Housing and Guilds

[merlin34baseball]

OK...  I will preface this with the fact that it is probably going to seem as a rant, which it may be and probably is... but I think I have a valid point.

I feel that it is impossible to make it here if you are not in a guild.  Houses went on the market and every single one (with the possible exeption of one) on Mistone was bought by a guild member, two of the houses are even in the same characters name.  I went on line, including setting my alarm for god awful times in the morning every two hours that they went on sale, to buy one.

It must be nice to just load up a PC with coins and have them buy up housing while the rest of the guild works, studies, whatever.  It's just disheartening to save and save and save (and take a loan from another PC) to see the houses snatched up by guilds because they have the numbers.

It doesnt seem that a private, small, one or two person enterprise can make it.  I guess that's capitalism but it still squashes out the little guy.  It's just unbelievable that there is not a cap on what guilds can own so THE REST OF US can have a piece of the pie.

How much more money and properties do the guilds need?  Must my PC bow before them to have a chance in this world?  I just don't get it.

Besides that this is a wonderful world with so much oportunity to grow as a role player.  But I feel that my character has to bow before corporate Layonara to get ahead and I dont think thats right.  I spent hours and hours scouting the houses and trying to be on time exacty when they went on sale but... Nope, they were bought by guilds.

Please don't think I don't like Layo, I love it.  I just wanted a small storefront for my PC and a friend where we could eek out a meager living, but no, we don't have the influence and power, or coins to have someone loaded up with coins to buy every house on the block.

Maybe I'm a communist...

Please, please don't take this as an insult to the world in general, I have so much fun here, BUT, I feel this needs to be addressed.

My Thanks.

[Pankoki]

Well if it were up to me and codeable, I wouldn't allow any normal house to hold more than 10 containers and forbid guilds to purchase more storage house. They should be responsible for their guild houses (which wouldn't have the 10 container limit) to store their goods and not go overboard. I too think is ridiculous that so much housing is owned by guilds when they should by all means be houses for players to live in, not store more junk.
  I'm sure I'm not in the majority in this portion, since obviously many people are in guilds, and this is just my personal opinion, so take it as just that, but I think many of the guilds, and everyone in general, should consider better their housing and storage before bloating the server with even more junk.

[minerva]

I have to disagree.  My main character is a two person guild that was a one person guild for a very long time.  Storage?  She RP'ed living with various other home owners and rented out space in a guild hall.  She sold her goods at the Arms and was faithfully there almost every week until the interest had fallen to a meer trickle. Her prices are equal or greater than the guilds, but she takes alot of items in trade instead of coin.  I have with her on at least two occasions made a call for apprentices to join her - next to zero interest.

I am right now RP'ing her putting out contracts for various low level crafting items for much more than the pawn shops will pay and getting a mixed interest.  

The ability is there it make it, if, as in real life, you are inventive and create your own oppertunities.

It is sad that the guilds do feel like they have to have mega storage.  I had hoped the recent purge would have proven to them how much junk most people have stored, and how you can down size and still be quite effective, but alas perhaps the personality type that is drawn to NWN is also drawn to packratism as well.

my 2cents

[Vyris]

merlin34baseball - 11/2/2006  7:27 PM

OK...  I will preface this with the fact that it is probably going to seem as a rant, which it may be and probably is... but I think I have a valid point.

I feel that it is impossible to make it here if you are not in a guild.  Houses went on the market and every single one (with the possible exeption of one) on Mistone was bought by a guild member, two of the houses are even in the same characters name.  I went on line, including setting my alarm for god awful times in the morning every two hours that they went on sale, to buy one.

It must be nice to just load up a PC with coins and have them buy up housing while the rest of the guild works, studies, whatever.  It's just disheartening to save and save and save (and take a loan from another PC) to see the houses snatched up by guilds because they have the numbers.

It doesnt seem that a private, small, one or two person enterprise can make it.  I guess that's capitalism but it still squashes out the little guy.  It's just unbelievable that there is not a cap on what guilds can own so THE REST OF US can have a piece of the pie.

How much more money and properties do the guilds need?  Must my PC bow before them to have a chance in this world?  I just don't get it.

Besides that this is a wonderful world with so much oportunity to grow as a role player.  But I feel that my character has to bow before corporate Layonara to get ahead and I dont think thats right.  I spent hours and hours scouting the houses and trying to be on time exacty when they went on sale but... Nope, they were bought by guilds.

