Commercial and Residential Property

[miltonyorkcastle]

Okay, I really wish I had thought of this ages ago, as it's really to late now, but hey, better late than never.  This came up in a discussion with Gulnyr, and I decided to post it.

I would like to see a separation of commerical and residential property.  So many people use their houses for business rather than living in, and, honestly, because they have to.

It would be really nice if, say, the major cities had a commerical district in which players could buy property solely to be used a store-front or warehouse or both.  
Specifically, property that doesn't have to belong to some guild.

That then leads into keeping houses solely for residential purposes, not as warehouses.  Which, to me, means reducing the interior size of houses, for one.  I mean, houses are freaking HUGE.  Unfortunately, this would take a mass consensus of players willing to reduce their house size on the whole, and so many use their houses as storage bins (again, because they have no other place for business materials), that this would be quite the feat.

Basically, having houses for characters to "live" in, more the size of apartments unless they pay a LOT more gold to renovate it to more the mansion sizes they are now.  And having commercial property that can be bought and for just the buying and selling part.  For example, in Pranzis, opening up property in the "guild" district for purchase and use only for business, leaving Haft Lake as the residential, hopefully reducing the interior size of a number of the houses somewhat, except for those crazy huge mansions off in the corner.

Granted, there will be plenty who choose to do business from their homes, but such will be those that aren't really merchants, but sell the occasional crafted item now and then.

Naturally, the amount of work involved for something like this is beyond what any of the developers want to deal with at the time, but hey, I'd like to see something like this possibly in the future.

*sits and waits for the stoning to ensue*

[SuperMunch]

No stones from me, I agree with you.

Let me add an idea to your idea...

Would it be to hard to have an NPC room/warehouse service?

For example, get that little house that's not used in the corner in Hlint's east side (at least I think it's not used) and have an NPC sell rooms instanced for each character.  It's availability would be attached to a quest or  level - no less than level nine to geta room - nine because that's Freldo's level, no other reason than that.  

The rooms would have room for the typical wardrobe, two chests and a weapon rack as well as bed, sofa and other little things, but that's it.  The room's usage would be at the owner's discretion of course - which is good.  Business couldn't be done from the room because the only way into each room would be through talking to the landlord or a teleport in - and the teleport would be to each's personal room (if it's possible).

It would be on par with Milton's idea (initially small rooms).  Every player would have access to a room thus reducing "house envy" and "gotta buy a house" fever I see some folks talking IG about. If the character had the money and need for a mansion, he'd just buy one.  If you want to rent a room from some other player, it would be for more reasons than just "to have a place to dump stuff".

Well, my two copper pieces.  

[Leanthar]

Whole heartedly agree and when I came up with the housing system at first that is what I intended. Then other development, more quests, more systems, managing, running quests, etc. etc. kind of made me do the system 1/2 way... I really do want the system to be far more involved than it is now... but I need to get a paticular project team project finished before moving somebody foward on to the housing system to get it finished up properly.

[Pen N Popper]

If I could throw my two cents in on the trade district idea...

One of the limitations of the NWN mechanics is that the inside of a house feels very distant from the outside.  Is there anyone home?  Should I knock?  How do I know when a player-run store will be open?  Etc.

What if there was a merchant district where players would rent lockable tables/chests.  This would be an open air market so that any shoppers entering would be able to see immediately the presence of the sellers.  (Kind of like the Arms' model but on a larger scale.)  In addition, if the area was made a no-auto-cleanup, then PCs could just lay their wares out on the ground (place little carpet squares like in Pranzis) and hawk them.  This would give a hustle-and-bustle type feel.

Then houses would revert to private spaces with a more intimate feel.

[Leanthar]

"...What if there was a merchant district where players would rent lockable tables/chests. This would be an open air market so that any shoppers entering would be able to see immediately the presence of the sellers. (Kind of like the Arms' model but on a larger scale.) In addition, if the area was made a no-auto-cleanup, then PCs could just lay their wares out on the ground (place little carpet squares like in Pranzis) and hawk them. This would give a hustle-and-bustle type feel...."

All good ideas but they directly cause a lot of lag for PW's, and that is pretty much why we do not use this sort of system.

[Talan Va'lash]

Leanthar - 3/24/2006  2:07 PM

"...What if there was a merchant district where players would rent lockable tables/chests. This would be an open air market so that any shoppers entering would be able to see immediately the presence of the sellers. (Kind of like the Arms' model but on a larger scale.) In addition, if the area was made a no-auto-cleanup, then PCs could just lay their wares out on the ground (place little carpet squares like in Pranzis) and hawk them. This would give a hustle-and-bustle type feel...."

All good ideas but they directly cause a lot of lag for PW's, and that is pretty much why we do not use this sort of system.

Could be done with chests without causing any more lag than the orc bashers shop, or any other PC house where people come to look through chests of stuff.

Things on the ground are laggier as it tends to itterate through them more often than most people would think neccessary ;P

The ground is cool since you can then walk through the baazzar and just examine the wares.. literally heh, but its laggier.

The suggestion here is not to have a.. hmm, "round the clock" system where things will be for sale whether or not the seller is there (like laggy player vendors) but to just have a location where a market can be RPed.

This has been requested a bunch of times since I got here and its veeeery simple and less laggy than a player house with a good number of placeables.  I'll make an area and send it in, as I think the idea keeps getting misinterpreted.

Really, if it were only non-usable tables and/or blankets on the ground set up so it just LOOKS like a baazar, that would fufill the intent of the suggestion.

but, since this has been asked for half a dozen times and its so simple I'll whip one up and see if its acceptable.

[Leanthar]

"...Could be done with chests without causing any more lag than the orc bashers shop, or any other PC house where people come to look through chests of stuff..."

Yep, inside of a business but not outside. We have tried that too many times and every time it has called terrible lag and failed.. We will not go down that path again.

[Pen N Popper]

Is an open air market area different than a house interior in terms of lag?  If so, the "flea market" could be setup inside a barn.  The real benefit of having it in an outside area is that people walk through and would naturally stop at the vendor stalls.  Having to go inside a building means that passerby wouldn't be naturally attracted.

[Leanthar]

We can not do it in an outside area, in any way... barn, house, tavern etc. is fine. but not outside.. it kills the server.

[crazedgoblin]

say you have a vender and if its possable a scipted item that reduces the amount of gold you get when selling it and this item gets returned to a chest every time you leave the shop simerler to the key in storans crypt?

[miltonyorkcastle]

well, err... seeing as how Talan has taken a leave, I'm guessing experiments with this will take a back seat once more.  I'm just starting to learn the toolset, so it'll be quite some time before I'm able to offer any implimented ideas.

[darkstorme]

@crazedgoblin - Do you mean an NPC vendor who buys and sells PC-garnered items?