Goblin Squad Member
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Suppose a player character's home should be where he can usually be found in Pathfinder Online.
Granted I am presupposing a bit when I venture this assertion, and realize I don't think this will all happen at once and may not be realized until well after release and pretty deep into a character's career.
But I think it may well be a desireable thing, so maybe it should be looked at early. Later program development often depends on earlier things, like when prototyping a character data record.
I'm supposing each player character builds his own house, perhaps helped by his friends. I am imagining the player must locate a suitable plot of land, lay a modular foundation, and raise modular walls both interior and exterior. The modular walls would support an apropriately shaped roof. The interior should be useful to the character.
The material a house is made of would be material that can be found locally. He should be able to fence his plot, set up a garden, and have cooking facilities. Perhaps his food and garden produce would 'happen' while the player is logged out.
He might have some livestock. He might notice if a band of orcs has made off with his pig or stripped the vegetables from the stalk.
By and large the matured character would stay at home to sleep rather than taking a room at an Inn, except when travelling.
When he wishes to go on an adventure with friends he would first check the settlement, then the Inn or Tavern(s), the crafting halls and market, and the homes of his friends as well.
In RL of course he would have contacted them, but not everything is as planned as that, and if he found time on his hands while in the game then there would be places he could go to seek company. But if he is not particularly inclined to adventure due to a lack of known motivations then he might stay at home and work on his craft, whether an adventuring craft or productive craft. He might have a forge and anvil, or a lathe and woodshop. He might have a spinning wheel and loom, or tanning racks and leather shop. The alchemist might be rattling beakers and tapping a retort.
Of course home is usually where one stores possessions that don't merit vault space in town.
What thoughts have you for player character housing?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I admit, for a moment, reading the title, I had a panic this was some sort of WoW hearthstone request. Then I saw it was Being, and figured it'd be something about nesting in trees or something... (I tease.)
Seriousness, though, I like the idea of player housing. I'd like it if settlements could sell or lease plots in the settlement to characters as well.
I think it would be great if, aside from the exterior dimensions, you could position interior walls however you wish.
Not sure how difficult that would be to code though. There was a video showing this on the Korean beta of Archeage, but I can't locate it atm.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would take a cue from the Aurora Toolset we used to use in NWN.
btw if anyone still plays NWN (prior to NWN2) I have a module still available on my website.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would take a cue from the Aurora Toolset we used to use in NWN.
btw if anyone still plays NWN (prior to NWN2) I have a module still available on my website.
Sweet! I'll play it later.
I'm sure there's a logical reason they only allow you to build houses in certain areas. But if you were able to build your house anywhere the terrain allowed, I think people would be a lot happier with the whole player housing system.
Being assigned a tiny lot between two other houses makes me feel like I live in a mobile home park! :P
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If not a more advanced system, I at least hope they eventually follow something like in SWG where the players purchased deeds and they could then place the deeds down on any land that could be built on. Then as more and more people placed down houses together they could turn it into a city and start building city buildings.
The only downside is that the deeds were static in the sense that the walls were always in the same place for the same type of deed, so being able to modify that would be cool (however probably really resource intensive on the server)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm sure there's a logical reason they only allow you to build houses in certain areas. But if you were able to build your house anywhere the terrain allowed, I think people would be a lot happier with the whole player housing system.
Being assigned a tiny lot between two other houses makes me feel like I live in a mobile home park! :P
I concur, but if they did we should wish to have a 'ruins' mechanic to take care of abandoned homes, to clear them up so that tile could be repurposed.
I concur, but if they did we should wish to have a 'ruins' mechanic to take care of abandoned homes, to clear them up so that tile could be repurposed.I'm sure there's a logical reason they only allow you to build houses in certain areas. But if you were able to build your house anywhere the terrain allowed, I think people would be a lot happier with the whole player housing system.
Being assigned a tiny lot between two other houses makes me feel like I live in a mobile home park! :P
They certainly will. Likely tied to the upkeep section. Decay eventually to nothing unless by some % roll a creature(s) or NPC(s) decide to use the ruins as a lair.
