housing

[Erik K]

Since no new player housing is being created, is another housing clean up possible?

[Muhkuman]

Perhaps a house sweep of the ones that are no longer being used?

[darkstorme]

It is hard to ascertain what "no longer being used" really means.

While the original owners of some houses may have left the server, their houses can still be in use.  Rest assured, if a reasonable quantity of houses fall into disuse, another clean-out will take place.  But there really aren't that many houses that aren't in use.

Additionally, to address the tone of the original post, creating new player housing is an impossibility forced upon us by the Neverwinter Nights server.  On both servers, we've effectively reached our area limit.  Adding additional areas would destabilize the server - this includes, naturally, player housing.  We may have a BIT of leeway, given that some areas are going to be moved/changed, but what would you rather - a new and exciting section of mountains/forest/crypt that everyone can use... or another house?

[twidget658]

Come out and rent a room at Leringard Arm Inn and Tavern. Plenty of rooms there that are vacant (mainly because all the houses are being used and people staying with other people in their houses).

[Erik K]

Sorry if i came off wrong in my origional post, my attitude was more a lack of knowing what to say, than anything else.  To be candid, the people running this server have done a great job of making it a fun ( according to my wife, its more like addictive ) place to play and that includes the housing.  It would be unfair of me to be judgemental, about the choices being made by them, when I have no clue about why those decisions are being made and I hope I have not done so in this post or any others.

[Chongo]

Well, that's not entirely accurate Dark.  The modules are pretty darn big though, and there are a few things that are filled to the brim (creatures, items, etc).  In fact folks, when we have updates now, many things are recycled that are now out of date.  It's because the loader fails at a certain number for the creator palettes (GM side).  Dorg can explain it better.  In the major update of August, I ripped out around 100 areas from the modules that were unused or not essential.  Since then we've slowly added themes and watched how it impacts server stability.  Central is pretty much maxed.  West will be darn close to maxed after this update.
 
 Housing, to be blunt, is an extremely low priority for module space.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that at least 75% of current housing is used for storage, which is disgusting when measured against all the other things that could go in its place.  Yeah, there are some folks that try and make their houses RP destinations... but they are few and far between and typically fade away after a very short time unless very ideally placed.
 
 My vote... max storage to three or four chests per PC and shut down storage houses.  There is so so so much hording.
 
 Or, maybe I could remove all housing and then make hotels with room keys and 3 chests placed, then a common area *raises brows twice with a grin*.  Eh?  Eh?  And yes, I don't think that's a possibility at this time unless there was overwhelming support from all the community who's sunk money into their homes.
 
 At the very least I wish we had taxes.  Big ones.
 
 But no, I personally will not spend my time on a housing cleanup.  I'd work on the hotels and strip them all before making room for a perpetual problem.

[Kirbiana]

Speaking as someone who wishes there was a Layonara version of House Beautiful so she could nominate her own interior decorating for an award ....
 
 
 
 ... I do think there are some players who want a house for more than just storage.  Perhaps it's only 25% of us, as Chongo said, but having a house to organize and fill with furniture makes me feel much more invested in Layonara than in other games.  As someone who doesn't level much at all (and will therefore not see most of the really cool areas being added to the module), keeping my house stocked with food and ready to host PC meetings gives me my main RP goals at the moment.
 
 I have a vague memory (and yes, at my age all my memories are vague) that house taxes were going to be implemented with this new version of Layonara.  Weren't the door locks going to tell us when they were due, and if they weren't paid within a certain RL period, the house would automatically go back on the market without any work required from the team?   It seemed like a good laissez faire way to control housing, plus drain gold out of the economy and randomly put houses on the market for new players.  I assume anyone living at the house could have paid the taxes, so only completely unused houses would be 'repossessed'.  Was the coding for this too difficult or again was it just a low priority for the team?

[Crunch]

If an existing large unit of housing were made available, would it be possible to re-key interior doors to have the outer door default unlocked and the inner doors as separate player housing units?  

i.e. could the housing be sold off as separate rooms with separate keys without effecting module size?

[lonnarin]

If an existing large unit of housing were made available, would it be possible to re-key interior doors to have the outer door default unlocked and the inner doors as separate player housing units?  

i.e. could the housing be sold off as separate rooms with separate keys without effecting module size?

I'm not quite certain of the doors myself, but what I've been doing with my tennants is to let them lay down the chest and crate models in their rooms.  That way, the locks on the crates are in their name, and they can lock their own chests without fear of others stealing their items.  Now that both crates and chests can be locked, it's pretty easy to divide up and secure storage in a house.  The only down side is that if the person suddenly stops playing, you need to get a GM to clean up the placetables they left behind, since your housing tool will say "This item doesn't belong to me!".

So if everybody sets down their own chests and keeps them locked with their keys, there shouldn't be much of a security problem in keeping them safe.  Storing object in chests owned by other people though is risky.

And I have to agree with the above post about having a Layo Walk-of-Houses to show off the interior design.  Bjorn's house is one of those meticulously measured and ordered layouts with ming vases, pictures, studies, Willy's room with the bunkbeds and wee gnomish catapault, etc.  Then when you go into Czukay and Skabot's house, there's cluttered piles of bones everywhere with a huge buggling cauldron in the center...  I love how the placetables of a home can kind of tell the story of a character, when you decorate it with a certain theme in mind.

[merlin34baseball]

Once upon a time I suggested a Layo Beautiful homes tour... but considering recent s events it might not be appropriate!

[Dorganath]

If an existing large unit of housing were made available, would it be possible to re-key interior doors to have the outer door default unlocked and the inner doors as separate player housing units?  

i.e. could the housing be sold off as separate rooms with separate keys without effecting module size?

Something like what you are suggesting was planned a while ago, but we ran out of time and manpower to bring it to fruition.  To clarify, we wanted to have something like apartments, where each person might have a room or two of a common building.  We would not have been converting existing housing.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Ooo, except for a few backwards armoirs, Ael and Sahala's house is very nice, and all "old style" furniture, none of the new furniture additions. I'd apply for the tour.