Game Director’s Letter – May 2013

[Khaletohep]

[*]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.

This would be very cool.

[Redd]

I agree with what Buff said about player housing, at the moment seems totally unreasonable to ask for it knowing the priority this game has, player housing would be a total waste of resources and time.

[coldcrom]

Player housing could pay for itself and make money, so it would not be a waste. If done with the right balance of in game rewards and in game store monetisation, it could pay for other content.

[-tomhet-]

player housing can work and be profitable by obeying simple rules of them being a wanted improvement not just existing for vanity.

they can be successfull and even profitable if and only if they grant owners an advantage either by small self stat increase elevation in non gamebreaking ways.

the ever recurring problem to veteran players is the space issue, allowing bought player homes to have unique and local extra storage only accessible at home would provide reason to both own a house and visit it.

having in future some sort of crafting area with extra critical chance bonus by crafting in player homes would also be a reason to own one and visit it.

integrating amenities to be crafted or dropped in instances would provide marketable items for players to have more items to trade with others.
this could stimulate visiting low atended instances by making them drop unique decorations/amenities for player housing, wich could be further made more interesting even for anti rpers by adding small stat increase to owning such items.
or if guilds owning best and most developed houses gain gold or gain special resources or atract npc's who would sell special vanity sets to richest guilds

and like i mentioned there is this terrible lore gap in aoc given there is no thievery systems.
adding player housing could sprant a new stealing system if some part of amenities and resources kept by player could be pilfered from them by cunning and daring players.

why not add a whole thieves guild to resource areas and have quests to steal from richest guilds .
so player housing could out of the blue give aoc more dinamic pvp objectives in a lore friendly way.

[Buffarse]

Player housing could pay for itself and make money, so it would not be a waste. If done with the right balance of in game rewards and in game store monetisation, it could pay for other content.

Bolded by me.

Thats where it all falls down.

It's not a certainty.
It would need to be done properly.

The first not even depending (but more likely) on the second.

The issue is time and resources. I can't even begin to guess how long these things would take. I will say however that PRE employee cull, it took them the best part of 2 YEARS to complete T4 raiding.

When introduced it was bugged, used some assets already made. I would guess, from a complexity point of view, to make "good" player housing, it would take at LEAST as much effort as to create a tier of raiding.

At least with a raid, a lot of the mechanisms are already there. Could you say the same of a well designed and implemented player housing system?

A well implemented system WOULD be a good addition from day one. But after the first 6 months issues and the massive layoffs since theres not a person on this planet who could convince me that it would be an appropriate use of resource.

Thankfully for those of you advocating it, I don't direct the development so Joel might have a less hostile view.

Buff

[Buffarse]

player housing can work and be profitable by obeying simple rules of them being a wanted improvement not just existing for vanity.

they can be successfull and even profitable if and only if they grant owners an advantage either by small self stat increase elevation in non gamebreaking ways.

the ever recurring problem to veteran players is the space issue, allowing bought player homes to have unique and local extra storage only accessible at home would provide reason to both own a house and visit it.

having in future some sort of crafting area with extra critical chance bonus by crafting in player homes would also be a reason to own one and visit it.

integrating amenities to be crafted or dropped in instances would provide marketable items for players to have more items to trade with others.
this could stimulate visiting low atended instances by making them drop unique decorations/amenities for player housing, wich could be further made more interesting even for anti rpers by adding small stat increase to owning such items.
or if guilds owning best and most developed houses gain gold or gain special resources or atract npc's who would sell special vanity sets to richest guilds

and like i mentioned there is this terrible lore gap in aoc given there is no thievery systems.
adding player housing could sprant a new stealing system if some part of amenities and resources kept by player could be pilfered from them by cunning and daring players.

why not add a whole thieves guild to resource areas and have quests to steal from richest guilds .
so player housing could out of the blue give aoc more dinamic pvp objectives in a lore friendly way.

Great ideas.

Why don't we have NPC butlers in the houses that can take your armour and dye it a different colour.

Oh and why don't we have it so you can park your horse in a stable and it eat virtual hay which you have to pay for.

Oh and why don't we have a Tier 5 raid which will randomly pick one of the houses and spawn a raid boss in it. You then have to go there and you get miniturised by drinking a potion (think Alice in Wonderland) and then you fight it as a mini form of yourself.

Do you see my point? Theres LOADS of great ideas to make player housing viable BUT THEY ARE A WASTE OF RESOURCES.

You cannot make it work by implementing a half baked solution. The amount of resources you'd realistically need to make it viable AND compelling just don't add up.

It's not that player housing is bad per-se. It's badly realised, poorly implemented, poorly developed and poorly supported player housing thats bad. Sadly, thats what you're going to get with Funcom as thats pretty much EVERYTHING you've had from Funcom in the past 3.5 years.

Buff

[Jaedelyia]

At least with a raid, a lot of the mechanisms are already there. Could you say the same of a well designed and implemented player housing system?

Well, many base mechanism for the housing are also already there. From the small player-bound room to the operable door, placeable decoration and stuff. Many decoration are also already modeled.

Sure there's still work to do, and that mean ressources/money to invest for them. But Funcom isn't a total noob on housing either. I mean I remember that was integrated in Anarchy Online when I was playing it, like, years ago.

[Texan615]

Why are people so hung up on player housing?

To me, it's pointless fluff and a waste of resources.

I'd rather them spend their time expanding inventory tabs or something else useful and meaningful.

[tman1991]

yeah I never understood what you would do with player housing honestly?

who would go there?

what would be the purpose?

[Prima]

yeah I never understood what you would do with player housing honestly?

who would go there?

what would be the purpose?

• A way to record and show achievements.
• A spot to put services you actually care about: travel, vendors, etc.
• Perhaps some extra bonuses per tier, like guild cities have, or that benefit all your characters regardless of guild/etc.

It's a way to give content and recognition to serious players without unbalancing the game like just more gear does.