That does make me wonder, will we be able to sell a house once it's built? If they use deeds, will those be sellable/tradable? Huh, interesting..
I can see it now.. "Kalbash the Gnomes Custom built homes! Lakefront property! Turnkey easy living. Each home comes with an outhouse AND a warranty!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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How do you define "abandoned"?
Upkeep isn't paid. It would be gradual. Log in and pay your taxes of your house vanishes.
I think it should fall to ruins along its way way to entropy so the kids can get in and grab all your loot, especially those magical devices that will change them into large reptiles.
Just baiting you bro: peace.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A couple of ideas to help get people to stop home when they are in town.
Additional storage will keep people coming home on a regular basis no matter what, but if you want players to have reasons to stick home you could have a reduction to crafting crafting time in home for small scale projects.
Like buy an alchemy table and cut potion brewing time by 25% but the batches are smaller than in an alchemy lab and have a smaller selection based on how much you spend on your set up.
Also make resting and refreshing daily skills on the same level as an inn or tavern. Also I would love if you could set player made traps to keep out the darker element of PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps, since settlements can be destroyed, indeed must be for the system, perhaps there should be seperate places for player housing such as small wilderness villages or areas to build in npc towns, sort of "capitals" for a town house. As the game expands, new areas will open up for housing, as I'm assuming people don't want to rebuild their house and pose all their stuff every few weeks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hrm. I've seen those and houses in them and they are vacant as soon as the new wears off.
My recommendation is to let players build outside settlement walls, and for the daring, if they are determined to do it, let there be places in the wilderness where it could be done. But I think the places in the wilderness should be pretty special. A wizard's tower. A druid's grove. A monestary. A hermit's hole. Something where the player who builds it is clearly very experienced, knows what he is about, and could afford to lose it.
While I agree about special places being built by more skilled (higher level) players. I think aside from SWG most MMOs I've played restrict where you can put houses. I would love to see what happens if there are no restrictions.
But as I originally said, there has to be a reason that games limit where houses can be built.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sounds good to me, but when it's a private residence or such it would be easy for a roaming army to just now down everything while you're offline. Or evn when you're not, with little hope of saving it.
So I'm all for wilderness building that can be captured or destroyed, but I don't think it works well for player HOUSING.
Chartered companies or groups perhaps, settlement or nation aligned certainly, but not player housing.
Somewhere buried in this forum I made a suggestion for camp sites that works better I think for things like Druid groves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am all for playing housing, and was glad to see that the designers are thinking about that kind of thing. I was a tad disappointed when they mentioned that buildings would be present, but that actually having buildings with interior spaces would take time. I would think that having innards would be pretty important for a building.
When it comes to customization, I would prefer to see players have more stylistic choices than merely the one type that is paired with a particular terrain or settlement alignment. I don't think that every aspect needs to be player customizable at all, but I would dislike seeing a settlement where all of the buildings are necessarily identical.
I agree with Being as to using the home as a place to find somebody. Back in SWG, I do remember picking off the ornery critters outside of my house or crafting inside as I awaited my buddies.
Well I found this about buildings in a blog from early in 2012..
Since the inception of the Pathfinder Online project, we've had one vision firmly in mind: the idea that players will be able to build a variety of persistent structures in the game world—and destroy them too! The ability to create things that every player will be able to see, visit and interact with is a big way to immerse you in the Pathfinder Online experience and to express the sandbox design value of persistence.
Most of the persistent structures in the game (as opposed to the mostly temporary objects of the theme park content) will be created by players. NPCs do have some sites of their own, such as the three NPC settlements: Fort Riverwatch, Fort Inevitable and Thornkeep, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
Each hex can have a variety of potential locations suitable for construction. The developers will build these into the terrain as the hex is designed. Finding these locations will enable characters to erect a building on the site. Specific sites are likely to be restricted to specific types of structures. The external appearance of each building will be defined by the development team—functionally identical buildings may be graphically different to ensure they are appropriate for the terrain where they're located.
