[phantom2k]

Quote

Q. Will there be player housing?
A. This is something that’s still in early development but yes. Players will be able to own a house and decorate it. There will be guild housing as well. Having these houses out on the hunting fields might result in a land shortage so we’re working on coming up with solutions for this.

From the june interview taken from thisisgame.com.

Housing in aion that sounds like a brilliant idea! It would actually be amazing to decorate it! What do you think you can place in the house? Do you think you will get a better house the more money you have?

[Mark]

I read that and wasn't overly excited. Houses are houses. Sure, they'll be fun to have and decorate, but that's not my reason for playing Aion. I think it's a good idea though, and I hope they do it justice. :)

[WNxKrayt]

Houses are great, wings are great (Better IMO), but this game better be original. Nothing in the past 5 years, other than Guild Wars, has been original in any drastic way, and I can't stand playing WoW with a new story every two months.

[phantom2k]

Mark said:

I read that and wasn't overly excited. Houses are houses. Sure, they'll be fun to have and decorate, but that's not my reason for playing Aion. I think it's a good idea though, and I hope they do it justice. :)

Well its something else that makes me want to play this game more! I would deffinatley aim to get a house in game and it would be very exciting to decorate it.

[Necrosis]

Housing in UO was the best, but land shortage was always a problem (yet what added to the value to everything).

But in reality, there is only one of three likely methods we could see.

1) Instanced housing FFXI style. No spacing issues, everyone has one, nothing special about it.

2) Premade housing available for rent, such as L2. There is a pre-specified amount of vacancy going to either the highest bidder or through competition in some form. Would be pretty easy to do, but unlikely to be available for individuals.

3) Dedicated housing area. Pretty much a UO system of placing a house of your own on physical property, except in a dedicated area seperate from most of the game (IE no housing in the middle of spawn grounds).


Now, without a doubt, choice 3 is very unlikely. Players walking around in such an area will experience some impressive memory requirements, since the housing and items arent hardcoded into the map. 1 or 2 is the most likely to happen, we've seen 2 in L2 already, but if they want inviduals to have housing we're more likely to see 1. The combination of the two is very possible, I believe EQ2 did exactly that where you paid rent for places in town, but those places took you into an instance.

But knowing that there is siege level territory to be owned, whatever housing situations they make up will likely be pointless beyond having a room to decorate... big whoop :P

[exile]

add a couple more features that develope your character outside of combat and this game and it will start to look like Oblivion. And that isn't a bad thing:)

[bobby]

I loved my house in asherons call i had a little cottage all by itself on a hilltop that looked out over the sea and an ice island in the distance, it was cut off from most of the busy playing areas by a thick forest so few ppl got to get that far up the map of those that did they would often sit on the beach and just look a the view and wished they owned my cottage :).

I decorated it in a gothic style with lots of skeleton heads and of course my weapons and trophies. I was very very lucky to get that house and often wonder who owns it now. (oh and my big cat rug hehe)

I like housing and never seen anything that supassed that house but it wouldnt be game breaking for me if the housing in Aion didnt match it.

[Myz]

It is funny to get excited over such average things in MMORPGs in Aion, because everything in Aion can be lifted to a crazy extravagant. In other words, you can think of so much more that is possible with flight. One could build a house in some crazy location high in the air, most likely. If not, then the devs are sucking with imagination.

[exile]

iam going to be laughing my ass off when someone builds a house on the Abyss and when they come out of their front door they get killed.(if the game even lets u do stuff like that. which i doubt)

[plasma06]

Would you be able to raid some one house and take everything. You run into the house after pick locking the door and say "Loot sweet"

[Whitestars]

mmm as long as the fallen would be able to rob those houses, it would be awesome :P
EDIT: plasma had the same idea :)
anyways for real now: I don't know, I kinda can't see the use of houses for players in an mmo...sure it adds to the reality of the game... but it gives spacing issues (well that or the homes really don't mean a thing, they won't even add to prestige then)
What I do like are guild houses... for the simple reason that it can offer so many original ideas that you can do as a group instead of as an individual...

@wnx: GW is a CRPG :P so you can't really call it innovative in the field of mmorpg's , besides there were alot of 2D crpg's before GW...
Anyways if anyone could make this game more original then I feel its nc soft.

[Exode]

Party @ Marks!

