Player Housing and Cities Planet

[ShelvanUberwan]

First let me start off by saying the only reason people cannot stop comparing TOR to SWG is because we are in 2012 and this game is like a nub game in comparison to the "extensive" options that we all encountered there. Also lets not forget, if we dont have anything to compare this game to, then how do we know if its good or not? I would like to add the game did not die, SOE's contract with LA came to an end with no option to re-sign, mostly due to a fight for subs for the new TOR. Last time I checked before SWG shutting down had many many more server's up and running unlike most of your older MMO's today with only 2 or 3, exception WoW. Also just to note, 8 years for a MMO is outstanding, so lets all be honest, it couldn't of been that dead ( dead game = no money = company shuts it down). Let's not forget as well, SWG was before WoW and set the pace for most MMO's today. If you dont believe me, look up the dates when the games came out. OK, now to the housing issue. In a 90% PVE game such as this, it should have WAY WAY more options. If your a die hard SW fan or just getting started we all know the love we have for it. With that said here is what player housing entailed: The ability to place your house just about anywhere on most planets. The ability to pack your house at the touch of a button. The ability to place a REAL guild hall that people could actually walk into and sit at tables (also placed by the owner) for high council meetings. The ability to make a city to your likings, meaning, statues (that you could name after real players), water fountains, shuttles, parks, vendors, banks, if you could think it, it had it. Also a side note for all the people on "How would we get people to see your homes", if you played SWG you would already know this, but I will tell you anyway. You had a vendor that was linked to the Market, so when you were crafting, or you just ran a dungeon, you just put your items on your vendor and it was in the Market (Galactic Market in TOR). Now if they wanted to buy something, they travel to your house and poof, all your Deco madness was not for nothing, simple really, thus while also giving players new area's they have probably never even seen. This was my experience many times throughout my years playing. Now for all you pvp'ers that say its just "Suzy Cue Deco Party", in my opinion there is nothing like seeing a player with actual ingame items sitting there looking pretty on your wall of accomplishments while im visiting your vendor for some cool items to buy. Do you know what your accomplishments mean in this game? I couldn't tell you, because im sure along with about 99,9 % of players never even inspect another person's rap sheet, because it all sits on a stupid text page in the back of your codex, kind of a joke if you ask me. Now to all you instanced vs Walk in housing, this is for you. Once you have walk in housing, the rest is just being cheap and lazy while developing a game. To me instanced housing feels like, oh great another commercial when I really really want to see this damn movie. If you have never experienced walk in housing, then your not to blame, but I have yet to meet hardly anyone that would go back to instanced, its just backward gaming and shows the non technical status of your current MMO. So I hear, well Zackius it would be a ghost town, well guess what, SOE took care of that too by labeling any building that a player account was connected with as abandoned ( if I remember right, people that no longer had a sub) and you were able to destroy their homes at the click of a button. The incentive was an achievement and you received something for it, sorry I cant remember its been a while. But if your following me, it didn't take but about a couple of weeks (atleast on my server) for almost every city to be packed back up in the players data pad, never to be seen again. It was kind of sad though, seeing some of the first cities on my server being torn apart and eventually poofed out of existence, but it did the job, case solved. I can tell you over and over how SOE solved the problems, but it would just take toooo long to type. So back to why housing is so important. Lets all be honest, we would not all be here if we didnt find some connection to this game, for me its the more realistic approach as in, light sabers, gunboats, laser guns, hover crafts, and future housing. Those things are real possibilities in the future at some point. So that makes me feel more connected to this game, unlike Trolls, flying dragons, you get my point. So what this means to you, there is something in this game that you can relate to whether you are the hard core pvp'er or the hard core pve'er or the inbetween and let's all agree, in the end, well all want to accomplish something or why would we be playing. Now the question is, where would you like that displayed? On a text sheet or having a real graphic item on your display in your nicely furnished house? Of course it would be the house, because you can connect with that better because of real life, hence making the game even a better experience. Ok so Zackius I dont care about showing my accomplishments, well why are you spending hours upon hours to complete something? Why not just play xbox 360 and run around in Halo and kill each other over and over again? This is why, because your looking for a bigger and better and longer lasting experience, welcome to SW. So to sum this up. I can not understand for the life of me, how it is now 2012 way more tech available and a company with endless amounts of resources can make a game with limited options (to me very very basic) than a company with a hand full of devs and limited resources made a game that set a gaming standard and could beat any, I mean ANY MMO to this day with that amount of options ingame. If anyone thinks they have an MMO that can beat the amount of options you had in SWG, please please post, I could give you an encyclopedia full of information that you probably never even knew existed in MMO's. If your reading this TOR, please take out that TRON rail shooter for space missions, ugh, talk about old technology, LOL. There is nothing like logging out in my hand crafted chair, while overlooking the cliffside onto my private lake in my city. I miss you SWG. So just one more time, if anyone can contest that another MMO has better options, other than character traits at toon creation, hehe, I can pretty much beat or come pretty damn close to your options with SWG. Lets not forget, SWG has been around way before most of these MMO's today, so I would just say they probably copied most of their stuff from it anyway. Feel free to fire up the posts woot!!! Semper Fi baby!

