Player Housing

Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis.

It's always amusing to me when the Turbine team gets decked out in leather, waves around their riding crops and starts abducting members of the public for their innocuous "surveys." Okay, maybe that's just how I mentally envision them going about the task – and I'm sure that says a lot about the state of my mental health these days.

However it happens in reality, Turbine's pretty good at soliciting player opinion on improving the game, and last week we saw them post a thread in the forums entitled "Tell the Community Team - New and Revamped Systems" to do just that. They basically asked players to comment on what game systems they'd like to see improved, what new systems should be implemented, and what regular systems they never use due to time or other factors. PvMP, Radiance gear and Legendary Items were off the table for discussion, but all else was fair game.

I started to tally all these up, but that was an insane task, which I realized only after filling up an entire sheet of paper while I was only on page 5 out of 39 of the thread. Besides, the overwhelming theme of the thread quickly made itself known: players want housing fixed, and in a bad, bad way. So, hey, let's look at the Middle-earth housing crisis this week, and see how we can make it better.

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"We were trying to give the housing in New Halas a very warm and inviting feel to contrast with the cold climate of the region. To do this, we decided to use a lot of wood and barbarian elements in the design of the houses. So the houses have a slight cabin feel to it with subtle barbarian elements and trims in it, to let the players use this space in any way they want. I'm always excited to see what players create within their homes," Rodriguez enthused.

The houses will be offered with two, four, and six room floor plans, and all will feature views of the nearby sea. The sizes compare with those found in EQII's other cities, but the New Halas locales have been designed from the ground up to be very different stylistically.

Check out the interview as well as our previous New Halas coverage. Finally, hit the jump for a gallery of the new interiors.

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It features in Lord of the Rings Online, doesn't make an appearance in World of Warcraft, and an extended form is the heart of Second Life. It's player housing, and it's had a long and interesting history ever since Ultima Online pioneered the idea. There were hiccups to the approach back then, so many that some later designs have eschewed the entire idea.

Other games that use it have gone with an instancing model a la Final Fantasy XI, ensuring that there's not actual game space being taken up by unused houses. But like so many features, there are debates as to its worth. For every person who loves the idea of player-run cities in Star Wars Galaxies, there's someone who would rather see the same amount of development time going toward endgame content or system balancing.

Housing has always struggled to be an element that's meaningful beyond the cool factor of just owning a player-made house... but then again, many would argue that the cool factor itself is meaningful and why they want it. Where do you fall? Do you like the idea of player housing, are you opposed, or do you fall somewhere in the middle?

The Mog House has always been one of the venues for Final Fantasy XI players to show off their creativity and personal sense of style, even more so when it became possible at long last for other adventurers to step inside. Allakhazam knows that it's one of the most celebrated parts of the game as well, which is why they've launched the first Mog House decorating contest. Arrange your furniture carefully, mail in some images of your uniquely adorned home, and you could find your dwelling renowned for its taste (and potential Moghancement benefits).

Entries on the contest run until April 12th, with judging to conclude on April 20th via on-site poll. There are, of course, the usual requirements for all entries to be safe for work and not involve any hacking of the game client. Prizes include a signed copy of the Distant Worlds CD and a Japanese calligraphy set to help decorate the place you actually live, which is a nice touch. For full rules and submission guidelines, take a look at the contest page. Or you could just start by beautifying your home away from home, something most Final Fantasy XI players are inclined to do anyway.

They're not real and we all know it. All your character is in an MMO, really, is just a little mobile indicator for what you're wearing and what you're doing. There's no need to spare them a second thought. Of course, there are games like Champions Online and City of Heroes which give you dizzying amounts of control over what they look like. Or Lord of the Rings Online and Final Fantasy XI that let you decorate your house. Or Star Trek Online letting you detail both what sort of ship you ride around in and who your co-workers are...

All right, most of us put a little more thought into our characters than just mobile gear indicators. Roleplayers tend to get even more so, but even if you're avidly not into the RP scene, you can't help but form some connections. So how attached are you to yours? Do you spend a long time staring at the character creator? Do you play the same character transplanted into new settings? Or do you mostly just click through based on whatever looks cool and take what you get, even if it winds up being hideous?

Player housing is one of those features we love to see in an MMO but every game that has it seems to implement it differently. Sometimes it's limited to instanced rooms the player can decorate and sometimes it's a little more functional like shared guild halls. In EVE Online, the closest thing to widely-available player housing would be anchorable starbases, which can be configured to serve a variety of functional roles. Originally, their primary purpose was to mine moon minerals and react them to produce advanced materials for Tech 2 production.

Starbases can be very useful as tactical staging points for PvP operations. With the right modules anchored around them, they can also be configured for use in other industries, from mining and manufacturing to research and deep space exploration. Until recently, they also played a critical role in EVE's alliance sovereignty warfare as the alliance with the most starbases in a system gained control of it. With that role now fulfilled by Outposts, Infrastructure Hubs and Territorial Claim Units, starbases have mostly returned to their former industrial and tactical uses.

In this article, I look at five different starbase configurations that can be very useful to organised corporations.

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As Christmas recedes into memory, it's easy to forget about the stress of the various celebrations and just remember the nicer parts of the holiday. For our characters in City of Heroes, of course, the holidays saw yet another onslaught by elemental minions of ice seeking to spread permanent winter. But the pot was sweetened a touch by the addition of the holiday contest, a chance for players to decorate their base or alter their costume in such a way that they became a bit more seasonally appropriate.