[Red_Bear]

I think a great idea would be user ran towns, say you could develop an outpost area on a map, maybe 4/5 npcs inhabit the area with tents, more and more traffic comes through it becomes a frontier property you start to build houses on it and expand it, NPCs become vendors and as your town grows the more NPC vendor diversity you get, and if the town goes cold or quiet they being to leave moving onto new places and the houses begin to disappear.

[osric]

housing isn't critical to any mmo, but a robust housing system would give everyone something more to do, and a sense of ownership in some part of the game.

the outpost idea could be a lot of fun. would create places to raid and defend pvp style, perhaps hiring npc guards etc

not sure how viable that is in a game already as ambitious as aion... but it is a cool idea. anything player-run makes the game more interesting, whether good or bad.

os

[Mark]

Exode said:

Party @ Marks!

Now THAT's something I didn't think about. Perhaps I'll buy the biggest house on the block and throw a AionSource.com party. THAT's something that would make me think twice about houses. Decorating...not so much. ;)

[Shadowlightz]

I'm game... as long as there is no cookies and cider. I have eaten way too many in the introduction section. :)

And as far as me having a house. I would probably have a cardboard box. I am poor on every game.

[Warggoath]

Houses :o I think that they are mainly used for storage but it would be cool to decorate it as you see it fit for yourself. And no Habbo system that you have to pay real money for furniture. And you could lock the door if you dont want to anyone steal anything from you...

[Aeterna]

Houses could basicly go into a lot of directions.
Quite some have been pointed out here already and I won't add anymore of those. I'll simply wait for it untill we get further information on it.

However Guild Housing could be very interesting, PvP would be a big part of Aion and this could mean that there would be guilds fighting over houses.
Ofcourse it would be great if such a guild-house gave the guild bonusses so they really become something to fight over. An example I'm thinking of is a dungeon connected to the guildhouse or for example a small exp/drop rating boost or something similar. It could prove to be alot of fun trying to protect your guild's place against other guilds.

And all that coming from someone who doesn't even like PvP that much. ;)

[Lojik]

I love the idea of houses, i used to play AO (Anarchy Online) for about 5 years before i stopped and the housing system in there and guild cities was a realy nice way of just relaxing with your mates and chatting about stuff, or having guild auctions or just a plain party or pvp tournament. the best thing about it was you could buy furnature, lamps, pictures lots of things to outfit the house. some of the best house items would be given from events, i got a gold widescreen TV in my house that was cool.
Another thing u could do which i thought was realy cool was u could use the house as a warehouse and store all the items u dont want in the house instead of a NPC bank.

as long as the player house's dont interfear with the actual gameplay i think there a perfect place to save, store items like a warehouse, have parties and just relax. the guild house's would rule, players could come into the house meet the guild, sign up for the guild, have meetings in special rooms, have a small inhouse trade area etc etc etc. unlimited possibilities.

EDIT:
Just had a realy vivid vision :P, imagine a guild style house like the ones in oblivion (single player RPG) where you can go in and there are member rooms, trade and selling people where as a member you can place items to sell or buy items of other memebrs, a guild roster and register where u can look at the information about the guild from books, these could include information on what the guild has done like wars, tournaments etc. maybe even meeting rooms and party rooms where u can talk tactics or meet for a dungeon raid or a grinding party etc.

Just goes on and on

Lojik

[osric]

not sure if anyone else here has played Saga of Ryzom, but they have an interesting outpost system in place.

there are outposts set around the world maps that guilds can own. you initially fight npcs in a series of battle rounds to take over an outpost. once taken over these outposts can be outfitted with drills that produce xp boosters to be used by the guild and special materials used in item creation. taking an outpost from another guild requires you to schedule an attack on the outpost and fight any guild members that show up plus any npc guards they've hired. other guilds or random players can declare for one side or another.

this obviously made pvp worth something, and made brokering alliances was almost essential to taking or defending an outpost. not sure if i'd like that system exactly in aion, but something along those lines would be cool. tangible benefits for a guild owning property creates a great pvp environment.

one problem with the system was that it eventually became a stalemate. large guilds owned all the best outposts and had super powerful alliances to help them defend should anyone attack. the element of aion that could really help is the dragons. if the property ownership stagnates then the dragons could end up assaulting outposts from guilds and opening them up for others to have a shot at owning one.

os