Thread: LoTRO Housing

At one point earlier in the game I had a house, but couldn't afford upkeep with my daily costs and thus sold it, I'm now wondering if it's worth buying a house at any time?

For some people it probably isn't - for packrats it's an absolute must have. I couldn't live without my two extra storage chests, plus the three from my personal kin house!

If you need extra space, for whatever reason, housing is totally worth it. You can stockpile crit items like all those Flax Fibres, Whetstones, or Brimstones in your house for later use. It's absolutely wonderful if you play multiple characters, since your alts can be assigned to use the housing chests to get items your "main" wouldn't have need for except to sell on the AH.

It also comes in handy for decoration items you'd rather keep than sell. Also - making coin is EASY, one good run through certain areas will net you enough coin to keep your rent paid up by the month.

Thanks for the replies, when I'm next on, I shall peruse my local real estate(probably Thorin's) for some houses

Honestly, in the long run... a house is a money sink. The free chest space is not worth it. All you got to do is spend some silver and a few gold or TP to upgrade your shared storage. That way you do not have to go to your house to access the chest. it cost money or alot of time to travel back to the place you left and continue playing. With relying on shared vault space you can access that at any hub without having to waste time and or money traveling back from a house.

Originally Posted by celticwitch

Honestly, in the long run... a house is a money sink. The free chest space is not worth it. All you got to do is spend some silver and a few gold or TP to upgrade your shared storage. That way you do not have to go to your house to access the chest. it cost money or alot of time to travel back to the place you left and continue playing. With relying on shared vault space you can access that at any hub without having to waste time and or money traveling back from a house.

this depends.... if you raid/group alot the money you save on repairs from the 10% cost reduction will add up. not to mention the thorins hall homestead is fairly close to the LI NPCs, a skirmish camp, and quite a few swift travels. if you are a weapon/metalsmith and you havent gotten to moria+, its also the superior forge. then theres the fact that i have been an avid raider in the past and have 'spoils of war' in my bank (max slots with TPs spent) for fun and the memories. not to mention some of my toons being maxed out (minus the store bought slots as i refuse to spend points on alts) in personal space with mats/recipes that i hold on to for future use by me/friends/kinmates (ill admit though its usually for me and mine and not the kin.... [long story just nod and go with it]). and then there are the large amounts of surplus rep related items (i know im a noob ... only one world renowned atm =( ).

can it be a money sink... oh yeah. but its also a tool for some, a toy for some, and for those like me its both. gotta love the windmill now that it looks like a windmill and not a tower with a nose =P.

I'm happy with my meager little house in the Shire Homestead. Since I do lots of questing and skirmishes, I manage to have enough to pay my upkeep. Plus it feels fun and immersive to have a player house!

Since I have a vivid imagination, I always picture my toon feeling weary and homesick after he's been out questing for hours on end. He has a wooden keg and Dwale's Pipe, so that adds to the comforting atmosphere!

In short, housing is good for storage, personal space and roleplaying! I recommend it.

I own a house since they were introduced to the game, way before the shared vault storage and it's still pretty handy. I couldn't imagine myself homeless now.

It's always an advantage to have that extra storage (two chests in my case), you have repair discount in the neighbourhood and it's nice to have a place to display your "war" trophies.

Yes you have to pay upkeep but that's not a burden and I can easily pay it. When you have several alts like I do, it seems right to have a place that all my girls can call home. And I throw parties sometimes and invite friends over. Ale involved of course.

I Love the housing feature i only wish you had more flexiblity on where to put things, and maybe make more things interactive. I do love that you have a place to store more stuff though especially since im one of those that hates throwing things away XD

I love my little home in Bree, and was ridiculously proud as a newbie to earn my gold piece to buy it. But in reference to the money sink comment, that only makes the house MORE attractive to me. Money sinks are GOOD, or you get insanely broken economies very quickly in MMOs. I also believe based on the lack of good, balanced coin in-count out MMOs out there that finding good money sinks that players enjoy is exceedingly difficult, and housing is one of the few areas that will get us to spend whether it's for practicality of extra storage or vanity. I'd love to see them add more options to remove coin from the world through the houses or possibly mounts.