 

I like your thought process on this one. SWG housing was the best in any MMO, and will always be the best. The crafting system was even better, and there hasn't been a game to match it yet.

 

Read the above paragraphs. SWG was an awesome game, and SWTOR should have used the main ideas of SWG and built upon it. But, I know this is just a wasted fantasy that will never happen.

[Smudgerific]

What is the source of this belief? Did you see something official or are you just wishfully thinking?

 

Check out the description of the upcoming free play here to see what they're talking about. Where, exactly, are you going to put a rancor holoreplica or party jawa statue if not on a modifiable ship or housing complex? This was only a matter of time. I hope they don't do the messy build-wherever-you-want thing that SWG had going on. I know some of you love that, but it doesn't suit this game.

 

I thought the suggestions made by AstralProjection were very tasteful for dealing with this issue. However, I would like to add that some buildings could naturally be tied to your legacy as opposed to simply being guild based. As I already have my some of my characters "related", it would be nice to have a family home for them to go to - this would be logical given the legacy function.

Edited August 2, 2012 by Smudgerific

[Shingara]

I like your thought process on this one. SWG housing was the best in any MMO, and will always be the best. The crafting system was even better, and there hasn't been a game to match it yet.

 

Read the above paragraphs. SWG was an awesome game, and SWTOR should have used the main ideas of SWG and built upon it. But, I know this is just a wasted fantasy that will never happen.

 

SWG pre cu was an amazing game but what hit the game about empty planets was the fact the towns and citys became empty and unused, so what was initially a vivid community became planets with abandonded buildings cluttering up the game. Nothing looks great about ghost towns.

[AngelFluttershy]

Being a SWG veteran myself, I would love to see player housing or at least a modifiable interior for the player ship where I can invite friends in to join me. The harsh reality of it is that the era of sandbox MMOs like SWG has come to a close for now. At PAX 2011 I asked a Dev team member of BioWare if TOR would have the capabilities of allowing the GMs to pop in-game and drop NPCs on a whim like in SWG. It was a good day when I spawned into Mos Esiley to be met with a level 110 boss AT-AT outside the front door of the Starport and seeing around 80 players tossing their bodies at it to kill it. The answer was no and the reasoning was even more shocking. She stated that TOR isn't designed or capable of handling random NPC generation like that. The event I described was that of a sandbox MMO, which TOR is not.

 

Do I wish there was player housing? Yes. Do I wish the crafting in TOR was more that of SWG? Yes. But, I still want the questing of TOR and its end-game PvE content over SWG. Once you hit cap in SWG all you had left to do was PvP, craft, or hang around the cantinas.

 

TOR and SWG aren't the same game and I don't want them to be. Do I want the best of both worlds? Of course! But we can't have our cake and eat it too.

[Orlesian]

I want some kind of housing in SWTOR!

[rahadnak]

I vote for BOTH.

 

I want to personalize my ship, and have a house. Of course, the house would have its own spaceport / garage for my ship, in a big bay full of droids to help me tinker with it.

 

Yes please!!

[Shingara]

Everyone watch this and please bioware do this http://youtu.be/LlvF8FMBWyQ

[TriggerBlade]

I like the idea, but feel like it would be a bad idea... like stated before some cities would become ghost towns. Also who would lead and police these cities? How do you stop Sith from running in and klling everyone? How to you regulate trade? If taxes are put in, how do you stop the mayor from charging 1,000,000,000,000,000 credtis a minute? It just seems like things would go bad real fast. Maybe a instanced apartment complex like in phantasy star universe would be cool. In the end this is a RP thing and knowing EA they would never do something for a spesific audience. They tend to try to make things to please everyone one. This I can see is only a RP thing.