The restriction on building types and locations exists for two reasons. First, we want to make building sites a constrained resource, as that makes them worth fighting over, and that conflict helps drive player interaction. Second, we want to ensure that the density of the structures added to the world and the places where they are built makes sense and isn't used as a way to artificially segment the game world or to create terrain advantages—a big problem in many other MMOs that allow player-created buildings.
Construction Sites
Creating buildings is usually a task that will be attempted by groups of well-organized players. Once a buildable location has been found, a character with the necessary abilities will be able to create a temporary object called a construction site. This object includes local storage to hold various materials which must be provided to assemble the building. Once the construction site is erected and filled with the necessary materials—including the blueprints for the building to be constructed—the process of construction will begin.
The construction site can be attacked and destroyed, so it must be defended by the builders. This is a time-limited function. The larger and more complex the structure, the longer the construction process takes. Some buildings might take just a few hours to complete. Others could take days. The most complex structures could take even longer. The size and complexity of the building also determines the area of the construction site—larger sites are harder to defend than smaller ones.
A building cannot be used until it is fully constructed. Each building is initially owned by the character that created the construction site, but ownership of the building can be transferred once it is completed. Buildings can be owned by individual characters or by settlements.
So, you can't just build anywhere. The other thing is it doesn't mention player housing. So has anyone seen housing mentioned elsewhere?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm pretty sure player housing has been mentioned elsewhere.
From the main page of the present Kickstarter, "3. Player Structures- Build your own homes, taverns, farms, and even cities! The Pathfinder Online world will be filled with places players can use to build and customize their own homes, businesses and communities."
So, there it is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm pretty sure player housing has been mentioned elsewhere.From the main page of the present Kickstarter, "3. Player Structures- Build your own homes, taverns, farms, and even cities! The Pathfinder Online world will be filled with places players can use to build and customize their own homes, businesses and communities."
So, there it is.
Yeah, but that was written by Andius,not one of the devs. No offense to Andius, he's pretty on top of this stuff, but I wouldn't consider it binding.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yeah, but that was written by Andius,not one of the devs. No offense to Andius, he's pretty on top of this stuff, but I wouldn't consider it binding.
They went through it and made changes to some things so I would assume if they made changes to some parts they would have revised that if it wasn't accurate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly speaking as someone who is thinking of being a rogue. I wouldn't want player housing to be able to be invaded. If there's a good reason to have a house (extra storage, crafting space, etc.) it shouldn't be open for anyone to break in and steal stuff cause that would lead to an unused mechanic in fear of losing your collectables (daily deal items from KS).
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Good point. And yet... if we are to have rogues shouldn't locks be pickable? And if locks are pickable then storage chests in our houses would be vulnerable as well.
Assuming we even get player housing, perhaps when I go to my house and enter I see my home, and people I invite in would also see my home and we might sit down to table and have a fine meal.
But should any pick my lock and enter without invite perhaps they should see my home deserted and unlit, and my chests might also be pickable,perhaps trapped, and the loot inside those chests might be items afforded by the game itself without affecting my actual holdings.
Does this seem a workable solution to the problem of rogues being able to pick locks, yet without costing the player their goods?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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That would make sense, if they did allow stealing (which I could go either way on, but I see as unlikely)
In SWG you could set permissions on your homes and city structures (I k now homes for sure I think city structures also) so that anyone could enter or only people you designated could enter to a minimum of yourself. I would also be ok with this, while slightly immersion breaking it avoids any of the stealing aspects.
Keep in mind even if they went with a chest that had random game generated loot, technically speaking they could just steal all your furniture and the like as well, so you would start seeing homes with nothing in them except chests so people didn't have to worry about their furniture being stolen.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes it does seem like alot of work just to allow home invasions. Other hand if you were a thief wouldn't you want to be able to use your lockpicking? How do you propose to go abut doing that and still allow homeowners assurance that their home storage is safe?
I would expect it to come into play mostly in dungeon settings, unlocking doors and chests and the like rather than in houses.