Originally Posted by Kiaransaee

...But in reference to the money sink comment, that only makes the house MORE attractive to me. Money sinks are GOOD, or you get insanely broken economies very quickly in MMOs. I also believe based on the lack of good, balanced coin in-count out MMOs out there that finding good money sinks that players enjoy is exceedingly difficult, and housing is one of the few areas that will get us to spend whether it's for practicality of extra storage or vanity. I'd love to see them add more options to remove coin from the world through the houses or possibly mounts.

Have you looked at the AH as of late? Some items are upwards of 20-50gp. There is plenty of money sinks in the game. From the AH to travel to repair bills, etc. What economy? There is no economy in the game anymore. Turbine is so afraid of gold spammers that they have gimped the economy with BOA attached to everything. The prices on the AH proves the inflation as a dirrect result. When fewer items become sellable due to BOA prices skyrocket. So having more money sinks like housing etc actually hurt the game. Money does not need to be removed. If there was a thriving economy like in SOA and MOM i would say yest money sinks are doing their jobs. B ut now the system is broken... hence no working economy.

The housing decoration system is very poor and being tied to only one irks me, as my elf has no home. There isn't room for my other characters to call it home either. But it's better than nothing and there is always the hope that the system will get improved. There are some lovely items in the game world that could be used for deco, removing the hooks, adding some of the world items to the store and Turbine would have another reason for some us to spend far too much RL cash on TP for store purchases.

To the point of the topic; I find that the chests are useful for exchanging items between characters and, as an RPer, it's important to me to feel that there is a base for my characters. Once our kin has attained rank 7, I'll be getting a kin house for the same reasons.

If you are playing fairly regularly, upkeep shouldn't be a problem.

I had a house for quite a long time but let it go recently. The upkeep costs were just not worth it. Just a money sink, travel to it is out of the way and inconvenient. The decoration system is a pathetic joke.

I make more than enough money in game to maintain it but the return on the investment is just pathetic. If there was no monthly upkeep maintenance cost it would be worth the one time purchase cost. But the fees make it a worthless money sink.

I would like to see the Kinship houses get the ability to have Crafting abilities..

I'm personally of the opinion that the housing is worth it, for the extra storage and the port if nothing else, though as people have noted there's other benefits. I, personally, like having all the trophies I've earned displayed - it shows how far my character has come.

The upkeep really isn't very high - 50 silver a week or two for a standard and 100-150 for the deluxe for a week or two. 300 for the Kinhouse upkeep is higher, but the entire Kin can help keep the upkeep paid off so in the end, its also not all that much.

I can see how some people would call the housing system a coin-sink, only IF those people are VIP or spend money for the TP to unlock shared storage. Yeah, shared storage can be accessed at any vaultkeeper, and there's what...100 slots of shared storage? That's 50 slots less than 1 deluxe house and 1 kinhouse. Storage chests in houses are 30 slots each, 2 chests in a deluxe house and 3 in a kinhouse = 150 slots. Shared storage is 995TP per 20 slots at non-sale prices in the store. =/ Housing can also give you 2 extra teleports, which is useful for any class that doesn't get teleports.

Honestly, if you don't want to worry about a significant upkeep fee on housing, the very least you can do is get a standard house. At around 1Gold each, with like a 50s upkeep/week, these houses won't take up much of your time in terms of getting the coin to keep it.

Actually, a house can be quite a bit cheaper than vault storage.

For me, another 15 vault spaces would cost me 5 gold. That’s 333 silver per space.

On the other hand, assume I create a F2P secondary account, level it to 15, mail her 1 gold for a house, assign all privileges to my main, and then never log on to that secondary account again. I’ve spent 1 gold for 30 chest slots…33 silver per space.

Oh, but you say, there’s weekly upkeep! Yes, a whopping 65 silver (I think?) a week. I would have to pay that faithfully for 138 weeks (over 2.5 years) before it would equal the cost of 30 vault slots (10 gold). That’s a very long time.

Obviously, there are convenience factors – it’s far easier to retrieve items in the vault, for example. But housing is also a perfectly viable storage investment, as long as you can remember the addresses of all those F2P houses.