Any News on the Housing Release?

[Demagul Riwe]

I was just wondering if there's any word on when personal housing will be released. I am really excited about it, and have been meaning to ask about this for a long time This is just an idea, but what if people could get houses with actual locations on the map, but have to pay a tax to keep it so that way they aren't all taken by inactives.

[LigH]

I believe it has been discussed a few times in the recent past ... and I believe that offering houses only on a guild or organization basis, not personal, was still preferred. You know how suddenly players and their characters often disappear, it would quite certainly lead to many abandoned houses; guilds and organizations will probably stay longer with a fluctuating membership.

[Demagul Riwe]

That's where the tax idea could come in. There could be a big first payment to get the house, and then maybe just a small tax every few weeks to make sure the owner is active so they don't loose their house. Maybe someone could bring it up at the next dev meeting? I'm probably not gonna be able to make it.

[iridia]

I believe it has been discussed a few times in the recent past ... and I believe that offering houses only on a guild or organization basis, not personal, was still preferred. You know how suddenly players and their characters often disappear, it would quite certainly lead to many abandoned houses; guilds and organizations will probably stay longer with a fluctuating membership.

Ligh is absolutely right about this.

What you could do for example is use one of the tents or empty storefronts in Oja and refer to it in RP as your personal space. The downside is that you will have to setup & clean up your items every time you want to RP there.

[Demagul Riwe]

Okay, but nobody's commented on my taxing idea. Would that be a possibility to make sure people stay active? It could just be a small tax like once a month, and if someone doesn't pay it within a week or so, then they loose ownership of the house. Plus, it could work with RP, because the government does tax residents. Any thoughts on this?

[Demagul Riwe]

Of course, it would have to be payed manually, like by going to the Vigesimi or a banker to pay. It wouldn't work at all it just was automatically detracted from people's inventories.

[Illysia]

The problem with this is kicking people out and forcing people to lose anything stored in the house. There is no system for getting people's things back to them and no guarantee they have the space necessary to store items that were in the previously paid for house. It would also require RL commitment to holding on to the house no matter what. Say your rent becomes due during finals week. Then you have let it go and lose all of your things along with your house simply because of bad timing rather than chronic inactivity. It becomes disheartening OOCly and can anger players needlessly.

I would say housing should wait until all players can be provided with their own housing instances rather than competition for a few houses. Star Wars: The Old Republic just did such a thing and it looks quite nice but very extensive. It will be a long time, without more Devs, before PS can roll out such a feature.

[Demagul Riwe]

Okay, but what if it's possible to pay up to one week in advance or something, so with the idea of paying up to one week late, it would allow there to be a two week period where you can pay. This could help with the finals week situation, or many things like that.

Also, how does the Star Wars Old Republic housing system work, anyway? I'm curious now. Does it allow every player (or every player with a house) to have a place on the map, because I think that would be ideal for an RP setting.

[Illysia]

That would help more but things come up and I think people would still get aggravated in such a system. While I've seen something like what you are describing in the game Mabinogi, I just don't think it would be a good fit for PS to rely on a limited number of houses. Everyone being able to get their own sounds like a better solution.

In SWTOR each house is linked to a particular planet but it is in it's own instance. Think like a guildhouse but one that has both an interior and and exterior. For instance, my house on Coruscant consists not just of rooms but I can also unlock a balcony that allows you to see that the apartment sits at the top of a building and there are buildings and speeder traffic off into the distance. However, it's not like people walking around the planet can just walk up to my house like guildhouses now work in PS.

However, this is how the assignment of housing works, as far as I understand it: One of your characters purchases a house from the appropriate directory. There are several planets you can buy houses on. The ownership immediately goes to that character but it can be reassigned, I think. Each character can own a number of houses, they can share ownership of the houses with other characters on same account if they have a legacy set up(something like a family/friend relationship between your characters), and any owner can assign keys to other players which allows those players some kind of privilege in the house, but I don't know what yet. The more you unlock in the house the more players you can invite to it at once and the more you can decorate the place.

You don't have to pay rent. It is yours outright once you buy it and it is connected to a guild project system so it wouldn't make sense for them to just yank your house from you. But as I have just found, it makes for an excellent way to set up custom RP areas. I was at one that was set up as a really nice "drinking establishment" it was too classy to be called a bar. It was impressive.

[Volki]

Apartments. Large building. You can go inside the building's entrance, but no further than that. Rooms are all instances. Click on a door that will teleport you to your room. Maybe you could go to someone else's room by typing their name? Of course, the rooms couldn't be too large so guilds wouldn't try to use them. Max number of items you can place in your room. You can lock your room to outsiders or unlock it like normal guildhouses. For families, not sure how key sharing would work. Maybe original owner would be given a whitelist which allows certain players in, whether or not the room is locked.

[bilbous]

Dear me, why can't you people just wait for the construction trades to come out, Sooner or Later™ (SoL™)

[Demagul Riwe]

So when the construction stuff is released, how will it work?

[cdmoreland]

magic

[Demagul Riwe]

Apartments. Large building. You can go inside the building's entrance, but no further than that. Rooms are all instances. Click on a door that will teleport you to your room. Maybe you could go to someone else's room by typing their name? Of course, the rooms couldn't be too large so guilds wouldn't try to use them. Max number of items you can place in your room. You can lock your room to outsiders or unlock it like normal guildhouses. For families, not sure how key sharing would work. Maybe original owner would be given a whitelist which allows certain players in, whether or not the room is locked.

I like it! There could be different buildings, and each person has a room number in their apartment, so some people live in Ojaveda and others in the winch etc. They can goo up to a door and type something like "/enter 3" to enter room 3, or their respective room. From the inside, people could lock their rooms, and only people with a key could get in then. Maybe in the future there can be a command like "/knock 3" to knock on the  door and the person gets a notification in the Main and System chat, but for now with guildhouses I just whisper to a person of that guild "/me knocks on the door to your guildhouse".