Please don't think I don't like Layo, I love it.  I just wanted a small storefront for my PC and a friend where we could eek out a meager living, but no, we don't have the influence and power, or coins to have someone loaded up with coins to buy every house on the block.

Maybe I'm a communist...

Please, please don't take this as an insult to the world in general, I have so much fun here, BUT, I feel this needs to be addressed.

My Thanks.

Communist

*cackles*

Get ahold of me IG, I have some interesting information for you

Vyris

[Guardian 452]

slightly off topic... sorry if I de-rail your thread....

I have two characters who are crafters and go at it on their own... Enzo and Andraia.

It isnt easy going against a guild who has everything right away.... but thru RP and some work you can get your name out there and get a reputation going.... word of mouth is worth a lot even in a virtual community.


Hang in there!!!


G-452

[Leanthar]

Storage is pretty ridiculous if you ask me...to the far extreme.

Let’s take a look at a DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) for instance. They have houses that have two storage chests in the house (perhaps even one I forget as I have not logged in for a few years). Yes that chest can store a lot of things in that chest but I think the number is around 64--again not 100% positive any more but it is not a whole lot.

That right there tells you just how outrageous things are out of control right now.

Another great example is EQ where the storage is the BANK ONLY. Where you have 12 slots (I think that is the number and you can have a single container (of a max of 8 or 12 slots each--I forget)...but that is a total of 144 items max (or around that number).

See what I mean... I used to feel that we would allow players to do what they wanted but over the four years I have seen that players do not police themselves when it comes to items and storage (or greed), they push the boundaries of what they are allowed....thusly we need scripts and code to actually force the limitations. But well....that takes manpower and we already do this for free. Not for free, we do this while paying about $5,000 a year (or so) so I can not ask the team to do any more than they already are.

I really feel that it is so very sad when guilds have guild halls and then guild members have their own houses. But for us to limit it that means we have for spend quality GM Team policing things we shouldn’t have to do or we right code to not allow this…but code is not going to solve the problem because it is impossible. The GM time that it would take to police and monitor this sort of thing is literally dozens of hours a month, we shouldn’t have to do that sort of thing.

I am sorry to the players out there that want houses, hopefully you guys/gals can work things out.

[Guardian 452]

EQ is getitng bigger... last time I saw you could have boxes with more than 32 slots.... probably over 40 now.

So your 8 personal bank slots and 4 slots for muling items from character to character suddenly turn into 480 slots.  

[Chongo]

It's hard when there are a lot of individuals who have hundreds of thousands of gold.

Other guild members may shoot me here, but I do agree that multiple housing should be a no-no.  All you need is a port to the main office to drop things off.  And I think individuals should also be allowed only one home.  I'm personally discouraged by the number of homes that are storage cases for individuals.  I feel like selling mine a lot because while it's quite 'homey' inside and offers a lot in atmosphere... nobody is ever there.  So ultimately it becomes a) storage, and b) a portal.  But it's nice that it's so pretty in there, those bookshelves didn't line up on their own and you like keeping what you worked on, same reason we all get hooked on our characters.  So unless you do in fact have people over all the time, maybe you just shouldn't even have a home.  This a question I pose to myself often.  And I wonder how many others do as well.

If there were a centralized tavern on each server that everyone knew about and it had a portal, that'd be enough for me.  And then maybe a locker somewhere allowing around 50 items that I just don't want to throw out.  Then I'd get rid of my part-ownership on a house.  All I want is a rowdy tavern with at least 10 players in it.  Everyone has high hopes of their house being this, but it's just not the case.  Only way the rowdy tavern that has passersby at all times is to have the player density channeled towards it.  And that's all server-map/ traffic design and making it appealing, with the best selection of, or only available portals, fun things inside to do (like funny scripted drinking contests, dartboards, anything that keeps people occupied so there's a reason to be there and be social), private rooms that can be rented that just shock and awe and make you want to be there, and of course, cheap drinks.  You introduce this with a forced flow of traffic and you can take out housing altogether.  Because it's maybe once a month that a person can have people actually come over to their place to hang out.  When everyone has a home it becomes storage and a portal.  And I kinda scowl at myself for setting up all the furniture when I'd be better served heading to Hlint.

I don't however feel that guilds are the source of all money/ capitalism woes on Layonara.  It's far far easier for me to head out to get something valuable and sell it then to wait on the guild dues to be paid out.  I do think that most guild members are higher level and thus have higher purchasing power.  So that's naturally going to happen.