Just a bit over a month out, the winners of the contest have been announced, and it takes only a quick glance at the artistry involved to see why. Bases were transformed from fortresses of solitude into... well, they were still sort of fortresses of solitude, but now they had appropriate decorations hanging from the icicles. Meanwhile, characters were transformed into crime-fighting ski bunnies and workshop elves. Giving City of Heroes players a chance to work their creativity almost always results in some excellent material, so feel free to take a look at the official page listing the winners and screenshots of each.

It's holiday time in both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, and that means it's time for players of City of Heroes to celebrate the occasion. We recently discussed the game's holiday event, which is of course how the characters in the game get to enjoy the start of the winter months. But what about the players behind the keyboard, the ones who may very well have donated to charitable causes and deserve something nice themselves this holiday season? Well, perhaps if you're blessed with a spot of luck and the spirit of the season, you could win some decorations for yourself and your environment in the game's holiday contest.

The contest has two categories, for most festive costume and most festively-decorated base, with three winners per category. Prizes include hero and villain pins, some of the limited-edition City of Heroes fifth-anniversary t-shirts, and a few other nice toys. All that's required for entry is to take two screenshots of your character's costume or your decorated base and submit them by January 3rd, which means that everyone in the game has both time an inclination to get into the spirit of things. Read the official rules for more details, and get a little something back for your superhuman antics being seasonally appropriate.

Nascera, which we know sounds uncomfortably like nasal and viscera jammed together in some rather bizarre agglomeration, is the name for the new continent which is hosting Linden Lab's experimental house and land incentives for premium Second Life users. The beta buildout is done and you can go see the results for yourself.

Mind you, if you already have rented or owned land in Second Life, the Nascera offering really isn't for you. You, like us, really aren't the target demographic. Nor is anyone we showed it to, which is probably why they all made those nasty faces when we did.

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Like many free-to-play games, Free Realms has seen pretty notable gains with the occasional rough patch -- not exactly a surprise when you consider how the year has in no small part been a renaissance for the business model. But love it or hate it, the game is still going strong, and is ending the year with its best foot forward. A massive December update has just hit the game, with a number of changes and additions to the entire experience. There's been an extensive combat overhaul, and -- hey, where are you going?

Yes, okay, get the obvious Star Wars Galaxies joke out of your system, we can hardly blame you. But the changes here seem to be for the best, at least from the outside, with clearer labeling of stats and a more engaging experience all around. Even if you aren't enamoured of the combat changes, you can kick back in the new player housing, take part in the newly-added Fishing minigame, launch yourself into the sky or enjoy some of the many other additions in the game. Take a look at the full list for more details, and expect to clock a few extra hours in on Free Realms if you're a fan of the game.

[ Thanks to Brian for the tip! ]

Fast turnarounds are always nice. It's been a little over a week since we posted the first news about Wizard101's upcoming school-specific housing, and it's already moved from "upcoming" to "live." The December patch has just been released, and in addition to giving players the opportunity at having the literally hottest house around (among others), it brings a number of other improvements to the game's client. Most notable is the option to block chat from your opponents in PvP, a welcome feature to avoid the frequently non-stop boasting that seems to go hand-in-hand with the playstyle. It is an option that can be changed even in the middle of a duel, and while it's not game-defining it should be a welcome addition.

Much of the meat of this update comes in the form of the team relentlessly hunting down bugs and squashing them, with a long list of prior bugs that are no more. The team even notes that some of the killed bugs are ones the majority of players didn't even know about. While the update is a little lighter on actual content compared to the last one, fewer bugs and a better all-around experience are nothing to sneeze at, not to mention some exceptionally nice new houses. Wizard101 players still have a few days until the main event, but they still got a nice early Christmas present.

One of the games we're looking forward to playing next year is Earthrise, a post-apocalyptic MMO currently in development at Masthead Studios. At launch, Earthrise will offer guilds a wide selection of buildings and facilities that can be built within their controlled territory. Masthead Studios has bigger plans for city building and Territorial Conquest game mechanics post-launch, though. Long term goals for this aspect of guild-level gameplay include expanding options for guilds to become less beholden to the major NPC factions (and the cities of Continoma and Noir).

Specifically, Masthead Studios would like for players to establish administrative buildings, which will provide some of the conveniences and features generally found only in NPC-held cities. According to the Earthrise devs, "Administrative buildings will remove the requirement to visit cities even further by providing access to Market, Warehouses and more from inside the Guild owned territories."

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Wizard 101 isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's been doing quite well for itself and certainly delivers on the premise of letting players take on a wizard's role. Well... mostly, anyway. The player housiing has sadly been lacking options for some of the more eccentric wizards out there. After all, a nice townhouse is all well and good for some wizards, but what self-respecting fire wizard doesn't have a metal and stone deathtrap perched precariously over molten rock? Luckily for those players with similar tastes, the game will be adding seven new styles of housing in mid-December based on the seven schools of magic.

Tipa at West Karana has an excellent galley of the houses available, complete with decorating tips for some of the more challenging house arrangements like the cramped underwater house for (you guessed it) the Water school. MMOQuests also has a brief video tour of the Death house, which looks like something straight out of The Nightmare Before Christmas. And speaking of Christmas, the houses are slated to be priced at either 100,000 gold or 10,000 Crowns, the latter of which comes out to about $20. Not a bad price for a gift for your favorite Wizard 101 player, when you get right down to it.

While the growth of Second Life new-user registrations remains steady, as do active users, the number of premium accounts in Linden Lab's virtual world had entered into an accelerating decline, last time we had any data available to us. This is hardly surprising, as tweaks to the land-centric Second Life economy over time had largely eliminated the need for many users to have a premium-account.

The Lab is announcing the creation of a new continent (name and location not known at present), which will contain a number of unfurnished homes on 512sqm parcels of restricted-use land that do not share a border with the parcels of other users.

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