[Shingara]

I like the idea, but feel like it would be a bad idea... like stated before some cities would become ghost towns. Also who would lead and police these cities? How do you stop Sith from running in and klling everyone? How to you regulate trade? If taxes are put in, how do you stop the mayor from charging 1,000,000,000,000,000 credtis a minute? It just seems like things would go bad real fast. Maybe a instanced apartment complex like in phantasy star universe would be cool. In the end this is a RP thing and knowing EA they would never do something for a spesific audience. They tend to try to make things to please everyone one. This I can see is only a RP thing.

 

You stop them becoming ghost towns by setting maintenance caps that the player has to update and not taken straight from the bank and have one house per faction, the players would police there own houses and if towns are created allow players to set up defences and npcs to be hired in the same way maintenance is. You stop sith running in and wiping it out by having safe zones for housing, You regulate trade by having hubs that you place an npc trader. You stop a mayor from doing that by not allowing them to set taxes beyond a certain point and that moneys gained from tax goes into a treasury that can be spent on the town or city but not funds that can be withdrawn by players.

 

You set it on a planet or planets not part of the game now which are designed for player housing and has more options for open world pvp. With F2P cash shop EA would do this as the cash shop is in essence designed to feed specific audiences.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Shingara

[TriggerBlade]

Check out the description of the upcoming free play here to see what they're talking about. Where, exactly, are you going to put a rancor holoreplica or party jawa statue if not on a modifiable ship or housing complex? This was only a matter of time. I hope they don't do the messy build-wherever-you-want thing that SWG had going on. I know some of you love that, but it doesn't suit this game.

 

I thought the suggestions made by AstralProjection were very tasteful for dealing with this issue. However, I would like to add that some buildings could naturally be tied to your legacy as opposed to simply being guild based. As I already have my some of my characters "related", it would be nice to have a family home for them to go to - this would be logical given the legacy function.

 

****!!!!!!!!!! THAT WOULD BE EPIC!!!!!!!!!!! Like you log on and can see your other toons in the house!!!! <Foams at mouth>

[TriggerBlade]

You stop them becoming ghost towns by setting maintenance caps that the player has to update and not taken straight from the bank, the players would police there own houses and if towns are created allow players to set up defences and npcs to be hired in the same way maintenance is. You stop sith running in and wiping it out by having safe zones for housing, You regulate trade by having hubs that you place an npc trader. You stop a mayor from doing that by not allowing them to set taxes beyond a certain point and that moneys gained from tax goes into a treasury that can be spent on the town or city but not funds that can be withdrawn by players.

 

You set it on a planet or planets not part of the game now which are designed for player housing and has more options for open world pvp. With F2P cash shop EA would do this as the cash shop is in essence designed to feed specific audiences.

 

You sir kicked my *** with text and I respect you for that.

[kenpomaster]

I fully support his idea. Instead of having them on one planet or two (Republic and Imperial planets), have instances on existing planets for them. I would love to have an apartment on Nar Shaddaa, for example, for both my Imperial and Republic characters.

[Bryyn]

Wildstar's housing system for all you homemakers out there. Edited August 4, 2012 by Bryyn

[Kerensk]

open world housing is a bad idea it ends up like it did in SWG where you have a ghost town.

^^This is all I remember about player houses from SWG.

I just think we should be able to do more customization on the player ships. They're basically you housing since most all characters classes would always be out adventuring rather than sitting on a porch in Alderaan.

[adamqd]

I Want player housing so bad! but I think as the game is built in such a restrictive way, they could make it work by having instanced apartments on our capital world in some massive spire or something, I'd love that.

[Kalfear]

Please add a new planet where players can build cities and houses. Don't do paths, make all the expanse on the planet available. Allow customization so players can become more a part of the game. the planet should have multiple regions types ... snow, beach, mountains... My wife and I played SWG for the entire length of the game because of this feature. We PVP, we ran a city, we did all the parts of the game but in the end, having houses and such made the game longevity.

 

even with F2P on the horizon

 

THIS AINT SWG2

 

cant you all just drop it already

 

This is NEVER going to happen.