But I'll tell you what.  You present an idea good enough, like a 2x2 shanty with dartboards, good seating, fun scripted player contests and cheap drinks, right in downtown Hlint... I'll throw 500k in without a second thought.  Then you can run your shop whenever you're around and maybe that extra server space will add some value by accumulating the playerbase.

That's my thought on it at least.  Fun fun.

[merlin34baseball]

Chongo I like the idea a small place on every server where anyone can set up shop... Its an awsome idea, instead of having people have to come to your home as Enzo said.

My problem lies, and you are right, about houses being for storage.  The only reason I even need a house is so that me and my partner can access our (each others) trade goods.  Other wise if she sells something and I have it and I'm not on for a while the sale never gets made. Plus she has access to no house so she has to carry all her CNR and finished goods around.

In a guild, well, you open the door, open the chest, and sell it.  No carrying around everything you want to sell. Independent crafters who have partners don't have that luxury. Thats the basic problem.  If you cant buy a simple tent, shack, hovel, to store your finished goods your stuck carrying them.  Thank the lord my PC is a jeweler and not a weapon smith.

Again... I love this world, but I think the little guy gets squeezed out, and if you (we) want to expand the player base it shouldnt be that way.  As it is I post on the trade hall forum to sell my goods, but have to price them less than the guilds to get any bites.  I could cut my prices in half... then I'd get lots of business and plenty of [TELLS] saying I was ruining the economy...

Could we get storage lockers with keys like homes so we could give them out to whom we choose?  That way 4 Pcs could live in the same house, and actually use the rooms to sleep in, instead of for mass chests... and have storage units for their stuff.

[miasma_hemlock]

I didn't understand the big deal about houses until I saw the inside of a few of them, and wow...

But anyway.. One thing I was wondering was, why doesn't the Wild Surge feel more like the home away from home it's supposed to be?  Like why couldn't inns have a chest system like the bank's (with maybe 3 or 4 times the storage, but it costs you 100 coins every time you want to open the door to your "room" to get to it?)

[Guardian 452]

miasma_hemlock - 11/3/2006  12:19 AM

I didn't understand the big deal about houses until I saw the inside of a few of them, and wow...

But anyway.. One thing I was wondering was, why doesn't the Wild Surge feel more like the home away from home it's supposed to be?  Like why couldn't inns have a chest system like the bank's (with maybe 3 or 4 times the storage, but it costs you 100 coins every time you want to open the door to your "room" to get to it?)

More chests, more items, more lag.

They could make the bank chest hold 50 items if the team wanted to.... but that will add more lag.

We are doing things with NwN that is isnt designed to do.... that's the bottom line we have to work with what we have.

[Pen N Popper]

Good thread!
  I have thought on this topic a number of times.  One of my PCs is a Freelancer with access to housing across the lands.  When the persistent storage wipe came he had to unload exactly nothing from storage.  My other PC, Bumblebee, I worked very hard ICly and through the forums to find convenient housing for portal use.  He ended up with rented space by the pear tree in Hlint and just outside Prantz.  He used these houses primarily to dart between servers and I made enormous use of that feature.  His storage consisted of parchments and some higher level items he couldn't use yet.
  To me the number one benefit of housing is free portal access.  For PCs below level 10, this may not seem like a big deal.  After that, though, you will need to adventure on central to get the XP bang for your hours.  All of your non-adventure will still be back in Hlint (benches for forming parties, buying/selling CNR material and goods, meeting new players, spontaneous GM interaction).  With a portal, you and your friends can just zip back and forth getting the most of your time.  A portal back from Prantz is also needed as the non-portal return journey is time consuming and potentially leathal (perhaps less so with the improved feature to keep monsters off area transitions).
  The second benefit is storage.  As a non-CNR player, I never understood why anyone would need so many chests full of tidbits.  A 1x2(?) room can hold like 11 chests or more.  That's over 350 items! Why would you ever need more than that?
  Of least benefit, to me anyway, is the "fluff" rooms.  These are the master bedrooms, dining halls, altars.  Don't get me wrong, I do see the value of them for RP and I imagine some do use them often.  As a player I would really enjoy having access to a house-based altar to Vorax.  How often would I use it?  Not sure as all the RP there would be only be me alone.  Truly how often are most of these elaborate "fluff" rooms (and some of them look fantastic!) used and shown off? Not as often as their owners would like, I bet.
  So, my question to people that want houses is, why? There are rooms for rent at the Leilon Arms that would enable the first two benefits.  I'm not sure about the third since they may already be decorated.  I do know that without too too much effort you can find a room to rent in any of the towns of the land.  This gives you all three benefits right away.
  For those of you hesitant to rent out rooms, I suggest the following:  As the owner of the house get the renter to agree that you will place all persistent items.  This way if the renter vanishes, stops paying rent, etc. you, as the placer, can remove their stuff.  Second, hand a sincere OOC discussion so that you both understand the rules.  Such things as:  Only the renter may enter, no guests are allowed.  If guests are allowed, the renter is to take responsibility.  The renter is never, never to explore other chests (as there is a very real possibility of their contents being lost on server crash while lid is open).
  If you still want a house of your own, go to all the houses, get the PC names and do some research.  Send some PMs and birds.  Perhaps one of them would be willing to lease you an entire floor or the entire thing or sell it outright as long as they retained access with a room and a portal.  If you do find a house to buy, I hope you consider renting a room or two yourself.
  Hope it all works out, whatever you decide.

