as well. So why is it that more modern MMOs are keeping this feature out of the game even though technology has obviously progressed? If you lay out the lists of dead games and living games you'll find the vast majority of dead games are non-housing games. Overall the ability to "own" a bit of the gaming world seems to be an important factor to MMOers, even if we don't consciously consider it.


Source: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Yavin_Pr...t-so-important



Other reasons:

As a long term MMO player I thoroughly enjoy the sense of immersion I get when I play MMO's that offer in-game housing. Because I also like to roleplay, housing is an important element I look for. Mainly it's used as a place to store my stuff...but it's also just a place I can go to "get away" from the hubbub.
There are many things you can do with your house. Use it as a guild headquarters, crafting workshop, meeting place, a shop, warehouse, or a million other things. Did I mention you can store your stuff in one?
So to me, in-game housing is fairly important. My first exposure to housing was in SWG, which had the grandest housing scheme of all - a complete sandbox solution - you could place your house almost anywhere you wanted, in any direction you wanted. Just plop it down and start to use it. Genius. I really latched on to the idea of owning real-estate in a virtual world that your virtual self lived in. Very cool.
As my interest waned from SWG over the years, I started looking at other MMO's that were available and noticed that housing / apartments were not significantly available. They were just not in the plans. It quickly appeared that I was a niche player who found themselves looking for a new MMO that had housing. A pretty difficult proposition. Then I found it difficult to find a game that had vehicles and mounts, also like SWG. Pretty soon, I began looking for a SWG clone it seemed. Ouch.
In my MMO sample platter as I call it, I discovered the following MMO's had some type of housing: Anarchy Online, Ultima Online, Neocron 2, Everquest 2, and Face of Mankind. I found myself willing to try the game regardless of style as long as it had housing. Kind of a strange critirea I know. But that's how I ended up trying them. While I wont touch on those games in this blog posting, suffice it to say that I wasn't really impressed with any of them.
Then along came Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I followed this game through mid beta (beta 3) and was just enamored with what it was going to offer. One of the biggies was player owned real-estate and housing - a house that you had to find a plot of land for, purchase it, then actually build a house on it. Wow, now that's immersion! Mechanically this seemed like a tough feat to overcome, since the entire game world is non-instanced and open. But they figured it out. And it works. And it's cool. Now all I need is some gold!
Later on (in fact just last month) another game released a housing option: Lord of the Rings Online. I too was very impressed with the way the devs decided to handle such a daunting task, and the fact that they decided to implement it at all, made me decide to resub. With the number of subscribers in game, and the fact that the mechanics of the game relied heavily on instancing, why not use instancing to your advantage? So the solution the devs came up with is pretty cool - create instanced neighborhoods instead of instanced houses or apartments. Each neigborhood contains 20 houses of various costs and sizes, and they are quite literally set up in a suburban setting, each house has a front yard which you can decorate, a mailbox and a front door. In addition each neigborhood instance (which is fairly big by the way) has a community center, with parks and meeting areas and a few vendors and a banking NPC. Very cool. And when all 20 houses are bought, POOF! Another instance opens up ready to be consumed. Genius.
So to wrap things up, in-game housing is very important to this immersive/roleplayer. It's just another tool one can use to help you feel like your avatar is part of the game. They are functional and look cool. How important is housing to your character?

Source:http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/MMOPlaya...InGame-Housing

Point is FunCom could also use thous regions to finally add much over the years requested player housing ^.^

Sozz for the uber long post

[Kurt2013]

Player housing:

2009: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=131813
2012: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=175924

Maybe someone can copy/paste/merge that and open a new thread about it?