 

If they do have housing at some point it will be EQ2 style housing or even DAoC style houseing.

It will NEVER EVER EVER be SWG/UO style housing!

[adamqd]

Hate SWG much?^^

[BraaxusKun]

http://www.projectswg.com

[tornadodude]

Play Housing would be called um, I don't know? YOUR SHIP!

[RodoggJedi]

I'm not so sure about player housing on a planet IMO, though I wouldn't mind seeing apartments on either Coruscant for Rep players or Dromund Kaas for Imp players though....complete with a balcony that has a nice skyline view of the cities.

[Shingara]

even with F2P on the horizon

 

THIS AINT SWG2

 

cant you all just drop it already

 

This is NEVER going to happen.

 

If they do have housing at some point it will be EQ2 style housing or even DAoC style houseing.

It will NEVER EVER EVER be SWG/UO style housing!

 

You dont want it then dont buy it, simples. Thats the beauty of F2P

Edited August 5, 2012 by Shingara

[beyondkilling]

i want houses and guild ships!

[BlackSpin]

I'd love to see player housing, non-instanced, so you can show off your bling - and maybe be able to put up a personal vendor to sell your junk.

[Glowrod]

Bioware has said on several occations that your ship is your house. Actual ground based houses will never happen in this game. There are a number of reasons:

 

1) The fact that they are going F2P, and losing subscribers, means they don't have enough influx of cash to even consider a project such as this. They are barely managing to fix bugs from release day 8 months after release. The content releases so far are to add a legacy system and credit sink it so bad that it's almost completely worthless. They've proved that even if they were to add housing, they'd figure out some way to charge you so much for it that 95% of the people wouldn't be able to afford it. Oh look 150,000 credits to hang a picture! Weee!

 

2) Ground houses don't fit in with the concept of a mobile player trying to save the galaxy. This isn't an open quest type of system like you see in WoW. You are locked into a long continuous quest chain that leads you by the nose all over the galaxy. It defeats the purpose of the game giving players a reason to not do their questing.

 

3) You will not see houses in any type of open space. They have demonstrated continuously that the game engine can't support large open spaces. The best example of this is on Fleet. You have 200 people and the server is so laggy that you can barely move. And all of their maps are smaller maps pasted together with load screens. So even if they did do housing, it would be an instanced house. This means that people are NOT going to go wandering through housing neighborhoods looking at the nifty trophies. The only way someone is going to see your house is if you group with them and invite them in. And if that's what you have, you already have it with your ship.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Glowrod

[BlackSpin]

I don't disagree with you on any particular point. The general idea is what counts. If they wanted to make this game into a social activity for all to play - specific things like the game engine should have been thought through a little more. Here we have a product that encourages people to PvP with 4 different warzones, or PvE Operations (Blah...) There's nothing for the casual gamer that wants to, i.e., decorate their ship, or do anything remotely social. Don't tell me farming social points through quests is social. That's why the MMO which shall not be named wins the subscriber contest by 8 million subscribers (not because of player housing, they have other social outlets.)

 

Bioware has said on several occations that your ship is your house. Actual ground based houses will never happen in this game. There are a number of reasons:

 

1) The fact that they are going F2P, and losing subscribers, means they don't have enough influx of cash to even consider a project such as this. They are barely managing to fix bugs from release day 8 months after release. The content releases so far are to add a legacy system and credit sink it so bad that it's almost completely worthless. They've proved that even if they were to add housing, they'd figure out some way to charge you so much for it that 95% of the people wouldn't be able to afford it. Oh look 150,000 credits to hang a picture! Weee!

 

2) Ground houses don't fit in with the concept of a mobile player trying to save the galaxy. This isn't an open quest type of system like you see in WoW. You are locked into a long continuous quest chain that leads you by the nose all over the galaxy. It defeats the purpose of the game giving players a reason to not do their questing.

 

3) You will not see houses in any type of open space. They have demonstrated continuously that the game engine can't support large open spaces. The best example of this is on Fleet. You have 200 people and the server is so laggy that you can barely move. And all of their maps are smaller maps pasted together with load screens. So even if they did do housing, it would be an instanced house. This means that people are NOT going to go wandering through housing neighborhoods looking at the nifty trophies. The only way someone is going to see your house is if you group with them and invite them in. And if that's what you have, you already have it with your ship.

Edited August 6, 2012 by BlackSpin