[Vyris]

Uhm... theres portals for public use, if I'm not mistaken they are 300 coins to hop between servers, why would you need a house just to stick a portal in? After paying over 100k for a house and however much a portal costs... do you realize how many 300 gp portal trips that is?

With your newfound wealth you could just BUY whatever you need, rather than having to have 15 chests full of things of dubious value and limited use. The economy is already topheavy with production, we need more consumers.

The portals I speak of are just outside Hlint on the north side right next to the tower. I have watched the price on these come down dramatically to encourage people to travel. Yet, it still seems that people would rather run to 'Town X' to use the portal in thier (ware)house. If you are on the cheap you can take a boat too, and pick what end of the continent you want to arrive on.

Vyris

[Doc-Holiday]

I have made a personal habit to outfit my character's with only the absolute essentials for survival. Food, Drink, 10 scrolls max, 14 bandages, change of clothes, weapon, and at most about 10 misc. items. the rest goes in the bank, if the bank won't hold it I have to get rid of it.

Crafter's are an exception to the rule, but it's important for Crafter's to keep their clutter down as well. Log-in-Lag is getting monsterous to the point of deadly.

[Pen N Popper]

Vyris, those portals outside Hlint don't go to the destinations that the housing ones do.  There is a big difference.

[Vyris]

Pen N Popper - 11/3/2006  9:47 AM

Vyris, those portals outside Hlint don't go to the destinations that the housing ones do.  There is a big difference.

Not really. Most likely you are going there to gather CNR or pick up CNR, and it depends mightily on where the house you have is located. If you have a house near Panzt then a home teleporter is more convenient, for anywhere else on Dregar you are at worst splitting the difference with starting in North point, and more often than not you'll pass by or near the CNR you wanted to pick up/gather on your way there.

When traveling from central to west it makes absolutely no difference if you use a house portal or  a public one.

Vyris

[Chongo]

Vyris - 11/3/2006  11:41 AM

When traveling from central to west it makes absolutely no difference if you use a house portal or  a public one.

Vyris

Not to argue too much here... but when I'm in Fort Miritrix, and want to go to Hlint, I am super happy I have a portal in Prantz.  15 areas versus around 31 areas to run through I think.  When I'm in Prantz and want to go to Hlint, I am super super happy I have a portal.  2 areas versus around 20-25.  When I'm in Hlint, and want to go to Arabel, I am super happy I have a house portal that goes straight there.  That's 2 areas versus around 21 areas.

There are a lot of great portals to use, don't get me wrong.  But when I see a good population on west and want to get to Hlint from where I usually am, the dwarven funrun from the far east is made a lot nicer if I can skip out on the continents of Rilara and Mistone alike.

It depends on where you travel obviously.  Regarding your point on CNR, if you are after diamonds, cobalt, adamantium and the like, then of course the Hlint and North Point portals are going to make sense.  If you are after fire opals, topaz, sapphires, silver, etc... then the housing portals to Prantz are going to be well recieved.  And you better believe that if the houses off Castle Hilm ever went on the market, then people would pay millions to have quicker access back from a long trip for the big guns in the UD.  And maybe that's part of the problem.  Dunno.

I used to think that a world needed to seem vast to really draw folks in.  That travel should feel like travel and the notion of it should be exciting.  As I tested this a bit more, I found that people liked direct access to the central hub of a server and that multiple hubs that were spread out didn't work out very well.  That even the best roleplaying individuals that keep the spirit of the server in everything they do, even they got weary of finding themselves spread out and having to jog 30 areas to get to where they hope others are.

I don't think instant gratification should be granted with travel though.  If everything's only one map away, then the adventure is lost.  East should never have a fast track outward, that huge trek to get to the far north should be a huge trek. All outgoing adventurers should have a good long linear stretch to reach that point far away.  The expeditionary nature makes it what it is!  But the hub should be central.  The hub in this Layo version is Hlint, and it is pretty centralized, but mostly due to housing portals all over.  And by centralized, I mean that it should be easily accessed from almost anywhere.  Housing portals, the NP portal, the Hurm-Leilon boat... these permit this to an extent.  But if you take out housing portals, especially in Prantz and Lorindar... you're looking at a lot of running for those headed inbound.  And heading inbound towards the hub isn't expeditionary.  It's not enjoyable.  It's simply wanting to get to where the people are.  The more the playerbase is pooled into one spot, the better for the server.  

I dunno though.  I go back and forth on the issue of travel all the time.  You lose a little on either end depending which way you go.  The more access you grant, the more players will be able to pool.  The less access you grant, the bigger the world seems and stays.  So I dunno.

But right now, on this issue... I say kill the houses, put in lockers, put in very hip taverns with portals, and more importantly dartboards, in them.  Make the taverns in the far away places one way on the portals to get us back to the Hlint hub.  *dodges the incoming rotten tomatoes from staff and players alike looking at the 1000's of hours spent on all things housing related*

[Strykr]

I've read a lot of good statements and thoughts here.  I admittedly own 2 homes.  1 with Eredel and 1 with Strykr.  (I am pretty sure this is within the rules)  However, both homes are on Central, and I believe, there are still homes available on Central.  But, each of these characters have friends that have free rooms in the homes.  Strykr shares his home with his monk friend Silverhand.  He also, at one point, shared his home with Cymeran Vrinn, until Cymeran was married and purchased a home of his own.  Eredel shares his home with Robert Hearth and at one point provided access to our old friend Elrend Starfire.

Now while my characters are the actual homeowners, the ones that came up with the hard earned money to purchase the homes, the homes were/are homes for more than one individual.  My suggestion to the original poster is to seek out people, as stated by others, and see if they'd be willing to lease space to you.  Some people may have homes for storage only, some may decorate, most have a portal.  The biggest issue is always going to come down to trust.  Build up a relationship with someone with a home and perhaps you might be fortunate to gain access to that home and possibly have a room to store things if that is what you are after.  My friends use my homes for free, you may not be so lucky as to find someone to offer you that.

Afterall, plunking down 75,000-385,000 True for a home might not be for everyone.  Best of luck to you.

Eredel/Strykr

[Drizzlin]

Vyris - 11/3/2006  8:26 AM

Uhm... theres portals for public use, if I'm not mistaken they are 300 coins to hop between servers, why would you need a house just to stick a portal in? After paying over 100k for a house and however much a portal costs... do you realize how many 300 gp portal trips that is?

With your newfound wealth you could just BUY whatever you need, rather than having to have 15 chests full of things of dubious value and limited use. The economy is already topheavy with production, we need more consumers.

The portals I speak of are just outside Hlint on the north side right next to the tower. I have watched the price on these come down dramatically to encourage people to travel. Yet, it still seems that people would rather run to 'Town X' to use the portal in thier (ware)house. If you are on the cheap you can take a boat too, and pick what end of the continent you want to arrive on.

Vyris

House portals are free, but go to different places than the paid ones.

[Drizzlin]

Vyris - 11/3/2006  10:41 AM

Pen N Popper - 11/3/2006  9:47 AM

Vyris, those portals outside Hlint don't go to the destinations that the housing ones do.  There is a big difference.

Not really. Most likely you are going there to gather CNR or pick up CNR, and it depends mightily on where the house you have is located. If you have a house near Panzt then a home teleporter is more convenient, for anywhere else on Dregar you are at worst splitting the difference with starting in North point, and more often than not you'll pass by or near the CNR you wanted to pick up/gather on your way there.

When traveling from central to west it makes absolutely no difference if you use a house portal or  a public one.

Vyris

The portal in your house will take you to Prantz. The portal outside of the wizard tower in norht Hlint takes you North Point. Thats roughly 20 zones apart give or take.